Two weeks had passed since the day Irene found the sword, she was almost convinced herself that whatever happened that day was just her hallucination. Maybe Seulgi was right—maybe she was indeed tired. Until recently; when she entered her closet, and she found a strange-long box with the very familiar sword in it. She dropped the newly washed clothes she was holding as her hand were covering her gaping mouth. She slammed hard the closet door, her back was facing the door.

“Joohyun!” She heard her mother called, “are you alright, sweetheart?”

Trembling, Joohyun brought herself to answer her mother; assuring her that she was alright. She rushed to open the closet door again, and she saw the sword—lying on the spot where she found it. She wanted to tell Seulgi, but she was afraid that the same thing would happen again and Seulgi would think that she was a total mad woman and stopped hanging out with her…again. And obviously, Irene didn’t want that. She decided to just clean her closet from the mess and did not forget to hide the box of the sword. Then, she dressed herself up after receiving a call from Sehun who finally decided to show up; saying that he wanted to meet up. At first, Irene rolled her eyes because after all his disappearances she preffered to hang out with Seulgi—or kissing Seulgi.

The ride was oddly quite, usually Sehun would talk to her about some stuffs. But, it seemed like neither of them were interested to make any conversation. Irene sighed; she realised that Sehun probably just remembered that he actually had a girlfriend and decided to hang out with her. But, Irene did not have time for any of that. So she said,

“Stop the car.”

Sehun frowned, glancing at her and obviously would not stop the car. Instead, he slammed his foot on the gas, making the car moved faster.

“I said stop the car!” Irene yelled. It was enough to make Sehun stepped hard on the break. She got off immediately from the car. Sehun did the same as he went to stand in front of Irene; confronting her. Fortunately for Irene, Sehun looked like he had a second thought considering some eyes were looking at them.

“We’re not done yet,” he said.

“Whatever.” Irene rolled her eyes, watching her boyfriend’s car went further.

They stopped on the side of public park. She could see some people were eating their snacks, doing sports, and whatever. She was just minding her own business when a guy—looked like he was on his mid 30—called her. He was holding a baseball bat and Irene did notice that a small boy with glove was standing beside him. He looked like a proud father.

Bingo.

He told Irene to pretend as if his son did good on throwing the ball to encourage him. Irene—being a kind-hearted girl—took the bat. Irene did not know much about baseball but she used to play it sometimes with her father when she was a kid.

“Irene!”

Irene’s mind popped. She realised that Seulgi was in front of her, holding the bat as she was pressing it hard. She dropped the bat. She noticed that the boy and his father were hiding behind Seulgi—like they were scared. Of her. She couldn’t believe herself that she was about to hit the father and the son. It was very lucky that Seulgi was there.

She walked backwards slowly.

“I-I’m sorry,” she mumbled before she ran from the scene.

Irene ran as far as she could, away from the park until finally her feet gave up on her and she stopped in front of a café shop. She was catching her breath when she felt a hand was touching her shoulder. She looked over, and it was Seulgi.

“Are you okay?”

Seulgi’s soothing voice did not help as she started to cry on the taller girl’s embrace as she threw her one question that had been bothering her.

“What is wrong with me?”

---

Please be there.

Irene had been repeating those words inside her head since Seulgi and her went back to her house as she told her about the sword. They were now inside Irene’s bedroom as Irene’s trembling hand was opening the closet door while Seulgi was standing behind her. She was delighted when she saw the same box she hid was still on the same spot she left. SO, she pulled the box out and opened it to show Seulgi the sword.

“Is this…it?” Seulgi asked. Clearly she had not seen the sword before, as if their little basement adventure never happened.

Irene nodded.

“This looks very old,” Seulgi said, amused. “So weird.”

Something happened to Irene. Seeing Seulgi, she decided to tell the taller girl everything that had been happening to her for the past two weeks. Irene turned the light in her room off.

“What are you doing?” Seulgi asked. Irene handed her her phone.

“I’m going to show you something.” Irene took her cardigan off, “but, promise me you won’t freak out.”

“I promise.” Seulgi said. “But, what is going on?”

Irene was standing in front of confused Seulgi who was holding her phone—didn’t know what to do with it.

"Take my picture with the flash on.” Irene directed.

She heard a small ‘okay’ from Seulgi as she snapped a picture of the older girl. Seulgi handed over the phone back to Irene without looking at it, still completely had no idea on what’s going on.

Irene looked at her own picture while biting her lower lip as she showed it to Seulgi.

Seulgi had seen weird things before—heck, she was actually part of it. But, she had never met people with visible aura around them. In fact, it wasn’t even an aura. Grey shadow was surrounding Irene in the picture. Similar dark grey colour could be seen on Irene’s eyes on the picture. And after years of knowing the older girl, Seulgi was very sure Irene had brown eyes. A pair beautiful brown orbs. But, something that bothered Seulgi the most was the shadow. Seulgi thought she would be damned if she got it wrong.

But, the shadow was not just a random shadow.

…It looked like a fox.

---

a/n: sorry guys, short updates until the end of my exams :) don't forget to comment down below, let me know what you guys are thinking, give it a thumbs up and thank you so much i really really appreciate every single one of you!