It was a beautiful day, and Karina was pissed.

“They’re screwing with us, right?” Karina set the case file she’d been reading down on the dashboard of Winter’s car and gave it a look of disgust. The pair were driving down a suburban road chasing another imaginary monster from another crackpot or junkie or liar that Giselle and Ningning wholeheartedly believed. Just like always.

Karina and Winter were crammed into Winter’s beat-up old car, croaking and spluttering its way along crammed and crowded Seoul roads. It was a wonder the thing could even drive, and the second Karina slammed the papers on the dash, the car let out a worrying creak that made Winter wince. Why Giselle, The Manager of their department, had decided the best way to research cases was sending her subordinates out in teams of two—and why those ended up being Karina and Winter—was beyond her. Karina thought that was a cruel joke. She wasn't sure what Winter thought, though from the way she blushed and stammered, you'd think she thought the whole thing was some elaborate ploy to get the two of them together.

And besides, Giselle insisted it was safer this way, though that did nothing to detract from Karina’s general pissedness at the whole affair.

“What, unnie?” Winter peeled her eyes from the road for a moment to look at Karina. 

Karina hated driving. It made her anxious. And the car’s constant threats to fall apart at the slightest provocation certainly didn’t help that.

Karina gestured to the case file with contempt. “There's no reason for us to go on this investigation together.”

Karina had yet to make peace with the new arrangement. It was not that she didn’t like Winter; she was nice enough certainly and offered kind eyes and easy smiles freely, like they were nothing, like they didn’t cost a thing to give.

Karina didn’t want them. They made it hard to think, hard to do her job, hard to do much of anything. So no, Karina didn’t dislike Winter per se. It was just her presence that annoyed her. Which sounded mean, all told, but so did most of the things that Karina said, and she didn’t even intend for them to most of the time.

“You don’t know that,” said Winter. For her part, she seemed to quite like spending time with Karina, even if Karina didn’t feel the same way. Both of them spent far too much time in Kwangya’s pigeonhole, a kind of library where all the records about supernatural slash paranormal cases were kept - the Pigeon as they call it.  And as a result, they tended to see each other a lot. Karina said it bothered her, but she still took the tea Winter offered her all the same, and sometimes she'd even thank Winter and talk with her about nothing for a minute or two.

“Winter, the file is literally labeled ‘spooky doors.’” Karina tapped the file with a thin, judgmental finger.

“Oh.” Winter gave the file a curious glance. “Well, I mean maybe they just wanted us out of the Pigeon.”

“What, because we’re turning into hermits or something?”

Winter let out a nervous laugh and wouldn’t meet Karina’s eye. “...something like that.”

The wheels in Karina's head turned slowly and arduously. “Wait, you’re saying maybe they—”

“Yeah.”

Karina was blushing too now. “Oh! I didn't realize they...”

“I'm not sure, but I think so?”

“Right. It makes sense why they'd want the Pigeon to themselves then.” The silence of the car was only broken by the ticking of the turn signal.

There was a beat.

“Are we close?” Karina asked.

“We’re getting there, unnie.” Winter tapped the steering wheel as she glanced around the neighborhood. “Though I’m not entirely sure what we’re looking for.”

“If I’m not mistaken, a house with a ‘For Sale’ sign in the yard.”

Winter glanced at the rows of near-identical suburban two stories—about half of which had ‘For Sale’ signs— and sighed. “That doesn't really narrow it down.”

Karina glared at her, indignant. “Well, it’s hardly my fault Ningning’s handwriting is so hard to decipher.”

“Who are we meeting?” asked Winter, cutting her off.

“Some real estate agent,” Karina grumbled. “A ‘Kim Boyoung’.’”

“I think I see her over there, actually.” Winter gestured to a house, the same in every way to those around it, save for a tired-looking woman sitting on the stoop, a cigarette abandoned to smolder silently in her hand. Kim Boyoung had the appearance of someone who’d lost too much weight too quickly, and the smell of someone who’d just started smoking. Her face was gaunt, and her mind a million miles away. She didn’t even look up as Karina and Winter approached her.

“Police or Kwangya?” Her voice was flat, and her eyes were dull.

“Kwangya.” Karina shifted her hold on the file in her arms absentmindedly. “Can we go there?”

Boyoung shook her head and laughed. “And go through the door?” She looked tired. So very, very tired. “Did you read my statement?”

“Right.” Karina sat on the pavement awkwardly, and Winter followed suit, equally awkwardly. “Sorry about that.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s just been hard. This whole…” She gestured wildly with her hands, trailing ash as she did so. “Everything. Do you know how hard it is being a real estate agent who’s afraid of doors? Or just being afraid of doors at all? I’ve been living out of my car for weeks now.”

Winter looked at her, concerned. “Are you alright, Ms. Kim Boyoung?”

“Alright? Do I ing look alright?” Boyoung almost screamed. She took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry, that was...that was uncalled for. I haven’t been getting much sleep, or any good sleep at least. I just can’t stop thinking about that awful place. Those hallways and that man.”

Karina wanted to say something to her. Something comforting. Something that would make her life easier, make the look in her eyes soften, make the hedge in her breath lessen, at least just a bit. But she didn't. Instead, she opened the file in her hands and scanned it for a moment. “The man from your report?” asked Karina, finger resting on a nearly illegible name. "This 'Lucas?'”

“Something like that, yeah.” They were silent for a moment, letting the name just hang in the air like haze or the smoke from Kim Boyoung’s long-deserted cigarette that Karina was trying to not let herself inhale too much of. Boyoung stared at the two women in front of her, stiffly sitting on the concrete walk and staring at her with concern in their eyes. She took a drag from her cigarette. “Are you two here for a reason?" she asked. "I already gave my statement to that fierce-looking blonde woman from your institution, Giselle or something.”

“We just need a key and an address for the house,” piped Winter from Karina's right before she could respond.

Boyoung's eyes widened. “Do you have a death wish? Don’t go there.”

“We kind of have to," Winter said apologetically. "It’s sort of our job.”

“Quit then. It’s not worth it.” She placed a key into Winter’s hand anyway and looked away. “It’s 231-2, Sanrim-dong. I don’t think anyone’s bought it yet.”

“Thank you.” Winter smiled gently at Boyoung. She didn’t return it, the gentleness or otherwise.

“You shouldn’t.” Boyoung warned again as she stood and glanced miserably at what was left of her cigarette, as if deliberating whether or not it was worth the effort of putting it out. “And I’ve got something else for you too.” She reached into her rumpled pantsuit jacket and pulled out a balled-up piece of paper. Winter rose to take it and tried not to look too confused by it.

“What is it exactly?” she asked, failing to do so.

“It’s a map,” explained Boyoung, running her free hand through her hair. “Of that place I went to through the door.” Karina looked over Winter’s shoulder at the paper. She had to stare at it very hard to ignore how much Winter smelled like cinnamon.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Karina noted.

“No, it does not.” Boyoung took a drag from her cigarette and waved them away. “Have a nice day.”

The sun was high, and the car was hot, but it had been almost two years since the air conditioning in Winter's car had worked, so Karina and Winter could do nothing but roll down the windows and sweat. Karina rolled up the sleeves of her wrinkled white button-up and bit her lip. There was something about Boyoung’s eyes that she’d found disquieting—their vacancy. She recognized that look, more so than she cared to admit.

As if reading her mind, Winter leaned over and asked something. Karina could barely hear her over the roar of wind rushing past them. “What?” Sighing, Winter rolled up the windows. “So, do you believe her?” she repeated as they made their way to Kwangya’s headquarters. “Ms. Kim Boyoung? Her story?”

“I...I don’t know,” Karina leaned back in the dirty seat and tried to forget the familiar look on Kim Boyoung’s face. “Why are you asking me anyway?”

“Well, you’re my colleague, unnie, aren’t you? We’re working on this together.”

There was an earnestness in Winter’s voice that made a small part of Karina very happy. She told that piece of herself to shut up and said, “We’re not colleagues.”

“Fine, partners then,” Winter rolled her eyes and leaned into her left armrest. “I just wanted to know your professional opinion.”

Karina fidgeted in her seat and looked at Winter. “Do you believe her?”

“I think I do,” she said. Karina was taken aback. 

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Winter smiled. “Really. I mean, you saw her too, unnie. She was a wreck. And not like a drug wreck either, just a genuinely rattled wreck. But I’d have believed her anyway. Her statement’s not the sort of thing you just make up.”

“Hm.”

“What’s that ‘hm’ for?”

“Nothing,” Karina said honestly. The car pulled into a long driveway, lined with expensive-looking ground lights leading to a massive house. The house looked ordinary but didn’t make Karina and Winter any less apprehensive. Winter put on the parking brake and stared up at the sprawling behemoth in front of them.

“Are you ready to go in, unnie?” Winter asked.

Karina looked up at the looming thing. The house looked like a normal house. But then again, so had— She shook her head and looked away, pushing down thoughts of spiders and knocking and familiar eyes.

Winter glanced back up at the house. “Me neither. After you?”

The front door of the house did not creak open; it groaned. Far louder than it should have for how new it was. And the interior was newer still. It looked like it had pulled straight from a magazine, the furniture all a little too immaculate and the floors a little too clean. Karina tried the lights a couple of times before giving up and going back to the car to fetch a flashlight. It was a comfortable weight in her hands, and she held it probably a little firmer than she had to.

Karina still had to hit it a few times before a flickering light came spluttering from the flashlight’s head. The beam barely made it past a couple of feet in front of them. For a brief and idiotic moment, Karina felt the urge to hold Winter’s hand like a kid, to feel her warmth and the security that it brought. She grasped the flashlight a little tighter and shook her head again slightly to clear it.

“So I take it we’re not splitting up to look for clues then,” Karina said.

Winter gawked at her. “Was that a Scooby-Doo reference?”

Karina shot back a mischievous smile. “It might have been.”

"Ning and Giselle are never going to believe me when I tell them that you made a pop culture reference," said Winter, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Especially when I deny it."

Winter looked scandalized. “Oh, c’mon.”

Karina didn't say anything. The flashlight flickered, and for a moment, the pair was in complete and total darkness. When the light returned, they were close enough that Karina could feel the body heat radiating from Winter, and for once, in the hostile cool of the empty house, she didn't mind it. "Stay close," she muttered.

“You don’t need to tell me twice unnie.” Glancing around the room, Winter shivered. “This place is creepy.”

“It definitely isn't somewhere I'd ever move,” Karina agreed.

Winter snorted as Karina pointed the light up to the improbably high ceilings, and they began making their way through the house. "Like either of us could afford a place like this on an institute salary."

"Not alone, maybe." Karina said.

Winter gave Karina an indiscernible look. "Who are you going to move in with? Ningning?"

Karina shook her head. "Ningning would kill me. I'm a terrible roommate."

"Are you?" Winter asked, uselessly flicking at the switch of a floor lamp. "I can't see that. You seem like the kind of person who cleans all the time."

Now it was Karina's turn to snort. "I most assuredly am not."

"But your desk is always so spotless!"

"Because all of my papers are in my flat." The flashlight beam fell on an end table, and its shadow climbed up the wall like a vine or a spider. Karina jerked the light away and her mind from the thought just as hastily.

"Ah."

Karina nodded, turning the flashlight to Winter, casting her round and comforting shadow on the wall instead, making it loom over them larger than life. "And that's not to mention I'm a terrible cook."

"That doesn't detract from your quality as a roommate, unnie," said Winter, pushing closed the empty cabinet drawer, glasses glinting in the tor