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It starts with a shiver, red lightning gripping his body from the inside until his knees hit the harsh floor.
"No, not again," Sicheng pleads. A second lightning strikes and he bends in half, shutting his eyes and pulling his hair with such force it hurts. But the pain is good. It helps him focus. "Go away!"
It doesn't go away. It never does. The merciless beast that has been tormenting him for the past year never listens, never reasons, only existing to devour Sicheng from the inside out.
His abandoned glass of water crashes to the floor when Sicheng throws an arm at the coffee table, the water seeping through his socks as he puts all his weight on it to pull himself up. The sting when he steps on a piece of glass goes almost unnoticed by him, diluted in the feeling of his flesh being ripped apart, his bones breaking, even if it's merely an illusion.
Erratic movements take him towards the bathroom, making him bump against the walls of his small apartment until his hand closes around the tap, and he doesn't waste a second before putting his head directly under the cold water. It falls down his neck and under his shirt, into his ears and eyes and nose but he doesn't care. He lets the water take control, he begs her to cleanse his tormented body, to banish the beast for good. He knows it won't happen. He knows the beast will dig its claws into him and tear his guts until he drowns in his own blood and wakes up in ruins again.
"Go away… please, go away."
A third lightning takes hold of him, mocking him. It makes Sicheng gasp and he chokes on water, his knees going weak once more and threatening to give in, the sink slippery when he holds onto it to stand up and look at himself in the mirror, and he screams. His image blurs in front of him, it flickers between him and a pair of red, hungry eyes, a frame double his size and covered in shadows, a stomach lined with pointed teeth that make way to a dark and endless pit. Sicheng screams, and the next thing he knows is that the lightning inside of him runs through his arm until his fist meets his reflection, cracking the mirror in half.
He freezes. His breath escapes him in frightened stutters, water dripping from his hair and kissing the goosebumps on his neck. His reflection stares back at him — fragmented, but his own.
It's gone.
His body finally gives in, dragging him towards the cold tiles and curling in on itself as it shakes off the last remnants of fear. The last thing Sicheng sees before passing out is the blood that slips between his knuckles and drips on the white floor.
It's one in the morning now. The beast hasn't come back after the mirror incident, but he can feel it getting closer again, lurking behind his back, breathing down his neck with a sardonic laugh.
Why are you doing this? Sicheng runs his thumb over his swollen knuckles, ripping off the dry skin of his lips with his teeth. What do you want? He can almost hear its low laugh again, an echo of an echo inside his head.
He's been staring at the TV screen for the past two hours, trying to numb his mind with the colors and sounds and distract himself from the fact that his legs haven't stopped shaking.
It's been like this all week. His body temperature has been low due to the lack of sleep he's been getting, his brain under the constant influence of caffeine so that he doesn't collapse at work. He doesn't believe he's formed a coherent thought in days. He's pissed off all the time, and tired. So tired.
But he can't let his guard down. He knows the beast will return, because he's angry, and it's harder to keep the beast in check when he's feeling that way. It's as if it's waiting for him to crack. To let it take over him, once and for all.
He hasn't talked about it with anyone. He doesn't know what it is, or why it decides to torment him. He's only seen its true form a couple of times — a glance at the mirror, a reflection in his glass of water. And it always has that starved, unhinged look in its eyes. But there's something else, too, something that makes Sicheng want to look away every time. The beast knows. It looks at him as if it knows something about Sicheng, something so buried within himself that it scares him to the very core. And it's waiting.
He needs to distract himself. The TV isn't enough, and it feels like the apartment walls are closing in on him with every minute that passes. He needs something mundane, something mechanical.
The Spring breeze can't be as cold as Sicheng is perceiving it, he knows this, but he still stuffs his hands in the pocket of his hoodie as he makes his way to the laundromat. He had found the place during one of his midnight strolls, a twenty-four-seven laundromat for all the weirdos and night owls. He's been there enough times to already be familiar with the usual junkies and goths, their acquaintance never going beyond a non-compromising nod. Sicheng likes the place. It’s always quiet save for the calming sounds of the washing machines, bathed in a pink neon light that makes it all look like a setting straight out of a science fiction movie, and tonight isn't any different.
One quick glance lets him know the laundromat is empty, even though one of the machines is in motion. He lets out a long breath as he goes through the washing routine, his hands moving almost by their own accord, guided by the habit of having done the exact same thing a thousand times. It's utterly mundane and mechanical, just what Sicheng was looking for, but his nerves are still tensed up like thin wire, his neck rigid.
Once his machine is in motion he sits on the bench in front of it, gripping the edge until his injured knuckles start aching. Maybe if he stays very still, if he stops thinking and feeling, the beast will leave him alone. So, he just stares at the machine, hypnotizing himself with the cyclic movement of his clothes as they dance with the water then get lost in a sea of shiny bubbles. He doesn't know how much time passes. He's too tired to have a grip on time, on anything that isn't the machine in front of him, turning and turning and turning—
"It won't go any faster if you keep staring at it, you know."
Sicheng almost falls off the bench. He had thought he was alone — he was alone — but when he turns to the far corner of the laundromat he discovers there's someone else with him. His brain only gets to process purple hair and eyeliner before he composes himself enough to speak. "Sorry?"
"You've been staring at it for the past ten minutes."
Sicheng blinks. He knows that can't be true, because the guy who's sitting on the floor next to the only other functioning machine hasn't been there for the past ten minutes, even if he looks comfortable enough, a book held open against his knee and his body practically swallowed by his oversized clothing. He couldn't have been there all this time, because Sicheng would have seen him. But he's too tired to argue about it, so he decides to ignore him.
A couple of minutes pass, or maybe just seconds, Sicheng wouldn't know, before the guy speaks again. "Haven't seen you around before."
Sicheng lets out a long sigh as he turns towards him again. He's too tired for this shit. The guy has closed his book, and he's looking right at Sicheng while he plays with the pink crystal that hangs from one of his necklaces.
"I come here all the time," Sicheng says.
"That's strange." His purple hair falls on his eyes as he tilts his head to the side, and Sicheng expects him to say something else, but he doesn't. It unnerves him. It feels incomplete, and he hates when people say things halfway so that you ask for the rest. But, again, he's too tired to argue about it.
"What is?"
"I come here all the time, too." The guy shrugs and that's it, he goes back to his book as if that hadn't been a completely pointless conversation.
Sicheng looks back at the washing machine. More time passes and the guy turns the pages of his book just once, so either Sicheng is gradually losing his mind and every minute feels like a whole hour or the guy is a terribly slow reader. Or maybe he’s doing it on purpose. Maybe he’s not even reading. Sicheng turns towards him again, and he finds a pair of black eyes looking right at him.
" Jesus, ” Sicheng wheezes, taking a hand to his chest, "are you trying to freak me out?"
"I didn't do anything."
"You were staring at me."
"No, you were staring at me."
Sicheng raises his eyebrows, mouth opening and closing as he struggles to find something coherent to say, but the guy isn't being coherent at all so what on earth could he possibly say? He shakes his head instead, hoping that his face provides enough information for the guy to know that he is way too tired for this shit.
"I'm Yuta, by the way," the guy says. The neon pink lights bounce off the shiny machines behind him, making him look like the product of a hallucination. Maybe Sicheng is hallucinating.
"I didn't ask."
"Are you sure?"
"Am I sure of what?"
"Are you sure you didn't ask?"
Sicheng breathes in and rubs his eyes, growing exasperated. The guy is probably on drugs. God, he's so tired. "Fine, whatever, I asked. Nice meeting you, I guess."
"Likewise."
He does that thing again. He leaves the conversation there and goes back to his stupid book, and it drives Sicheng insane. "Aren't you gonna ask for my name?"
The guy, Yuta, raises his head slowly, as if savoring every second he leaves Sicheng hanging. His eyes travel all the length of Sicheng's body, scanning him, and Sicheng should be creeped out by it but he isn't, probably because he hasn't slept in three days. "What if I guess?"
"It's Sicheng," he says before the conversation can get any more surreal, and Yuta smiles, as if he had been expecting him to say that. What the hell. "What's with you? Are you on something?"
"Would you still talk with me if I said I was?"
Sicheng sighs, "Nevermind."
"I'm not. You seem a bit off, though."
"I am completely sober." Sicheng hesitates for a moment before adding, "I haven't slept in three days."
Yuta nods, grabbing another of his necklaces, this time a translucent crystal, to play with it. Sicheng notices his nails are painted black, a bit chapped on the edges. "I come here when I can't sleep, too. They don't have the radio on like most laundromats, so it's nice."
It's about the first thing Yuta says that doesn't sound completely crazy, and Sicheng finds himself relaxing a bit. "Yeah, that's what I always say."
"I've never been here during the day, though. Maybe they have the radio on during the day."
"I wouldn't know."
Yuta's machine stops turning with a loud beep! and Sicheng watches as he passes his wet clothes to the dryer. It's mostly white and purple clothes but Sicheng shouldn't be looking at a stranger's laundry.
"That doesn't look good," Yuta says. He's looking at Sicheng's hand. Sicheng wonders if he would mind telling Yuta that he got it from punching a mirror. The guy would probably find it amusing.
"It's fine," Sicheng simply says, tracing a finger over the scratched skin. "Nothing time can't heal. Unless those magic stones you've got can accelerate the process." He gestures to the crystals Yuta was playing with earlier, and this one laughs.
"Wouldn't that be easy."
It's not quite a joke, but not quite a real question, either, so Sicheng just stays silent as Yuta finishes with the dryer settings. His own clothes should be about to be ready too, probably. Sicheng can't tell.
Yuta's dryer starts working, and he claps his hands together before turning to him, "Wanna go for a walk, then?"
He says it as if they’d previously agreed on hanging out and it’s so out of left field Sicheng can almost hear his brain whirring. Or maybe it’s just the machines. “We don’t know each other.”
Yuta’s eyes are really dark, shiny and dark, and they would probably intimidate him if he hadn’t seen a more frightening pair in the mirror earlier. They stay on Sicheng for a while and then he shrugs, going back to his spot on the floor and opening his book where he left it.
He doesn’t insist. Why doesn’t he insist? Maybe it’s a good thing — Sicheng has always hated pushers. Of course it's a good thing.
Silence takes over the laundromat once more. His clothes keep turning and turning and Sicheng gets lost in the motion again, the corners of his vision shining in blurred neon pink, listening to the sound of Yuta turning the pages of his book in intervals that drag for too long. He can still feel the humming of the beast in his chest, a hungry reverberation that makes his bones rattle. He's so tired of it, so tired of wanting to crawl out of his own skin. He wishes he was a stupid, mindless bird, not having to worry about anything other than survival. When had it become more than just survival?
His machine beeps, and Sicheng stands up immediately. He was thinking too much again, and thinking made him angry, and if he was angry it would be easier for the beast to take over.
Mundane, mechanical…
The door of the dryer makes a satisfying click when he closes it. He waits for the machine to start working before turning to Yuta, "Let's go for that walk."
The streets are empty and still humid from an earlier rain, the Spring breeze making Sicheng hide his hands in his pockets again. He wonders if Yuta is cold with just a t-shirt, even if it's big enough that the sleeves reach his elbows. But he probably isn't as sleep deprived as Sicheng, his body temperature was surely healthier. Why is he thinking about some stranger's body heat?
"What's your book about?" he asks instead, going for a safer conversation topic. Yuta hands it to him without saying anything, because apparently there are no easy answers when it comes to him, and Sicheng's gaze lingers just a moment on his various silver rings before taking it.
As expected, it's not an ordinary book. Years of use have made the pages yellow, the black cover split by lines like a dry leaf, an old, flattened flower used as a bookmark. Sicheng furrows his eyebrows as he struggles to read the title, thinking his sleep deprivation is making his mind slow. "Is this latin?"
"Most of it."
"What does that even mean?"
"Take a look inside."
Sicheng does, and, well — it really isn't an ordinary book. It's not very thick, must be less than a hundred pages, but each one of them is covered from top to bottom in words Sicheng can't understand, groups of paragraphs centered in the middle of the pages. He recognizes the latin paragraphs, always on the left, but the characters on the right are something he's never seen before. They almost look like drawings instead of words.
"What is this language?" Sicheng asks, trying not to trip over his feet as he keeps on walking with his eyes glued to the book.
"It's very ancient, I'm still learning how to read it."
"Oh," Sicheng nods, admiring the ink illustrations of plants and nightmarish creatures that go with each block of paragraph, "that's why you were reading so slowly."
Yuta laughs, a clear and unexpected sound that makes Sicheng look back at him, "Told you, you were staring at me."
"I wasn't."
"Not with your eyes."
What a guy. Sicheng gives him back his book, trying to offer no reaction to the knowing grin that's on Yuta's face, "What if I told you I have four eyes, two black and two red?"
"Then I would remind you that you haven't slept in three days."
"Fair enough."
"I don't think sleep is what you need, though." Yuta doesn't elaborate. He doesn't sound playful about it but Sicheng still finds himself kind of thrown.
Maybe this isn't an innocent walk. Sicheng gives Yuta an inconspicuous glance. He's always had a thing for guys with dyed hair. And he can't deny he’s fairly attractive, even if his personality is a bit out there, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing—
"We should go to the park," Yuta says, his words running over Sicheng's thoughts and turning them into dust. Alright.
"Isn't it damp? It rained earlier."
"It probably is."
He doesn't insist, so Sicheng accepts.
The grass is damp, and it makes odd sounds under their feet as they venture into the park. It's so dark Sicheng almost trips over a fallen branch, and he vaguely wonders if it's a sensible decision to be alone with a guy he doesn't know in such a deserted place. He voices this thought, just to see Yuta's reaction.
"What could I possibly do to you?" this one says with amusement, "You just told me you have two pairs of eyes."
"You're right. Maybe I'm more of a danger to you than you are to me."
Yuta smiles silently, brushing his purple fringe out of his eyes. Sicheng only tears his eyes off him because he catches a passing figure a few meters away from them, an old and bony lady walking her dog. It's a white Afghan Hound, and its fur sways with every movement it makes as it runs freely over the hills, making it look like a graceful phantom. When the lady catches sight of them she turns around, walking in the opposite direction, and her dog follows until they both merge into the darkness.
"I've never liked dogs," Sicheng says. He doesn't get an answer, and when he turns he sees that Yuta isn't by his side but crouching next to some bushes by the stone benches. He goes to him, already regretting the decision to go to the park as he feels the itchy dampness of the vegetation cling to his neck. "I've never liked dogs."
"I heard you the first time."
"Oh."
Yuta’s black nails trail along the stem of a lavender, and Sicheng thinks he hears him mumble something before cutting it with his fingers and passing it on to him, “Could you watch this for me?”
Sicheng grabs the flower, no questions asked. Yuta is probably dying for him to ask. The odd, mysterious guy who reads poetry in dead languages and talks to plants. Sicheng isn’t gonna fall for that.
It’s not even a nice flower. Actually, it’s pretty much ruined because of the rain. He says this to Yuta.
“I didn’t choose it for being pretty,” he says as he goes to another bush, Sicheng close behind. “As for the rain, think of it as a cleansing.”
Cleansing. Sicheng looks back at the flower, spinning the stem between his fingers and making one of the petals fall off with the movement. It looked ruined to him. “I don’t really like lavenders.”
“Nor dogs, how charming.” Yuta looks up at him. The light from one of the lampposts brightens the side smile that appears on his face, and it makes Sicheng feel like he just got punched in the stomach, “You’re brimming with life, aren’t you?”
Sicheng breathes out a laugh as he looks away, “It’s just… I grew up surrounded by them. They sprouted everywhere, always finding a way through the cracks in the backyard and making the cats sneeze, it made me sick. My mom loved them, but my father—”
Sicheng’s voice dies in his throat. He stays with his mouth open for just a moment before closing it for good, securing the words inside of him. Those words aren’t going anywhere. Not tonight, not to a stranger. Not after a whole year of them slowly turning into dry, wrinkled leaves.
He can almost feel a spark of lightning running through his spine, red, hungry, the low laugh of the beast making the hairs on his neck stand one by one like frightened insects. Would the beast dare show its face in public? Should Sicheng let it take over, be done with it already?
He hears a hushed sound and turns to find Yuta standing next to him, the breeze making his hair brush over his expectant eyes. He doesn't say anything. He just waits.
And then, he feels it. Something humid, slipping between his fingers. “Oh, no,” Sicheng says with a wince, looking down at his hand, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise.”
He hadn’t realised he had closed his fist, nor that he had trapped the fragile lavender inside it until it decomposed into lilac pieces and sticky liquid. He’s about to clean his hand on his hoodie when Yuta places a hand on his arm. He doesn’t look mad about it. He doesn’t look like anything. His face is completely stoic, and they stay like that for such a long time Sicheng wonders if Yuta has turned him into stone, a statue left for the grass to creep up his ankles and the bugs to nest in his stomach. But he still feels the faded, pungent sting on his swollen knuckles, the pain awakened after having crushed the flower in his hand.
“You’re not aligned, are you?” Yuta says, tilting his head to the side. “Haven’t been in a while.”
Sicheng just looks at him, the sound of crickets and leaves carried by the wind drowning his ears in white noise. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He shakes his head, tries again, “Not aligned?”
“Why don't we sit?"
Sicheng barely registers his legs moving as Yuta guides him to one of the stone benches, the lights around them suddenly feeling too harsh on his eyes, the goosebumps on his arms rising and falling in slow waves that threaten to suck in anyone who steps too close. Sicheng knows he himself is lost in them, engaged in an infinite battle with the beast as they both use the other one to stay afloat. "What do you mean with not aligned?" he asks again.
Maybe Yuta's eyes are intimidating. Just like the beast's, they seem to hold dangerous knowledge within them, the kind of knowledge that makes Sicheng want to look away out of fear, or shame. But then Yuta's gaze changes, it softens just enough for Sicheng to keep on looking.
He's so tired. He feels like he could fall asleep only by staying like this, the world hazy around him, the intermittent sound of bugs bumping against the lampposts fading as it reaches his ears. The black inside Yuta's irises begins to swirl and Sicheng blinks heavily. It stops, then it starts swirling again.
"What are you doing?" Sicheng asks, or maybe he just thinks it, or maybe not even that. He blinks again and looks down at his hand, swollen knuckles now bandaged with a big green leaf and held in place by Yuta's black nails, the itchy liquid from the broken lavender still slipping through his fingers. When did this happen? How much time have they been like this?
Yuta traces the leaf with his thumb and Sicheng's whole body rattles, red lightning twisting around his insides, the stinging needles of fear already ripping through his throat.
"It's okay," Yuta says. Sicheng looks up again. He doesn't see the park anymore, nor the bushes, nor the lampposts. It's just Yuta and his purple hair, surrounded by darkness. "You don't have to be afraid of it. It won't hurt you unless you let it."
What? Sicheng thinks. He can't speak. The beast is taking hold of him, he knows, gripping his throat with an iron grip that won't let anything out. How did you know…?
"The red eyes," Yuta says, "they've been on me since we were at the laundromat."
Sicheng shakes his head, shuts his eyes closed, I don't understand.
Something warm cuts from his eyes and down his cheeks, and Sicheng realizes he's crying. Why is he crying?
He opens his eyes again, and his heart leaps to his throat. Yuta's eyes aren't black anymore. They are bright, vibrant neon pink.
Sicheng flinches, closes his eyes and opens them again, but he's not imagining it. Yuta's eyes are drowning in pink as he mumbles something, his voice low and smooth as it envelops Sicheng like a comforting lullaby. He feels his eyelids falling and blinks them open again, allowing himself to be flooded by the fluorescent light that’s also seeping through Yuta's fingers and around Sicheng's hand in pink threads, twisting and twisting and twisting.
"You're not like him," Yuta says. "You have to let it in."
The beast's hands grip Sicheng's ribs from the inside, shaking his chest like a cage, stretching his bones, forcing them apart. He can feel its claws scratching his flesh, starting to dig its way out. It's a hot, sharp pain, and Sicheng takes his free hand to his stomach as he bends in half.
It's a bad decision. The smell of the lavender meets him and he chokes, repressing a gag. More tears come down as he shuts his eyes closed again, forcing them back in, but the smell is inescapable — once he breathes it in it travels up his nose and straight to his eyelids, projecting images he doesn't want to see, digging them up from under the layers of rotten, worm-infested dirt that have been piling up since Sicheng last visited his hometown, his old house, the backyard filled with cracks between which lavender plants have always grown.
The beast laughs a red, manic laugh, remembering too the moment they first met, when it disentangled from the shape of his dying father to cling to Sicheng and never let go. His father, who had been possessed by irrational outbursts ever since Sicheng could remember, who seemed to be always fragmented, who had to live with the curse of the beast until he let out his very last breath. Sicheng had always sensed the way the beast took over him, but a year ago he saw its form for the first time, its eyes shining in red as they stared back at him from his own reflection in the mirror. The curse, irredeemably passed on to him.
"I can't let it take over," Sicheng manages to say, closing his injured fist so hard he feels his knuckles burn.
Yuta's hands are firm but gentle as he grabs his, holding the leaf around it while the threads of pink light keep flowing through his fingers. His eyes are still incredibly bright. Sicheng wants to drown in them, let them take away the fear, the pain, even if he has to give up his body and live as a wandering spirit in the infinity of them forever. "In order to control it, you have to accept it."
He doesn't want to accept it. He can't let the beast be a part of him.
"It's already a part of you."
Sicheng feels his eyes closing again and he shakes his head furiously. He's so tired, so sick of having to live with fear. Angry tears fall down his face and he brushes them off, ashamed of looking so vulnerable in front of a stranger.
"You don't have to be ashamed," Yuta says. His voice is so soothing Sicheng wants to crawl over the grass and curl in on himself until he falls asleep. And he does, somehow. The world gets hazy for one moment, and in the next moment, he's lying on the ground, grass scratching his neck, ants making their way underneath his clothes. Yuta is sitting next to him, still holding his hand, and inside of him Sicheng feels the beast punching his ribcage one, two, three times — and Sicheng lets go.
It's Hell. He barely hears the laughter of the beast, too focused on the lightning that is making his whole body shake uncontrollably. He can feel the beast's arms, the beast’s legs, stretching over Sicheng's own as it claims his body limb by limb, human blood merging with the dark, putrid liquid that fuels it. He doesn't need to look at his reflection to know his eyes are already burning red, hungry and disorbited with the energy of the beast.
Yuta’s hands are still holding his, and suddenly Sicheng is afraid. He wants to tell him to run, to get away from whatever his whole being is transforming into. But words fail him, they wrap their strong arms around Sicheng’s teeth and he only lets out a lamented wail. The sky is so terrifyingly big above him, dark and moonless, weighing down on him like a mirror to the pit that is opening in his stomach, and Sicheng can do nothing but stare right at it.
You’re not like him, Yuta had said, echoing the words his mother had told him the first time the beast took over him. He’s not his father's impulsiveness, nor his empty apologies, nor his repeated misbehaviours. But if he’s not like him, why had the beast chosen him?
Sicheng closes his eyes, shutting everything out, begging for the earth underneath him to open up and swallow him whole, for the worms to fest on his flesh until he’s nothing but meaningless bones. Bones that can finally get some rest, not having to worry about any of this. And with this thought, just like the stubborn lavenders, the claws of the beast crack through the last of Sicheng’s resistance towards their freedom.
But then Sicheng remembers something. He remembers the machines, left forgotten and still in motion, turning clothes in their stomachs. He remembers Yuta’s stupid book and the dry flower he uses as a bookmark, and how Sicheng didn’t get to ask him what the book was really about, nor what language it was, nor what it sounded like. It’s all left halfway, and Sicheng hates it when things are left halfway.
It’s a simple, mundane thought, but enough to work as a shimmering thread that stretches towards him from the obscurity that clouds his mind — and Sicheng pulls.
He doesn’t get to hear the agonizing beast as it comes face to face with Sicheng’s hidden strength. He doesn’t even register the way his limbs contract one last time before letting go, nor the pain in his back for having been laying on a harsh surface for so long. Because when he finally opens his eyes the only thing he sees, and feels, and breathes, is his whole world turned into bright, neon pink.