Chapter Text
Mizi was the only one left.
Mizi was the only one left because all of her friends were dead.
They were dead.
They were dead, they were dead, they were dead.
Had it not been enough that her Sua had been taken from her? That she would never get to tangle lithe fingers among her own like twine? That teeth would never again clink together in a smiling kiss?
She'd always thought that her punishment for not being able to love sweetly was to be trapped outside of Sua, to never be small enough to crawl into her thoracic cavity and make a home inside of her.
But no, that wasn't it. The punishment was so much worse. Sua had laid down her life for the wrong person, the universe must've known as well as she did that the sacrafice was wasted on Mizi, that she was completely and utterly undeserving of any kind of love.
Now she knew the truth, her punishment hadn't even just been to lose Sua, it had been to lose everyone she had ever cared for.
All of her friends; Ivan, Till, Hyuna. She would never have anyone to talk to about her childhood in the gardens who really understood, no one who really remembered it all in the same way that she did, no one but her who truly remembered Sua as she had been in private.
She had known it would happen, thought she'd resigned herself to it, thought she'd cried out all of her feelings, sitting in bed in the rebellion's quarters, but now Hyuna, the one who'd consoled her back then, was dead too.
Hyuna was dead because of Luka. Luka who'd disrespected Sua's image, Luka who was the reason Till was lying prone, just a few meters away.
Luka who was on the floor, clinging to someone who Mizi wished was alive in his stead, eyes wide, sobbing loud and babyish, like a kid begging for attention. Why did he think out of anyone here that he was the one who was allowed to cry?
He wasn't even looking at Hyuna, staring into space like there was something much more important to be seen far, far way. She'd make him look, Mizi decided, she'd get him on the floor so he'd have to be eye to eye with what he'd done.
Then she noticed it, she'd almost missed it in her grief as she stormed over, fists clenched.
Luka's cyanotic fingers were encased in Hyuna's slowly paling hand, like she'd been holding tight to it in her last moments, like she'd taken the bullet not just because she was Hyuna and she was a good person but because Luka was someone who meant something to her.
Hyuna had told her something, a couple of nights prior, when Mizi was weeping again, she said she knew what it was like to feel like no one could understand, that she'd lost someone too, that she had loved someone who couldn't comprehend what loss even meant.
Mizi stood in front of them for a moment, in front of Hyuna's body and the someone that she'd loved, digging crescents into her palms, casting a shadow over them that Luka didn't seem to notice, watching him sob as he clumsily unfurled Hyuna's fingers one by one, like he was counting them, making sure that all of them were still there, as if having ten fingers would make her any more alive.
Mizi's body shook with the desire to punch or kick or hurt with her words, but it wasn't because she was mad at Luka, not anymore, now it was because the scene reminded her much too much of herself and Sua, because, even though Luka resembled Sua at certain angles, in this picture he looked much too much like Mizi.
The person who she was angry at was herself, deep down she knew that, so she restrained herself, pinching her arm and screwing her face up.
After a long pause Mizi managed to tear her eyes away from them. It was so, so hard not to just take out her frustrations, but, she needed to control her impulses, she'd learned that, over and over again, be practical, save her emotions for when falling apart was safe. What would someone less emotional do? What would Hyuna do? What would Sua do?
Her gaze flitted from the flames, to the soldiers and landed on Till.
She raced to his still body, ripping the hood off of her coat and wrapping it around his lacerated neck and the metal melded into it, like a scarf, a delusional attempt to stem the bleeding or just a way to conceal the gore. After that she hooked her arms underneath his shoulders, clenching her teeth, trying to lift him out, to drag him away from the flames, to do something useful, it didn't matter if he was dead, she was bringing his body with her.
She couldn't do it, he was bigger and taller than her and his limbs splayed everywhere, making it difficult to manoeuvre him, blood spilling from his neck in a way that made it difficult for her to support his head without it slipping.
'You're okay, I've got him.' Interrupted someone, she looked up, Isaac, she recognised him, Mizi hadn't known him long but she'd known he had been Hyuna's friend.
He had tears in his eyes but a determined set to his brow as he lifted Till onto his back, carefully.
Carefully. It was nice to see someone being careful with one of her friends for once, even if he wasn’t moving.
Till, or what remained of him, was out, okay, what could she do now?
She begrudgingly returned her focus to the mess on the edge of the stage, noticing flames lapping closer and closer to two silhouettes.
‘Get up.’ She says, approaching. No response.
The flames crawl closer, encroaching on the edges of Mizi's vision.
‘I said get up!’ She says again, more forcefully, pulling at Luka’s arm. She doesn't feel bad when he flinches back and burns his hand on a piece of red hot, broken stage equipment.
He looked up at her, still crying and not saying a word, Mizi would consider it melodramatic if her own red rimmed eyes wouldn’t betray her hypocrisy.
‘You know, if you just sit there then you’re going to burn to death and the Segyein will take Hyuna’s body from you and do whatever they want with it. What a waste.’
Mizi knew it was a cruel thing to say, tapping into her own fears for Sua but it seems to work, Luka panics, inhales coming quicker, he wound Hyuna’s arms around his shoulders like a hug and tried to stand up, knees buckling, only succeeding in saturating his ridiculous, sparkly outfit in even more blood. He looked up again, opened his mouth to say something but only succeeded in producing stilted wheezing sounds.
Mizi wants to leave him there, let him wallow in grief and choke on smoke so he knows how he made her feel when he didn’t play fair. But Hyuna’s body is on the ground and Hyuna saved Mizi from all of that so, Mizi supposes, she owes her this much.
She peeled Luka off of Hyuna’s body, it was difficult to make him let go, limbs wrapped around limbs, fingers knotted into her shirt, but she managed it with a bit of force, only leaving a few bruises, then she called over some strong looking soldier who's name she didn't know, deciding getting someone else better equipped to carry Hyuna would be easier than trying to balance her between herself and Luka. The soldier sauntered over, eyeing Luka with suspicion.
‘Can you carry her?’ Mizi asked, looking down at Hyuna, pleading with her eyes.
‘Out of a building that's literally on fire?! It’s pointless! She’s obviously de-‘
‘Please.’ She interjected, giving the guy her best ‘adorable girl’ expression, letting the tears that had been just behind her eyes well up. The soldier regarded her for a moment, pursing his lips.
‘Fine.’ He conceded, hauling Hyuna’s tall, floppy frame into his arms. ‘You owe me rations when we’re back.’
‘Thank you.’ She sighed, only feeling a little disgusted with herself.
Next she dragged Luka upright, she didn't offer a hand, just grabbed at his arms, reluctantly pulling him to lean at her side when he doubles over, coughing on the blackened air.
At the edge of her vision Mizi noticed another rebel soldier train a gun on them. Luka saw it too, going completely still, Mizi didn't even think he was breathing.
‘Oh back off!’ Mizi screeched at the soldier, exasperated, pulling out her own gun and pointing back. ‘He’s fucking harmless, you’ve done enough.’
Luka gives her this weird, hopeful look, like he thought Hyuna’s soul had been transplanted into her damn body or something, so Mizi slaps him with the hand that wasn't supporting him and tells him:
‘You can back off too when we’re done with this, by the way. I’m not doing any of this for you.’
He looked away after that and just let her drag him off of what remained of the burning stage, the burning remains of all he'd been made for.