hold me 𐦍 yeonbin

053 ᯓᡣ𐭩

Yeonjun does not have to see past the walls of the house to know exactly where the man with fake eyes sits.

Anticipation. Underlying dread.

It is the most Yeonjun has ever heard from his heart. He had become accustomed to the tunes of humans hearts and knows that a doctor like the man with fake eyes has a heart that does not sing. It drones. It buzzes. The buzzing spikes occasionally, and that is when Yeonjun can identify what he’s feeling.

The road on which Siyeon stopped driving continues perpendicular to the structure housing the man with fake eyes. There are other houses, similar in size and color, and they are vacant. Siyeon said Yeonjun would feel an eerie quiet where they were going. Aside from the tall trees bordering each dwelling and short, dying grass in front of them, the entire road lacks color. There are no birds, no rodents, no Terra fauna in the area.

“How many humans do you hear?” Siyeon asks as she watches the human standing unmoving next to a door guarding the man with fake eyes. 

Yeonjun counts the heartbeats. Two humans are bored and agitated. They share a similar tune. One of the humans, the one standing outside the house between Yeonjun and the man with fake eyes, is alert. That human does not want to be here, however, they feel a sense of duty. There is another human inside the house coming from the same location as the man with fake eyes. They are angry. Yeonjun cannot decipher at whom the anger is directed.

“There are four humans.”

“Are you sure?” Siyeon asks.

“Four humans and one doctor.”

“Ah, right.” Siyeon turns to Yeonjun, hands dropping from the circle that guides the car. “I guess Soobin never told you.”

“Told me what?”

“All doctors are humans.”

“Yes, different breeds.”

“No, Yeonjun. This is important. Not all doctors are like Yoon. The scientists in the operating room ran on a different set of morals.”

Yeonjun shifts in his seat and faces the window, uncomfortable with the notion that any human could be a doctor and he wouldn’t know it. He tightens his wings around his waist under his sweater for comfort. They wrap around his torso twice, adding bulk to the fabric. It is the best solution he and Siyeon came up with to hide them.

“Are you ready?” Siyeon asks, even though she knows the answer.

According to their plan, Yeonjun will oversee everything except the final spell which Siyeon will use on the man with fake eyes as to not waste what little dust she brought with her and not deplete Yeonjun of his.

From the front seat of Soobin’s car, Yeonjun sends a cloud of crimson through the microscopic cracks between the window and the door that seeps into the street and follows his instructions, slithering like a snake up the stone path at the end of which stands the first unexpecting human.

“Can I kill it?” Yeonjun asks.

Siyeon sighs. Disappointment. “No. Only because you won’t be able to lie to Soobin and tell him it was just one if he asks.”

Yeonjun scowls. He was starting to get a rush from the prospect of killing his first human. Something lingers with him from Taehyun’s teachings—an itch to destroy humanity after hearing about and experiencing the atrocities of which they are capable. He will have to learn to ignore it if he wants to live harmoniously on Terra, because he has no choice.

“You can hurt it,” Siyeon says. “Just make sure it doesn’t bleed. We need his hired men unconscious, not dead.”

The most efficient way to immobilize a human with his dust is by clogging their lungs until they pass out from lack of oxygen. After the human at the end of the stone path falls to their knees, eyes rolled back in their head, Yeonjun sends the red dust to the opposite end of the road where the other two humans hide in their own car.