NOTHING PERSONAL
By MargaritaDaemonelix
Part 1
i. sorry seems to be the hardest word
Chung is sixteen when he realizes his goal in life is very, very different from what is expected of him.
Sure, Prince wants to be a lawyer, to follow in Father's footsteps, but Prince was always Mother's name for him and he hasn't heard anyone call him that since she died, save for on school registers. Prince knows it's only right for him to inherit the family law firm, to continue the legacy Father has made.
But Chung's dream is very, very different from what he knows is expected of him.
He pitches the idea of September, the year university applications begin, and Father takes it surprisingly well. Mother wasn't a lawyer, after all, and she certainly wasn't a pauper when she and Father were married. The world will still turn sans one unwilling lawyer.
Times are changing, too. Father knows that science binds the world together at its seams, and in the current science boom, the best (and perhaps only) option is to be in on it - or be forced to abandon it entirely.
(But Chung has never been one to back down from a challenge.)
So he keeps his grades up, puts in 110%, and wears his acceptance letter like a shining gold crown.
Electrical engineering at the University of Upper Elrios. It doesn't sound too bad.
ii. come on, come on, show me the real you
There is a very peculiar girl in Chung's physics class (the 2:30 one).
She has piercing golden eyes and cold silver hair and a glare that can shatter glass. She's always deadly quiet - or perhaps just very shy - but she sits in the front row everyday. She's never been late to class, but she never gets there really early either. She carries with her an electric blue backpack without a single stain or piece of ornamentation.
Her name is Eve, and she is the only student in the class with a higher average than Chung. She boasts a 99.8 to his 99.7, and it irks him to no end.
"Dude, she's a living legend," his new friend Elsword tells him. "I went to high school with her in senior year. She was robotics captain and she was on student council and she still had the highest average in the grade."
"I was robotics captain too," Chung informs him. "Wasn't student council, but I still had the highest average."
Elsword scoffs. "Yeah, right, and I'm an honours student."
The next day, in class, Chung makes eye contact with Eve for all of two seconds as he walks to his seat.
He hadn't known that gold could be so chilling.
iii. remember my voice, and everything of the form you gave me
"Were you in Professor Solace's physics class last semester?"
Chung blinks. "Yeah. You're Eve Silvia, right?"
Eve offers him nothing more than a blank gaze. "Correct. And you are Prince Seiker."
"Yeah, but no one calls me that." He sticks a hand out, friendly but neutral. "Call me Chung. I'm in electrical engineering."
She shakes it, rather cautiously. "And I, mechanical engineering. It is a pleasure to meet you."
(He kinda gets the feeling she's only saying it to be nice.)
iv. someday i'll forget your warmth
There is happiness, and then there is school, and then there are friends.
The little friend group is small, but grows quickly - Elsword brings in his girlfriend Aisha, and their upperclassmen friends Rena and Raven from high school. Rena is cheerful and always glows with warm, maternal light, and is able to coax the otherwise solitary Eve into their friend group.
Raven is almost as unapproachable, for entirely other reasons. According to Elsword, he's gotten softer since they met. He constantly shakes out one arm, and one day, the skintoned glove he's been wearing over the prosthetic slips. Chung only catches a glimpse of it, and never asks.
Rena suggests they go out for coffee once a week in the city. It becomes a lasting habit that follows them well after both Rena and Raven graduate, a tradition they never fail to uphold, except around exams.
Chung isn't scared of exams - he's well organized, he has his notes (and his life together), and he understands enough of the course material that he goes to the cafe that Saturday anyways. Surprisingly, Eve is already there, sipping her usual order of yuanyang, three parts coffee to seven parts tea, typing away at her laptop. "Hey," he says.
"Hello." She takes another sip. "I expected you to be studying."
He shrugs. "You know me. I got it all done during the semester. I just have to review a bit."
The barista already knows his order - an affogato over two scoops of vanilla. He brings it back to their regular table, now painfully empty with four people missing.
"Doesn't Aisha have an average in the high nineties as well?" He asks, suddenly furrowing his brow as he pours the espresso over the rich gelato. "Why isn't she here as well?"
Eve's lips wrinkle around the edge of her mug, like she's trying to suppress a smile. She's been smiling much more since she joined their friend group, and Chung realizes he quite likes it. "Aisha does have a very high average, but unfortunately, Elsword does not. She is helping him with last minute review."
"I hope he doesn't fail any courses this year," Chung mutters, and Eve makes a noise of agreement into her mug.
They sit in near silence on opposite sides of the lonely table, each tending to their own affairs on their laptops. Chung can hear his keys click as he types, while Eve's slim fingers seem to leave no audible trace of their movement. "What kind of laptop do you have?" He asks, lowering his screen. There's no symbol to indicate any sort of brand, nor any stickers to show any sense of individuality.
"It is a modified Nasod Motors model X20," Eve says, and is that a blush? "I acquired a normal X20 two years ago, but it didn't serve my needs at the time, so I took it apart and reassembled it."
Chung smiles at her. "Must be a hallmark of engineering students, eh?" He pushes his screen back entirely, revealing clumsy welds and broken plastic underneath. "I accidentally fried my X18, and I was so used to the keyboard that I didn't want to buy a new one, so I just bought parts instead, put them in, and rebooted this bad boy up. Didn't have the right tools, but I got it together."
Eve offers him a softer look, before its turns very confused. "The X18 is very sturdy. How did you manage to "fry" it?"
"Oh." Chung smiles sheepishly. "I was playing around with an old portable battery and a double ended USB cord. Plugged them into the laptop and turned the battery on. It blew out the lights and killed my laptop entirely."
"That is extremely dumb," Eve tells him, with the air of someone who has never considered demolition on that level, "and you should really take more care with your electronics."
She looks over his laptop. "But your upgrades seem solid, even with improper equipment."
It doesn't occur to Chung until quite a bit later that even though Eve said she'd gotten the X20 two years ago, the X20 hadn't been available on the market until just last March.
But then again, she could have just forgotten.
(Eve is not the type to forget.)
v. let it stain you, my liar
"What would you say," Chung asks, twirling the ramen around his chopsticks and loading them onto his spoon, "if I asked you out on a date?"
Eve doesn't respond; instead, she shoves an entire piece of narutomaki fish cake in her mouth, processing it slowly. Her lips mush together rhythmically when she chews, but it's such a miniscule movement that he hadn't noticed until very recently. "I would tell you that you're crazy," she says after she finishes chewing, because Eve would never speak with her mouth full.
Chung nods and turns back to his ramen. This isn't the first time they've gone out for ramen just with the two of them - maybe the second or third. Chung isn't counting.
"What would you say if I told you yes?"
He looks up, and oh no, she's smiling. It's a genuine smile, not the forced ones that she puts on when greeting their teachers. She's teasing him.
"Then I'd have to take you out on that date, wouldn't I," he tells her, and watches that smile get wider. "I was thinking maybe the museum - there's an exhibit on artificial intelligence right now."
"Interesting." She's studying him again, even though she's been doing that for what seems like forever. Perhaps she's committed all his features to memory already. "Very interesting."
It's an invitation, Chung realizes. It's Eve's way of daring him.
"So," he says, "will you go out on that date with me?"
"You're crazy," she replies, leaning forwards.
(Her ramen soup base is miso. Her lips are warm.)
vi. it's a bit dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, but i think i'll cross this line
"Chung,"
A whisper, cut off with a moan. Chung has never heard anything so beautiful.
"Chung."
Eve's eyes are wide open, and in the half light of the lamp by Chung's bed, they aren't such chilling gold anymore. She is alive and warm in his hands and her eyes are warm honey and molten magma all at once. "Chung," she repeats, voice barely more than a gasp.
He'd give anything to hear her say his name, repeat it like a broken record, forever. "Eve," he murmurs, right into the crook of her neck. She clenches her hands in his hair, arches her back and cries, but their bodies are flush against each other and she melts again under his touch.
"Please." Gold turns to amber to flame, and it only burns more in the pit of Chung's stomach. "Please. Please."
Chung knows he really shouldn't, they shouldn't, shouldn't be doing this so early in their lives lest it destroy them, shouldn't do this behind the backs of their friends and families, but fire and ice fill his veins as he presses his body against hers.
It feels right. It feels whole.
They seal their fate with a kiss. It's only fitting.
vii. like kimbap, like mandu, you're so sweet
Stains decorate his hands, his sleeves, his working jeans at every waking minute. He's pretty sure there are stains on his pyjamas at this point.
"Are you entering the startup competition?" Eve asks him, arms slung over his shoulders from behind. Her hair is getting almost impressively long now, long enough to braid all the way down her back. Long enough to wrap around her eyes like a blindfold. "Is that a portable battery?"
"Yeah. The last time I did this, it caused a power surge and blacked out my building for half an hour," Chung tells her. "But I've reconfigured the battery so it doesn't kill my computer this time."
He hits the power button. The battery lights up, but nothing else changes. "That means this is safe for the next stage of experiments," he says, exhaling deeply in relief, "and the new additions."
"What kinds of new additions?" Eve asks, looking over the blueprint open on his laptop.
"Even with modern portable batteries, they have to be charged manually," he says, gesturing with a pencil at the screen as he unplugs the battery. A spark sputters over his fingers. He ignores. "My goal is to create a battery that doesn't need to be charged, or rather, a battery that charges itself just by existing in our world."
As he works, he can feel the words sink into Eve. "That - you intend on capturing entropy itself," she stammers, which is certainly very new for her. Eve is never surprised, or startled, or uncomposed from her usual unrelenting self in any way. "Chung, I would never say this, but this is too ambitious, even for you."
"I can do it," he tells her. "I just have to build a working proof of concept for the competition. There aren't that many people competing, right?"
"Well…" Eve looks pensive. "There are nearly a thousand people entering the first round, but about fifty have already been disqualified on various terms. The first round will bring the number of competitors down to two hundred, through a voting process from alumnus reviewers. The second round will reduce down further to only fifty, this time through campus staff approval.
"The semifinals involve presentation skills, because this is an entrepreneurship competition, after all," she continues. "You each make a sales pitch, and students will vote on the five best entries. The final round is up to the Board of Directors, and it will be presented by Adrian Nasod."
"The CEO of Nasod Motors," Chung murmurs. He'd be lying if he says he doesn't idolize the man - he singlehanded created a multibillion dollar technological empire, starting with just his own innovations and eventually expanding much further beyond. "What an honour."
"Of course, the semifinalists do also receive prizes and recognition," Eve says, "but it's the grand winner that gets the best out of it. This is the first year that the school is hosting this competition, and you're fighting all the students across all years, even post-graduates."
"Do you think," Chung asks, "that I'll win?"
Eve fixates him with a very long look. For all of two seconds, the coldness returns to her eyes. For all of two seconds, she looks scared. Eve never gets scared.
"I know you'll win." And then, too quiet to be heard, just barely contained to below a whisper:
I hope you don't.
viii. this love is so insane
"In the winning entry," Adrian Nasod announces, "we were not only looking for an ingenious idea, but also a significant drive to better the world. To introduce a revolutionary concept that could shake the world with its impact.
"Both my son and daughter have been students at this university at some point of their lives," he continues. "My son Adam graduated three years ago with amazing prospects for his future, and my daughter Eve is currently in the mechanical engineering program in her third year."
Chung's entire world freezes over with those words, as he meets a pair of golden eyes in the crowd. In that single moment, ice shards worm their way into his heart and rip it to tiny, worthless shreds.
Eve ducks her head down, and her beautiful silver hair falls over her face like a curtain, shielding her eyes. Chung wants to scream.
"It was interesting to find out that the winner of this year's Innovation Plus award and grant is in fact in the same year as her," Adrian Nasod says, and Chung know he's won by the way all the other finalists tense, he's the only third year in the lineup, but is it really a win? "The winning entry isn't perfect, and the million dollar grant will certainly help improve it."
Chung barely hears him say his name out loud, but he does register one thing.
Prince. He called him Prince.
ix. you're not serious, so why do you keep pushing me away?
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Eve smiles at him softly. She looks tired. "Security," she says simply, shedding her white blazer and wrapping it over her arm. "My father is too famous, so if my brother and I went around advertising our identities in school, we would be at risk. That's why the school registers have me listed with my mother's maiden name."
"That's why I never figured out who you really were until now," Chung says. "Until this."
The Innovation Plus trophy that came with the award and the grant rests in his hands. He wants to throw it at the wall. "Why didn't you want me to win?"
"Because I'd lose you." Eve's smile fades. "My father is getting on in age, and my brother has his own company to run, so once my father deems my education to be enough, I will be the second CEO of Nasod Motors. And because you've won the competition, you'll go on to start your own company with your absolutely world-shattering creation."
The offending device is now sitting on Chung's desk, slowly charging despite it's odd shape and nature. Every time Chung exhales in its direction, he sees the charging bar go up slightly higher. "I am so proud of you, Prince Seiker," Eve says quietly, "but from now on, we will have to be rivals in business."
She kisses him once, slowly, and then she walks out and shuts the door behind her.
x. even those words became pain for me; i couldn't let you go
The rest of the year comes and goes, and Chung is lonely.
Maybe if Rena were here, she could help. She'd always been good at helping with these things. But Rena has graduated and is living nearly three hundred kilometres away with Raven, and she's happy and she does not need to be burdened with Chung's problems.
Eve seems to have disappeared entirely. Chung asks around, asks Aisha and Elsword to help, and they gather that she's completed her course and has moved away to another university to be trained in business and entrepreneurship.
Elsword and Aisha's relationship stays strong through their last year, and they go right into living together after graduation. Chung tries his hardest not to be jealous, and fails miserably, pushing himself into perfecting the entropy battery to avoid them. He manages to reduce the size to a canister that can fit into his palm, and names it Disfrozen.
It's not hard after that to lose himself into work after that. His years of training from his father come into play - selling the Disfrozen as the CEO of the newly created Seiker Industries is plenty enough to keep him occupied. Chung fades away as he wears the mask of Prince once more, because no one in the professional world would take a nickname like Chung seriously.
It's not so bad. He has hope for the future sometimes as he lies unsleeping in his apartment. Sometimes he spends the nights with his hands and thoughts wrapped around the memories of Eve, of her soft hair and even softer touch, of her cold, cold eyes. Of how they were warm, just for him. Usually he passes out before he can even think of anything else.
He's twenty-two when Seiker Industries launches the Disfrozen mark one, and he has the whole world ahead of him.
A/N: this... was a fever dream
this is definitely a study in characterization and in storytelling. usually if i write something with this storyline, i'd tell it from Eve's perspective. however, i really wanted to play with perspectives and tell someone else's story, and also Eve got the limelight in Victoria, so this time it's Chung's turn to shine!
this is also a bit of a vent fic in which i attempt to yeet my inner demons out
also the titles for the individual sections are lyrics from songs that i drew inspiration from! hmu if you know where some of those lyrics are from and we can geek out together
on an unrelated note school starts in two days and i'm still not done my essay
~Marg
