October 11, 2003, 00:01
County Fermanagh,
Northern Ireland
"So you study psychology at Ulster University?"
With a snap of his finger, LiQin managed to record his name as a Chinese citizen, dead parents and no other relatives, record himself in the nearest University to where he is, make a passport and a student visa and all that. He wasn't the best of the best witches for nothing after all.
"Yes, I find it pretty interesting." no he doesn't, he finds human brains dumb.
AiLin nods her head as she chews on her grilled cheese sandwich. She isn't paying attention to anything until she looks up and finds LiQin staring down at her, haven't touched his food.
"why aren't you eating?" she simply asks.
"I'm not hungry."
"not hungry? Dude you look like you haven't eaten in years." She blinks at him, feeling sketchy, until she realizes,
"Oh I see," she stands up and LiQin panics, does she think he isn't a human?
Well, he's proven wrong when she digs her fork into his poached egg, making the yoke run all over the plate. She takes half of the egg with bite from the sausage, and LiQin has never been this confused in his life.
"see, no poison. Now eat." She walks back to her chair and points with her fork at his plate nodding at him in an encouraging gesture.
LiQin doesn't dare to disobey and he digs into his food, which is actually, not that bad.
"I study social and policy science at Ulster too. Maybe we can go together if you're sticking around." She suggested.
LiQin has explained to her earlier in the morning that he was kicked out of the apartment he rented due to his money cutting short, and she offered that he stays with her for as long as he likes, bugged at the fact that she lives alone with her cat. She was excited about the fact that they come from the same background too.
"Sure. " he says, unintentionally dry as fuck.
"oh, also, since you said you haven't made any friends here yet, let me introduce you to my friend group, they're all super nice people." She walks out of the room for a while and comes back with a bunch of Polaroids.
"Look that's me and Jenna, Mostafa and Paul, Maeve and Tear, there's also Mark an-" she's all smiley and bright when she's showing him the people close to her, and it open new doors in LiQin's heart that he didn't know exist.
"Are you always like that?" he asks suddenly.
"like what?" she raises an eyebrow at him.
"Like, all bubbly and bright?"
She smiles at him sweetly, and oh he's so swept off his feet. "I try to be, smile at life ,life smiles at you ,am I right?"
"You are." He smiles back at her, and he tries to ignore that fact that he can hear his heart beat in his ears.
*
May 17, 2021, 14:10
Beijing, china
Evdokia and Jean's
Apartment
"Ugh, this is ridiculous!" Evdokia tears the paper apart for the million time and throws it at Jean's face, who's starting to regret his suggestion of Evdokia meditating while learning how to fold origami. Who even meditates while playing rock music?
After their last completely blown up mission, Evdokia's team was ordered to stay low and at their homes until the chiefs fix their major mistake of killing twelve humans by accident. Evdokia still thinks it was her fault for not giving them cover the moment they were attacked, even if Valodya says they were going to die anyway under the spell. It doesn't help it, not one bit.
And so there they are, Jean eating popcorn while watching whatever the television has to offer of shitty movies, while Evdokia wrestles with whatever she can get her hands onto, origami papers for today.
Jean hears the doorbell ring and he already knows who it is.
"You should open, I don't have it in me to deal with her." Jean grunts.
"Nope, " she pops the end of the word, "You being this hot is on you so deal with its consequences."
He hits the back of her head and moves to open the door.
"Hi!" MiKa smiles widely at Jean when he opens the door, and he sees she's holding a pot filled with dumplings soup in her hands.
"Hello, good to see you, MiKa." Jean smiles at her kindly, knowing all too well how this conversation goes.
"I made you dumplings soup with your favourite filling! Guess what it is!" Jean, honest to god, feels his cheeks hurt just by looking at how hard she smiles.
"crab." He says dryly, he's really not in the mood today.
"correct! By the way shouldn't you be at work today?" she asks.
"ah, yeah, Evdokia is kind of sick, so I'm taking care of her." Jean lies.
"oh she's here." How fortunate, Jean thinks to himself. " well if you need anything you know where to find me, here you go." She hands him the pot and places her hand on his shoulder, smiling creepily at him for one last time before she turns around and leaves in very aggressive steps, leaving a very uncomfortable Jean by the door.
"Was it MiKa?" Jean walks to the kitchen to grab a bowl for Evdokia to serve her the soup.
"Yeah, she made this for me, specially. " he says as he scoops a spoonful of soup and dumplings, garbing chopsticks on his way back to the couch, placing the bowl next to Evdokia's phone on the coffee table, which Evdokia grabs right away.
"You got to give it to her, she makes great crab dumplings. " Evdokia slurps a dumpling in one go. Jean hates crab actually, he lied before to MiKa just to get free crab dumplings for Evdokia.
Jean snorts at her, where else do you get a significant other that is that chill with another woman hitting on you? Jean likes to think that Evdokia knows he's down bad for her, that she should never worry about someone snatching Jean from her, and Jean agrees with his assumptions.
"I got a new case due tomorrow from the FBI." Evdokia says as she checks her phone notifications.
Jean hums as he changes the movie on the television.
"we should go out for a walk later tonight." Jean suggests.
Evdokia hums and continues eating, smiling to herself over Jean. She really lucked out with this one.
*
At some point, Jean has taken Evdokia's left hand into his and stuffed them both in his coat's pocket. It's not too cold nor warm, its just about right to enjoy a stroll.
Evdokia skips into her steps from time to time, making Jean chuckle at her childish behaviour, it's endearing if you asked him. They see a man with a food cart that sells moon cakes, and they stop by for Jean to buy Evdokia some.
"how much?" Jean asks the man.
"Ten Yuan."
Jean hands the man the money and thanks him, going back to Evdokia where he left her on a small bridge above the river's stream. She's pressed against the railway, hair marvellously dancing along to the notes of the wind whistles. Jean is taken back by her beauty and he doesn't think he'll ever stop being struck by that angelic face.
He hands Evdokia the moon cakes and she leaves a soft kiss on his lips, and Jean is content and happy with the bargain.
"How's ZiYan?" Jean wonders. Evdokia has managed to visit him last night after getting a talk with the directors and the chiefs. She came back in a horrible mood and Jean didn't dare to ask.
Jean wishes he could take away her worries and responsibilities that come with her being in leader of their team. She always receives the slap whenever they fuck up, even if she has done her part perfectly, she still takes it all in for them.
"He's well, getting back in sync with his studies" she sighs heavily as she looks across the land.
Jean pulls out a pack of cigarettes and pull one out, lighting it up and coving the flame with his palm from being blown away by the wind. He takes a long inhale of relief.
"Our work with ZiYan is over, then."
Evdokia hums in agreement.
*
May 18, 2021, 22:09
Beijing, china
Case 22-83-080
Now that she's running, Jean was definitely right about the shoes choice this afternoon.
The case is simple, protect the president of the party, catch the recruited assassins alive.
The night started quite calm and steady, as the team blended easily into the crowd of rich politicians, Evdokia taking cover as a singer of the union. The dress code was black tie and black dresses. Picking out a dress she can do gymnastics in was not that hard, paring it with shoes? That was quite the challenge. But Evdokia settled on simple black heels, which now, as she runs up the stairs, quite frankly regrets it.
The first thing she did when a man tried shooting the president in the chest was her taking the guitar from the man next to her and swinging it across the room at the shooter, which took him out the second it hit him.
Now, She tries to balance herself on her toes and avoid getting the pointy heel any contact with the floor.
She's tip toeing slowly, gun in hand when she hears a shuffle.
"FBI don't move!" she runs out from behind the wall, just to get shot in the shoulder the moment she ends her sentence.
The man jumps out of the window right before her eyes, but she does manage shooting him in the calf on his way out.
"unit 12, over, the subjects are escaping from the side road before you, over." Evdokia calls in her radio, and KeLei calls back Roger that, as he takes off with the rest of the unit to chase them down the street.
Evdokia chooses jumping off the hall onto the chandelier rather than taking the stairs again, ignoring her bleeding right shoulder.
Her eyes catch JinZhu and YingTai running out of the back exit with the president and his wife, and her eyes meet YungTai's sharp ones. She nods at him and goes her way.
Evdokia jumps into the passenger seat of the car ShunYuan is waiting for her in. He presses the gas abruptly and the rubber of the tires screech under their feet. ShunYuan takes the first right turn, accordingly to Evdokia's orders as she keeps her eye on the trackers screen.
At some point, they open the car's roof and Evdokia is half way out of it trying to shoot the tires of the runaway cars. The entire crew is behind her, and she orders half of them to go separate ways in a way they can lock out any way out of this.
After a good five minutes of squinting against the cold wind hitting her face, hair bun long untangled and hair flying along the wind's speed, she finally manages to shoot one of the tires.
The car screeches under the metal of the tire plate, smoke and fire from the friction initiating. Finally, the driver stops, and even if the other car keeps running, Evdokia signals the rest of the team follow it while her and ShunYuan will take care of this one.
"Good evening, gentlemen. Way to ruin our night." Evdokia knocks on the window, and driver is furious to say the least.
The man in question grabs a gun and attempts shooting Evdokia straight in the face but she sees it coming and dodges it with a clean move with her neck. Evdokia breaks the door open and tackles the man to the ground, cuffing his hand behind his back and leading him to the police car that has arrived, along with a firefighting truck.
"Well, this was fun." Evdokia claps her hands when KeLei is back with the rest of the assassins.
"Of course, it is for you." YingTai shakes his head in amusement.
*
May 18, 2021, 23:55
Beijing, china
After she delivers the assassins and bids good night to her team, Evdokia takes off on her motorcycle to her favourite ice rink. The moon is full, and the night is as cold as it can get in the middle of May. Its a smooth ride to the stadium.
She leaves her bag on one of the seats of the stadium, confident no one will steal it because she took the keys from the security, a lovely old man that sees her regularly and allows her to skate after closing time.
Evdokia takes off her coat and jumps into her ice skates, clean white ones with blue and golden lines around the calf.
She does her regular warm up routine, nothing new, only that her mind isn't quite present when she'd doing it. She can't help but think about YuNing and what he might be enduring at the moment. She hasn't felt any dull physical pain, that's a good enough indication that he's not being beaten black and blue. She tried to connect to his mind, see through him, but nothing came.
She starts speed skating taking turns and lops.
Evdokia thinks about Thomas. Why would he possibly want LiQin? She thinks, no, she knows Thomas doesn't think of LiQin as Ivar, his father, does. Or at least that's why she likes to believe.
She does an Axel jump followed by a salchow.
Evdokia thinks there's so much that was left unsaid and unknown before war started. She thinks there was so much misunderstanding that it was almost impossible to stop the war from happening.
She does a lutez jump.
Realistically, there's no way it was just LiQin's conflict with Ivar that has caused this entire massacre. No, it's quite impossible for the mind to believe or consume. Even if, quite honestly, Evdokia doesn't know what that clash between both men was, she still knows it couldn't have possibly made Ivar want to kill whoever locks eyes with him.
Evdokia does a camel spin accompanied with a loop jump.
Did her father know? Did he die knowing the truth behind it before he died? Why did the peace conference fail? Who even started? Was it possibly her father? Was her father standing behind LiQin's actions so fucking wrong they tried taking away the lives of both of his sons before his eyes?
She takes a leap jump in the air and doing a quadrant spin mid landing, smoothly landing and doing it once more. She stops, and she realises she's more out of breathe that she normally does. Evdokia rests her palms onto her knees, taking a breathe after another, smoke leaving her mouth with every exhale due to the temperature of the room. After a few steady breathes, she lifts her ice cold hands to push away little hairs off her face, only realising now that she was crying, tears trickling down her face and reaching the neck of her white tight crop top.
Evdokia does a little cool down before taking off her skates and throwing them into her locker. She swings her bag behind over her shoulder, remembering to turn off the lights before leaving the rink and locking the door behind her.
Evdokia delivers the keys to the security guy and bids him goodnight.
She's met with the warmest smile of them all when she leaves the building. Jean is in his pyjamas pants with a coat on when she finds him standing beside their car, waiting patiently for her.
"thought you might need a ride through this storm." He leaves a soft kiss on her lips and her golden eye eyelid.
"You didn't have to, but thanks, it is freezing." She kisses him back and enters the car as he opens the door for her.
"were you crying?" is the first thing he says when he gets into the drivers seat, a pout on his face when he reaches his hands out to sooth his thumb under her eye.
"maybe." She breathes out.
Jean doesn't push it, and she's thankful for that. She's thankful for him.
*
May 27, 2021, 14:10
Beijing, china
Evdokia and Jean's
Apartment
The last thing Evdokia expects to see when she opens her eyes in the morning is a Morgan with a dagger in his hand about to slaughter her throat. She goes to locking his neck quickly and crushing it between her bicep and brachioradialis. She gets to her feet on the floor, grabbing her sword and running to find Jean, hopefully alive.
She sees him in the living room, surrounded by four enforcers. Evdokia pulls out her gun from under the arm chair by the couch and shoots two men in the head, straight up killing them. Jean takes the opportunity to jump one of the two enforcers left and tackles her to the ground, while Evdokia wrestles and pins down the other man. She punches him down to the ground a couple of times before he loses consciousness and passes out. They both look at each others eyes, relived they're both okay, apart from the chewed off flesh on Jean's chest. Jean reaches out his hand and squeezes Evdokia's shoulder.
Evdokia moves off the man which Jean instantly pins down with his free hand, for Evdokia to grab the electrical handcuffs and tie them both up.
"Did Thomas send you too? That man really doesn't give a flying fuck about your lives huh." Evdokia states as she straightens the woman's body to talk to her on eye to eye level, while the man is still pinned down by Jean. She's a werewolf while the man seems to be a werecat, given the anger noises and hissing he's making the moment he woke up.
"He's going to kill you all if that's what it takes to capture LiQin and his son." The woman smiles smugly at them, and Evdokia finds it strange. Why would he send them if he already has LiQin. "Just so you know I won't spit shit for you, kill me and stop wasting both of our time." The woman carries on but neither Evdokia nor Jean are listening to her anymore.
Jean and Evdokia look at each other and they know they're both thinking the same. Why are they here when LiQin is with them?
Evdokia punched the woman right under her eye, leaving a purple bruise behind.
"Why are you here then, I don't see no LiQin around for you to catch?" Evdokia spits out.
"you think we don't know you're hiding him here if not at the agency?" the woman asks, and something about her order of words tells Evdokia this woman isn't bullshiting them.
"Why the fuck does Thomas want LiQin?" Evdokia asks and the woman looks at her surroundings instead of answering.
If she's going to make her work harder so be it, Evdokia misses using people as punching bags anyways.
She kicks the woman in the ribs three times, following with a couple of punches to the woman's face. The woman spits out blood at Evdokia's pants, probably internally bleeding at this point.
"I told you, I won't spit shit out." The woman repeats her words, looking like she's ready to black out, and Evdokia doesn't stop her, she just watches as the woman slowly closes her eyes.
Evdokia looks up at Jean, and he's as concerned as her, confused, as well. Evdokia plays back the woman's words in her head and the realisation hits her like a thousand brick walls fell onto her. And she sees Jean having the same thoughts as his face falls.
If not at the agency.
The agency.
Hurriedly, Evdokia dresses up in a white shirt and black pants, while Jean who was already dressed took the two enforcers to the back of their car, leaving the four dead bodies behind, starting the engine as Evdokia makes her way to the car's passenger seat.
"This is so fucked up." Evdokia whispers to herself.
"call Mizuki, he had a training duration today."
Panic rises in Evdokia's throat. She could taste the acid of her stomach in her tounge at Jean's words.
They can't lose Mizuki. She can't lose Mizuki. Besides, what can a few enforcers do to a centuries old eight tailed kitsune anyways, right?
Evdokia pulls out her phone out of her pocket and dials Mizuki in panic while Jean keeps his eyes on the road, drumming his fingers onto the wheel in anxiety.
And no one ever picks up.
*
No amount of overthinking and preparation for the worst case scenario could have prepared Evdokia for what she saw the moment they reached the CPA building, or more like, rubble and ashes.
But that's not the worst part, the corpses are.
Corpses.
Corpses everywhere.
Tens upon hundreds of corpses everywhere, bodies blown apart to a million pieces.
Evdokia sees a familiar black hair showing off the edge of a white cloth and she runs up to it. She peels the cloth off his face, and its pale, so fucking pale and cold. She thinks she knows what state he's in, that he's way past life, but that doesn't stop her from acting impulsively and shaking Mizuki to the core with all she could.
"Mizuki? Hey, Mizuki. Hey, I'm here, can you hear me? Mizuki?" She cries out in desperation for an answer. She cards his hair backwards and shakes his hardened body, squeezing his sides harshly. "Mizuki you can't leave me! Mizuki say something! I've fucking lost so much I can't lose you too for fuck's sake wake up!" she starts screaming hysterically at him, but its all in vain. She's shaking his body to no use when she hears a whimper from behind, a man's whimpers. It's Jean, squatting to the ground and trying to hold himself back from shattering with his hand over his mouth to stop his screams.
She thinks she hears someone telling her to step back. She thinks she hears ambulances and firefighters sirens. She thinks she sees Valodya holding back Ira from coming close but fails as Ira walks up to where she is and pushes her back, screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to wake him up. She thinks she could hear news reporters scattered around her like this is the gossip of the moment. She thinks she sees general Rati's body being pulled from under the rubble, half of his body cut off, literally. She thinks she can see James's wife screaming her heart out as she hugs his body, which is missing half a head, blown up.
She isn't sure if it's real or if she's just imaging shit. She likes to believe its all in her head, but it's quite hard to decide when you have another tens and hundreds of ghosts you have once failed staring down at you as you add another one to their residence in her mind.
*