Giselle was a lot of things. She was funny, and pragmatic, and as lactose intolerant as she needed to be in the moment. She was a connoisseur of box wine, a master of all games except poker (but only against Ningning; she could never keep a poker face around her), an enthusiast of bad American reality TV, and above all else, Giselle was clever.

Everyone said it, and among her virtues, it was the one she prized the most. Clever: not just smart but able to use it. And she did use it. Giselle was, as Ningning insisted on calling her in whatever accent that was supposed to be, a hacker, and a rather good one at that. She was good with numbers and their usage. Very good with numbers. Banned at a handful of casinos and garage casino nights good with numbers. 

She was caring and captivating, good with people until she wasn’t, rational, sarcastic and only occasionally tetchy, confident and only slightly arrogant, unforgettable and indelible.

Yes, Giselle was a great many things, but very rarely was she baffled.

But now, here, staring at a worse-for-wear Karina and Winter from across her desk, all of Giselle’s cleverness fled from her, leaving her with only the bafflement.

The way they’d come in hadn’t helped. Returning as abruptly as they’d left two weeks ago, one minute Giselle had been rattling off some final notes into her report in the relative tranquility and stillness of her office, and the next there they were, covered in grime and sweat and slamming a pale blue Tupperware container of worms, to report a case. 

They were sitting now, and staring blankly at Giselle, waiting. 

They really did look awful. Karina was covered in bandages and plasters, standing out a grimey white and beige on her skin and a very noticeable Shiro bandaid on her face. Giselle had never seen her hair this messy. She looked like she’d just walked out a wind tunnel. And she was wearing Winter’s clothes. Again. They hung off of her almost comically, revealing a bony shoulder wrapped in yet more bandages and a thin scar across its collarbone. It looked somewhat recent. When had she been cut like that?

Winter was a mess too, though she did look a far sight better. She was far more clean-shaven for one and in her own clothes. She was also blessedly free of the bandages snaking their way across Karina’s body. Still, though, her clothes were rumpled and creased and her hair was plastered to the side of her face with sweat. The deep bags under both of their eyes were less the plastic grocery sort and more propper duffles.

And Giselle just stared at them, at her subordinates, her friends, and she had nothing to say. She opened and closed a few times but no words would come out.

“So I take it you weren’t on holiday then?” Giselle managed lamely after far too long.

Karina let out a snort, which turned to a harsh, barking laugh, unlike anything Giselle had ever heard from her (not that Giselle heard Karina laugh very much). She glanced at Winter who joined her, and they were overtaken with peals of manic laughter tearing shakily from their throats. Giselle cleared , and they settled down.

“No,” said Karina, recollecting herself. “We were most certainly not on holiday.”

“Where were you then?” Giselle asked, nervously tapping the pen in her hand on her desk. It was a good pen, fluid and black, and it never smudged. She was going to break it if she kept smacking it against the antediluvian wood of her desk. She kept tapping. “You’ve been gone for almost two weeks.”

“Winter’s apartment.” Giselle’s eyes went wide at Karina’s words, but she just shook her head tiredly. “I guarantee you whatever you’re thinking is not what happened.”

“There was a woman,” Winter explained, scratching the back of her neck.

“Full of worms,” added Karina.

Winter nodded. “Full of worms, yeah.”

“What?”

Winter tapped on the Tupperware container. “That’s where we got these.” 

Giselle stared into it. Dozens of pale, silvery bodies filled it. They were still, and clearly dead from the odor, but as Giselle looked at them she struggled to shake the feeling that they were moving, flowing, and writhing like slow-moving creek water. “From a woman full of worms?” Karina and Winter nodded. “Right.”

Winter looked at the pale blue Tupperware and bit her lip. “We think she was Park Sori.”

“Was,” emphasized Karina. “Definitely was. I don’t know how she was still alive.”

“I don’t think she was,” Winter said quietly. “Not really.”

Giselle knew Park Sori. Everyone at the Institute knew Park Sori, and Giselle had been to enough Departmental meetings with the head of Research to know that she was very real, and was definitely a threat. Or at least, she had been several years ago. “If she really is Park Sori you two need to file a report.” Giselle grabbed her tape recorder and put it between them. She knew what to do. Finally, in this weird and utterly baffling situation, she had a plan of action. “Are you...okay to do that now?”

“Probably not,” Winter admitted. “But we probably should.”

“Are you sure?”

Karina nodded curtly. “We’ll be fine.”

“Alright.” Giselle cleared and clicked on the tape recorder. “Case of Karina Yoo and Winter Kim, employees of Kwangya Institute, Seoul. Regarding?”

The ghost of a smile tugged smugly at Karina’s lips. “A holiday.”

“...Regarding a holiday. Go ahead.”

Two weeks ago

“You know you’re going to have to come in at some point, Unnie.”

Karina bit her lip and stared down the entryway of the apartment building she and Winter had been sent to investigate. They’d done this before, gone on cases that were dangerous. And Karina knew that. She had the scars to prove it. And she’d been fine in those cases; she’d stepped right over the thresholds without even a second glance. But that didn’t make her legs move now. “I know! I’m...getting there.”

“Getting where? The next step into the building?”

Karina glared at him. “I’m getting there, Winter!”

“Are you?” asked Winter, trying to sound put upon. She was too visibly close to laughter to look inconvenienced by her. “Because to me, it looks like you’re still standing in the doorway.”

“Fine,” Karina spat, squeezing the long-since warmed metal of the doorframe she’d been clutching in a death grip. She could do this. She really could; she was being irrational and Karina knew that, of course, she did. Karina made a move to step inside and instead ended up swaying in the doorframe. It was the most progress she’d made in ten minutes. 

Winter sighed. “Unnie, seriously. People live here. You can’t just stand in the door the whole time.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…” Karina ran a hand through her hair. “It’s a spider case, Winter. And when I go in, there are going to definitely be spiders.” 

“Technically just the one ghost spider, if that helps,” said Winter, unhelpfully.

“It doesn’t.”

“Right.” There was a beat where Winter stared expectantly at Karina, and Karina stared expectantly at the stained floor tiles that lined the entryway. “So I take it you don’t like spiders?”

Karina snorted. “No, I most certainly do not.”

“Really? But they’re so important for the ecosystem! They’re really helpful actually; they kill mosquitos and other harmful insects. And honestly, they’re really cute, or at the least the big furry ones that—”

“Winter!” Karina interrupted. “Not helping.”

“Okay, okay!” said Winter, holding up her hands in surrender. And she smiled, jokingly, half-jokingly, adorably. “Would it help if I held your hand?” 

Karina stared at Winter’s hand, extended and just within reach if she took one step in. It was a ploy. Obviously. And a joke. Winter was making a joke, right? And so if Karina really reached out and took her hand it would mean nothing but calling her bluff. She didn’t say anything, she just took that last step and intertwined her fingers between Winter’s, expecting at any minute for Winter to jerk away from her hand and laugh. 

She didn’t. 

Which was good. Karina didn’t want her to. Joke or no, Winter's hands were warm and firm, and alright yes, they did make her feel just a bit safer, childish as that sounded.

“Oh!” Winter’s face was very, very pink, but her hand was still in Karina’s, and her smile was luminous and beautiful. “Right! Are you going to be alright?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Winter sounded genuinely concerned. Because of course she did, she was Winter. She cared. “Because I can call boss, I’m sure she’d understand, and I can do this by myself, it’s alright, really, I mean it’s just asking around for information—”

Karina squeezed Winter's hand. Probably too tightly, but the prospect of Winter going alone into the spider's den terrified her far more than the prospect of going in herself. “I’m not leaving you alone with them.”

“Oh.” Winter tried and failed to bite back the grin on her face. “That’s...very gallant of you, unnie.”

“Yes well, I...need you to be safe,” admitted Karina, looking away from Winter as she adjusted her glasses. “More so than I need to not be near ghost spiders.”

Winter looked like she was about to say something in response, but was interrupted by someone behind them clearing their throat. Karina and Winter turned to see a man in an expensive-looking suit smiling placidly at them. “Can I help you two ladies?” the man asked, sounding, and quite honestly looking a great deal like Dongwook. “I’m Yoo Taeyang, I own the building.” He extended a pudgy hand for them to shake. “And you are…?”

“Winter,” Winter said, doing so. “And this is Karina. We’re thinking about moving here.” Karina had to do a double-take. For all of her own ineptitude at lying, it always surprised her just how good at it Winter was. She could be an actress. Karina supposed Winter had to be to explain all of Karina's supernatural injuries to Emergency staff. “Number four’s still open, right?”

Mr. Taeyang’s smile grew strained around the edges. “Yes. It’s been open for about a year now, and this is usually where I tell you some sort of line about there being a lot of interest and you should get it now before someone else snatches it up, but quite frankly it’s been long enough that I’m just tired of it staying unoccupied and not being an income source.”

“Could we ask about the previous tenant?” asked Karina, trying and probably failing to hide her unease. “We, uh, like to know the history of a place before we buy it.”

Mr. Taeyang’s smile had properly faltered now. “I—of course. His name was Han Kyungsoo. He was a model tenant, if not a bit odd.”

“Odd?”

“Well, he was a bit paranoid about spiders of all things, and he became a bit of a hermit by the end—the end of his occupancy that is,” the landlord added quickly, a plastic smile hurriedly pulled to his lips. “But he never caused any disruption or anything like that and the rent was always on time, so really he was, as I said, a model tenant. I wish all of my renters were like him.”

“Could we have a look at the apartment?” Winter asked. “There are some pictures on the website, but you can never really get the feel of a place until you’re in it, you know?”

Mr. Taeyang hurriedly jerked his watch to her face and whistled theatrically. “Ooops! Well sorry, I must be going ladies, I hope you decide to rent number four, you two seem perfectly lovely.” He left the two of them far faster than he had any right to in such a stiff-looking suit.

Winter blinked at the veritable dust cloud where the landlord had just been. “So he definitely knows something happened to Han Kyungsoo then.”

“I would seem so.”

Winter hummed in agreement. “So what next? Are we feeling door to door?”

“Not particularly,” Karina sighed, “but I doubt I have much say in the matter. If we can’t get into the apartment I don’t see much recourse besides door to door.”

“Are you going to be alright?”

“It’s not like I think that Mr. Kyungsoo’s neighbors are spider people, Winter,” snapped Karina, probably too harshly, but she wasn’t going to be handled with kid's gloves, even if she was nervous. She wasn’t a child, just a woman with a very normal and rational phobia.

“No, I know that. Just...you hate going door to door.”

“I’ll survive,” said Karina dryly. “Anyway, I believe Mr. Kyungsoo’s cat is now residing in one of these apartments, so it won’t be a total nightmare.”

Winter struggled to keep down a grin. “Are you really going to pretend you don’t know the cat’s name and where he lives now?”

Karina fixed her glasses and looked away from Winter and the almost definitely smug grin on her face. Winter officially knew Karina too well. “Rooney is in number two, should we start there?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Karina made the mistake of glancing at Winter’s face and the expression plastered onto it. “Oh don’t be so smug,” Karina groused. “It was a spider case. I needed something to keep me sane.”

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