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Sua's cold palm slips out of Mizi's grip. Slowly, she lowers herself onto the grass. Mizi traces the line of her flexing collarbone with her eyes.
It's dark in a way where silhouettes, while veiled in monochromatic shadow, emit a strange sort of glow. Sua's figure in the grass looks more corpse than human. When she turns her head, brushed delicately by the starlight, the stretched skin over the juncture of her neck protrudes in stark relief.
And how could Mizi ever capture the way she moved? It is like nothing else in this world; a languid being made of smoke, fluid yet immobile. Her hands stretch upwards and outwards of her supine form, towards the stars; towards Mizi.
A mechanical whir somewhere in the garden causes a gentle breeze, stirring Mizi’s hair from where it almost drapes Sua, as she helplessly leans closer into Sua’s outstretched arms.
Mizi has observed magnetic attraction once, when learning about cosmic radiation. Two polarised opposites, drawing closer to each other: slowly at first, then they drift closer, closer still, until that final, electrifying contact.
No matter how many times they are pried apart by clumsy, wondrous hands, no matter how many times demonstrated by the teacher, this outcome is proven true.
And, if the hypothesis ever questioned further, should earn you strange looks from your peers and teachers.
Because that’s just how magnetic attraction is. Incomprehensible, unquestionable law. It’s something like this. That moment when her chin brushes against Sua’s bangs.
‘Hold me,’ Sua whispers. Mizi obeys; closer, closer still, until her body curls upon Sua’s own, a supplicant in rapture.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ Mizi nods, barely registering the words. ‘Since our IDs are consecutive, they’ll bury our bodies here. Side by side. We’ll be here forever.’
‘I don’t like it when you say such scary things, Sua.’
‘It’s scary?’ Mizi times her breaths to be in sync with the rise and fall of Sua’s chest. If she could control her heart, she’d time its beating with hers too.
‘It’s scary to think about what happens after we die.’ The blood, the roaring of the crowd…no matter how many times she watches, Mizi can’t convince herself that death could ever be a pleasant experience.
‘Dying is so scary…’ Mizi repeats. Sua hums, deep in thought.
‘Scary, scary, scary…’ Mizi murmurs, until the word is nothing more than a pleasant vibration threading through their bones.
If she tilts her head a little to the left, she will be under the red glow of the discs planted within the soil. If she lifts her head, she will see the smooth white of the discs, deceased children's names etched neatly onto the plastic.
Scary. It’s all so scary, except for the familiar sensation of the heat of Sua’s neck. That stretched, pale, veined flesh, where Mizi’s nose bridge slots perfectly in place.
When she thinks about it, Mizi owns nothing, not even herself.
Tomorrow she could be stardust drifting along the other side of the galaxy, it would be all the same. Beds would be made, lunch would be served, her name crossed out. Just another hollow disc in the garden.
Nothing would change, but what would become of Sua? For all her smarts, Mizi knows this outcome better than her. For all her practiced smiles, Sua is, at her core, nothing but a coward. Sua cannot live without Mizi.
Hurting, loving, living, dying, they’re all equally terrifying to Sua. And when you live your entire life as prey, forever trembling before the oncoming headlights, waiting for the moment of impact, it becomes a sort of tragic grace.
While Mizi may not know how a lamb might tremble when brought upon the altar, she is familiar with the thin tremor of Sua’s fingers during rehearsal, the way she will lean onto Mizi affectionately, while clenching Mizi’s palm in her sweaty one. The way she will take Mizi gently into her arms, whispering reassurances into the shell of her ear that both of them know is as much for her own comfort as it is for Mizi.
The way it sends a thrill of control down Mizi’s spine is as addicting as Mizi is cruel.
She owns Sua. The only thing in the galaxy, wholly, unconditionally hers is Sua — her flesh, her mind, her spirit, her fear. Could you blame her? The way Sua looks at her, guiding shaky fingers down the cartilage of her trachea, sighing in ecstasy. She is an angel, or sin incarnate.
No matter what Sua is, Mizi is the scum of the Earth, that is why Mizi clings closer to Sua’s body, undeservingly claiming, hopelessly devouring, until the lines between them blur.
Mizi exhales as the chest below her dips.
All she wants to do is tell Sua it’s okay to be scared around her. But can she be trusted? How sure is she of her devotion, if she can hardly steady her heart before Sua’s vulnerability?
Mizi swallows those words and resolves to seal them on Sua’s tongue instead. Later, she thinks. She has so much to tell Sua. But in this moment, where a million eyes peer from underground, tickling their skin with ghostly sensations, it takes all her effort just to keep her eyelids from falling shut, succumbing to the sickly sweet feeling of Sua’s mouth on hers. It is magnetic attraction, fear, and all things lovely.