[title song: first love - suga]
[~7kw; DOUBLE UPDATE, READ PREVIOUS CHAPTER; will edit this tomorrow (or today lmao yikes)]

Chapter Two.

The next morning you find yourself pacing in front of her apartment, because that’s when it hits you, when you’ve wandered up the echoing stairwell and found yourself face-to-face with a bland, heavy duty door. The creeping feeling that this is all real finally hits you. This is so incredibly real and—God, it’s not a dream.

It’s real and you’re pacing and , , —

“That’s so annoying. You’re going to carve a hole into the floor at this rate.” Her melodious voice is soft and incredibly judging, echoing through the empty corridor, bouncing off the stairwell’s high ceiling to your right in a way that leaves you kind-of-sort-of dazed.

You freeze, glancing up, and she’s wrapped in a bright yellow dress, one that only seems to accentuate the sick-looking pallor underlying her otherwise warm honey skin. The contrast, the contradiction, is unbelievable, because despite it all, she’s beyond beautiful, the same way flames are beautiful as it devours everything and anything in its path. It’s terrifying, but enchanting. It makes your skin tingle and all these little details only seem to remind you more and more of what she is. Then she smiles, all fanged teeth and red lips and you immediately glance away, heart slamming against your ribs, eyes drifting over her shoulders and into her apartment. She chuckles and it sounds like she’s laughing at you, which would piss you off if she had been anyone else.

“Cute.” She says before stepping back. Your eyes slide back to her, watching as she glides across the room before plopping down on the couch from yesterday rather ungracefully, her amused eyes locking on yours as she slowly swings her foot back and forth, back and forth like a pendulum.

You quickly take a seat, placing your recorder on the table between you carefully, your notebook in hand.

“Tonight,” She says, suddenly, her voice so soft you almost miss it, “You are to leave an hour before sunset from now on. Okay?”

You blink, protests immediately bubbling to your lips, until you see her expression, the way her eyes glaze over, a tinge of red glinting in the sunlight pouring through the open balcony (another myth you can cross off your list). Slowly, you ask, “Why?”

It’s quiet between the two of you for a long, long time, before she finally speaks up, her voice terse and no-nonsense. She leaves no room for you to argue. “There are people out there who will not…agree with this kind of information sharing.”

“How could they know?”

“Because they’re all a bunch of nosy little bastards.” She scoffs, rolling her eyes as she crosses her arms. Then she sinks back against the couch and mutters, “Anyways, enough of that. Where was I…oh, yes—”

~.~.~.~.~

She wakes up to a throbbing headache and a chill so cold, her teeth begin to chatter. She shivers in place, blinking rapidly as she tries to make sense of her surroundings. Unless this is supposed to be the life after death the adults around her sometimes whisper about during town meetings, whispers of a Higher Being and Redemption and Salvation and words Dasom never understood because what’s the point of living if they were just supposed to spend that time waiting for death and life after death. Perhaps it was all supposed to be comforting or something, but Dasom’s never had time to think about all that, not between fights and pickpocketing and generally trying to live.

She blinks rapidly, clearing her muddled thoughts before she takes in her surroundings. The room is poorly lit, the air drafty and smelling faintly of wet wood. It’s ugly, she notes, walls scratched up and wooden ceiling beams riddled with glittering spider webs and tiny, leaking holes. The afterlife, she decides, is tier than real life, which she thinks is a feat in itself.

“Idiot.” A voice echoes and she immediately jolts upright, not expecting another person so soon. Her vision swims at the sudden movement, but she quickly shakes it away, eyes narrowing at the sight of the familiar figure leaning against the door.

It’s quiet between them for a long, long moment before Dasom sighs.

“Hey.” She mumbles, rolling her eyes before she lets herself drop back down onto the wooden table, closing her eyes. “You’re back early.”

“Yeah. They sealed off all inter-community trade routes until further notice. Something about inclement weather, but I doubt that.” There’s a vindictive edge to her tone, one that makes Dasom’s spine prickle unexpectedly, the hairs at the back of her neck standing on end.

Dasom opens her eyes, slowly, one at a time, “Jihyo,” She murmurs, frowning as she glances up at her. She’s still leaning against the door, arms crossed and big brown eyes glinting in that way of hers, the same way it always does when she speaks of their government, though neither of them considers it a governing force of any kind in the first place.

Dasom’s acquaintanceship with Park Jisoo, better known as Jihyo, has always been a sort of anomaly to everyone, Dasom included. Humanity, she supposes, is all that they have in common.

Jihyo insists on adding anger, boiling ing rage to that short list of shared traits, but Dasom insists that Jihyo is the only one who’s angry. At this point in Dasom’s life, she’s nothing but bitter and resigned, a flame dying out, while Jihyo is quite the opposite, a roaring flame that’ll burn anything in its path with any means necessary, a fire fed through the years, rather than smothered.

Dasom doesn’t remember how they became acquaintances (because neither of them ever really considered the other a friend), but Dasom had always been good at not asking questions and, as years went on and Dasom found her place on the streets, Jihyo found her place in some rich merchant’s crew and a need for Dasom’s—Dasom’s whatever-Jihyo-needed. Jihyo had always been about change, about doing something, while Dasom just wanted to survive and that, Dasom thinks, is the biggest difference of all.

(“We could do it, you know.” Jihyo had mumbled to the stars, one cold night, after Dasom had hauled herself up to the roof of the merchant buildings and Jihyo had appeared out of thin air a few minutes later, like she always does, cheeks red and big brown eyes hazy, black pupils pulled into taut pinpricks of black. Dasom had torn her eyes away from their dark little town, factory smoke making the last remaining pinpricks of light hazier than it is during the day. The sounds of engines and gears clanking and grinding continued though, because even if the town had a mandatory curfew and no one was currently in the factories littering the center of town, the gears kept grinding, almost ominous in its meticulous rhythm. The winding alleyways that were supposed to be roads were completely empty, pebbled with holes Dasom could see even from this height.

Jihyo had inched closer, perching along the edge of the slanted roof, her feet slipping a bit along the rusted metal before she had found her footing, crouching into a squat, eyes distant. Dasom had just adjusted her scarf, masking the bottom of her face to keep the bitter wind and smoky air at bay, watching from the corner of her eyes as Jihyo grinded her teeth. Dasom could smell the alcohol on her breath, despite their distance. Dasom could see the way her hands trembled, despite the fact that Dasom was trying her best not to see.

Dasom had only frowned, raising a brow, “Do what?”

“Save everyone.” She had whispered.

“Thirteen year olds can’t save anyone. We can’t even save ourselves.” Dasom had responded in a surprisingly matter-of-fact way as she turned her head to fully face Jihyo. This only made Jihyo angrier, her jaw clenching in the dark.

Jihyo had always thought big. She is a beautiful whirlwind of emotion, made of blood, sweat, tears, and so much ing anger. Dasom makes it a point to never be any of those things, at least not the same way Jihyo does it.

At fourteen, when Dasom is shivering in the cold, tattered coat barely keeping her warm, and Jihyo is standing beside her, the two of them watched the giant steel wheels of a wealthy vampire from Central City roll by, the spikes crunching into the coal dust covered snow, leaving holes and dug up gravel in its wake, Jihyo whispers, “You’d be angry, too, if you saw what they did out there. What they have and what they do to us because of what we’re born as.”

Fourteen year old Dasom disagrees because she’s already bitter, hungry, and too jaded to be roaring with anger. Jihyo travels along trade routes, her fire is set free, and Dasom is trapped in the slums, in a home that may as well be made of cardboard for all it’s worth, her fire contained, smoldering.

“I’m never going to see it.” Dasom mutters, still matter-of-fact as ever, her eyes settling on the blood red velvet curtains covering the tiny window into the passing carriage, a shiver running up her spine at the sight.

Fourteen year old Jihyo visibly flinches at those words, her fingers clutching at the soft black cloak draped around her shoulders and Dasom is vaguely proud of herself for remaining surprisingly indifferent and not envious of Jihyo’s new assets, of how she had found her way into a rich werewolf merchant’s crew, into money and food and security.

“I know.” Jihyo mumbles, and for a moment, Dasom wonders if Jihyo thinks she is envious of everything Jihyo now has, because of her rich merchant. Everyone else is, so why isn’t Dasom?

But Dasom sighs and says, “Honestly, I don’t care. I don’t want to see it.”

(She tries for reassuring but it comes out sounding haughtier than Dasom would like.)

Still, Jihyo’s death grip around the edges of her cloak loosens significantly and Dasom diligently pretends not to notice.

They live in different worlds now, Dasom realizes as months pass, but Jihyo still makes it a self-proclaimed ‘chore’ of hers to tell Dasom stories of the supernatural she’s learned from the rich merchant, things like their most terrifying assets and how to defend against them.

Jihyo always gets this look in her eyes, though, a twinkle she can never hide. She’s never directed that look at Dasom, because Dasom is, according to Jihyo, boring and ‘surprisingly way too ing rule-abiding for a slick- pickpocket’ (Dasom always ends up telling her to ‘ off and go bother someone else’ in response).

Dasom is fifteen when word of breeding homes starts spreading and her people, the other kids on the streets, begin to disappear, so Dasom looks for a way out. Jihyo never, not once, discusses how she lives out her days in the rich merchant’s gigantic home, hell, she doesn’t even bother suggesting Dasom join her either, and Dasom knows enough not to resent Jihyo for keeping it from her or ask why (just like Dasom knows enough not to ask about the bandages or the scarves and long sleeves in the middle of summer or the look Jihyo would get in her eyes when Dasom had mentioned Luna offhandedly once or even the weeks where Jihyo’d disappear off the face of the planet because it’s not what Dasom does. Besides, they’re barely even acquaintances, let alone friends). Dasom knows she’d rather die than survive the life Jihyo has to survive.

She’s fifteen when she curls her fingers into fists and tries to help Choi Seungcheol and she comes out of it so ing furious at the world. She’s fifteen when Jihyo gets that look in her eyes, directs it dead-straight into Dasom’s bones and soul, and returns from a three-week long trip with special spiked gloves and a list of poisons, listed alphabetically by which creature each concoction will hurt the most. Jihyo teaches Dasom how to read that list as wellas the books she swipes from her rich merchant, since Jongdae’s reading lessons never had a section on disarming non-humans.

Dasom asks her first question, “How?” Her eyes are wide as she stares at the gloves, fingers reverently grazing the peculiar fabric, a mix between silvery metal and something incredibly soft and stretchy/ The material molds like second skin around her fingers when she puts it on and she’s in awe.

Jihyo just shrugs and says, nonchalantly, “The merchant is giving me a bar to run in town, says I should get humans to come and spend their money.”

Dasom frowns, “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Jihyo just shrugs all over again.

Dasom doesn’t push it because only friends let other friends in on their secrets and they’re barely even acquaintances.)

Jihyo continues speaking, snapping Dasom out of her thoughts, “I’ve heard the real reason is because of—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Dasom cuts her off almost immediately shaking her head.

Jihyo snorts, all sarcastic and mean. “Yeah, you do. We all know you do.”

Jihyo is all rebellion and anger and Dasom wants no part in that. She just wants to survive. Dasom glares, “No, I don’t.”

“You wouldn’t be fighting those monsters on a daily basis if you didn’t.”

They’re nineteen now and Jihyo’s only grown angrier over the years, while Dasom’s gotten resigned at best, though some would say numb if they really wanted to delve right into it. Dasom’s made a name for herself on the streets and she doesn’t starve anymore, not like before, while Jihyo travels with the rich werewolf merchant more and more, disappearing for months at a time, and drinks even more than she ever did. They’re not friends, still acquaintances, but Jihyo still gets her gloves fixed without Dasom having to ask and Dasom spends nights off helping Jihyo close up the bar while Jihyo whispers useless words of rebellion and saving everyone as if they’re still thirteen and wide-eyed to the world.

Dasom never tells her that all that is a hopeless cause, though, despite the fact that Dasom should know because she’s fought these monsters for all these years and the only reason why she’s not dead is because she only has to fight one at a time. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to fight more than one, two, three, maybe fifteen, at a time. She’s sure she wouldn’t even last five minutes.

“What happened out there?” She asks, because she wants to change the subject, wants Jihyo to stop looking at her with that knowing twinkle in her eyes.

“The cops came, lead by the new Chief of Police and Jo—” Jihyo cuts herself off, her eyes flitting away from Dasom’s gaze, and there’s a brief moment of hesitancy, worry. Then her expression smooths out and she says, nonchalantly in that irritating way of hers, “It scared off that ing fae before it could tear your throat out and I managed to drag you out before any of those cops could get to you first. The—the humans caught at the pits, they’re—” Jihyo glares, fire dancing in her big brown eyes, set into a scowl, “They’re going to be whipped publicly as an example to the town. The less important supernatural were let off with a fine and warning that they’ll be on the stocks next, though I call bull on that.” She grits her teeth at her own words and Dasom winces.

Jihyo is seething and Dasom wonders why the pits would be shut down now. She’s fought known officers in the pits before and she’s even seen them join the betting pool (usually against her, the s). The pits have been overlooked for years now, so why are they enforcing these laws now?

“That’s strange, isn’t it?” Jihyo asks, her lips stretching into a small smile, vindictive and provocative. “That they’re suddenly cracking down on the pits.”

Dasom frowns because she knows Jihyo too well, even if they’re not friends. “No—” She starts, shaking her head, but Jihyo just continues, as if Dasom hasn’t spoken.

“There’s talk of rebellion in one of the other cities.” Jihyo whispers this, almost reverently, as if Dasom will share in her reverence, in her awe of a cause Dasom knows is already hopeless.

“There’s always talk of rebellion.” Dasom responds, narrowing her eyes.

Jihyo’s eyes flash, “But this time it’s real. It’s working.” Jihyo says, “Their plans are working and that’s why they shut down the trade routes. Those creatures don’t give a about inclement weather, Dasom. You and I both know this. You should know this better than anyone else. Something is happening. Something is happening and it’s big, Som. It’s huge. It’s—”

“It’s stupid.” Dasom cuts her off, her voice loud, echoing among the rotting wooden beams and glittering cobwebs. “It’s so ing stupid.”

“But it’s not. It’s not stupid. It’s hope and a possibility and—” This time Jihyo’s voice rises in volume and it’s pounding in her ears and Dasom hears that same voice, that same voice she heard during her fight telling her to breathe breathe brea—

“It’s death. The last time there was talk of rebellion they all died before it even began. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. They were all m—murdered, Jihyo.” Dasom takes a deep breath, tries and fails to steady her voice, “It’s false hope that’ll lead everyone to their deaths and it’s so ing stupid.” Dasom closes her eyes, that voice pounding in her ears, and Dasom sees red, angry bloody red, and her heart twists in her chest, like someone’s jabbed their hands through her skin and bones and is squeezing her heart in their hands relentlessly.

(“Breathe, sweetheart. Take a deep breath. Try to breathe.” Her voice is gentle, careful, though there’s an edge to it that makes Dasom curl her fingers around the sleeve of her shirt. She looks over her shoulder and Dasom’s eyes follow hers, where he stands, smiling just as gently, reassuringly. There’s a carriage behind him, with spiked steel wheels shining brightly in contrast to their dull little town and billowing blood red curtains, so velvety they remind her of water. There’s a smear of black soot under his right eye and along his cheek. Or maybe it’s rust red like dried blood. Or perhaps, a deep deep purple. Dasom doesn’t remember, it was so long ago.

“We’ll be right back.” He reassures her, but it sounds like the time he had told her that he’d be back from the factory in time to play with her: indulgent and empty. Empty promises that she would tell Dasom not to mind because he’s here, at least, unlike some of the other kids on their street. His hands are pinned behind his back. So is hers. She looks like she wants to touch Dasom, but she can’t, and Dasom remembers the way her eyes shine bright with unshed tears.

Then they’re hauled away, the sight of fingers, pale and long, curling around the red velvet curtains catching Dasom’s attention before she’s hauled away by her next door neighbor’s parents. Dasom cries out for them, Dasom’s voice is raw and rough and strange to her own ears, but she doesn’t get to see them again.

She doesn’t remember most of the details of after, just waking up five mornings in a row waiting for them in their tiny, cold apartment, still cramped despite the fact that Dasom’s the only one living there now. They never come back. They never come back and the landlord wants money Dasom doesn’t have and suddenly, she is living on the streets, taken pity on by the other street kids, and soon dumpster diving for weeks until she meets Jongdae.

Dasom still has nightmares about her mother’s voice telling her to breathe, about her father lying to her, and Dasom wishes she remembered something else about her parents, anything else but their last moments before disappearing forever.)

For a moment, Jihyo looks absolutely regretful, her lips quirking downwards and her eyes darting up to the ceiling. But then she glares because they are not friends and she looks her in the eye as she mutters, “Just because it failed the first time, doesn’t mean it’ll fail again.”

“But how could you possibly know that?”

“I don’t.”

“And that’s the problem.”

It’s quiet, so so quiet, and then Jihyo murmurs, “Does it really matter, though, if we go into this without being one hundred percent sure? Does it matter when anything is better than living like this?”

“Yes, Jihyo,” Dasom sighs, dragging a hand over her face. “It does.”

Jihyo stares at her, her big brown eyes filled with the sort of emotion Dasom can’t quite stand to look at, not now when her head hurts and her body is sore and she just wants to sleep.

Jihyo doesn’t say anything for a long, long time ago, and when Dasom glances sideways at Jihyo, her eyes are anything but silent. Dasom sees the accusatory look in Jihyo’s eyes. She sees the way Jihyo’s eyes seem to be asking, do you even care?

Dasom doesn’t have it in her to say anything else, closing her eyes instead, because she does care, though it’s not for Jihyo. She can’t find it in herself to care about Jihyo’s cause, especially not when it’s so helpless.

~.~.~.~.~

Jongdae visits her two days later, early one morning, his tail curled and sharp eyes different from the last time she’s seen in.

“Hey.” He murmurs, lingering at her doorstep, his eyes fixed on a point above her head. He’s wearing his nice clothes, she notices, with the wool coat that tapers at the waist, accentuating his shoulders in a way that makes him look bigger than she’s ever really seen him. The sun is just beginning to rise, the clanking of factory gears grinding out its haunting call, the sky itself a soft, hazy grey, thanks to the smoke.

She raises a brow at him, “What’s up with the fancy getup?”

He stares at her, looks her in the eyes this time, rather than at a point above her head. His curly, always-smiling lips are turned down into a tiny frown and his under-eyes are a faint blue. “The whipping is at noon.” He says, with a frown.

“Yeah, I know.” Dasom grimaces at the thought. There had been a notice, given to them by the city police, that had announced that the whipping was mandatory viewing, which was a first, but Dasom figures it has something to do with the new Chief of Police proving his power to the people.

“Don’t come.” His voice is quiet, so so so quiet, and she rubs at the goosebumps prickling up along her forearms, not because of the fact that Jongdae is still standing with her door wide open, the blistering wind trickling into her home, but because he has his eyes closed and voice lower than a whisper, “Please, don’t come.”

Then he opens his eyes and there’s a steely look there, hidden within the yellow-black cat eyes she’s become so accustomed to. “You’re a well-known face in those pits, Som. If you come, they might try to put you in the stocks, too.”

Something tells Dasom that Jongdae isn’t telling her everything because he isn’t quite looking her in the eyes, but she doesn’t push it because it’s not like she wants to go, in the first place.

So she nods.

He exhales, his cheeks puffing out as he tugs at his tie. “You know.” He says, slumping against the door hinge, “My offer from earlier still stands. Since the pits are closed and everything.”

She reaches out and brushes off coal dust from his tie with her thumb, frowning as she does it, and Jongdae’s hand freezes in place, at the very edge of his tie, his fingers curling over.

“Thanks, but I can’t.” She says, pulling her hand away.

“It’s not—”

“Jongdae, I can take care of myself.” She cuts him off, crossing her arms over her chest as she gives him a stern look because she really does not want to get into to this again.

Jongdae pouts, lips jutting out. “By pickpocketing?”

“Yeah.” She says, shrugging nonchalantly. “You better watch your fancy pockets, kitty boy.”

“That’s dangerous too, Dasom.” Jongdae mumbles, pout dropping from his lips so suddenly she ends up blinking rapidly at him in surprise. There’s an edge to his tone, though, more careful than she knows what to do with. Then he’s frowning again, a tiny little thing that makes him look so much older, more tired, the creases in his face more pronounced than ever. His eyes focus over her head, for just a split second, “Especially with the police cracking down on the pits and most likely all the other black markets that have set up shop around town.”

Dasom has always liked staying out of Jongdae’s business, mostly out of a feeling of obligation because of everything he’s done for her, more than anything else. But she’s neither stupid nor oblivious and it’s unsettling, the way his eyes are focused on her face, now, unmoving and passive; absolutely unreadable. She thinks, maybe, she should just let it go, pretend that she doesn’t know how important Jongdae has been getting in their little town or how his clothing has been getting gradually shinier, softer, less worn, as the years have gone by. She supposes, maybe, she should have just pretended that she never noticed his prolonged absences or how he’s been visiting her house more often than usual, rather than meeting at the Jihyo’s rich merchant’s bar or Jongdae’s house like they used to. She supposes that she should keep pretending that she hasn’t noticed, doesn’t care, because that’s what she does.

But then Jongdae tugs at his tie and scuffs his toes against the threshold of her home, smudging the shine of his shoes. She looks down, ignoring her own bare feet, and sees her own distorted face reflecting back up at her through the shine of his shoes, the scratched up wood a bleak backdrop against the incredible shininess.

(Jongdae was never one for cleanliness, not to that extent. She never understood it, because she’s always had dirt behind her ears and under her nails, since they were things she could never escape thanks to the perpetual thick layer of smog coating everything in her tiny little alleyway home. She preferred being cleaning, yet Jongdae was always there, with scuffed up shoes, messy hair sticking up in all kinds of directions, wrinkled shirts, and a mischievous little grin plastered across his face. His socks had holes in them and when she asked about them he had just shrugged and run past her, a blur of black hair and neutral colored clothing, his cat-like reflexes startling her, especially when he easily plucks the orange she had taken from the produce stand right out of her fingers.)

“I just want to help.” Jongdae murmurs and his voice is low and quiet, his yellow eyes are as soft as the moon on those nights when she and Jihyo lounge around and Jihyo talks about her time traveling, though neither of them dare look at each other because that would mean they’re acknowledging the other’s existence. Dasom thinks this version of him is her favorite, gentle soft best friend Jongdae, not the clean, full-of-secrets Jongdae she’s been seeing lately.

“I know, Dae, but I can’t.” She says, worrying her bottom lip as her eyes flicker between his, watching the way he seems to scan her face distractedly, a frown forming. His fingers curl up, his brows furrow, but he doesn’t argue it any further.

He just nods.

He just sighs, like he’s Atlas carrying the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, and she thinks that her earlier observations about him could be the truth, or it could all be a fanciful fabrication of hers, because she doesn’t know what’s true and what isn’t true when it comes to Kim Jongdae. She used to be okay with that, but now she isn’t so sure. Now, it’s almost unnerving. He cuts through her buzzing thoughts and murmurs, “Just stay out of sight.”

He reaches out and she watches the way his fingers freeze, the way his tail flicks ever-so-slightly to the side, before his hand turns downwards, fingers cupping around her shoulder as he squeezes gently, before bending forward into a half-hug, arm hung loosely around her, hesitant and careful in a way he’s never been with her before.

(Though he has cat-like movements, she’s been fighting creatures faster than him for years, she’s learned to see everything.)

She blinks at the smog-filled air outside in confusion, even as he pulls away. He backs away from her front door and walks away, glancing back just once, just as she’s closing the door behind him, his eyes downcast, hidden.

She’s not an idiot. She knows he has secrets he won’t ever tell her, but he has never avoided her eyes the way he’s doing right then and there and she doesn’t know why it’s making her heart twist in such an ugly, painful sort of way.

~.~.~.~.~

She’s tense, for hours and hours. It coils at her limbs, her eyes flickering to her front door more often than not, even as she tries to distract herself with the torn pages of some book Jongdae had given to her. She focuses on the words, tries and fails at reading a particularly large word because she’s human and humans were never taught to read, in fact, it was considered illegal, but Jongdae had adamantly insisted on helping her read (“Who’s gonna help me write sappy love letters so I can get laid if you’re illiterate? That’s the whole reason I keep you around.”) and she still has trouble reading the big, complicated words, especially because of lack of practice.

For a long, long time, it’s quiet, and just when she finally begins to relax, just when she sits down on her ratty old mattress, covered in a quilt she’s patched up herself with different pieces of cloth she’s found all over town, just when she puts her book down and begins to polish her fighting gloves, the methodical movements surprisingly calming, there’s a soft knock at her door. It surprises her, mostly because she expected banging and maybe even the door being kicked off its hinges and hoard of cops waiting to haul her away.

She blinks, staring at her door with a frown, because maybe, just maybe, she’s imagined the sound.

Knock-knock.

Or maybe not.

Slowly, carefully, Dasom tugs her glove on, the worn washcloth falling from her fingers and into her lap, hitting the floor as she slowly pushes herself up off her floor-bed, straightening from her crouch as quietly as she can. She toes forward, just as there’s another soft knock, even quieter than before if that’s even possible, flexing her fingers as her free hand lands on the flimsy door handle. In retrospect, there really is no need to knock seeing as her door a shaky old thing that could easily be undone with a few kicks to her door. Honestly, no one she knows is this polite, especially in their little town.

She opens the door, arm reared back and ready to knock the living daylights out of whoever’s at the door, when she freezes, eyes widening. “…What?”

An unfamiliar boy with dark brown eyes and coal black hair stands at her door, a purple bruise blossoming at the apple of his left cheek. He’s got a split lip, dried blood sprinkling his cheek, and his dark clothes look worn, his cloak smudged with dirt at the ends, but his dark red scarf looks almost new, a pop of color in an otherwise bland and inconspicuous outfit.

Dasom is one hundred percent positive that she has never seen the boy before mostly because he has the kind of face, the kind of piercing eyes, that isn’t so easy to forget in the first place. She’s fought enough terrifying creatures, faeries in particular, to attest to that.

Despite the bruises and cuts scattered across his face, his dark hair almost a little too long in length as it falls just along his eyelashes, the look on his face is anything but pained or scared or negative in anyway. Instead, his thin pink lips are stretched out into a smug little grin, the blood smudged on his lip only succeeding in making him look stranger than he already is. His dark eyes flicker between her confused face and the gloved fist frozen in midair.

Then he speaks, his tone more amused than she’d like, his dark eyes almost laughing at her, “Though I love the threat of a good old punch to the face as much as the next guy, a hello would have been nice too.”

Dasom reddens a bit at that, embarrassed beyond belief as she quickly drops her fist, hiding her spiked glove-hand behind her back. She blinks at the boy, watching with growing confusion as he leans against her door hinge casually, sizing her up in that way her opponents do in the pits, as if he’s analyzing and judging her entire existence based on how she looks, at that very moment. He grins smugly the entire time as if he hasn’t got a split lip and more bruises and cuts then she can count, a particularly big blueish-purple bruise spreading from the exposed skin of his neck to down past the edges of his red scarf. Her frown deepens and she bites out an admittedly harsh and more than a little confused, “Who the hell are you?”

He opens his mouth to respond, though she figures that the twinkle in his dark eyes means that his response won’t be anything good, when suddenly there’s shouting in the distance, shouting and hissing and a low growl that she instantly recognizes, the hairs at the back of her neck standing on end. She’s fought enough werewolves in those pits to recognize their growls. Her eyes flicker over his shoulder, down the cramped alleyway to the cramped, rundown road where the sounds are coming from, completely alarmed, before she immediately turns on him, watching as he glances over his shoulder, the same shoulders that are much tenser than they had been a second ago. He drags a hand through his hair, making it stick out in all kinds of directions.

He’s standing up straight this time, no longer leaning against her home, and tugs at his scarf, until it covers the bottom half of his face, hiding his split lip. He looks at her and she thinks his eyes are so incredibly expressive, the same way Jihyo’s are, his dark eyes dancing as the sounds of the growling and hissing only gets louder. “How much for five minutes of refuge?” He asks, tone surprisingly serious, though she figures that, for him, this is becoming a life or death situation now.

Though she’s never seen this boy on her streets, she finds it morbidly funny that he already knows the rules of negotiating when it comes to their way of life. Nothing is ever free for their kind. It settles some of her nerves, though, knowing that the boy in front of her isn’t some creature, that he’s most definitely a human, just like her. Despite all the rules, despite the survival-of-the-fittest world they live in, she always happens to find comfort in knowing when the other person is human, too.

She lets out a breath, one she hadn’t realized she was holding in, and the sliver of lip she can see over the red scarf twitches, his eyes almost relieved for a split second.

“How much do you have?” She asks and she sees the way his fingers—pretty fingers, she notes—tighten around his red scarf, the way the fingers of his other hand drum impatiently against the side of her house. The hand behind her tenses when his jaw ticks.

“Come on.” He breathes out, his dark eyes melting with barely concealed anxiety.

“Who are they, then?” She asks, anyway, staring at him as she points her chin towards the road, intent on getting an answer.

His jaw ticks and he sighs, “The cops.”

Dasom likes to think that she doesn’t care, that her heart had steeled long ago, and she’s above helping out every desperate human being hunted by the cops that comes her way, but she isn’t. She never really was. When the growls and hisses are hair-raisingly close, she steps back, making room for him to step through, exhaling softly as he does so. She shuts the door behind her, drags the board over it though she knows that won’t make a difference if they decide to check her house.

She sits on her bed on the floor, draws her knees in as she listens to the cops, the werewolves sniffing around, growling so low that all she can think about is that time a werewolf tried to tear in the pits. She plays with her spiked glove and the boy slides to the ground, in front of her floor-mattress (there’s nowhere else for him to sit, in the first place). She feels his eyes on her and when she looks up, he’s looking at her gloves, curiosity dripping from his expression.

There’s banging, screaming from beyond her door, somewhere further down the alleyway which can only mean that they’d completely skipped over her little hole-in-the-wall of a house.

 “Why can’t they smell you?” She asks, this time, frowning because clearly he’d been captured already and werewolves have one hell of a sense of smell.

The boy gives her a disparaging sort of look, previous smug haughtiness returning, though this time there’s something close to irritation flickering through his features. He tugs at his red scarf and murmurs, “You have a lot of questions, don’t you, Glove Girl?”

She stares at him and his dark, piercing eyes stare right back, that slight grin still present. There’s something challenging about it and it irritates her, in a way she hasn’t really felt in a while. Not even Jihyo’s gotten her this annoyed and this boy’s barely spoken ten sentences to her.

She crosses her arms, “You do realize that your five minutes are almost up.”

He raises a delicate brow at her and she thinks it’s funny, how delicate he looks, how the bruises smattering his face only makes him look more delicate. He purses his lips before he groans, leaning back on his palms as he appraises her. “I’m visiting from out of the city.”

She makes a face, “That’s impossible. They don’t let people visit between cities, especially not humans.”

“How do you know I’m human?” He smiles then, all toothy and dangerously stiff, his dark eyes narrowing in a way that has her tightening her grip on her gloves.

She snorts, though, tries for lighthearted, “What kind of creature gets their handed to them by the cops?” She asks, eyeing his bruises pointedly.

He crosses his arms then, his pink lips jutting out a bit and his eyes darkening significantly, “Trust me, I’m not the one who got their handed to them. That’s why they’re looking for me.”

“Okay.” She rolls her eyes before she continues, mostly because she really doesn’t want to have to deal with his bruise ego on top whatever-the-hell else is going on. “Why were they looking for you, anyway? Did you escape the whippings or something?”

“I already told you why they caught me.”

“And I don’t believe you.”

He just sighs, then, seemingly fed up with Dasom if the way he throws his hands in the air says anything about that. “Okay, you know what, fine.” He mumbles, pushing himself to his feet, “It doesn’t matter, I have to do anyway.”

Dasom feels another wave irritation at his words, her brows furrowing as she grimaces at him. “Fine, whatever—” She cuts herself off when he pulls out a tinkling pouch. He plucks out a handful of coins and drops it on the table behind him, the same table holding the portable gas stove she had bought a few years ago, when she had finally started to make enough money. “What are you doing?” She asks, blinking rapidly at the money.

“Paying you for refuge.” He says bluntly and she responds with a soft oh because she hadn’t actually been expecting him to pay her anything. He moves to the door, his movements surprisingly fluid and graceful, footsteps noiseless, when suddenly he stops and glances back at her. “Actually, I have a question, if that’s not too much for you.”

She nods for him to continue, ignoring his disparaging tone, though she does still glare at him. “Yeah, sure, what is it?”

He tilts his head to the side, fringe falling into his eyes a bit. “Do you happen to know where a human girl named Jihyo lives?”

A/N: I missed the deadline.........YIKES. but basically my mental health has been eating away at my creativity so like, that was pretty ing awful. I'm trying to get back in the groove of things (during finals because I'm a class a procrastinator and at 1am apparently because who cares anymore :^] ) and basically mama 2016 baekhyun kicked my back into gear inspired me to write (BLESS). anyways, love you all so muchhhh thank you for everything!! <3

xoxo