Work Text:
Hu Jia Hui had nothing but a single passing thought every time he finds himself in front of the mirror.
How utterly disgusting.
After waltzing on death's door for almost his entire life, finally escaping its grasp would at least be something to be grateful of. And yet, all he could feel was a sense of dread, looming behind his back replacing the position that was previously filled by 'death'.
Instead of the relief he thought would come once everything is over, this sense of unease that grows larger and larger for every beat of his heart suffocates him even further. At this point, it made him wonder if he was truly alive or not.
But that was just the reality of things when your entire life is now to be a puppet on a string, isn't it?
...
To him, death has always been something close.
Even from a young age, he had been told too many times about it, every day felt like waltzing around a thin line between life and death.
And before he knew it, he has long been accustomed to the hushed whispers of pity thrown around due to his heart condition, as if that was the only thing he got in himself.
But it's not like he could do anything about it.
Perhaps, all that he could do was to live alongside that unfortunate trait of his, while pursuing what interests him despite the chance of death's door being one step away. He was a realist, after all.
For him, all that matters were things within his grasp—things that weren't unreachable and uncertain.
In this ever-changing world, death was the only certain end for everything, after all.
...
That's what he had always believed, and yet...
Why is it that he chose to run away from it for one last time?
His heart was supposed to have long ceased beating, his letter adressed to a certain friend from High School in case of so was already delivered and is probably already read by him—providing a dose of realism to his rose-tinted worldview, the hospital room that had been his second home at this point was already emptied out—devoid from any signs of him ever existing there in the first place. In everyone's eyes, he was supposed to be dead.
And yet, here he is, walking down the streets of the ever-shining metropolis of Shanghai. Blending away amongst the passing crowd illuminated under the neon lights, outshining even the moon's reflection of the sun's rays.
Not like he could see the moon anyway, not in a sense of how a certain romanticist does.
Even on a moonless night, the metropolis kept on bustling as if it's eternally day. Chatters of bypassers in the sidewalk, the roar of engines zipping past the road, the clatters of cutleries and kitchenware in the restaurant by the streets... This is a city that never sleeps, where the city lights continues to shine on—to an extent of blinding everyone inside, even.
For realist like him, this glorious display of splendor was not to be romanticized.
The brighter the light are, the darker the shadows grow, after all.
Even strangers passing by might be an affiliate for a rival gang, there are pair of eyes everywhere vigilantly monitoring every step he take. Even without a clear evidence, he knew that wherever he goes, the mafia will never loosen up the claws digging through his skin.
He knew just how dark the shadows cast by that blinding light were, for he is a part of those who lurks inside it.
Reflexively stopping in his track, he reached for his pocket just a split second after he sensed even the slightest vibration of his phone, one late response and he might as well be as good as dead.
It seems like it's time for work.
...
Reminiscing the past were probably something he might consider "romanticized", but it seems like he himself had became a semi-romanticist at this point. Musing about ambitions and expectations of the past while reflecting on one's present, if this was the him from the past, he'd scoff at the concept immediately.
Aaah, what was his dream for the future again?
It was a honorable one, something in the line of saving people or the likes.
Just why did he come up with that? Perhaps it was only natural for a young boy to admire those who had been saving him from near-death-experiences in the past, to an extent of wanting to become one someday.
Snapping back to reality, he was greeted with the sight of scalpels and other instruments lined up neatly, reflecting the only source of light in the room. The faint smell of alcohol lingers in the air, trickling his nostril even when it was covered with a mask. Silence fills the room, enough to hear a pin drop. Contrary to how to the tools are supposed to be used, it was nothing but a weapon to harm others in his hand.
How ironic, instead of becoming a doctor to help people and save lives, the scalpel he wields signifies that he is a butcher who knows no mercy, precisely gutting the insides of a human clean. Emptying the cavity constructed of flesh from its viscera, all carefully according to the manual that had been ingrained inside his head ever since the day he sold his heart in exchange of another one.
It was a long, tedious, complicated—yet simple, silent murder. Where even the victim themself doesn't realize they've already become one.
Under the spotlight, all he could see were the pool of red, a grotesque scene intensified by the pungent smell of blood that grows thicker and thicker in the air as time progresses. The organs squirm inside the opened, freshly murdered body as his hands gently handled each of the valuable parts needed. A small flaw could besmirch the whole quality of the item, after all.
Even after he had experienced countless of these gruesome executions, beyond the smell of blood and the contrast between red and green, what he had never gotten into terms of were the guilt.
Even if he were to wash his hands, no matter how much he scrubbed, no matter all his rigorous efforts, even if his fingertips were to smell like the intoxicating isoprophyl alcohol he was sick on seeing every day, it will never cleanse his blood-sullied hands.
He remembered the day he plunged into this hellhole, the day he opened up his eyelid to an unfamiliar ceiling, wrapped in bandages unable to move as pain gradually creeps throughtout his chest while his freshly-conscious brain slowly processes its receptors' signal.
His first visitor was not a worried family member, nor a colleague hastily slamming the door open to say a cheesy one-liner about how much they've missed him, but rather a band of four cunning men congratulating him with a fabricated—yet sinister—smile enough to make him shudder.
The following days spent in recovery were already hellish by its own, but no matter how much he writhe and gritted his teeth due to the pain after the transplantation, all of it pales in comparison of what kind of hell lies beyond. At the end, the only thing he could give as an answer to that request was a hollow smile as a sign of obedience.
He needed a heart, and he received exactly what he wanted.
This was the only price that he had to pay for it.
On the first time he did his "Job", the moment he was out of their line of sight, he collapsed in his knees while his stomach turns upside down. The content of that day's half-digested meal spilled open while he looked at his trembling hands through his tear-clouded eyes.
Even with all his preparation, facing the reality—even as a self-proclaimed realist himself—was not an easy task.
It wasn't the blood, the blade cutting through flesh, nor the organs squirming in his hands, those were all something he's bound to come across even if he were to be a real doctor. It was the fact that he had just killed a human being. A person.
Someone.
The sinking realization made his jolt in guilt and disgust, his heart pounded at a rate he never thought he'll experience before with his former one. Continuing to live at the cost of other's life, it was something he thought only a scum not worth living would do.
But again, maybe he really is a scum not worth living.
From the parted, unbuttoned collar of his shirt, the scar on his chest peeks through. The healed tissues forming a line as if dividing his left and right body in two. It may be true that it's thanks to the heart transplant that he got to live up until this moment, but deep down he knew one thing.
This does not belong to him.
The very heart currently beating inside him was not his.
It belonged to someone. Someone.
He did not know their name nor met them, all he knew was that he had stolen something that belonged to them just to run away from death.
Whatever way the organization had gotten ahold of such product, it was definitely through a dirty one, as expected from an organization lurking in the black market. To add salt to the wound, he now partake on such act that had robbed the righteous owner of his heart's life.
Looking at the mirror in a dimly-lit bathroom, he felt like his face were obscured—all blurred out and fuzzy. What was reflected in the mirror was not the "Him" of the past, with his aspirations and goals.
All that was reflected was the figure of a man who had betrayed his hopes, dreams, and ambitions.
How utterly disgusting.
He had said multiple times that he had been aiming for something so noble and kind, to be able to save lives and be helpful to others and society as a whole, but here he is in the dark, unforgiving flipside of Shanghai's underworld.
Every tick of the clock, every beat of his heart, all of them serves a a reminder of how cowardly he is. How he wanted to jam a scalpel right through the dividing line of his chest and rip his heart open!
But of course, such musings were nothing more than impulsive thoughts he was too much of a coward to realize.
And so he kept on living.
As time goes, he began to feel like his heart really had gone numb. His hands weren't trembling anymore while holding the scalpel, nor he was wincing as the first sight of bright vermillion oozes forth and splattered into the green backdrop. His fingertips were cold, even in a midsummer night, and even if he were to scream, the metropolis will surely suffocate him before a single voice could be heard.
Today too, one out of 24.87 million has been swallowed by the shadows of the metropolis.
And even now, his hands remains bloodstained.
...
How long will this go on?
Being a high-ranking member, he certainly had a fair amount of freedom when compared to other puny subordinates, and his way of smooth-talking was just enough to win the trust of his 4 bosses, even with their different temperaments.
And yet, sleepless nights continued to chase him on his tails. All that's worth for his life was his usefulness in helping out making the world a worse place, one organ at a time.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
But even if he were to completely erase his presence and disappear into the crowd of 24.87 million person, the mafia will chase him until the end of the world—possibly until his demise—while utilizing their grassroot network and hundreds—if not thousands—of vigilant sharp eyes interpersed alongside unknowing citizens.
That's right, if he couldn't even run away from everything...
Then why not drive everyone away from this city instead?
In the dark of the night, he had came up with a plan as brilliant as the last character in his name. With this, he shall finally escape the suffocating grasps of the crows towering above the metropolis basked in neon lights and splendor.
It's time to nip the rotten bud, once and for all.
...
"I have an nice plan to get rid of that annoying Huang"
A thin smirk formed in his lips as the details of his plan was laid out. The next thing he knew, he had already hidden a bullet hole and a bloodstain inside one of his boss' private bedroom.
Not for licking his boots, nor for protection by one of them. There are more layers to his plans than the one he explained only he would know.
This is it.
From now on, this'll be the starting point of a gordian knot he'll create with his two bare hands, marking his first and last act of rebellion, a grandiose finale
in the making, the place of ∅.
And to ensure nothing'll remain out of the company's ruins, his fingers danced onto the buttons of his phone to draft a message to a certain romanticist. Ready to be sent once the time was right.
[I will be waiting at the place of ∅]