Work Text:
The last finishing touches of a masterpiece will always cover up whatever imperfections remained on the art, a fine art to be admired after all your blood, sweat and tears have been etched and carved into this very art piece.
But it was never to be admired in a place such as this. For if it was not to be gazed at, then his own creations would be redundant! There was still much to learn from the tiniest of minusculus from every part of the City, there was still much that his fingers had barely touched.
Yet his corridor stayed empty, there were barely any visitors that came by to even spare a mere glance at the art he had painstakingly crafted after hours. It’s a shame that it’s grace will never reach the other Nursefathers.
That was no surprise, none of them had enough of a refined taste nor proper eyes to admire and critique the displays. He need not for such meaningless opinions then.
However, that would mean sacrificing a potential audience, despite Hong Lu’s own grievances with the people he was surrounded on a daily. He had come to the unfortunate realisation that the only people that were to gaze upon his art, were the one in his jade eye.
The very same eye that had made him the sole treasure of the Jia family, his Elders had been so kind as to polish him over and over again until his shine had grown dull. Becoming only a husk of what once was.
Even if he is graced with such an audience from his jade eye, he can’t help but yearn for what Yoshihide could have been.
If Yoshihide hadn’t resented them so much, would she have given his art the proper critique he so desires? A true moment of understanding between artist and pupil? He yearned for the day someone would finally look upon the pieces he put out to the world and engage in a meaningful debate, rather than come into his corridor and tear down everything.
He pauses for a second, sensing that someone had just come into his corridor while he rises from his chair. Making his way over to his art gallery, he finds that it’s none other than…
“Ah, Hong Lu. You have yet to create a new masterpiece, a shame. I would have been delighted to bear witness to something truly…magnificent.”
It’s not who he thinks it is, perhaps he had been expecting Faust to come around at this time. They both had a scheduled critique soon enough, and yet he finds that the Index Nursefather standing before him, the pager’s incessant beeping going off every so often while he closes in.
“Yi Sang, I assume you’ve come to visit on the behest of the Prescript? You always were one to be so diligent. Yet, I have no time to listen to another one of your verses, no matter how enjoyable they may be.”
“Then, the Prescript has chosen to lead me to your corridor to entertain you. Thus, is the Will of the City.”
That takes Hong Lu aback, even if it were just ever so slightly. For how ridiculous it was for Yi Sang to even end up here in the first place, he could never admit physically that he did enjoy the other’s company.
No matter how stilted Yi Sang was, he could at least trust that he wouldn’t say outlandish things in comparison to the others. Who really, had nothing worthwhile to say.
“Then? What did that pager of your’s tell you?”
“Make a 90 degree turn to your left, take 34 steps forward, make a 90 degree turn to your right, take another 56 steps…”
“Enough, if you were to continue I would have to replace my ears with new components. Your Prescripts have no sense of poetry at all.”
A soft smile appears on the latter’s face while he places his pager back into his chest pocket, making sure to mark his Prescript as complete before he stares at the exhibit before him.
There were many grotesque things to be looked upon here, many of them incomprehensible to the normal eye. Rodion had stumbled in there drunk multiple times and described it always to have a horrid stench, while Outis had remarked that no proper collector would ever want anything that was in Hong Lu’s gallery.
Still, there was something to take out of the experience. The pager in his pocket goes off again, which he carefully takes out and reads.
He stares down at it, glancing back up at the display while his smile remains.
“This very art is profound to me; it is an attempt to be something extraordinary from. Yet your art is only a dull imitation of those that already exist within the City, a study that only takes and doesn’t give. The concepts are lost on me, dear fellow.”
Hong Lu stays still for a moment, his eye glancing at the pager before his lips form into a thin line. It’s utterly beyond him how Yi Sang had begun to dig into his art and critique it like he had been here multiple times.
Of course, the two had interacted in the past, perhaps been a little too intimate for the environment they were stuck in. But he would never imagine that this Proxy would dig into the very thing he yearned for ever since Yoshihide had left all that time ago.
He had always wanted her to be a prodigy in art, to bear knowledge that he had no grasp on and give him the very thing he had sought all this time. Yet she was gone, leaving this awfully hollow feeling after.
“When did I give you the permission to…”
“Hong Lu, I’m sure you are aware that your exhibits have no meaning to the other Nursefathers. To them, your art is simply a farce. This very moment, and those to come have ordained by the Prescript’s pleasure, allow me to be the one that indulges you.”
“…What difference does it make? You barge into my gallery to criticise me because your God had compelled you to. Your words are worth just as less as the others!”
“My time is delicate, but my Prescripts are swift. If that is what you yearn for, I will schedule a critique with you as well.”
Hong Lu doesn’t say anything in response to his words. Only stares right at Yi Sang as if he’s demolished the very same artworks Yoshihide had on that day.
It’s almost laughable how whatever Will had been watching over Yi Sang had squirmed it’s way into Hong Lu’s mind, no matter how much he had picked through his own brain he could never get a full grasp on it.
He couldn’t bury the past with it. And now here it was, standing before him in the form of a Prescript while the bearer held a polite smile on his face. It mimicked the very smile Jia Baoyu wore after the Kong had fallen, it was all coming back too fast.
The comfort he felt from finally having someone he could consider an equal, to the mix of emotions that could only be embodied into an ugly hue of blue.
He grasped at Yi Sang, muttering incoherent things while the other only stood there with that sickeningly sweet smile. He was enraptured by how much Yi Sang could represent, could mean, could be made into.
He just had to get him alone, now that he’s offered himself up like this.
“…You would do that for me?”
“Of course, for it is what you desire.”
Then, with the ‘click’ of his pager. Yi Sang had left, but the entirety of that interaction hadn’t come without it’s merit.
For the day after, Hong Lu had been obsessively working on his homework. Eager to see what else Yi Sang would have to say right after he had come back. He had even gone as far as to cancel the next few critiques and meetings he was to have with Faust and a few Maestros.
For everyone fell short in comparison to his new muse.
And just as promised, Yi Sang had indeed returned the next day, exactly at the same spot he had been previously.
“My dear Yi Sang, once the “golden hour” had struck. The whispers of inspiration had lulled me in much more than any other day; I was eager to meet you once more to discuss our perspectives.”
“Then, Hong Lu. Let us look at another of your creation, as this one reminds me the most of that child.”
His gaze falls on another grotesque art piece, one that Yoshihide had bore witness to during her youth.
“This one…”
Hong Lu mutters under his breath, attempting to gauge at what the latter was attempting to say with this piece. The figure, whose face was forever preserved into a face of pure agony their skin had been conjoined to another, almost like they were in an embrace.
There was once a time where he had seen Yoshihide with Yi Sang, both were sat next to each other, reading a picture book. No matter if it was also orchestrated by the Prescripts, it had always stuck out to the Ring Nursefather because of how content they both had looked at that moment.
It’s something he had once wished for desperately, for someone to save him and give him any semblance of love. He had never pondered once what that ‘love’ could possibly be.
Could that have been why Yoshihide had left? Because he could not give her the ‘love’ Yi Sang possessed? He admired him so much more, now that he had come to realise that Yi Sang possessed a trait that Hong Lu cherished deeply.
“What a…a wonderful revelation, such an insight alluded me all this time. You simply put me to shame, my dear.”
“To help another fellow is simply what the Prescript demands, however. I do find joy in our discussion; it is something I can rarely participate in.”
That very same smile remains on his face, reminding Hong Lu faintly of how he would imagine he once looked in his youth while he attempts to reach out towards Yi Sang’s face, only to have the other turn away and gesture towards the door at the back of the Ring’s Corridor.
“...It would be a pleasure to.”
The walk after had led them to a park, one that wasn’t familiar to Hong Lu in particular. Yet Yi Sang strode across as if he had known this place like the back of his hand.
The entire time, the Index Nursefather had begun to reminisce upon the time Yoshihide had once been there. Recounting all the stories he had sat down and read for her, all the way to the moment where the wound on his face had come to be on his face.
He stops walking for a moment, to gaze upon the view nearby where a vast beach could be seen in the distance. He brings a hand to where his mask rests on his face, something that Hong Lu takes note of while he brings his fingers up to capture Yi Sang in a makeshift portrait.
The raw, exposed emotions that poured from Yi Sang despite how impassive his face was, the love and kindness that he held for Yoshihide being so clear yet forever lost to amongst the demands of those Prescripts. It was all so beautiful.
He wants to capture this moment perfectly, to explore the very surface of Yi Sang’s body and all those emotions that was buried beneath his skin, it was something that he could never have something himself. The need to see what else his body had in store was clawing at him.
Yi Sang only glances back and smiles, putting his hand back to his side and turning to fully face Hong Lu.
“…May I be the very essence of your Corporism.”
With another ‘click’ on his pager, the cycle had begun. Each time, one of the Prescripts Yi Sang would be given would always lead back to that same corridor Hong Lu resided in.
With each scheduled critique bringing about a new form of inspiration for him, of course. It delighted him that there was someone who had willingly chosen to immerse themselves in his art, that was the very reason he had accepted Yi Sang’s offer in the first place.
Or, that’s what he chose to believe at first. With each passing session, there were memories and wants that had become increasingly troublesome for him.
Those things he had believed that he no longer had a need for ages ago, when he had finally dedicated himself to embrace those atrocities he once saw as vile. He only needed to keep his exhibits well kept and to produce a creation worthy of praise.
So why was he stricken with these such feelings? With the people who he knew he could no longer see?
It was all because of Yi Sang, it had to be.
Every time he gazed upon the corridor door, he would call back to the times where he would walk with him and simply discuss what the latter had seen. All those experiences he could never have once more; it was beginning to affect his work.
Anything he produced, it only led him to recall even more memories that he couldn’t even decipher if they truly came from him or if they were simply a figment of his imagination. Each corpse he took to turn into his own art turned into different moments he could no longer call his own.
Moments of joy, anger, sorrow. All turned into surreal creations where each had a horrible, gaping wound on certain parts of their bodies. Just like Yi Sang, each crafted to take after certain traits he had witnessed from his dear muse.
It was all so wonderful, he could simply drown in Yi Sang’s very being. To the point he had envisioned the other trapped within a cage, where Hong Lu had opened the door, crawled inside and began to tear him apart. Bit by bit, just like any other of his ingredients and have reformed him to look like the version of him that never had a chance to truly bloom.
When he begun another critique with his own apprentice, he had begun to take after Yi Sang’s advice and very words. He had refused to meet with anyone else too.
How far would his resolve go, until it led to his downfall?
But how could he possibly go any lower when he was already at a point where he had long been disgraced? Stripped of what was his and replaced by something that he couldn’t even call ‘himself.’
If those Prescripts knew what he had always wanted all along and used Yi Sang to lead him along, there couldn’t be any harm in choosing to help an Index Proxy with what he was demanded to do.
He would make his dear muse into something that could truly be a masterpiece, something that would leave a deep impression on not only an audience, but even to Yi Sang himself.
Thus, when he had come by to the Ring Corridor. Hong Lu had quickly wrapped his arms around the other, giving him an ecstatic smile. Perhaps one of the only real emotions he could really give to Yi Sang at that moment.
“…My dear Yi Sang, you’ve pushed yourself too far once again. But it’s no matter, for you are just as lovely as I remembered you to be.”
“Hong Lu.”
He could only smile at the latter’s exhausted mutter, even when he had his own goals, his own apprentice to attend to and the blessing (curse?) of being under the gaze of his God, he would still come back to his daily critique.
Perhaps, because he had something he desperately wanted too from interacting with Hong Lu. It wasn’t lost on him that he had been seeking companionship from the multiple losses of his different families.
In-fact, the equal desperation and need work in both their favours, didn’t it?
That was made Yi Sang so magnificent to Hong Lu, no. Far better than any other material he’s gotten his hands on.
The Index Nursefather in-front of him had an incredible amount of potential to be something more than just flesh, bones and skin for Hong Lu. He was the magnum opus that he had been seeking all this time; from all those experiences and emotions he wishes to weaponize.
He’s never felt a want, no. A need as terrible as this.
His fingers trace over the fabric of the suit, making sure to take his time to feel every part of the body collapsing on top of him. He can feel every little twitch that comes from Yi Sang, how he lets out a small hitch whenever he presses his finger into one of the raw wounds visible from his clothes.
Every pulsation, every fibre in his body, the very skin that keeps his body together. He will explore every bit of it until he is truly satisfied, he will make sure to make Yi Sang into the perfect art piece. To represent every part of their suffering and sorrow together.
He will leave a mark on history with this, his fingers tracing over Yi Sang’s legs. An irrelevant part most of the time, he takes reverence to how he can feel it tremble from attempting to help the man on the brink of collapse from falling to the ground.
“Tibia retains it’s status as a magnum opus for it’s plasticity, however. Perhaps I can consider you the same.”
His hand trails up towards the mask, taking it off and letting it fall to the ground before he begins to gently caress the sizzling wound, causing Yi Sang’s body to jerk violently while he lets out a quiet grunt and gently holds on to Hong Lu’s arm.
“For Tibia’s nigh-infinite possibilities as a human corpus, it can transform, lengthen, and harden itself according to it’s environment. However, it can’t possibly invoke such strong emotions from the audience nor it’s creator. It was made from the entirety of my corpus, and it is far from mediocre. But I’ve come to a realisation.”
His continues to caress that wound on Yi Sang’s face lovingly, his smile softening once he sees that the latter’s eyes are entirely on him despite the amount of pain he must be in because of what the Maestro was doing to him, it truly meant everything to Hong Lu that Yi Sang was so willing to follow this through to the end.
“Those experiences that you hold, perhaps that was what I was missing all along. The feelings that I will never grasp, those wonderful moments you’ve shared with Yoshihide. I wish to encapsulate it to be my next magnum opus, all so the audience will know just how precious you are to me, my dear Yi Sang.”
“…Perhaps that is a yearning I hold as well, for we will…do whatever we must to be free of the web.”
Hong Lu lets out a soft chuckle, tracing the other hand over Yi Sang’s stomach, the lung before eventually over the heart.
Even if he were to close his heart and cease to stir any feeling, he will just have to open him up and mold him to both their liking.
Hong Lu had trapped the last remnants of the past he faintly remembers, the once blurry image of the child that had called for help coming to him once more, into a cage.
But he will open that cage once more, lovingly embracing the past he no longer remembers through the body of his beloved muse.
Yi Sang still holds onto him ever so gently, his hand coming up to caress Hong Lu’s cheek while he gives him a smile, a smile that Hong Lu has come to enjoy.
Even when both are trapped in the same cage, they will forever cling onto what they yearn most from each other.
“Please, tell me. How did my gallery appear reflected in your eyes? Did you know what was wanting..?”
“…The sound of the waves rolling in.”