[wip] night grows deep: cxk/zzt

[rhodochrosite]

[one by one everyone in 9p except cxk is replaced by robots. zzt is the last to go. i was planning for some like capgras syndrome delusion-or-reality ambiguity... basically everyone starts sucking at artistic stuff (freestyling, songwriting, composing, choreographing etc) but suddenly gets all the technical details wrt dance/vocals perfect and cxk gets deeply paranoid]


//

The note came out with instrumental precision

 

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“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,” Yanjun said. “So there’s a match—”

 

//

 

Zhengting narrowed his eyes. “Oh, I see how it is,” he hissed. “Nobody can go on your bed, but Zhu Zhengting’s bed is communal property?”

 

“Leader privileges,” Xukun joked, but it came out supremely unconvincing.

 

//

“Something’s wrong with Linong,” Xukun said quietly. It was easier to say, with his face hidden; made him feel less like a delusional lunatic. The words landed like skipping stones over the glassy surface of a lake, watching them sink. “Linkai, too. There’s something…”

 

Zhengting exhaled, long and slow. “Yeah,” he said. Quiet, too. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

 

It had been said. It was out there in the open now.

//

 

Just a bleached-bone sliver of Zhengting’s fingers were visible in the icy light spilling through the gap between the curtains, which had been carelessly pulled shut. Xukun fixed his eyes on the flex of them where they lay

//

 

“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,” Yanjun said.

//

 

“Do you remember your dreams?”

//

 

Zhengting executed a perfect backflip. Then another.