Work Text:
87 | 86
The screen blinks.
Win | Lose
The screen blinks.
^U^ | TOT
The screen blinks.
AUCTION | TIME
The screen blinks.
AUCTION | TIME
The screen blinks.
AUCTION | TIME
The screen blinks.
A large, meaty hand wraps around Sua's wrist, completely encircling it in a rough grip.
Sua’s body hangs limply as the stage assistant drags her towards the rusted table on stage left.
Being treated like a doll…
Haha! It’s so nostalgic, Sua could almost cry.
Sua cranes her neck as much as possible, strains her ears until she thinks they might burst.
Even when her head is forced onto the rough wooden table top, she never stops looking.
My god.
My universe.
In the fading spotlight, Mizi stays standing completely still, singing a familiar lullaby into the microphone.
Her hands don't shake, her voice doesn't waver.
She doesn't turn her head.
Hop,
Hop,
Little bunny
Where are you going?
Into the
Forest?
The knife lifts, and time holds its breath.
I love you.
I love you.
IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou
𐙚
☆
𐙚
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𐙚
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When Sua was little, her older sister used to read fairytales out loud. Princesses, and dragons, and dashing knights on white horses; a beautiful adventure that would always start with love at first sight.
The princess would lock eyes with the knight as she was rescued, and from that moment onwards, they would promise their entire beings to each other.
For Sua, it had been a difficult concept to grasp. Afterall, they didn't even know anything about each other! Their personalities, their flaws, their secret obsessions... the only thing they had seen were each other's pupils, dilating in the milliseconds it took to cross gazes.
But then, on that day, when the sun hung over their neighbourhood like its personal executioner, sending waves of fiery heat pouring down from the sky…
Sua saw her.
Truly, truly saw her.
A secret just for Sua, something that chained them together, inseparably.
Like a red string of fate.
At last, something that was solely hers to keep. Something that couldn't be taken away by anyone else, broken by anyone else, stolen by anyone else.
Nestled among such thoughts, it bloomed.
A love that was brighter than the red blood splattered across Mizi's forehead.
A love that was even more grotesque, even more misshapen than the twitching rat between them.
Its torn stomach, with guts spilling over each other, dirt staining its intestines, blood dying brown into rust.
The rat's chest had still been fluttering, ever so slightly, as it tried to bring a bit of cheese to its babbling mouth.
From its throat, it quietly whimpered.
Once, twice, and choked on the third as a fresh rush of blood bubbled forth and spilled onto the ground.
It died just like that, with the cheese only a few millimeters away from the tips of its yellowing teeth.
A pathetic existence, extinguished with a single strike from a rock barely bigger than a pebble.
What a stupid rat. Had it not realized that its arm was broken?
It was disgusting. Sua wanted to barf.
Yet, it was this side of Mizi that Sua loved the best.
Because it was a side that belonged solely to Sua, a side that only she was trusted enough, privileged enough, to see, and to experience.
Sua remembers that her high school friends would sometimes call her a masochist. To this day, if someone said that to Sua, she would still deny it with all her might.
There was no pleasure in pain.
But there was necessity. There was proof.
Proof of something. Proof that Sua wasn't a doll, created just to do her mother's bidding.
Proof that beneath everything, Sua had… herself.
Her pain.
Even before Mizi, before love, Sua had pain.
Pain was something she could feel at any time.
A simple pinch to the wrist would hurt.
A simple slap to the face would hurt.
Scratching nails along the inner flesh of her thigh (because mother didn't like it when it was in visible places) would hurt.
Pain was easy, pain was quick, pain was-
Hers-hers-hers-hershershershershershershershershershershershershers-
And then after Mizi, Sua had pain, and she had love.
Pain and love, together as one. Sua had never tasted humanity sweeter than that.
𐙚
☆
𐙚
☆
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Hop-
Hop-
Running
- - - away.
Sua smiles.
She knows it won’t hurt.
With dirt on your
White-
The knife falls.
P
A
W
S.
Pain is no longer hers.
𐙚
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☆
In those fairy tales, the last words were always, 'and they lived happily ever after'.
The Princess and the Knight would get married, the dragon would die, the horse was free to graze in beautiful green meadows full of rippling grass.
And that was it.
The end.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
But, Sua's fairytale had no end.
𐙚 ! H ☆ O ☆ W ☆ L ☆ U ☆ C ☆ K ☆ Y ! 𐙚
She could be with Mizi forever, on a stage where the lights would never go out.