Edit 1/13/19 - Corrected minor errors.

 

---

 

Someone is making a claim for the throne.

The thundering crash of a spotlight, dropped from 30 feet above, is just a second off-beat from the music in the background. Glass flies in jagged shards away from the landing. A chunk of it splinters off and bounces towards Jungeun, skidding to a stop right besides her feet. She stares at her reflection impassively.

If Jungeun hadn’t moved, if the spotlight had dropped just five seconds prior, it could have killed her. Slammed right into her cranium ― lights out! ―until someone discovered her and had the paramedics haul her sorry off stage.

She snorts. A five second margin of error? God, what an amateur.

“If you’re going to plan a murder, do it right,” she says. Her reflection starts to scowl, disrupted by the cracks made in the glass. She takes the hem of her shirt, dabbing at the accumulated sweat from her brows and temple, and kicks the remains of the broken spotlight away from the stage.

She checks on her phone recording while she can ― there’s no point in practicing if she can’t see her mistakes ― frowning when she realizes her form is still off. Her movements lack the sleek precision their dance instructor demonstrated.

The recording blips. When it comes back, the spotlight is already falling.

She scowls harder at the interruption, rewinding to note where her choreo lacked in power, then deletes the recording entirely.

Midterms. Performances. Project deadlines. They knot in clusters at the back of her skull at the reminder that drawing this out meant less time to perfect everything else.

Perfection is crucial. There’s a reason why she’s at the top and why she’s done whatever it takes to prove that there’s a purpose for being where she belongs. The moment she splinters is when the bottom feeders of society believe they have what it takes to be her.

It’s a belief that should be crushed under heel.

She sets up the recording again and waits for the music to loop back to the beginning. Casting a dubious glance over the stage, she stomps hard on the ground. No spotlights move, not even so much as a shiver.

But when she positions herself under the proscenium, there’s another ominous whisper of burdened metal from behind.

She lifts her chin, baring her teeth at the sound, and wider still at the shadow that moves just out of her peripheral vision.

They want to dethrone her? Please.

She’ll turn this university into their mausoleum.

The noise stops. Her lips coil to a victorious smirk.

(They’ve been getting braver. Closer. An issue for another day.)

She takes a sharp inhale ― sweat stinging her eyes ― empties her mind, and moves in time with the thrumming treble.

Take 33.

 

---

 

...Annnnd done.

Jungeun heaves out a sigh, stretching in the uncomfortable library chair until her back pops.

Her aerophysics project had been tedious. It wouldn’t have been due until next week regardless, but hearing her classmates’ complaints about the mundane complexities to the assignment annoyed her. If she could help it, Jungeun was always two steps ahead. Especially with rehearsals breathing down her neck, falling behind was simply not an option.

A light tap on her phone screen reveals that it’s nearly midnight. There goes her religiously upheld 10 PM curfew for the semester ― her eyes, body, and mind throb in protest. (Not that sleep ever comes easy.)

She presses her nails into her palms until they sear her flesh awake. Hitting print on the hellish assignment, Jungeun stands. The printer a couple feet away whirs to life upon command. She makes her way towards the roar of the machine, headphones and walkman temporarily abandoned on the table.

She’s not worried about theft; the library is completely desolate. While it usually has significantly less traffic compared to the main campus library, it’s still a rarity to be so empty this late in the semester.

She isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth though. After all, less people, less irritants.

And yet 2 minutes after snapping out of the vacuum of her thoughts is all it takes; the printer continues spitting out paper non-stop, and Jungeun finds herself growing irritated anyway.

She leafs through the pages ― none of which are hers, and all of which had to do with mathematical proofs.

Discrete mathematics was never her strong suit. She’d already spent enough time exacerbating her own problems today convinced by the possibility of logical fallacies.

“Oh, good. I thought I printed to the wrong location.”

Jungeun quickly retracts her hand, glancing up to see a blonde woman in a hoodie two sizes too big. The round rimmed glasses aren’t enough to hide the dark circles under her eyes, and the hoodie isn’t enough to hide her slumped posture. She looks like she could pass out on the spot.

Jungeun feels how the stranger looks, but straightens her back and lifts her head now that she’s no longer alone. The stranger’s obvious exhaustion doesn’t deter from her friendliness. She stands there (barely) maintaining a tired but genuine grin even when they meet eyes and Jungeun stares blankly in return.

“It’s been a couple of days since I’ve seen anyone here around this time,” the stranger drawls, voice raspy in the late night. “People often leave by sundown.”

The woman somehow misses Jungeun taking a large back step away from her when she drapes herself over the top of the printer. “Thought it must’ve been worse with the rumor floating around, and everybody avoiding this place. But nothing’s happened yet? I’m kind of disappointed.”

Jungeun’s not sure how to feel not knowing what the machine-hugger was talking about. Against her better judgement, Jungeun restrains a sigh and bites the bait. It’s better to know. “Which rumor?”

“The one where this library’s haunted.”

Jungeun crosses her arms.

“Ghosts aren’t real.”

“Aren’t they? They could be.”

“I don’t believe in them.”

“Faith is very important,” the stranger says. Her voice is muffled from pressing her face against the humming machine. “By this point, I’m starting to agree.”

Jungeun mulls the new information over. She’s been more concerned with her own affairs― but if something like this escaped her notice, it spoke of a different manner of carelessness. She’s usually keen on listening to the rumor mill, though mostly for the networking benefits.

However, the woman could also be lying. Jungeun frowns. “How’d the rumors start?”

“Hmmmmm. The usual, I guess…”

“Helpful.” An edge of irritation enters her voice, irked at the way the woman talks too slowly for her liking.

“The couches in the back are a popular napping area for students to pass out on. You know, it’s kind of a rite of passage to sleep in at least one musty library on this campus. No wonder we have a mold problem.”

Jungeun can feel her fuse shorting out the longer she converses with the obtuse nobody. “What the hell does this have to do with the ghost?”

The stranger pauses, frowns, though the expression is aimed more at herself than her involuntary conversational partner. “Everything. Or so I thought.”

She peels herself off the printer, cleaning the lenses of her glasses on her hoodie as her brows furrowed in sync with a concentrated pout. “I’m not sure when the rumors started, but I’ve been hearing about lights flickering throughout this entire building for days now. The most frequent blackouts happened here.”

The printer’s monotonous hum turns strangled. Both women flinch at the sound of crunching paper, loud and grating.

“I don’t think it’s supposed to make that sound.” The stranger eyes the printer distrustfully, as if she’s not the one who broke it.

“Ugh, for god’s― just move.”

Jungeun puts all of her anguish into her eye roll and shoulders her way past the other blonde, popping open the panel to wrench out the paper jamming the device.

It rips in her hands.

She holds a scant piece of paper with Name: Jung Jinsol, and FREE― in juvenile coloring and font. Half of a graph is in crumpled tatters.

The dull humming resumes.

“How are you not done printing?” Jungeun asks.

The stranger, Jinsol, has the audacity to laugh. “They’re not all school assignments. But they’re still important.”

“I’m sure,” Jungeun grunts. She salvages the rest of the scraps and shoves the handful into Jinsol’s chest. “You’re welcome, and your color scheme is . What were you saying about our campus neglecting to pay the bills?”

For the first time that night, Jinsol looks affronted. “This story was big enough to land in the school newspaper. And research is boring enough without the monochrome. But thank you.”

“The ghost.”

With a resigned sigh, Jinsol smooths out the sheets in her hand as she talks, piecing together the scraps until they fit. “The school board replaced the lights in this building already, but nothing’s changed. They can’t find anything wrong with the lighting system.”

Jinsol shrugs her shoulders loosely. “I still had my doubts. Then people that fell asleep here started having the same dream. They were always lost, wandering in a foggy forest, nothing would happen, but they would wake up feverish and exhausted…”

The printer had stopped printing. Now there was silence.

“...Are you okay? You look really tense.”

“I’m fine,” Jungeun snaps before Jinsol’s arm could come any further. Jinsol acquiesces, collecting the rest of the papers from the machine and handing a stack to Jungeun. A peace offering.

“I’ve tried sleeping here but with no luck in encountering it since I’ve never been able to dream before,” Jinsol admits. A part of Jungeun relaxes a fraction; self-interest and motivation she can believe.

“So what, you’re bragging about your psychic immunity?”

“That, or it still might just be an ill-conceived prank… Aerophysics project #2.” Jinsol laughs, startled. “You should write your name on this.”

Jungeun frowns, running a hand through her own blonde hair. She’s been too distracted recently. The dry sting of her eyes and sluggish body is suddenly harder to ignore― she doesn’t make mistakes as idiotic as forgetting her name or the title on a project paper.

“Kim Lip,” Jungeun answers the unspoken question. That’s how people knew her. “You don’t know who I am.”

Jinsol raises a brow. “Am I supposed to?”

She regards Jinsol in a new light. There was the thought that Jinsol was being aggravating on Jungeun’s nerves for the sake of it.

She uncrosses her arms to take the papers.

“Perhaps not. You were useful,” Jungeun says. “Even if I had to sit through the rest of the bull.”

Jinsol looks bemused. “Thanks… I think. You’re standing though...”

Spinning on her heel, Jungeun ignores her and turns to leave. “Have fun with your apparition. I have a bed to return to.”

She suppresses a smirk when she hears Jinsol muttering under her breath― “Good night to you, too.” ―dragging her feet back to whatever hole she crawled out of to monster hunt.

On the walk back to her dorm, Jungeun pulls up the online copy of their school newspaper, and reads. She doesn’t get much rest that night.

 

---

 

“I didn’t think you had an interest in Broadway, Kim Lip,” the theatre club president says warily, leaning against the doorway of her clubroom to prevent her from entering.

There’s a familiarity to her that Jungeun can’t place, other than her galling photos plastered on the school website. Her voice is shrill and mocking, not the one she’s looking for, so Jungeun crosses her off the list.

It took some effort but Jungeun glues the story together through a trail of anecdotal newspaper clippings and forum posts.

For the most part, if Jungeun sifted through the inane commentary, all of the weirdo’s tangential comments rang true. A surprising number of students have yet to return to the library, since the most vocal of the “ghost-touched” claim to still have restless nights.

But the rabbit hole of research leads down another, which in turn led her to this unpleasant encounter she’s put off for too long.

Jungeun extends a bland, derisive smile in return. Something inside of her twists, amused, waking to fan the fire.

“I don’t. I’m not here to watch you usher around a tone-deaf circus troupe. I just need to hear a word or two from your Glinda.”

The words harden into a dense edge in the president’s jaw as if she was offered a dead rat. Her baby-faced members peer at Jungeun from behind their leader’s shoulder. For self-proclaimed actors and actresses they don’t bother masking their emotions, mouths dropping in awe or curling in disgust when they recognize who she is.

pulls into a condescending sneer, forming a matching set with the enraged eyes behind her. “Why does it matter to you? We’re not looking for an extra Wicked Witch of the West.”

Jungeun pauses from where she was wrapping her headphones around her neck, nearly yawning at the uninspired insult.

Ah. That was it.

They’ve shared a performance class together sometime last semester, some dance related course that escaped her. Jungeun isn’t surprised she doesn’t remember. Especially when the woman in front of her withdrew from the class early, just after their first performances.

Jungeun wouldn’t have caught it if she weren’t looking for it, how the woman avoided putting weight on her right leg, unable to suppress a wince even through her peeved demeanor―

“―No? Well, from the way you’re reacting, surely I’d make the better one.”

“Even if we were, we wouldn’t need you. I’m sure of it. And you can forget about leaving us your monetary donations, Kim. We have no need for your generosity here either.”

Jungeun’s blood boils with a fast-catching anger that throws her off balance. Her previous good mood is gone. The other woman is satisfied at the unusual display of emotion from Kim Lip, and tries shifting her weight again.

The thing inside of Jungeun’s chest finds leverage in her weakness, latches onto it with its teeth and snarls.

“I’ve won countless first place awards in dance and music, and worked tooth and nail for everything I have,” Jungeun says, voice deceptively smooth. “I don’t know if that’s a concept familiar to you. But I guess with a limp like that, begging on your knees comes easier, no? You must have a talented tongue.”

The insinuation makes the woman recoil. Jungeun smiles, saccharine sweet, and none of it reaching her eyes. “It’s a shame you didn’t snap your other ankle, it would have kept you on the ground longer. There’s always next semester. Trip off stage again and beg for the scraps you barely deserve. It’s the only thing you’ll ever know how to do.“

The other woman’s throat bobs, mouth twisted furious, eyes blinking back tears.

A part of Jungeun settles at the sight, mollified, but just barely.

(Another part of her thinks this was all far too predictable.)

She lets the tension simmer, relishes how the woman still hasn’t said a word, and breaks the silence.

“Anyway, where did you say your leads were?”

“What the is wrong with you?” Someone barks, teeth gnashing like a loyal guard dog, and tugs the president back into the room to help her her wounds or whatever.

Her voice is too deep and too growly, Jungeun notes. Not her either.

“Some of us have to keep the order, get with the program. This was an act of generosity.” She sighs. “I should have been done with this conversation a week ago.”

“Just, do whatever she wants so she leaves,” The president mutters. Two bland looking women shuffle out towards Jungeun. She eyes them disinterestedly.

“What are your names?”

They mutter out their names like they were performing a funeral reading. Not that Jungeun didn’t already know, that wasn’t the point. One voice is too rich, the other too soft.

“Any understudies?”

Their voices are similarly wrong when Jungeun grills the shaken stand-ins. None of them are it, then.

(In her possession, a walkman and a tape, with no recollection of how she has these items. A soft but powerful voice croons the melody of a song, the lines of a play. And Jungeun listened, transfixed, with no name to voice.)

This entire endeavor proved to be aggravating and pointless. Jungeun’s thumb runs across the device as she lets out a long-suffering sigh.

(Just for a split second, she sees herself sitting in the room, head in her arms and listening to someone hum a tune―)

A confused shout in the background pulls her out of her thoughts.

There’s a cracked window and a desk on fire. One of the theatre club members rush out down the hall and returns with a fire extinguisher.

“You should take care of that,” Jungeun observes.

“Are you done here?” The president collects herself enough to ask. It’d be a braver front if she had the balls to meet Jungeun’s eyes.

“Sure. Break a leg, sweetheart.”

 

---

 

Jungeun’s legs burn with exertion. Her feet setting a constant tempo against the damp pavement. Once she reaches the end of the street, she stops running, pinching the collar of her shirt to fan herself and catch her breath.

She’s been running for close to an hour now, following an aimless path down the streets of Seoul after a short period of rain. Sweating makes her baby hairs stick to her forehead, and her shirt uncomfortably wet.

She takes the moment to breathe. On a whim, she walks in and grabs take-out dinner from a Chinese restaurant before trekking home.

(Her diet might suffer, but she’s starving, and there’s no point to wasting food.)

It’s a quiet night. Neon saturates the streets of Seoul in effervescent reds and electric blues― for such a visually busy street, the only people outside are already passed out on the sidewalks. The early drunk gets the migraine, or however the saying goes.

The only buzz of activity comes from inside diners, restaurants, convenience stores; she’d be tempted to walk in and buy snacks if she hadn’t already indulged herself with take-out, and a run that kept her mind blissfully on autopilot.

But now that she’s out of the running haze, her thoughts drift to foggy dreams and flickering lights.

Seoul feels… cramped. Her mind wanders, thoughts disconnecting from one location to leap to another.

(And so on, and so ing forth; there’s a restlessness that keeps her feeling lost and wandering. It’s hard to shake off.)

There’s a sound at the edge of awareness. Repetitive and consistent, like dull thumps of a heartbeat.

Jungeun pauses at the edge of an alleyway, where she heard the sound last. She peers into the alley, notes the tennis balls decorating the ground, but not a soul in sight.

She dismisses the strange sight, continuing down her path, until one comes careening from the sky and lands right in front of her.

She flinches hard, harder than if she were in a more working state of mind, and whirls up. Even in the dim streetlamp lights and bright neon, Jungeun could recognize that blonde hair anywhere.

“What the hell are you doing!?”

“Oh! Kim Lip!” Jinsol’s grin comes bright and earnest, waving down at Jungeun with both her arms. “Fancy meeting you here!”

Kim Lip very nearly turns back on her way to ignore the walking, erratic pinball machine entirely… but she needs a distraction away from the oil slick of her thoughts.

“If you’re aiming to kill, try harder next time. At least pick a busier street,” Jungeun says, turning a blind eye to the odd sense of deja vu. “And heavier objects.”

Jinsol puts her hands to to act as a speaker, practically yelling out the words. “What was that? I can’t hear you!”

...This comedy routine is going to get obnoxious fast. Jinsol looks like she hadn’t changed from their last meeting (and for her sake, Jungeun hopes she has more than one outfit) the new accessory she’s sporting demands questioning.

“What happened to your eye?” Jungeun calls out. Jinsol touches the medical eyepatch as if she’d forgotten she’s wearing it.

“Oh, this? I got an eye infection!” She sounds remarkably too eager to have one.

Their voices bounce off the walls and echo. A dog starts barking in a marco-polo call and response. They’re going to wake up the entire neighborhood at this rate. Jinsol suddenly has the realization that they’re in working society and can’t scream in the middle of the night, wincing at the noise.

“Wait, hold on, I’m coming down!”

Jungeun wonders if she made a mistake as Jinsol ducks out of sight.

“Don’t let me distract you from your activities.”

“It’s fine!” A few seconds later there’s clunking coming from the side of the buildings, and in just another moment she’s back on the ground, book bag slung over one shoulder, holding on to a fish inside a plastic bag. The blue lights make her eye sparkle, even brighter as she approaches the sign, hopping onto a dumpster to reach for a camera unnoticeable in the dark.

“You caught me red-handed just as I was about to leave,” Jinsol says, once she’s done. “I need to catch the subway and buy some supplies for my fish.”

She holds up the bag in emphasis.

There are so many things that Jungeun needs to unpack with this scene she doesn’t even know where to start.

“Do I want to ask what you were doing?” Jungeun asks, crossing her arms.

Jinsol hesitates for a fraction of a second, before smiling wider. A nervous tick.

“Just a personal project, but nothing much. Ooh, is that from the Golden Dragon?” Jinsol points at the logo on Jungeun’s bag. “I love their dumplings, I get them every time. The cashier agrees with me. She recommended I try the tangsuyuk next time, and a couple of their drinks on the house. I told her that was terrible business practice...”

Now that Jungeun knows what to look for, the signs of her hesitance are much more telling. A slow blink to stall for time, a smile turning fixed, and a seemingly careless evasion. Jungeun doesn’t care enough about Jinsol’s extracurricular hobbies to push, she’ll follow the deflection for what it is.

“You know Mandarin?” Jungeun asks, arching a brow. The cashier’s native language clearly wasn’t Korean, not that it was a bad thing. Conversing in Korean would be basic pleasantries, not a genuine conversation, nor enough for Jinsol to get hit on.

(Of course, not that Christmas-lights-for-brains here would realize it.)

“Oh, yeah, it’s just something I picked up on.” Jinsol waves her hand dismissively. “What about you, do you come here often?”

“Just for exercise.” It sounded like a lie even to Jungeun, but it’s the only excuse she had.

Jinsol tilts her head. “Okay.”

Jungeun scrutinizes Jinsol for a second; the woman beams with a questioning grin, but doesn’t avert her gaze.

“Have you ever felt like you’re forgetting something?” Jungeun says, and almost immediately regrets it.

From behind her a neon sign flickers.

“Sure,” Jinsol says after a beat. “I lose my train of thought all the time. But I don’t think that’s what you were asking.”

Perceptive.

“...No, nevermind,” Jungeun dismisses. “It’s probably nothing.”

Jinsol eyes her carefully, probably knowing that that’s hardly ever the case. “Are you… looking for something?”

Unusually perceptive. She files the thought away for another time, but wears a placid smile for now. “It’s none of your concern.”

“Alright. But I’ve been told I’m an excellent confidant.” Jinsol throws in an exaggerated blink that was meant to be a wink. Jungeun’s smile becomes a touch more genuine.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Jinsol snorts, glancing at the neon sign flickering behind them. “Well. If it helps, whenever I lose something, I backtrack to the last thing I was doing to follow my footsteps.”

Jungeun pauses. “And what do you do when you lose your thoughts?”

“It’s the same exercise.” Jinsol shrugs. “Just follow down the path of what I remember and go from there.”

Jungeun shifts her gaze down to the dragon logo.

Hmm.

“Maybe you do have some uses,” Jungeun appraises. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jinsol laughs, her eye crinkling. Somehow amused despite Jungeun’s flippant tone.

“I aim to please. I’ll see you around?”

“As it looks, that’s probably likely,” Jungeun agrees.

There’s a hum and crackle of energy as a neon sign stutters. Blips.

And shatters.

---

 

Jungeun stares at the ceiling of the dance studio, thumb running over the walkman. The lyrics and the vocals reverberate in her ears.

The singer is still unidentifiable.

Her sleep deprived mind throbs with a pulse of its own. And Jungeun packs up her belongings and heads out the door.

The school board broke their oath of silence of the university’s paranormal matter, though they didn’t offer anything concrete on how they were going to remedy the issue; most of the email was bull platitudes about avoiding “high risk paranormal areas” as much as possible.

One of those locations included the building she was in now. She wanders through the halls, through each room, unsatisfied and unsure of what she’s even looking for.

How do you hunt down a ghost? Or memories that don’t exist?

Jungeun still doesn’t completely buy into the paranormal existing on campus, but with her fog and forest dream every night regardless of where she sleeps, there’s not a logical explanation she could point to.

(It’s not exactly the strangest thing to happen on campus this semester either. The conspiracy-driven dredges of university are frothing at the mouth with their literal wet dreams with how bizarre their campus has been.)

She treks carefully through the halls, waiting for a light to flicker or gasp. Anything at all.

But nothing happens.

Jungeun rolls her shoulders, and sighs. She turns back around, ready to call it a day, and move onto other buildings and sightings until…

down the hallway

She freezes in the middle of the building, shivers running up and down her spine. Her head cranes to the right, staring down the hall. A ghost of a memory whispers in her ear.

Her feet trace along the lines of polished tiles.

A thread of familiarity thrums inside her as she navigates down passages she’s never been before with a practiced ease: the dance and music classes are combined in the same building, but she’s never had any incentive to venture into the music rooms.

Surprised is an apt description when Jungeun stops in front of one of the rooms.

the door’s unlocked, always unlocked

Her hand trembles, testing the handle.

...It clicks open.

Ever so carefully, she pushes open the door, and it gently shuts behind her.

She’s been here before. But she’s also never been here before. She flicks on the light switch, though it’s unnecessary, and takes a look around the large practice room.

The grand piano sits in a corner, away from the sunlight. A classic metronome sits on top of the piano. A small desk is situated off to the side. She runs her hand across its smooth surface, bewildered when she thinks it’s much less damaged than it should be.

There’s something missing on its unmarred surface.

She in a breath and holds it, taking a seat in front of the piano. There’s a faint, distant piano melody, echoing inside the room with no visible source. She places the walkman on the piano and takes a seat.

play

Her fingers tickle the first few notes. As smooth as the notes sound, her hands are unable to stop their tremor.

It’s a simple song, block chords and a melody that doesn’t require much dexterity to play. She’s playing well, all things considered.

The only problem is, she shouldn’t. Jungeun’s never touched a piano in her entire life.

She’s playing along, note for note, to the invisible piano tune in the background.

Despite the shaking in her hands, the pit of dread in her chest hardens like a diamond from the sudden, incessant pressure of her pounding heart.

She’s bounced between strings before, guitar and violin, and gave up both for dance, but she’s never laid a single finger on the piano.

What the hell is this backwards retrograde amnesia bull how the hell is she going to explain this to a professional maybe she really is losing it―

.

.

.

―what the what the what the

She slams on the keys, discordant. Her blood running colder than ice. She’s still playing where she left off but is entirely unsynced from the background noise. She’s playing a different section, there’s a blip in her memory, her walkman is gone― her walkman is gone

and the door clicks shut behind her.

Jungeun bruises her knees against the piano trying to get up, stumbling to the door before she loses sight of a flash of blonde through the eyes of the metronome and yanks open the door―

The thing is gone.

Jungeun’s heart stays lodged in , her breathing ragged.

Her knees ache.

She gently clicks the door shut.

Her fist connects with the wall, and she sinks down to the floor, briefly hesitating before curling in on herself.

Jungeun doesn’t know how long she stays there. But it’s long enough for her fear to give way to anger, and by the time the sky turns red, she’s filled with an immeasurable beastial fury at the shadow nipping at her heels.

Whatever it was, it was drawing out responses from her, fear and paranoia, rage and frustration, reality and emotions altered beyond her control― her body and mind are no longer hers alone.

It’s burrowed in the back of her skull. It’s taking away Jungeun’s faith in herself, holding her memories hostage, haunting her with a dazed, claustrophobic anxiety― she can’t even ing sleep anymore.

And for that, it will be destroyed.

(Kim Lip. The Queen. She’ll ready a guillotine, and come down on it with a visceral vengeance.)

She picks herself off the ground, ignores the ache in her hand and knees. And takes a deep breath.

Focus.

Organize.

What does she know about it now?

Jungeun once again lifts her belongings and heads out of the building, letting the walk back to her dorm clear her thoughts as the sunset fades to dark.

For one, it’s not human― there’s ample proof of it now.

Secondly, it’s hellbent on aggravating Jungeun. The ‘why’ still remains to be seen.

Third, the walkman is important.

...ing clearly, if Satan crept out of the lights to swipe for the device. The girl singing on the tape must be significant, but attempting to find her is as worthwhile as using water to start a flame. Essentially impossible.

Jungeun tosses her bag onto the floor of her dorm. It doesn’t matter either way, she’ll figure something out. She always does.

Jungeun’s still going to smoke this thing out and burn it alive.

 

---

 

The pizza is burnt.

Jungeun takes another unsatisfactory bite and grimaces. It tastes like charred tomatoes and cheese; it’s almost enough to make her reconsider the take-out donated by an underclassman (a bribery and tribute, rolled into one).

Though the prospect of eating it now made her stomach squirm uncomfortably, staring down at the hours old salad.

She prods at it with a fork; she never did like sweet potatoes. Their university has a gardening club, a plot of land in a secluded spot away from the rest of the campus.

(She remembers heated sunlight warming the back of her ears and neck. Dirt marks on her shoes, bored out of her mind, insistent on watching someone…)

She chases the memory with a drink of water, but no other information crops up. Sighing, she trashes her half-eaten pizza and untouched salad, and makes a mental note to visit the garden when she has the chance.

Jungeun takes her leave from the cafeteria, filling up her thermos with black coffee. She avoids the dinner crowd, ignoring the dance crew when they try calling out to her.

She wanders to the arts building on impulse; their performances are just around the corner. She needs the extra practice time.

And now that the ghost on her trail has resumed its mild mannered murder attempts, she’ll take the distractions as they come― she’s tired, grumpy, paranoid, and drinking her weight in a coffee that tastes like landfill. She feels herself getting closer to something, if the ghost is getting serious.

Patience is crucial.

Jungeun wanders into the dance building. After a brief moment of hesitation she takes a left towards the theatre instead. She hasn’t been back since her ghost tried to drop the spotlight on her head, and heard about the theatre professors fuming and asking for a spotlight replacement and rechecking to make sure nothing ever drops on students.

It’s more spacious than even their dance studio; ever since the ghost started becoming braver, the room felt claustrophobic.

Jungeun can’t help tensing as she walks by the music hallway. She forces her breathing to even out, taking measured steps, but her ears just barely catch the tentative notes of a grand piano.

Pausing in the hallway, Jungeun turns away from the path to the theatre and follows the sound. Even before she’s in front of the door she can see that one of the rooms is slightly propped open.

It’s the same room where her walkman was stolen.

Apprehension makes her pulse jump.

She stalls for time, shifting the backpack on her shoulder, hesitant to approach. The playing gets louder.

Get your together. Kim Lip does not falter.

Jungeun steels herself and straightens up her posture, setting a quick pace towards the room until she’s close enough to peer through the windows.

Her heart knocks against her rib cage when she recognizes the blonde hair through the window.

Disbelief tightens her shoulders. Fingernails imprint against her palms.

The situation, reversed, Jungeun at the piano and a ghost at the door.

Is she sabotaging me? Trying to kill me? She’s not even in our department…

Paranoia clots, and suspicion is the open-wound. Jungeun clenches her teeth and opens the door.

Jinsol jumps in her seat, fingers hitting an awkward note as she whirls around.

“What are you doing here?” Jungeun says, as frigid as a glacier. Jinsol offers a wry grin.

“Ah, Kim Lip. It’s nice to see you again.”

“Don’t dodge the question.”

Jinsol hums. “I’m… looking into things for my own project. I’ve been hitting a wall recently, and I’m not really sure where to go from here.”

Jungeun eyes her warily, unsure of what to believe. It’s too convenient an excuse, and Jungeun doesn’t believe in coincidences anymore after the fifth attempt at murder via gravitational head trauma.

“That asides,” she continues, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

Jungeun barely keeps herself from tensing. “What?”

“Have you been feeling like… floaty, recently, at our school?”

Jungeun stares. “No.”

Jinsol eyes her thoughtfully, before her gaze turns towards her fish. It spins in happy, concentrated circles.

She seems… distracted.

“You bring your fish outside a lot,” Jungeun prods.

Jinsol looks up a little too quick to be natural, smiles a touch awkwardly. “Ah… yes. He loves it when I take him out for walks.”

She’s not… lying. Just hiding something.

Her responses are more abstract and obtuse than usual, that Jungeun has to scrutinize to read. It does confirm that Jinsol’s been studying their other university-wide paranormal affair, but Jungeun’s never experienced it for herself.

A fraction of the tension in Jungeun’s posture loosens; if Jinsol’s as distracted as Jungeun is, there’s no plausible way she could be trying to mastermind Jungeun’s demise.

She doesn’t look like she could mastermind her way out of suffocating inside a plastic bag to be blunt.

(Tweedledumb and tweedledumber, the both of them.)

Jinsol shakes herself out of whatever stupor she’s in. “Sorry. My thoughts have been scattered recently. How has your project been going?”

“Well enough.” As in, Jungeun’s not dead yet, and she considers that a bonus.

Jinsol nods. “Did you hear about what’s happening at JJ?”

“I’ve heard.”

Reflections are murky, lights are flickering. Gravity has been fluctuating; it’s been much more noticable and harder to ignore the past few days.

“I’ve been visiting myself, but nothing’s really happened yet,” Jinsol admits.

Jungeun muses over the information as Jinsol whistles an unrecognizable tune. Another bread crumb trail to follow.

She’s still suspicious, can’t afford not to be with her life on the line. But for now, Jinsol is safe.

And if Jungeun’s wrong, she’ll bring the lighter to fuse herself and blow up Jinsol’s career.

Satisfied, Jungeun turns to leave. “I’ll leave you to whatever it is you’re doing. Take care of your eye, .”

Jinsol blinks, but turns to find Kim Lip already gone.

 

---

 

Jungeun returns to the JJ building later in the evening, loitering in one of the seats. She fiddles with the zippo lighter in her pocket, scanning the late night stragglers sprawled out amongst themselves, focusing on their own work or procrastinating on their devices.

The JJ building, constructed just last year, has an interior with rooms able to fit above 300 people, and separating each room with large panes of windows and glass. It’s some idiotic endeavor by the school board to flaunt their money and how much they’re stealing from their students, all under the bull veneer of “introducing a new way of learning.”

If anything, it is an architecturally gorgeous building, all sleek with its modern white tiling and splashes of solid reds, greens, blues, in different rooms along the walls and railings.

And that’s when the lights flicker.

Jungeun’s breath catches in . She slowly rises to her feet, tensing when they flicker again, like they have been over the past couple of weeks.

When it happens for a third time, Jungeun opens up her backpack, pulling out the objects she had prepared beforehand.

Murmurs are starting to pick up and spread out over the remaining students. All glance upward. Jungeun shoulders her backpack on again, already moving through the building and following the innocuous path of blinking lights, hoping that it leads her straight to the ghost.

With one hand clenched on the trigger of her lighter and the other around a bundle of incense, she keeps her eyes scanning the building, and making sure there’s no object above her that can be sent hurtling down her way.

(She has no idea if the ghost wards will work or not; though she hopes that they at least scare it off.)

It’s hard to breathe, navigating through the halls in moments of complete darkness, nothing but a bare suggestion of light flickering on every so often.

God. She’s so over this life-and-death hide-and-seek nonsense― she’s never been more ready to kick a ’s teeth in. She’ll tapdance in the ectoplasm, smear its ghost ashes on an ouija board, resurrect it, and kill it again.

The simmering anger sharpens her focus, and her patience is finally rewarded when she catches a sliver of movement encroaching on her peripheral within a fragment of damning, fluorescent light.

She whirls towards the movement instinctively at the same time that she lights her incense, but the ghost is already moving…

Through the glass reflections? (Do ghosts do that?)

There’s no time to waste thinking on it. Jungeun leaps up the stairs three at a time to catch up, trails of smoke tailing behind her like a dragon’s tail. Jungeun grimaces seeing the ghost already turning the corners.

The lights all turn on at once, before they start shattering one by one, glass shards raining down on her.

“God ing , I’m going to shove this incense up your and set you off like a firework,” Jungeun swears. Shrieks and panicked shouts echo from the rest of the students downstairs. She thinks she’s lost the ghost until she just catches the barest glimpse of it slipping into one of the classrooms by flipping its reflection over the otherside.

She barges open the door, the lights spazzing at her presence only to spark and shatter as soon as they fully illuminate.

There’s only one blinking light left in the center of the room, but she’s lost sight of the ghost. The only thing she sees around her is hints of her own reflection.

Jungeun shoves the bundle of incense into ― bitter ― reaching into her backpack side pocket for her thermos. A familiar piano tune is playing soft, singing inside her head without a source.

Twisting open the cap, she reaches into the container and spreads the sea salt mixture at the doorway. She takes careful steps around the room, spreading the mixture onto the circular tables and around the room. The smoke curling around her face makes her eyes sting, but it doesn’t stop her stubborn determination.

She shoves the thermos back into the side pocket and grabs the bundle of sage from the other pocket, lighting the end of it.

“Alright , I hope you’re ready to get exorcised from my memory,” she says, muffled. It was the wrong thing to say, and the quiet piano tune ratchets up to ear-splitting volumes.

Her hairs stand on end when in spite of the dark room, there’s a small, velvet red beacon in the dark shining across the room.

The eye at the other room narrows in distinct rage.

Oh .

Jungeun ducks and rolls underneath a flying table that smashes into the window behind her.

The wards don’t work. A direct confrontation it is.

Thinking fast, Jungeun sprints across the room. She vaults over a table to dodge a chair careening towards her way, using her momentum to hop onto a chair and rush towards the red eye.

The eye narrows, and the ghost flips across to the other side once again, running off into the darkness in the hallway.

.

Jungeun nearly bites straight clean through the incense as she bolts out of the room.

By some miracle the eye still acts as a cherry bright beacon in the dark. The eye slowly blinks― Jungeun realizes with boiling blood that it was a wink― and races down the dark hall.

Jungeun gives chase, glass crunching underneath her feet, head pounding like a hammer-strike to nail with how loud the song is playing. The red eye stays detached and amused as it keeps just out of her reach in the dark halls. It glides down a staircase, and Jungeun sails over them all by sliding on the railing―

Then all the remaining lights flicker back on, and the ghost stops right near the bottom of the staircase.

A jolt of pain shoots up Jungeun’s legs when she lands poorly. But when she stumbles up, she finally comes face-to-face with the pettiest demon on this side of ing Seoul.

All of its body is obscured in a strange shadow, other than it’s odd eye.

Jungeun waves her sage in front of the glass. Sets down the sage to toss more sea salt at the demon. Picks up her sage and slams it into the godforsaken eye.

The sage slides down the inky blob, staining the glass underneath and not the ghost itself.

Jungeun gets the vague impression that the paranormal is less than impressed.

Nothing works. Figures.

Jungeun chucks the sage at her counterpart, bouncing off the glass. She sighs, spits out her gross, bitter, saliva covered incense and wipes with her sleeve.

“Alright, time to talk, you paranormal-sized . What do you want? I’d give up my first born if it meant you stopped trying to ing murder me.”

The eye tilted curiously.

“Don’t play ing coy.”

What did she say earlier? Something that set off the demon?

Above her, a broken light flickers on. Jungeun rolls her neck, tensing her muscles for one last round.

“All I want to do,” she says carefully, “is forget this ever happened.”

And oh, was that the trigger. The eye narrows again, enraged and smothering, and the last remaining lights snuff out, except for the one right about Jungeun.

The being finally leaves the shadow, and for a moment, Jungeun is stupefied, staring at her carbon copy with a glowering set of eyes.

It’s...her, wearing her headphones. It holds up the walkman, mocking, before turning up the volume on the device.

The piano grows louder, louder and louder until it’s blaring violently in her eardrums, a high pitched and squealing assault. With a final strike against the piano, the glass pane in front of her, and the ones all along the first floor erupt in a symphony of sound, ringing like a clap of thunder.

She’s sent flying back from the force of a mini-explosion, biting her tongue to keep from screaming at the shards that rip her clothes, and gouge cuts along her arms and legs.

She slams into a column on the other side― backpack barely absorbing the damage― wind knocked out of her from the impact that hurt as much as a head-on collision with a truck.

Get up get up get up, her mind screams, but she’s in so much pain. She’s so… so tired, but she forces her eyes open.

The first thing she sees is the light, blinding and stinging her eyes like she’s stared into the sun for too long. Her eyes refocus, and the second thing she sees is a vending machine tipping over from the side of the second floor.

And Jungeun finds she still has the strength to be furious.

The vending machine is teetering on its side, back and forth. The world slows down to a crawl, earth grinding to a halt on its orbit, swinging into motion like a pendulum every time the machine trembles over the edge.

It’s molten, her anger, bubbling and boiling and retching hatred. She can’t move.

She’s going to die, and she can’t ing move.

Crushed underneath a vending machine, her shallow grave a marble Hell with her tombstone reading 2000 won Pepero snacks.

What a ing way to go, she thinks, watching the machine finally tip over the side, the world gasping back to life as it careens down.

Jungeun hopes viciously, with her last breath, that they have fun scraping her red off the white marble tiles. She closes her eyes, and―

.

.

.

“―This place looks like it was hit by a very localized 6.0 earthquake,” someone says mildly from beside her. Jungeun feels a death grip on her hoodie.

She looks up, and a familiar eyepatch-wearing blonde is right at her side.

Jungeun turns back to the vending machine in front of her, a centimeter from her feet. It’s damaged beyond repair, the glass broken and the snacks hemorrhaging out of its insides.

The relief Jungeun feels is enough to let her shoulders sag, a breath leaving her body shakily. She blipped again. Forward? Backward? It’s hard to tell.

But she isn’t dead.

Her hands are still shaking.

“... You have exceptional timing,” Jungeun says. Jinsol peers down at her, frowning for the first time since Jungeun’s met her.

“... I tried to run for you when the machine fell,” Jinsol mutters. “I wouldn’t have come in time but the… machine missed.”

“It missed?” Jungeun asks, incredulous. There’s no way it missed when it was falling right on top of her―

Ah. The blip.

Saved by a demon’s mercy. And by Jinsol, because she couldn’t save herself. God, could she be anymore pitiful?

“We should get out of here,” Jinsol muses. Concern makes her brows furrow when she takes in Jungeun’s less-than-stellar appearance. Sirens wail in the distance, and there’s a fire alarm going off that Jungeun’s only just noticed. How long has it been going off?

Jinsol lets go of her hoodie and asks, “Is your bag empty? Can I use it for a second?”

Jungeun doesn’t remember when the bag was pulled off her shoulders, probably due to the blipping, too. Jinsol doesn’t wait for permission and approaches the vending machine with both her backpack hanging low and Jungeun’s in her arm.

In the barely visible lighting, Jinsol makes like a vulture and loots the machine, shoving as much as she can into her bag. When it’s stuffed to the brim, she opens up Jungeun’s bag and raises a brow.

“Wow, did you rob the local shaman?”

It’s enough to startle a laugh out of Jungeun, and the motion immediately hurts.

“No, just my spice drawer,” she rasps, like she spent a day in the desert instead of 15 minutes chasing after her ghastly doppelganger.

Jinsol tilts her head. “I didn’t know you were Wiccan.”

The sirens grow louder. Closer. Jungeun’s hands stop shaking.

“Okay, we should really go,” Jinsol says as she’s continuing to loot the vending machine. “Like, really go.”

She uses one of the chairs nearby to peel off a poster, revealing a camera behind it. Jungeun’s too tired to comment on Jinsol’s illegality. Jinsol gives a cyclops wink and says, “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

It still takes until Jungeun pushes herself to her feet and drags Jinsol away from the vending machine that they make their escape.

They crawl out a back entrance of the building, avoiding the small gathering of people outside the building from all the commotion.

Jungeun feels fresh pain like daggers every time she takes a step. Jinsol must have noticed her agitation, taking them to a park bench a good distance away from the building. Jungeun immediately collapses into the seat, tilting her head back against the chair.

Her body feels like it was run over twice with a food truck driven by a vengeful poltergeist.

In the aftermath, Jungeun can only recall her mirror’s scowl, red eye blazing...the walkman in her hands and the final crescendo of glass.

Jungeun winces when she shifts. Her injuries could have been worse had she not been wearing hoodies and jeans. Her clothes are ruined for it, various cuts ripped into her casual attire, blood soaking through.

She’s coming more and more into her body, now. Everything hurts like hell.

She’s so, so exhausted, no strength left to even be angry.

“Are you okay? Those cuts look...painful.”

She’s too tired to snap back, so she just shakes her head instead, leaning against the park bench and feeling the world spin. “No, but it’s not as bad as it looks. It’s nothing bandages and drugs can’t fix, and I have those back at dorm.”

The other blonde still looks concerned, but she plops both overstuffed bags on the bench and sits down next to Jungeun. She opens up Jungeun’s and pulls out a box of pepero.

“For you. Sugar will keep you awake.”

“I―okay.” Jungeun mutters, ripping open the box. She tosses one of the packets arbitrarily to her side, a gruff offering to Jinsol. She grins at her and accepts anyway.

They eat in silence for a moment, night still young despite everything that’s occurred. Jungeun’s ready to sleep right on the bench like a Friday night drunkard, ignoring Jinsol’s scrutinizing gaze while right next to her.

“Why were you at the JJ?” Jinsol asks, frowning. “Still in the JJ with the alarms going off.”

“Why were you?” Jungeun asks, though with barely a of the same venom she usually has. “A fire alarm isn’t exactly an open-door invitation into the building, Jinsol.”

Jinsol gives a lazy shrug, pepero dangling out of . “I didn’t see any fires, and I had to replace my camera film. By the time I heard the glass start shattering, I was going to leave but saw you.”

Jungeun’s eyes glance over. “You’re filming for… that gravity thing, right?” she asks, focusing on the first part than the latter.

Jinsol smiles brightly. “The gravity abnormalities, yeah. I’m trying to document them all.”

(Jungeun remembers meeting in a library weeks ago, a project titled ‘FREE FALL’ jamming the printers. Was it only a few weeks ago? It feels like an eternity now.)

“Your turn to answer the question,” Jinsol says, biting into another pepero.

“I was looking into the thing you mentioned the other day.” Jungeun sighs. “It went swimmingly, as you can tell.”

Jinsol’s expression turns serious for once. Jungeun doesn’t have time to process how odd of a look it is on her face.

“Kim Lip.”

“In the broken flesh.”

Jinsol struggles for a moment. “Are you sure gravity isn’t trying to kill you?”

“...What.”

Jinsol points an accusatory pepero towards her. Jungeun drags her gaze from the snack back to Jinsol’s eye, just to make sure the world won’t try to throw her off for a second time.

“Whenever I’m doing something important I always see you around. No offense, but I don’t think we can keep meeting if you’re a hazard to my research.” After a beat, she adds, “which would be a shame.”

“First off, I could literally say the same thing to you, . Second of all, it’s not the gravity fluctuations that I’ve still never seen, it’s the ghost of Aerophysics past out to get me. The devil incarnate summoned by STEM tears and ing― modus ponens for all I know.”

Jinsol blinks. Or winks, Jungeun can’t bloody tell anymore, though the slow-growing grin is more telling. “That makes sense. And it was my second guess.”

“I’m glad one of us is making sense of this situation,” Jungeun mutters.

She’s back to the drawing board. There’s always a different angle to be considered, an avenue she hasn’t explored yet. She just has to patch herself up before the next round and get smarter about her approach.

“Soooo, does that mean you’re actually interested in the gravity surges now?” Jinsol looks shy, but still beaming. The light above them stays illuminating, and Jungeun continues staring.

“...Jinsol,” she says. “I’m trying not to ing die here.”

“Look, hear me out.” Jinsol shifts so she’s facing Jungeun. Up this close, Jungeun notices the scar along her nose bridge. “I don’t think our meetings are coincidental. There’s a very slim chance we’d keep running into each other if your ghost and my gravity aren’t somehow intertwined.”

Jungeun mulls over the thought. “Go on.”

“Come to my dorm,” Jinsol says. “Maybe we can help each other, and I have something cool to show you. Dorm #307, the building next to the cafeteria.” She pauses awkwardly. “And I’ll have snacks.”

Jungeun stares. Was...was Jinsol flirting with her? Did she realize she was flirting? It doesn’t really count if Jinsol didn’t realize she was flirting.

(It’s charming, nonetheless.)

“I wasn’t sure before, but the stolen goods really tipped the scale in your favor,” Jungeun says dryly.

“They’re really overpriced!” Jinsol objects. “I’m taking back all the money I lost to those things. Just think it over, okay? I’ll always keep my dorm open.”

She hustles her backpack over her shoulder. “Are you going to be okay getting back to your dorm?”

“I’ll be fine. Good night, Jinsol.” Jungeun grinds out. Jinsol looks unimpressed, but nods her acquiescence and murmurs a farewell.

Jungeun stares at the retreating figure of her back before sighing.

“Jinsol,” she says, quiet. She isn’t sure Jinsol even heard her but the other woman pauses, turning back around slightly.

“Yeah?” she asks.

Jungeun looks away from her, ears burning. “I― thanks, for this. If you weren’t there, I don’t know if I would have…”

Survived.

Jungeun swallows instead, glances down at her pocky packet. “So...thank you.”

It’s embarrassing, humiliating, having to admit defeat, but Jungeun doesn’t leave favors unacknowledged. If Jinsol hadn’t been there other people would have seen her broken and bloodied, dragged into a paramedics van. That’s… public weakness.

When she looks back at Jinsol, the other woman smiles wide. It doesn’t make it any less humiliating, but it eases a hard pit of emotion in her chest.

“Anything for a friend. Good night, Kim Lip,” she says softly, and takes her leave.

Jungeun sighs, taking another bite of the pocky...

 

...It’s only after Jinsol leaves that Jungeun realizes Jinsol called her a friend. It felt warm.

But maybe that’s her blood soaking through the park bench.

“Alright, Jungeun,” she mutters, pushing herself off the bench and trying not to wince at the sting, “Time to go home.”

 

---

 

The next few days saw Jungeun at home in a deliberately-induced coma, painkillers knocking her out in an instant. Her body needed time to recover: even though she wakes up feeling like exhaustion personified, her wounds do feel better after a couple of days sleeping it off. It’s only on the third day that she drags herself out of her dorm, redressing the bandages, mummified from neck to toe.

Though focusing on the professor in front of her now is impossible. Every time she shifts she’s reminded of her wounds. As incredible as she may be, she can’t walk off a mini-bomb detonating in front of her, and she’s still sore as hell.

Now, a few days later, Jungeun is still at a loss for how to deal with her paranormal problem. If typical ghost wards don’t work, what will?

She’s starting to have the creeping suspicion that whatever’s chasing after her was created from an age-old, ancestral grudge, and she’s the unlucky lottery winner for dealing with the nonsense. Either that or the theatre kids got together with the social pariahs, and from their happy marriage was born Jungeun’s month-old paranormal migraine.

Jungeun’s running out of options. Her back’s against the wall. She hates the feeling.

The bell rings; Jungeun daydreamed through the entire class period. Not that it matters, since the work material is coming easier and easier, for reasons unknown.

She sighs, packing up her belongings and leaving with the crowd, double-taking when she recognizes a familiar blonde standing outside her classroom with an aghast expression.

“Lippie!” Jinsol calls, with heads turning both to her and to the woman calling her. “You never came by my dorm!”

Jungeun shrugs, putting as much distance between them and other people as possible. She didn’t think Jinsol even existed in the daytime. “Must have slipped my mind.”

In between convalescing from five-inch long gashes, and trying to hunt down her other ghost, it did, actually, slip her mind. That, and well, she was operating under the assumption they’d run into each other eventually. Getting hunted down is new.

“Unless you have a working relationship with a nearby church, I’m not sure how you could help me this time around,” she continues, exiting the building.

While she doesn’t actually believe cracking open the Bible and praising Holy Mary would actually solve her issue, there are very few straws left to grasp. For what it’s worth, Jinsol proved to be extremely useful for the entire operation: Jungeun wouldn’t have gotten far without her.

But there is still something missing, the final piece of the puzzle.

Across the street is the building from just a few nights prior. They’ve since reopened the building, after cleaning up the glass and replacing the light bulbs. There was another email from the board sitting in her email along with the other ones, and they still sound as dispassionate as ever.

Jinsol frowns, but keeps up with Kim Lip’s quickening pace past the building well enough. “I don’t think this is a normal ghost you’re going up against anymore.”

“Yeah no , Einstein. I kind of got that when all the glass ing impaled me.”

Jinsol flinches like Jungeun’s injuries were her own. “Are your wounds okay? That’s not the sort of thing you walk off.”

“They’re as well as they can be,” Jungeun replies, shifting her backpack on her shoulders, holding back a wince. “But I doubt you hunted me down just for a social call.”

The other blonde woman was entirely too lackadaisical and carefree to look for Jungeun unless it was important.

Jinsol’s eyes scan Jungeun’s body for injuries, as if she could see them through her clothes. “Right, well. I examined the footage from my cameras. It took your image, Kim Lip. I don’t know if that’s normal ghostly behavior?”

“Is there a supernatural scale of ‘normal’ I missed somewhere?” Jungeun says dryly. “I don’t know, Jinsol, I’m thinking we’re still at a 3 for strange.”

“I think we’ve hit the 8.” Jinsol’s brows furrow. “I’ve never heard about it being that aggressive before. It’s like it has a personal vendetta against you.”

“I am all too aware,” Jungeun mutters. She takes them along a meandering path going nowhere. It’s not like she has class after her previous one. “Ghost wards don’t work against it either.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s much more powerful than a normal ghost, and has a stronger presence in our natural world. I’m amazed it has such a wide range of abilities.”

Jungeun frowns. Was it ever actually in their world? Its effects were, but Jungeun only ever saw the ghost itself in passing reflections, the walkman incident asides.

“Maybe I’d have a chance if I could actually touch it,” Jungeun muses.

...Wait a minute.

“If only there was a way for you to level the playing field.” Jinsol agrees, then nearly walks right into Jungeun when the blonde stops.

“When we first met, you mentioned that the rumors started in the library,” Jungeun says slowly, a street lamp flickering on above her head. “Why is that?”

Jinsol blinks. “Uhm. It’s mainly because the lighting issue appeared in the library first. But when that spread, the dreaming thing was the breaking point. It pretty much solidified the library was haunted.”

“Exactly,” Jungeun says, a grin stretching wide. An idea was blooming. An idea so stupid and idiotic it might actually work.

(And really, what else did she have to lose?)

Jinsol smiles, confused. “Why is this important?”

“Jinsol, you’re a ing genius,” Jungeun steamrolls over her, ignoring her entirely. Victory might still be able to be pried from the bloodied steel trap. “I have to go.”

Jinsol frowns. “You’re not going to do something reckless again, right?”

Jungeun waves her off, already walking in the other direction. “Don’t ask stupid questions you already know the answer to. If this doesn’t work out, read my obituary in the papers.”

 

---

 

Jungeun wonders if she should write a will as she walks into the library. But that would be throwing up the white flag before anything even happened.

It’s as empty as a ghost town inside the building; the majority of the campus seems keen on avoiding the ghost after the JJ debacle.

She walks past the printer where she first met Jinsol, bemused nostalgia rising up when she sees a new ‘FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY’ sign directly above the machine. It’s been a long few weeks, longer than it would have been under less dire circumstances.

She moves into the back area; as Jinsol mentioned, there were couches in the back that looked like viable nap locations. Though they look like they haven’t been used in weeks.

She lies down carefully, wincing at the stretch of her wounds.

(The theory was simple: if people only share her dream when they sleep in the library, then what would happen if she fell asleep in the library? Location is pertinent.)

She uses her backpack as a pillow and shuts her eyes, taking a deep breath...

this… shouldn’t...take...long…

.

.

.

Jungeun wakes up. Goosebumps raise along her skin from the cold. She pushes herself up off the dirt, wiping away the stray twigs and scarlet leaves on her body, and takes a look around.

Sprawling redwood trees scrape the sky, sunlight just barely clipping through the leaves to pierce through the dense fog. There’s a winding dirt path that extends forever in either direction. Her backpack is just a few feet away from her, propped up against the trees.

She walks over to the backpack, quickly checking inside; she’s relieved to see all of her supplies made it. She shoulders her backpack on, and follows the sun on the dirt path.

This is the location that she’s been lost in for all her dreams, but this time it’s much more vivid. She could smell the fresh dirt and forest outdoors. The branches bent in a way that suggested a breeze, but the forest is eerily quiet― the only thing Jungeun can hear is the steady tempo of her dull heart.

She doesn’t know how long she walks for, but the sun doesn’t move an inch from where it hangs in the sky. She feels lost inside a labyrinth, perpetually wandering.

The forest stretches on to infinity, the dirt road winding, writhing underneath massive roots. She could be walking forever…

...Until she isn’t.

There’s a clearing just ahead, a break in the foliage and fog. Jungeun steps into the clearing carefully. The ground was damp, muddy, and her white converse suffered for it.

Right in the middle of the clearing was ruins of a building. Half of it lay in crumbles around the area, the white marble covered and overtaken by moss and other greenery. Smack dab in the middle is a raised circular platform, and the silhouette of a body sitting on top. A familiar red eye broke through the remaining haze of fog.

Jungeun approaches the figure, taking measured steps until she’s inside the building, several feet away from her smirking double.

“It took you long enough,” the copy drawls, tilting its head and looking up at Jungeun. “I was beginning to think I’d have to shatter windows and short circuit lights forever. Horribly monotonous after the first dozen or so.”

It’s wearing the same things Jungeun is. Other than the scuff and scorch marks around the sleeves of her hoodie, and red eyes, they were identical.

“We could have skipped the and cut straight to me killing you if you wrote a message in my blood like any other demon.” Jungeun seethes, the telltale wisps of temper rising. “You don’t get to complain.”

“Don’t I?” It asks. “I even brought a gift for the visitor.”

It reaches into her pocket, pulling out the walkman. Jungeun’s blood runs cold as she dangles it between her fingers carelessly. The ghost grins. “Looking for this, Jungeun?”

Jungeun all but snarls, temper sparking to a flame. She crosses the distance to wipe the smug look right off her double’s face, but stops short just a few feet away.

Her double is trying to rile her up so she does something stupid, but damn if it isn’t working.

“Let’s get this one thing straight,” Jungeun says flatly, her voice coming out much more even than she thought it would. “Keep my name out of your ing mouth.”

The demon looks bored, unaffected in the face of her anger. “I can call you whatever the I want, Jungeun.”

Jungeun sears her fingernails into her palms, taking a deep breath. She can’t be on the backbeat of the conversation, or else the ghost is going to push some of her dangerous buttons. It tosses the walkman up carelessly, only to catch it right as it’s about to crash onto the floor.

Jungeun observes the motion, eyes narrowing.

“You wouldn’t do anything to break the walkman.” Jungeun says, taking a quick stab in the dark. “It’s too important to you. You’re not allowed in the physical world, and you wouldn’t have stolen it otherwise. Quit the ing posturing.”

Her double drops the smirk, adopting a blank, unreadable expression.

It’s unnerving, seeing herself in person.

“My my, aren’t you a clever one,” the ghost says, tone bored, though its eyes don’t lose their chill. It stores the walkman inside a copy of Jungeun’s own backpack. “Any other obvious epiphanies you need to get caught up on?”

“I’ll take the opportunity to talk about you, sure,” Jungeun replies breezily. “It’s only polite for the guest to greet the lord of the mansion, or the haunt of the building. You’re not actually out to kill me.”

Or else she would have died from the glass. Or crushed from the vending machine, along with every other instance she could remember.

The ghost tilts her head. “Did I ever mention that I wanted to kill you? Self-projection isn’t cute.”

“If glass impaling me was meant to be a bouquet of roses announcing our friendship, please talk to your florist,” Jungeun says. It’s hard not to be irritated. “What were you trying to prove if you weren’t out for murder?”

The ghost hums, glancing aside. “I think we can both agree that fear is an excellent motivator.”

Jungeun frowns, but she’s starting to get a feel for the pattern. The ghost is cocksure and snarky, mean and aggravating to get Jungeun to break first. But Jungeun doesn’t get the sense that she’s lying. Dodging the question and being as opaque as a concrete wall, but not deceiving.

She squashes down the voice that whispers eerily similar to you, and thinks. Her tormentor meets her gaze straight on.

There’s something at play here she’s missing.

The ghost is more bark than bite, and not trying as hard as it could be to kill her. Fear as a motivator...motivation for what?

“And that’s a wrap on the introductions,” the ghost replies cheerfully, clapping her hands together and standing up from the platform. “It’s time to get into the meat of the show.”

.

“I am not done talking to you,” Jungeun snarls, stepping closer. She keeps her eyes trained on the backpack by her double’s heel.

“Oh, but I am with you. I hope you prepared your bag of tricks well, because― “

That’s when Jungeun swings the thermos she’s been hiding behind her back towards the demon. The sea salt water lands directly on her body.

The ghost stares at her, soaking wet and smelling like the ocean. She looks down at herself, pulling at her soaked clothes. “Really? Was this the best you could come up― ”

The demon has to lean sideways to dodge the thermos pitched hard, and she jumps off the platform entirely when Jungeun starts sprinting towards it.

Her fingers just graze against the double’s backpack―

―then a fireball hits her square in the chest, sending her flying back.

“Okay, let’s get this straight,” the ghost replies, irritated, as Jungeun’s body hits the floor and rolls with the impact. “I’m not a ing paranormal. Not in the traditional sense, anyway, so take your incense and salt water bull somewhere else.”

“Blow me, you phantom ,” Jungeun manages, pushing herself to her feet. Her chest burns. At least now she knows where the scorch marks came from. it’s hard to breathe.

Next order of business is not to get nailed with something like that again, she thinks warily. Her double snaps her fingers, and her hands coat in dark flames. Interestingly, it catches on the water soaked into her hoodie and burns, as if the sea water were kerosene.

Water doesn’t put it out.

Jungeun sneers past the pain. “Your color scheme is , Red.”

Her double rolls her eyes so hard Jungeun hopes they fall out. “If you die here, you die in real life, as a forewarning.”

Oh God, she’s in the Matrix.

“Better start running, Lippie,” Red singsongs, before pulling her arm back and launching the dark vermillion fireball in her hands.

Jungeun twists away from the condensed flame that would have hit her in the face, scrambling backwards to dodge the three consecutive fireballs flung towards her feet.

Red looks up.

Jungeun’s already running before the explosive flames impact the weak structure above her. More slabs of marble come thundering down, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake. She can’t stay here, or else her ghost will collapse the entire thing on top of them.

She bolts out the building, setting off in a zigzag sprint towards the protective foliage. There’s a fwoosh of fire behind her, several fireballs missing her by the hair. It’s only through animalistic instinct that she ducks the next one, when she hears her double click her tongue behind her, but the flames still clip her shoulder.

Fresh, burning pain makes her hiss, but she keeps running until she re-enters the forest, breaking away from the dirt path into the thick of the trees.

She weaves through the forest, branches and bushes catching on her clothes and scraping her face, barely able to see in the dense fog, but she finds a tree with a small opening and ducks inside.

She tries to even out her heavy breathing, risking a glance from behind the tree trunk.

Safe, but barely. Adrenaline masks her pain for the moment, but something flares up every time she breathes. Her injuries are too vivid for her to only be in a dream.

“I’m always up for a game of cat and mouse, Jungeun.” Red’s voice carries through the forest, impossible to tell where it originates from.

What a melodramatic piece of . But it doesn’t matter, she just needs a moment to herself to think.

This was her stage.

Jungeun closes her eyes, leaning against the tree bark, and sliding together the jigsaw pieces.

Fear as motivation…forcing me to investigate...leading me somewhere?

The answer comes so suddenly, and it’s so obvious it feels like a slap to the face.

“She’s been trying to lure me here,” Jungeun mutters, head thunking back against the tree. “.”

She had thought that Red would be weakest in her ivory tower, but if her double was trying to lead her here...Jungeun’s hypothesis is entirely off base. She feels like a moron. A rat led into a trap by pure short-sightedness.

That is not good.

“There’s no use hiding, I’m going to find you anyway.”

Jungeun clenches her fists knuckle white, fingernails digging into her palms, pain grounding.

Red isn’t a traditional paranormal― it was one of the only things she said without any sort of ruse. She’s not a ghost or devil or demon or some goth-kid-from-high-school’s summon, getting in their last round of ‘ you’s’.

Traditional means won’t cut it. What other means were there!?

A branch snaps, and Jungeun has to leap to a different side of the tree so she doesn’t get cooked alive.

“Are you done hiding? Can we get this over with?” Red calls, bored. She doesn’t sound like she’s taking any step closer.

“Cool it with the flames, the forest is going to burn,” Jungeun tries.

“I really don’t give a .”

Damn it, failed that avenue of persuasion.

“If you’re looking for an even fight, these odds aren’t exactly fair,” Jungeun says, wracking her mind for a different angle. “And I’m petty and stubborn enough to run until the end of time. Speak of your one, debilitating weakness I can use against you, Red, or forever hold your peace.”

Twigs snap as Red takes a step towards her. Jungeun’s heartrate rockets up.

“Use your goddamn brain. I know you have one, because I have one.”

Another step.

“What does my brain have anything to do with yours?”

Another, and Red’s groan doesn’t hide her quickened pace towards Jungeun’s tree.

“Oh god, maybe your skull is only there for decoration…”

Think, think.

Red has her same face, same speech pattern, same smarmy arrogance, and Jungeun’s never been the creative type. If Jungeun’s brain is directly correlated to Red’s brain, then…

“Did I create you?” Jungeun asks dubiously. The walking stops.

There’s a click in the back of Jungeun’s head that feels wrong. She risks a look around the―

― Red her flaming arm back―

“―I’d be very worried if you said something else,” Red says. Jungeun’s face hurts, reeling back from the force of the punch. Another fist slams solidly into Jungeun’s chest, and then a kick sends her crashing into an entirely different tree.

Everything hurts.

Jungeun is going to be black and blue tomorrow, bruises the size of planets along her body. It was another blip, then; Jungeun hadn’t even seen Red clear the distance before her fist embedded itself into her face.

The flaming just stands there looking as immaculate as ever.

“That’s great and all, but how does that help me beat you?” Jungeun spits out a glob of blood in Red’s direction.

Red rolls her eyes with a long-suffering sigh. “You really don’t get it, do you? I’m you, . Almost.”

Jungeun stares her down. There’s a whole new level of self-loathing to unpack if the doppleganger she created is actually trying to kill her, but maybe some other time, when she’s not tired or pissed or throbbing all over like a heartbeat.

...There was something Red was trying to say here.

“Which means,” she says impatiently, coating her hand with flames. “Anything I can do―”

“I can do as well,” Jungeun realizes.

Red bares her teeth, the fire growing to the size of a small meteor. Jungeun braces herself against the tree. How the is she supposed to do this?

“Better think fast, sweetheart,” Red says, and then readies a baseball pitch. It doesn’t even look like she’s bothered from the heat, the flames feeding on the vapor and against her face. Red uses fire as if it were an extended limb.

There is but one thing that Jungeun feels comes as naturally for her. Red launches the sun from her hands, but there’s a familiar click, and time is grinding to a halt.

Jungeun empties her mind, moves in time with an imaginary beat and throbbing treble, swings her hand in front of her, twin coils of fire spiraling from her shoulder down to her arm.

It fires like a meteor cannon from her palm, blazing hot but not uncomfortable, meeting the other fireball straight on until they cancel each other out, time snapping back to normal speed.

...Jinsol’s going to have a ing riot with Jungeun’s newfound abilities, though Red helping her raises more questions than answers.

But first thing’s first, Jungeun thinks grimly, rolling her wounded shoulder:

She needs to try not to die.

There’s a familiar click again, like the press of a stopwatch, the sound of a walkman, and Jungeun lets her fire burst from her chest and both her arms to form a makeshift shield in front―

― Something collides with the ―

“― You learn quickly,” Red notes, playing catch with one of her meteors. Jungeun snaps back to the present, panting, the shield in front of her disintegrating.

The blip this time is much shorter than it was just a second prior. Jungeun reaches in towards herself, memorizing the sensation of the click in the back of her skull.

(Her thumb runs along a walkman…)

Red frowns, starting to gather her velvet flames in her legs instead. Jungeun doesn’t even think twice about doing the same, and when Red stomps down on the ground her fire diffuses and catches quick on the ground, and Jungeun meets Red’s flames with her own.

There’s another click―

“Oh no you don’t,” Jungeun says, feeling time thread between her fingers, ribbony, cassette tape, and holds on tight. She rears back and punches a meteor towards Red’s direction.

Red’s eyes widen, and she barely has time to bring up her arms and coat them with flames before it hits her straight on. The sight of her own body flying and bouncing off the ground is something that Jungeun takes a disturbing amount of pleasure in.

But now Red has no more blipping. Thank the ing lord above.

The section of forest they’re in is almost completely dissolved of fog, now; with their fires using the fog as fuel, the clearing is entirely visible, sunshine finally beaming down from above.

Jungeun exhales. Dragon smoke escapes in fumes from her nostrils. There’s a distinct taste of firewood and ash on the back of her tongue.

“Okay. I think it’s time you reveal why you brought me here,” Jungeun says, flames curling against as she speaks. “And don’t say something you regret.” She punctuates the statement by coating her entire arm in fire.

Red drags herself upright, second degree burns all along her arms, demeanor finally cooled a few degrees. “You forgot her. The one you love. The one you recorded on your tape.”

Jungeun eyes the flames crawling up the length of Red’s body.

“You forgot about her,” Red hisses again, and a ring of fireballs appear behind her, spinning relentlessly.

She drives the heels of her palm towards Jungeun, the meteors behind her hurtling towards Jungeun at lightning speed. She meets each one with a fireball of her own, weaving around them when she can’t.

Red tosses the rest of the ring into random spots in the air, hanging meteors like stars.

“She adored theatre,” Red says, and the fireballs remain in the air.

(She did.)

Gravity’s suspended. She doesn’t have time to question it any further as Red charges at her head on. She narrowly dodges two punches, slamming a fiery right hook into the underside of Red’s jaw when she gets the chance, and jumping back to avoid the retaliatory kick.

Then the meteors fell.

Jungeun dances around each fireball hitting the ground, each one exploding up in a plume of flames once they land. She’s just barely avoiding the pressing attacks from her counterpart, her attention splitting to keep herself alive.

“She taught you piano.”

More fractured memories appear in her mind, of brunette hair and late library nights, a distant memory, and the fireballs Red toss up are once again frozen in air.

Jungeun takes a punch grazing her shoulder for a free swipe at Red’s throat, then wraps her knuckles with fire to meet the meteor dropping directly above her. Red uses the opportunity to get up close again, slamming a fist into Jungeun’s stomach. Wheezing, Jungeun cracks her elbow against the side of Red’s temple.

They back off again, circling each other around the arena.

This isn’t going to go anywhere. They’re too evenly matched, but Red doesn’t seem to get exhausted like Jungeun does. The bruises seem to just be cosmetic damage to Red, but Jungeun is starting to feel every single injury inflicted upon her thus far, even past the adrenaline.

Jungeun pants, eyes scanning her surrounding for any sort of advantage.

The gravity surges are triggered by my returning memory of whoever Red is talking about. They last about a minute to three minutes each.

There’s a dangling, broken branch above them.

Jungeun glances back down at Red, her eerie eyes burning in the sunlight, a couple of feet away from the landing position.

It’ll have to do.

“She sang for you,” Red says, and flings multiple meteors towards her. Instead of diffusing it with her own fire, Jungeun deflects them, redirecting them to hit the branch above instead.

Red actually stops for a second to stare.

“I created you, of course I knew I could use your fire,” Jungeun lies. The idea literally only came to her just now. “So what, you’re after me because I don’t care for this girl you’re over the moon for?”

"I had to make you remember. Had to make you look for me. So that you will kill me, Jungeun, so that you will never forget me,” Red rasps.

“God, you’re like the persistent ex-girlfriend I’ve never wanted.” Jungeun stalls for time, eyes trained on the branch above.

It’s properly on fire, but needs one more solid hit to disconnect from the tree.

Red is too far away from the landing site. She tries to call up her flame, but with a clench of Jungeun’s fist, the fire never comes.

“Well,” Red coughs. “That’s unfortunate. Guess I’ll just have to stab you instead.”

She flicks out her wrist, the metal iron just barely visible in the limelight, and leaps towards Jungeun in a single bound.

It’s time to get creative.

Jungeun twirls, wrapping more fire ribbons around her, in front of her, in a protective net, and jumps to meet her double halfway. Red cuts through her dome of flame, eyes blazing, swinging the knife with no grace or finesse, but still managing nicks and cuts along Jungeun’s body.

Red makes a fatal mistake when she over commits to a stab, dragging the blade from Jungeun’s jaw to ear. She ignores the cut, clenching her arm to wrap her ribbons around Red’s knife arm and torso.

Red tosses the knife into the air, catching it with her other hand to ram it into Jungeun’s throat.

Acting quickly, Jungeun kicks her in the chest for the trouble, not even flinching when Red stabs her in the leg instead. It puts some distance in between the two again, though now Jungeun has chains of fire extending to her and Red.

Now for the fun part.

She wastes no time in raising her arms, grunting with exertion as she picks Red up and starts spinning like a mini-tornado, picking up speed the more she turns. She makes one, two, three spin cycles and releases her hold― Red spins and flies like a top into a tree, with more than enough force to shake the tree.

Jungeun lets out a shaky exhale, nearly falling to her knees. Just a few seconds longer.

Red struggles to get to her feet, collapsing back down each time. Slamming into a tree hard enough to snap a spine would do that. She’s a dancer, not a fighter, neither of them were really meant for this.

Limbs trembling, Red gurgles something at Jungeun completely incomprehensible. She’s too tired to deal with anymore cryptic demon bull today.

Jungeun smiles inanely. “You might want to look up.”

Red looks u―

―The branch crashes down on top of Red’s body, and crushes her underneath.

The forest grows silent.

 

Jungeun exhales, proud posture and hard outlines softening.

Finally. The Queen, crowned once again.

Everything ached. Everything burned and throbbed and stung. She wanted to lie down for a couple of hours and sleep.

But not yet.

She drags herself over to Red’s backpack to loot the walkman; it was flung off when Jungeun spun her like a carousel. And by some grand miracle, it’s still intact.

Then she heads to the branch on top of Red’s body, pulling out incense from her own bag and sticking it into the ground. She sits down.

“I don’t think we’re the same people,” she says after a long moment. “Not anymore. I’m sorry I didn’t remember who she meant to you.”

The words are truthful. Red was furious at the world with no outlet; Jungeun at least, could strive to be the best and break those opposing her. Red got what she wanted; Jungeun will always remember this. It’d be idiotic to deny that this vengeful part of her existed, and how bad her fury could get.

“I hope… the tape will help me remember. I’ll remember for you.”

Time moves again. Wind blowing through branches, fog dissipating. Jungeun sighs, picks herself back up, despite her body screaming protest.

Her focus sharpens when she hears something snap in the forest, arm catching fire.

“Who’s there?”

No response. Every muscle in Jungeun’s body clenches at the sound of footsteps growing closer.

A teen comes out of the trees.

She looks terribly out of place, snow covering her from head to toe inside the lush, green forest.

(And when red eye meets purple, the sky goes dark.)

 

---

 

Jinsol swallows down the pit of disappointment when she comes to terms with the fact that Kim Lip isn’t coming tonight, either.

She sighs, spinning in her dorm chair. Nemo zipping around in his tank in the corner. Zooming left, dashing right, diligent in keeping his territory clear of other fishes. Not that Jinsol would ever force Nemo in a cage with something else.

Maybe her directions weren’t clear enough. Room three-oh-seven, dorm next to the cafeteria.

Maybe she should text?

They never traded numbers.

Jinsol sighs again.

Daydreams about Kim Lip have been intrusive, but only because Jinsol could say with 95% guarantee Kim Lip is involved with the gravity shenanigans. Jinsol would share info and Kim Lip hers, and somehow their cases align like butter and bread. The foundation of their para-breakfast friendship.

(Intentions kinda-sorta-mostly? platonic. Kim Lip doesn’t seem to appreciate courtship. She’s all sharp, sly edges with velvet-smooth charm, spun and woven together. Wow Jinsol kind of really wants to see her.)

Her fist meets desk.

Focus! No daydreaming.

Her window gets pounded against.

...That wasn’t her.

Jinsol turns back. She cautiously opens the window, and oh hey what’s up a bloody Kim Lip just spilled into her bedroom. That’s cool and all, but what the .

“Kim Lip?”

“In the flesh.”

“This is the third floor!?”

“Sorry for dropping in unannounced,” she says. “But your dorm was closer than mine. And I believe I promised I’d show you my efforts.”

There’s something more mellow about her, more relaxed than Jinsol’s ever seen her. Like she’s finally settled into her skin for the first time in a while. Which is okay too, but there’s a gash along her jaw. Her hair is ash grey? And one of her eyes is red. Jinsol has to stop herself from touching her eyepatch.

She should say something.

“There’s blood seeping into my carpet.”

She says none of those things.

Kim Lip shakes her head and opens her arms. “It’s not mine. Look at this.”

She’s cradling a white owl. A corpse.

“You… have a bird.” Jinsol says slowly. Smooth as honey.

Kim Lip rolls her eyes. It’s not as dismissive as when they first met and Jinsol tries not to smile.

“I have a new magic trick,” she says, pulling out a walkman from her hoodie jacket.

She holds one of the buttons down, device clicking loudly. Jinsol’s breath hitches as the blood on her carpet peels off, tiny cherry droplets all re-entering the owl.

Her eyes only grow wider and wider as the bird reanimates, red eyes that match Kim Lip’s blinking open, craning its head to look around the room. It flaps onto Kim Lip’s shoulder.

“No freaking way,” Jinsol breathes.

Kim Lip grins, all smug and teeth. “Surprise. I think it’s about time we help each other.”

 

---

 

bettaowl: can you believe jungeun killed her doppleganger to obtain the mangekyo sharingan

K_Morpho: The Stage is set. What comes after Red?

Check out K_Morpho and I on twitter, under the same handles.