The pair returned home begrudgingly, somehow not wanting to face a family that would condone and congratulate their actions. Yin should've been happy. She'd just claimed section 3 for Alucricity, a mission that was regarded as crucial to Alucricity's development. From the moment she joined she knew that she wanted to give back to this community, that she wanted to repay them for all they'd done for her. They treated her like a person, and taught her to finally see herself as such. They'd put her on such a high pedestal despite knowing so little about her, and she all she'd ever wanted was to let them know how grateful she was to them. But she was the farthest from happiness she'd ever been. She felt like nothing more than a worthless doll. In fact, she felt more like a doll than she ever had been in her lifetime. Except now she was painfully aware of the hollow emptiness that consumed her.
Yin felt a sense of Deja vu as she recognized this feeling from her indoctrination ceremony. She had felt blessed to be apart of Alucricity, especially after everything been through to get there. But she was left to wonder if any of it was worth it. Was it her place to make any of the sacrifices she'd forced upon the innocent? What made her goals more important than those of which she'd smited? She'd already stolen the dreams of so many, and in such short time. She'd reaped the chances of numerous strangers, and even those who hadn't the opportunity to dream up their aspirations yet.
Even back then, Yin couldn't find it in her to truly be happy for herself. Yin feared that her regretting what she'd done made her too unwilling and ungracious to be apart of this community. So she tucked her of guilt and regret deep within, convincing herself that if she could be with Alucricity, all of her sins were worth it. Still, even if meant being secure with Alucricity, having the opportunity to fight and live with them, she'd done something wrong. Something unforgivable. And them congratulating her for it only stirred a conflict in her heart.
Though Yin would find herself surprised that this time, she'd be spared of gratitude as well.
Shira noticed the forlorn look on Yin as she returned and decided it best to envelope her in a large hug. "Welcome home," She squeezed tighter, frowning at Yin's limp arms as they failed to hold her back. Shira pulled away her hand beneath her chin as she pulled Yin's face up to make eye contact. "Hey, chin up champ. There's still more work to do!"
A great sadness flashed across Yin's eyes, only to emptied out a moment later. "We're not done?"
Shira's cheerful mood dampened at the sight of Yin's disappointment. "Well, no. We still have to work the land."
Yin's exhausted expression held a hint of disbelief in her stare. "We can't work that land! I just nuked it!"
"Nothing's impossible under Father's guidance," Shira said, guiding her back inside. "All we have to do is follow his orders."
Yin looked down, unable to meet her hopeful gaze. "I've already done so much, isn't there another way?"
"Yin," Yin noticed the sharp change in Shira's tone. Not to mention the fact that she couldn't remember the last time Shira called her 'Yin' and not Aiona. "You're being selfish."
Yin stilled, unbelieving. For almost a year she'd dedicated her life to this organization. She trained her body past exhaustion, she went on life threatening missions, she sacrificed her mental state as well as self worth, she even salvaged enough courage betray the Syndicate. All that for everything she believed about Alucricity. Hearing Shira say that... it made her reconsider everything she'd been through up until this point. She was forced to really think about what it meant to be apart of Alucricity, what it would take to stay there.
Yet at the same time, she felt ashamed. The woman who stood there only existed because of them. She'd come to them as a doll, a disposable spy for a syndicate that could never appreciate her. They treated her like a person, something Yin had never believed herself to be until they showed her how. She accepted their generosity and kind nurturing treatment in muted reluctance. They'd helped her gain the personal strength and even offered up their own security so she could leave the Syndicate and start a new life.
And she couldn't deny that the benefits of living here with Alucricity was a great improvement from the lifestyle she was once accustomed to. She could still remember the tight walls of her tobacco shop closing in on her, and the dampening darkness that settled in on her skin when the sun went down. They often times only paid her enough to to buy some cheap instant noodles. She'd had very few clothes, but she figured it was best at the time, what with having no place to put them anyway. And something in her had always longed to leave. Having too many belongings would only weigh her down.
But now, she had a whole room to herself. There were soft carpeted floors that she didn't have to sleep on. She had a fairly large bed with a soft mattress and all the room in the world to stretch her legs. Her comforter cradled her in a warmth she thought hadn't existed for dolls like her. She had closet full of clothes and she made sure none of were dark enough to blend into the shadows of the life she once had. Dark enough fade into the backdrop, to spend the rest of her life making herself smaller and eternally submissive. There was more space in her room then she knew what do with, and still had the rest of the house to roam in leisure.
She knew supplying her with all this couldn't've been easy. Privileges like these don't just come out of nowhere, there were people all over the community working at this lifestyle long before her. After everything they've done for her, she had to give back to them. She knew nothing in her life was free anymore, if she wanted to stay here, she would have to work for it. And if it meant staying with the ones she loved, she could accept that.
"What do I have to do?"
"...Well it's a pretty 'hands on' kind of job," Yin explained to the eager stranger.
"Yeah, yeah that's fine. But there's free housing included, right?"
Yin nodded her head yes and the man swiftly snatched up a flyer from her hands. He ran off into the distance, shouting his gratitude over his shoulder.
When Shira told her she would be recruiting new members, Yin was shocked. After all the months of backbreaking work she'd been doing, she hadn't expected to end up with such an easy job. Maybe this was Shira's way of being considerate of all the work Yin had done. And Yin couldn't help but find it immensely rewarding. She felt more and more like a true member with every passing second.
She was ordered to hand out flyers and inform the public of the work available at Alucricity. Yin wasn't entirely sure if that made the people she recruited members or employees. She didn't even know if they were getting paid in money. But she was sure that if they were anything like her, they'd love it there.
She'd enlisted numerous people into programs Alucricity was supposedly hosting. Some people needed serious convincing, and of course you couldn't get everyone. But sometimes it was as easy as striking up a casual friendship and her target was sold. She'd never heard of any of the activities being in action in all her time there, but she refused to let herself believe it a lie. She was sure there parts of the plan she wasn't in on. Maybe they were working on it. Though she never really had the time to confirm what the new members were doing. Once they were recruited she hardly ever saw them again.
Of course she knew better than to expect everything about her job to be all fun and games. There was still a lot of dirty work to be done. When times got tough, she was forced to resort to kidnapping. Yin often times had trouble finding a positive spin on this aspect of her job. Hearing their desperate cries and heartbreaking pleas made her question if this was worse than killing them. Some passed out in her hold in either out of fear for their lives, or the overwhelming realization of their inevitable fate. Others wriggled in her grasp, their struggles reminding her of the final moments of those that had fallen at the capable hands of a trained killer. At times, she felt glad that she never crossed paths with the ones she had taken against their will. But then she could feel nothing but guilt within her.
As usual, dealing with kids was the hardest part for her. In her heart and soul, she was strongly against it, but Shira insisted they had a large part to play. Though Shira had told her there were other benefits to their being in Alucricity, and she promised that no child would work the land. Whether she was stealing their parents away from them, or snatching the children up themselves, it always left a burning pit in her heart that often ripped throughout her entire body. She couldn't deny that there were times when she found herself in need of killing in order to keep herself from sliding even further down this slippery slope. Every now again, Yin was forced to face the reality that she was taking these children away from their homes. Not just the physical embodiment of a place that left them secure and sheltered, but the ones that resigned within hearts of those they truly cared about.
Yin could do nothing but hope they make peace with the new life they were being given and pray that they might someday find a way back home.
Yin figured she should head back to her designated area. She was meant to stay closer to Alucricity and stray from what could be seen as the Syndicate's territory. But day after day Yin found herself roaming the parts of Tokyo she found the most familiar. The area that had once been all she'd known. She didn't mean to, but it had become a habit of hers after a certain incident. It had started a few weeks into her job...
Things had just turned sour considering all kidnappings and murders she had to commit. And in all honesty, she wasn't feeling herself. She wasn't on duty then, but when Shira asked where she was going she claimed she wanted get some extra work in. Though Yin knew she was far too guilty to admit that she needed to get away for awhile and think things over away from the place that was beginning to suffocate her. She made sure to hide her eyes, knowing how much they revealed about her.
From there she wandered about listlessly, avoiding contact with all those around her. She felt a pull tug on her body, but her mind was too far away to register it. All she could do was let her feet carry her wherever they may. But when she snapped out of her reverie, she stood before her old tobacco shop. She couldn't help but peek. With her foot sunken into the puddle beside her, she tried to look into the store. The caged blinds Yin had never used now covered the window, hiding the shop from the rest of the world. It was clear this new doll liked her privacy, so Yin let her spectre dissipate, choosing not appear within the small rusty sink inside the tiny shack. Yin decided it was for the best anyway.
She could feel a presence across from her. It felt dark, heavy. Thick with a longing that matched hers. There was a numb loss within its depths, as if it were disappointed but it had been expecting this outcome long enough to settle with its fate. Then something like a pulse surged through them, and her. The immense weight of their darkness remained, but now a sharp realization coupled with muffled excitement tainted the aura she felt. She could still feel the longing, but something about it had been satisfied. Yin knew who it was without her spectre.
"Yin," His deep voice called, sunken but light at the same time.
"Hei," Yin wasn't expecting to find him there, nor was she expecting to be there either.
The two stood apart for a moment, neither saying a word as they both took in this anomally. Hei stepped closer, taking a good look at her face. The eyes that always seemed to hold a light brighter than that of his own, looked faded and worn. Her hair fell out of place and scattered from the braids that held them. Gravity's pull on her shoulders seemed much stronger than it was the last time he saw her. It was like she was being pulled down, ready to sink into the ground at a moment's notice. He was still new to the expressions she was beginning to reveal, so when he swallowed the appearance of her despondent countenance, he was thoroughly surprised at how much it weighed on him.
Hei approached her. With his body almost fully upon her, he placed both hands on her shoulders.
"Let's go home." He said as if such a place were shared between them. As if she belonged there. Hei nearly flinched after uttering those words. He hoped she would forget what the words implied, but he knew there was nothing he could do to take them back. And deep down, there was nothing in him that truly wanted to.
Yin never asked what he was doing out that night, or why he went to the tobacco shop in the first place. But she secretly liked to think that maybe something in his subconscious had sent him looking for her. She knew things were dangerous at that point, and they ran the risk of of getting caught by Huang, but maybe neither of them could stay away. Maybe he'd felt the same pull she had. Maybe he was just as glad to have stumbled upon her as she was. Unbeknownst to her, he liked to think the same.
She spent that night at his place, shrouded in his clothes and wrapped in his body. When she awoke the next morning, she found Hei making them breakfast. She wondered if he started early if only to rob her of the chance to deny him like she's done so many times before. Finding no harm in it, she let him have his way, turning to the sight of the odd flower. It was nothing but a miniscule stem at that point, the short base was thick but the tip was thin and frail, ever reaching out to the sunlight.
After looking at it for a long time, not only with her spectre but with her hands as well, she wondered if this was what Hei meant when he said 'Let's go home' the other night. If this small struggling thing they'd built together had somehow made this home. If their support of this little thing fighting for life, for light in its neverending darkness had somehow connected them enough to make this place a home. Yin wondered if her thoughts were too dangerous to linger on.
The two spent their morning and a bit of the afternoon together that day. Though Hei noted she was looking much less dejected than she had last night, her eyes still hadn't fully regained the light that he liked to bask in whenever he found that he just couldn't help himself. So he wasn't surprised when found himself telling her to wait as the kisses she shrouded his neck and jawline in grew more fleeting -a method of goodbye that Hei both feared and excitedly anticipated was becoming the norm for them. He pulled away from the lips that seemed to linger ever close his, and retrieved the plant from the window sill.
He placed the flower in her hands and she looked up at him in confusion. "Take it back with you," Hei explained.
"Why?" Yin questioned, wondering if maybe he didn't want to do this anymore.
"I want you to keep it for a while." His large hands covered hers.
"But-" Hei placed a finger to her lips, just as she was prone to doing.
"You said you wanted to grow this together didn't you? Now you get to keep a piece of me with you." His hand slid to her cheek. "Every time you see it, or feel it growing, you'll know that I'm with you."
Yin knew he didn't admire the flower as much as she did, but she like to think that it grew on him. That he was secretly offering up his own feelings toward the plant to help her. She gave him a smile, her eyes brightening.
"Thank you, Hei." Her hand came up to grace his cheek as well. Forgetting herself, she let her thumb run over his lips. Hei closed his eyes at the sensation, his body silently begging for more. Placing his hand on the one resting on his cheek he leaned down to press his lips against the open skin of her throat, the potted flower pressing between them. He licked and nipped at her skin, stopping several times to give her a nice long suck. He could feel her pulse against his throat and he felt his own throb harder with each passing second. He knew this was wrong. Everything about the way he touched her, the passion he'd put into the kisses he littered her with, it was all highly inappropriate considering the relationship they were aiming for. The friendship he was trying to maintain. But he could no longer tell what their relationship had become, and if it truly had morphed, these moments of passion seemed like a big part of it now. They both knew well enough that today hadn't been the start of their intimacy, this occured constantly between them. Hei cursed himself for letting himself get carried away for so long.
Though Hei was thoroughly enjoying the titillating moment he was sharing with Yin, he knew it would only close the comfortable gap between them. He had to pull away, to stop whatever this was from progressing. No good come from their being together. He still worked for the Syndicate, the very organization she was trying to get away from. If they were caught they'd both get in some serious trouble, and she more likely than not would be killed. Though he shouldn't care about her at all, he was willing to admit that he did care about her enough to not want her to face such a fate.
He separated himself from her, taking a step back. He instantly missed her warmth, the tingling sensation spurred on by their closeness. "Goodbye Yin," His fingertips ran up and down her arms, sending shivers along their length.
She kept the plant close to her for a few weeks after that. She watched as it emerged from the soil, running away from its seedy core. Some days it seemed strong and vibrant, while on other days it almost shrunk inside itself. The poor thing wavered between steady development and near death so often that Yin couldn't imagine how on Earth Hei managed to it grow as much as he did. Yin wondered if maybe the plant's growth had now become symbolic of Hei's wellbeing. She wondered if maybe he had a hard time maintaining stability whenever she was away for too long.
Hei was relieved when it was his turn to take care of the flower again. Every time she returned to him with those knowing eyes, he could tell she knew he was struggling without her. And though he hated to admit it, he had a feeling he knew what was giving him away. Her awareness of his moments of weakness made him feel vulnerable. And when he could think of nothing but his defenselessness he was forced to confront the possibility that he beginning to trust her that vulnerability.
Yes couldn't've is a real word.
