A/N: Gosh, I can't believe I've been away for so long. It's been a crazy semester. So much work to do and my relationship is a total mess. Finally got to take a break and calm down a little. So much has happened recently that I feel like writing a super dark, twisted oneshot. I just love torturing my favourite pairing 3
Please enjoy this little oneshot. Reviews mean a lot to me!
I will be updating more often now. Gonna write some more dark oneshots for this pairing. Any good plot suggestions?
Lavender.
A field full of blooming lavender.
He had been there once, but he couldn't recall when.
His childhood was nothing but faded vision. Fragmented memories. Shattered dreams.
He could imagine the glamour though. Of millions of shimmering lavender waving slightly in the summer breeze. And then, there was his mother's smile as she patted his head tenderly. She would be sitting under the shade taking care of baskets of berries. Mei would be giggling while picking up flowers to make a tiara. Yong Soo would be laughing obnoxiously somewhere, playing some prank on his twin brother.
It seemed so far away now. He couldn't tell if the scene had even ever happened before.
His mother no longer smiled. And he only saw her once a month.
He hardly saw Mei and Yong Soo anymore. Not since Mei ran away from home a few years back, on her sixteenth birthday. Not since Yong Soo got sent to a boarding school and his brother stayed in a mental institution after he stabbed their parents one night.
Lavender.
That was the colour of Emil's eyes.
People found it bizarre. He found it stunning.
"You're the first to ever look at me like that," Emil said. His voice was dull. His face was pale, so pale it was almost translucent. And his hair… Gosh. Leon could only see downy, white feathers glued together on his head. He wanted to reach out and stroke it, but Emil caught his hand.
"Don't," he warned. He raised a brow at Leon.
"My name is Leon," Leon said. Surprisingly, he wasn't stuttering.
"I know," Emil said.
Leon couldn't help but feel a little bit flattered. So he did notice him! After all, he had been staring at him for quite a while. Ever since Emil's family moved into the cottage across the street, Leon had been watching this mysterious Iceland boy. Secretly, of course. At the back of the classroom. In the corner of the playground. Behind a thick classic novel his father forced him to read.
"Why are you following me?" Emil asked.
Leon didn't answer. It was too obvious. Both of them knew the answer.
He didn't want to go home. He had no one to hang out with.
He was alone.
So was Emil.
"I say, why are you following me?" Emil asked again.
Leon could tell he wasn't pleased. Reasonable enough. Nobody would want his secret discovered. Nobody would want to be seen while flinging someone in the air and tossing him down the cliff. Nobody would want to be stared into with such morbid fascination.
He wrapped his hands around Leon's neck and narrowed his eyes. They began to shine and reflect something more than sheer wrath. So that was where his power came from!
"Does it hurt?" Leon asked.
Unusually calm.
Emil let go of his neck and sighed. His eyes stopped shinning.
"What?"
"Does it, like, hurt when you do that?" Leon asked and pointed to a puddle of blood on the ground. The gangster who had been trying to hit on Emil earlier lay motionless below the monkey bar. His head was smashed open by a rock. And his lackey was probably somewhere at the bottom of the cliff moaning in agony.
"No." Emil shook his head and looked at Leon as if he was retarded.
"My father says every action comes with an impact," Leon said. "That's like, if you hurt someone, you're hurting yourself just as much."
"Bullshit." Emil pushed Leon down to the ground and straddled his body. "If you dare tell anyone about this, I'll kill you."
"Can we, like, be friends?"
Leon smiled faintly.
"Your eyes are, like, really beautiful."
That was the first time Emil got complimented.
"No, they aren't," Emil muttered. "They're scary."
He stood up and took his bag.
"I won't tell anyone if you let me be your friend," Leon said.
Emil wanted to laugh. He could easily crush this adorable Asian boy in merely three seconds. Yet, he found it so very intriguing, that for once, he was desired so desperately by someone. No one had ever craved for his existence. No one had ever asked to be his friend. No one, absolutely no one, had even regarded him a human.
"Whatever."
Emil shrugged.
Since the day they confronted each other in the park, Emil let Leon hang out with him, on the condition that he would obey whatever he said. Leon had no problem with it. He was drowning in a state of bliss. There was no more lonely recess. Lonely lunch hour. Lonely weekends. Emil was there. And even if he was also ostracised by others, he was there when he needed someone to talk to.
At school, he could pretend that he was in heaven. Because Emil was an angel. A pure angel.
He drove away the bullies and pranksters. No one splashed paints over Leon's desk and locker anymore. No one came around to pull his choppy brown hair and bang his head on the door. No one called him names and insulted his Asian features. No one got jealous because of his high test scores and stole his gym uniform. No one beat him up in the toilet and tied his hands behind his back. No one stripped him and blackmailed him with nude photos.
Every single person who was to come near him, to touch even a strand of his silky hair or to cause a bruise on his porcelain skin, Emil would eliminate them.
One by one, they disappeared from the class. Some jumped off the roof top. Some fell down from the stairs. Some got run over by the school bus. Some stabbed themselves with a pencil in the middle of a lesson.
Nobody knew how exactly it happened. This sudden spread of mass suicide plunged the school into chaos. Those who survived woke up in the hospital the next day simply remembering nothing of their deeds.
Leon knew the truth.
Emil never did it at his presence. He would mentally make a note of whoever hurt Leon and that person could never get away without a broken bone or two.
"Why would you do that?" Leon asked one day.
"Do what?"
"Hurt them so bad."
"Because they hurt you," Emil answered as-a-matter-of-factly. He pushed Leon against the wall and kissed him hard to shut him up. He held his trembling hands and licked his lips. He loved it when Leon was close to being suffocated by his kiss. He loved it when he begged to be released and gasped for air with an awfully blushing face. He looked cute with those bangs. Even cuter when they were all wet with sweat.
Leon called it love-making. Emil called it sex. To Leon, Emil's embrace was everything. To Emil, violence was love.
It had become much of a routine that Leon stayed over at Emil's. Emil's brother, Lukas, was also gifted. They called it a gift from God because it protected them. It made them so much more superior to others. Lukas wasn't fond of Leon at first. There was no way a normal, worthless being could ever hang out with his precious, angelic brother. Emil, of course, ignored Lukas' view. He didn't care what his family thought of Leon. He was the very first person who was not disgusted by his extraordinary power and was willing to forgive his sins.
Emil knew Leon was running away from something. There was a monster at home. He had seen those bruises and scars all over Leon's body. He had heard him weep and mumble in his sleep. He had seen that man, with blond hair and bushy brows. He always looked stern and well-dressed. So well-behaved. Such a gentleman.
Such a horrifying monster.
Leon only mentioned his mother once. She crumbled in a world of opium years ago and lost the custody in the divorce. His father was a man of reputation and pride. He demanded and expected so much from him. To him, education was a form of intense training and twisted indoctrination. Affection came through whips and belts. He accepted nothing but perfection. Precisely because Leon resembled his mother so much in terms of looks, it annoyed him to no end. Such a dangerously beautiful child would surely bring no good but trouble. Trouble. Trouble.
"Bloody hell, when will you stop giving me trouble?" shouted the father furiously.
"Sorry," mumbled the son.
"Right, you never learn anyway, just like that bitch. I'll show you what it means to be a good son."
He tossed the glass bottle at the wall and grabbed the boy's collar. He smacked Leon across the face and dragged him upstairs. He pushed him into his room and pinned him down on his bed. The boy cried and struggled, but stood no chance against the power above him. He choked back his tears and watched the man tear off his shirt. He wasn't sure if his father even recognised him anymore. The man was drunk. So drunk he remembered nothing but that depraved Chinese woman who had once spread her legs for him under the influence of opium; who had once moaned so wantonly in his bed and made him come many times a night. He saw nothing but her face. Her body. He wanted to ruin it so much. He should have ruined it completely before letting her run off with that Russian man.
In Leon's case, he saw nothing but Emil's eyes. They glittered like the stars in his world. With a sudden cry of pain, the man rolled off bed and a giant wardrobe fell on top of him. Emil walked over to the bleeding body, his eyes cold and shinning.
"No," interrupted Leon. Emil turned to his boyfriend. The sight of his bruised, naked body made him clench his fists in rage.
"It's, like, alright," Leon said, panting. "Leave it."
"I'm gonna kill him."
"It's not necessary." Leon shook his head and limped over to Emil. He hugged him tightly and buried his face into his shoulder. "Please, just this once…"
"Are you scared of me?" Emil finally mustered the courage to ask. He didn't understand why Leon was shuddering. He had come to his rescue. Why was he sobbing?
"No," Leon answered. "I'd never be scared of you."
His shirt was soaked in Leon's tears and blood.
His body was so warm, even though it had gone through so much suffering and pain.
"Then stay with me," Emil whispered softly into Leon's ear, "forever."
The next day, Leon's father was rescued and sent to the hospital. As he regained consciousness, he couldn't remember anything that had happened the previous night. He went frantic knowing that his son had gone missing. No one could ever find the boy.
They searched Emil's house of course. They found nothing but a vase of withered lavender.
"Say, what do you like about my eyes?"
"I don't know… It's, like, they say so much about you… And in them, I always see myself. Crystal clear."