Giovanni had a day off from work, not really - he just called in pretending to be sick. He hated waiting around for his brother to get home so he could pick on him so he went out.
"What kind of trouble can I get into today?" He said to himself, smiling devilishly.
Looking around, he smiled more and went to cause trouble at a near by park. Setting dogs loose, scaring little kids. Gio really didn't care about the screaming people. It was all for his entertainment.
A celestial. Bongju knew one of those when he saw one. One minute he was sitting on a park bench with his arms wrapped around his knees and the next he was watching that celestial with his eyes narrowed. It wasn't the celestial that Bongju knew but it was still a celestial. Thus far, he had no luck getting anybody to aid him. Maybe this one would. He looked like too nice for this world, although Bongju wasn't that trusting of celestials in general. He wondered if a celestial could break the spell placed on him. No witches had been able to.
Bongju slid off the bench and he shadowed the celestial for a moment, trying to figure out what it was that he was doing at the park. Hands behind his back, he watched the celestial with a somber expression.
"Are you looking for someone?"
Gio snorted at the random guy, "Looking for someone? No, I'm just looking to cause trouble." He answered, stopping for a second he looked at the guy. "Who are you and why are you following me? If I owe you money, sorry pal I don't got it." A girl on a bicycle was coming his way and a smirk came to his lips, "Fun coming up." He whispered.
As soon as the female came into arms reach, he reached out and grabbed one of the handles - making her swerve and crash into a lamp pole. Gio then burst out laughing, falling onto the ground.
"Am I following you...?"
He raised his eyebrows slightly when the celestial gave him the brush off. All right, so maybe all celestials were righteous jerks who had no time for a thing like a yin. Frowning, Bongju watched the celestial harass a girl (did he know her? why was he bothering her and how was that fun?). The celestial seemed like he was off his meds, the way he laughed while the girl screamed and cried.
"What are you doing?"
Bongju couldn't help the girl up--he would only end up deteriorating. But he did go over to see if she was all right while the celestial laughed like a cartoon hyena.
"What am I...I'm having fun. What does it look like?" He soon got to his feet, wiping the tears that fell as he laughed. "That was a rhetorical question, don't answer that."
He dusted himself off and sighed, holding his stomach and looking around again. "What can I do now?" he mumbled as his eyes scanned the area. "Ooh, let's take out road signs!" Gio started running around, pulling out or switching signs, "Let's see how the people react to the sudden change."
"Can I help you with something?" He directed at the male, "What I mean to say is, are you lost?"
If Bongju didn't know that he was facing a celestial, he would have wondered how somebody that looked like him could possibly pull those signs out of the ground. As it happened, he did know what he was faced with... at least partially. He'd never met one with such a... mischievous side. Bongju stepped aside while all the sign switching was happening, not altogether concerned about what happened to the humans.
"I'm not lost," Bongju assured him. "What are you, some agent of chaos?"
Giovanni paused and chuckled, "Agent of Chaos... That has a nice ring to it." He gave the guy props for his creativity. "But no, I just like to cause trouble. I need to get my kicks somehow when my brother's at work and when they don't need me down at the station."
It was weird that Gio loved breaking the law when he himself, was a rookie officer. He was being trained to follow and respect the law - he may be wanting to pursue a career in law enforcement but he was also never going to change his mischievous way of life. They'd just have to accept that.
"It fits, doesn't it?" He thought a guy like this one was definitely an agent of chaos. Causing trouble was one of their M.O.s, wasn't it? A celestial that wanted to cause trouble... it wasn't a stretch of the imagination. People tended to think of "angels"--what normal people thought celestials were--as good, kind, cherubic. When they imagined them, they were blond, blue-eyed, white winged creatures of unbelievable generosity and charity.
The truth could hardly be farther from that vision, at least in Bongju's experience.
"The station?" Bongju echoed. "What station?"
Surely he didn't mean police station. Bus station perhaps?
He nodded with a crooked smile, "It does."
Gio looked over at the male and blinked "The police station?" He sounded a bit confused and lifted a brow, "I'm a rookie officer." He added as he finished his mission.
"You?"
The word came out before he thought. Even after it came out, he didn't regret it. Honestly, he had a hard time imagining somebody so impish in the role of police officer. Ah. Rookie. Still... how?! Did he act innocent on the job? All right, that he could imagine. So that was his game. Get close to law enforcement... look like the picture of innocence, but cause trouble when they weren't looking. And who would believe a shadow of a person like Bongju if he ever ratted this guy out?
He lifted his chin slightly, eyes hooded.
"Hard to believe..." He might as well come out with it. "I know what you really are."
"I get that but it's not what it looks like. I actually do respect the law, I just love to cause trouble as well." Gio tried to explain his reasoning but knew he wasn't doing a really good job.
His brows furrowed and he stepped closer to the guy, "Do you? Tell me, what do you THINK I am?"
Bongju stood his ground and didn't flinch away but he did tighten his hands into fists. He watched the celestial step toward him. Dangerous. He said one thing but Bongju felt another. He stared back at the celestial. A challenge? Or a genuine question. No. No. He had to know. So he took a step forward, toward the celestial.
"Celestial. I can sense it."
"Oh can you? What makes you so sure that that's what I am?" Giovanni narrowed his eyes at the guy and cocked his head slightly, "You seem confident in your answer." He added.
Running a hand through his hair, he sighed lightly growing a bit bored but decided this was better than looking for his brother or doing something else. Maybe he could scare the guy.
Giovanni loved a challenge, it seemed this guy wouldn't scare easily but he sure as hell was going to try.
"Because," he said slowly as he raised a sleeve up to reveal the ugly bruises and marks beneath. They were the signs of decay that came from another supernatural creature. One that was inexplicably linked to the other.
"I'm yin."
"Yin?" Gio rose a brow and looked at the marks on his skin and looked at him in the eyes again. "Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't pay attention to things I don't find important but a yin, isn't that a kind of zombie or undead person that's bound to a celestial?"
His face then showed slight horror or disapproval, "Please tell me you're not bound to me... I can't deal with something like that, I'd rather not be bound to someone I don't know and there being a possibility of me dying if you get your heart ripped out."
"You're not wrong."
That was a way to put it. An undead person. Zombie. Not a person, though. Not anything worthy of a busy celestial. Even now, he felt the bitterness rising within him. There was little he could do in order to break the bond that already existed between himself and his celestial. But it still stung to hear that from this celestial. Please tell me you're not bound to me. Nobody wanted to be bound to him. His eyes narrowed.
"Relax. I'm not bound to you. I'm already bound to somebody." The way the guy talked, it seemed like he didn't fully understand how the binding worked. "But I don't want to be. You don't know how to unbind a yin, do you?"
"Thank god... No offence." He was starting to sound rude, even to his own ears - that was new to him. "I didn't mean to sounds so rude, I'm just not into the binding thing."
He tilted his head at the last remark, "No I don't. Do you mind if I ask why you want to unbind yourself from your celestial?" That sounded so weird, like they were masters and slaves.
Once, Bongju could never understand that line of thinking. He used to love being bound. It made him feel needed. Then his celestial partner disappeared and when he reappeared, he acted as if he didn't know Bongju. And then he told him to go away, to never come back. Did he not understand what it meant to be a yin? They lived only for their partner. And yet... he wouldn't even destroy him. He wouldn't do anything to make the pain and the anguish disappear. No, he just told him to get away. Nothing, no real explanation for his disappearance.
Even now, Bongju could feel the sting. The dejection, the feeling of having his insides ripped out yet he was still alive to feel every burn, every twist of the knife. No, he wanted it all to end. But now... now he also wanted him to pay for it, to feel the way that he made Bongju feel for so long. He grasped the front of his shirt, where his beating heart should have been.
"Because I'm not into the binding thing, either. You understand."
Gio mentally nodded and shrugged, "If I knew how to unbind something like people, I'd help but I don't know how to do any of that." He didn't even know the reason why he didn't want to be bound but Giovanni was actually feeling sorry for the guy. He heard a sorrow or something else behind his words.
"I'd suggest my brother but he's only a vet, he only know how to work on animals. So I'm not sure if he'd be able to help."
Ah, disappointing. The first time he'd met another celestial and this one was clueless. Bongju ran a hand through his hair and looked away. Great. So now what? His hope for revenge with the witch didn't work out. Now he was hitting a dead end with the whole unbinding thing. Bongju studied the other celestial for a long moment, a thought striking him.
"Do you know... if it's possible for one celestial to bind a yin that's already bound?"
Gio thought for a moment, "I'd have to look some things up or ask around for make sure. Wouldn't that cause some kind f trouble?" He tilted his head slightly.
He was actually concerned? What was going on with him today? This wasn't Ike Giovanni to care about others. He'd just have to get us to the change. He looked around feeling a bit awkward, "Um... I'm Giovanni, Gio."
"I thought so..." He crossed his arms. Typical. He wished he knew more about how the bonding process went from the celestial end. It had been nothing but horror and pain from his end. But he assumed that if a celestial could bind one, they could bind another... But what would happen to him in the process? Maybe he would get what he wanted all along. He could just... disappear. The thought made his heart yearn for it--the bliss of knowing nothing, of feeling nothing.
"Ahn Bongju. You can just call me Bongju." He looked downward for a moment, then back up at the tall young man. "I'd shake your hand but that would just end in misery." For one of us.
"I take it something happens with physical contact? Death?" He rose a brow, "Look, I can research for something but I don't know if there's any way to do an unbinding thing." Gio was actually being honest and it was starting to scare him.
"I'll even ask my brother if I need to." He added.
"Something like that."
Degradation. Disintegration. Eventually death, he suspected. But he had never hoped for it enough to try it. That seemed like a painful way to go and he really just wanted to disappear. He supposed most people wanted to die that way.
"You have a brother?"
An older celestial? Perhaps he knew something this one didn't!
"Yeah he's four years older than me so he knows a bit more." Gio shrugged and watched the guy, was this guy really that desperate to even go to his brother? Giovanni's brother was very helpful but to animals.
"I don't even know if he's home though. He tends to stay late at his job to avoid me."
"I can't imagine why."
Which was an utter lie and the sarcasm was palpable. Bongju knew he shouldn't be looking a gift horse in the mouth but he couldn't help but think that a troublemaker like this invited that kind of issue. If he caused trouble for everyone around him, no wonder they wanted to escape him. Realizing that they weren't too different in that area, however, Bongju lowered his gaze and slid it off to the side. Yeah. He made a lot of trouble, too, even if he liked to think it wasn't intentional...
"Where does he work?"
Giovanni rolled his eyes, he heard the unmistakable sarcasm in his voice but brushed it off.
Maybe having this guy around wouldn't be so bad
"He works at the animal hospital, seeing how he loves animals and helping, it was the perfect job for him."
"The animal hospital?"
It was definitely a strange juxtaposition against this guy. One made mischief, the other helped people? Maybe the brother was his key, then.
"The one on Orange Street?"
Why did he even ask? This was a small town. Unless the brother worked in Portland, it had to be the one on Orange Street, he imagined.
"Yeah that one." He nodded.
"And I know what you're thinking, am I sure we're related? Because of the difference in personalities, one is an ass and the other is an angel. Yes I'm sure we're related, I've tried to prove one of us as adopted but all the tests came back the same, we're siblings with the same dna; for the most part since we're not twins." He hated explaining things like this but it was also a way for him to remember that J.D. was his blood brother and not some fake brother.
It was along the lines of what he was thinking. Bongju hadn't met the brother yet but if he was anything like his little brother described him, they were opposites in every way. Apparently even Gio doubted their relationship if he was going around checking his DNA for signs they weren't.
"I believe you," he said. He didn't need the explanation but he got the feeling the poor fella was feeling defensive. Maybe he cared about something after all. "Are you coming with me?"
Orange Street was within walking distance and Bongju was ready to meet the guy who potentially held the answers he was looking for.
"Uh yeah." Gio nodded and started walking. He wasn't ready to visit his brother at work, he may be doing something important.
"I don't know if he'll be free but I guess it doesn't hurt to check." He added and looked around as they walked. It was kind of awkward for him to actually have someone to talk to, even if the person was sort of using him.
"If he's not, we'll wait."
Bongju slid his hands into his pockets. He was quiet most of the way, his gaze tracking the streets as they walked. When he saw the sign for Orange, he turned onto it. The animal hospital was nearby. As they approached, a woman left with a happy looking herding dog. Bongju used to love animals. Now he just skirted away from it as it turned toward him and bared its teeth. The woman apologize. Bongju just shrugged and opened the door to the animal hospital.
"What's his name?" he asked Gio. The brother.
"His name is J.D." He said and looked around, going to the desk. The female looked up and suddenly got scared, his brother must talk about him a lot. "Is J.D. free?" He asked, "I'm not going to hurt anyone.
"
He rolled his eyes when she used the intercom to call J.D. He came to the front and seemed confused "Gio, what are you doing here? Who's your friend?"
Bongju looked away from the woman behind the counter. He didn't have time to make friends with this woman. There was a point to this visit and it revolved around J.D., the brother of a Celestial. Somebody that might have answers. Somebody that might have a course of relief for Bongju. Just knowing that made him all the more impatient to meet him. He was about to ask if he was even there when another person approached, likely the brother Gio had spoken of. Slowly, he bowed his head.
"Ahn Bongju. Can we go somewhere to speak privately?"
"Nice to meet you." J.D. was drying his hands as he nodded lightly. He slightly tilted his head at the male's request, "Privately?" He rose a brow in slight confusion, eyes darting from Gio to the other male. "You getting other people involved in your pranks now G? I told you if you must prank me, do it at home. Your pranks tend to get violent and I have a lot of patients and their owners here, and I don't want anyone getting hurt."
Gio crossed his arms and scoffed, "This isn't some prank Dakari, Bongju really needs to talk to you. If I thought I could help him I would have done it by now." He had used J.D.s middle name, knowing he hated when he used one of his real names.
"You? Helping someone because you actually want to? Now I know this is a prank." He laughed and was about to call in his next appointment when Giovanni gripped his arm.
"He needs help J, I don't fully understand why when though his explained it to me, but what do know is he wants out and needs one of us to help; you're his best bet, you know more than I do."
J.D. sighed and looked at Bongju, "Follow me to my office."
Silently, Bongju watched the exchange between brothers. It seemed his relationship with his Celestial was not so different from that of two brothers, then. Only there was no sense of desperation between these two. And he was sure nobody had gone mad. Bongju felt like he was on the verge of madness again--he could feel it, throbbing in the back of his eyes and his skull, the tightness in his muscles, the way he wanted to scream but had to do everything in his willpower to remain calm. Quiet.
He followed J.D. into his office, still remaining silent until they were no longer in front of snooping receptionists and waiting clients.
"I'm a yin," he said almost immediately after the door closed behind them. "And you're a celestial. I need you to help me sever the bond between myself and my celestial."
J.D. turned in shock, sever the bond? "That would be painful, are you sure you'd want to do that? I've read about it and found experimental ways to do it but that's what they are, experiments. It could end in death." He looked over at his brother, "Where did you find this guy?"
Giovanni rolled his eyes, "He saw me causing trouble and asked for help." He replied. "Come on man."
"Because I knew you were a celestial," Bongju said flatly. Otherwise he probably would have looked in the other direction. As it was, it turned out beneficial for him to run into the troublemaker. At least, if J.D. turned out to know what he was talking about. Bongju took a step forward, then raised his oversized sweater to show the disgusting purple blotches and bruises that had formed on his body in the years apart from his celestial.
"My celestial partner won't unbind me. He won't destroy me. But he won't stay with me, either. I welcome death so if you know how to do this, then let's do it."
"If you're willing to go through with it then I'll see what I can do." J.D. said, "We'll have to do it at our house though." He added.
Gio nodded and looked at Bongju, "Does 8 work for you? We can do it tonight or whenever you want just let us know and we'll...or he'll get everything ready." He added to his brothers reply, knowing it'd probably be a good addition.
"Tonight," he said quickly. He didn't want to wait any longer. If they had the method to break this damned link then now was the time to do it. Bongju was so tired. He was so tired of being emotionally drained, of longing for something that apparently was no longer there. He had wandered long enough. Even the idea of seeing the end now was comforting. He was so close...
"I'll meet you at eight," he agreed. "Just give me the address."
Gio grabbed a pen and paper, writing their address down and giving it to him, "tonight it is then." He looked at his brother, who, sighed.
"Guess we'd better head home Gio." J.D. replied and opened his office door for the others.
(Do you want to fast forward or start a new thread?)
(Um... I think we can just fast forward.)
Here it was. Five minutes away from eight and he was standing outside the address that had been given to him by the Chang brothers. His hands shook in their pockets as he leaned against the tree across the street. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and he projected his thought strongly toward Gabriel, hoping he would catch it. Knowing he would, even if he didn't deign to respond.
Then he pushed away from the tree without waiting for a response, starting up the path and to the front door. He hesitated for only a few seconds before he knocked, mouth dry.
Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the end.
In the house, J.D. was just finishing with getting everything ready for what they were about to do. And he prayed everything went well, otherwise they'd have a death on their hands.
Hearing the knock, Giovanni went and answered the door "Come in." He said and stepped aside to let Bongju in, "You're ready for this right? You're willing to take the consequences?"
Despite the conversation he was having with Gabriel, Bongju still nodded and entered through the door. He was ready. He was willing. He didn't understand what Gabriel hoped to change by bringing up monsters coming out of the fog. If they used to be people, what did that matter? Bongju used to be human once, too. Now look at him. Maybe it was meant as a warning that doing this might transcend him into something even further from being human.
Now that did give him pause. He felt like there was nothing to lose because he didn't care about dying. But... He lowered his head. But what did it matter? In all honesty, he couldn't imagine a fate worse than this.
"I'm ready."
The brothers nodded and J.D. handed him a drink, "This should numb you enough so you won't feel that much pain. I wanted to make this as painless as possible."
Giovanni sat back, "The spell he found calls for two celestials, and luckily there's two here even though one is a demon and the other an angel. It'll still work." He reassured him, "It should anyway."
"...it should?"
He was feeling less certain about this as it went on. Still, he took the drink and he quickly downed it. Painless. But there would be pain. Pain was better than the empty nothingness he felt for a century or more. There was a long space of time where nothing could touch him, no matter what he did. Now he waited for directions, waited for the spell to be cast. At the same time, he reached for the tendril of a link between himself and his celestial. Did the link even exist... or had he been holding onto a ghost the whole time?
It was a good thing that he was close by.
Out of sheer coincidence, Gabriel happened to be only a few blocks away from the address that Bongju gave him and he quickly took off down the street. The town was so small that there weren't many (if any) cabs roaming the streets, so hoping for one to appear in his hour of need was hoping for far too much.
He didn't know who these "Chang" brothers were but if they were tinkering with ancient magic so freely, then they were not to be trusted. The bond between celestials and yin wasn't easily severed. Gabriel would know--even when he took over this celestial's body, he couldn't completely break that connection. There were moments when the connection shivered but something still held Bongju to him no matter what he (or the master) did.
And if the master had no way to disconnect them completely, what could two mere supernatural beings do? Gabriel didn't think that either of them would possess the depth of knowledge to even begin plumbing the beginnings of magic like this.
Huffing and puffing, he ran as fast as he could down the street, nearly cannoning head-first into a car. Ignoring the driver's angry tirade, he crossed the street and darted around a corner, then down another block. Oak Lane. Third house from the left. He saw it and headed directly for it, banging on the door with a closed fist. Didn't matter if they thought he was crazy; as long as he was in time to stop Bongju from doing something stupid...
(Moving forward with this as it's been a while.)
Soon...
Soon, it would all be over for him. Oblivion would finally wrap its arms around him and close the world behind its curtains. There were no words for how exhausted Bongju had become. Searching for his lover for so long--that was tiresome enough. It was worse when he acted as if he barely recalled him and kept rebuffing him. How long could Bongju be expected to stalk him and follow him after finding him?
He couldn't keep playing this game. He felt it ripping him apart inside. It didn't even feel like Gabriel was connected at all. So long ago, he'd disappeared and severed their link. Yet here he was and the link that Bongju swore was torn apart was still there. It was ragged and frayed but somehow, it was there. Their link hurt, though. It was no longer the comfort it once was. It no longer felt like the warmth of belonging to somebody and having somebody to belong to him. No, now it was just pain. It was branded burn that wouldn't stop thumping with his heartbeat. Every beat hurt.
It was time now, to really sever it. For good. Forever.
Bongju closed his eyes and waited for the spell to begin but then he felt him. Closer. Close. Bongju's eyes opened and he abruptly sat up, eyes wild.
He could feel Bongju's pain but there was nothing that he could do about it--or with it. Not for lack of trying had Gabriel attempted to dissuade Bongju from doing something foolish but apparently the severing of the bond had ruined him both emotionally and mentally. And now here he was, desperately trying to find a way into the house, to stop whatever foolish magic those mortals were attempting to weave over Bongju.
When the door didn't open--despite his persistent knocking--Gabriel ran around the side of the house. He peeked in through a window, but saw only emptiness and darkness inside. He ran further, to the back, and pressed his face to another window. Through a narrow hallway he saw into another room, and then slight movement.
"Bongju!" Gabriel knocked on the window with his knuckles, hard enough to rattle the panes.
They weren't kidding when they said it might hurt. It felt like every single cell in his body was degenerating, disintegrating, dying. Maybe it will kill me, after all. Death had long been his companion, one that he flirted with, courted with, waited night and day for. Now, when it finally arrived before him, it felt like he had been thrown into the sun. Everything burned. Everything screamed. He could have sworn he heard screams but maybe it was all in his burning head.
He twitched, his fingers first, his neck second, trying to seek out the familiar voice calling to him. Revenge would have been so much sweeter. If only he could have found somebody to just make him pay for what he did. Yet he couldn't hold onto the resentment long enough to really do it, could he? That was the real curse of their bond; real and true hatred seemed impossible.
Bongju could barely even open his eyes to see where Gabriel was but he knew that he was close. Not just because he heard his voice but because he could feel him. Despite the terrible pain paroxysm that invaded his body, he could feel him. For some stupid reason, that made him smile. His eyes could barely stay open but they stung. And stupidly, he was smiling.
"...Gabriel..."
What could he do? The doors were locked and the windows were closed. Gabriel banged on the window again, hoping that the noise would at least distract whomever was inside, if not bring them to the door. He could feel the magic radiating from inside and it didn't feel right. It wasn't the sort of ancient, deep magic on par with the one which bound and tethered them together. It was superficial--it was wrong. It was the foolish kind of magic that only young witches would attempt.
"BONGJU!"
There was nothing to do but shout and bang on the window. Gabriel tried it; it was firmly closed and locked from the inside and unless he wanted to put a fist through a pane to unlatch it... Though he was getting desperate as he felt Bongju's life force flicker, he held out hope that someone in there would heed his cries and let him in. But as the seconds ticked by and as no one inside acknowledged him, Gabriel's desperation rose. Even if the one inside of him laid dormant, he still couldn't let Bongju throw his life away. Gabriel wasn't so far gone that he would stand idly by while someone allowed themselves to be consumed by forbidden magic. There had to be a better way.
"BONGJU! GET OUT OF THERE!"
How?
The word didn't even pass his lips. Everything was a red-orange violent haze. There were shadows in the fiery world engulfing him. They fluttered in a familiar way. Distantly, he could voices. Quiet voices, elated voices, teasing voices, worried voices, desperate voices, voices that broke. Gabriel. Bongju. A thousand different words, a hundred different conversations. Comfortable conversations, terse conversations, and then one-sided conversations. Only one voice.
Bongju tried to lift his hand to his head, as if that might stop the strange, fluttering visions.
He felt like he couldn't move anything. Everything was so heavy. Was he even in his body anymore? It felt like he had no control over anything, just chaotic flittering thoughts and memories trying to attach themselves to something that would reorder them into something that made sense.
I can't, he wanted to say. Something seemed to be holding him down. He wanted to laugh and to cry at once. Maybe he did. They said this could end unpleasantly for him. They weren't lying, were they?
Nothing. Despite his efforts no one came to investigate and he could feel the bond between them eroding and crumbling. But it wasn't a clean break; something was eating away at their connection, leaving Bongju to suffer and Gabriel... He was beyond the pangs of a merely mortal body but he could still feel Bongju's pain, and it was his pain, too.
Drastic measures were clearly needed here, and so he quickly shrugged off his jacket and wound it around one hand, forming a fist inside. With all of his strength, he punched at the pane in front of him. It hurt more than he thought, but it shattered with a violent noise. He felt the sharp edges of the glass as they scraped through the jacket; something poked through and scraped against the side of his hand, drawing warm blood.
Gabriel winced. He expected his fist to go through, so that he could unlatch the window, but it encountered something harder. Something invisible--a magical barrier. Bewildered, he felt around, ignoring the jagged glass all around his hand and wrist. The barrier was strong and held despite his probing and poking. Under his breath, Gabriel swore. It was obvious that the witches had thrown up the necessary precautions to prevent interruption and now he understood why no one had come to investigate his shouting and banging. They couldn't hear him inside; his efforts were in vain.
His heart thudded into the back of his throat. Bongju was fading fast. Time was running out. The only person he knew who could break through this was... The Master. But to call him here...
Madness used to creep up on him, in moments of clarity and deeply cut loneliness. Nobody except a yin and his master would ever know that kind of loneliness. It was as if a part of him had really been excised from him. There used to be this comfort, this love, this feeling of warmth and acceptance, there used to be another voice in his head, all the time. If he needed to reach out for him, it wouldn't matter how far away he was, they were bonded through their souls, on another level, in another existence. And that was the most beautiful and most comforting feeling in the world.
And without it, everything felt glaringly too real, too hard, gritty, bright. It was like they'd shared their sensory experiences and when they no longer did, it left all of it on Bongju. Yet he only experienced everything ugly. The world was disgusting. The colors were garish, the lights harsh, the voices grating. And worst of all, they were all laughing at him. They were confused by his actions, maybe a little afraid of them. The ravings of a madman tended to scare most people.
Now, madness would have been welcome to this... this ripping and rending, this tearing, this devouring feeling. It was the leftover tendrils of a bond too strong to be severed properly in the first place. And now those tendrils had strangled and tangled around Bongju... only to tear through him. There were no words, only emotions. For once, real terror. Agony.
This was what he wanted all along, was it not? He told them... he said to them that pain was okay. He was fine with death. Dead. He just... he needed to die. Why couldn't they hurry up and kill him? Why... why.... why was it taking so long...?
Gabriel's presence was still near but not near enough. Reaching out blindly, he felt for him, clawed for him. Gabriel!
There was no choice. Gabriel couldn't think of anything else that he could do to get Bongju out of the house, so he called him. The Master. There was an undercurrent of annoyance in the response that he received, but also interest. Gabriel felt it and he was relieved--it meant that the Master would come to investigate, and hopefully to save Bongju from the witches.
He waited anxiously outside, watching the shadowy figures in the house moving about. There were two, but neither of them were Bongju. Gabriel pressed his face against an unbroken window pane, peering hard into the dim interior as his heart raced into his throat. A noise behind him caused him to turn, just in time to see the air warping and the Master stepping forward.
"Where are they?" There was no preamble, no smalltalk. The Master's face--youthful, gentle--was jarring in comparison to his sharp tone.
"Inside." Gabriel kept his eyes low, head slightly bowed. He stepped aside as the Master walked toward the house and as if by magic, the back door flung itself open. The barrier inside shimmered, as though someone had struck it with a hammer, then abruptly shattered. Gabriel let out a swift breath of relief and followed the Master inside.
He could feel Bongju now, both his pain and his presence. It hit like a thunderbolt with the barrier down, the emotions and voices and a magic so strong that Gabriel was shocked that two simple witches had brought it all about. As the Master turned into what looked like a living room, Gabriel hurried down the hall, making a beeline for Bongju. He called out his name, each repetition more insistent. Gabriel shoved open a door and burst inside just in time to see a shadowy figure disappearing through another door at the opposite end of the room. No time for the witch, though; he ran to Bongju's side and knelt down by him, grasping onto a cold, clammy hand. "Bongju!"
All he wanted was to sever the connection.
Then he could quietly slip from the world, cut the cycle of madness and agony down before it went around again. Everything hurt but it wasn't just a physical pain. If that was all he had to deal with, he could have peacefully accepted it. Instead, it was coming from the core of his being, as if whatever made up the creature that was Ahn Bongju was being ripped apart. His soul. Whatever was left of it.
Gabriel's presence, so wraithlike only a second before, suddenly roared into the room and it brought with it a surge of pain but also awareness. Bongju opened his eyes and he could see him as he remembered him.
No... not quite. There was something off about him. But it was still him, somehow. Bongju stared up at him, bemused. Was he holding his hand?
"Ga...briel." He felt for it. Had it worked?
"You're okay now."
Gabriel clutched Bongju's hand, stroking a lock of hair from his forehead. Bongju felt clammy and cold and he could even see the sweat beading along his cheek and the side of his neck. But he was alive. At least he was still alive, and whatever foul magic the witches tried to perform on him was interrupted. Now only the Master's magic surrounded them, pushing back the witches' aura.
He looked over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps but no one came through the doorway. Gabriel let out a quick breath, more of a sigh than an exhale. "We need to get you out of here." It seemed silly to ask if Bongju could stand--not after that ordeal, he couldn't. After one more look over his shoulder, wary but watchful, Gabriel tried to pick Bongju up.
Why did it feel like he was burning alive from the inside but he was shivering at the same time? Gabriel. Gabriel was there, close by. Touching him, though just barely. He felt the brush of fingertips against his forehead. For a moment, relief coursed through him. It could be over now and forever and he would be content. Gabriel was here. Closing his eyes, he waited for the next phase of life, the passing, the change.
Whatever changed, however, wasn't what he expected.
As Gabriel went to lift him up, the points of contact burned. What's more, those points of contact seemed to burn more than anything had ever burned in his entire life. Even his death hadn't been so painful. He cried out, then choked on the cry, turning away from Gabriel and attempting to curl into himself. He felt like a leaf shriveling in a fire. Everything felt as if it turned to ashes from the outside in this time. His hands went to his head as some kind of devious whispering began to caress his ears, words that he couldn't make out or understand but wouldn't stop.
Bruising. Burning. The convulsions of Bongju's body made it so difficult to hold on that Gabriel almost dropped him. As it was, he just about unceremoniously dumped Bongju onto the ground, jerking back in obvious shock. It almost looked like... But it couldn't be, because no matter how weakly, they were still connected.
Weren't they?
The bruises, though, took on the shape of his fingers--the places where skin met skin. The pain was unbearable, even though Gabriel didn't see any bruising on his own body. Somehow only the pain transferred. He hastily stepped back, in case the proximity made things worse. Bongju looked bad but there was nothing that Gabriel knew to do to help him. Touching him was already a mistake.
"What's going on?" The Master's voice cut through his dumb surprise. Gabriel turned to see him walking into the room and stop to stare dispassionately at the figure by their feet. "What did they do to him?"
"...I don't know..."
No... No... Somehow, it had worked--and just when Gabriel came back for him. The realization utterly shattered what was left of his heart. This could have been the last attempt, this could have been the moment where they worked things out and Gabriel stopped shutting him out. But now, by body alone, it was Bongju shutting Gabriel out. No, this wasn't what he wanted. But he'd been so sure, hadn't he? He thought this was exactly what he wanted: to sever the bond. He just didn't want to survive the severing. Yet here he was, a burn roaring through his body, from deep within the core. It ripped through his heart and chest and exploded out of his lungs and down his legs, his arms. He felt suffocated by breath he didn't even need.
"Gabriel..." He tried to touch his fingertips to Gabriel's wrist to stop him from doing something, dropping him, leaving him. But no, he was dumped onto the ground, landing poorly because none of his limbs wanted to work properly. He reached again for Gabriel, for his hand, his wrist, his fingers to hold onto.
"...please..." Bongju held tighter, ignoring the pain that brought a sharp sting to the corners of his eyes. "...don't... leave me here." He turned his eyes on Gabriel, staring at him as if he could see into his mind again, as if they were still One. "Finish it. ...please."
What shoddy work. Ryan could almost see the last threads binding celestial to yin, as they frayed and severed. So this was what the foolish yin sought to do by coming here--and what the clumsy witches had attempted to do for him. They likely didn't know how to do it properly. Probably read it out of a magic book or something, like inept children trying out card tricks for the very first time.
Shaking his head at the pair, Ryan let out a small sigh. When he pulled his servant into this realm, a suitable body was needed. At the time he chose indiscriminately--a celestial happened to be passing by. The yin wasn't with him at the time and Ryan didn't check too closely to see if he was connected. Once the doppleganger assumed the celestial's form, he thought that that was the end of things.
This teenage drama unfolding before him wasn't in the plan.
"Move aside. If he wants to end it then--"
"No!" Gabriel's quick outburst caused Ryan to lift his brows in surprise. "No... Master, please. Save him. He-he could be useful to us."
"Oh?" Ryan's brows lifted further. "How so?"
"...we can tap into the ancient magic. He can... he can be the next vessel."
Ryan let the suggestion sink in. The next vessel... a yin? It was an intriguing thought. He had originally intended for the dragon to become the vessel--before things went South on that front, and he was forced to banish the dragon. But a yin... And already nearly unbound...
"Perhaps. How far are we from the library? We would have to be quick about it. I can only hold the djinn back for so long and the boy is tightly guarded by the witches..."
(Let's end this one here and merge with the Susu/Alva one in the library?)
(Sounds like a plan)