Work Text:
Suho is a good liar
Suho's lips are soft. Suho's lips are those of a true liar and a pretender. Suho smiles with them, gives out promises, and encourages. Suho is soft-soft for all allies, like a downy bed.
Hajin looks at all this and chuckles. He was often reproached for making his protagonist too proper and good-naturedly honest, but the novel didn't reveal Suho's thoughts about the events that often. The Tower of Wishes was an exception, too short to pay attention and draw the right conclusions.
Suho wasn't the person both his allies and readers saw. Suho is a damn bundle of emotions, and not all of them are positive. Suho is a ticking time bomb with an emotional fuse. Suho maintains his composure only through his frontline work and training.
Hajin is an Observer, an Extra, he is insignificant in his own story, which gives him many opportunities. It is easy for an Extra to get lost in the crowd. Hajin sees much more than the others, not only because of his skills, but also because this world is based on everything that Hajin has imagined, even though he has not written a single word about it. Hajin observes the world that he once invested his entire self in.
Hajin observes the characters around him, but he does not touch them first, maintaining a certain distance. Hajin watches Suho and sees something that many others do not notice.
Suho has sharp teeth, which he hides behind soft lips. The swordsman bites the tip of the pen as he thinks about the questions, leaving dents from his teeth on it.
Suho always has a straight back outside of battles, because he restrains himself in every move, afraid of doing something terrible in an impulsive aspiration.
Suho has a scary face during duels, because it is difficult for him to restrain his thirst for murder, which has saved little Eren more than once in the forests of Akatrina.
The glint in Suho's eyes disappears in a flash of fury, but Hajin still finds himself mesmerized by those dead seas as Suho pushes him against the wall and growls. Suho doesn't like being evaluated as if he's not a threat to life.
Suho doesn't like Hajin, doesn't like his intense gaze. He doesn't like the feeling of helplessness when this arrogant man seems to mentally dissect him like some kind of amusing animal. It's as if Suho wouldn't dare touch Hajin if they were alone, away from the people who make Suho become the damned "protector" that ruined little Eren.
Suho doesn't like Hajin because instead of Hajin Suho sees the equally arrogant Prihi. But Prihi was afraid to look him in the eye and never did, while Hajin didn't even flinch, staring straight into his eyes as Suho let his rage out. It was as if Hajin wasn't afraid of him, as if Hajin already knew what was going to happen.
"Why are you so damned beautiful even when you're angry?..." Hajin seems stunned and behaves in an uncharacteristic manner. "The damn advantages of the damn main character."
Suho growls deep in his throat, but Hajin just smirks back, not flinching at the way his shoulders are clenched. Suho can almost hear the joints creaking, but Hajin just continues to mock him, even raising one hand to place his palm on Suho's cheek.
"Don't get so worked up, Kim Suho." Hajin curls his fingers to press his nails into Suho's skin. "You know that luck is also a damn skill, right? I've got so much luck that two hundred graves won't be enough."
"Do you really think that a damn piece of luck will help you deal with me?" Suho laughs openly. "You're too weak for a mountain of some kind of luck to help you do anything to me."
"I don't need to do anything to you," Hajin tugs Suho by the collar of his hoodie, pulling him closer and whispering, "little silly Saint Eren."
Hajin's breath is taken away by Suho's mana pressure. Bones are clearly crunching under the Suho's grip, and his eyes are glowing like two hellish fires. Before that, Suho was irritated to the point of anger.
Now Suho is in a state of panic rage.
"Where did you get this name, Kim Hajin?" Suho hisses, barely opening his lips. The servants in the King's castle called him Saint Eren, but they were all dead long before Suho's died. "Who the hell are you that you're not afraid to mention such a thing in front of me?!"
Suho is trying to scare Hajin.
Hajin can't get scared because he knows that Suho won't do anything. There is hope behind the rage in Suho.
"Where did you get it from, it's not there anymore, little Suho." Hajin doesn't quite understand what nonsense he's talking about, but his luck score is too high for him to stop. "And I don't have to explain my background to you."
Mana is compressed around Hajin, but most of all around his neck, forcing him to gasp for air. Suho doesn't twitch a muscle, because at the court of King Priha he often had to watch the torture in order to report. He had to grow up quickly, and he hated the King for it. Life would have been much easier without some of his knowledge.
Hajin is already sagging on Suho's hands when mana retreats away. Lack of air makes him inhale as much as possible and more often. It's hard to think and react, so Hajin only flinches when Suho pulls back the collar of his turtleneck and bites into his neck. The pain is intense, but it is drowned out by adrenaline.
At some point, Suho bites through the skin until it bleeds, and Hajin feels his fiery mana in his own body.
"I won't hesitate to kill you if you decide to get rid of this mark, Kim Hajin." Suho forces himself to pull away and licks his lips in pursuit of the bloody iron. "And no amount of luck will save you this time."
Hajin is still silent, but he smiles as he reads the system notification behind Suho's head. Suho's pupils are dilated, but they almost swallow the iris of his eye as the mana in Hajin's body becomes thinner, merging with what was originally in the arrow.
"I'm sorry, little Suho." Hajin is no longer smiling, but grinning like a starved animal. "It seems that my body doesn't mind getting stronger at someone else's expense. You're so unlucky with me."
Suho has a strong sense of déjà vu. There is no one in this world that he cannot eventually defeat, and as a result, there has been no worthy opponent for over fifteen years. Suho does not remember the face of the last person who was his equal in Akatrine, but this is not important now.
This is because Hajin's arrogance is based on a power that Suho cannot feel, but whose echoes he can perceive.
Hajin's Adaptation has no limits, just like Suho's Destruction.
"You're a damn monster." Suho forced a smile on his face, which was dripping with hunger. Suho had lived in hunger for a year, until he had killed himself with his own rage. Suho had learned to endure. "Don't treat the bite too harshly. Let it be a reminder that one day I will lose my patience and devour you."
The swordsman surprisingly gently pressed on the bite through the fabric, prompting Hajin to make another foolish move.
His fist clenches on the hoodie as Hajin pulls Suho closer and bites hard under his chin. Not to the blood, but enough to leave a noticeable mark.
"Don't miss the moment when I devour You." Hajin had been dreaming about his novel for a more than ten years before he wrote the first sentence. "Don't overestimate your self-control."
Hajin is also good at waiting.