Chapter Text
☀️🍷── ⟢ ・⸝⸝
Mydei is dead. Phainon would know, because his roommate’s blood washes away into a nearby drain embedded into the alleyway’s concrete pathing. He doesn’t ask why an inconspicuous alleyway even has a drainage like that, but it’s too convenient to question. He watches as red flows out from Mydei’s neck wound and into the drain, and he feels his beating heart quicken.
Mydei’s body is lying at Phainon’s feet, eyes dulled as they fail once more to catch their killer. Sprawled out on the floor with outstretched arms and contorted legs, it looks as if he were wildly caught off guard, and the ache in Phainon’s chest roars louder than his pained, heaving breaths and involuntary whimpers. His knees are close to buckling, and his hands clench at his churning stomach.
Mydei is dead. Phainon knows, because this is the 42nd time that Phainon has killed Mydei over the span of 4 months.
‘That’s almost 10 kills for each month,’ Phainon randomly calculates with gnawing nausea, and the poor guy can’t help but grab Mydei’s jacket, take it off of the body, and drape it over to protect it from the moonlight. He can’t simply forget that this body was his lovely housemate, who regularly served him meals when he forgot to eat regularly or scolded him when he failed to separate his whites from his neons. His voice still lingers in Phainon’s mind, delusion softening his tone as he calls Phainon that Kremnoan expletive he liked slinging around.
For whatever purpose, Phainon also can’t help but whisper a quiet prayer of passage for the body, that death will look kindly unto Mydei and bring him to a more peaceful place than the living realm. Maybe somewhere with beautiful flowers and cute creatures running amok for Mydei to silently dote over, and he would be happy staying there.
He rationalizes this specific and repetitive course of action often by saying that he’s not a serial killer. Serial killers, defined by his search on the internet, are people who commit a series of murder of more than three people. Mydei is one man, and hopefully, one man alone. So, he’s not a serial killer, and if he were to really argue for it, he could say that he wasn’t a genuine killer, either. Not with the way this has been his 42nd time “killing” Mydei.
He’s more of an exterminator, but that would group Mydei in the same field as inhuman pests, which he was anything but. He was beautifully human, flaws and looks and everything. So maybe he identifies with being called a hunter, but that made Phainon sound like a creep. So he left the labeling part to no one else in particular. If he was a human exterminator or a creep hunter, so be it, but he was not a serial killer.
Phainon slowly leaves the body in the alleyway and makes it back to his shared home (that, believe it or not, he shared with Mydei), closes the door, hangs his coat, and makes dinner. It’s less “cooking” than it is arranging a plate full of leafy greens and three cherry tomatoes, some bits of celery and spinach added within the lettuce to really spice up the dish. He already hears Mydei scolding him to eat more than just green on green foods, as well as lecturing him on having a healthy diet.
Then, he waits at the table. The clock hanging on the kitchen walls doesn’t make the wait any easier.
Tick.
The front door’s locks click open, the hinges creak as it swings open, and leather brown oxford shoes step inside. The gait is heavy and dominating, and Phainon perks up towards the hallway to the entrance like a dog anticipating its owner.
Tock.
Phainon holds his breath when familiar golden locks turn the corner, releases it when glowing amber eyes lock their gaze against his cobalt blue irises. Both of their gazes soften, but a tick of dissatisfaction snaps on the other man’s face. Comparing the unfocused stare of a long-gone corpse to the blazing glare of a living statue, Phainon would not hesitate to prefer the latter over the other.
Tick.
He doesn’t recognize the feeling of relief as much as he acknowledges unsettled fear when tattooed arms carry a dirtied jacket over a sculpted shoulder. Moist sweat shines the curves of his toned muscles wrapped with crimson ink, and a glob of spit slides down Phainon’s throat with an inaudible gulp. The other man’s neck bobs in a slight groan.
Tock.
”Mydei..! You’re back!” Phainon finally lets go of that paralyzing fear to greet his housemate, lifting up a fork to stab at the stalk of a celery. The other man hums, leaning against the corner of the wall. He looks drunk, though he lacks the drunken blush to make that conclusion. He looks undeservingly cute all the same.
Tick.
“Would I not go back here after work…?” Mydei speaks after a baffled blink, rubbing the bridge of his nose in clear annoyance, “You’re eating a salad this late at night?” No matter how tired he is, he never fails to voice his concern over Phainon’s diet when he doesn’t eat off of Mydei’s servings. Phainon’s heart flutters nervously.
Tock.
”Well, it would feel weird to not eat dinner without you, so…” he slinks slightly in his seat, wracking up a reasonable excuse as to why he would be up waiting for the dead man walking to come back after 10 pm. In his eyes, this is an acceptable answer that wouldn’t throw anyone off.
The clock goes silent just as Mydei does, and a cold shiver rattles down Phainon’s spine. Fuck, it was not acceptable.
”Next time, just eat dinner without me,” Mydei warns after a beat and a sigh, the clock now background noise when the chair opposite to Phainon skids across the floor. Okay! It is!
The golden-haired man sits at the dinner table and takes out a bento box wrapped inside a handkerchief and places it on his side of the table. The silver-haired man with his somewhat pathetic salad chews mindlessly on dry lettuce as he watches the other unravel the knot made to seal the box inside, corners of the handkerchief falling out effortlessly into four.
The wafting smell of grilled meats and cooked vegetables hits both of them hard, with Phainon’s saliva pooling below his tongue and Mydei even flinching back at the delectable aroma escaping the confines of the box as he unclasps the top lid. No matter how many times Mydei dies, he never loses the ability to cook a damn good meal. But—
“Isn’t that your lunch? Did something happen?” Phainon has the courage to point out, waving his fork around towards Mydei’s lunch-turned-dinner. Unjustly, he earns a pouting scowl from Mydei. Ghh...
The blond doesn’t look away as his own fork stabs into a piece of meat and a carrot slice, creating a makeshift kabob with his utensil, “I didn’t take a lunch break. Too many assignments to tidy up at work to take a break.”
Phainon’s eyes watch rosy lips part to slide the kabob into Mydei’s mouth, and as sharp fangs grind the food down into mushy parts, his spine shivers again with some other emotion. He chalks it to curiosity and quips, “Good thing it’s still warm, then! Did you microwave it before you went home?”
“It’s the lunchbox. It’s designed to keep your food warm for longer periods of time,” Mydei answers after chewing and swallowing his food down, polite and all. Phainon smiles habitually upon noticing this quirk of Mydei’s: he thrives off manners. Maybe it’s why, despite his bone-rattling fear of what Mydei is, he can’t help but tease this strange humanoid creature for the littler things.
“How ingenious, next you’re gonna tell me you own self-cleaning clothes,” he responds playfully like clockwork. The other man doesn’t deign that jab with a proper response, instead focusing on finishing his dinner for the night and leaving Phainon high and dry.
☀️🍷── ⟢ ・⸝⸝
It’s annoying and excessive, how much blood Mydei has to wash out of his favorite jacket before actually settling it in the washer. Couldn’t he have been killed less bloodily tonight? In fact, he could have borrowed Phainon’s ugly hoodie, and he’d be fine being killed so nastily. This has been the 3rd time Mydei’s been slit in the throat on his way back home, and this has been the 2nd time Mydei has delivered a bone-crunching punch to whoever had dealt it.
Strangely enough, when he woke back up on the alleyway ground from his timely demise, nothing’d been stolen or defamed or misplaced (besides his favorite jacket, which had been placed over his body like a blanket). The knife wound on his neck, concealed by his chin and the collar of his jacket, thankfully healed by the time he opened the door to his shared house with his thoughtful but strange housemate, Phainon.
The itching from the healing process already subsided, and the bruises on his abdomen and wrists left from his pre-mortem scuffle with the attacker flushed back into his caramel skin. It was a shame that the wounds heal after every death. It was as if the killer knew that Mydei wouldn’t have any proof of his murder if the job were seen through completely, and he hissed a little at the thought of the killer recognizing his healing conditions from the very first time he was taken out.
Ever since he moved to Okhema and gotten into an untimely accident involving a car, a drunk Uber driver, a lightpole, and no witnesses, he’d been in a fatal, deadly occurrence almost every week for the past 4 months.
Of course, it wasn’t as if Mydei was trying to let this elusive Okheman killer off the hook. Initially, he did whatever he could to catch the person off guard, from taking a different route, bringing a friend to walk him home, wearing different clothes, etc., etc. He even brought self-defense weapons and assault-preventative tools when he realized his mighty punches and kicks weren’t enough to dissuade his consistent killer from killing him.
That only resulted in weapons being turned on him at the last minute and Mydei being acquainted with the taste and feel of pepper spray before being stabbed with his own army knife. So what if the killer had armed knowledge of weaponry and Mydei’s schedule and habits? As long as the killer didn’t kill anyone else in town, Mydei would ensure that their attention would remain on him for as long as he needed before busting this sick criminal down.
He’s never going to confess this to anyone, but Mydei’d already died a few times at work alone. When the office’s AC stopped working, but his cruel bosses decided it was still a viable environment to stack three piles of paperwork onto Mydei and his coworkers, he had died of overworking as his fingers failed to press the enter key and his vision blurred into nothingness. After that, he filed a complaint, opened a case, and the company replaced the higher-ups after weeks of providing testimonies and evidence of workplace abuse.
When he was assigned to run files back and forth between departments, he got stuck in a dingy elevator. It broke down, he lost oxygen, and after he was rescued, he petitioned for the company to invest in repairs and upgrades so that no one else would have to go through that horrifying experience. Thanks to his deaths, he’s been nicknamed ‘The Guardian of the Office’ for always pointing out terrifyingly lethal work conditions before they sucked away the life of his poor coworkers.
Being stabbed in the chest 12 times by his regular assailant after his shifts were lightwork. Being slit in the throat was nothing compared to the looks of horror and relief he saw when his coworkers found him stuck in that elevator. Choked, strangled, impaled, poisoned… he could endure it all.
Mydei likened this dilemma to how he treated most of his incidents at work: as long as no one got hurt, he’s willing to give up his life over and over if it meant justice was served.
Dinner was okay. He felt okay-er when he saw that Phainon was still awake and alive, fondness and concern washed over him when his housemate started chewing on his glorified grass meal. Mydei was very close to scolding him over his lackluster dinner, but it was very few and far between that a death made him feel all sentimental towards the people around him.
The palms hands redden as he harshens his scrubbing, the last stains of blood washing out of the fabric and into his sink. That’s why he had to catch this person soon. If they already knew of Mydei’s walk back home, his work schedule, his habits and his fighting style, then they must have already taken note of his friends, family, housemates, loved ones… his eyebrows furrowed at a disturbing image conjured from the anxieties of his mind.
White hair scattered across familiar damp concrete in between brick-built buildings. Ocean-like eyes muted into a pale blue, and sunkissed freckles whitening as red drained out from a preventable wound. Peach lips curled into a frown, eyebrows contorted in horror. A river flowed into a drain nearby, and with the rain, all evidence of stolen life would be washed away.
A person’s voice, undefined by any gender or age, has an audible smile as they laugh at Mydei from across the alleyway. It’s sing-songy, disgustingly smug, “You took too long, immortal. Now your roomie’s gone.”
The scrubbing stops, and Mydei’s fingers sting with wear. The jacket is clean, but the stench of copper still lingers. It’s enough to complete the mental image, and he throws the jacket into the washing machine’s basket.
There’s another thing that he would never confess to anyone, not unless he knows that the other felt the same.
Mydei likes Phainon, in the same way that static electricity likes a wool sweater. ‘It’s natural to like Phainon,’ Mydei concluded one day, ‘Everyone likes Phainon.’
When they first met 4 months ago, they had a bit of a rough start. Fights over rooming, fights over volume, fights over cooking, fights over anything. Sometimes, he would start it if his housemate bought another vase to decorate the house with. Phainon would start some if he found a reason to, which was anything that Mydei did.
Mydei got into a car accident when he was walking out on Phainon one day, just after another argument. Once he heard the door slam behind him, he started to walk.
He walked anywhere, any direction. Any length, any distance. Just to get away from that house for a bit, just to be alone with his thoughts. He thought of excuses, apologies, justifications, and rebuttals. He thought of what Phainon might say next, how he would respond, and if he’d forgive Mydei again. Probably so, if they were to keep living together, but it would be nice to get confirmation.
Mydei’s feet brought him back to his street. The nightly streetlights were already activated, and the neighborhood kids playing around scattered to run back inside so they would avoid a scolding from their parents. He was just a few houses away from his own when he heard tires skidding, music blasting, and the smell of burnt rubber rolling down from behind.
Like a deer in literal headlights, golden irises met dazed pupils. The sound of honking overlapped by grinding metal, and cloth sliding across the sidewalk. Door hinges creaking open, and the slurred speech of a driver in way over their head. Mydei had little time, little energy to react before blacking out.
That was the first time he woke up in that alleyway, body pulled far away from the glow of the surrounding streetlights and sight of any pedestrians. Arising from the alleyway, the incriminating street was cleared of any signs of an incident sans a slightly bent lightpole. A hit-and-run, then, which Mydei felt both deeply disappointed in and ecstatic over.
When he opened the front door to his house, Phainon had rushed over to the doorway. Fear had clearly silenced his housemate, but he had no idea for what reason Phainon would hold his typically vicious tongue as he felt Mydei up from his arms to his torso in an unsteady yet tightening grip. Mydei would suspect that he had seen the hit-and-run and would have prepared to ask Phainon if he had seen the driver, if not for the man’s question over minutes of silent assessment.
Phainon’s shaky tone betrayed any signs of knowledge, “Where have you been, Mydei…? It’s so late, I was getting worried.”
A sigh escaped Mydei’s lips as he yanked Phainon off of him, “I just took a walk, HKS. Now don’t you have something else to say to me?”
It was more of a meanhearted joke, like usual, but Phainon paled upon Mydei’s rhetorical response. Before Mydei could question his expression further, the man had shifted his petrified expression into sullenness, “I’m truly sorry, Mydei. I’ll wash all of the dishes from now on, even yours.”
Mydei closes his eyes and remembers fondly the shift in Phainon’s demeanor after that day. Although he misses the days of heated verbal arguments turned physical altercations, he would never deny himself the subtle domesticity tainting their usual bickering dynamic. Phainon washing the dishes and finally washing laundry correctly, Mydei cooking for the two of them and folding their clothes while watching cartoons on his phone… in a way, they were almost like a couple.
Phainon started taking genuine interest in befriending Mydei, too. He’d ask light questions like what he does for work, what time he gets off, if he had any other friends than Phainon… that last question ended up in a smack for an answer. Mydei chuckles upon the memory as he stalks upstairs, already wishing Phainon a good night after finishing up dinner. To his room, the scent of pomegranates and honey fill his lungs and relax his nerves after another bloody encounter, and he starts a shower to clean off any sticky scent a day of work and being killed had to offer.