#god writer's block has been kicking my ass recently so thank u for the prompt anon!!

[katharaya]

Ate, have you checked the #ManilaEncounters tag in twt? If not, you should probably check it. Might inspire a few... ideas. :3c

bless u, writer’s block has been a bitch recently ( ˘ ³˘)♥

this is gonna make zero sense to all but like three of you, im sorry. inspired by this tweet in particular.

asra x rei, modern au/manila gothic(?), of sorts. kinda angsty.

...okay, pretty angsty.

—

“Be careful on your way home,” Rei’s mother tells him, hugging him as fiercely as she ever did. When she pulls away, her eyes are red and puffy, and he has a hard time meeting them.

“I will, Tita. Good night.”

He pauses for a brief half-second at the food-laden table, slipping a single piece of candy into his pocket. He leaves without another glance at the casket.

Ilya catches him just outside the funeral home, stands next to him while Asra fumbles with his phone and waits for an available Grab driver, tsk-ing with increasing irritation at every failed booking. He studiously ignores the little icons at the top of the screen, indicating a missed call from his dad, five from his mom, and the two texts from Muriel.

A black-gloved hand offers him a cigarette, and Asra lights it from the glowing end of Ilya’s own before taking a long, deep drag and exhaling the gray smoke into the stiflingly polluted night air. Even so, he still prefers it out here, with the smell of car exhaust and cigarette smoke and stale piss in the gutters. The overpowering orchid-anthurium-antiseptic smell of the funeral home makes him sick.

“You shouldn’t go home straightaway,” Ilya chides him, exhaling smoke upwards. Asra just grunts in reply, watching the smoke rise and curl, watching it block his view of what little stars there are left to see in this wretched city. “There’s a fast food joint just on the corner over there. I’ll even pay.”

“No thanks, Ilya. I’m tired.”

He means it so much more than he has the energy to say.

“Just a coffee,” Ilya insists. “A sundae, or one of those little chocolate marshmallow pies you like so much—”

“I said no thank you, Ilya.”

“He’s right, you know,” Portia’s voice sounds from behind them, and he turns to see her stepping through the glass doors of the funeral home to glare at the cigarette in Ilya’s hand. Ilya flicks the butt to the floor and stamps it out with an embarrassed cough. Portia turns to Asra, and continues, “C'mon, let’s go to a 7-11 or something. Get a donut, a biscuit, anything.”

“Aren’t you and Arion supposed to keep watch tonight?” Asra counters.

Portia shrugs, pulling her borrowed hoodie closer around her despite the heat of the evening. The air-conditioning inside is always set to too-cold.

“We are. I’ll get him a coffee while we’re there, c'mon, Asra—”

Asra’s phone blips, Yay, we found you a driver! the map showing the little car just around the corner.

“Grab’s here, sorry,” he says, jogging across the parking lot toward the sidewalk, squinting at the approaching headlights with a plate number that matches the one on his phone. He hails the car and half-turns to throw a little wave back at Portia and Ilya, still standing under the dim fluorescent lights of the funeral home foyer. “See you guys tomorrow,” he calls out, and gets into the backseat without waiting for a reply.

“Start trip?” the driver asks, with the slightest tremble in their voice. It’s late. They’re probably exhausted, too. Their hands shake ever so slightly on the steering wheel.

Asra murmurs an assent, and watches the city lights pass by him in a blur, sodium-yellow street lamps and highlighter-neon bar signs outshining the invisible, ever-present starlight high above the sprawling orange street-veins of the metropolis.

His phone rings—his dad, again. Asra lets it ring, doesn’t look at her face smiling at him from the lock screen. The driver keeps shooting glances at the rearview mirror, but Asra pays them no mind.

Soon the car turns onto a quieter street, rolling to a stop on front of the run-down apartment building he lives in. Asra steps out into the street, pays his fare, then watches the driver speed away the second he closes the door, the taillights fading swiftly into the blue Manila night.

He takes the rickety elevator to their—his—floor, unlocks their—his—apartment door with her copy of the key, still attached to the wooden strawberry keychain she’d gotten from their Baguio trip a couple years ago. If he grips it tight enough the garish red wood of the charm seems to pulse like a beating heart.

He locks the door behind him, tosses the keys into the little bowl next to the drooping plant he’s been meaning to water but still hasn’t. Kicks off his shoes as he crosses the living space, digging into his pocket for the little candy and tearing the packaging open with his teeth, popping it into his mouth as he collapses onto their—his, only his, now—unmade bed. He lets the candy sit on his tongue, not really tasting it as he waits for it to melt away. He lays there in the dark, silent, the smoke-and-flowers smell still clinging to his clothes bleeding into the sheets, until the last drop of factory-flavored melted sugar disappears down his throat.

And in the dark, a sweet whisper comes, a voice his heart would know anywhere calling out to him from the shadowed corner of his—their—bedroom.

“Hello, my love.”

He smiles.

#the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana fic #asra #asra x apprentice #rei #asrei #katharayawrites #me: superstitions r dumb #also me: doesn't go straight home from wakes and says excuse me to the respectable little man living in the anthill #god writer's block has been kicking my ass recently so thank u for the prompt anon!!