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i.
On days when the sky is too bright, Luka hides.
He curls up in the darkest place he can find, hugs his knees to his chest, squeezes his eyes shut and waits for the pain to pass. Heperu doesn’t like it when he does this, but now that Luka is at Anakt Garden, he can sort of get away with it. As long as he never misses a class and eats when he’s supposed to and doesn’t let anyone see him like this. It’s a reasonable set of rules.
If the others know, they’ll view him as weak. As a thing to be picked on, at the bottom of the food chain, and in order to succeed on the stage, you have to know how to turn the crowd in your favor. You can never let them know you curl up in the dark when the sky gets too bright.
The worst part is, it’s not even the sky’s fault.
It’s just a fault of Luka’s.
No one else’s head splits itself open, skull pounding, temples throbbing, to the point where tears well up in their eyes and it hurts to look at even the darkness they’ve run to for safety. No one else suffers like this—or if they do, they’re so much better at dealing with it.
Luka shoves himself further into the corner, back against the wall, until his spine aches from the pressure of it. He digs his fingernails into his arms, through his sleeves so as to not leave marks. Blemishes and scars cost you points on the stage. The audience wants a perfect, spotless, doll, and that is what Luka will become. That is what Luka is.
Apart from—
He digs his teeth into his bottom lip. Digs the heels of his hands into his temples. It won’t stop, and he doesn’t know why it happens and he can’t ever get it to go away and his free time is almost over, but the thought of having to step back into the light makes him want to vomit. But he can’t get sick. He can’t. He’s always sick, or sick-like, or sickly, or hiding in the dark because his brain is attempting to tear itself apart and leak out through his eyes.
He’s dizzy without standing up.
A nap might help, but he doesn’t have time for that anymore. He thought it would go away on its own.
It never does.
He wants to smash his head against the wall until it stops, or until he passes out. Whichever happens first. It doesn’t matter, just as long as he fixes the problem before personal time ends so he can actually hear what his teachers are saying so his grades won’t slip, because he has perfect marks in everything right now and if he loses that, Heperu will be upset. And rightfully so, because Luka has proven he’s capable of perfection, so no lower standard could ever suit him.
He can do it.
He’ll fight through the pain if he really has to.
He’ll—
“Luka?”
His head shoots up, eyes snapping open, so fast that everything spins even though he can hardly see anything at all. It’s blurry, fuzzy, blissfully dark until—
Light floods his vision.
He grimaces, biting back a groan so hard his tongue bleeds with it, screwing his eyes shut once more. It’s not enough. He covers his eyes with his hands. It’s not enough. He buries his face in his knees, but it’s still NOT ENOUGH—
“What are you doing?”
“Go away,” he snaps without thinking. It’s Hyuna. She won’t get him in trouble.
“Not until you tell me why you’re hiding from everyone.”
He can imagine: her hands on her hips, one eyebrow raised, looking down at him with judgmental confusion. If he weren’t so focused on blocking out as much light as possible, he’d spring to his feet and tackle her to the ground. She’s stronger than he is, but he could at least yank on her hair or bite her arm. Maybe even hard enough that the mark never fades.
“I’m not hiding,” he grits out. He’s usually better at lying.
“Oh yeah? Then what are you doing?”
He’s usually better at lying, but he can’t come up with something believable right now. He can’t think. He just wants Hyuna to leave and to be alone, because he always deals with this alone, because there’s no other way he can deal with it. Light makes it worse, noise makes it worse, the knowledge that someone else is nearby makes it worse.
He fights to keep his heartbeat steady in his chest.
He’s not afraid, because he doesn’t experience fear, because he can keep his heartbeat in control. He’s just…annoyed. He’s in pain. That’s all.
That’s all.
“Go away,” he mumbles again, the heat gone from his voice entirely.
Silence stretches between them for several very long moments. Hyuna stays right where she is, but she says nothing. If only she would shut the light off too. Then, maybe, Luka could pretend he’s alone and he would be fine. Fine-enough. As fine as he can be when all he can think about is the pain.
Finally, Hyuna says, “Okay. Weirdo.”
She walks away, footsteps echoing against the hard floor.
She turns the light off when she goes.
ii.
Luka knows today will be a bad day as soon as he wakes up.
A piercing pain has already settled behind his eyes, born sometime in the night, caused by nothing at all. Like it always is.
He goes through the motions of his morning routine, and it only gets worse, spreading out towards his temples and down into his jaw. By the time he arrives at his first class for the day, even his teeth are hurting. But he takes his seat at the front of the classroom and opens his notebook and faces the teacher with his head held high. The lights are near-blinding. There’s a vague sort of ringing in his ears.
He straightens his back, pulls his chair close to his desk, paints himself as the perfect student, and spends the entirety of class posing himself so it appears as if he’s paying attention. Head tilt here, furrow of the brow there. Pencil to notebook paper, write down whatever words the teacher is saying. Ignore the pain. Maybe it’ll go away this time.
He hardly even notices when the class ends, until Hyuna is suddenly at his desk, shoving his notebook onto his lap so she can sit atop it.
“Your eyes look weird,” she notes.
Luka blinks slowly. He doesn’t know what that means. He’s pretty sure his eyes are fine; as far as he knows, there are never any visible signs of his headaches. Heperu told him so. He did a very thorough examination, looking him over, making sure there were no physical issues that they would need to take care of. If the pain is only inside, then no one else has to know it’s there.
“They’re all foggy,” Hyuna explains. She waves a hand in front of his face. “Can you even see me? Are you going blind or something?”
Maybe, Luka thinks. Maybe the endgame of his headaches is to cost him his vision.
Oh, well. As long as they don’t cost him his voice. He can sing blind. Studying will be more difficult, but he could probably convince Hyuna to read things aloud to him, and he has a very good memory. He’ll just have to do all of his exams as oral ones, but that wouldn’t be much of an issue. Any tendency he had towards performance anxiety has long since been trained out of him.
It would have to be, in a place like Anakt Garden. Where you’re primed for the stage.
“No,” he answers belatedly. “I’m fine.” He pokes Hyuna’s leg, hoping she’ll take the hint and move.
She doesn’t.
His head aches. How have they only been through one class? It feels like it’s been eight hours already.
Hyuna squints at him. Then, she does finally slide off of his desk, only to grab hold of his wrist and drag him up out of his seat. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she informs him.
“So?”
“So I need you to come with me.”
“Why.”
She doesn’t answer. And he doesn’t have the energy to fight against her, so he zones himself out as he’s tugged through the hallway and into the girls’ bathroom. The door swings shut behind him, and then—
Hyuna turns the lights off.
She’s lucky no one else is in here.
Luka realizes, way too late—
“You don’t actually have to go to the bathroom, do you?”
Hyuna laughs. “No! Now, are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
Luka purses his lips. He debates running into a stall and locking it. He wants to sit down. His head is spinning already, and that’s not helping the pain. He’s almost-nauseous; not enough to throw up, but enough that his stomach is twisting uncomfortably.
He leans against the wall, shoulder hitting the tile with a heavy thump. He presses his head against it next, and the coolness offers a brief sense of relief.
But then, in an instant, Hyuna’s hands are on him. Rooting themselves on his shoulders, pressing his back against the wall, her face hovering inches away from his. His vision goes out, then swims back into place, and all he can see is the glint of Hyuna’s teeth. He wishes she would dig them into his throat, rip out whatever it is that keeps him alive, ruin his perfection and leave him on the ground for someone to find. Mutilated and bloody.
He would let her eat his brain.
Maybe whatever’s wrong with it would make her as sick as he is.
“If I don’t know what’s wrong,” she growls, “I can’t help you.”
“I don’t need help,” Luka returns evenly. His entire body screams in protest. He is perfect on the outside, and held together by haphazard loose threads within. He is one wrong move away from falling apart completely. One twist, one bruise, one sprain away from his insides unspooling.
But it’s not as if Hyuna can reach inside of him and stitch him back together.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Go away.”
“No.”
Luke reaches out, thoughtless, grabbing for Hyuna’s throat. Digging his fingers into her hot, hot, skin and delighting when fear flickers through her eyes. They shine like falling stars. Luka is going to claw them out of her skull so she knows what it feels like to have your body rebel against you—so she knows what it feels like for light and sight themselves to be your biggest enemies.
So she knows there is no helping him.
Hyuna takes his wrist in her hand, fingers circling around it completely, pressing hard enough to bruise.
“I’ll break it,” she threatens.
Luka laughs.
It bubbles up in his throat and spills through his lips without his consent, a stream of giggles, as tears prick at the corners of his eyes. It’s hilarious. Snap his wrist, and he’ll finally have a distraction from the pain splitting his skull. He’ll finally have something else to think about, and an excuse to miss classes for a day, and a good enough reason to have painkillers pumped into his veins until everything is completely, blissfully, numb.
“Do it,” he begs. “Hyuna, do it.”
He needs the pain, because it’s the only way out of the hell his mind has stuck him in today, this week, this month, this life. It’s all just pain and the scant breaks in between. It’s all just fighting to stay alive for another day. It’s all just waiting for the next blinding strike through his head that comes from nowhere and is caused by nothing and is worsened by everything.
Hyuna threatens pain because she hates it.
But pain is all Luka has ever known.
iii.
The sky is too bright again, so Luka hides. The difference is, this time, Hyuna is with him.
This time, she wraps her arms around him and lets him bury his head in her chest to block out any remaining traces of light. He matches his breathing to hers, matches his heartbeat to the steady thump thump thump against his ear. He focuses on the rhythms and how they complement each other, like a melody fit for the stage.
Thump, thump, thump.
In time with the pounding echoing through his skull, pulsing in his temples, beating behind his eyes. Thump, thump, thump.
If he could transform his pain into music—
he would be unbeatable.
iv.
Luka is supposed to be interviewed today. For winning the Outstanding Student Award. He has thirty minutes, and he’s been dressed in white frills, a satiny shirt and loose-fitting pants, a perfect display of purity.
He looks at himself in the mirror, in the blinding bathroom light, and he wonders.
If he smashed it to bits with his fist, would the shards be sharp enough to force into his head? Could he split the skin at his temple, pierce through his brain, and carve out the part of him that does nothing but hurt hurt hurt? If he stains himself red, if he bleeds out on the tile floor, if he finally extracts his brain—
Will it end?
Or will he face the same suffering even once he’s with the Great Anakt? Will he loop this pain forever? Is there any force that can save him?
Hyuna finds him staring at himself in the mirror, squinting through the light, face scrunched up exactly as Heperu warned him not to, lest he crease his skin with wrinkles. It’s fine, though. There are surgeries that can fix that. Heperu has planned out a thousand ways to ensure Luka retains his glowing, youthful, beauty for as long as possible.
There are surgeries that can erase almost any scarring, too.
“Hyuna,” he says, meeting her eyes through the reflection. “I am going to smash my head into this mirror.”
She frowns. “Why?”
“I can’t do the interview.”
He’s forgotten everything he’s supposed to say, his migraine—because that’s what the doctors finally said these were called—having chased away most every coherent thought. All he knows is pain, and hurt, and a desperation for darkness and quiet and peace and sleep and for it all to stop.
But instead, he’s in the bathroom with the lights on.
He is going to smash himself to bits.
“Just tell them you’re sick.”
“I can’t.” To admit sickness is to admit weakness. Outstanding students don’t get sick. ALIEN STAGE winners don’t get sick. Luka is the perfect pupil, and as far as anyone can tell looking at him from the outside, he is the epitome of good health. They can’t see inside of him.
He is going to make them.
He is going to pull his insides out, because that is the only way anyone believes you when you say you’re hurt. He is going to split his skull for real, let the blood stain him and his fancy clothes and this spotless bathroom, and he
is going to blame it on someone else.
It could have been anyone. Jealousy fuels the worst of violence, you know.
“Hyuna,” he says as she talks a hesitant step closer. His lips twist up into a grin. His hair is so light, so silky, so perfect. He is going to ruin it.
He is going to ruin himself.
But it’s fine. Heperu has a hundred human-pet surgeons willing to sew him back together at a moment’s notice. By the time it’s all over, no one will be able to tell anything was wrong at all.
v.
Hyun-woo stands guard at the door while Hyuna kneels beside Luka, one hand on his back. He’s hunched over the toilet, shivering violently, gripping the seat with numb fingers. He’s cold and hot at the same time, sweat beading at his forehead and drenching his hairline. His clothes are sticking to his skin, but the fabric is flimsy and not enough to ward off the frigid air.
He wretches, coughing, hacking, choking on his own stomach bile. He already threw up the minimal food he ate this morning, so he doesn’t know what more his body is trying to get rid of. His entire stomach, maybe. His intestines. Everything that is wrong inside of him. Everything that has never worked right. Maybe it would be for the best.
Cut him open, carve out the organs that can’t do their job correctly, and replace them with something new and better. A stomach that can properly digest all kinds of food, a heart that never stutters, lungs with a higher maximum capacity, a brain that doesn’t revolt at the flick of a light switch.
Take him apart, remove the imperfections, find replacement parts, make him into something truly perfect. Something truly without a single spot or blemish. Someone worthy of the praise he receives.
Heperu is the only one who knows the truth. Heperu, and the doctors who have used their machines to see inside of him and point out the flaws in his design. They say he’s too weak to survive most of the procedures that could fix him, but Luka no longer cares.
He would risk it.
His body lurches again, beyond his control. His heart flutters helplessly in his chest, almost-afraid, and his breath catches in his throat as it tries to force up nothing. There’s nothing left in him. There is nothing of worth left inside of his body. He is broken parts and hollow space. His head is pounding. He’s throwing up in the dark.
Hyuna remains silent beside him, her touch grounding and disgusting. It makes his skin crawl. It makes him want to die.
He thinks: She is going to stain me.
He thinks: I am going to taint her.
He is a perfect shell with blackness beneath; she is loud and brash and stubborn and disruptive and a child Heperu says will go nowhere because of that, but she is full of life. Her vitality will save her.
Luka is a corpse, being dragged through this world by the strings that hold him up. He cannot imagine what it’s like to have the energy that Hyuna does. She runs laps around Anakt Garden during personal time and still has enough energy for classes and studying and extra practice.
Luka is just—
he’s exhausted. Always. Forever.
There’s no escape from it.
He can’t stop shaking, he can’t get warm—or he’s too warm—he’s locked in an endless battle with his own mind and body. He doesn’t think he was made for any of this. He doesn’t think he was made to survive this long.
Many pet-humans don’t survive more than a handful of years. Because their segyein owners don’t know how to care for them, or because their bodies simply weren’t built for survival. Luka should have been one of them.
Instead, Heperu saved him, and now he’s trying to push himself through a life he wasn’t meant to have.
“Luka?” Hyuna’s voice breaks through the haze, though it’s still muffled. Like his head is underwater. Like he’s trying to drown himself in the toilet.
He’s not.
Is he?
He opens his eyes. He can still breathe. He’s faced with the stench of his own vomit settling in the toilet below him, but there is no water flooding his nostrils or mouth or lungs, which means he’s still alive.
He tries to reply, but his voice fails him, so he ends up merely forming the silent shape of Hyuna’s name with his lips. His mouth is dry and a salty bitterness has settled on his tongue. He needs water, but he fears that will only send him hurtling into another fit of vomiting. He isn’t sure his body can handle that right now. He might die.
He might die!
Ha, ha, ha!
He doesn’t realize he’s laughing aloud until Hyuna’s other hand finds its way to him, and she turns his head sharply so they’re looking at one another through the dark. He can’t even see her, really. But he knows she’s there and he’s memorized the shape of her. He’s memorized every line of her face. He can memorize anything, but only the useless knowledge returns to him in moments like this, when the pain is so sharp that he can’t stand and he can’t see and he can’t exist.
He can’t be.
But he remembers the grey of Hyuna’s eyes, and the arch of her eyebrows, and the pressure of her teeth against his thumb.
“Luka, you’re scaring me,” she says.
I’m scaring myself, he thinks hysterically. He might kill himself here on the bathroom floor, using Hyuna as his weapon. He might take freedom in the only way he can find it. He might force Hyuna’s fingernails into his throat, might force her to tear him apart, might die with her fingers inside of him.
When his consciousness fades, the last sensations he’ll know will be the warmth of Hyuna’s touch against the innermost parts of his body and the throbbing pain behind his skull.
What else could be more fitting?
He laughs, and he laughs, until the tears finally spill from his eyes and he chokes on a sob and he falls forward into Hyuna’s waiting arms.
His heart patters back into its usual steady rhythm. He paces it with the circles Hyuna rubs into his shoulder. His head throbs in time, like a song that just won’t leave. This is all Luka has ever been.
A rhythm, set to the tempo of someone else, playing along until he collapses and his body finally gives out.
+ i.
Hyuna should have been up on the stage with him. She would have been the only one who could offer any true competition.
Instead, Luka wades through his opponents like a giant in shallow water. In the final round, he sings nauseous through a migraine, limbs shaking, fingers numb around the microphone. He thinks of Hyuna saying that on the stage, microphone in hand, voice projected out into the world, is the only place where she felt like she belonged to herself.
Well.
Now, she will never belong to anyone else for as long as she lives. She’ll die when she’s caught, because she won’t let herself be caged. She couldn’t be satisfied with this.
Luka’s head pounds in time with the beat of the song, and the lights blind him, but he doesn’t let himself falter. He takes the pain and he turns it into music. He takes the pain and he lets it flood through him like a melody. He takes the pain and he takes the memory of Hyuna at his side and he takes the beat of his heart and the throbbing in his head and the pulsing in his temples and the haphazard craftsmanship within him, and
he wins.
As soon as the lights go out, he collapses. Skull thumping against the stage, sure to leave a bruise, but he can hardly even feel it. The world goes blurry and then dark.
But,
he won.
The price doesn’t matter.
It never has.