poly_chromatic | ♦♦ 33RD CONTRACT

...Back again.

I could do without the psychic jetlag. No worse for the wear, despite it.

[ Anonymous Text ]
Sing A Song of Sixpence The Child's Rhyme A Lie 1 & 20 Blackbirds Baked As They Die

[ Do not be alarmed. It's a code, not threats of animal abuse. Simply Hei's way of testing the Network-waters. ]

[ Private to Yin ]

~~Are you all right ...?~~

Status?

[ Private to Pai ]

I'm at the safehouse.

[ Options For Run-Ins ]

Cafe: He's assumed 'Li's persona -- timid and dopey-faced. A walking chameleon. But right now, blending with the scenery isn't his priority. The opposite. He's utilizing the freedom afforded by the City to stick out. To play chicken with himself -- after months of paranoid caution. You'll see him seated at the corner, with an unobstructed view of the cafe's interior. Elbow-deep in several platters of fried food, gorging like it's his last meal on earth.

It's his sixth. But fugitive life does wonders for an already freakish appetite.

Dojo: Avoiding the facility’s tangle of Life Cycles and Cybex machines, he's focused on a series of punches, blocks, and kicks to the air that, to the uninitiated, might look like a martial dance routine. It's a kata, but nothing formal or stylized. He has no interest in revealing the full scope of his abilities. Even so, his moves are good -- smooth, practiced, and powerful. They would be impressive in any grizzled combat veteran, but this guy seems at least half that age.

His visit to the dojo isn't an indulgence, or a way to burn off energy. It's a way of reassuring himself that his enemies-- his real enemies -- really are all back home. Or it could be a way of saying come out, come out, wherever you are.

The Underground: In his absence, things have moved around. Locations have changed; reigns of power have switched hands. But it's nothing too drastic. Masked, alone, he propels himself into his first patrol of the year. He feels almost like a kid, a high school student, gone away during summers -- not to visit family and friends but off to anonymously toil in some big city. Now he's back from big travels -- big character-altering, mind-boggling travels. And somehow, the cliche is true: everything in the City seems slightly tepid after having experienced all that disasters and miracles back home.

Of course, it's never a good idea to imagine there is anything tepid about the City. Not so long as it brews with such indefinable magic. Things that pour out of it, or gravitate to it, large or small, are never harmless. In that department, even Hell's Gate has nothing to boast of in comparison.

Anywhere Else: Invent your own setting! You know the drill! c:

[ OOC: Officially off hiatus, and Hei is back in the City, after a brief canon update! Post is anonymous and unhackable as always! Tags will be sporadic so your patience is appreciated<3 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He would ask that first.]

I've been staying at the Beach House. [Maybe he's forgotten his little girlfriend; eight months is a long time.]

[ He hasn't forgotten. But where Korra would've been a fraught topic for him eight months ago, now it is almost academic. There are too many other heavy things piled up over it. Before he left, he had not just been trying to get out of his old life, but actually making progress, both body and mind. And then he wasn't just dragged back in, but outright blasted all the way back into the proverbial heart of darkness he'd been gradually leaving behind. He hasn't yet absorbed it, what it means to succumb to the deadliest, most ruthless, most resourceful aspect of his own personality. The civilian he wants to be, colliding with the killer he is. ]

[ A chilling mismatch. No wonder he's disoriented. ]

[ So disoriented, in fact, that he blames it for mishearing Pai's reply. ] The ... Beach House. [ He stares at her with some surprise. An unintentionally dazed variety of surprise. Given everything he knows about Pai -- and Korra -- it makes no sense. A pause before he speaks, blinking slowly. ] Why?

[ As in, Why would you stay with her? As in, Why would she keep you? ]

[Pai shrugs carelessly.]

She fed me.

[It had seemed like too much trouble to resist when Korra insisted, and maybe a part of Pai had enjoyed the thought of pestering the interloper. (One of the many things that she would never admit to, because Contractors are above such pettiness, even if 14 year old girls aren't.)]

[ Surprises heaped upon surprises. Hei had assumed that Pai must've relocated to the Underground, shacking up in his safehouse. That maybe she'd wrangled Chekov into buying her meals. The idea of Korra taking her home ... it had never occurred to him. Mainly because it is absurd. Hate is a strong word. But the two girls ... don't like each other. At least as far as he could tell. Pai's expedient nature (and, let's face it; she must've enjoyed making a nuisance of herself at Korra's expense, just because) is somewhat less of a surprise. She is a Contractor, after all. Things change, priorities shift. Her concern would be how to get her next meal. ]

[ Even so, his voice is quiet and slightly bemused when he says, ]

She really is a masochist.

[ Whether this was out of kindness, or obligation, or for ulterior motives ... He doesn't know. He'll have to ask Korra in person. ]

I think she just wanted help taking care of her pets. [Guess who didn't like doing chores. Yup. This Contractor.

Guess who's also sick of talking about Hei's stupid girlfriend.]

Are you hungry? [Stupid question on the surface, but she really just wants to change the subject. It may also be a coded offer: I'll treat.]

[ Hei's mouth tugs upward in an almost smile. Not much humor, but a sense of relief. He feels so scooped-out. So altered in himself. Unsure of his bearings back home, wary of the past, wary of the future, wary of Yin, for fuckssakes. But Pai is still Pai. It's a simple thing. She is his family and he is hers; they are both killers. These facts are as cleanly connected to him as each finger at the end of each hand. The circle closes upon itself and he is content within its circumference. When she asks if he's hungry, he senses the subject-change. Doesn't remark on it. Just squeezes her tight, before letting go. ]

Starving.

[ There is a cabinet of food in the safehouse. But it's chocked full of non-perishables like dry fruits, canned soups, cake mixes and cereal bars. He's in the mood for something a little more nutritious. ]

[He lets her go but she holds onto his hand, not willing to let him go entirely.]

Pick a place.

[ On instinct, Hei twines his fingers with hers. Their hands differ in size and shape, but in a lot of ways, they're mirror images: the calluses are in almost exactly the same places. The turmoil of Tokyo, the mind-boggling trip to the Gate, are still fresh in his mind. He can't stop thinking about it all. Pai stands for it all somehow, like a treasure snatched from a burning building. ]

[ Gently, he squeezes her palm. ]

Someplace that serves meat. The more, the better.

[ re: a steakhouse would be nice. ]

I know the perfect place. [There's a Korean barbecue that opened up down the street while he was gone. It's actually a front for some underground smuggling, but the meat is good, cheap, and plentiful.

She tugs him hard out the door, for once seeming like the excited teenager she's supposed to be. An illusion, of course, but it's for him.]

[ Even if it's an illusion, he doesn't care. Some people look at a mirage in the desert, and lament it's not a real oasis. Other people watch that heat-illusion shimmering in the sand, and marvel that something so surreal exists at all. Right now, gripping her hand, letting her lead him to wherever there'll be food, he experiences more pure joy in one moment than he'll otherwise lay claim to in a lifetime. It's enough. He's with Pai, and loving her defines him like a chalk line around his form, the form of his existence. ]

[ It's something that'll keep control on that ravening and pacing monster, caged behind the brittle bars of his sanity. At least for a while. ]

♦♦ 33RD CONTRACT - ANONYMOUS TEXT/ACTION

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