"She's the devil in your heart. The poison eating away at you. "

The words; the wise, truthful, imploring and desperate words of a girl infatuated with him, with Longya.

It's not that he doesn't like Miku– he does, he really does – but she is sweet and young and far too naïve for her own good. She is perfect, a miracle of a girl, delightfully endearing and with a beautiful smile, pretty, flushed cheeks and killer dance moves to boot.

But what she isn't is cold, blond, older than Longya. Miku is not manipulative or dangerous, nor does she threaten or kill, maim or destroy.

She is not Mayu.

And Longya prays, he prays every single fucking day for his feelings to change. But they never do, and he is never disappointed when they don't.

Because the pain, the psychotic, evil ways of Mayu; they are what make her real to him. Mayu is damaged, flawed so imperceptibly and completely that the young girl he'd met at the age of thirteen is almost unrecognisable from the aloof, unsmiling woman he now knows her to be.

It is this that draws him in, the power Mayu wields, even when she seems at her most vulnerable. Perhaps she will never possess spiritual abilities like Tianyi, nor will she ever emanate the sweet, innocent glow that Miku seems to radiate with.

But Mayu has the power of presence, the power to silence a noisy room with her mere aura. It fills every last corner and crevice, sinking deep into the bones of her faceless companions. She has the power to control, to manipulate and possess others.

Much like how she has possessed Longya himself.

It is this power over him that keeps him anchored to her, unable to tear himself away from the many complex and distorted layers of her garishly vivid personality. She holds him to her with almost the same possessive ferocity as that of a preying vulture, metaphorical talons digging deeper and deeper into Longya's skin until she is so embedded in his being that he cannot tell where she ends and he begins.

Mayu is powerful, yes, but she is also incredibly vulnerable, more than anyone else Longya knows. Her eyes are cold, lips forever unsmiling, but it is her words, always so brisk and businesslike, that soften and change into an almost intimate caress when she is with him. Yes they are still manipulative – Longya can never picture a time when she will stop playing games with him – but she is different in his presence; stoic as always, but her words – her words – tell a completely different story. A story of a girl, abandoned young and since lost.

A girl who just wanted love, but knew no means of acquiring it but control and blackmail.

It would be sad if said girl wasn't such a fucking psychopathic bitch.

Her venom is everywhere whenever she confronts him, poisoning the air and trickling unheeded into his veins.

The two of them, they have this odd kind of back and forth, a deadly dance of angry words and dripping blood – always his. Longya needs more than two hands to count the number of scars the girl has left on him, the majority not of the physical kind.

It is anger, he realizes, that spurs the two of them on; in his case, a vehement need to refuse her advances – in hers, a desperate need to never give up. The both of them are too stubborn, too thick-headed, even if they won't admit to it; neither will ever give in, no matter the cost.

For Longya, giving in would be very much akin to selling his soul to the devil. A devil in leather boots and lacy skirts, a devil with the coldest words and hardest gold eyes, a devil that would take his heart in her perfectly-manicured talons and never let it go ever again.

Sometimes, Longya doesn't know why he bothers resisting. He might hate the girl, might wish a million unpleasant things upon her, but truth is, Mayu's already caught him – hook, line, and fucking sinker.

She is the devil, and she has gotten into his heart.

He wisely turns a blind eye to the fact that he doesn't begrudge it.

Author's Notes:

A quick, low-quality one-shot. I've got about another 12 or so WIPs (at least three of them are for other friends here), but once I'm able to find the time, I'll be able to update those eventually. Hopefully sooner. And better stories. Blah. orz