1.

Cheolyong thinks that it is irrevocably normal to have chamomile tea with her at 4:48 in the morning. He does know that he has duties to attend to later in the day, but for that one moment in the morning where the brightest peeps of dawn do not wish to grace them with an appearance, he decides against his good judgement.

“Is it too cold?” she asks him cautiously. Similarly to him, she does not usually stay awake this early in the morning and feels slightly disoriented.

“No,” he replies quickly, anxiously.

She offers him the tinniest of smiles and returns to the china she holds within her hands. They remain still in the condensed silence and she begins to wonder if he truly desires to be with her at all or whether it is just common courtesy.

“They say you’re usually more talkative,” she says.

He nods in agreement before taking a sip of his lukewarm tea.

“They also say that you’re very funny.”

He pauses at her words and allows them to roll around in his head before he answers as honestly as he can. “I guess I just don’t feel like hiding under my humour right now.”

They both say nothing and gulp their teas greedily, as if the action would be able to diminish the feeling they’re both experiencing. A flutter of a moment and a breath of fresh air is what they’re feeling. And despite not knowing it yet, this sensation would become an addiction.

2.

Sweeping his blonde mop off of his forehead he scans the room groggily. Cheolyong was never one to be lost upon departing slumber, but his current predicament challenged this characteristic. His pupils dart back and forth as he absorbs his surroundings. A television sits in front of him speaking of the next crisis the globe has faced, a bowl of peach tinted flowers dwell within a sphere of translucent liquid that he would not identify as water, and a girl, sitting gawkily in a pinstriped arm chair intently stares at the picture playing technology with glazed eyes.

He wipes sleep away with a half curled fist. He does not want to disrupt her and yet, he does not wish to return to the impenetratable silence that he vaguely remembers sharing with her. Small talk is the only suggestion that seems plausible for his situation. He goes with that.

“Pretty flowers.”

Keeping her eyes stationary on the television she replies monotonously, “Thank you. They were a gift from my aunt … eight years ago.”

Raising his eyebrows he eyes the flowers once more. Their delicate petals are the epitome of perfection; blossomed to the of beauty and coloured with the fervorous pinks. They appear to be the seasonally beautiful flowers of spring. He mentally recaptures their significance. Not real, but fake.

“What’s the time?” he asks.

“Half past seven. You should be at work soon.”

He deadpans before realising it is Monday. A flood of negative connotations associated with the word swirl within his mind adding to the distress at a report being due at eight am sharp and a stack of dead trees to photocopy. He scratches his head in frustration and yawns awfully loud.

Noting his tired behaviour she stalks into the kitchen to retrieve a hello kitty mug with a nebulous beverage dancing within it. She sits next to him on the roughly stitched couch and pushes the drink into his hands.

“Drink,” is all she utters.

“I don’t drink coff-”

“Drink,” she repeats, sterner this time.

With a piercing expression that was only reserved for the irritating, Cheolyong sips the drink halfheartedly. And to his relief, it isn’t coffee. The rich drink pulses throughout his body and slips gracefully into his mouth. It was a dose of sunshine, protons and soju all in one which left him with a stinging feeling of hyperactive energy. A sense of thanks pours over him as he chugs the entire mug until it is bone dry.

“Uh … thanks,” he finally says.

She only smiles pleasantly and folds the mug within her hands. She sets it down gently on the coaster that rests on her miniature table. For no particualr reason, she feels slightly at home with him.

Purely out of arbitrary desire she reaches over to touch his face and lingers tentatively on his cheek that begins to blossom in a shade that is similar to her floral decoration. His heart rate accelerates glacially, and despite the proximity between them, it does not seem to increase by more than what he would feel if he were jogging. Her body shifts forward and they’re directly face to face. For the first time in a while, he is petrified. She still has the content curve on her lips which makes him feel odd. He closes his eyes out of instinct and tilts his head slightly; he only does as he assumes.

Cheolyong expects a moistness on his lips and a feminine softness that only she can achieve. But a different sensation is found. A fingernail scrapes tentatively on the inner corner of his eye. It is strange, almost uncomfortable, but he bears with it for a few more seconds. The pressure is soon released and he immediately returns his sight.

She is still in front of him but with a whimsical expression painted on her face. She looks at her finger which contains a small blob of muck. Horrified, he wipes intensely at his eyes and prays that he did not appear as disgusting as he is beginning to think he did.

“You know, they say that this sand that comes from your eyes after you wake up is actually evidence that the Sandman visited you and gave you good dreams.”

Her precocious words stop him from doing anything further and he is left to stare at her in utter wonder that is overshadowed by confusion.

There is a look of bewilderment on her complexion despite her knowing the fact herself. Her careful inspection of the grit on her finger does not mortify him but stirs him. The slight gap of causes her breaths to exit lightly and delicately. The feathery ringlets that cascade down her shoulders remind him of the fluidity and ethereal beauty of a waterfall.

Cheolyong feels a prick somewhere inside of him. It is sensitive and premature, but he still feels it. It is foreign to him.

“I should let you go to work,” she says in a hushed tone.

“O-Okay,” he says.

She grins at him once more before heading towards a cerulean painted door marked, “Bathroom”, by a chalkboard sign. He sighs and lies down on the couch, face upturned towards the ceiling.

He leans his head back and traces his eyes of her aged ceiling. It is the first time he has ever thought of her as beautiful and he is unsure of  whether he will ever have this thought again.

3.

Sometimes, Cheolyong believes that trying isn’t worth anything if your hypothesis will have no certainty of becoming a reality. As he places document after document into the photocopyer only to be caught in the repetitive cycle of scan, process and produce, he ponders her significance to him.

They had originally discovered each other two months ago as friends of friends through an unorthodox introduction at a funeral. The discomfort of the situation at the time had overwhelmed their conversation to polite and obligatory “hello”s and “I’m sorry too”s. Nothing more and nothing less. They parted ways with tight lipped smiles and dismissive nods that they believed blatantly signalled the end of their fleeting encounter for what they thought would be eternity. They were just as wrong as the scholars who believed that the world was flat.

He tugs the sheets dutifully out of the machine and shuffles to his cubicle. A puff of irritation escapes his lips as he simulatenously drops into his wheely chair. It is not the mundane qualities of his job that cause him to feel agitated but the redundancy of it all. Cheolyong admits that he does enjoy holding a small position in his office. The non-commital nature of such a job that is hung loosely from the grasp of his employer leaves room for error and independence, despite being in a sea of asimilar others. It is just the repetition that bores him; his 8-7 job is like a broken record. He staples the clump of freshly printed papers and clicks his email inbox open.

The pixelated mouse hovers over the refresh button before making an affirmative click. The screen flashes a dead white to be rehabilated with the usual row of endless spam mail and an addition of a yellowed box with a name highlighted within it. Lizzy. He proceeds to read the email without batting an eye.

To: Cheolyong

You left your sock at my place.

A frown creases onto his face as his eyes travel down to his feet where he sees two black socks peek out from his shoes furtively. Hints of amusement leer in his orbs as he types back a teasing reply. He imagines her beautiful complexion twisted into one of embarassment and cannot help the smirk that begins to form on the corners of his lips.

To: Lizzy

Do you miss me so much that you would make up a missing sock story just to get me to come over later?

He taps the enter button and the message shoots off into the interweb; spiralling through varying connections and formulas that all co-operate with one another to retrieve a reply to him. It is laconic, succinct, and suspiciously unlike her character.

To: Cheolyong

Yes. Come over at 7:30. Making ramen.

His eyes widen in shock. Their relationship appeared to have developed completely over night. And as Cheolyong sits there in the only chair in his office that squeaks, he questions whether another evening with her is something he desires at all.

He is stuck between pursuing the tenuous relationship that he knows will be unviable, or disregarding her emotional confusion through rejecting what could be, something quite intriguing to his usually despondent lovelife.

And then he feels it again. The vexacious pricking on the barricades of his heart had reignited another puzzling sensation within him.

Cheolyong grabs a slip of paper and records a brief personal message in a fading red. He moves on to slowly character by character, type a carefully crafted response that will not sufficiently explain everything that he desires to tell her. But he settles for subpar because that is all he thinks he can give her for the moment.

To: Lizzy

Ok.

4.

He begins thinking that she’s perfection when he catches a whiff of the ramen on the stove. Perfection may have been an overexaggeration but he thinks that she’s something close to it. He had arrived at her apartment five minutes early out of eagerness that was hard to quell and a very quick train ride. She was there at the door with her mousy brown hair pinned nonchalantly in a bun and a pair of chopsticks glued to her hand. They exchanged casual greetings as if they were long time friends, something they both knew they would never be, and he took it upon himself to follow her to the kitchen.

It is a pristine area. A pure splash of dead whites and metallic silvers that coincided with the pure sterility and simplicity of the appliances. This somewhat futuristic kitchen had an archaic essence that prompts him to wondering how she practices the art of cooking in such a place. He clandestinely documents the oddness of the scene. The tantalising smell of the ramen is scarily out of place for Cheolyong.

“How was work?” she asks, absently stirring the noodles in the brass pot.

“Anything but extraordinary. How about you?”

“Took a sick day. It’s been a while since I’ve actually just stayed home. You’d be surprised how relaxing yet boring it is.”

“Maybe if you had me as company the outcome would’ve been different,” he says with a mischievious grin.

She turns to face him with a slight question hanging from her lips. It dissipates quickly to be replaced with the word, “Maybe.”

​5.

They eat the night away through stifling silence. Their playful banter seemed to only be reserved for online. Cheolyong begins to question what he saw in their relationship. Whatever it is.

The TV is switched on for her entertainment and his discomfort. The box of colour produces images of a man, bloody and beaten in a highway not too far from their very location. The man is trapped within a piece of machinery that looks as if it was twisted by an innocuous four year old. The viscous fumes that escape the distorted vehicle attempt to shroud the camera’s view of the atrocitites. But, to Cheolyong’s instant regret, the cameraman knows how to obtain a better shot. It cuts and zooms in closer to the victim.

“The man, aged 25, was said to have been a former veteran who received many accoloades for his bravery. The man was reported to have left his local bar at midday before passersby heard a loud explosion. An explosive device was said to have been stowed away in the glove compartment of his vehicle while the starting of the engine had triggered the fatal response. Authorities are still puzzled as to why this act of murder may have been committed. However, they’re affirmative that the culprit behind the tragedy was none other than the anonymous organisation named K. The only clue at the scene that clarifies this is the branding found on the man’s hand of a circle with a flame inside of it. More updates on the matter will be received shortly.”

The signature logo of the broadcasting station reappears on the screen. He feels his stomach rolling and bile threatening his throat. All apetite is gone and and the tempting scent of the ramen is replaced by the sickening stench of blood. His eyes meagrely squeeze shut. Before he can tell her to turn it off the television blinks and a ding is heard. They reside in a deeper quietness than before.

He dares to open an eye and realises she is no longer in front of him. His bowl of ramen has vanished and so has hers. The shushing of the sink fills his ears and a wave of gratitude washes over him. But it is short-lived.

After all, gratitude cannot overcome fear.

​6.

Cheolyong enters the kitchen like a fisherman sick from the sea. He shouldn’t be wary of her, yet, he is. His palms proliferate sweat and he summons all the courage in his being to just say something to her.

“Sor-”

“It’s scary isn’t?” she interjects lightening fast.

He gulps and his Adam’s apple conveys  his uneasiness. She’s intently cleaning the dishes with her rubber gloves stained with soapy residue. He takes the question as rhetorical when she starts to answer it herself.

“I mean, we all thought they were dead right? I did. Dead or disbanded, gone is a better term. But they’re on the news more often now and we can’t really do anything about it. They aren’t usually this close to the area. It’s quite strange honestly. The things they do are scary and horrific but … I think we can agree that it can’t get worse,” she finishes on a bland note.

He stays still for a while longer. Disagreement lurches within his throat but he does not want to intrude on her brutal soliloquy. He waits in a choking silence.

She turns towards him and an expression of worry is etched onto her face. “Please say something.”

All he is capable of doing, and all he does is turn away. It feels as if a magnetic force is coercing him to refrain from seeing her. With innocence dancing in her eyes and a parabola for a mouth that is in no way, deep enough, he feels mocked. How did he believe that there would be anything existing in between them? A numbness spreads to the tips of his fingers; it's subtle yet blatant. He forgot the last time he experienced the cruel sensation.

He senses her presence behind him. It’s so distinguishable and familiar despite the canyon that divides their understanding of one another. Instinct makes him flinch when she finally acts. A pair of arms thread themselves at his waist and tighten. He doesn’t know what to do. He is a preschooler at a university.

“I’m sorry,” she speaks with her feather-light voice. It rings throughout the queer atmosphere. It is her first apology and oddly enough, he doesn’t like it. He feels slight pressure against his back as she leans her head on him. He doesn’t feel like replying to her. It isn’t obligatory anyway.

“Would you stay the night?” she muffles.

Somewhere along the way he finds himself nodding. Nodding evolves into turning. Turning evolves into reciprocating. Before he knows it, he is lying on the couch he had woken up in this morning, her hair and telling her sweet nothings that morally bind him like chinese handcuffs bind unsuspecting fingers. Beyond the tingling fairy touches and the tangling of their legs, he is lost in a world where nuclear bombs are child’s play and all he has is a gun that won't shoot.

In the stillness of her living room, he finally works up the courage to speak to her. She sleeps in a content manner, oblivious to everything.

“It gets a whole lot worse,” he whispers.

He allows his words to break her pleasant state, just for the moment where he believes his comment will not scar her ignorance because he knows that everything good must come to an end. He just hopes that she knows that too.

​7.

They spend weeks together. She emails him during his work hours and he replies diligently. It is a constant battle between them and the interweb mailing services. They joke about suing whoever had created the program for slow reception. But they’re not ones to talk.

She invites him over every night. Their circumstances do not change. She cooks dinner in the odd place she labels a homely kitchen. They watch the news together as she is entranced by the spontaneous murders and unpreceedented rise in city robberies. He leaves the table in disgust layered with fear. She apologises as if she is the one who is committing mass murder in the outside world. He accepts her soundlessly and they’re left to lie together. Her, in the comfort of his arms. Him, encircled in the treacheries of the world.

It takes only one month for her to request that he permanently move in to her apartment, claiming that since they spend so much time together he should just stay. There is a hesitancy to his response, it is a yes but it is not a completely assured yes. But she is not worried because she cannot see past the faux enthusiasm he puts on to appease her.

Even though her misconceptions of the outside world are appalling to Cheolyong, they reach out to each other and become closer. Like two threads of string being interwoven to become a piece of fabric. They cover each other, twist beneath the other, knot at places they shouldn’t and parallel with the other when their place does not lay there. They conjoin to become a mismatched patch. Even though they’re obviously unsuitable to the eye, they mesh in a way that neither imagined they would.

There are the rarest of occassions where he experiences the feeling that had initially made him stay. It appears at the oddest moments and disappears as if it had never visited him. This pricking was the only reason he could tolerate her obsession with the news and enjoy the comfort she would bring his lonely soul.

​8.

“Stop.”

He does not relent. His fingers, quick and agile tap at her sides as she howls in boisterous laughter. He wishes that every Monday morning were like this. Her wearing the prehistoric beige night gown and both of their eyes quirked into crescents. It hadn’t been too long since he had moved in. Barely any time at all, yet, he was already adapting to the strange environment. And, to her.  He had slunk into her apartment in the same way that she had crept into the corners of his mind; dark hair attracting him like iron to a magnet.

Cheolyong finally halts his actions and leans over her so that they’re face to face. He smiles somewhat somberly despite the early morning’s fun.

“Sorry,” he says. He tucks some hair behind her ear.

Her gaze flickers away from his face to the window. It is hidden by the lace curtains with twisting rosebuds and contorted leaves. But she still peers at it as if it were open and unlocked. The simple precautionary action immediately dissolves as her stomach yearns for its unrequited love for food.

He chuckles and pulls her up, unaware of her previous suspicious actions. All that is on Cheolyong’s mind is the prospect of rice in a dragon patterned bowl and the sight of chomping childishly; open and close.

She strides into the kitchen and he trails behind. He is almost used to the odd devices of her kitchen and reminds himself not to appear shocked everytime she fiddles with the glistening contraption that sits in the corner. He tried to convince her to dispose of it but she seemed transfixed more on its beauty than purpose. She called it a “work of contemporary art that speaks to the modern soul”. At least that is what Cheolyong believes she said. He could be wrong.

She cuts the tomatoes in a succinct fashion and he cannot help but be slightly retrospective. He recalls her melancholic aura at the funeral, hair limply holding onto her shoulders. She was delicate back then, with a depressing beauty that was colourless and succinct. The knife swerves down on the chopping board and he winces as the juices of the tomato course out of its now empty shell of a body.

 “Beef?” she questions.

“That’s a bit strange isn’t it Lizzy? Beef and tomatoes?”

She raises her hand to her chin and mimics someone in deep thought. A chuckle is gained from him. “I thought you had an affinity to strange things. You’re living with me aren’t you?”

Her witty remark leaves Cheolyong rather flustered and pink hued as all he can do is look away and mumble yes to the beef.

She had a perfect doll-like appearance at the eulogy. Her conventionally gorgeous ratio made her apper desirable and loveable. Just not radiant. She was beauty but she was not beautiful. Cheolyong’s mind flickers to the girl he sees before him. She is better, she is alive. Even if it is the slightest morsel of life that she is, it is still something to be appreciative of.

“Eat,” she muses.

He does not realise that she has pushed a bowl of rice in front of his face decked with a cooked cow and plucked fruit. He mutters a brisk apology and then digs in to his breakfast. She turns on the television and flicks to the news channel with bright eyes. He tenses.

Throughout the whole of their breakfast, she watches intently with a small inquisitive flicker emanating from her orbs while he sits in a strained quiet. He remains stoic and ignores the news presenter’s serious tone when they discuss a burning building ten blocks away. He scarfs down his food hurriedly and purposely leaves the table saying that he has to go to work.

And unfortunately, this time, he wants to.

​9.

He types away in his cubicle. The little clicks of the keys and the fulfilling sound of the enter button are enough to take his mind off of the rambunctious party in the staffroom. It’s someone’s birthday. To Cheolyong they’re just a someone, but she, the girl he is emailing, is a somebody.

To: Lizzy

Just a couple more hours and I’ll see you soon.

He sends the message and fiddles with the pencil on his desk. He is itching to preoccupy his time while waiting for the reply. His restlessness is as evident as the loneliness he feels sitting at his desk while the other staff begin a chorus of congratulatory clapping.

He lets out a contemptuous huff. Another year older and another year closer to death. His screen flashes and he jumps in his seat. He expects her to reply but whenever he receives them it is like she has taken him by surprise.

To: Cheolyong

Okay. We have to talk.

He glances over at the post-it note hanging lifelessly on his desk. It is reassuring for a second, but not for any longer. No amount of birthday cake could subdue the dread that begins to build in his stomach.

​10.

There is a flower pot sitting beside the bowl of realistic flowers. A single lime leaf pokes out of the grotty soil. He can’t tell if it is real or fake, but for the moment he does not have the courage to ask because her serious expression draws him back to the situation at hand.

“What,” she says. “W-what are we?” She stutters. She never stutters.

“What’re you talking about?”

“I mean, you live with me but you don’t love me. You sleep with me but you don’t kiss me. You have never kissed me. I don’t know what this is. I don’t even know if I know what you are. Oh God.” She panics. She is crumbling. The wonderfilled girl who plucked the sand from his sleeping eyes, the girl who cooked him inexplicable delicacies, the transifxed girl who watches the world go on and believes that nothing will worsen. She’s breaking.

“I don’t know, how should I know?”

“Y-You’re meant to okay. Label it. Whatever this is. Whatever you are.”

“Why does everything have to be labelled?” he questions. He is actually serious about his inquisition but he doubts that she will answer him in a straight-forward manner.

“Don’t change the damn subject Cheolyong! Just answer me!” He is right about her indecisive reply.

“How can I answer you if I don’t even know?”

She releases a groan worthy of a sequel. And it receives one as she releases successive wails that he could never have imagined would escape her lips.

“What do I do?” He asks frantically.

She does not stop as her respiration becomes even more abnormal by the second.“Do … Something!”

So he does something. He grips her by the shoulders and just holds her at the distance. Her breathing is erratic and everywhere whilst his is steadying and ready. He just stares at her and hopes that she calms down because he has no idea how to pacify someone who acts like a schitzophreniac.

“Lizzy.”

And that is all it takes. He pronounces her name with clarity and her shoulders slump forward as her head crashes into him. A moistness seeps through his t-shirt and trickles down his skin making him shiver from the new sensation. He slinks his arms around her and holds her properly. The embrace is unlike previous ones that they have shared on the uncomfortable couch or on her bed. This time he tries to communicate with her.

“I’m sorry.” It’s his first apology to her. And he thinks that it is not as difficult as he thought it would have been.

He draws her back and takes a leap of faith. Or one of compassion. Either way, it is something foreign to him. He presses his lips to her and all he can taste is summer rain in a month long drought. He begins to wonder why he hadn’t kissed her earlier because it feels as if he has discovered a part of him that he had forgotten existed.

She returns the favour and kisses back, deeply. Their mouths abuse each other as they both learn what they like about each other. And it is this short list of likes that makes Cheolyong feel an itch. It is uncontrollably strong that he cannot repress it. He feels like he must do something, anything about it, but he is unsure of what. So he continues to shower her in pleasuring kisses.

A fleeting thought crosses his mind. Without even having any evidence, he decides to believe that the potted plant, with its solitary leaf poking out from beneath, is real.

​11.

They live in a sphere of containment that is everything they both hoped to attain from a relationship. It is an insulated snowglobe of a world where her essence is evergreen and his is slightly less pessimistic. Like the daughter of nature, she begins installing new flora every day, decorating the coffee table with spurls of green and flits of gardenias which he tells her are almost as radiant as she is. They bloom with ease, heightening and unfurling onto the glass surface of the table until her foot accidentally kicks them when his breath tickles her ear.

Eventually, they die. The two of them begin to hold mock funerals for each individual bud. She sheds tears for the strong, leafy trees which she imagined would become the canopies of a rainforest. He closes his eyes in appreciative silence for the puchritudinous beauties that he envisioned would look lovely in her hair.

They move along within their bubble of solitude. And everything they do and say, physically and almost mentally is just as passionate as their lingering gazes. Cheolyong starts to lower his protective walls around her, even though her unparalleled obsession with current events reduces him to a coward.

He holds onto the notion that she will let go of her puerile habit before he is forced to let go of her. But Cheolyong thinks that it will take some time and, surprisingly enough, he has a ludicrous idea planted in his mind that he will be patient enough to wait for her.

​12.

The picture playing device presents the mutiny down the street. Baseball bats being swung down upon fragile skulls. Miniscule clumps of gunpowder encased in a pellet of incorrigible steel puncturing mid sections, hands, shoulder blades. Slashes of darkening maroons paint the cul de sac; it is deathly alive. All Cheolyong can see is carnage and silence. Bone and blood.

He releases his thoughts onto his dinner plate. They’re not words, but actualy chunks of what he believes is his dinner. He regurgitates the life out of himself and he indistinctly feels the blood of others wash through his throat, the scraping of bones piercing the cavernous walls of his mouth and a commanding officer demanding that he go and save his country.

He wishes he had died a long time ago.

​13.

She rubs his shoulders and murmurs comforting words to the tensed quiet. She leans over and kisses him.

He is disgusted with himself and with his country.

​14.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” he says when she asks why he is so afraid of the sin outside her apartment.

“You can trust me Cheolyong,” she answers, confidently and reassuringly.

There is a glimpse of a human being in his eyes. She is beautiful and precious. She is the most delicate thing he has ever seen. Cheolyong can’t share his perpetual haunting with her, not yet. The itch that he remembers experiencing the day that they had first kissed is present, but stronger. A monster is clawing at the organ within him that ciruclates his blood and allows him breath. It is hard for Cheolyong to do anything.

He wraps his arms around her buries his head within the crook of her neck like a young child. “I know,” he mumbles.

​15.

Despite Lizzy knowing what he cannot stand, she is curious and desperate. She’s waiting for him to sell his soul to her. She awaits the day when he will share the memories of his past with her, when he will finally explain why he becomes so terrified in front of the television that he cannot keep his composure in front of her. She desires to have a Cheolyong that she comprehends rather than one who could never fully love her.

So she soldiers on. Even though a simple press of a button coerces a fearful animal out of him, she needs to know. She continues to press and press and regression begins to be imminent. She doesn’t want to lose him just yet, but her patience is at its expiration date.

She hopes that it will stay good for a while longer.

​16.

“Stop.”

She does not relent. She pokes and prods him, attempting to break apart the pieces of his sanity one by one and make sense of what she holds in her hands. She has lost the capacity to wait.

The owl’s evening cacaphony dies out and the rooster’s screeching holler replaces it almost instantly. The winged creatures cause an audible ruckus, but the only chaotic thing is the sound of his voice, shouting breathlessly and hating passionately.

“I told you I don’t want to talk about it!” he yells with frustration laced in his tone.

“You can trust me just tell me what’s going on,” she screams back.

His hands are vibrating from a pure shot of fear and adrenaline. It is their first real fight. A confrontation where it is pure unbridled anger. He feels somewhat pleased with its occurrence, but its context is less than pleasing. Her eyes are ablaze with determination and if it hadn’t been for his flaring temper he would have kissed her.

“Why won’t you listen when I say I don’t want to?” he shouts.

“Because we are together and you freak out every time I turn on the tv and you won’t tell me why! I care about you but if you don’t tell me there will be no one else left to care.”

In the background a siren goes off but the both of them are too engrossed in accusations and pointing fingers to really care.

“You shouldn’t even pry into my business. It’s my life, I don’t need to share it with you.”

“Do you not see what this is?!” She shouts, madly flicking her wrist back and forth between them. “It’s a relationship, it’s equal. So, can you just stop being such a kid and just tell me what’s going on?”

He laughs sadistically. The irony that amuses him is another new thing that she brings to their conversation. “Coming from the girl who believes that the world is full of unicorns and rainbows,”he scoffs.

“What?” Her menacing tone solidifies with rage. The atmosphere encapsulating the both of them is heavy and humid. The two of them disregard it as a consequence of their argument and continue to attack each other with grenades of anguish.

“You need to grow up!” He yells. “Your stupid optimism is childish. The world is a cruel place and if you think that things can’t get worse, then you must be stupid too.”

Her eyes twang with a cold glare and she swears that she could choke him on the spot. She opens in retaliation but he interrupts with intent to bring her down to her knees. No survivors.

“You know what? It turns out you actually do have a hamartia after all,” he says matter-of-factly.

“A what?”

“Tragic flaw. Something so terrible that when the time comes it will engulf you whole and then all that’s left is regret and an empty life. That’s what it is.”

Tears spring to her eyes as she notices the darkening of his tone. “Is that what happened to you?” She’s quiet.

Images of a scar running across trodden dirt is recalled, a machine gun clicking into place within his arms as if it were an extra limb. The men that run around him bark directives to one another. A trembling fear crawls into him and stings where it hurts the most. He yelps out for everyone to stay back but the spray of bullets that plant themselves into each man’s cranium are enough of a reply. Cheolyong feels his feet having a mind of their own; they run. Away from the havoc and chaos of the countries behind him. And then the world explodes.

Cheolyong is sobbing without oxygen and Lizzy is left to regret.

​17.

“I’m sorry.” The apology is bittersweet within his ear drums.

They sit at opposite ends of the couch, not daring to look at each other. The outburst had dissipated minutes ago but the atmosphere is uncomfortable. She shifts in her seat and faces him, sorrow flagrant in her expression. He looks at her, and finally, releases a breath and starts telling the truth.

“There was a battalion. It consisted of twenty of us and a commander. We trained for days and then when we were considered ready, they let us have it,” he says shakily. She is hushed to absorb his tale. He continues. “We were waiting in the foliage and talking ourselves up even though each of us were scared as hell. We were all going to hell anyways. So we were joking around, acting like idiots while we waited for the perfect time to strike. And then, they striked us.” He pauses. Sirens whine outside, loud and clear. The banging of doors and loud footsteps from the upstairs neighbours try and compete with the outside world.

She inches closer to him while still keeping her distance. It’s a balancing game, and she cannot tip the seesaw of a couch that they sit on. Otherwise, everything falls one way, them included.

“We ran so fast and so quick. But they caught up so we fought. We fought so bravely until, they couldn’t fight anymore. And me, being the coward that I am, ran. There was a landmine and then I blanked. A few days later I woke up practically unscathed. But I was alone. And it hurt … so bad.” Tears trickle down his face. She does not think he talks about exterior pain. “Why would they make us do that? We walked right into death. But why do I get to live?” Cheolyong is crying hysterically at this point. “I don’t deserve to.” Cheolyong’s life is just a meaningless pit of nothing. His pieces have been obliterated while the sharp fragments left over puncture his very being.

She smothers him in understanding because she is proud of him. Her body does nothing to attribute to her comforting actions. It is her semblance that acts as a comfort to him. And it is then that he realises that she has nothing to hate and no fatal flaw that could ever kill her. She’s titanium.

​18.

The living room is painted a fervorsome orange. They both don’t really know why due to the fact that the sun shouldn’t shine for another three hours, but they ignore this.

They’re interlaced on the couch. She rests on top of him, forehead glued to his chest. His hand carresses her raven locks. Their legs are mixed and matched so that it is impossible to distinguish them. It is the only time where they lie together that there is an air of honesty surrounding them. He chastely pecks the crown of her head and whispers something he never imagined he would whisper to her. His soul is hollow but the completeness of his words compensate for it.

He waits for her to reply and closes his eyes. He travels back to view everything in its truth. He acknowledges that they will never be perfect for each other but they will always belong to one another. It is a simple fact that he has become accustomed to and he will do anything to protect. Her body constricts within his grip.

His eyes dart open and that’s when he sees what her response means. A jarring piece of metal slits through the cracks between their door and its frame. In a swift motion it swerves downwards and cuts the locks. Cheolyong braces onto her tightly.

The rest is a blur. The group pounce into the room, lasers flickering over every expanse of civilisation until they rest upon the couple snuggled on the couch. All gazes and guns centre on the two of them until a ring is formed and they’re trapped in the middle.

The luminescent green dots that blanket their exposed skin make them look like celestial beings. He inhales and all he detects is her irrepressible scent and ash. He can’t see it, but he can feel it. She’s clawing clandestinely at his skin, but the urgency to her actions is pointless. She soon gives up.

A delicate touch brands his arm. A finger slides across his skin with gentle precision and he immediately knows that it is her. She traces characters onto the surface of his limb and he can’t help but believe that she writes this as a sentimental notion and as a goodbye.

They were never dead or disbanded. There would be no extent to their treacherous deeds. Cheolyong knows this and for some reason, he is at peace with the fact. He curls her further into his arms until they’re no longer two dissonant human beings, but one collective symbol of humanity. With its goods and bads their binary natures barrage each other. But the equilibrium that they both hold when together is something extraordinary.

“Just remember something Lizzy,” he breathes silently. “You never had a hamartia, only a virtue.”

And then the safeties are clicked off and the room crescendos into nothing.

A/N: AND SCENE. With 18 parts and 6,000+ words it is complete. Apologies because the flow is everywhere and character development doesn't seem to exist in this story -.- When I was writing I wasn't really going for a story that was like this but it just, became. Itself. And I tried my best to stick to the prompt as much as possible but I think it's agreeable that I at that big time. Done talking now.Over and out.