Chapter Text
Sayeon’s aura is strange.
Especially today. When Sayeon had first lifted the hat off Ryujin’s head, she was puzzled. Sayeon’s aura was confident, and then she stomped on the hat.
Ryujin had felt tears forming in her eyes. It was so unusual. Even for Sayeon. Sure, she was fucking weird, but she never thought of her as cruel.
She could feel Sayeon’s eyes on her, and a waver in her aura. Ryujin looked over at her, wondering if that could possibly clarify what the hell Sayeon was thinking. But Sayeon looked away like she’d been caught (she had) and refused to look back. Her aura was almost overwhelming with guilt and regret.
Maybe you’ll think twice about doing something so fucking mean, Ryujin thought. What the fuck was your plan? To say ‘sorry’ and pick up my hat? Like nothing happened?
She hated Sayeon.
“What happened to those guys from the Begonia Group?”
“Are you sure you want to go over this now?” Ryujin thinks it’s odd, and wonders again what made Sayeon of all people cry.
“Yes. I’m fine.” It sounds like another lie. Ubiquitous, from Sayeon’s mouth.
Ryujin thinks about what they looked like with her blood stabbing them. “Well, they ran off.” Not technically a lie.
“They just… ran off?”
Ryujin flexes her jaw. “Yes. Which was lucky, because that bullshit you said about texting the others? Them being on their way? It’s really impressive that you made up a lie like that while blacking out.”
“Oh,” Sayeon says. “Thank you.”
Ryujin stares at her, dumbfounded. “It wasn’t a compliment. You put yourself — and me — in danger. You’re smart enough to know that.” And I’m smart enough to know why.
There’s a pause. “I’m sorry.”
“Not even a rebuttal?” Ryujin looks up at the ceiling and drags her hands down her face. “You really did get fucked up in there. God, I really thought you might have kicked it.”
Ryujin wonders how many times Sayeon will wake up in a hospital bed, with only Ryujin there to greet her. She closes her eyes, content to just sit in silence, but Sayeon always has to say something.
“Do you think I’m a bad person?” she asks quietly. “Or just a weak one?”
Ryujin looks at her and purses her lips. She doesn’t say anything for several long moments, but then Sayeon looks like she regrets asking.
Ryujin remembers who she’s talking to. Sayeon, who never seems vulnerable, who never questions herself. Who put herself and Ryujin in danger so Ryujin would use her gift, which she refuses to admit to. She wonders what it took for her to swallow her pride and ask something like that. Wonders what answer Sayeon is truly hoping for.
“Well, it’s all relative, isn’t it?” Ryujin finally answers. She wants to say neither. “From the Aberrant Corps’ perspective, you’re a perfect soldier made of dalgona and rainbows.”
Sayeon slumps on her pillow. “Ha. Sure. I just lost horribly to two guys from the Begonia Group, and I have nothing to show for it.”
“Not nothing,” Ryujin says, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards. “I don’t know what the fuck you were doing before I got there, but they’ve collected proof in an evidence bag that you fought them off.”
“So we did get points?”
It’s almost unbelievable. “You almost fucking died and all you can think about is your red tie?”
“Our red ties,” Sayeon says, in that obnoxious fucking tone she uses when she’s oh-so-certain. She narrows her eyes, staring at nothing in particular. “I am going to get us all there. I swear it.”
Ryujin rolls her eyes and plops her feet on the end of Sayeon’s cot. “You know something crazy, Glasses?” She laughs. “I really do believe you.”
“You… trust me to do it?”
It’s not a particularly strange sentence, but the expression on Sayeon’s face, her tone, her aura… it’s just strange. “I… do,” she says hesitantly. A sigh. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
Sayeon looks like she wants to say something else, but she doesn’t. Ryujin doesn’t try to prompt her. She’s content with silence.
“I can’t think of another way out of this. I need your gift.”
Even if you’re lying about what it is, Ryujin thinks. Whatever it is, it does work.
“For—?”
“If I give you a goal, your gift can tell you what to do, right? Is that how you said it works?” Ryujin feels overwhelmed by panic. “I need you to help me help that woman. I know her, from before — she’s not a bad person, she doesn’t deserve to die!”
“You want me to help a criminal escape,” Sayeon repeats, slow enough to make Ryujin want to strangle her. “But Juni can’t see us, because she just sent us back to HQ.”
So she plays the only card she has. “Please. Help me. I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll use my gift, I’ll listen to you on missions. I swear.”
“Do you think I’m a god?”
It’s obviously rhetorical, the way Glasses just scoffs and turns around. The fact that she does so despite the offer of Ryujin’s gift does not bode well. But Ryujin is out of options.
“Please.”
She has never felt so pathetic. She’s fallen on her hands and knees. Begging. It feels disgusting.
To be at the mercy of someone like Sayeon Lee is to offer yourself on a platter to the devil.
“I’ll help you on one condition.”
“Anything,” Ryujin pleads, “I swear, anything.”
“You have to listen to everything I say. And do it without question.”
Is it worth it? For Yesol?
Of course it is. “I will,” Ryujin promises immediately. She feels like a fruit fly stuck in a trap. It feels like the worst mistake she could possibly make. But it’s worth it, for Yesol.
After all, a deal with the devil is still a deal.
It’s something Ryujin has never felt. Not from Sayeon’s aura.
Guilt.
What could have made her feel that way?
Fearing the worst, Ryujin looks over the edge of the building, but the scene unfolding elicits more confusion — albeit, relief as well — than anything. The man — the bait civilian — stands between Yesol, who is on the ground, and Juni, whose aura seems angrier and more impulsive than it’s ever been.
But then Juni just… walks away.
Ryujin, relieved, collapses. She thinks she might cry. First, Yesol had proven Sayeon wrong. She didn’t take the civilian hostage, didn’t display murderous intent, didn’t do the same fucked up bullshit Sayeon did. Second, Yesol was safe.
“Holy shit.” Ryujin leans back and rubs her face, staring up at the sky. “Thank God. I think that just took a year off my life.”
“This isn’t right,” Sayeon says.
Ryujin peeks at her. “Because Yesol didn’t take the civilian hostage, right?”
“Well,” Sayeon says, fists clenched, “yes! It would have been the logical thing to do. It was the safest bet. The easiest way to guarantee an escape.”
Of course Glasses needs a Humanity 101 class. “People aren’t logic machines, Glasses. Yesol saved that guy’s life. From Juni. And then defended her — him, a human, defended a rogue Aberrant! — from a suit.”
“Juni was going to attack anyway.” Sayeon sounds almost… crestfallen. “She was going to break the Aberrant Corps’ code and attack with a civilian present.”
“Yeah,” Ryujin agrees. “And the criminal stopped her.”
Sayeon does not acknowledge this. “Let’s get back to HQ before Juni does.”
Ryujin could hold this over Sayeon’s head. She could gloat. But Sayeon seems so distressed, she can let it go. For now.
She’s in the air after someone’s tibia smashes into her ribs. After another millisecond, she realizes it’s Juni.
Oh, Ryujin thinks. That’s why Glasses turned into such a cunt.
She wants to yell at herself for her own train of thought. Don’t give Glasses too much credit. She stomped on her hat, even if Ryujin still can’t think of an explanation that doesn’t involve Sayeon’s skull briefly being full of rocks and monkeys.
And then Juni starts taking out her apparent anger on Ryujin, ribbons weaved around her body like a spider entombing prey. Since this is undoubtedly another part of Glasses’ plan, Ryujin allows herself to slump into the ribbon prison, tanking Juni’s (frankly, weak) punches. Any second now, Glasses is going to say whatever magical words it will take to get out of the situation, like she always fucking does.
From somewhere behind Juni, Ryujin hears a very feeble, “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, Sayeon?” Juni asks, turning to face her for a moment. “When you’re a cell leader, the lives of your cell members are your responsibility.” Juni punches Ryujin again and Ryujin is thinking it might be time to end the fight for good. “So when you put them in danger, you accept the potential outcomes. Like them dying.”
Her ribbons pull themselves taut around Ryujin’s trachea.
“Stop.” Glasses sounds so shaky and faint, Ryujin might have laughed at her in a different situation. “Stop it!”
To her credit, Glasses tries to get up and stumble towards them, fingers outstretched like she’s going to pull Ryujin free. Juni’s aura doesn’t even flicker when her ribbons shoot out from the ground to stop Sayeon dead in her tracks, giving her a matching noose.
“Stop what, Lee?” Juni asks. “What difference does it make who finishes her off?”
Ryujin realizes Sayeon does not, in fact, have magic words ready. Juni sounds so unstable, there might not be a winning combination.
“Please stop.”
Ryujin could have been given ten million guesses as to what would happen next, and she wouldn’t have figured it out. She’ll blame that on the lack of oxygen, since Juni’s ribbons are unyielding on her windpipe.
“Are you crying?” Juni sounds like she’s in disbelief. “Are you serious, Lee?”
Ryujin gags. She doesn’t want to openly fight back yet — is this part of Sayeon’s plan? — but Juni has about thirty seconds before instinct takes over and she ends up just like the blond cunt that killed her family.
“But you know what, Lee?” Juni sneers. The fight with Yesol must have pissed her off more than Sayeon thought it would. Ryujin gags again. “Please doesn’t mean anything. Since the first day you’ve been here, I’ve never heard one genuine fucking—”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it was all my fault. This, and e-everything else, it w-was my fault. I’m sorry. So please, please let go of her.”
Sayeon Lee? Begging? She sounds as desperate as Ryujin did in that alley.
There is no plan, Ryujin realizes. So she chomps down on her own lip, flashing what’s left of her essence in a show of strength, milliseconds from sending a hemoglobin spear through Juni’s ribs, cigarette buddy be damned, and—
She’s on the ground, inhaling dirt and dust like it’s worth diamonds. The ribbons have dematerialized.
“I’m going to give you both a choice. Either get over your differences tonight, or run away from the Corps. Tonight.”
“Wh—?” Sayeon starts to speak, but Juni cuts her off.
“That’s right!” She smiles. “Get your shit together, or fucking leave. Either way, I’m not dealing with this anymore. If you don’t leave, and I catch you fighting again, I will disband Cell 4. If you run, you have until daybreak. That’s when the Corps will notice and start their hunt.”
The silence is heavy.
“Cheer up. At least you get a choice.” And she’s gone.
Sayeon makes some horrible choking noise and hits the ground on all fours, her entire body trembling.
Ryujin has never seen her like this.
“Sayeon,” she says. “When you, uh, punched me. And started acting like a piece of shit. That was a ruse?”
Sayeon sniffles. Won’t look up at her. “…Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“And, uh… the crying? Was that a ruse, too?”
Sayeon doesn’t respond. Ryujin can’t blame her for that. It’s an awkward question for people who aren’t friends. Even if Sayeon would never extend the same grace, Ryujin gives her a way out of answering.
“If it’s not, then what the hell are you still crying for? Juni strangled me, not you. And I’m fine. Get up.”
She holds out her hand, which Glasses only sees when she looks up. She looks like a fucking mess — snot and tears and blood. Maybe she’s human after all.
Ryujin lights a cigarette to give Sayeon a brief moment to collect herself. They stand there in somewhat awkward silence until she finally breaks it. “You gonna run?”
Sayeon almost laughs. “You know the answer to that.” She pauses. “What about you? I can’t stop you. I’m out of essence.”
Ryujin tries and fails to not guffaw at the notion. “You wouldn’t be able to stop me with essence, either, Glasses. But no. You already know I’m not gonna run. You said so yourself.” She smushes her dead cigarette butt into the ground. “If I was going to escape, I would have done it when Yesol attacked. But… here I am.”
Glasses apparently decides to let that marinate in the air for a little.
“Ryujin… Do you hate me?”
“Eh?” The question catches her off-guard.
“We have to settle our differences,” Sayeon says. “So I should know.”
She doesn’t want to say it out loud, but she doesn’t want to lie outright. “No. I don’t hate you, Sayeon Lee.”
Glasses smiles very faintly at that, but Ryujin doesn’t want to just end there. It’s not the whole truth.
“I should, though.”
That (somehow) seems to surprise her divinely intelligent cell leader.
“You’re absolutely fucked in the head, you know that? The most manipulative bastard I have ever met in my life. But you know why I can’t hate you?”
Ryujin grinds her teeth together. Too many things are running through her head. She had no plan. Juni wanted to kill me. She’s out of essence. The idea of being vulnerable to Glasses makes her want to puke, but she already was vulnerable, and she’s already signed her gift over to Sayeon like a military dog. She might as well try and get something out of her.
“Past all the fucked up shit — of which there is a lot, by the way — there’s a glimmer of, well, not good, but okay-ish inside of you. Really well-hidden, but I do think it’s there.”
Sayeon still doesn’t say anything. It’s probably better that way. Ryujin might have lost her momentum.
“And second, no matter what you did, I know that what I did was much worse.”
She doesn’t continue this time, so Glasses bites. “What… did you do, exactly?”
She pulls another cigarette out of the box, playing with it between her fingers. No going back. “I got my family killed.”
And she tells Sayeon the story she thought she would take to her surely-imminent grave. When Ryujin’s done, she finally flips it.
“What about you? Was your mother an Aberrant?”
“Huh?”
Sayeon doesn’t look shocked often, so Ryujin really drinks it in. But she doesn’t say anything, either, so Ryujin just raises an eyebrow.
“Er… I mean, I think so,” Sayeon says. Ryujin doesn’t think she’s ever sounded so uncertain. “But… I never saw her activate her essence. Not once.”
Ryujin crosses her arms. “Eh?”
“I’m telling the truth,” Sayeon says, twirling her hair. “She…”
Sayeon freezes like her robot software is resetting. She gives Ryujin a very suddenly odd look, wide and blank, and lands on, “I-it was complicated.”
Ryujin purses her lips. “She’s dead, right? Your mom? You said she was killed by the Aberrant Corps. Why aren’t you mad about it?”
“...Ah.” Glasses is back to being stilted and awkward. What brief candor she might have had is gone. “Again, it was a… complicated thing. She died when I was very young, and she was a… strange and difficult woman. If I don’t miss her, does that mean I ever loved her? I don’t even remember her face.”
Ryujin rolls the cigarette between her lips, brows furrowed.
“...Naturally, her leaving didn’t affect me much.”
Leaving seems like an odd word to use in the place of being murdered, but what does Ryujin know? She just squints hard at Glasses, who now has the same empty smile back on her face.
“...What?”
“Oh,” Ryujin says. “It’s, uh… yeah. That explains a lot.”
A strange and difficult woman. That could certainly describe Ryujin’s mother, as well, but she still loved Lamina. The way Glasses talks about her mom… it doesn’t feel natural. Then again, nothing about her does. Maybe the robot gene is from her mom’s side.
“What?” Glasses says again, and this time she sounds more defensive.
“I just… can’t imagine feeling nothing about it,” Ryujin says, starting their walk back towards HQ. “She’s still your mom, you know?”
That must irritate Sayeon, because the next thing she says is, “Didn’t you say your family was killed by the Aberrant Corps? How was that your fault?”
Ryujin grinds her teeth. “Bringing that up was a mistake. For a moment, I thought you might…” she scoffs. “Ha. No. You could never fucking understand this.”
The Aberrant Corps have taken everything from Ryujin. From Sayeon? They had taken a strange and difficult woman.
But the words come out anyway. Maybe she wants someone to tell her it wasn’t her fault, really. Deep down, she knows it was the Corps’ fault. But the Corps only found her family because of her. It feels good to say out loud. And if anyone’s going to know Ryujin’s life story, it may as well be Glasses.
When she’s done, Sayeon seems to have fully recovered from Juni. She stands up, stretching her arms, and says, “I helped your friend, so you’re supposed to obey me. But I won’t force your cooperation.”
She reaches out her hand to help Ryujin up, but the insincere wolf smile is back. “If you’ve given up on everything, you can just run away to Yesol. But you can’t actually, can you? I think I’ve pieced it together. You got your family killed, and Yesol doesn’t know. Am I right?”
Once again, Sayeon has taken control of the conversation. Ryujin wants to punch Sayeon and maybe tell her to fuck off. But Ryujin just deflates instead. “Yeah. You’re right. I was lonely, dumb, and young. I wanted a friend, and that destroyed everything. Yesol has no idea.” A pause. “...Unforgivable, right?”
A hand lands on Ryujin’s shoulder. She struggles to not shrug it off.
“Yes. Yes, you are.” Ryujin looks back to see all pearly white teeth. She feels like a rabbit in a bear trap. “I understand perfectly. You can’t return to a normal life until you absolve yourself. Until then, you’re stuck here.”
Ryujin takes her hand despite the suspicion welling up in her throat.
“You’re just like me,” Sayeon says, and Ryujin… can’t help but agree. Unforgivable. Yeah. Just a little bit.
“I think you should step down as leader.”
“What?” Sayeon sounds shocked. It surprises Ryujin, too.
“It doesn’t have to be forever,” Iseul says. “But we shouldn’t have been there yesterday. That Aberrant was seriously dangerous. Don’t you remember how she tried to dice us up? What if someone died?”
“You’re worried about Min, right? You think I don’t treat him fairly. I completely understand. I’ve been thinking about it. I completely disregarded Min’s safety and tunnel-visioned about earning points.”
None of them speak.
“I started treating him like a tool. But that’s not safe or fair. What was I thinking?” Sayeon puts her hand on her head. “If any of you got killed because of me, I would never forgive myself. Never ever. Give me one more chance. If I fuck up this next mission, I’ll step down.”
“Sayeon. Are you using your gift on us?” Iseul sounds suspicious, but he must decide to play it off instead. “Because that’s exactly what I wanted to hear. It’s uncanny!”
Sayeon laughs lightly. “Of course not. My eyes would’ve glowed.”
Ryujin narrows her eyes. It hits her suddenly, that she’s never seen Sayeon’s gift activ—
I never saw her activate her essence. Not once.
Iseul turns to Ryujin and Min. “Well… I don’t want to steamroll the group. What do you guys think?”
Min shrugs. “I never questioned her.”
“I appreciate the confidence, Min,” Sayeon says.
Iseul looks expectantly at Ryujin. She knows what he’s thinking. She’s been butting heads with Sayeon since day 1. Surely, she would be on his side.
Her eyes flit to the side, but Sayeon is not looking at her.
She almost laughs. Of course Sayeon isn’t going to look at her. That’s not what your ego feeds on, is it? She thinks, but then all she sees is the look on Sayeon’s face right before she bit her own lip to fight back against Juni. Stricken, tearful, and desperate.
She remembers how Sayeon looked, wrapped in Juni’s ribbons, voice cracking and begging Juni to let her go. For the briefest moment, Ryujin thought it was another way to trick Juni — maybe Ryujin, too. Sayeon knows how powerful she can be; she took on an impossible mission just to put Ryujin’s gift in her toolbox.
She had never seen that kind of fear on Sayeon’s face. It was raw. Even during their missions, she had never seen Sayeon look so afraid.
What was it, then? Surely not just that an officer of the law would do something like that.
I’m out of essence. I wouldn’t be able to stop you.
Maybe that was it. Sayeon had been completely out of essence when Juni found them. She wouldn’t have been able to stop Juni, either — but she wouldn’t have been able to stop Juni anyway, just like she wouldn’t have been able to stop Ryujin, so what is it that’s still nagging at Ryujin?
She sighs and decides to think about it later. You want me to choose you, all on my own. The silence has stretched too long. “I think… she’s being genuine.”
She ignores the look on Iseul’s face.
Ryujin wonders how badly Sayeon needs this. Her testament to Sayeon caring about them.
She doesn’t want to think about it. It might make Glasses seem human.