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Luka does not feel anything when he competes. Nothing for his competitors, that is. Inside his chest there’s a little thrill of fear, one which feels terrifyingly familiar to when Heperu stops his heart. But to him, the others are just statues. It doesn’t matter when he beats them because they are not real people.
The boy across from him is no more real than the girl before, the one that beat him bloody on stage, then got him beat bloodier that night. His father did not appreciate one bit having to fix Luka’s appearance. He likes his doll to be perfect, unblemished. Luka didn’t appreciate it either, because no matter how good he is at keeping himself composed and functional, being screamed at is not pleasant.
To this boy he will do exactly what he did to her. These dolls, equally as sole-functional as he, have emotions to prey on, unlike him. They are not nearly as perfect as him. It’s so easy to do, too. All he’s got to do is touch them the right way, lower his voice a little, and their eyes will go far away and their faces will crumble. They cannot compete with him if they’re falling apart.
For a moment that seems to be the way it’s going, but something snaps the kid back into it. It’s like he’s been reignited. Luka is equal parts annoyed and excited. A little competition is fun.
It doesn’t matter, though, because Luka always wins. The shot rings out and the boy goes down. Luka doesn’t care to remember his name. Just another doll, like all the others.
But.
But then she’s there, in front of him. The only real thing in the entire world. Hyuna.
She’s holding her side and there’s something red seeping into her shirt and she’s grimacing but that doesn’t matter, she’s as beautiful as ever. She gives him a look, one he can’t decipher, and turns away as someone puts a coat on her. His face breaks into a smile and he takes a step forward and suddenly there’s a cold piece of metal against his forehead. He doesn’t care, though, because Hyuna is in front of him and he’d thought she was dead but really she was just waiting to come back to him. He should’ve never doubted her.
Except, she isn’t looking at him. She’s talking to someone else, so he takes another step, and another, gaining pace quickly. The sound of his footsteps gets her to move, and after glancing quickly in his direction she begins to run to him. They collide, and she uses the momentum to spin him around, just as the sound of a gunshot goes off. She jolts against him and immediately he’s holding her up.
She says to him; “Luka, live with love.” before going completely boneless and dragging him to his knees.
His eyes are dripping with tears and he’s full of an emotion he doesn’t understand and isn’t supposed to feel. Hyuna is in front of him and the same red from her shirt is leaking onto the floor and soaking into the knees of his pants. Then he’s laid flat on his back by the girl from before, the one with the pink hair who’d hit him in the last round. She hits him, his own red blood mixing with the saltwater on his face. She grabs him with a fist in his hair and drags his face up to hers. She’s crying too, for some reason.
She says; “Neither you nor I deserve to be saved.”, drops his head, and gets off of him. He does not move, sat on the floor, seeing nothing but Hyuna’s body, definitively dead now.
Then the stage erupts into flames. They’re hot, scorching his face and catching on his clothes. It’s terrible and frightening, but only in the background, as he still cannot stop seeing Hyuna, even as her body is hefted into someone’s arms and they begin to run.
He thinks that someone from her group will be coming to help him up next, to whisk him away to wherever they are going that Hyuna wanted to bring him. She is the only thing that could ever drag him away from his father but since she is gone her organization will have to do. But they don’t. No one comes for him, they leave him in the fire as they all run. Luka sees them, now, his sudden desperation for freedom, for life, snaps him from his trance. Even the body of his opponent is saved, but he is left in the heat and the flames to burn.
Despair crushes him. It hurts nearly as badly as his charring skin. He wraps his arms around himself and folds at the waist, catching his sleeve in his teeth like he used to do so long ago, and presses his eyes against his knees.
He’s won again, but this is what he gets. All his effort, all his pain, just to burn. If he is to die, to fail, then he is to do it on the stage with a bullet in his neck. This is not that at all. This is not quick and painless, where you’re gone before you even hear the shot, this is slow and excruciating. His skin feels like it’s melting, and he can no longer see, not from shock but from pain. His vision is white.
Luka gasps, his lungs filling with horrid smoke even as a crew arrives to finally deal with the out of control flame. They douse them in water as Luka finally can’t keep himself up. Someone is running to him, as he falls, but he can’t focus on them. He wouldn’t want to anyway. Unless it’s her coming to get him, he doesn’t care, and he knows it can’t be, because he felt her heart stop against his own.
The hands on him make his wounds smart, but he’s barely in his body enough to feel it. He closes his eyes as they lift him onto something firm and carry him. He doesn’t see himself be dragged off the remains of the stage.
Luka has spent his entire life perfecting his expressions and mastering control of his emotions, but the despair he feels when he wakes up alive is too much for him to disguise. He opens his eyes, barely, and through the blurriness he can see his father’s face staring at him. He looks furious.
Luka cannot keep himself from tearing up, his lower lip wobbling childishly. His father seethes at the expression, as if it couldn’t get any worse, and grabs Luka by the chin. He can’t much feel it, as his face is wrapped in bandages and he’s definitely on some kind of painkiller or sedative, but that doesn’t matter.
“Cease this ridiculous tantrum,” orders Heperu, as if Luka had said anything at all. Luka isn’t completely sure which part he’s mad about; the damage to his precious toy, the usurping of what should have been his and Luka’s proudest moment, or Luka running to Hyuna. Likely the last one. “This is not how you were raised to act. You were not made to run to some girl. You are better than that. You are perfect.” He leans in closer, and Luka tries to pull his head away to no avail. “And above all, you are mine. No one is going to save you, no one is going to take you. You’re mine. I made you. I raised you. You don’t want to leave.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Luka slurs.
“That’s right,” Heperu smiles, or, his version of one. It’s disgusting and sinister. “You’re going to win again, and again, and again. That’s all you’re good for. That’s your only purpose.”
“My only purpose.” How dare he think there was ever something more for him.