poly_chromatic | ♦♦ 35TH CONTRACT - ANONYMOUS TEXT - Slightly Forwarded to before the 27th

It was
a pleasure
to burn

[ A mockery? A salutation? A farewell? Perhaps all three. ]

[ Or perhaps, completely separately, it works for Hei as a statement about his time in the City -- and how he's lived it. He hasn't always embraced it. More often than not, he's been measured and withdrawn. But strangely enough, he's not proud of those times when he's guarded himself against experience. Because although being measured was the rational decision, it was never a pleasure. The times here when he's had the courage to give of himself and experience something without the obstruction of barbed wire and concrete walls has, literally, been like 'burning.' It hasn't been a pleasure in the simple sense of happiness, but in the greater sense of being memorable, mind-altering. Even transgressive. ]

[ He feels that way now. Like he's coming out of a silent stretch of hibernation -- months, years, of being measured, of keeping himself apart. ]

[ Maybe he wants to 'burn' again. ]

[ (Or maybe you're all reading too deeply into it. Maybe he's obliquely advising his teammates on what to do with his body if he accidentally dies during the hullabaloo here.) ]

[ (Don't bury him.) ]

[ ooc: post to tie up loose ends with cr, mostly. Open to action if you want to run into him wherever<3 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Oh don't start, you kibble-guzzling pest. ]

Does this mean we can't strike up a romance at a coffee shop?

Isn't your love life busy enough?

Glass houses. Rocks.

[ He's not the one getting literal pussy flung at him at street corners. ]

Only when it's springtime.

Anything beyond that would make survival extremely difficult.

[ Trust him, he knows. ]

[Hmph.

Still, as entertaining as the banter is, there are important issues to be discussed. Being a Contractor, Mao doesn't bother easing into the subject.]

Where are you going to go?

[ The bluntness isn't unexpected. Is, in its own way, even reassuringly familiar while everything else is dissolving to ruin. ]

[ (But when is that any different from their own world?) ]

I would say 'Home.' But that's not the rational choice.

[ It's not that he lacks the faith or conviction to make a decision and follow it through. It's that, in the end, at home, you live or you die. One is as likely as the other. ]

Forget irrational. That would be an idiotic choice.

[Why would you even? Go back to a life of constant danger and violence, on the run from the Syndicate, give up pleasures that you've become accustomed to... the idea is absurd.]

Where are you planning to go?

[ He doesn't want to discuss his reasons with Mao. They're teammates, even comrades, but Hei doesn't owe him his inner confidences. Especially when his own reasons for justifying the choice have more to do with obligation than pragmatism. ]

Preferably not home.

But I'll go wherever Yin does. [Because she'll go wherever Hei does.] She keeps life interesting.

[ He doesn't bother to ask: Is that the only reason? Part of him ought to find it odd: Contractors have no allegiances, after all. He, Mao and Yin are teammates for the same employer. That's it. But there's no Syndicate here. They have no reason to stick together the way they do. ]

[ Except nothing is that simple. ]

Hopefully not too interesting.

[ re: Wherever he chooses to go, he needs to ensure the team's safety. ]

That would be your job. It is a Chinese curse, after all.

[ ... Pussycat, you better swerve before he makes you. ]

Here I imagined it was a curse exclusive to my nature.

Maybe it is. [Whatever whatever.] You've spoken with Yin?

I have.

[ Is that what this is about, Mao? You're concerned about Yin? ]

Whichever gate I choose, I plan to take you both along.

[ It's almost like infiltrating Hell's Gate all over again -- him, Mao, and Yin, sinking into that rabbithole between surrealism and reality. ]

♦♦ 35TH CONTRACT - ANONYMOUS TEXT - Slightly Forwarded to before the 27th

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