CHAPTER 4

This was the last place Jessica thought of rushing to after she and Taeyeon spied a pack of Grimm huddled together at the far end of Emerald Forest. But here she was with the echoes of her muffled gasps and strained coughs, bent over and crying over her misinformed decision.

“Are you okay?” went Taeyeon’s voice from the other side of the door.

“Do I sound okay to you?” Jessica steadied herself against the wall and took a deep breath, hoping she would recover quicker.

“Well, have you at least run out of things to barf out?”

A beat passed before the door cameflying off of its hinges, having come into contact with Jessica’s hardened, ice-coated fist, and right smack into Taeyeon’s face, sending her flying across the comfort room.

“This is your fault, you jerk!” Jessica stepped out of the bathroom stall and towered over Taeyeon who was already trying to sit up. “’I move at lightning speed. Grab my hand and we’ll be at the faculty room in no time, Sica.’ Why do I ever listen to you?!”

Taeyeon rubbed the back of her head and laughed. “Uh, ‘cause I know best?”

“Shut up! Why didn’t you tell me that your semblance would cause nausea? Now I feel like I ate a cucumber. You’re the worst!”

Taeyeon pushed the damaged door to the side and stood up. She knew that they were sure to get in trouble for this one. “Me? What about you? You destroyed school property just now! Why is it that every time I’m with you or Yuri something the school owns breaks or burns down or freezes over?!”

“It’s because you’re so—You’re so… Ugh, I can’t even scream at you right now without feeling like my entire stomach’s gonna come out of my mouth. Let’s just go report to the professor now. We’ve wasted enough time.”

Taeyeon was about to reply—

“And we’re definitely walking this time.” Jessica was sure to make that clear.

“Aw, you’re no fun.”

They ran into Professor BoA in the hallway after they left the bathroom. She seemed to be doing her patrol rounds as well. With her was a group of upperclassmen who had the night shift. Jessica and Taeyeon asked for a moment of her time and she obliged. After dismissing the upperclassmen, the professor led Taeyeon and Jessica to a corner.

“Other than the ruckus in the bathroom just now and the fact that you’ve obviously been vomiting in the past half-hour, Miss Jung, what is it that you want to talk about?” The professor looked the two with her arms crossed on her chest, her right fingers tapping against her left upper arm.

Embarrassed that she was heard expelling the contents of her stomach, Jessica nudged Taeyeon and asked her to explain what they saw in her stead.

“Huh? Oh, right! Well, we went to Emerald Forest just like you asked—”

“And I trust that you two took care of things?”

Taeyeon took a second to confirm that with herself. “We didn’t run into the ursai that attacked Krystal, but I did take down—Ow!” Taeyeon widened her eyes at Jessica who nudged her a little too hard. “I mean, we– Jessicaand I – did take down a nevermore that was in the area. After that, we walked a bit further in and saw a group of ursai and nevermores gathered together. We’re not sure what they were doing exactly, but from what we know of the Grimm, they’re not ones to ‘come together.’ What does this mean, professor?”

BoA seemed too preoccupied with her own thoughts to reply but when she finally did, she said she would investigate the matter herself. Taeyeon and Jessica protested, arguing that it would be too dangerous even for an experienced huntress such as their professor.

“Thank you for the concern.” BoA gave the two a slight smile.“But I think you’ll both change your minds and hate me for now because that bathroom stall with the missing door will have to be secure enough to be used by the students.”

Taeyeon and Jessica sighed as they stared at one another. “And we have to fix it?”

“Naturally. But that can wait until next time. Get some sleep. It’s gotten late.”

Without another word, the professor left the two and went on her way. Whether she was going to continue her patrol or go to Emerald Forest to investigate was anyone’s guess. Taeyeon and Jessica decided that they should get some rest while they could. They left for their respective dorm rooms, each of them contemplating everything that had happened today.

When Jessica got to their room, Yuri had earphones on and Yoona was already asleep but not on her own bed.

Yuri sat up from her bed and removed her earphones when she saw Jessica enter the room. Then she smiled as she diverted her eyes toward Yoona who had made herself comfortable on Jessica’s bed hours ago while waiting for Jessica to arrive.“It took me a while to convince her that you’ll be back soon,” she told Jessica.

Jessica unbuckled her weapon from the belt she wore around the waist of her school uniform and set it down beside her bed. Yoona looked so peaceful. She was curled up into a ball and snoring lightly, clutching one of Jessica’s pillows to her chest. Jessica turned to her partner and apologized for being so late. “Taeyeon and I ran into some trouble and I had to go to the bathroom afterwards.”

Yuri raised an eyebrow. Something about what Jessica said didn’t sound right. “Uh, should I be worried?”

A slight laugh escaped Jessica upon seeing Yuri’s worried expression, which was something her partner rarely displayed. Yuri after all was, for lack of a better word, the smiley-est person she knew. “Long story short, she tried to teleport both of us to the faculty room and I got crazy dizzy and had to throw up.”

The color returned to Yuri’s cheeks after finding out that that was all it was. “I thought you got your period in the middle of a fight or something and had to go to the bathroom! Thank goodness you just had to throw up.”

Jessica was already getting under the covers with Yoona when Yuri voiced her relief. Far too exhausted from another long day, she didn’t bother to change out of her school uniform. “Our cycles have started to match, remember? If you don’t have your period then I don’t have mine. Also, keep it down. There are people trying to sleep.”

Yuri could only smile at how Jessica and Yoona looked, snug and safe in bed. She lied back down and rolled on her side so she could face them. “Remember when you used to push her off of your bed whenever she tried to sleep next to you?”

Jessica put an arm around Yoona from behind and sighed. She did remember a time when she wasn’t like this with Yoona. “A lot of things have changed,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Hi! You must be Yuri and Jessica. We’re your new teammates.”

Two unfamiliar girls showed up at their dorm room after initiation week. Jessica said “hi” back then got back to her book. She already had a partner that she didn’t get along with. These additional teammates only added to the challenge of getting over her being a bit socially awkward.

“Sorry to intrude, but Professor BoA said we should introduce ourselves. The tall one here is Yoona.”

“Hi unnies! I’m excited to be part of the team!”

Jessica tuned out for the rest of the conversation, opting to catch up on her reading. The weeks passed with her avoiding having to spend time with her teammates unless she absolutely had to. The four of them went on assignments together and even turned in a few school projects. She trained with them – most of the time choosing to take them all on at the same time – and she admitted that those sessions taught her a lot of things, the first of which being that she wasn’t as strong as she thought she was. The moment she realized that, the more she wanted time to herself to make sure that next time she would be ready.

“Sicaunnie, do you wanna grab lunch with us?” Yoona often asked her.

“No thanks. I have some things I need to do,” Jessica would always reply.

Then Yoona would ask again and she would get the same answer. Yuri was always the one who stepped in between and convinced Yoona that they should let Jessica do what she needed to do. “Let’s go grab those ice cream drops you like so much. My treat!”

As much as Jessica wanted as little as possible to do with them, she couldn’t help but notice that Yoona and Yuri had grown close pretty quickly. They kicked it off when they first met and they had gotten even more familiar with each other over the following days. They practiced together and spent most of their free time with each other, playing or going out to eat or ignoring their homework. That last one was an obvious favorite. She didn’t make a big deal out of it until she just suddenly started to.

One time, when she had just gotten back to their room after a class, Yoona was already inside waiting for her. “Sica unnie—”

“If you’re asking me to join you for lunch, you already know the answer to that.”

Yoona looked different that day, much like how she gets impatient during a practice match. “Why don’t you like me?” she asked Jessica with clenched fists, making it all too apparent that she had gotten frustrated with the issue.

Jessica didn’t answer precisely because she didn’t have an answer.

“Was it something I did? Or said? If it is then tell me how to fix it. Not even Yuri unnie knows and she’s your partner!”

Whatever there was in Yoona’s tone, it set Jessica off and out went the words that she would regret saying later on that day: “You two get along so well. You be her partner then!”

“That’s not what I meant—”

Jessica stormed off after that. Yuri indeed was her partner but she didn’t know what that meant. They were students in the same classes, who shared the same dorm room, and who sometimes had to fight alongside each other. Was there supposed to be anything more to it?

She didn’t know. After a few moments by herself she realized that Yoona didn’t know either. And then there was nothing left to do but apologize for being stupid.

When she returned to their room she couldn’t find it in herself to just go inside even though the door was open. She could hear Yoona and Yuri talking on the other side.

“Maybe she’s on her period?” went Yuri’s voice. Jessica didn’t know how to react to what was just said. But no, she wasn’t on her period.

“She hates me, unnie! Will you talk to her for me? Please?”

Jessica felt bad that Yoona still thought that way. ‘Hate’ is a strong word. She knew that it definitely wasn’t what she was feeling toward Yoona.

“She rarely talks to me, too. I’ve kinda learned to respect that. She’s just being her.”

“What does that mean??” Yoona’s voice suddenly sounded muffled. Jessica slowly opened the door a bit and peeked into the room only to find Yoona hunched over with her face buried in Yuri’s shoulder. “I just want to be her friend. Like how I am with you and—”

“I know, Yoong. I want to be her friend, too.”

Neither Yuri nor Yoona spoke for a good two minutes until Yoona lifted her head and let herself fall onto Yuri’s bed. “Thank you for being here, Yuri unnie.”

Jessica saw Yuri smile and for what seemed like a fleeting second, she found herself smiling too. She smiled because part of her saw herself in Yuri – that part of herself that’s so protective of Krystal. The other part… Well, that she didn’t understand at the time.

Yuri’s voice called her back from her thoughts. She blinked once or twice then met her partner’s eyes through which the latter seemed to look into the very essence of her soul. She felt warmth creeping up to her cheeks for reasons she had grown tired of trying to determine. Instead, she learned how to smile whenever the feeling washed over her, and somehow it would feel like that time when she saw Yuri smile through an opening in the doorway.

“Then I realized that…”

“Realized what?” Yuri asked. She didn’t quite catch what Jessica ended her sentence with.

That for some reason, I started caring. About you and about what you think of me. I started to care about how you see me as a person and not just as your partner. But Yuri wouldn’t have understood that. Jessica didn’t fully understand it yet, either. “I realized that I could take care of Yoona, too. Like a sister,” she said instead. It wasn’t a lie. She did realize that too.

Content with the answer, Yuri flashed Jessica another smile. She drifted off to sleep not long after she turned the bedside lamp off. Uncharacteristically, it took Jessica a few minutes more.

+

The hours she spent asleep in Jessica’s bed felt hollow. Sleep claimed everything but her thoughts, leaving her paralyzed while images from months ago played in a loop before her. Contrary to how she looked while sleeping, Yoona was in a state of constant confusion. The only thing that came close to peace was her short walk from their room to the window at the other end of the hall in the middle of the night when everything was still and all she could hear were the hushed conversations of the upperclassmen going on their patrol outside and the sound of her own sighs. This had become routine but tonight was different.

“Seohyun?”

A tall figure a few feet away waved at her in response. She became more visible after a few more steps.

“You never stay up late, Seohyun,” Yoona said as if reciting a fact. “I think you said something about your skin cells dying if you do.”

Seohyun let out a giggle against the back of her hand, being careful not to make too much noise. “While that is true, I have to skip on sleep from time to time to look for Taeyeon unnie.” Seeing as Yoona was about to ask why she would have to look for Taeyeon, Seohyun went on: “Taeyeon unnie sometimes teleports in her sleep so I have to follow her around to make sure she’s okay.”

Yoona’s brows met, visibly curious as to how something like that was possible. “Wait. I’ve heard of sleepwalking but sleep-teleporting? Isn’t that dangerous? She just throws her daggers around and appears at random places?”

“It is dangerous, and that’s why I follow her around. The scouts come in handy for that.” Seohyun paused for a moment as if listening to something that only she could hear. “Speaking of which, I’m getting a reading. Huh. She’s at Professor BoA’s quarters again. Last time I asked about that, she said I was too young to hear the embarrassing story. I wonder why that is.”

Yoona could think of a few reasons but she kept them to herself as well as a loud laugh that she would find some way to let out when she was by herself again. “I’ll let you get to it then. Good night, Hyunnie.” She expected a greeting back and for Seohyun to leave, but Seohyun didn’t move from her spot.

“You seem distracted, Yoona. I’ve noticed that for a while now. Are you okay?”

She knew she wasn’t but she didn’t want to bother Seohyun with it right now. “Yeah, it’s just hard for me to sleep sometimes.” That was at least part of the truth. She couldn’t tell whether Seohyun believed it or not.

“If there’s anything you need, even if it’s an extra sparring match or just someone to talk to, you know you can tell me.”

She did know that and she couldn’t help but feel a bit fuzzy inside. “Thanks Seohyun. Good night.”

After Seohyun left, all that remained was the sound of Yoona dragging her feet from the end of the hallway back to the room she shared with Yuri and Jessica. She crawledback into bed – Yuri's, this time – curled up into a ball and hoped she would fall into unconsciousness that she could actually call sleep.

+

A week had passed since the encounter with the cloaked woman and the strange Grimm activity in Emerald Forest – a week of fighting and searching for answers that no one wanted to give them.

Taking advantage of her free time, Yuri locked herself in one of the training rooms. As much as she hated it, she spent half an hour meditating in an attempt to calm herself down, thinking it would help her control her semblance.

“Okay, Kwon Yuri. You have to learn how to do this somehow.”

The bandages that she constantly wrapped around her hands came off and she stared at the bare flesh that was uncovered. Barely a second passed before the surface of her palms burned with such intensity that beads of sweat started to run from her forehead down to the small of her back and the middle of her chest.She exhaled but it did nothing to cool herself down. The longer she tried to contain the heat seeping out of her body, the faster it left her through her hands, taking ounces of her aura with it.

“Dammit… Stop…”

She dropped to her knees in struggle, careful not to let her hands come into contact with anything inside the room but herself. She brought her hands to her chest as if hugging herself to keep the rest of her aura bottled up. “Focus, focus… Please just make it stop…” She repeated this to herself in mumbles until the pain shot through her and she had to scream to keep herself conscious. “STOOOOOOP!!!”

Her back met the floor and all she could do was breathe. She managed to call the energy back into her system but the damage had been done. She held a hand up above her face and saw familiar red burns over the ones that had already healed. A sigh escaped her.

Then she heard someone come in.

“Yuri?”

She opened her eyes even though she didn’t need to do so to know who was standing over her. “Sica? I locked the door. How did you—”

Jessica lowered herself into a seating position on the floor next to her partner. “You do know we all have semblances, right? I don’t think a door can keep any one of us out if we really wanted to enter a room.”

Yuri didn’t reply. She just blinked and Jessica blinked back.

Not another word passed between them while Jessica coated her fingertips in ice and pressed them one by one to Yuri’s right palm and then to the left one. She traced the burns one by one, thinking to herself that if she hadn’t been too scared to come inside the room earlier, she could have stopped Yuri from hurting herself. Instead, she just stood there in the shadows, hoping against all hope that Yuri would finally be able to control her semblance because, honestly, she feared for her life whenever she saw Yuri in a state between mindlessness and helplessness while wielding a power that they knew had no bounds except for what Yuri willed it to be.

“Jessica, thank you for being here. And I’m sorry. I was just doing my thing, like you told me to.”

Yuri’s voice sounded like water splashing over a field of full-grown flowers – the kind that we appreciate but don’t really need. Jessica said nothing in reply and just kept running her fingers down Yuri’s injured palms, thinking that if anyone should be apologizing, it should be her.

She heard that they would be assigned partners but if she had known how ridiculous the process would be, she would’ve taken her chances at Atlas Academy instead.

“The first person you make eye contact with will be your partner for the rest of your stay here at Beacon,” went Professor Hyun Bin’s announcement.

Then they were flung off of a platform and into Emerald Forest.

Naturally, she used her semblance to create a frozen path in mid-air but she didn’t expect to slip when she landed on it. Just like how she didn’t expect the pair of brown eyes on hers when she got up from her fall. “Looks like we’re partners. My name’s Yuri.”

She was hesitant to take Yuri’s hand back then and she continued to feel that way even in battle. One time, she just had to make things clear between them. “Look, we don’t have to work together as in ‘together.’ I’ll do my thing and you do yours. Okay?”

But Yuri never really understood what that meant. Whenever Jessica was in a pinch she would be there holding her hand out for Jessica to take.

This time was different.

“I know you were just doing your thing,” Jessica told Yuri, pausing from treating the burn wounds. “And I’m just doing my thing, too. Helping you out, that is.”

Yuri’s lips curved into a smile and the laugh she was holding in made it out anyway. “Now where have I heard that before? Ah, that’s right. That’s my line.”

Jessica shrugged. “Like that matters now. Does it still hurt?”

Yuri’s eyes dropped to her hands resting in between Jessica’s. “I don’t know. I’m feeling everything and nothing at the same time. It’s a bit confusing.”

Jessica e of Yuri’s palms over and pressed two of her fingers to the most visible burn. “There. Do you feel something now?”

The two of them stared at where each other’s hands were while a familiar silence hovered over them. Yuri flexed her hand against Jessica’s fingers as if to cover them with her own, trying to determine what it meant to ‘feel something,’ “What do you mean? Like, physically?” she asked.

“Yeah. What else could I mean?” Jessica’s eyes had moved toward Yuri’s but the latter’s were still glued to the two pairs of hands that were almost intertwined between them.

“I dunno,” Yuri answered. “Emotionally? That’s a feeling too, isn’t it?”

Emotionally, Jessica echoed in her thoughts. She could have said yes but she didn’t know what it would mean once she did. Slowly, she moved Yuri’s hands downward with hers then released them. The ice that she coated her fingers with had long since melted. “If you’re saying stupid things like that then I think you’re okay now. Let’s go. This place smells like sweat and gym socks.”

Yuri laughed in agreement. “I swear that that’s already how it smelled like when I got here!”

+

Despite Beacon’s fall and the city of Vale being thrown into a state of panic, a few commercial establishments opted to stay in business. Much to the relief of the students of Beacon Academy, the local coffee shop was still around.

Sooyoung slouched in her seat with her head thrown back over the backrest. “It’s been a week and we still don’t know what’s going on. Is it something so major that we’re not allowed to know?” she said with a groan, seemingly talking to ceiling.

Hyoyeon, who was sitting across from Sooyoung, idly stirred her mocha-flavored latte. “Soo, some maniac in a pink cloak took away your aura like she sipped it through a straw. I’d say that’s pretty major. Not to mention this pattern of Grimm attacks lately. It’s like they have a battle plan or something.”

“Speaking of battle plans…” Taeyeon took a sip of her caramel macchiato. “I think we should make some of our own.”

A loud groan came from the seat next to Taeyeon’s. She turned her head and saw Yoona who was slumped over the table with her coffee mug pressed to her nose. “Eh… We’re here to relax for a bit. Can’t we talk about something else?”

“What else is there to talk about?Feelings?”Taeyeon leaned back on her chair and sighed. “It’s not like any of us have any hobbies or relationships to discuss with one another like normal people do.”

Seohyun was about to speak up – probably something about how they can live healthier lives if they drank tea instead of coffee – when Sooyoung threw a crumpled piece of tissue paper at Yoona’s face. “Speaking of feelings…Yah! Im Yoona! I know you have something interesting to say.”

“Huh? Me?” Yoona finally lifted her head up from the table, pointing to herself.

“Yeah! So what’s it like to be in a room with those love birds?”

Yoona took a moment to recall what Yuri and Jessica had done over the course of time that she had shared a room with them. If there was a word to describe how her teammates were with each other, she didn’t know it. Seohyun probably did, being the far more studious one. “Hm… Love birds, huh? Love birds actually talk to each other. Or they at least sing. Those two just blush then run off then blush again when they’re talking to themselves about blushing before they ran off.”

The four others stopped for a moment to process what Yoona had just said, all of them feeling somewhat surprised that Yoona had made such an accurate statement. Hyoyeon was the first to speak up and she couldn’t help but throw her hands in the air. “Goodness!! Don’t they know that they’re so in love with each other?!”

“Who’s so in love with each other?”

Hyoyeon slowly turned around from her seat with her hands in the air, resembling a monkey. It was Yuri and Jessica and they obviously heard what she had just said. “Uh…” Her eyes flew to Yoona and Seohyun who were seated beside each other. “Yoona and Seohyun here!” She finally lowered hands and pointed at the youngest two with a strained laugh. “Yeah, they’re so in love.”

Yoona and Seohyun almost fell out of their seats in protest. “What the—”Yoona said in a gasp which overlapped with Seohyun screaming “UNNIE!!” which was very unladylike of her.

Taeyeon’s head snapped to her right with a crack. “What?! There is no way that Seobaby will ever fall for this…” She waved a finger at Yoona in an upward-downward gesture. “This vain, skinny, shikshin!”

In the midst of the conversation, Yuri and Jessica pulled chairs up for themselves and sat down beside Sooyoung, who had turned unusually quiet. Hyoyeon couldn’t help but laugh because she knew why.“Taeyeon-ah, I think you were describing Sooyoung just now.”