The silence that Byul leaves in her wake is deafening. Her sudden absence feels like a black hole in their living room, the joy and the life out of all of them. 

She hadn’t meant to shift into her wolf form, normally, Yong and Byul’s fighting wouldn’t even wake her up from a nap, but this fight had been different. Wheein had sensed the threat in the air as the fight turned cutting and loud, then Byul’s eyes had flashed black, a pentagram of flames at her feet, and Yong had begun hovering a few feet in the air bathed in holy light, and by that point Wheein couldn’t have stopped the shift if she wanted to.

She knew there had been something wrong with the demon all week, she just never thought it was something this bad. The notion of it sends a primal fear through her wolf brain, telling her to run, run, run. But her human half roots all four of her paws in the ground at the sound of Yongsun suddenly breaking down into tears.

Yongsun beckons for Wheein by the dining table and the werewolf approaches carefully, butting her snout against Yong’s thigh with a soft whine. “I’m sorry you two had to see that.” The angel says to the room in general. If there’s a tremble and hitch to her voice. From the second floor landing, Hyejin offers her the courtesy of pretending not to notice. 

When the vampire finally joins them in the living room, Wheein shoots her a suspicious stare. There had been something off with the vampire too, and even while she had been hiding underneath the dining room table, it didn’t really escape Wheein’s notice that Hyejin looked the least shocked out of all of them at the recent turn of events. Like she had been expecting it.

Like she knew there was something wrong. 

She growls once, low and menacing in . She probably won’t be able to shift back for the rest of the day, but she knows Hyejin will understand. Yongsun misses the whole exchange, her whole face is cradled into her palms now, and the soft hitch and gasps of her sobs echo louder than the shouting match Byul and Yong had.

Hyejin locks eyes with Wheein. Not now, her eyes say, I’ll tell you later. Wheein presses her left flank closer to Yong but her eyes are also on Hyejin. 

Fine, Wheein thinks, but after you tell me, we’re fixing this.

“She’ll be back,” Yongsun says after the crying finally stops. She rubs fondly at the fur between Wheein’s ears and tries in vain to smile for Hyejin. “You’ll see.” she says, gently extracting herself from them and moving to sit on the living room sofa, knees hugged to her chest.

“She wouldn’t leave me like that,” Yong’s voice grows softer, like she’s saying the words more for herself than for Wheein’s sake. The angel curls deeper into herself then and Wheein feels both her ears droop down, her tail going limp between her legs. It breaks her heart to see the angel this way.

Wheein and Hyejin spend the next few hours with Yong, the three of them taking solace in each other while also watching the door, waiting to see if the demon will come back.

Byul doesn’t return, and despite their best efforts to get the angel to eat or rest anywhere else, Yong doesn’t leave the living room sofa. Finally, Hyejin stands up to retreat to her own room and Wheein doesn’t intend to wait for an invitation, she follows the vampire upstairs. Once the door to Hyejin’s room closes behind them, Wheein rounds on the vampire and gives her a hard stare.

“I know, I know,” Hyejin says, already headed to her bed and lying down with a sigh, her whole arm coming up to cover her face. “I should have told someone about what was going on with Byulie-unnie, but she made me promise not to!”

Wheein growls.

“Of course I trust you!” Hyejin argues back. In the years that they’ve been roommates, the vampire has gotten to be the most adept at deciphering Wheein in wolf form. It certainly comes in handy for situations like this.

“But I trusted Unnie too,” the vampire says, “I trusted her when she said it would be fine and that it’d be over in a few days.”

Wheein huffs a short sigh, and walks over to nudge at Hyejin’s knee with her snout. 

“It started a few days ago,” her friend says, “she cornered me when I got home from work and told me to cover for her in case she acted--” they shared a look, “--off. Actually I think the word she used was ‘cruel’. I tried to ask her to explain but she wouldn’t. So really, I know about as much as you do at this point!”

“Wouldn’t or couldn’t?”

They both turned with a start. Hyejin sat up immediately, the motion of it sending some of her pillows toppling to the floor. Yong was by the door, eyes wide and both hands gripping at the frame.

“Unnie--”

“What did Byul say?”

“I don’t--we thought you were--”

“Hyejin-ah please!” the angel looked desperate, “You have to tell me what she said!”

Wheein looked from the angel to the vampire then decided to add in her two cents, she starts barking, loud and insistent, until Hyejin smacks her face with a pillow.

“Shut up! I’m trying to remember!”

There was silence for a few moments, the vampire’s brows furrowed in concentration before finally--

“I came home, Byulie-unnie was by the stars, and she asked me to promise her something. When I asked her what it was, she kind of evaded the question, just made me promise to snap her out of it if she starts acting mean. Cruel.”

Yong crosses the room in two strides, kneeling in front of Hyejin’s bed. “Did she say why?”

“No, I told you she wouldn’t tell me, and anytime I asked she--”

“Looked like she was in pain?” Yong finishes for her.

Wheein catches the moment Hyejin’s eyes go a bit wide. “I--yeah, I guess.”

Wheein doesn’t think it would be possible for Yong to turn any paler than she already is, but the angel proves her wrong. The angel also almost trips over her in her mad scramble to get up off the floor and exit the room.

“I know what’s wrong!” Yong yells, in her wake.

Wheein and Hyejin stare at each other dumbly for a few seconds before they’re both running after the angel.

“What is it?” The vampire calls out, but Yong ignores her in favor of grabbing a bag and her car keys from her bedroom. 

“I’ll explain later, we have to find her first!” Yong says, “I know how to fix it!”

“No, you tell us now!” Hyejin says instead, grabbing a bucket hat, her sunglasses, and an umbrella from her own room, “I’m tired of being kept in the dark!”

Wheein barks several times, loudly to voice her own agreement. 

“Wheein says you can tell us on the way, but we’re coming with you.”

“It’s daytime!” Yong argues.

“I don’t care!” The vampire says, “She’s our roommate too.” This one she says firmly, with a hand on Wheein’s head. Wheein stares up at the angel and barks her agreement. She widens her eyes slightly too, because even in situations like this, she knew Yong wouldn’t be able to resist--

“Always with the puppy dog eyes,” Yong grumbles, already resigned. “Fine, let’s go.”

Once they’re all in the car, driving out in search of the demon, Yong tells them, and even though her voice rang clear as day, Wheein still couldn’t believe her ears. Neither could Hyejin, it seems.

“What do you mean cursed ?”

Yong makes a sharp left turn and starts driving away from the city. “There’s a curse that only affects demons. The more powerful ones prevent them from telling other people they’ve been cursed so that they won’t be able to ask for help.”

Wheein barks.

“But she told me,” Hyejin says.

“She didn’t really though, did she?” Yong counters, “she told you she would be acting weird, but she didn’t tell you why or how it had happened. I think anytime she tried, the curse made her feel pain.”

It did make sense, the pieces of Yong’s explanation fitting in to the strange behavior their roommate had been displaying the last few days. Wheein thinks back to the start of the week, when she had been washing dishes with Byul and the demon had suddenly smashed a plate at her feet. Without the anger clouding her vision now, she remembers seeing how horrified Byul had looked after the fact. How the demon had turned to grip the sink, almost like she was trying to stop herself from doing anything else.

“Ok, but who would curse Byulie-unnie?”

Yong’s face turns grim, “I don’t know. She’ll have to tell us once the curse is lifted.”

They’re quiet for a long time. Buildings and streets zooming past as Yong just very nearly toes the speed limit in her mad dash to get out of Seoul, it’s only when they start seeing signs for the airport the Wheein starts barking.

Hyejin gets the hint. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a cove in Muuido that Byul used to go to in the eighteen hundreds. She took me there once.”

“Why would she go there?”

“Because she’s probably scared and alone.” Yong says, her voice turning sad as she does, “And if she’s going to try and break the curse by herself, it needs to be remote enough that there won't be anyone hurt by the blowback.”

“She said she would be fine in a few days,” Hyejin mumbles, probably not enough for Yong to hear, but Wheein’s wolf ears pick up the guilt there as loud as anything. She understands some of that too. The regret the vampire must be feeling, for blindly trusting their friend instead of just telling on her and trying to get her the help that she really needed. From the back seat, Wheein hooks her chin on Hyejin’s shoulder. The vampire reaches behind her to scratch at her ears.

“This isn’t your fault,” Yong says, once they finally make it to the freeway. “Byul didn’t want to worry you, and I have a feeling she’s been trying to find her own way to deal with the curse. This was just the drastic Plan B that I forced her into.” It’s Yong’s turn to sound ashamed, and Hyejin doesn’t miss a beat, reaching across the gear shift to place a comforting hand on the angel’s shoulder.

“It isn’t your fault either, Unnie.”

The drive takes close to three hours, halfway between Bucheon and Incheon, Wheein had fallen asleep, but she wakes up now to the feeling of Hyejin tossing a shirt and pants on top of her.

“You shifted back in your sleep,” The vampire says by way of explanation.

She looks down at herself and immediately drops to the floor of the car. “You couldn’t have woken me sooner?” Wheein gripes, immediately struggling her way into the clothes. Yong and Byul had taken to keeping some spares for her in the car for emergencies. 

“We had to pull over on the side of the road to get the clothes out of the emergency bag!” The vampire says instead.

“Whatever,” Wheein grumbles, struggling with the pants, “Are we almost there?”

“We’re crossing the bridge now,” Yong says.

Even at this time of the year, with the rain they’ve been having the past week, there are still quite a few tourists in Muuido, most of them probably natives, trying to spend some time away from the city. With the sea below them, Wheein can’t resist opening the car window to let in the cool, salty sea air. A part of her wishes she was still a wolf for this part at least. It would have been fun to stick her head out of the window.

She’s watching the island grow larger before them when a question pops into her head.

“You said Byulie-unnie went here to avoid blowback?” 

“Yeah?”

“What’ll happen if Hyejin and I are there?”

Yong looks at her from the rearview mirror, “I tried to get both of you to stay behind.”

There’s fear there, and a hint of an apology too, but Wheein just nods. Hyejin had been right earlier, Byul was their roommate too. No matter what happened, they would be there for her, because they knew that the demon would do the same for them if the roles were reversed. As if reading her mind, Hyejin reaches a hand behind her, Wheein takes it and grips it tight.

They drive along the coast for another hour, stopping at the end of an overlook that leads to the shore. Yong parks the car and immediately hops out, “It’s on foot from here, but if you two wanted to stay--”

“We’re coming.” Wheein says, and there’s a finality in her voice that the angel doesn’t question. She nods and smiles, before turning toward the steps that lead down to the sand. 

There aren’t that many tourists on this side of the island, and Wheein considers them lucky in that regard. The sand beneath her feet feels cakey and coarse, which tells her that it must have rained the evening before. The gentle sigh of the water lapping at the shore is out of sync with how fast her heart is beating in her chest.

It’s when they’re nearing the edge of the beach that Wheein hears it, and Yong must hear it too because the angel starts sprinting the rest of the way. A low keening cry that couldn’t be anything other than Byul. Hyejin’s hand is still in hers and Wheein grips it tightly as they run, trying not to think about what state their roommate might be in when they find her.

Right where the sand ends, there’s a dense overgrowth of foliage that cascades down into the water, just barely concealing a cliff edge that must act as the final barrier between the shore and the cove Yong had mentioned.

The angel doesn’t hesitate, wading into the water until it reaches up to her stomach, walking against the pull of the waves as she turns to enter the cove. Wheein and Hyejin are close behind her. At the mouth of the cove, they see her.

The demon is soaked to the bone, the clothes she had been wearing that morning completely drenched and covered in sand and stuck to her skin. That’s not the most pressing sight though. It’s that Byul is hunched in on herself, another pentagram beneath her, the harsh stench of sulphur contrasting against the briny scent of the sea. The walls of the cove are blackened with burn marks and there’s smoke and steam rising from where the flames Byul is conjuring gets doused by another wave. 

From afar, it almost looks like the demon is praying, but she lets out another cry and Wheein watches in horror as a pillar of fire rises around her for a few moments. When it dies down again the demon is panting and pale, but she starts bracing herself to try again.

“Byul!” 

The demon finally realizes they’re there, eyes growing wide as Yong starts walking toward her, but she seems to remember herself just enough to pull a hand out to stop them. “Don’t! Yong you can’t!”

“I know what’s wrong with you! I can help you!”

“Unnie,” Hyejin this time, “Let us help you! You don’t have to deal with this by yourself!”

There’s the flicker of hesitation in Byul’s eyes, but it’s wiped away with the tide, “You’ll get hurt if you do!”

That seems to set off Yong’s determination because the angel starts wading toward the demon again. “You can’t hurt me, Moon Byulyi.” She says, her voice loud and commanding, and for a moment, Wheein thinks she gets a glimpse of what Yong must be like as a warrior for heaven, powerful and beautiful and brave. 

“We promised we’d be there for each other,” Yong says, and Wheein doesn’t think she’s imagining the tears streaming down the angel’s face, hidden by the spray of the sea. “I’m here,” the angel says, and it’s both a declaration and an order. She isn’t going anywhere and neither would they.

Byul finally cracks, head bowed in shame, she lets in a few shaky breaths. She’s crying too. Then, finally, she nods. 

Yong doesn’t waste any time, leaning down into the water, and ignoring how the waves push and pull at her as she gathers Byul into her arms.

“If it gets to be too much,” Yong says, this time directed toward Wheein and Hyejin, “take cover behind the rock.”

They nod, but Wheein feels the moment when both of them plant their feet even more firmly in the sand. They watch as Yong maneuvers Byul until the demon is seated between her legs, her back to Yong’s chest. The angel wraps one arm around Byul’s waist and the other she places on Byul’s forehead, inviting her to tilt her head against her shoulder. The tips of Byul’s horns just barely graze against Yong’s wingfeathers. 

Wheein sees Yong whisper an apology into Byul’s ear, the demon just nods and takes a deep breath, lacing their fingers together. Then it begins. 

The sudden glow of heavenly light is bright and warm at first, but then it becomes blinding and intense all too soon, and Wheein and Hyejin both shield their eyes against it. Byul starts crying out in pain again, and Wheein feels the vampire grip her hand tighter. 

If she squints her eyes and tries to peer past the protection of her fingers, Wheein thinks she can make out the silhouette of the Unnies. The light grows white hot, and eventually Hyejin pulls her away behind the rock, it feels like the finer hairs on her arms and skin have been singed off.

Byul’s cries suddenly stop, and the moment the light vanishes, Wheein and Hyejin round the corner into the cove again. The Unnies are lying down in the water, both passed out by the looks of it. 

The both of them wade over to help, Wheein grabs Yong by the arms and takes great care to try and lift her under her wings so that the feathers aren’t weighed down too much by the water. From the corner of her eye she can see Hyejin try to maneuver around Byul’s horns, as the vampire struggles to hook an arm around the demon. It takes a while, and some graceless maneuvering, but eventually she and Hyejin manage to get both the Unnies safely to shore.

When Byul comes to, the first thing she does is crawl over to Yong’s side. “Yong,” she whispers, hoarse from all the screaming earlier. “Yong!” She says a little louder, her voice already growing panicked. Wheein sits up too, suddenly feeling cold. She had carried the angel through the water, but in her rush she didn’t really check to see if she was okay. If she was breathing.

Byul shakes her again, and when that does nothing, Wheein has to brace herself against the tears she can feel stinging her eyes.

Suddenly, Byul lifts a hand and smacks it across the angel’s face.

“Ow!” Yong’s eyes clench tight and when she opens them she’s glaring, “That’s how you thank me for saving you?”

Byul just laughs, her entire figure sagging in relief. She ignores Yong’s indignant squawks in favor of collapsing on top of her and wrapping her in a one armed hug. 

Wheein catches Hyejin’s eyes and the vampire looks just as relieved as she feels. With an unspoken agreement, they crawl over and join the hug, all four of them laughing and crying together.

--

On the car ride home, Byul tells them everything.

“Why would a higher demon curse you?” Yong asks, chancing a quick glance at Byul in the passenger’s seat.

“One of his daughters is trying to become an actress up here. I took her headshot photos as a favor. She must have failed her audition though because next I knew, her father snuck up behind me last week and cursed me.”

“Unbelievable,” Hyejin mutters, still running a towel through her long hair. It had taken a while for Byul and Yong to recover from the entire ordeal, but when they had, all Yong had to do was step through her halo and come out fully dry and in a fresh set of clothes. Byul snapped her finger to do the same, but with Wheein and Hyejin still wet from the sea, the best that the demon could do was snap some towels and new clothes into existence for them.

“You know he should have cursed the casting director, or the production agency, or his daughter’s acting coach,” Wheein finds herself adding, angry on behalf of her roommate.

They’re quiet for beat, all four of them finally letting the day’s events wash over them. It’s Byul who breaks the silence again. “Thank you,” she says, gently at first, but with more resolve as she reaches out to hold Yong’s hand over the gear shift before turning to look at both Wheein and Hyejin in the back seat. “Thank you for coming for me.”

Wheein smiles, reaching forward to place her hand over Byul’s and Yong’s. Hyejin does the same.

“It’s what we do,” she says, simply and matter-of-factly. 

Eventually they pull away, and the rest of the drive is silent. All of them reveling in the glow of their bond that was, as it turns out, stronger than any curse.