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epilogue: even if i have to hide behind a mask
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Hye-jin visits the town with the cute little bookstore, that's near the house that was supposed to be hers, and - tries to find some spark of enjoyment that she once had. Instead she stands in the place she first met Kang Jaeha, wondering how long was I even standing here? and whether it would be worth anything at all to ask him. The - him that wasn't the one who hurt her, but who is complicatedly still sharing some kind of scale with having been the person who tried his absolute hardest to ruin and then end her life. She doesn't cry, but only because she's in public and she already thinks someone's taking fucking pictures of her, and she's remembering the time someone (somewhere else) had the audacity to walk up to her and tell her that she's a stupid slut who deserved what she got because what else did she expect, jumping between esper partners so quickly. Jealousy's only human, after all.

Well. She didn't expect anything else to change, but she wanted to give herself a final shot, in case she had regrets. She does, of course, but - the house sale isn't going to be one of them. There's nothing for her in this town, anymore, except bad memories.

She doesn't last minute cancel the closing on the sale of the house nearby. Papers get signed, and she teleports... she's trying to call it home, in her head, but nowhere feels like that, really.

The S-rank fire esper quietly takes off her shoes, heads to the living room, and collapses on the couch to cry. She's not sure what about. There are so many options.

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...Hye-jin usually says "tadaima" when she arrives. Also, she does not usually start crying immediately, which is a thought he only has once he's close enough to hear that she's crying and which makes him rush the rest of the way to her much faster. He—doesn't know what's wrong nor whether hugging would be good or bad—so now he's hovering like an anxious bee. "Hye-jin-ah?"

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"... hi," she mumbles, from behind her knees. She's curled up into a little ball on the couch, arms wrapped around herself.

She doesn't try to explain. She doesn't know how to explain.

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"Hug or no hug?" because he has learned a thing or two about communicating.

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"... hug," she pronounces, between her quiet little sobs.

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Okay cool he can be a good boyfriend and sit next to her and wrap his arms around her and pet her soothingly and kiss her hair softly.

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Okay. Cool. Then she'll just sob on him for a while.

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"Is there anything I can do to help?" he murmurs. She might want to just be hugged, or she might want more than that, and he has, again, learned a thing or two about communication.

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"Quasar's still not giving me any dungeons to do," she says, because, because. It's the only thing that comes to mind as relevant. She doesn't know if there's anything anyone can do to help, really.

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...well, yeah, he knows, on account of how he's her partner. "Do you... want them to?"

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"I - they're probably right?? I'm - I'm so incredibly not okay, and I've bitten the heads off of three therapists so far, and I'm not okay and I don't know how to be but it's - it's the only thing I'm good at...!"

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"Hye-jin-ah, I think that may be your hell iPhone autocompleting," he says, gently.

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"I don't care!" she snaps, suddenly furious, pulling away from him. "That doesn't make it go away, that doesn't make my brain stop, it's just fucking - dismissing my feelings again and again and again and I, I'm, I'm fucking allowed to be dramatic without someone fucking spritzing me with a water bottle or some shit!"

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He winces. "I'm sorry." Don't take it personally. "I didn't mean to dismiss your feelings. I don't know what to do to help you. Would you like me to—tell you about the things you're good at? The things I like about you?"

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"I - I don't know. I don't have a map. I, just, I can't be okay, and I can't make friends, and I can't feel at home anywhere, and I can't get along with a single fucking therapist because I don't want to talk about any of the ways I've been fucked over by the world and all of the many ways I've failed at doing everything I set out to do except kill dungeons."

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"You're an intelligent, kind, passionate woman," he says, deciding to just Try Something and leaning over to her to pick her up in a bridal carry, "whom anyone would be lucky to befriend. I really, really like you." To the kitchen! "Finding a therapist that can work well with you is really difficult and not always the right choice, nor always the right time," or so he's heard. Now ice can be used to open the freezer and get two tubes of ice cream. "Strawberry or vanilla?"

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... sniffle.

"... Strawberry."

She is a massive crazy bitch and she doesn't deserve anyone being this nice to her anyway.

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Strawberry it is! "You're resourceful, adaptable, really good at knowing and enforcing your boundaries, really good at figuring out what you want and going for it. The underwater silo is beautiful, the decorating you've been doing of my place is really cute." Say aaah.

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Aaah.

Nom.

"Thank you," she mumbles, because she does have at least one manner inside her somewhere, even when she's - like this. "... they still don't feel like home, though," she then blurts, without knowing why.

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"Maybe a new place would help? One that's not a silo, so it's not inextricably tied to your job and—everything—nor my place, which." He does not need to finish this sentence and can instead keep feeding her ice cream.

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".... maybe," she agrees, between ice cream bites. "Thank you. Sorry I'm such a crazy bitch." Sniffle.

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"...I don't know if you want me to go into it but I want to leave it on the record that I object to your self-characterisation as such."

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She gives a watery giggle.

"I - don't know either. But I feel like one. A lot."

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"You shouldn't hold your pain and upset against yourself, nor expect that you'll be perfectly composed and calm and held together all the time. And if there's anyone who—signed up to deal and help you with times when you're hurting or lashing out—it's your boyfriend." NAILED IT.

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"I - yeah. I guess you did." Smile. "Thank you."

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"But that doesn't give me a free pass to just..." sigh. "But I don't know how to moderate between keeping everything bottled up and. Not. Do I."

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"Well, that's something therapy could help with."

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...aaaaaand he immediately put his foot in his mouth, didn't he. "I, I mean, no, I mean that it's—something that you—work on and—takes work and won't be done perfectly overnight and—"

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....

She gives a little snort, and reaches out to pet him.

"Yeah. If only I could leave any therapist I meet with their head intact! Hana's going to need to watch out, probably, we should warn oppa."

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"Hye-jin-ah... You shouldn't be mean to my girlfriend."

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Lean.

"Yeah. I'll - I'll try. Sorry."

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"It's okay." Pet pet and ice cream. "I really like you." He doesn't really get it, the way Westerns just say "I love you" like it's punctuation, but sometimes he does.

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"I really like you, too." She leans over and gives him a slightly chilly kiss.

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"... I'll hold off on maybe house hunting for now, I'm still... my relationship with the public is...." Wince.

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"...the public?"

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"Ehhn. I was better at handling it when it was all, like - heartbroken fujoshi fangirls who were very mad about my lack of a penis? I'm - less good at handling it when I've got people showing up pitying me. Or. Not pitying me, in some cases. I don't know, it's. Hard to go attempt to make non-esper friends when I'm a celebrity, and it's harder to manage it when I'm a celebrity that was involved in... stuff. And people are having feelings at me about that stuff."

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"...yeah. I—I'm sorry. I don't really... know... The only reason I have friends at all is that... my hyungnim wanted to keep me for some reason. I don't know how to make new ones."

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"Yeah. I - probably could manage it in Quasar, but I do still want relationships outside of my guild, but then on that topic I'm inevitably spiraling into 'well I sure have failed at blacklisting Quasar, too, haven't I' and." She shrugs and looks away. "I don't know. It's hard. I guess I can try and make friends online? Be properly anonymous?"

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"Yeah." How would he ever even go about getting friends outside the guild. Honestly if anything happened to his friendship with Woo-young he'd be fucked anyway, he's not totally sure he would be able to survive without him.

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"Yeah." She shuffles over to snuggle him properly. "Or maybe esper meetups in general? Go to the government mixer to make friends instead of shake hands?"

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"Oh, that's a good idea." Tae-gun low-key also doesn't really think friendships with non-espers are... super easy in general... due to how a lot of the context of your life is tied to being an esper and it's difficult to empathise with people... But then again maybe Tae-gun's bar for friendship is very high, in a sense, since he wouldn't see the point in having friends that are less close than his hyungnim and their partners.

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"Thank you. ... Yeah, that'd probably be good. Maybe be a proper sunbae for little baby espers who have just gotten through their awakening." She does sound cheered by this prospect, actually.

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"You'd be a great sunbae to them."

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"If I don't bite their heads off," says Hye-jin, ruefully.

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"Sorry, sorry, trying to be nice to your girlfriend, just." Sigh. "I'm such a fucking mess, is all. This crying session started over - oh, uh. I closed on the house. Went to a nice couple that were looking to start a family."

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"Oh. That's..." Think of a word. Any word. Maybe a sentence? "I can see how that'd be stressful." Right? Because Kang fucking Jaeha drove her away from the place she liked, and kind of ruined it for her.

Fuck that guy.

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Fuck that guy!

"Yeah. I - gave myself the chance to back out in case I had any leftover regrets, but." Sigh. "It was all just bad memories. I didn't get much chance to make any good ones."

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Pet pet pet. "We'll make new, good ones. I promise you."

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"Yeah." Lean. ".... I'm trying to see this as home, really, I just. It's hard, for some reason? With the underwater silo too, actually, though that one's mostly that it is inconvenient to get to and lacks internet access."

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"...it'd probably be a bad idea for, um, responsibility reasons or something for us to just get a new one together," right?

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"I mean we can, we have such stupid esper money, just. I don't know if that'll... fix it? I feel like the problem's with me, not the house."

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"No, I know, I mean it's—it could help? If it's new for both of us, if it's something we're building together, from scratch, rather than—you moving into my place."

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"Maybe. But I also don't want to throw you out of your home, and - I mean, I have been trying to settle in here, it'll be a pain to drag it all out and put it somewhere else again, you know? I wouldn't want to just do it to do it, I'd - want to find a new place to fall in love with."

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"Yeah. That's—yeah. ...you just looked so happy when you were talking about your new house, back then..."

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"Yeah. Yeah. I - I was." Sigh. Sniffle. "I'm still really sad about it, I. Might need time to grieve? That sounds so stupid, though..."

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"It's not stupid, Hye-jin-ah. It's not stupid at all." They're done with the ice cream so maybe they could go upstairs to their bedroom and Tae-gun could give her a massage.

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Mmmm she's feeling more like cuddles and a movie? If that's okay?

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Yeah that sounds great to him.

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Great. Thanks. She appreciates him, even if she's, you know. A bit bitey. (Sorry again about snapping.)

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He is her boyfriend. That means that he's there through both the good and the bad, and he's meant to support her. So he is going to keep doing that, for as long as she'll have him.