The whisper of his voice against her ear made her shudder.

Sweetly, lovingly, eudaemonically.

His words were rounded and whole, filled to the brim with an undying sense of--of what?

She couldn't say; all she knew was the touch of his fingers against her hip, the warmth of his breath against her ear, the breadth of his chest pressed and conformed against her back.

And when she closed her eyes, she could envision black and red and blue ink encircling his arms and chest; the harsh and jagged lines of his tattoos juxtaposing with the softer curves that made up his body. Pictures of demons and angels and eternally coiling vines; birds flew free, trapped within the confines of his skin; phoenixes and dragons coiled up his arms, fierce and protecting, an omen of evil to those who opposed him--and there was only one anomaly within the masterpiece encapsulated on his body.

Where only pictures and drawings should have stood, she could recall the single and unique line Gothic text that crossed his shoulder blades, bold and dark against his fair and scarred skin.

Too fast to live too young to die.

She'd traced those words once, mouthing the foreign language as she did so. She'd asked him why he'd written such words upon his skin. He hadn't responded, merely pulling her against him, letting her trace the lines of black ink with her lips and hands, baptising them with her fingers.

ity does not only refer to your moral cleanliness, dear heart

It is purity
It is the lack of taint
It is the abstinence of all rituals
It is the absence of a mortal love

He was made perfect in her memories.

She hoped her memories would never fade.

"I love you more than words can say, but words are all I have.

"I would paint you across my skin, but these marks upon my skin cannot display how you have marked my life.

"Your beauty, like a tempest, could not be commanded in such a way; neither art nor words nor recordings could ever encapsulate your everything. Never would you be trapped within this mortal study of remembrance and memory. And never shall there be a woman such as you."

His words were sung out, but he couldn't sing very well. His notes were often flat, grating to the ears--and it contrasted greatly with the capricious flutelike tone of his voice, which could vary with his very emotions.

When it was soft, it was sweet, it was happiness wrapped up within a husky voice; it was the soothing breeze caressing the branches of the trees, rustling and sweet; the silence of a living forest.

When it was hard, it was cruelty; it was the cold gravel and stones that dug into her palms as she fell; it was destruction, barely contained within his throat; the spilling of tears and blood onto a battefield graveyard.

But his words were filled with emotion, full of a reverent desire to touch her.

And she let him, shuddering and helpless under the relentless onslaught of his affection and obsession; it was unhealthy, the way he would cling to her, possess her, trap her within his arms and kiss her senseless until she couldn't do much else, other than breathe him in and live his every sigh, his every moan, his every word.

Ecstasy was never a pure emotion; it was hysterical, it was all-consuming, it was something he sparked up within her every time. It was madness that danced past rationality, sweeping away all inhibitions and leaving her--

breathless and in this eudaemonia that was Jiyong