Chapter 5

The Great Expectations of an Earnest Fool
 

As soon as the words left her lips she was struck with a bolt of raw fear. She adjusted the microphone in her hand, and tried not to notice how loud the silence was and how many people were gaping at her with open mouths.

She tried not to notice that she was in the middle of the row, with no place to run. It was so incredibly awkward that even the doves seemed to gather a little closer, casting their pale yellow lights on her accusingly. She did not think this through.

On stage, Yongsun was as pale as a sheet.

Everyone waited.

“Um, I-I mean,” Byulyi wracked her brain for something, anything—to play it off as a joke, to be cool, to not look so obviously like she was about to her pants—but she couldn’t remember a word from her talk. The feedback from the microphone screeched, buying her an extra second as everyone cringed at the high pitched noise. She blurted the first question that came to mind: “What’s your favourite colour?”

She wanted to bury herself in a hole and never come out. Except she was two thousand feet up in the air, surrounded by bewildered and snickering people.

Without another word, she slinked back into her seat. The host hurriedly attempted to diffuse the situation by ushering Yongsun off the stage and introducing their last speaker, a bewildered antelope who had been awkwardly fidgeting at the edge of the stage for the last few minutes.

She sulked through the rest of the talks, ignoring Wheein’s concerned looks and overly cautious questions, and bolted out of the room as fast as she could as soon as it was socially acceptable to do so.

If she turned back then, she may have noticed Yongsun start after her, only to be intercepted by Joohyun with a stern word of warning.

When she got back to her room, she slid under the covers with her frantic heart clawing at her chest. She waited—caught between fear and anticipation—for Yongsun to return. What would she say? What would she do once she inevitably rejected her?

Exhausted by her overworked mind, she fell asleep before Yongsun had returned. Next morning, she looked across the room to find her bed untouched—Yongsun hadn’t returned at all.

Her heart sank to her stomach.

Byulyi skipped all her classes the next day, and the day after that. Seulgi, Hyejin, and Wheein took turns trying to cheer her up, but no amount of comfort, encouragement, or—on Hyejin’s part—pure yelling could console her. Hyejin even apologized for accidentally planting the idea in her head. “I’m proud of you, unnie. You did something no one—not even yourself—thought it was possible.” And though the pain of Yongsun’s continuing silence lingered, Hyejin was right. Rejected or not, it was something to be proud of.

She resolved to get over Yongsun, who still did not return. And it would be simple and easy, perhaps, if things continued on his way. Or even if Yongsun came back and flat out rejected her clearly. But after two and a half days of unproductive waiting and less-than-unproductive pining, Byulyi decided to take matters into her own hands. And—alright—maybe she did kind of just wanted Hyejin to shut up about this whole situation.

Late in the afternoon on the third day, she braved the trepidatious ten-minute walk to Joohyun’s dorm, hoping the fierce dorm supervisor would not be around during this visit. She wasn’t even completely certain Yongsun would be here, but it seemed like a good place to start. Seungwan would know. Maybe she’d luck out and run into Seungwan.

She entered the foyer—it was identical to her own dorm, and no less massive. The hall of rooms seemed to extend forever in both directions. A grand staircase led upstairs, to no doubt another set of endless hallways. She caught the attention of a passing nekomata to ask for directions to Joohyun’s room, but she simply shook her head. Fortunately, her friend—a girl with a flowing green mane and antlers—approached them just in time.

“Second floor, end of the hall, I think,” she said, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. When the nekomata gave her a quizzical look, she quickly added, “I went to visit a friend down there and I’ve seen her, alright? She’s kind of...hard to miss.”

“Right. There’s a shortcut just upstairs if you go into the first room,” the nekomata added. “It’s actually a horizontal elevator for kids who don’t want to walk. There are actually a ton of shortcuts if you know where to look.”

“Not everyone is small enough to fit through them like you are,” the green-haired girl said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

“Well, not everyone can majestically gallop down the hall like you,” her friend retorted with a huff.

Byulyi quickly thanked them before anything escalated, and hopped up the steps two at a time. Just like the nekomata had said, the first door was a cherry-panelled door like all the others, but when she pushed it open, she stepped into an elevator, brushed metal with a bright white stripe of white light between each mirror. Her finger hovered over the wall of buttons, each labelled with a number between -250 to 250.

“What the hell,” she muttered. She tried to recall the green-haired girl’s directions, but she didn’t say which end of the hall.

250 it was!

The button glowed white, and—before she could catch herself as the elevator lurched sideways—she crashed into the far wall with a grunt. By the time the door rumbled open, she was still sprawled on the floor, hand to her erratic heart. Fortunately, no one was outside to witness her slink out of the elevator, clutching her throbbing shoulder.

She stumbled across the green-carpeted hall to a door marked with a gold plaque: “Bae Joohyun & Son Seungwan”. Thank god she didn’t have to brave another elevator ride.

Curiously, the door was slightly ajar.

Byulyi gave the door a timid knock. No response. Her ear twitched when it picked up a muffled noise.

“It’s alright,” someone whispered. Joohyun? Well, of course—she shook her head—Joohyun lived here after all. But there was something different about her voice. Something thick...kind of like—

Byulyi’s mind flashed to the first night, Joohyun stumbling in with Yongsun—their whispered voices, tinged with a kind of heat Byulyi didn’t want to remember. The kind of heat she didn’t ever want to hear from Joohyun ever again.

But here she was.

Was Yongsun in there?

She didn’t want to know.

Oh god, but she had to know.

Soundlessly, she slipped further into the room, flattening her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear the muffled and occasionally wet noises coming from inside the room—thank god she paid attention in class the day they learned to control their non-human traits. She flattened herself against the wall, and shuffled closer.

She should go, a part of her mind screamed. Oh, but she had to know. Should she jump in and confront them? No, no, no. She just wanted a peek. It was harmless, she told herself, she just needed to satisfy her curiosity. This could be her chance at closure. She would give up after this. She had to.

She poked around the corner.

Her eyes widened.

There she was: Bae Joohyun, hair dishevelled, shirt ed, straddling the lap of another woman on her bed, her wings spread straight out behind her as her back arched—a messy brown head latched the the white expanse of her neck. Joohyun’s hand rose up to cradle the other woman’s cheeks, and pulled her into a fiery kiss.

The other girl whimpered. “Unnie...I—”

“Wan-ah, don’t,” Joohyun mumbled. “Don’t make this complicated.”

The hands beneath Joohyun’s shirt stilled. It was only a single moment of hesitation, but it was enough to mar Joohyun’s pretty features with a frown. She pushed the brunette down, her antlers scraping the headboard slightly as Joohyun kissed her with renewed passion. The brunette responded eagerly—

Wait. Antlers? Byulyi leaned closer, and squinted at girl writhing beneath Joohyun—suddenly so filled with curiosity that she’d all but forgotten that she was, in fact, intruding on a very private and intimate moment.

Antlers? She wasn’t crazy—those antlers looked very familiar.

And Wan. Joohyun called her Wan. Which means…

Oh.

Oh.

Byulyi dove toward the door. So dizzy with this new information that she’d forgotten where the elevator was. Thankfully, she didn’t notice she had forgotten as she stumbled through the hall, her mind racing with questions.

Seungwan said they weren’t together. Were they? Could she tell anyone? Should she? Could she keep it a secret? Oh god, how would she ever be able to face her friend after seeing her in such an intimate moment? Cute, innocent Seungwan—ah, it was too much!

Wait, was Joohyun cheating on Seungwan? Or was she cheating on Yongsun?

Suddenly, a blur of red charged into her chest with such an impact that—possessed by instinct—she reacted up and gripped the other person by the upper arms to maintain her balance, but in the midst of the confusion, her feet tripped forward, tangling with the other person’s, and sent her sprawling forward.

“Ow.”

Byulyi’s ears perked at the familiar voice.

The scent hit her all at once and she lets out a low groan before she could process it all. The body beneath her stiffened, hitched breath in her ear.

The next thing Byulyi knew, she was sent flying into a perfect arc through the air, before crashing into the shelf behind her with a grunt. She hit the blue carpet arms-first, and swore softly as the shooting pain in her elbow jolted her awake. The scent, however, was close enough still to cloud her senses like a heavy mist. It drew her attention away from the pain—she didn’t dare look up.

She wasn’t ready to face Kim Yongsun—not while she continued to creep her out so successfully at each meeting. Keeping her eyes down on the blue carpet, she tried to refocus her senses—dull the fragrance of Yongsun’s scent. At least enough for her to interact with her roommate without practically in her ear. What the hell is wrong with you? She chided herself.

Wait a second.

Blue carpet.

Blue carpet?

The carpeting in Joohyun’s building was green. She was almost certain it was green, because the carpet in her own building was also green, and whenever she saw it she was often reminded of Hyejin saying that it looks like the colour of leprechaun poop. Whatever that meant.

And the bookshelf. There were definitely no bookshelves in the hall.

“Oh no.”

Byulyi’s head snapped up to see Yongsun staring up at the endlessly towering bookshelves all around them. Slowly, Byulyi rose to her feet, and followed Yongsun’s gaze.

“W-where are we?” Byulyi asked, cringing slightly at the way her voice squeaked.

“Third floor library,” Yongsun muttered. She searched the shelf closest to her for some kind of opening, but it was quickly apparent that they were boxed in.

“Are we...trapped?”

Without looking at Byulyi as she continued her useless search, Yongsun nodded. “The shelves move every two to four hours, and sometimes they create gaps like this one,” she explained warily.

There was something then—maybe it was the casual gesture of tucking her hair behind her ear; maybe it was the dim lighting or the bright red eyes shooting straight into her soul—that made Byulyi hyper-aware of how close Yongsun was in their enclosure. Suddenly, she couldn’t remember how she usually stood, or which expressions she usually wore. Every muscle seemed to have forgotten how to function without conscious decision-making.

Why does she have to smell so good?

Oh god, if she screwed up again there was nowhere to go.

Byulyi wringed her hands. “Um, h-how did we...get here?” She asked.

Yongsun gripped the shelf, and sighed deeply. “I can...in theory...teleport,” she said to the dusty spines in front of her. “In theory. Unfortunately, I can’t really...control it.” She flipped her palms over and studied them. “It doesn’t happen often—only twice so far; three times including this one—and I’m not sure what the causes it is—maybe panic or fear? Last time, I ended up inside a stable, and before that I woke up at the top of the Spire, and Joohyun had to come and rescue me. Oh god, I’m rambling now, aren’t I?” She took a breath. “What if we’re stuck here?”

“I-it’ll be okay,” Byulyi said. She reached out a hand to comfort her, but—no, she better not—closed her fingers into a fist and held it by her side. “It’s only two hours, right?”

Yongsun turned around and offered a weak smile. “Yeah. Hopefully.”

They sat on opposite sides of the small room, legs huddled to their chests. Byulyi kept her eyes on the blue carpet as she tried to find the words to say. There were so many things she wanted to say to her, but where could she begin? She was so sure when she set out to find her—less than an hour ago—and now she was here. Trapped here with nowhere else to go. And she had absolutely nothing to say.

She chanced a glance at Yongsun, and was surprised to find her watching her, only to look away as soon as their eyes met. Byulyi felt a sharp jab to her chest—how did it end up like this? How did she screw up so horribly that this girl couldn’t even look her in the eye? No, she had to make things right. Surely, it couldn’t get more awkward than this if she were to apologize?

“Um”—her voice strained against the silence before her mind could stop her—“I’m...sorry,” Byulyi began. Her ears flattened against her head as she ducked her chin lower into her knees.

Yongsun picked at the carpet. “For what?”

“F-for what?” Byulyi repeated. She hadn’t thought that far. “Everything I guess? I...really hoped that we could be friends, but I’m...I’m so...ngh. I’m just sorry.”

“You”—Yongsun paused—“surprise me.”

Byuly chuckled nervously. “I surprise myself sometimes. I’m...really sorry about the seminar incident. I really...don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s okay,” Yongsun said with a small smile. “I guess I should answer your question. I wasn’t sure how, so I…” she cleared , “I guess I’m sorry too.”

Byulyi’s flustered hands flew up. “Ah, no—you don’t—“

“My favourite colour is red.”

“Oh. That’s...very...um, cool?”

Yongsun grinned. “Yeah, I think so too.”

Byulyi tried to return the smile, but it must’ve been closer to a grimace as she wondered if she could brave that leap of faith once more. Could she ask? Was it the right time? Will there ever be the right time? Unless she didn’t want her to ask, so she made a joke. That was a joke, right?

Oh god, if she was rejected, she’d have nowhere to go.

Perhaps she should change the topic. She opened .

But Yongsun beat her to it. “As for your other question—” Byulyi froze, her hair on end—she was suddenly very cold. “I’m...very flattered.”

Oh no.

Yongsun hugged her knees closer, and dropped her eyes. “I guess I don’t really know. I think you’re”—she blushed—“very cute, but I...we don’t really know each other. And maybe that’s partly my fault too. So maybe...friends first?”

Very cute. Byulyi’s mind short-circuited—those two words blaring like alarms in her ear. Very cute. Yongsun thought she was very cute. Not just cute—very cute.

“Yeah,” she heard herself reply, “Friends.” Friends with Yongsun. Who thought she was very cute.

“Friends.”

Regardless of how Byulyi felt on the inside, She maintained calm enough of a facade to uphold a proper conversation with the older girl. Once she got past the shock of her own attraction—and Yongsun’s little admission—she was surprisingly easy to talk to.

And maybe it was kind of nice to just get to know each other without being so conscious of everything. Sure, it took all of Byulyi’s energy to focus on her words rather than her scent, but she certainly wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Kim Yongsun was both beautiful and fascinating and complex. Her passions and hobbies spanned far and wide, and—much like Wheein—could talk endlessly about them. Byulyi could listen forever, but Yongsun was a good listener too, nodding and pressing and asking questions whenever she could. Even when Byulyi’s words came out in clumps, she’d smile patiently and urge her on. From the enthusiastic movement of her hands, and the lit up grin, and the embarrassed half-smile—Yongsun was an open book of emotion, and it was easy to see why most of the school found her to be so comforting. It was easy to see why everyone she encountered was half in love with her. They must’ve conversed for no more than two hours, but it felt as natural as if they’d known each other a lifetime.

Little did Byulyi know, Yongsun found her equally easy to talk to, and—in such a rare occasion of intimacy and in spite of everything that happened—was able to confess something that few people knew: all of these expectations, all of the adoration, all of the pressure of her place on the pedestal—it terrified her. Especially after succeeding her sister as the only vampire on ArcIsland.

The confession tinged Byulyi with guilt, knowing full well how she had only perpetuated this fear with her intense attraction. But there was something else in the way Yongsun attracted her—it was almost something something else, something primal. Yongsun was still talking—she shelved the idea for another day as she continued to listen.

She was the youngest of two, and had spent a lifetime in her sister’s shadow. “My sister is amazing,” she said with a sigh. “She was always at the top of her class, and everyone adored her and...I can’t even use my powers properly. I still can’t believe I trapped us here.” Byulyi, who had inched over little by little over the course of their conversation, was close enough to touch her.

She hesitated.

“It’s okay,” Byulyi said, gripping the cuff of her own jeans. “I...might be selfish in saying this, but I am grateful to be trapped here. W-with you. Since I get to talk to you...and stuff. That’s enough for me...I’m...I’m sorry if I...I...put you on that pedestal.” With a fierce blush, she changed the topic.

It delighted her to no end to hear the lilting melody of Yongsun’s laughter as she recounted stories from her own childhood, being the unglamorous oldest of three. “I didn’t always get along with my sisters,” Byul said, leaning a cheek on her knees as she gave Yongsun a small smile. “In a lot of ways, I guess I thought I had to be...more? More like your sister maybe? I’m...awkward. B-but I guess you knew that.”

Yongsun chuckled. “Everyone wants to be more, don’t they? I think even my sister does sometimes. Ever since she graduated, she kind of just started...floating. Like she doesn’t really know how to live up to those standards anymore. It makes me wonder what will happen to me? What if I’m still in school because I’m afraid I can’t live up to anything in the real world?”

“You’ll be alright,” Byulyi said without hesitation. She grinned—a kind of uninhibited, thoughtlessly charming grin only her closest friends have seen. “Not being able to transform into a bat or teleport doesn’t change the fact that you already have three degrees, and you’re working on a PhD and you’re coming up with all of these amazing ideas for renewable energy while writing your dissertation and a novel.” She took a breath. “You’re amazing, Yongsun-unnie. There’s nothing in the real world that can take that away from you.”

In Byulyi’s excitement, she had thrown her arms open, and it was only now that she had finished her speech with a victorious grin did she realize how close they were. And how big Yongsun’s eyes were in the dim lighting. And how amazingly delicious she smelled.

Byulyi leaned a little closer. Yongsun, stricken with something undefinable in her gaze, didn’t move.

Byulyi swallowed, and flickered her eyes in permission. She heard the hitch of a breath. A pause. A slight tilt of the head—an invitation.

Byulyi pressed on with lips parted.

It all happened so quick, though time seemed to have slowed and stretched. Surely, she was dreaming—where else would she have such courage? But Yongsun’s lips were pillowy sweet, and the soft hand on her cheek—surely, even her most overactive state of imagination could not have conjured up the bubbling in the pit of her stomach and the warmth of Yongsun’s touch.

She was kissing the girl of her dreams. And the girl, so distant only two hours ago, was kissing her back. If it were a dream—and she half hoped it was when her mind began to drift to the consequences of her actions—she never wanted it to end.

It was Yongsun who broke the kiss. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her eyes locked onto Byulyi’s. She must’ve been considering something, and Byulyi had just enough oxygen in her brain to fear the rejection. Byulyi began to pull back with a sheepish smile. She quickly considered an exit plan. Maybe she could laugh it off, or pretend it didn’t happen. Pretend she doesn’t see the glazed look Yongsun wore. Pretend she didn’t want to kiss her again.

But it was also Yongsun who lunged for the second kiss, and it pushed Byulyi back with such a ferocity that the older girl was practically on top of her, straddling her legs. Her back dug uncomfortably into the shelf behind her. She raised her hands to Yongsun’s back—all she could hear, feel, and see, was the intoxicating scent of the other girl, somehow even more powerful in the heat of sudden passion. All rational thought escaped when she felt Yongsun’s hand sliding its way down to the hem of her shirt.

Even her tongue seemed to have a mind of its own.

It escalated quickly—or perhaps it would have if it wasn’t for very poorly timed moment of divine intervention. Byulyi’s shirt was halfway up her torso when the ground suddenly shook with the force of a small earthquake. The creak of wood scraping against each other deafened into white noise. The shelf behind them groaned, sending Byulyi falling back against the blue carpet and Yongsun tumbling onto her side. After half a moment of shock, Yongsun scrambled to her feet.

“The hall!” she cried, just loud enough for Byulyi to hear.

Drunk as she was on the taste of Yongsun’s lips, Byulyi somehow wavered up into a standing position, just in time to see her slip between two rapidly closing bookshelves. Adrenaline kicked in, and she ran after her, inching her body to the side just in time to make the same pass through the shelves. She followed after Yongsun on this obstacle course, jumping over shelves that were spontaneously rising from the ground, and ducking under shelves that seemed to fall from the sky.

By the time they made it into the quiet hall, safe and sound under the protection of the marble arches and the stern, philosophizing busts on display, Byulyi was just about ready to collapse. She cast an idle glance over the edge of the bannister, where students milled about quietly on the first floor of the library. She slunk back, closer to a bust of Socrates beside Yongsun. Just in case Mr. M, the librarian, happened to be looking. 

Yongsun was in no better shape, having collapsed to her knees on the blue carpet, gasping for breath.
 

One glance at her swollen lips reminded Byulyi of what had just happened. She smiled, hoping whatever they had was still there after the adrenaline rush. “That was close,” Byulyi said nervously.

Yongsun said nothing.

Instead, the hardened look in her eyes told Byulyi exactly what she was afraid of hearing.

Notes: Hello everyone! Thank you for reading and supporting this story so far :) 

Next chapter, I will be doing something a little bit different. We are going to diverge from the main story for a little while and let Byul mope in cameos to focus on a few other ships. Stay tuned to catch a different perspective!