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WORDS WERE RUSTED WITH HONIED LIES

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[attr="class","freiwanttmid"]CHARACTER FACTION league

[attr="class","freiwanttmid"]CHARACTER RANK civilian

[attr="class","freiwanttmid"]FACE CLAIM fu hua from honkai impact

[attr="class","freiwantttop"]ABOUT THE CHARACTER

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you dance. [break][break]

mom says you dance, because you have to. you aren't allowed to ask her why, and you're never allowed to ask her how. you're supposed to watch her, quietly, and copy her movements. but surely, this was all for your own good. the fabric pushed onto your young body and the makeup that haphazardly piled onto your skin was all for your own good: because mother said it to be. mother was right, mother was always going to be right, and there was nothing you could do that would ever prove her otherwise. [break][break]

the only times you dared to ask a question was when she squeezed out the remainder of a bleeding heart, into the glass of another, strong smelling liquor. when your mother was more talkative, more woozy (when you knew she wouldn't remember, and when you knew she wouldn't reprimand you later). she was more agreeable at this time, she was more open at this time. you liked the hopeless, weak and exhausted mother who couldn't raise the metal hanger when you even breathed the wrong way around her. [break][break]

(had you ever breathed? ever taken a deep breath of air, and revel in the relief that was a sigh? the closest you'd ever gotten to was a choke and a gag as you forced what little you could scrounge into your lungs. mother tells you to breathe, li xiu. breathe with her nails dug deep into the sides of your neck.)[break][break]

you struggle to breathe.[break]
you hold your neck, fingers prying at the stone grip, hopeless. breathing.[break]
you're breathing. keep breathing.[break]
breathe.[break][break]

one breath, one step. you walk your life, with a dulled light in your eyes until your path collides with anothers. he's cheerful, bright, unlike the gloomy and quiet you. he was bright, like the sun. at first you think that he's a nuisance, and that he should leave you alone. but he comes back, again and again, even when you tried to bide your time until the sun would set. but, in all his radiant glory, he would return, bringing a warm feeling to your heart all over again. [break][break]

the time spent with others is suffocating; you've thought this for so long. you mother sees you, everything that you do but despite all of it, despite the strife and the struggle, you find a moment of solace as you take in a deep breath. you, so young yet so tired, finds yourself exhausted in the young man's warm arms. [break][break]

for the first time, you could breathe. [break][break]

it was ironic. so ironic you could laugh, so ironic that it was cruel because, as you lived together, you realized that he didn't share the desire to breathe. [break][break]

you could only say so much as he broke down in front of you, sharing grievances and regrets as you held him close (what could you say, without sounding selfish, for wanting him to stay with you? you hadn't realized just how much of an anchor he'd become, and you hadn't realized how quickly he was to rusting and falling apart under the cruel current). you could only cry, hold him, until he raised a question to you: [break]

"why don't we die together?"

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he realizes his words shortly after saying them, and covers his mouth, wracked with guilt. yet you can only stare at him, smile and nod. you, who had finally found a reason to keep breathing, chose to stop that same night with a bottle of pills that the two of you overdosed on, together, to peacefully leave in each others arms. you were supposed to leave together. you were supposed to be happy in the afterlife together, for the rest of eternity. [break][break]

you find yourself in a hospital, with officers questioning you and your mother at the bedside, berating you. it wasn't a bad dream, no matter how desperately you'd have willed it to be because, when you opened your eyes, the demon of a woman was sitting right there. you wanted to stop breathing yet, every time you tried, the doctors would bring you back. you had to breathe, they'd say. you had to keep breathing. [break][break]

his therapist made a police report, suspecting him to be unstable. it was really a shame, wasn't it? because he died, and you survived. you, who knew nothing more than to follow the lead and orders of others, had survived over a man who was bright, innovative, kind and maybe just a little bit dorky. you survived. you were breathing, and he was not. [break][break]

how was this fair? [break][break]

your heart breaks, but it isn't for yourself: it's for him. he should have survived, you should have left. you should have died before he did. you should have been the one to die, if one of you were going to survive. you--[break][break]

you should have died. [break]
he should have survived. [break]
you should have stopped him. [break][break]

you've never recovered, have you? no, you can never recover from this, with the guilt of knowing that you are alive, and yet you have to keep living. you have to breathe, but the air in johto just wasn't the same anymore. it burned your lungs, punctured your heart and pounded at your ribs. the scent of autumn in the dance hall was a knife to your heart, and you couldn't stand it anymore. you, finally, move to hoenn in your late twenties, to start anew. to distance yourself from your mother. to forget what had happened. [break][break]

you have to forget. [break]
you don't know if your heart could handle the memories any longer.