0. The Fool

(Upright: the Fool stands on a cliff's edge, overlooking the limitless potential of their future.

Reversed: The Fool rushes in without guidance, ignoring all the warning signs.)

Soyoung remembers little of her life before her nineteenth birthday. Three years have passed since then and each time she tries to remember what happened, she gets headaches – such horrible headaches that she faints, sometimes. So she stopped trying to and just decided to start her life all over again. But there are two things Soyoung knows she will always remember. The first thing is, there are 22 cards in the Major Arcana, which are the emblematic picture cards of a tarot deck, and these cards always start at 0 and are numbered to 21. Each of them depicts a scene and most feature a person or several people, with many symbolic elements. Each has a number and a name, but not all decks have both, and some only have a picture. The second thing she will always remember is what her master Baekhyun has always told her: be careful with what you wish, not because of what you might get, but because of what it might cost you. Soyoung knows Baekhyun sacrificed a lot for her, to make her come back. It costed him a lot, she knows that, even if he never really told her. And it costed Soyoung her memories, the memories of her previous life. Her life before the Red Plague. She doesn't find it in herself to mind anymore; like Baekhyun said, what matters is the present. What is done is done and what is bound to happen will happen. And what matters the most now is the fact that Baekhyun is finally back from his trip that lasted for months.

1. The Magician

(Upright: The Magician makes real that which is unreal, manifesting desires from nothingness.

Reversed: The Magician manipulates and obscures the truth. Their honeyed words seem like hope in the haze.)

Baekhyun enters the shop when Soyoung had just finished doing a tarot reading for a couple. At the sight of the Magician, Soyoung smiles. It’s been a while since he last came home, being away on a trip as always. He takes off his red scarf before striding towards her, taking her in his arms while the shop is empty.

“How’s my favourite apprentice doing?”

“Fine, even better than before.”

Their relationship had always been kind of ambiguous. Soyoung barely has memories of her life before the Plague and Baekhyun doesn’t tell her anything about it, too afraid that her headaches would get the better of her. He said he already tried to explain everything to her, but he just gave up on it when he saw how painful it was for his apprentice. She knows something happened between them before; their intimacy and the fact that they’re so comfortable around each other can’t be ignored, even more when Soyoung had only been reborn for three years. She doesn’t push it though. She knows she will get the answers to her questions on time and when needed.

Sowon, Baekhyun’s familiar, a lovely purple snake with ruby like eyes, gets her head out of Baekhyun’s satchel before sliding towards the two magicians, wrapping herself around Soyoung’s shoulders. She squeezes her affectionately before taking her habitual place around Baekhyun’s shoulders.

“Come on,” he says. “The Count is waiting for us at the palace. We should hurry.”

He goes at the entrance of the shop and turns the little sign on the door saying “open” to “close” while Soyoung prepares a bag with what they might need during t