Chapter Text
Explosions.
Falling tears.
Dripping blood.
Overbearing sensations flooding his delicate senses. Luka should flee with his life, but the world seems more monotone than ever before, and he cannot seem to give his body a signal to move.
Perhaps the dead should be left to die - he had always thought so throughout his numerous performances. The crisp sound of a bullet piercing the air had always assured him of his victory, always been his queue to strike a charming a smile for his disgusting audience. A smile laced with disinterest, void of any genuine emotion and splattered with blood.
He had always looked down upon those who were crushed by the segyein as a result of his countless victories.
But Luka couldn't bring himself to be amused when the blood on his hands was Hyuna's. Couldn't move as she died cradling him, not a motion to wipe the blood and tears staining the face so prized by Heperu.
A world without a sun is bound to be shrouded in perpetual darkness - but the sun . . . will always rise again the next day, no?
Yet his sun has disappeared beyond the horizon forever. Even the distant ray of brilliant light he once chased has diminished.
That ray of light . . . there was a time when he used to bask in it in all of its glory.
--
"Luka," A low voice. A gentle tone. Warm breaths. "Luka! Luka, are you listening?"
A few heartbeats passed, and he looked up from his Rubik's cube to meet Hyuna's disapproving gaze. "Hyuna," he breathed.
"Aren't you always playing with it? doesn't it get boring to shuffle it all by yourself? Let me, let me!"
and then
in a blink of an eye,
the colorful cube was no longer in his hands -
but in hers.
Luka was taken aback, but it was her, so he had smiled and said, "Okay!"
Hyuna had reached out with one hand, taken his hand in hers, and lifted it to his eyes. Perhaps that was the first time his heart had sped up in a good way.
"No peaking!" She said strictly, eyes narrowing.
Nodding cheerily, he turned his back to her filled with glee.
--
He had thought himself accustomed to darkness, thought that he'd be able to bare a monochrome world. If he had never met Hyuna, never been spoiled by her sunlight and warmth, would he have had the strength to live? He trembled to think of a life were her existence had never graced him.
But, in this life, his circumstances were set in stone.
A world without that light - without Hyuna - was not a world Luka wanted to live in.
If he lived, what was left to live for? He was too weak to resist the segyein, he'd be reintroduced to the same stage and all the blood and death that came with it - he'd be forced to tolerate a world without his cradle, his sun. He'd have to find twisted amusement in death and smile that empty smile over and over again.
Minutes ago he had smiled a smile so real, true to what he felt, when he saw Hyuna for the first time in years.
Even in his devastation, she looked so dangerously ethereal, even in eternal sleep; as embers danced around her body; as flames slowly embraced them.
Even with the heat soon to engulf him, Luka could look at her and imagine all this warmth was hers - he could smile again and mean it, knowing he would no longer have to live in a world without her. He chose to burn with her, to die while looking at her, smiling, bleeding, crying. Perhaps, if she had seen him and this smile of his, it would have scared her, repulsed her, even.
Explosions danced across the stage of the Final, rendering it unrecognizable. Panicked faces which were a blur to Luka amidst his sorrow. The bruises on his face ached terribly, assuring him that this was all real, and Hyuna was really gone, dead to this world.
And that horrible realization hit harder than any punch could, his prompt to give up at last, after three decades of being a slave to the segyein. Hyuna is dead because of him, and his "love"-
Love?
The thought came to his mind only once flames engulfed his vision, enveloping him entirely. The pain was dreadful, heat unbearable. He would've screamed, called for help if he had had any care for his life.
Luka, live with love.
He might not have lived, but he had loved, and had done so with all his being. He still loved Hyuna, even now. She was the last thing he thought about, the only thing he could think about.
Luka-
live.