week two | dates

[marriagebroker]

Kiss the girl~!

Or guy.

Or person.

Or Messmer's snake.

Comments

[reverso]

[He shrugs, a light gesture for such a weighty answer that comes after.]

I... am trying. It's selfish of me to do so, though. But these last few weeks are worth wringing the most out of, I think.

[And when it's over, it's over.]

I'll share with you one last thing, Luka. The final reason I thought we might be matched, though even if it doesn't pan out that way, I'd like you to consider it as someone who understands—at least a little—what your life must sometimes feel like.

[beatmatching]

[ hmmm... ]

Go ahead.

e33 spoilers

[reverso]

[ ...

He pushes the words out. Luka's even-natured, almost unaffected, actually helps.]

I'm like you. Created. By my mother.

[beatmatching]

[ oh? the shift in his interest is apparent, his golden eyes resting on verso from the lights. ]

Were you. [ he lets that sit for a moment, because while he's not the only lab engineered pet-human, they're far from common. too expensive, too flawed, too much of a risk. ]

The only one? Or were there many Verso's at one point?

[ there is only one luka.

right now. ]

[reverso]

[And Verso pointedly does not meet his gaze; it drifts off and exists on the horizon line.]

There was one, an original. He died in a fire, and it broke my mother's heart. In her grief, she utilized her abilities to create a new family — a happy one, unencumbered by tragedy.

Thus, she painted me. And here I am.

[beatmatching]

My father didn't create me out of love. He created me to win, but you could say he came to love me.

[ some definition of love but, ah well. ]

Do you think you're inferior? [ he doesn't get the other implied meaning for keeping this a secret, taboos of the human world don't exist in his own so creating a replica of your dead children is just something you do if you want where he's from. ]

[reverso]

[If he loved him, he'd not use him like that, Verso thinks. But he carries on for now.]

Oui. Sometimes, yes. How can I not?

[beatmatching]

You're alive and he's not. The legacy you leave behind is yours to shape, not his.

[ spoken without hesitation or pause.

never once in his life, has luka ever known what it feels like to be insecure in who he is. ]

[reverso]

[And that's something to be envious of.]

And yet that's easier said than done, when you've been created with the memories of someone else. Bearing the expectations of someone else; the very crux of their happiness, the thing that keeps their grief at bay.

[It was so unfair.]

Not even the most well-adjusted people in the world wouldn't question themselves after a stint, mon ami.

cw; physical abuse

[beatmatching]

[ a small laugh, dark. ]

My father created me to win because he was jealous of another. [ he is going to get beat to hell for this but that's fine. ]

Because of that I was created to be perfect and not allowed to be anything but. I barely spent time in the Garden because most of my life he trained me personally. He believes that fear is the greatest weakness one can have, so I learned how not to fear anything at all.

Do you know how painful it is to have your heart stop? That was his favorite method. My father has no grief, but I am the one who carries his happiness.

[ smile. ]

Make the memories your own, paint them how you like.

[reverso]

[God. Luka's independence comes from such a sad, dark place. It has given him strength, and in many ways it is the strength of heart that Verso himself sometimes lacks, but at what cost?

His mother, at least, provided him pain in another way. A curse of living as someone else, a walking stolen identity, and the ceaseless fate of an immortal.]

...if you subscribe to that idea, Luka, then tell me: what memories do you plan on making here? What are you going to paint for yourself?

[beatmatching]

[ oh he's being called out. he half-expected as much and it makes his lips curl upward. ]

There is someone I like. Actually like, unlike the show I put on with Yingying.

[ he likes yingying too actually, but not in that way. ]

...I told you, didn't I? I'm not very good at denying myself anything.

[ he hasn't firmly decided if he'll tell her yet. but he knows in his heart that he will. sooner rather than later, and loud enough for everyone to hear. ]

[reverso]

You'll not hear me trying to convince you otherwise.

[But.]

But after that, when the game's over? Will you let go of all of it and return home the same as before?

[beatmatching]

[ hilariously he hasn't thought that far ahead, despite everything he's said. it's clear on his face too, his expression unreadable. not blank, but lost in the clouds somewhere. ]

Suspense comes from not knowing what will happen next.

[reverso]

[Clearly.]

I hope, in the end, you end up choosing for your own sake, Luka.