Sometimes Byul wished emotions came with a five-minute warning signal, or at least something that would help her anticipate them before they hit her with all the subtlety of a trainwreck. It had been when one of the things she didn’t particularly like about spending millennia on Earth, eventually the humans and their trivial concerns got to you. Eventually, you started to care , and once you hit that point, the hurt was usually right around the corner.

Usually she can put it behind her. Compartmentalize it away in her mind like so many neat little file drawers filled with dark secrets. Still, not even that can hold the skeletons at bay for long, so once in a while, she goes through the memories. Lets herself feel rotten and crummy and miserable just for one night, so that come morning, she can safely put them away again.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t talk to her roommates about it. During their first few years together, Yong had helped her through most of those periods, but she could see the toll it was taking on her angel too. Eventually--and with much reluctance on Yong’s part--they had agreed that it was best for Byul to work through it on her own. For both their sanity’s sake, and when Wheein had come along, the werewolf seemed to know a bit about the value of being alone. So had been that.

On nights like that, Byul just drank.

Admittedly, it took a lot to get a demon even close to tipsy, and it wasn’t like she had to worry about liver damage or anything like that. But once she’s reached that sweet spot between the nineteenth and twentieth bottle, when Byul teetered on the verge of insensible while still retaining whatever it was she’s eaten that day, that the pain and the sadness become at least a little bearable.

This is where she stayed, usually until morning, or until Yong felt worried enough to help drag her back to their bedroom or into the shower. Depending on what time the angel usually found her.

Now though it wasn’t Yong who found her, it was Hyejin.

Byul distinctly remembered seeing the vampire leave for work earlier that evening, which meant it was close to dawn already when Hyejin padded over to her and carefully started picking up soju and beer bottles off the floor. When she tried to lift her head up, the room spun for a bit, but that pleasant buzz was still there so she didn’t mind it as much.

The unforgiving scrape of a chair against the floor as Hyejin sat down though, was pure torture.

“Yah, have you no mercy.” Byul slurred, just barely managing to string that sentence together. She tried to blink past some of the fog. There were two Hyejins staring at her---wait. That can’t be right. There was only one Hyejin that lived in the house with them.

“Unnie,” The vampire said, her voice sounding far away and echoey against the cottony feeling in her head, “I think you’ve had enough.”

“I will when you both go back to being just one of you.”

There’s an audible sigh, and then Hyejin was up again, bare feet walking over to the kitchen. Byul could hear her rummaging in the cupboards for a bit followed by the sound of the tap running. When the vampire returned, Byul felt a cold glass of water pressed into her hand.

“Why do you do this to yourself, Unnie?”

Byul felt herself tense. She would glare at the vampire if it didn’t cause so much effort so instead she stayed quiet. What she wanted to say was that she doesn’t want to do this to herself every so often. That unlike Yong, she couldn’t just flick on a portal to Hell and have it recharge her demonic spirit. Demons weren’t built like that. That most of the demons she had known centuries ago had already gone back to Hell. That the demons who were on Earth now were newbies, fresh from the pits and willing to still engage in an odd temptation or two when the occasion called for it. That the only reason she was still here was because---because.

But she was too inebriated to say those things out loud and she wouldn’t touch that topic with a ten-foot pole if she were sober either. So instead. Byul sat up and stared at nothing.

Across from her, Hyejin sighed again, then tried a different approach. “How long have you been here?”

Byul looked up at the clock. “About eight hours now, I think.”

“No, I mean. How long have you been on Earth?”

She smirked, flicking away at an invisible piece of dust on the table. “I thought you would have given up on this by now.”

Hyejin scoffed. “I’m over your great love story with Yongsun-unnie. But if that’s the reason for all this, then by all means.” The vampire waved a hand in the space between them.

“Go to your room Ahn Hyejin.” Byul heard herself say, “the sun is rising.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, feeling her head spin behind closed eyelids. In the silence that followed, she was sure Hyejin had gone and left her there to wallow by herself. Instead, when she opened her eyes, not only was Hyejin still there, but she could feel some of her buzz slipping away.

Damned demon metabolism.

“What do you want from me?” Byul asked, hating how vulnerable she sounded. She pondered going for the bottle of wine hidden in the cupboard where they kept the microwaveables but ultimately decided that Hyejin wouldn’t let her get that far.

She couldn’t look her roommate in the eye, so she jumped in her skin when she felt Hyejin’s cold hand on top of her own.

“Unnie, I want to help you.  Every now and then I come home to you like this and it hurts to see you this way. I know Wheeinie says to just--”

“You wouldn’t understand, okay?” Byul snapped and she instantly felt guilty about it because when she finally turned to look at Hyejin the vampire had gone from looking concerned to looking on the verge of tears. Great . Just another thing to add to the long list of things to feel guilty about, Byul thinks. 

She shook her head to try and sober up a little bit faster, “Wait--Hyejin-ah I’m sorry I didn’t--”

Hyejin looked away, arms now resolutely crossed around her chest and lip pouted just so. It made her look impossibly young, even with her stage makeup on. It made her look---

Byul sighed. What the hell.

“With you pouting like that. You look like someone I used to know.” Hyejin was still quiet, so she continued, “She was a fisherman’s daughter, but she had really big dreams, and she was stubborn as all hell. I guess now that I look back on it, she was a lot like you in many ways.”

The memory brings a soft smile to her lips, accompanied by that bitter ache that always comes on nights like this. When she looks up again, Hyejin is regarding her carefully.

“Who was she?”

“Hae of Gaegyong. She summoned me on a cherry blossom day, to help her become a concubine in the king’s court.” This part was easy to talk about, the good memories always were.

“Like I said, she was a stubborn young thing.” Byul continued, suddenly too aware of how old she feels. “Some people would say she had delusions of grandeur, but all it was was ambition. She had a lot of that. For her family and herself.”

“So you helped her?” Hyejin asked.

Byul nodded, “I was summoned to do it after all. In those days I wasn’t as, ah, picky with my summoners as I am now.” 

“So what happened to her?”

Byul shrugged. “I gave her what she wanted. Palace life was difficult for her to adjust to at first, so I helped her out those first few years. Taught her how to act like one of them. Talk like one of them. She had a knack for it, in the end.”

She could see Hyejin mulling over something in the way the vampire began biting on her lip. “You can ask.”

“Did you love her?”

It’s easier, she realized, this time around to laugh about it, then again, maybe that’s just the lingering alcohol still in her system. “If I did, I didn’t stay long enough with her to really find out for myself. During those days, I was travelling a lot.”

“When was this?”

She had to think about the answer for a bit. Wade through the alcohol-induced haze in her memories before it came back to her. 

“Around the fourteenth century or so.”

The shock on Hyejin’s face would be comical if their topic wasn’t so serious at the moment. All the same, Byul smiled. Near her hand, the glass of water Hyejin had given her was already sweating a ring unto the plastic covering of their dining table. 

“I-is. Is she why you do this to yourself?” Hyejin asked.

“No.” Byul answered almost too quickly, before she shook her head. “Yes. Well. Not her specifically .”

“But then what--”

“How have your driving lessons been coming along?” Byul had cut in before the vampire could finish asking her question. She could tell that the sudden shift took Hyejin by surprise. Still, the vampire chuckles low under her breath, looking almost sheepish. “Yongsun-unnie told you about that huh?”

“Among other things.”

“It’s been. Well. I guess It’s doing good.” Hyejin stared at her hands, “We haven’t gone in a while, but Yongsun-unnie just has a sense for when I need to---when--”

“When you feel guilty about forgetting?” Byul guessed. Hyejin nodded and this time it’s Byul’s turn to reach across the table to put her hand over the vampire’s.

“You see, we have the opposite problem.” She said. Behind them she could feel the sun already on the rise, the light of it filtering in through the blinds. “I remember everything.”

Byul watched the gravity of that hit Hyejin slowly, the reality of it changing her roommate's expression from awe to a quiet sort of sadness. Because she did remember everything. She remembered Guk Song, the desperate farmer who had summoned her to save his wife’s life just as well as she remembered the determination on Hae’s face when the young girl summoned her behind their family’s hut with a demand that Byul help her gain favor with the king. And between those memories, all the Kings she was summoned to serve. The Generals who summoned her to help give them strength to kill their enemies. The villages that were razed to the ground because she made it so. She remembered it all. And really, there was a reason she started resisting summoner requests after the 19th century, because she could only take so much.

Just before she could see Hyejin’s expression turn to pity, Byul leaned back into her chair, she cleared , making sure the sound was loud in the silence of their apartment at some attempt to dispel the silence. 

“You’re very lucky, Hyejin-ah.” Byul said, “I wish I could forget just like you. Then I wouldn’t have to keep drinking with my own ghosts so often, but the longer I’m on this Earth, the more the human emotions seep in.”

She can already guess what the demon is about to ask next, so she cuts her off again. “Don’t worry. I’m not becoming any less of a demon, or any less immortal. It’s just--I’m just feeling more. That’s all.”

“Would it help if you--” Hyejin’s eyes go wide, and a brief flash of guilt crosses her face at having even thought of what she was about to say. Still, the rest of it goes unspoken between them.

“It probably would.” Byul said, “A century or three back in Hell would help wipe the slate clean I suppose. At least, that’s what the other demons have said. And on nights like tonight, it’s really very tempting.”

“Well. Why don’t you?”

“I’ve left so many of them, couldn’t help them when they needed me. But if I do this, if I really leave, then I might forget them too, and I think that would be worse.”

She trusted that Hyejin, more than anyone, would understand this. She watched as the other girl opened and closed a few times, about to say something before deciding against it all the same. After a few more minutes of silence, the vampire finally said, “You’re very kind, Unnie.”

That at least, brought a laugh out of Byul. “Not something someone says about a demon.”

Hyejin smiled, “Well you’re not just any demon, Unnie.”

They’re interrupted by the sound of a door opening and closing, followed by soft footsteps on the stairs, and at this point, Byul didn’t even have to turn around to see who it was.

“Byul-ah.”

When she finally turned to look, it was to the sight of Yongsun in the silk, floral robe they had gotten together to match. The white of it, going nicely with her wings. Byul nodded at her before reaching for her glass of water and chugging it all in one go. “Thank you.” She said softly to Hyejin, so that only the vampire could hear, “for listening.”

Hyejin’s responding smile was kind. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Byul stood up slowly and on wobbly knees. The alcohol might be leaving her system but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t go without a fight. Already she could feel the beginnings of what was going to be a spectacularly horrible hangover. 

Already, Yong was beside her with an arm around her waist to help steady her. “Come on,” the angel said, softly, “I’ll make you your favorite when you wake up later.”

She nodded, suddenly too tired to speak and with Yongsun’s help she managed to push away from the dining table and make the slow march all the way up the stairs.

“What happened to Hae of Gaegyong?” Hyejin’s voice suddenly rang out in the stillness. Byul could feel the way it made Yong jump. 

“Hae of…” Yongsun’s voice trailed off as she looked from Byul to Hyejin, her expression going confused before she peered at Byul curiously, “Gaegyong? The concubine?”

Byul turned back to smirk at Hyejin but before she could open , Yong beat her to it. “I saved her.” The angel said matter-of-factly.

The new look of shock on Hyejin’s face was even more funny than the first, and that has Byul snickering all the way up the stairs. When she was finally tucked into bed, blackout curtains drawn to prevent any sunlight from filtering in, she reached out a hand to tug at Yong’s robe. “I never thanked you for that, did I? For what you did for me back at Gaegyong.”

She can’t quite make out Yong’s expression in the darkness, but she feels warm fingers brush the hair away from her face. “Go to sleep Byul-ah. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

And she does, because she knows she will. The last thing that registers for her is the sound of Yongsun humming an old lullaby from centuries past. The sound of it helping her drift off to a blessedly dreamless sleep.