The date was set, albeit later than she would have liked. She wanted a meeting to happen then and there, on the spot, as soon as she laid eyes upon the weakened Tao and made her conclusion regarding the situation. But, she understood better than most would. She held the virtue of patience, as much as others would assume she did not. She would wait until the fated day arrived, approximately two days from now, when she would be allowed, paradoxically, council with the Council.

And waiting meant she was to carry on as she would normally – as was expected of her.

Thus, she was where she was now, having a morning stroll through Sector C of the city. At her side was the ever tentative Baekhyun and the large, stalking Kris. It was a rather desponding scene to every onlooker that laid eyes upon her. Not one, but two Guardians were at her side today. Previously, there was only ever a need for one. Now, the numbers ranged from as little as two to as great as five. As though she needed to be protected. As though she feared her fellow Exotians would attempt to harm her. As though the rebellion of the Boards in Sector E had taken a hold of the city to the point in which her life was put in danger. A notion that, when taken to heart, instilled a kind of malignant discontent for her in some and a deep-seeded pity that she had to take such precautionary measures from others.

For the past week now, how long it had taken the Council to democratically respond to her request, she had been subjected to such stares. Thankfully, the looks were not as harsh or as demeaning as usual. She could only thank Kris’s presence on this account; his abilities the most useful when it came to fleeing from difficult situations. Had he not been there, she would have had to suffer the watch of not only Baekhyun but most likely Suho, Chanyeol, D.O, and Sehun instead – which would have made the entire morning excursion seem like a showcase of the power backing the Seeress of Exo, i.e. the powerhouse Guardians who controlled the elements, more than anything. Something she did not want in the least. So then, she was thankful for Kris’s decision to her today. And even more so that she didn’t have to listen to the constant worried mumblings of Baekhyun hour upon hour by her lonesome.

With nagging words ranging from, “Watch your step,” to “If you’re tired, please let me know and we’ll take a short break,” she held back the urge from snapping at him outright. It was not that she didn’t appreciate the sentiments, she simply held discontent regarding that from which they stemmed.

It was almost the final straw when he offered to run blocks down the street in order to get her a cool drink, the rays of the summer sun blaring through the off white clouds that hung overhead beating down on her unmercifully. But, surely, he didn’t have to exert himself so much just for that. But, surely, he wouldn’t even let her get a word out edgewise before he disappeared through the crowd of Exotians going about their daily lives, exercising his own to its full extent.

She watched in silence, seceding to take a rest on a nearby bench so that he would be able to find herself and Kris when he returned. With the intent to let the time pass by just like that, without saying another word, she watched Exotians pass by, sharing smiles and greetings. Only a single minute passed before Kris, who had taken a seat by her side, posed to her a question – the first words he had said since they first stepped foot topside two hours ago.

“You don’t like that, do you?”

Kris had been watching her this entire time, opting on not saying anything because nothing needed to be said. Mostly because Baekhyun filled the conversation with his worries and doubts enough. A little because he didn’t have anything to say. However, now that they were alone, he couldn’t help but let out a passing question. Just to pass the time. Not in the least bit expecting or anticipating where the conversation would go from there.

Cera caught on quickly, sighing exaggeratingly as though to garner some kind of amusement from him – a failed endeavor if it was her true intent. “You mean to ask if I don’t like the way Baekhyun is hovering over me like a child’s nanny, his concern not at all for my mental well being but rather for maintaining his reputation with my parents? Or, rather, in this case, for the person whose body I inhabit?” She turned her glance towards him, eyebrows furrowed downwards, lips splayed out into a melancholic smile, “I’d be mindless if I liked it and heartless if I could ignore it. But, contrary to popular belief, I have feelings too.”

“You can’t blame him.”

“Then can I blame you?” She jested, a sarcastic laugh leaving her.

Kris shook his head, “You can’t blame any of us, really.”

“You’re quite good at being evasive.”

“And you’re quite good at being ignorant,” he shot back, noticing the change in her expression from one of shared enthusiasm for a decent conversation to one of unguarded weariness. He continued on, undeterred by the prospect that he was hurting the feelings she claimed to have, “We finally found her, our Seeress, after so long, just to have her snatched away from us within the span of a mere night. While on the cusp of growing to adore her, what she means to the world let alone the virtues and morals she holds, more than anyone or anything, you appear, setting us on the brink of hopelessness, of loss, of mourning for someone we have no idea will return or not. And yet, we must pretend everything is as right as rain. As normal as the sun peaking through the clouds every morning when we’ve only ever witnessed that scene since the arrival of her highness. Really, you cannot expect us to come to care for any other Seeress than the one we’ve already found. Than the image of her who we found first.”

As much as he would have liked her to take it to heart, to truly listen to his words, his opinion about the situation he had not shared an inkling of since she first appeared in the body of her highness, she didn’t. Or, at least, it seemed as though she didn’t. Not fully, anyway.

“If you had found me first, if it was my image you had discovered to be your Seeress’s instead, would you have come to adore me?”

He didn’t need to ponder the question. He didn’t see the need to be anything but honest with her. “Yes. I can neither be sure what would have happened regarding any “ifs” nor can I speak for all of us, but I think I would. You’re upright, you’re mentally hardened, and you do not falter in the face of difficulty. And, before you ask, if you were replaced by someone else, by the Seeress we consider our own, I believe I would have felt the same sense of loss and regret that I do now. But, it’s a big “if.” And, honestly, it’s one that I rather not consider with too much seriousness.”

Because the reality he knew to be true, the reality of sweaters and jeans over dresses, of casual words and carefree smiles, and days he couldn’t wait to live had become cherished memories. Because he didn’t want them to simply be memories, he continued to hope, to stave off the dawning of his black formal suit, for the opportunity to experience them in the present time he lived once more. Because he truly cared for her highness, no matter the despairing lack of times he had related the fact.

And because of this, “ifs” were the last thing he wished to entertain.

“You’re also quite good at summing up everything so pleasantly.” Was her response.

“It doesn’t come to anyone naturally.”

Cera huffed, not believing how arrogant he sounded, how boastingly he joked with her, tossing her the slightest of smiles, before uttering out a question that caught him off guard, that was the result of his freely given smile, of his cheap laughter, of his cheaper jokes, all the effect of his effort to cover up his own unguarded longing, “May I hold your hand?”

He wasn’t quick to respond. He didn’t say “yes” as easily as he thought he would be able to. It was just a hand. It’s her right to physical contact as their Seeress. If she demanded it of them, she could have it. And yet, she asked. She asked for his permission first. She would cease and desist had he said “no.” He didn’t.

They held hands as he nodded his head, her hand reaching out to slip into the one he now held outstretched to his right, covering half the distance necessary for bare skin to slip against bare skin. For her fingertips to slide in between his, clasping onto him, seemingly shielding his hand as though it were much more precious than her own.

He had never touched her highness for anything but brief signs of affection or scolding. She had never asked for more than what he was willing to give without inquiry. And while that was all well and good, he preferred this. He preferred it if it were her who would ask to touch him. Blatantly. Obviously. Straight-forwardly. Then, he wouldn’t have to pay attention to the little things. Then, it would all be so much easier than his previous and current state of attempting to read the mind of the woman who has the ability to do just that to his: his Seeress. But, then again, he wouldn't purposely venture to do so.

He was never one for rhymes and riddles and metaphors anyway.

“You’re the first one after Kai to actually allow me to touch you without an ounce of hesitance.” Cera commented, her fingers digging deeper into the crevices of his own. Seeking shelter there, laying claim of those large spaces, making it so that he’d never forget the feel of her hand in his. Kris’s lips parted as though to explain something regarding her statement, only to be interrupted by her knowledgeable words of, “You don’t need to elaborate on why Kai is unable to accompany me on my trips into the city. I know he has both business to attend to when it comes to keeping an eye on Sector E's rebels, as well as his own personal reasons for it. He doesn’t take rejection all too lightly.”

Kris begged to differ, “I’m sure it’s more than the shame of rejection and Luhan’s errands that keep him away.”

“He cares for me dearly.”

“Yes,” he decided to concede when it came to this particular conclusion of hers, “he does.”

“Not in the way Baekhyun does. He cares for me. Do you understand, Kris?”

“Yes.”

He felt her grasp on him tighten ever more. Silence followed his answer, long and uninterrupted. He hadn’t turned to her at all this entire time. Not since he turned away after giving her his hand. He, as a result, didn’t see the change in her expression.

The way her eyelashes fluttered rapidly, her jaw went slack, and her irises contracted. A conversation similar and yet dissimilar in many ways to the one they were currently having floated through her mind like a dream. The warmth of Kris’s large palm wrapped around hers, the realization that his lips failed to move as a set of three words tickled at her eardrums, the aftereffects of which caused her toes to sweetly wiggle in her shoes, made her cough suddenly.

He turned to her then, at long last, finding a pair of dewy, twinkling on the brink of tears, eyes staring back at him. He asked what was wrong, only to be warded off of it with eloquent speech whose content feigned ignorance. Her hand ripped from his, pulling away and leaving him limp, and before he could say a single word more, he was faced with a blinding smile and a voice that seemed to beg its following, clearly stated, “Can you please go see what’s taking Baekhyun so long?”

He obliged with the request, standing up and leaving with haste in the direction Baekhyun had disappeared in, feeling as though staying any longer would be detrimental to him somehow. Forgetting to tell her to stay safe. Neglecting the tears that pooled along the rim of her lower lashes. Running away as fast as he could because for whatever reason, he was fearful of the meaning behind her expression. And he didn’t want to know the words hidden behind it as much as he wanted to find Baekhyun; to find a companion who could soothe his wayward thoughts with his own ignorant words and misplaced sympathies.

He found him moving against the flow of bodies walking down the sidewalk, balancing three sealed bottles of water as best he could between his two hands. Kris relieved him of his burden, taking one from him, relieving himself of Cera’s expression as strung together phrases of weary longing for her highness flowed from Baekhyun’s mouth.

And they returned to her, to Cera, finding her no worse for wear, charismatically addressing a group of Exotians whom had approached her. Tears gone as though they were not her own. Hands clenched together with delicate politeness, seeking out no further warmth from another.

Cera: the almighty “Seeress Persona.”

The woman whose smile boasted the power to either hold the planet safely between her slim fingers or crush it as she saw fit.

To think, such a smile reigned supreme over so much.

To think, she knew exactly how powerful it was.

To think, whatever she saw as she held tightly onto Kris's hand brought her to the brink of tears.

“That would be all. Thank you, Chen.” She turned away from him, back to the book she was reading, one of many which lined the walls of the library in the Hall of the Guardians long since ignored. With eyes that went from one word to the next, with a mind that failed to process any of it, she waited for him to leave. After conveying to him the message regarding Kai’s need for his assistance when it came to patrolling Sector E, he should have been promptly on his way over there now.

He would have been, if only the words he had been reciting to her for the past week now had, at long last, failed to come bubbling up from his throat, rising from the tight knot of anger which pushed against his stomach. He could have let it go, if only not for the nonchalance in which she still continued to pretend to read the book in her hands, practically edging him on as she flipped a page and uttered out a repetition of, “You may leave. Thank you, Chen” as though she had the authority to dismiss him at will.

And she did.

And that tipped him over the edge for the umpteenth time, biting words leaving him, no matter what he should have done.

“Why don’t you stop pretending?”

She sighed, rolling her eyes as she looked at from the empty words printed on the page to his even emptier eyes which looked on at her in disdain, indifference more than anything the adjective she would use to categorize his feelings towards her – arguably the worst one as it meant she meant absolutely nothing to him.

“You caught me,” she joked, letting the book lay in her lap as she raised her hands up into the air, allowing herself to metaphorically be caught in the act of a crime by his statement, “I’m not actually reading.”

He scoffed, every fiber of his being telling him to leave her alone in her room, to walk away because no matter how much he ranted, it wouldn’t change anything. But, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He shouldn’t. Not when there was a chance his highness was in there somewhere, listening in.

“Why don’t you stop pretending that this is anything but temporary?” He started up again, like a machine with a broken “off” switch, powered eternally, forever going on and on and on, because that’s exactly how he was, a thundering storm that couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, and certainly shouldn’t stop, “She’s not hiding. She’s in there, facing it. Facing down whatever caused you to come out in the first place. And once she figures out how to deal with it, how to cope with whatever trauma afflicts her, you’ll have to recede to the hole you came out of again.” He approached her with quick steps, planting himself right in front of her, looking down at her without an ounce of remorse as he uttered, “You’ll be gone.” He lifted a hand into the air, leaning down to her level, his next gesture taking all of his recanted words to the next level, his middle finger and thumb sparking static that flickered briefly before the pad of his thumb struck his palm, a loud snap whipping against her eardrums, “Just like that.”

Chen had known that’s what she, their highness, was doing. Because sometimes, he wished he could do the same. That he could hide while someone else handled daily life. That he could silently deal with it and when he was ready, only when he himself was ready, would he reveal himself to the world. He still wished he could do so.

But, he wasn’t so lucky as to have another person waiting to take over for him.

And yet, he would count himself more than lucky on that account; the absence of another entity within him a blessing in disguise.

She didn’t merely ignore him, as she had in the past; for the past week. She didn’t pretend he hadn’t said a word. She retaliated, hands pressed firmly against each other, one of her eyebrows quirked upwards, her so called “feelings” nowhere to be found, “Have you ever considered that your strong persistence of this being anything but permanent is just you trying to convince yourself it is?”

His jaw went slack momentarily, only momentarily, “You really think you’ll be here forever?”

“I’ll be here as long as I’m able.”

“Whether we consider your ability to do so burdensome and unwanted or not?”

She shrugged, “Your personal preferences are the least of my concern.”

“Is this you being uncharacteristically cold in order to protect yourself?”

She in a deep breath, seeking to calm her agitated nerves through the gesture. Chen always did get to her. He always understood her too much for her liking. He always managed to unsettle her with the simplest of means. With the smallest of incense, she almost choked as she drew in her breath. The strong stink of cigarettes wafted off of him as though he practically bathed in nicotine ashes. And before she could express her dislike for it, a small thought came to her. 

It was more of a fleeting observation than a conclusive realization. Yet, the innocent former led to the ill-boding latter.

Locking eyes with his, with his that seemed so honest and forthright, so childlike in their oval shape as he impassively stared on at her, irises shifting this way and that as he navigated the maze that was her own gaze, she truly felt as though she were choking on it.

On his smell and his eyes. On the air she breathed. On the right to life itself.

“Please, leave.” She urged, hands clenched in her lap, her breath held tightly in .

“What?”

“Leave. Now.” She commanded for the second time, diverting her eyes from his expression which revealed him to be quite put-off by her current demand.

“Is that an order, Cera?” He edged her own, unbeknownst to the battle she fought within herself with someone other than herself.

“It seems like if it’s not, you’ll continue to poke holes in me with your sharp and prodding conversation. So, yes, it is an order, Chen.” She stuttered out quickly, the volume of her voice reaching that of a yell. He said something else she was too preoccupied to listen to, though she was sure it was better she hadn’t heard it in the long run, before leaving her there in her lounge chair posed in front of the fireplace, closing the door behind himself without uttering a single inkling of the phrase, “good night.”

As soon as she heard the soft click of the door closing, as soon as she was sure Luhan would not call on her, she clamored out of her seat, her legs fumbling as she raced for her bed, escaping from the situation under the covers where she buried her legs beneath her and her head into the soft sheets.

She breathed in.

Then out.

An act she carried out approximately four times before she felt her body relax, her muscles loosen, and her heart beat steady against her chest. Tears flowed unintentionally, staining her bedspread.

And Cera spoke out loud, her voice a whisper that pleaded with its intended recipient, speaking words that would have sounded like incoherent mumblings to anyone but, “Just wait. A bit longer. Wait. Not yet. Just a little bit longer, please.”

Cera still hadn’t accomplished what she had come forth in order to achieve just yet.

“How have you been feeling?”

“Well,” Tao paused, wondering where he should start and, in the end, decided upon, “I can’t exactly stand up properly yet.”

Cera looked away from him, throwing a questioning glance towards D.O who merely shook his head as he set up Tao’s lunch for the day, “He’s over-exaggerating.”

Tao smiled brightly, the sun that shone in from a circular window above his bed – whose panes made it look hauntingly similar to a clock – brightened his gold locks, painting his hair sterling silver, “Am I?”

D.O turned away from the tray of food on the dark maple stained nightstand, raising an eyebrow as he asked back, “Are you?”

Tao leaned back, making room for D.O to prop the tray onto his lap, relishing in the long awaited rest he was now enjoying after stalking around the shadows of Sector E for the whole of a month now. He felt bad for Kai, but not so much as he felt bad for the Boards who, arguably, could have ended up in the situation he was presently: bandaged up to the point of immobility, wounds healed, and yet his body still weak.

He turned to Cera at his side as he picked up the fork supplied to him, “You can go eat with the others now. I’m alright enough to leave alone.”

“Are you?” She played off of D.O’s words, casting him a familiar smile that made him wish to retract his previous words. To say, “Yes, but you aren’t,” but, D.O beat him to the punch.

“Are you alright, Cera?” D.O rounded Tao’s bed, making his way towards her with narrowed eyes, attempting to assess what was off about her. Because, there was obviously something off. Her complexion was pale. Her hands were restricted, clenched together in her lap. Her smile didn’t hold in it the charismatic air it usually did. She didn’t appear to be sick, but he couldn’t be sure.

“I’m quite alright.” She warded off his worries, flashing him a confident smile.

“May I check?” Suho, who had entered the room along with her earlier, approached her side, sliding in front of D.O as he moved to a kneel, holding his hands palm up to her, waiting for permission to touch her. With a single nod on her part, he managed to wrestle one of her hands from the grip of the other and held his fore and middle finger to her wrist, counting in his head, feeling the calm beating of her heart. Her body, made up of approximately eighty-percent water, was functioning as well as it ever was. “You seem fine.”

“I am fine. I simply had a rather intriguing conversation last night that kept me up later than I’m used to.” She urged, waving off the topic of her health as she focused on Tao again, “It’s Tao I’m worried about.”

Tao parted his lips to say something, but then quickly stopped himself. Unlike when he was delirious, after first sustaining his nearly fatal wounds, he had control over the words his mind attempted to let loose upon the world. He wouldn’t so carelessly, so boldly, and so brashly call out her highness’s true name. He wouldn’t seek her attention like a child in desperate need of it and it alone. He was able to, instead, work up the courage to ask the question – in the face of receiving an answer he wouldn’t like – he had been wondering for a long while now.

Albeit rather impulsively, despite how long he deliberated over it, he suddenly asked, “Can she hear me? Can she hear and see everything we do and say to her?”

There were words he wanted to say and gestures he wished to convey. It was a simple question then. Chanyeol, Sehun, Lay, and Chen had notified him of their observations regarding her behavior. She’d burst out into fits of laughter, at times. She’d say things liberally that her upright mind wouldn’t usually allow to let pass her lips, at times. She’d act in ways much gentler, at times. As though she were a different person, the person who she superseded for control at this very moment, Cera’s personality, the “Seeress Persona,” seemed as though it were, if only briefly, gone completely. And yet, she still reacted as per usual to everything they said or did.

Which meant, she must be listening in, she must be witnessing it all. She must be, correct?

This is the conclusion Tao had drawn with the help of his fellow Guardians and his own reflections on her words and actions. He merely wanted it to be affirmed. He only wanted to know everything he said was getting though to her. He simply wanted comfort that could have been so easily given.

“Well, Tao,” Cera lifted up two fingers, displaying to him the options he had no choice between in the least, “There’s the truth, and then there’s what I’m about to tell you.”

However, no matter how blasé she appeared to be, her answer did just what he thought it would.

It instilled in him a sense of hopelessness that left him at an utter loss of what to do next. Of where to go from here. Of how a problem he knew not the origins of could be fixed. Of his uselessness regarding all of it.

She spoke through a smile, choosing for him the option which was the least comforting, his personal preferences failing to make her relent in the game she set out to win with her own set of biting words, “You’re right. Your highness can hear every single word you say to her. Everything you do she can see through the eyes I’m looking at you with at this very moment. Any and all words of comfort you say have an impact on her. It is within your power to bring her back if you only say and do more. If you only try harder, praise her to the highest mountain tops, insult me to the deepest depths, she’ll come back by the efforts of you and the other Guardians alone. You have the power to change the current reality. You can fix the problem you don’t understand. You can do it, because she hears and sees everything you do.”

In other words, his words and his gestures meant nothing. In other words, the Guardians’ words and gestures could not bring her back. In other words, the reality they lived now was becoming, if it had not already, permanent and everlasting.

She had left them, Tao, D.O, and Suho, stunned, at a loss of any other words they and most of their fellow Guardians had seemingly had plenty of before then. Before it all seemed pointless and, after the first stage of denial, after the long period of time in which they continued to stave off the present truth, to live in glories of the past, the stage of acceptance was finally beginning to set in.

Which was just what she hoped for, the rise which choked her just yesterday bubbling like a dormant volcano, her begs and pleas slowly losing their effect.

“It’s a shame.” She mumbled to herself as she shelved the book she was reading last night – called The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia​ by Samuel Johnson, as it turns out. With a sigh, she placed her fingers on the self, running her fingertips across the wooden surface as she walked forward, “A pity the ending couldn’t have been happier.”

A happy ending: an idea mused upon for a moment before she stalled her stride, stopping right in front of a circular mirror, its rim ornate with bronzed grape vines, its reflective glass revealing to her the image she had avoided up until this point, which hung deafly still upon the wall. And she would have avoided it again, had she not felt the end of her reign so close it was nipping at her heels. Winter was pleasantly on its way. The date of her hibernation was fast approaching.

There, staring back at her, was the body she now occupied. She had been in many before it, and yet there was something so much more profound about staring into the eyes of the woman cherished to enumerable heights by the Guardians who she had always been in the favor of in the past.

“Hundreds of bodies, hundreds of personalities,” she murmured to herself, lost in her own thoughts, found by the voice which spoke back to her, bringing the topic of her words back to what had just previously occurred. Cera scoffed, talking back to her reflection in an animated fashion, arms crossed, lips pursed, “I wasn't being harsh. Tao must face the reality of the situation.” More words echoed in the recesses of her mind. Another chortle left her, “Whether I twisted the truth to my will or not, what’s done is done. I don’t regret it in the least.” Yet, more words. Yet, they did not make Cera laugh this time. She went harsh, defensive, protecting the bottle of weary sadness she had shelved away with the intent to never take it up again from shattering, from spilling its contents upon her, “It’s different with Kris. You know it is. Why else would you cry at the very notion of what you saw?”

Assertions were made.

Cera shook her head, “I’m not selectively holding back.”

An idea was brought up.

Cera ran a hand through the tightly knotted locks of her hair, “Favoritism has nothing to do with this.”

An argument against her was proposed.

Cera, who had little to no time left to spend on trivialities, no longer had the patience for it, “Lecture at me later. I’m too tired to deal with you now.”

She turned away from the mirror, starting her trek back to her room to go to sleep early for tomorrow, the fated day of her meeting with the Council. The walk back to her room was mostly uneventful, nothing of note happening except that she ran into Lay on his way to the kitchen from Tao’s room, the latter desiring some water for the night. The others were tucked away in different corners of the Hall of the Guardians: Xiumin and Kris in the living room playing a riveting game of chess, Chanyeol with Sehun and Suho in the training room practicing for the upcoming sparing day, D.O and Baekhyun tending to the garden, and Chen and Kai nowhere to be found, business in Sector E drawing them away for the night.

The halls were empty, making each step she took, no matter how light, echo from one end of the hall to the next, bouncing off of the walls so loudly she felt the need to soften her steps, resorting to tip-toeing to her room to avoid another run in with Sehun who, after the ordeal with Chen just yesterday plus her current tumulus thoughts, she had no intention of putting up with. She would use her current time to rest. To recover herself in sleep and perhaps, perchance, she might just be able to salvage a bit more time for herself by doing so.

She wasn’t looking to exert herself for pointless conversation.

She wasn’t seeking to quicken the pace of the events which threatened her existence.

She wasn’t trying to catch him in the act of leaving Tao’s room, his frame unguarded and lit up under the dim, night lights of the hallway.

She didn’t think she’d encounter Luhan – knowing for a fact that it was him at first glance – in the middle of the night, mere seconds now from opening the door to his room and disappearing into darkness again. She would have let it go, despite her own curiosity as to what he looked like, a tuft of fluffy auburn all that she could distinguish and draw upon the blank slate that was his appearance. That and thin shoulders. A slimmer neck. And a constitution that appeared to be weaker than her own.

The opportunity was too good to pass up.

The opportunity to rest for good, to get in her own, well-deserved, vacation was impossible to ignore.

“Luhan.”

Cera called out to him, speeding up the countdown on her reign all on her own, startling him in the process. Freezing him in his tracks, his back poised towards her, his front still out of sight. With a tender voice, she called his name again.

“Luhan.”

He involuntarily shook, and, for a moment, she thought herself frozen just as she was. Her feet felt as though they were planted in the ground where she presently stood mere meters away from him, refusing to move her further. Denying her the right to impose upon him as she was now, breaking the barrier that was never meant and was never intended to be broken.

However, with a third and final call of, “Luhan,” affection and admiration seeping into the two syllables that went beyond Cera’s own ability to convey, she was able to force her way towards him.

Each step had her lungs struggling for air as she choked on the fragrance which had followed her since yesterday, on the words which struggled to come out from deep down with much more force than usual, on the lump of guilt swelling in that stopped her from speaking his name for a fourth time.

This was it, Cera realized.

This was her chance to willingly shatter all that she had built with the intent to burn it down in the first place. Hundreds of bodies, hundreds of personalities, and not a one had never fought her so strongly before. Age is just a number, making it a poor excuse for her characteristic stubbornness. Making it even harder to believe that she allowed her so much time in the first place. Making Cera believe, without a doubt, that only through marking upon her conscious a deep wound of regret would she rise again.

Now, all it took was one, last, final push.

As Cera reached within mere feet of where he was, he quickly opened his door and vanished within, the sound of a lock twisting shut speaking all the words of rejection he couldn’t bring himself to say when faced with the situation he had been avoiding all this time; his very own lump of jumbled words lodged in his throat. And Cera took advantage of him, using the experience and knowledge she had gained for the days in which she lived at the forefront of another’s life against him – because as she had discovered, even she herself had feelings.

Words and gestures could speak volumes no matter how simple.

No matter how contrite her following abhorrent proclamations were, the effect of them was undeniable.

Banging on the door with a clenched fist, practically screaming at him, “You do realize the only service you're doing is to yourself. You must be aware of that. Of your selfishness. Your cowardice. Your inability to face the future when it's not staring back at you within the confines of a tiny, minuscule, glass ball. You must realize that! A person who does not appreciate their gift does not deserve it! A person who would rather stay locked up in their own little paradise will never be happy!”

And then, there was one last, hard pound upon Luhan’s door, followed by the sound of something limp falling upon the marble floor. 

And thus Cera's totalitarian reign came to an end. 

A/N: 

Since it's been so long since I've updated, I decided I wouldn't be a tease any longer.
Now, I'm just going to leave you all and let this chapter sink in.