[Fic] Gravity : 4/18
Dec. 31st, 2009 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lotus_beautyTitle: Gravity
Author: LotusBeauty
Rating: R to NC-17
Pairings: Min+Su, Min+Kumi
Genre: AU, fantasy, romance/drama/emo (lots of emo)
Summary: Prequel to Feel and Redefine. This arc encompasses Changmin’s past; how he became a vampire and how he and Junsu met.
Notes: You don’t have to read the other two before you read this, but it would probably be a good idea to have some general vampire myths down.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were.
Prologue
1: Cold
2: A Beautiful Lie
3: Haunted
Part 4: Crawling
When Changmin hit his limit, the pain finally knocked him out.
He felt nothing. It was a pleasant change from everything that had been going on in his life up until that point. Things moved by and he paid them no mind, it was nice to feel nothing.
And then he saw them. A young boy frozen in the middle of the street, another little boy, from his similar looks a brother, shaking his arm to get his attention. But he wouldn’t move until suddenly, he began to shake and then fell to the ground, shaking turning violent as his brother screamed and tried to stop the shaking.
Changmin felt horrible for them. He knew the feeling of not being in control of one’s body as he moved of its own accord. The pain had seen to that. The pain—maybe he was dead. Maybe this was how he died, shaking from the pain and blood loss.
One could only hope…
The scene faded as he was pulled away by something—something important. He needed to be somewhere that wasn’t here. Where was he anyway?
Changmin came awake with a gasp as he sat straight up, breathing fast. No longer was he surrounded in white, but crimson and filled with need—hunger. His eyes caught on a figure at the end of the bed he sat on—Kame—pride. He held up a hand and pointed a finger to Changmin’s right and he looked to see a young girl on the floor on her knees as she looked up, blood trickling from her split lip.
Blood—Changmin felt himself move, gripping the young girl’s shoulders as she screamed, but he needed her. He needed her blood. She struggled as he gripped her tighter to keep her from moving and leaned down—and stopped. Her terror hit his thoughts like a hammer and he jerked back in surprise. What was going on? Why would he need her? He tried to calm himself and breathed in. Her scent filled him and the hunger took over as his teeth sank into her neck.
Tears slipped down his cheeks as her fear hammered at him, but the blood—it tasted so good. He couldn’t stop as it filled him, delicious as it was disgusting. When the hunger abated, he felt her slumping as a dead weight against him and let his lips slip from her neck, horrified by what he’d just done. He shook as he pulled her body close and cried, not knowing why.
He killed someone.
He whimpered as it hit him and he sobbed, even as the guards took her body from him. They didn’t pity him, they found his behavior pathetic. And he really was pathetic, but he’d never wanted to kill anyone.
“Ishiko.”
Changmin looked up automatically as Kame smiled down at him, pink, his tones playful. He didn’t find Changmin’s behavior too pathetic. He found it delightful, content at Changmin’s suffering as he crouched down to his pet’s level.
“You are no longer a mere human like her,” he told Changmin.
A whimper escaped Changmin in response, his fears realized as Kame touched his cheek. He wasn’t human anymore—he was vampire. He looked down at his clothing, sleeves covered in blood and yet his arms were perfectly healed. He could still taste the blood on his lips, the lower one healed from where he’d bitten it before. Yet, he felt happiness. He didn’t understand it and glanced up to see Kame smiling. He was the one who was happy, why should—
Changmin’s thoughts ground to a halt as other things struck his mind—pleasure, satisfaction, thrill—desire. He shrank back against the bed as the emotions swirled in his head, pushing at him from
the man before him. He could feel Kame’s emotions? He pulled his mind away—it had to be Kame.
And then everything hit him—passion, anger, jealousy, deceit, determination, greed, fearenvypeaceselfishnessdreadalarmcalmpanic—the emotions bore down on him, regret drowning him from all sides. He was trapped with the heaviness and dissonance bombarding him from all sides until he realized he’d pulled out of himself. Desperately, he pushed himself away from everything, dragging himself inward. Kame’s feelings hit him again, his desire spilling over Changmin as he gritted his teeth at the feel of Kame’s hands pushing his hakama open. And then—
Love.
Changmin choked on it and the other emotions. In some sick twisted way, in the deepest, furthest crevices of his mind, Kame loved him. The revelation made him cry out in horror, hands going to his head as he wailed and the heaviness returned, crushing him under everything around him. He curled in on himself, the overwhelming noises making him unable to do anything but sob.
Disgust.
Changmin sobbed as someone grabbed his arms and dragged him from the room.
Annoyance.
Exasperation.
They pushed him into his room and closed the door as he collapsed to the middle of the floor. Changmin frantically clawed at the light switch on the wall to plunge the room into darkness. It helped, but only slightly as the heaviness still weighed him down. The intensity pulsed and he didn’t understand what was going on. What was happening to him? Unable to even function, Changmin crawled toward the bed and pulled himself up on it to bury himself under the blankets.
Emotions. He shook under the blankets as he rationalized that he couldn’t feel other peoples’ emotions, but here he was doing just that. He whimpered and pulled the blankets tighter around him. This was madness, it had to be a side effect of his transformation. He’d been living all of this time, shutting down his emotions just so that he could cope, and now emotions of all kinds were slapping him in the face. It had to be because of the change. His hormones must be completely out of control.
Two people—vampires—in the room above his began to disrobe one another as desire dripped down on Changmin. He shuddered in annoyance, the emotions affecting him as his body betrayed him. This was not going to be simple. The woman in the room next to him was calm and so he concentrated on her, trying to block everything else out as he used her to compose himself. If he could just keep the sounds out.
Gritting his teeth, Changmin tried to ignore the awkward sounds from above mixing with the soothing sounds of the woman next door. Nothing was worse than trying to ignore two people having sex. He wasn’t a stranger to the affair, having lived on that ship with tons of men who did lots of things he would ignore most of the time. He decided to wait it out, as there wasn’t much else he could do.
It kept on like this for hours. His mind would feel someone around him and clash with others he’d already picked up. Each time, he would try to ignore it, or block it out, eventually waiting as another would appear. Time after time, he fought it until finally, exhausted, he passed out.
Hours later he awoke violently to fury just outside his door as two men fought. Changmin clapped his hands over his ears as he rocked back and forth under the blankets. He didn’t know what else to do.
For days—weeks—he tried to cope with the new feelings and by the way Kame reacted to his behavior, this wasn’t normal. This scared Changmin even more. He was the only person who could feel, hear and see these things. Besides feeling emotions and hearing sounds that matched, he saw colors around a person pertaining to those emotions. Each experience had him wincing and rubbing his eyes, trying to fend off the things he was picking up. Despite Kame finding his behavior odd, he never said a word, assuming instead Changmin was adjusting to his new form. While he did notice a difference in the clarity of his senses and abilities, the emotions clouded so much that he had trouble controlling his vampire abilities.
When he got hungry, he couldn’t restrain himself. This seemed to satisfy Kame, so for the time being, Changmin gave in to the cravings. But each time he was fed, it was always a young girl. Their fear would hit him with a nauseating wave and he would have to assure himself that it was better for them to die by his own hand than to live under Kame’s rule, or have someone else torture them to death when he could give him a faster, painless death. It took a while for him to keep from crying after killing them, but he still felt regret all the same. At least his venom kept them from being in pain.
Coping with his new powers as he trained them, struggling to keep them in his grasp, Changmin never really got them under total control. All the while, Kame tested him. He brought in vampires to answer a myriad of questions and Changmin was to tell Kame whether the person was lying or not. Kame had told him that he would see colors to indicate how the person was feeling and that they would tell Changmin whether the person was lying or not. While Kame thought it might take Changmin a while to interpret each of the colors, it was far simpler than he thought, because Changmin had the added ability to already feel someone’s emotions as well hear tones that accompanied their feelings and voice. Scared that Kame would use him even more than before, Changmin did his best to pretend to struggle with interpreting the colors.
The colors signified a myriad of different feelings, even within one color. Reds tended to be passionate feelings, including anger and love. Pink was a more toned down, lighthearted and playful color while orange was more cheerful and energetic and often signified some sort of change toward happy. Yellows surprised him by suggesting a warning or danger and could also signify fear and deceit. Kame made sure Changmin knew that people who were lying often gave off a yellowish color, as the scout had the first time he’d seen it. Green ended up showing off feelings of envy and stubbornness, which surprised Changmin. He had thought that feelings of peace, calm and strength would be with green, but they were blue instead. He liked blue. Purple was also a color he was drawn to. While it signified mysteriousness, it also showed off honesty and noble feelings.
The extent to which a person felt these emotions also depended on its intensity. Shadows of black darkening a color made it heavy and serious, sometimes indicating a conflict or some sort, while white tints showed that the feeling wasn’t serious, simple and pure. Brown was not a mix of other colors, but a feeling of wholesomeness, and a bit boring. Colors didn’t tend to mix, but appear alongside one another and Changmin found that interesting. Gray was shown around individuals who didn’t feel anything other than passive feelings and were cold toward people around them. While gray bothered him a bit, he decided he would strive toward that color as he wished to block the feelings bombarding him.
Changmin couldn’t stop the colors at first, but he found that if he concentrated on ignoring them, they would fade and he could concentrate on the emotions emanating from the person he was reading. Unfortunately, the tones were harder to ignore, especially with groups of people around him. Sometimes the tones harmonized, depending on if the people actually liked one another. With vampires though, not many of them honestly liked one another, so it was rare that he heard harmonies. He tended to hear odd dissonance between most of them, and was used to getting headaches by that point.
He ran into a loophole of sorts while testing his powers that he had to explain to Kame at one point, his head pounding, as Kame was annoyed and thought he was stalling. Though Changmin could tell when people were lying, he could not tell if the person was told a false truth and believed that. He could only tell when a person who knew they were lying was actually doing so. Kame waved this revelation off, saying he remembered this, but Changmin wondered if someone convinced themselves to believe something enough, could they fool him? Angry, Changmin found he didn’t care and if Kame didn’t care, it was his loss.
It was a few months before Kame took Changmin to the audience chamber again. By that time, Changmin had struggled enough with his power to just ignore whatever emotions hit him. He did his best to concentrate on the goings on in court instead. Sometimes, he would force himself to meditate to try and get all of the sounds out of his head. But when things got heated and alliances were put to the test, the emotions and sounds were deafening and Changmin would fight to stay conscious from all of the conflict swirling around him.
It took the better part of the rest of the year for Changmin to learn to cope with his powers. By the time Changmin had gotten them under some sort of control, Kame was trying to enter negotiations for renewing a treaty with another powerful coven run by a female vampire named Amuro Namie. During the negotiations, it seemed that Amuro offered one of her best courtesans to Kame as a gift. Kame accepted the offer under the pretenses of friendship, but while walking the halls with Changmin one morning, he admitted that this gift would probably be a spy and that he would have to be careful. He told Changmin he might have to use him to see if the spy would slip anything, and Changmin had to wonder why it took so long for Kame to suggest he seduce someone for him.
It wasn’t but a week later that the ‘gift’ arrived, with all of her belongings trailing her. Changmin heard about it before he saw her, but apparently she had a very extensive wardrobe. Great, an obnoxious woman who thought she had fashion sense. Something more to be bombarding his poor brain with. Changmin ignored the gossip and made his way to the audience chamber to meet Kame and enter along with him. He waited patiently as the woman was to be presented to Kame formally.
And it wasn’t anything like he expected.
When the doors opened, a tiny woman in one of the most beautiful red embroidered blue kimonos he’d ever seen made her way slowly in. She moved forward while an assistant spoke, to present herself to Kame as a gift as Changmin stared in astonishment. She was small, but she had presence and carried herself with confidence. He didn’t know how anyone who was to be a toy of Kame could do so. Then again, Kame didn’t usually have much interest in women. He found himself wrong when Kame actually left his chair to inspect her. Satisfied, he accepted the gift and asked for her name.
“My name is Koda Kumi, Kamenashi-sama,” she answered with a graceful bow.
Changmin was blown away by this woman. She radiated confidence and honesty, as well as nobility. When she spoke, her voice rang like clear chimes and bells that the ones in her hair couldn’t match, and the air around her was a steady blue that sometimes had bits of purple. He was amazed to see someone like this standing before him. Hell, he was amazed to see a vampire like this standing before him, and she was clearly a vampire when she took a man’s life to drain him, thereby solidifying the alliance even more. While Changmin was bothered by how easily she took the man’s life, he was still amazed at her ability to stay in control.
This was one very strong woman. He would have to watch himself around her instead of the other way around. He had a feeling it would take a lot to earn her trust.
After a while, Kame often had Changmin sit in on meetings with her, where the two would just talk pleasantly. Kumi seemed to be a master at the art of conversation, as well she was supposed to be. She was very good at orchestrating the topics and keeping Kame in a good mood. And she was always very honest, which Kame was surprised to find when he asked his pet. That was the only reason Changmin was allowed to sit in on their meetings.
And by sitting in, that meant draped over one of Kame’s knees as the vampire sat crosslegged, one hand lightly caressing Changmin’s hair, neck or back. Depending on his mood, sometimes Kame had Changmin without anything covering his torso to show his power over his pet. Beyond the ability to care at this point, as he didn’t want to have to argue about taking his shirt off to get beatings, Changmin did so without complaint. Kumi never showed any difference in opinion of him when it happened either. She just ignored him as Kame did, as if he wasn’t there. But once, he caught her eyes.
Kame had turned to speak to one of his servants when Changmin looked up and found Kumi’s gaze. He felt it then—not pity per se, but a sympathy for his position. He was surprised by the feeling, but it was gone as quick as it came, Kame turning back to continue the conversation. Then she did something that surprised even Kame.
Somewhere later in the conversation, she interjected, “You know, Kamenashi-sama. Far be it from me to suggest how you treat your pets, but his presence here would be more effective if he actually looked like he wanted to be touching you.”
Changmin froze in terror. He didn’t want to touch Kame, he didn’t even want to be anywhere near him! His eyes shot up to glare at hers that just gazed back at him dispassionately before moving her gaze up to Kame, to smirk at him.
“Such an acute observation,” Kame purred as his fingers weaved into Changmin’s hair. His hand then shifted under Changmin’s chin to turn his face up so he could look at it. “She makes a very valid point. Your behavior leaves something to be desired,” he told Changmin before he let go of his chin.
Changmin threw a heated glare at Kumi, who only looked at him as if to shrug. Honesty, he felt as she turned her gaze back to Kame and Changmin fumed at the new development.
“I could train him for you, Kamenashi-sama,” she suggested, the smirk still tugging at her lips as Changmin stared at her in alarm. Stupid little… trying to gain Kame’s trust by breaking his pet some more. Some gift she was.
“What an excellent idea. Your skills would be perfect for this sort of thing,” he smiled happily.
“If you’ll permit me, Kamenashi-sama, I think his training might take quite a while.” She cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. “I think his mind might be a bit…” The way she spoke as if he wasn’t there humiliated him in a new way. Wasn’t he worth talking about behind his back?
Kame’s eyes slid up and down Changmin’s form as he fumed. “Hmm, I see what you mean.”
“Do you wish me to become his lover?” she asked, her tone curious.
“A wonderful idea.” Kame was grinning malevolently—Changmin could tell by the tones and shrank in on himself. He didn’t want to sleep with her. “I will permit you to use him as you like as well.”
“Thank you. I will do my best, even with one with such a stubborn streak as him.”
“I know you will. Please stay near him, so I might know his progress?” he asked, feigning enthusiasm.
“I shall, Kamenashi-sama.” She bowed graciously.
“You’ll do as she says, right Koishii?” He patted Min’s cheek. “I’m sure I can find something else to occupy my time and you can keep him company in the future if the same happens.” Kame ran that hand through his hair again. Changmin felt the urge to break it off as his skin crawled, and he could tell Kame enjoyed his reaction.
Conversation without Changmin as the topic resumed and once they were finished for the day, Kame turned Changmin over to what he called, Kumi’s capable hands. She happily accepted the job, and the leash from Kame after he’d hooked it to Changmin’s collar, despite Changmin’s annoyed glare. For some reason, he felt approval from Kumi before she led him away.
“Oh, Kumi!” Kame called her back. “Have him wait in the room, I need to speak with you for a moment.
Kumi unhooked the leash and Changmin quickly escaped as she returned to Kame’s side. “Yes?”
Kame smiled. “Make sure you don’t hurt him.”
“Hurt him?” she blinked.
“When he is in his room, that is his haven. I have made it so. I want him to think that his room is the only place he can go to feel safe—safer than if he were to escape. You are to let his room be his haven from everything that hurts him. Make sure he enjoys anything that happens in his room, or I will be very angry,” he explained, to the point as he tapped her on the nose.
“Yes, Kamenashi-sama. I will be sure to keep this in mind,” she replied with a bow. She was still bent when he disappeared around the corner and she shook in both fear and rage. But once she straightened herself, she was herself again.
It wasn’t long before she found his room and knocked. Changmin was surprised that she even knocked, and let her in silently. It was odd having one such as her in his room. She was a thing of beauty in the middle of commonplace. It even seemed like she was noticing this as well. Her eyes travelled around the room before resting on the bookcase.
“Is this all you do? Read?” she asked in disbelief.
“I can’t do anything else,” he replied quietly.
“You could have anything you asked of Kame, and this is all you do?” she scoffed. “Pathetic.”
Rage roared in his head, and Changmin tried to control it. “Why the hell would I ask anything of him? I hate him.”
“If you hate him, then you should use him,” she clarified and he stared in surprise. “His soft spot for you is not without noting. Do you know what he said to me just now?” She paused as he shook his head. “He told me that your room was your haven and not to hurt you in it. He made it that way so you would retreat to it and not try to escape. In his own sick way, he has a weakness for you.”
At those words, Changmin’s chest ached. He’d tried, but failed. At least now he had all the time in the world to plan if he could. “I know he does,” he answered finally, wishing he didn’t know. “I could feel it.”
“Feel it?” She regarded him warily.
“Don’t you know what I am?” he asked in surprise.
“Kamenashi’s pet.” She looked sure of herself and Changmin decided to take it upon himself to tell her.
“I’m his truthseer.”
She drew in a breath and glanced away. “No wonder you’re always there when he and I talk.”
“You’ve been doing well, though,” he told her. “Everything you’ve said and done has been honest.” He noted she looked smug at that. She was good.
“And you told him?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Good.” She narrowed her eyes—suspicious. “Is that all?”
“All that he knows.” He kept himself guarded.
“What doesn’t he know?” she fished.
“How do I know I can trust you?” he replied.
“You can’t.” She stared him in the eyes.
Fear gripped him, she was getting too much information out of him with this game of words. He watched as she stepped back, uncomfortable.
“I’m not scared, why do I feel scared?” she murmured as her eyes flicked up at him. “You project emotions?”
Changmin gaped in shock. He was projecting?
“Surprise.” She nodded in confirmation. “Your emotions are bleeding out all over, you must be an empath, and an untrained one at that. How could Kame not know?”
Changmin balled his hands into fists. “I didn’t tell him. And he likes feeling my fear.”
Kumi nodded in understanding. “As to be expected.”
“So now you know.” He tried to calm himself, to keep her from feeling anything he was.
“But knowing is half the battle,” she said quietly, a small smile showing on her lips. “The victory will be when we figure out how to use it against him.”
And that was when Changmin knew he could trust her.
~***~
happy holidays everyone! last post of 2009 so I hope you enjoyed it ^^ hopefully have the second jaekei part out when I've finished it, and I've got a oneshot jaekei in the works~
Part 5
Author: LotusBeauty
Rating: R to NC-17
Pairings: Min+Su, Min+Kumi
Genre: AU, fantasy, romance/drama/emo (lots of emo)
Summary: Prequel to Feel and Redefine. This arc encompasses Changmin’s past; how he became a vampire and how he and Junsu met.
Notes: You don’t have to read the other two before you read this, but it would probably be a good idea to have some general vampire myths down.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were.
Prologue
1: Cold
2: A Beautiful Lie
3: Haunted
Part 4: Crawling
When Changmin hit his limit, the pain finally knocked him out.
He felt nothing. It was a pleasant change from everything that had been going on in his life up until that point. Things moved by and he paid them no mind, it was nice to feel nothing.
And then he saw them. A young boy frozen in the middle of the street, another little boy, from his similar looks a brother, shaking his arm to get his attention. But he wouldn’t move until suddenly, he began to shake and then fell to the ground, shaking turning violent as his brother screamed and tried to stop the shaking.
Changmin felt horrible for them. He knew the feeling of not being in control of one’s body as he moved of its own accord. The pain had seen to that. The pain—maybe he was dead. Maybe this was how he died, shaking from the pain and blood loss.
One could only hope…
The scene faded as he was pulled away by something—something important. He needed to be somewhere that wasn’t here. Where was he anyway?
Changmin came awake with a gasp as he sat straight up, breathing fast. No longer was he surrounded in white, but crimson and filled with need—hunger. His eyes caught on a figure at the end of the bed he sat on—Kame—pride. He held up a hand and pointed a finger to Changmin’s right and he looked to see a young girl on the floor on her knees as she looked up, blood trickling from her split lip.
Blood—Changmin felt himself move, gripping the young girl’s shoulders as she screamed, but he needed her. He needed her blood. She struggled as he gripped her tighter to keep her from moving and leaned down—and stopped. Her terror hit his thoughts like a hammer and he jerked back in surprise. What was going on? Why would he need her? He tried to calm himself and breathed in. Her scent filled him and the hunger took over as his teeth sank into her neck.
Tears slipped down his cheeks as her fear hammered at him, but the blood—it tasted so good. He couldn’t stop as it filled him, delicious as it was disgusting. When the hunger abated, he felt her slumping as a dead weight against him and let his lips slip from her neck, horrified by what he’d just done. He shook as he pulled her body close and cried, not knowing why.
He killed someone.
He whimpered as it hit him and he sobbed, even as the guards took her body from him. They didn’t pity him, they found his behavior pathetic. And he really was pathetic, but he’d never wanted to kill anyone.
“Ishiko.”
Changmin looked up automatically as Kame smiled down at him, pink, his tones playful. He didn’t find Changmin’s behavior too pathetic. He found it delightful, content at Changmin’s suffering as he crouched down to his pet’s level.
“You are no longer a mere human like her,” he told Changmin.
A whimper escaped Changmin in response, his fears realized as Kame touched his cheek. He wasn’t human anymore—he was vampire. He looked down at his clothing, sleeves covered in blood and yet his arms were perfectly healed. He could still taste the blood on his lips, the lower one healed from where he’d bitten it before. Yet, he felt happiness. He didn’t understand it and glanced up to see Kame smiling. He was the one who was happy, why should—
Changmin’s thoughts ground to a halt as other things struck his mind—pleasure, satisfaction, thrill—desire. He shrank back against the bed as the emotions swirled in his head, pushing at him from
the man before him. He could feel Kame’s emotions? He pulled his mind away—it had to be Kame.
And then everything hit him—passion, anger, jealousy, deceit, determination, greed, fearenvypeaceselfishnessdreadalarmcalmpanic—the emotions bore down on him, regret drowning him from all sides. He was trapped with the heaviness and dissonance bombarding him from all sides until he realized he’d pulled out of himself. Desperately, he pushed himself away from everything, dragging himself inward. Kame’s feelings hit him again, his desire spilling over Changmin as he gritted his teeth at the feel of Kame’s hands pushing his hakama open. And then—
Love.
Changmin choked on it and the other emotions. In some sick twisted way, in the deepest, furthest crevices of his mind, Kame loved him. The revelation made him cry out in horror, hands going to his head as he wailed and the heaviness returned, crushing him under everything around him. He curled in on himself, the overwhelming noises making him unable to do anything but sob.
Disgust.
Changmin sobbed as someone grabbed his arms and dragged him from the room.
Annoyance.
Exasperation.
They pushed him into his room and closed the door as he collapsed to the middle of the floor. Changmin frantically clawed at the light switch on the wall to plunge the room into darkness. It helped, but only slightly as the heaviness still weighed him down. The intensity pulsed and he didn’t understand what was going on. What was happening to him? Unable to even function, Changmin crawled toward the bed and pulled himself up on it to bury himself under the blankets.
Emotions. He shook under the blankets as he rationalized that he couldn’t feel other peoples’ emotions, but here he was doing just that. He whimpered and pulled the blankets tighter around him. This was madness, it had to be a side effect of his transformation. He’d been living all of this time, shutting down his emotions just so that he could cope, and now emotions of all kinds were slapping him in the face. It had to be because of the change. His hormones must be completely out of control.
Two people—vampires—in the room above his began to disrobe one another as desire dripped down on Changmin. He shuddered in annoyance, the emotions affecting him as his body betrayed him. This was not going to be simple. The woman in the room next to him was calm and so he concentrated on her, trying to block everything else out as he used her to compose himself. If he could just keep the sounds out.
Gritting his teeth, Changmin tried to ignore the awkward sounds from above mixing with the soothing sounds of the woman next door. Nothing was worse than trying to ignore two people having sex. He wasn’t a stranger to the affair, having lived on that ship with tons of men who did lots of things he would ignore most of the time. He decided to wait it out, as there wasn’t much else he could do.
It kept on like this for hours. His mind would feel someone around him and clash with others he’d already picked up. Each time, he would try to ignore it, or block it out, eventually waiting as another would appear. Time after time, he fought it until finally, exhausted, he passed out.
Hours later he awoke violently to fury just outside his door as two men fought. Changmin clapped his hands over his ears as he rocked back and forth under the blankets. He didn’t know what else to do.
For days—weeks—he tried to cope with the new feelings and by the way Kame reacted to his behavior, this wasn’t normal. This scared Changmin even more. He was the only person who could feel, hear and see these things. Besides feeling emotions and hearing sounds that matched, he saw colors around a person pertaining to those emotions. Each experience had him wincing and rubbing his eyes, trying to fend off the things he was picking up. Despite Kame finding his behavior odd, he never said a word, assuming instead Changmin was adjusting to his new form. While he did notice a difference in the clarity of his senses and abilities, the emotions clouded so much that he had trouble controlling his vampire abilities.
When he got hungry, he couldn’t restrain himself. This seemed to satisfy Kame, so for the time being, Changmin gave in to the cravings. But each time he was fed, it was always a young girl. Their fear would hit him with a nauseating wave and he would have to assure himself that it was better for them to die by his own hand than to live under Kame’s rule, or have someone else torture them to death when he could give him a faster, painless death. It took a while for him to keep from crying after killing them, but he still felt regret all the same. At least his venom kept them from being in pain.
Coping with his new powers as he trained them, struggling to keep them in his grasp, Changmin never really got them under total control. All the while, Kame tested him. He brought in vampires to answer a myriad of questions and Changmin was to tell Kame whether the person was lying or not. Kame had told him that he would see colors to indicate how the person was feeling and that they would tell Changmin whether the person was lying or not. While Kame thought it might take Changmin a while to interpret each of the colors, it was far simpler than he thought, because Changmin had the added ability to already feel someone’s emotions as well hear tones that accompanied their feelings and voice. Scared that Kame would use him even more than before, Changmin did his best to pretend to struggle with interpreting the colors.
The colors signified a myriad of different feelings, even within one color. Reds tended to be passionate feelings, including anger and love. Pink was a more toned down, lighthearted and playful color while orange was more cheerful and energetic and often signified some sort of change toward happy. Yellows surprised him by suggesting a warning or danger and could also signify fear and deceit. Kame made sure Changmin knew that people who were lying often gave off a yellowish color, as the scout had the first time he’d seen it. Green ended up showing off feelings of envy and stubbornness, which surprised Changmin. He had thought that feelings of peace, calm and strength would be with green, but they were blue instead. He liked blue. Purple was also a color he was drawn to. While it signified mysteriousness, it also showed off honesty and noble feelings.
The extent to which a person felt these emotions also depended on its intensity. Shadows of black darkening a color made it heavy and serious, sometimes indicating a conflict or some sort, while white tints showed that the feeling wasn’t serious, simple and pure. Brown was not a mix of other colors, but a feeling of wholesomeness, and a bit boring. Colors didn’t tend to mix, but appear alongside one another and Changmin found that interesting. Gray was shown around individuals who didn’t feel anything other than passive feelings and were cold toward people around them. While gray bothered him a bit, he decided he would strive toward that color as he wished to block the feelings bombarding him.
Changmin couldn’t stop the colors at first, but he found that if he concentrated on ignoring them, they would fade and he could concentrate on the emotions emanating from the person he was reading. Unfortunately, the tones were harder to ignore, especially with groups of people around him. Sometimes the tones harmonized, depending on if the people actually liked one another. With vampires though, not many of them honestly liked one another, so it was rare that he heard harmonies. He tended to hear odd dissonance between most of them, and was used to getting headaches by that point.
He ran into a loophole of sorts while testing his powers that he had to explain to Kame at one point, his head pounding, as Kame was annoyed and thought he was stalling. Though Changmin could tell when people were lying, he could not tell if the person was told a false truth and believed that. He could only tell when a person who knew they were lying was actually doing so. Kame waved this revelation off, saying he remembered this, but Changmin wondered if someone convinced themselves to believe something enough, could they fool him? Angry, Changmin found he didn’t care and if Kame didn’t care, it was his loss.
It was a few months before Kame took Changmin to the audience chamber again. By that time, Changmin had struggled enough with his power to just ignore whatever emotions hit him. He did his best to concentrate on the goings on in court instead. Sometimes, he would force himself to meditate to try and get all of the sounds out of his head. But when things got heated and alliances were put to the test, the emotions and sounds were deafening and Changmin would fight to stay conscious from all of the conflict swirling around him.
It took the better part of the rest of the year for Changmin to learn to cope with his powers. By the time Changmin had gotten them under some sort of control, Kame was trying to enter negotiations for renewing a treaty with another powerful coven run by a female vampire named Amuro Namie. During the negotiations, it seemed that Amuro offered one of her best courtesans to Kame as a gift. Kame accepted the offer under the pretenses of friendship, but while walking the halls with Changmin one morning, he admitted that this gift would probably be a spy and that he would have to be careful. He told Changmin he might have to use him to see if the spy would slip anything, and Changmin had to wonder why it took so long for Kame to suggest he seduce someone for him.
It wasn’t but a week later that the ‘gift’ arrived, with all of her belongings trailing her. Changmin heard about it before he saw her, but apparently she had a very extensive wardrobe. Great, an obnoxious woman who thought she had fashion sense. Something more to be bombarding his poor brain with. Changmin ignored the gossip and made his way to the audience chamber to meet Kame and enter along with him. He waited patiently as the woman was to be presented to Kame formally.
And it wasn’t anything like he expected.
When the doors opened, a tiny woman in one of the most beautiful red embroidered blue kimonos he’d ever seen made her way slowly in. She moved forward while an assistant spoke, to present herself to Kame as a gift as Changmin stared in astonishment. She was small, but she had presence and carried herself with confidence. He didn’t know how anyone who was to be a toy of Kame could do so. Then again, Kame didn’t usually have much interest in women. He found himself wrong when Kame actually left his chair to inspect her. Satisfied, he accepted the gift and asked for her name.
“My name is Koda Kumi, Kamenashi-sama,” she answered with a graceful bow.
Changmin was blown away by this woman. She radiated confidence and honesty, as well as nobility. When she spoke, her voice rang like clear chimes and bells that the ones in her hair couldn’t match, and the air around her was a steady blue that sometimes had bits of purple. He was amazed to see someone like this standing before him. Hell, he was amazed to see a vampire like this standing before him, and she was clearly a vampire when she took a man’s life to drain him, thereby solidifying the alliance even more. While Changmin was bothered by how easily she took the man’s life, he was still amazed at her ability to stay in control.
This was one very strong woman. He would have to watch himself around her instead of the other way around. He had a feeling it would take a lot to earn her trust.
After a while, Kame often had Changmin sit in on meetings with her, where the two would just talk pleasantly. Kumi seemed to be a master at the art of conversation, as well she was supposed to be. She was very good at orchestrating the topics and keeping Kame in a good mood. And she was always very honest, which Kame was surprised to find when he asked his pet. That was the only reason Changmin was allowed to sit in on their meetings.
And by sitting in, that meant draped over one of Kame’s knees as the vampire sat crosslegged, one hand lightly caressing Changmin’s hair, neck or back. Depending on his mood, sometimes Kame had Changmin without anything covering his torso to show his power over his pet. Beyond the ability to care at this point, as he didn’t want to have to argue about taking his shirt off to get beatings, Changmin did so without complaint. Kumi never showed any difference in opinion of him when it happened either. She just ignored him as Kame did, as if he wasn’t there. But once, he caught her eyes.
Kame had turned to speak to one of his servants when Changmin looked up and found Kumi’s gaze. He felt it then—not pity per se, but a sympathy for his position. He was surprised by the feeling, but it was gone as quick as it came, Kame turning back to continue the conversation. Then she did something that surprised even Kame.
Somewhere later in the conversation, she interjected, “You know, Kamenashi-sama. Far be it from me to suggest how you treat your pets, but his presence here would be more effective if he actually looked like he wanted to be touching you.”
Changmin froze in terror. He didn’t want to touch Kame, he didn’t even want to be anywhere near him! His eyes shot up to glare at hers that just gazed back at him dispassionately before moving her gaze up to Kame, to smirk at him.
“Such an acute observation,” Kame purred as his fingers weaved into Changmin’s hair. His hand then shifted under Changmin’s chin to turn his face up so he could look at it. “She makes a very valid point. Your behavior leaves something to be desired,” he told Changmin before he let go of his chin.
Changmin threw a heated glare at Kumi, who only looked at him as if to shrug. Honesty, he felt as she turned her gaze back to Kame and Changmin fumed at the new development.
“I could train him for you, Kamenashi-sama,” she suggested, the smirk still tugging at her lips as Changmin stared at her in alarm. Stupid little… trying to gain Kame’s trust by breaking his pet some more. Some gift she was.
“What an excellent idea. Your skills would be perfect for this sort of thing,” he smiled happily.
“If you’ll permit me, Kamenashi-sama, I think his training might take quite a while.” She cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. “I think his mind might be a bit…” The way she spoke as if he wasn’t there humiliated him in a new way. Wasn’t he worth talking about behind his back?
Kame’s eyes slid up and down Changmin’s form as he fumed. “Hmm, I see what you mean.”
“Do you wish me to become his lover?” she asked, her tone curious.
“A wonderful idea.” Kame was grinning malevolently—Changmin could tell by the tones and shrank in on himself. He didn’t want to sleep with her. “I will permit you to use him as you like as well.”
“Thank you. I will do my best, even with one with such a stubborn streak as him.”
“I know you will. Please stay near him, so I might know his progress?” he asked, feigning enthusiasm.
“I shall, Kamenashi-sama.” She bowed graciously.
“You’ll do as she says, right Koishii?” He patted Min’s cheek. “I’m sure I can find something else to occupy my time and you can keep him company in the future if the same happens.” Kame ran that hand through his hair again. Changmin felt the urge to break it off as his skin crawled, and he could tell Kame enjoyed his reaction.
Conversation without Changmin as the topic resumed and once they were finished for the day, Kame turned Changmin over to what he called, Kumi’s capable hands. She happily accepted the job, and the leash from Kame after he’d hooked it to Changmin’s collar, despite Changmin’s annoyed glare. For some reason, he felt approval from Kumi before she led him away.
“Oh, Kumi!” Kame called her back. “Have him wait in the room, I need to speak with you for a moment.
Kumi unhooked the leash and Changmin quickly escaped as she returned to Kame’s side. “Yes?”
Kame smiled. “Make sure you don’t hurt him.”
“Hurt him?” she blinked.
“When he is in his room, that is his haven. I have made it so. I want him to think that his room is the only place he can go to feel safe—safer than if he were to escape. You are to let his room be his haven from everything that hurts him. Make sure he enjoys anything that happens in his room, or I will be very angry,” he explained, to the point as he tapped her on the nose.
“Yes, Kamenashi-sama. I will be sure to keep this in mind,” she replied with a bow. She was still bent when he disappeared around the corner and she shook in both fear and rage. But once she straightened herself, she was herself again.
It wasn’t long before she found his room and knocked. Changmin was surprised that she even knocked, and let her in silently. It was odd having one such as her in his room. She was a thing of beauty in the middle of commonplace. It even seemed like she was noticing this as well. Her eyes travelled around the room before resting on the bookcase.
“Is this all you do? Read?” she asked in disbelief.
“I can’t do anything else,” he replied quietly.
“You could have anything you asked of Kame, and this is all you do?” she scoffed. “Pathetic.”
Rage roared in his head, and Changmin tried to control it. “Why the hell would I ask anything of him? I hate him.”
“If you hate him, then you should use him,” she clarified and he stared in surprise. “His soft spot for you is not without noting. Do you know what he said to me just now?” She paused as he shook his head. “He told me that your room was your haven and not to hurt you in it. He made it that way so you would retreat to it and not try to escape. In his own sick way, he has a weakness for you.”
At those words, Changmin’s chest ached. He’d tried, but failed. At least now he had all the time in the world to plan if he could. “I know he does,” he answered finally, wishing he didn’t know. “I could feel it.”
“Feel it?” She regarded him warily.
“Don’t you know what I am?” he asked in surprise.
“Kamenashi’s pet.” She looked sure of herself and Changmin decided to take it upon himself to tell her.
“I’m his truthseer.”
She drew in a breath and glanced away. “No wonder you’re always there when he and I talk.”
“You’ve been doing well, though,” he told her. “Everything you’ve said and done has been honest.” He noted she looked smug at that. She was good.
“And you told him?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Good.” She narrowed her eyes—suspicious. “Is that all?”
“All that he knows.” He kept himself guarded.
“What doesn’t he know?” she fished.
“How do I know I can trust you?” he replied.
“You can’t.” She stared him in the eyes.
Fear gripped him, she was getting too much information out of him with this game of words. He watched as she stepped back, uncomfortable.
“I’m not scared, why do I feel scared?” she murmured as her eyes flicked up at him. “You project emotions?”
Changmin gaped in shock. He was projecting?
“Surprise.” She nodded in confirmation. “Your emotions are bleeding out all over, you must be an empath, and an untrained one at that. How could Kame not know?”
Changmin balled his hands into fists. “I didn’t tell him. And he likes feeling my fear.”
Kumi nodded in understanding. “As to be expected.”
“So now you know.” He tried to calm himself, to keep her from feeling anything he was.
“But knowing is half the battle,” she said quietly, a small smile showing on her lips. “The victory will be when we figure out how to use it against him.”
And that was when Changmin knew he could trust her.
~***~
happy holidays everyone! last post of 2009 so I hope you enjoyed it ^^ hopefully have the second jaekei part out when I've finished it, and I've got a oneshot jaekei in the works~
Part 5
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more than meets the eye~
Date: 2010-01-01 08:32 am (UTC)Re: more than meets the eye~
Date: 2010-01-01 10:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-01 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-01 02:00 pm (UTC)Kumi's here!! woohoo!! :DDD
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Date: 2010-01-06 01:22 am (UTC)yes she is :3
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Date: 2010-01-01 09:08 pm (UTC)And I love the way you write, girl.
right on.
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Date: 2010-01-06 01:22 am (UTC)haha thanks!
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Date: 2010-01-01 09:52 pm (UTC)I LOVE THIS~!!!!!!!
SO FDJVRTUDJVDBGUJK MUCH~!!!!!!!!!
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Date: 2010-01-06 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-02 02:11 am (UTC)ILYSFM!!!!!!
been waiting for an update and youve done it again!
KUMIxMIN CANT WAIITT!!!
wow min will be pretty strong once his training is done :)
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Date: 2010-01-06 01:24 am (UTC)haha its more implied than anything, but its there ;D
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Date: 2010-01-02 11:17 am (UTC)Loved it, Looking forward to the next one ^^
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Date: 2010-01-06 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-05 06:45 am (UTC)Holding my breath for the next part.
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Date: 2010-01-06 01:25 am (UTC)don't hold it too long! @__@
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Date: 2010-05-09 11:47 am (UTC)