It's a surprise. Minhee is twenty, almost twenty-one, when she hears news of Hanyoung. It's been two years. Two years since her lungs have breathed the same air as her other half. Two years of trying to understand how her circuits work without him. Her lips haven't uttered any kind of insanity for those two years. Her lips have been carefully sewed and her words leave empty hums for the travelers. She leaves her nightingale's feathers in a treasure chest with the rest of her riches. Riches that only the fairest can see. She swears that she won't let the mundane know of her secrets.

 

"Hello, this is Minhee."

 

"Are you related to Hanyoung?"

 

Someone opens the key to her treasure chest. The colorful thoughts overwhelm her gray mind. There is another bang and a galaxy comes to life at the edges of her skin. Her heart stops.

 

Her voice hitches, her eyes widen, and she doesn't understand how this provider could ever have her number, but she only hums a little. She only says yes because their hearts are similar and he has a piece of her soul. He is her kin. Minhee runs out of her apartment when she drops the next few words. She doesn't want to hear the empty words that leave the woman's lips. The woman on the other line doesn't hear how the oxygen disappears from the air, and she can't feel that Minhee can't breathe the rest of the nitrogen.

 

It takes her ten minutes by feet to get to him. It couldn't be. No, Enki would not want his soul now. There would be no escaping. Yahweh would change his fate, wouldn't she? She could not let him travel the River of Styx before her fervent goodbyes. Hades is kinder than the Disney movies. She swears Hades has a heart. Her heart beats faster, her worries push her against her limits again and again. She wouldn't let him go without a proper goodbye.

 

She sees him in his bed. Sleeping. His lips are still pale like they have been for years. His hair is longer than before. His tattoos are still intact. And she swears there is still an endless amount of stardust painted onto his veins. His translucent skin leaves her breathless once again. She has a penchant for ghosts, ghosts of his kind. The ones with small wrists and lithe figures, ones that whisper fairy tales and speak of Greek tragedies. Minhee stares in disbelief. There's an IV drip attached to him, but she knows he is still alive. His heart, though weary, still beats. She would rather sell her soul to the devil than have him suffer what she suffered before.

 

To have him leave once left her heart in utter pieces. But to be near him, so close to loveliness, it brings tears to her eyes. But her tears have long dried after months understanding that he wouldn't be coming back soon. Her only wish is to have his fulfilled. It's a selfish wish. It is nothing more than her own desires being put in someone else's fever.

 

There is no cry. It becomes dark before long, and she forgets that she's been there for much too long. But she twiddles her thumbs and wonders if Hoonie is warming the tea for the midnight insomnia. The nurse asks if she'd like a cot, but Minhee shakes her head again. Slumber only reminds her of the beauty who pricked her finger on spinning wheels. Slumber brings memories that can’t be fixed with thread and needles. Often, her dreams are eaten by the figments of someone else's imaginations.

 

"Minhee?"

 

There's a frog in his throat. His voice is still as husky as she remembers. The nostalgia burns . She stares back at him. Her voice is lost in the thousands of grains of sand that she counted in the past years. His voice leaves careful punctures in her epidermis. How his voice brings her home. How he is the only sanctuary in ruins of a jungle.

 

"Forgive me for leaving."

 

"Of course. But you are back now. I wish that my empty message bottles got to you. The years have been so inadequate without you," she says suddenly. A voice she can't remember the last time she used. Her body has long forgotten the fairy dust that used to gloss her lips. Even she has forgotten it.

 

"You cannot be lying to me," he calmly states. His orbs of inkinesss stare deeply into hers. There is a lack of sanity and a fullness of grotesque musings. It so grotesque that she doesn't even ask why he appears in a hospital. She only smiles, sits on his bed, and the curiosity stares back at him. Her stories lack lacquer, and it is evident that her limbs have become brittle. But she still stares at his palms that read fortunes and carefully decides whether her fairytales are worth sharing.

 

"How could I ever lie to someone as beautiful as you?" she asks with a grin. "The humans have turned me pale. Their lips have uttered more and more misery that I have swallowed their calamities into my arteries. It forces the gates to close and I have yet to remember the last time I've felt happiness painfully," she rambles. But her cat-like eyes only watch the tides in his face. And as high as the moon is, so is the beauty in his eyes. She must have felt electricity jolt through her bones when Hanyoung spoke the next few words.

 

"I have found blood. The two years of traveling and calloused soles have gotten me to the destination. He is alive. His heart beats. He has eyes of mercury and gold. I have never seen anyone of his kind. I've longed for the day to see him face-to-face. To apologize for all the troubles I left behind. The world is cruel. The maps have finally pointed towards him," he rambles. There are extremely few times where Minhee remembers his eyes so bright before. And she smiles. She smiles at the constellations. She doesn't ask him how a sword gets stuck in his chest.

 

"Tell me more," she whispers when she can hear the nurse falling asleep.

 

There is nothing more intrinsic than he is. His bones have been broken in different ways, disjointed and messily put back together. She wonders if a contortionist has seen the same kind of insanity like his limbs. His voice crumbles at times, his breathing sounds like knives have punctured his lungs, but she stays by his side until the night becomes dawn and he falls asleep again. She whispers her wishes to Epiales. The spirits of her own world tell her that the spirit of nightmares would be sending her blood.  

 

Minhee stares blankly at the clock on the wall. The demons around her scream into her ears. Her sanity comes back suddenly. The white walled thoughts spray color. It is a home she misses too much. (Insanity runs through her veins, someone else left the depressant in her veins for too long.) The clock ticks, and the apartment she lives in feels like a mouth. She is being swallowed into unknown and eccentric calamities. Lifting her legs, she grabs her teddy bear, Hoonie, and leaves the empty body.

 

"Good morning, Hanyoung," Minhee giggles. Her feet always end up running towards the keeper. Her mind likes to whisper that he doesn't want anything to do with her anymore, but she puts it aside to stare at the ghost once again. Her fingers want to attach with his, but his fingers are frightened by other hands. Warmth is strange to ghosts.

 

"Good morning, Minhee," he replies. He sits up in his bed, the scrubs he wears only show the Egyptian Eye, his pale skin shines. There is something about it all that is enchantingly haunting. She's mesmerized.

 

"Did you sleep well?" she asks.

 

"Hypno must have been kind. There were no bothersome dreams or thoughts throughout the night. Though I doubt Epiales would enjoy such silence for too long," he answers. Minhee stares at his bags, his eyes that are exhausted from traveling. Fools would fall for the cards he sets on the table. If she could flip cards, they would show another fortune. The fates have never been on Minhee's side. She would not be sending her wishes to Greek deities for the rest of eternity. "You haven't slept."

 

It's a statement that she doesn't care for. Insomnia has plagued her for years. Her lips try to form words, but instead she hesitates and the sea witch decides to steal her voice.

 

"Minhee."

 

"Hanyoung."

 

She grasps onto Hoonie a little harder. She hears Hanyoung hum more words with his violin-like voice. It's a hum to her ears and every word he utters remind her of prophecies yet to be proclaimed. His voice echoes, it bounces off the empty hospital walls. The vibrations are foreign at times. The familiar sound of his voice becomes oddly estranged to her ears. But she listens to his voice once more, reminding herself that Hanyoung is breathing in front of her. (Sometimes, it feels as though his soul disappears.)

 

"Capgras delusion, a disorder that causes a person to believe that someone close to them has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor," Hanyoung states. Minhee looks away from Hoonie to the ghost who is attached to tubes. It sounds familiar to her ears. She isn't surprised when his inky eyes dull her sensations and steal her vocal chords. Someone rips at them, and it's an attempt for the sea witch to keep it at bay. Oh, how she wishes the mistress could steal someone else's. She thinks that at some point the neurons stop interacting with the others, the dendrites and axons don't mix, but biology was never her strong suit.

 

"I've seen a thousand faces, but yours has never been so distant before," she mumbles, her voice a slow squeak. "The stars are so far away. Yours were even further away," she continues. His face grimaces the same way it did years ago. The colors of yellow, purple and black plague her mind and she suddenly feels the urge to wrap her arms around his body.

 

"You called me once an imposter, is it possible that it has happened again?" he asks. It becomes second nature for her. Her lips don't utter any kind of hope or optimism but when he questions her, she wishes she has a pretty mind to save him. She embraces him, breathing in the scent of hospital and mercury, silver and antimony. His figure tightens in her embrace, (he has never been one fond of physical touching), but he relaxes when she whispers French into his ears. The French is still chicken scratch, and she is sure that Hanyoung would tell her that it needs more work, but she enjoys the moment. His relaxed state, his presence, his being, he is here in the flesh. Something that she still cannot believe, he disappears in the night, haunts her rooms, and appears once again. She has a penchant for ghosts.

 

"It has happened. Spirits don't follow me in the dark, you appeared. I thought my being was being played with," she whispers. Her voice starting to sound familiar to her vocal chords. The hug is untied and she stares at the beauty in front of her. His figure is as lanky as it is before. Her memory starts to cloud her judgement, and it bends in ways she doesn't expect it to bend. Her ears screech, her face grimaces, she puts her head into his chest because someone needs to make it stop. Someone needs to quiet the demons in her head. Before she can utter a whim, she hears the nurse tell her that he has to get some tests. Minhee watches as they wheel him away. His smile is extremely slight and he waves. She waves. It's a void.

 

Minhee drags Hoonie somewhere else, somewhere far from her pit of despair. Somehow, she can tell that the fortune teller knows what the tarots will be foreshadowing.

 

"I'd allow you to kill me," Hanyoung states as he puts down card after card. Minhee only blankly stares at the cards in her hands, wondering if her suits are higher than his.

 

"I would rather face a thousand deaths than kill you," she replies as she sets her cards. Their eyes meet as she pauses between breaths. It's a slow and almost dangerous statement. His lifeless eyes stare into hers, somehow, her eyes want to breathe for him. The ink like eyes look back at his cards, and set another sweep down. "Perhaps you should kill me instead," she answers. After living without her other half, life has been meaningless. Routine becomes a code of zero's and one's, someone must take her out of her misery. Take her wings, pull at her feathers, tell her she has to suffer the most painful death. Give her the death that she deserves.

 

"But you must meet my brother before you do so," he states. There's a nod from her head, she smiles lightly and he wins another round of the absurd card game they play. His sanity is by far healthier than her sanity. It is for the better, she thinks. But there is another error flashing upon her thoughts. She sometimes looks at Hanyoung and forgets that she is supposed to be the sane one. One of them has to be sane if the other is in the hospital, but she comes under the impression that no one is sane in this mad house. "If I can't be the one to save him, I would rather have you take care of the dove."

 

His will is embedded into her mind. The words hold a strength that she can't fathom. Through the empty looking glass, she nods her head quietly. Perhaps the ghouls wouldn't plague her mind when he's around. She hopes so. "Of course, I will treat him as kindly as I treat you," she promises. His smile is lopsided, a force that demons pull into too many different directions. A smile she falls in love with when humans ask her questions. (She knows Hades has asked her to travel to the River of Styx and pick a soul to carry.) Her eyes stare at his hair that is glistening with grease. The conditions haven't been kind to him, and she thinks his soul needs to be cleaned because the demons have already slashed his insides. There is too much blood that drips onto the tiles.

 

Her fingers intertwine with his. The nurse stays and watches. The woman curses the girl for dragging him into the bathroom. The girl loosens the strings of his robes, her voice hums quietly.

 

(Undo the pain that was once his, let me be the bearer of his misery.)

 

A prayer that perhaps God would reject. But it's her greatest prayer.

 

The bruises and yellows are still there. Her cold fingers traces over the scars and she silently slips a prayer in between her tracing.

 

(If You exist, will you let me bargain my life for his?)

 

"Must you do this, Minhee?" Hanyoung asks icily, his voice reminds her of winter and bare trees. The words aren't meant to be harsh. Her lips quietly utter a yes, but he can't hear it over the roar of the showerhead she turns on. She carefully puts the soap onto his body, she gets soaked as well, but she doesn't mind. She's close with Hanyoung, she remembers unraveling his being in the years prior. This becomes a normal occurance and his being doesn't faze her. "Thank you," he mumbles. She traces the bruises and scars as though they're trails. His back still has the same countries ingrained into them. The same Galaxy she grows up with.

 

"Close your eyes," she instructs as she brings the shower head towards his shampooed hair. "Even ghosts must look presentable for Hades," she whispers. Her voice becomes heavy with a foreshadow that he can feel. No one would like to accept the fate of death. She stares blankly at the male in front of her. The realization starts to sink in her bones. The fluttering fear starts to makes her wings shudder. The nightingale is starting to sing its death song.

 

"Would you kill me?" Hanyoung questions louder than the shower.

 

"If you killed me first."

 

She dresses him in his gowns, leaves her touch on his body, and though he shudders, she shudders at the thought of losing someone as beautiful as he is. How the Underworld be kind to him.

 

"May I stay for the night?" she asks politely. His body shrivels in the hospital bed, and she's reminded that denial is a strong defense mechanism. He nods his head. She falls asleep right next to him. Her smile is soft and piercing.

 

Minhee wakes up to a rustle. Her eyes widen as they stare at an open window, the wind blows at the olive curtains. She turns to the side to know Hanyoung is missing. (He has always been cold, but the bed seems even colder now that he disappears.) The nurse is gone. Hanyoung is gone. Minhee hops off from the bed and her feet flitter out the window.

 

The sixth floor isn’t as high as she would presume it is. She grabs onto ledges like they’re the swings to her acrobatic games in the circus. Her finger grip tightly to the concrete and she walks on the tightropes, the wires, until she reaches to a place only she would hide.

 

The stars are light years away, but she feels the closest with the light.

 

The pale figure sits on the cold ground. His eyes faces the skies full of stars. They were both part of the astronomy club. Her footsteps are clumsy and too fast for her body. She leans her body against his back. The cold wraps its arms around her body, a familiar presence.

 

The stars are as silent as they are. What Hanyoung does, she will never know, but she watches as a falling star passes by. She doesn’t wish for anything because her only wish sits besides her. Her only dream is him and he knows she should live without him. The cold becomes a monster with its touch and she wraps her arms around his petite waist. There are factors that would make Hanyoung shiver, human contact is one of the eccentric ideals. But she grasps onto him for dear life. There is nothing more than him. Her touch lingers onto him for a bit too long. She lets go and lays her back against his. One could not steal the beauty, never.

 

If only it was easy to live without him. She lived years without him. She should have been fine. She knows the falling stars were the reaper's warning. The nurse tells her when she goes home after a long day with Hanyoung. A day after the falling stars appear. It’s a scene of nothingness.  There is a moment in time where she stares at the nurse, thanks her for her time and quietly leaves the hospital. The nightingale starts to sing.

 

There are no tears in her eyes. The mermaids steals them from her eyes, takes it to eat and swallow because tears of utter sadness are the most delicious. Minhee doesn’t cry. She takes out a page of her notebook and sighs. No one would take care of his funeral better than her. Oh, how Yahweh hates her. Oh, how God would never answer her prayers.

 

Enki would be proud that Hanyoung acquired those attributes. Perhaps, he would become the king of the underworld. A crown of bones always fitted him. Or perhaps a third eye. Her mind starts its own journey and leaves Minhee clinging onto her life.

 

She remembers the nights in the neighboring houses. She remembers the flashlights and the Morse code. She remembers running on wires towards his home, towards his room, tapping against the glass when she was little and asking him if he would like to build a snowman. Hanyoung is a ghost even as young as five. (She starts writing the guest list for his funeral, she reads the will that is mailed to her, and she invites people in a journal he sends with it, she does the work.)

 

Opposites, they would say. Minhee is the color of fire and vibrant worlds. Hanyoung was the ink on every painting, the color of poetic simplicity and poison. He’s the beauty in the sky. The ghost that illuminates her nights. She thinks that he haunts her sometimes so she says hello to her empty home. It's not really a home anymore.

 

She says hello to the man who would always have her soul. (She chooses the cremation instead of the burial. She never believed that he would like to be buried under the dirt and horrors with other skeletons.)

 

Puncture, a wound on her fingertip from stabbing too many things into her mind. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn't sting. It is only red and she puts it in , hoping it would go away. (She thinks that if she swallows the metal, she might see Hanyoung. Blood is always thicker than water.)

 

Cracks. The door to the rundown place is still there. It is still open. It seems untouched since she the last time she was with him. She’s not used to being a leader, she follows. She followed Hanyoung inside, followed until she lost his light. Her wings shudder, the demons at her side start their whispering.

 

This time is different. She swings the lantern in her grasps. The halls creak when her feet apply pressure to the floorboards. It is terrifying to be there alone. The demons get louder in her head, they press their claws into her shoulders.

 

The silence buries her thoughts under the dirt. The only thing she can feel is the cold against her legs. She utters a prayer to Enki. She doesn’t believe in the devil anymore. She doesn’t believe in heaven and hell. She believes in the hauntings and screeching of ghosts.

 

The girl swears that if there is a spirit following her it would be Hanyoung’s. The Underworld let ghosts out to wander, doesn’t it?

 

The hallways are still eerily whimsical. The shades of gray and green bounce off walls as her tiny speck of red brightens a path. The wood is rotting more, mold appears in places that weren't there before. Time changes things, humans and inanimate objects alike. Her memories flash, the halls are still a trigger for the gun called Misery. The memories play as she remembers familiar doors, recognizes a stop in the last adventure she had with Hanyoung. Is this what a flashback is?

 

Her fiery locks dim as she opens the golden knob of the piano room.

 

It’s there where she watches chaos swing from the chandelier. Spirits scream so she can’t even hear the ringing. The dark room is illuminated by her lantern. She roams around the room, trying to find her best friend in the drunken mess. They lay on the piano. They pour wine for one another, they dance and play instruments. They giggle and feed her lies of betrayal and lust. They are ghosts without a purpose. Those without a purpose find themselves drunk in a room where nothing but regrets haunt them. They ask if she would join their fun. The transparent liquid is passed around. There is laughter and her demons leave to join. The ghastly band plays so happily, she wouldn't have thought the room was miserable.

 

He’s not there, she assumes. The scent of alcohol fills her nose and she says her goodbyes to an empty room. They don’t really care. The demons come running to her side.

 

The ghosts rather be drunk off their pasts. Her lantern makes a noise and she wanders from room to room, wondering if Hanyoung would appear to her.

 

Instead, she has memories to their adventure in this dark place. He would surely have her wings by now. Perhaps he could fly. Minhee remembers the soft voice that recalled the history of a human being she can’t remember the name of anymore. She tries to piece together his history once again. She pulls short and finds herself leaving the broken down home.

 

Hanyoung doesn’t haunt her in the house. Slowly, she retraces her steps, follows the glow-in-the-dark path towards the academy. The empty school used to house the two circus freaks. The one that allowed her into the security rooms with only an open door. How poison and water were mixed and poison would always be less dense than the water. The halls, that were so lively before, dims into a wreckage. She remembers holding onto his hand when they went to a class. He always had to be by her side. She could not face the abnormal humans without him.

 

Each step is scarier now without him. It is terrifying to move from one white tile to another without him being near her. But she bites the blood back, bites the disdain and bets her fairy dust for his soul.

 

She follows the glow-in-the-dark footprints towards the dorms, towards the bedroom where she fell asleep in. The melody of a fairy tale plays softly. The room is still the same. Her fingers follow the empty beds to Hanyoung’s.

 

She remembers the maps placed on the bulletin boards, pushpins for locations and words that she never understood. She touches the bulletin board, the fingers glide across the walls. She remembers asking him about it, but she forgets if he ever answered them or not.

 

The bed is empty without him. It feels odd to be on a bed that doesn’t have a certain warmness to it. The warmness of familiarity that Hanyoung would be running back to the room. She slowly rises from the bed, her feet dancing towards the bathroom. Slowly, slowly, she remembers soaking the sadness in the bathtub, her whispers were careful for Hanyoung because he often tripped on nails.

 

There is another prayer for Enki. Perhaps, the soul would tell her where to go. But there is never an answer. There is never an answer to her questions. There are memories at each step. Different colors plague the ground. Her fingers hold onto the door. She stares at the empty beds, she stares at the empty memories. The smile on her face disappears on her face, the lantern loses its light. There is a bitterness. A bitterness that can’t be tasted with her tongue.

 

Yahweh always played cruel jokes on her. Enki seemed like it would do the same to her depleting energy. She angrily holds onto the doorknob. She would give away her wings, her smiles, her laughter, for Hanyoung. There is nothing in the world that she would rather have than Hanyoung by her side. She lived seven hundred twenty days without him. It is unfair that the gods would ever play a dastardly game with her. Let her see Hanyoung after so long and then take him away from her after a few weeks.

 

Her grip on the door loosens, she slams it behind her. She slams the existence out of her mind. Yahweh has played too many tricks on her. Those who worship such a god would be answering to empty pleas.

 

A scream leaves. Her feet run away towards the empty party house where she slept, studied, and worked in. Run, they tell her. Run back to the room that is filled with cannabis and sleeping pills. Teas full of grapefruit and raspberries, bittersweet and sour tastes.

 

The gods have played another game with her. They pull her apart, and she has to sit on the ground to regain her breath. The anxiety slips. The demons fill her old dorm room. Drink they tell her, drink until the poison gives her the death she needs. Drink from the poisoned chalice, die the death Juliet would be worthy of. The numbness she becomes accustomed to the last few days has a human form. One that has locks of wicked snakes, eyes of crimson and gold, skin as dark as the void. Deadlier than the Sphinx. More merciless than Ares. More terrifying than Medusa. A bloodlust that takes souls one at a time.

 

Hanyoung is dead.

 

Enki would never give him back. Hades would leave him in the River of Styx. The ghosts would never know his whereabouts. There is no hauntings from her familiar friend. She wishes she had Capgras delusion. She wishes she forgot who he was. She wishes that her mind would erase him. (That lie needs to be washed with sulfuric acid.) He left her.

 

She screams.

 

But she doesn’t drink. The gods torture her without the ambrosia. If only Poseidon had the ability to control her sea of sadness. How her tears could fill a dried up ocean. Her screams are louder. The ghosts would hear her now. The ghosts would hear every bit of her misery. They would feed off her depression. Take her to the underworld with them. Regret, misery, disappointment, loss, loneliness, her acquaintances are quite lovely that way. They tell her everything that she tries to ignore the last few days.

 

“The boy is dead now.”

 

“The Devil has him now.”

 

“You have no one once again.”

 

“You’re nothing but a particle of dust.”

 

“Who cares about your existence?”

 

They guide her in the dark at times like these. It is not fair. The fortune teller needs to tell her if she would live among the shadows, if she could really live without knowing her soulmate enjoyed death’s touch. Missing him would be the longest struggle.

 

The wind blows out her lantern’s light. The darkness consumes her. Her sobs are louder when the nightmares come to life. They lift her chin, kiss her lips, and leave the rotting taste of misery in . She lingers. She lets the shadows abuse her lips, abuse her vulnerability, leave her and nameless. She begs for more. It is the truth serum.  

 

“He could never have stayed with someone as pathetic as you.”

 

It’s true, she thinks. With one more kiss, Minhee wipes away the last of her tears. The realization settles onto her shoulders. The burdens are as light as the wings on her back. Hanyoung is dead.

 

There are preparations for the funeral to finish. She slowly heads home. She slowly pieces the memories together. Even when he’s dead, he has the other half of her heart. His part still beats in hers. Yahweh loves to play grotesque tricks on her.

 

His funeral is on a Wednesday. She wears a black dress, greets the guests that he wrote on the letter to invite. She remembers them by name, she remembers them the same way she remembered the students at school. There is bound to be some mercury left from her academy days in her veins.

 

“I’m glad you could come, Miss Lee.”

 

“Thank you for your condolences, Mr. Kim.”

 

“We all wish he was still with us.”

 

Minhee spits out verbatim for the plastic dolls to hear. There is a string to pull and they place their dirty hands on it. She plays the same way anyone else would play it. They enter the funeral home. She sits in the front row, listens to the ceremony, cries when it is appropriate. There is nothing more she would want than to disappear in the pews.

 

She’s sure that he wouldn’t want this kind of ceremony, but his letter to her says otherwise. The letter, the notebook, there is much, too much information to process, and humane words are often robotic and odd for her lips.

 

Her name is called, leisurely, she walks towards the podium, lays her speech on it, and she stares at the humans in front of her. They all look ghastly. They all look dead. It as though Hades took them all to the River. She wonders if they ever cared about him.

 

“Hanyoung is, was, amazing…” she starts. The blank faces stare back at her. Bring him back, they mumble in her the silence. The ghosts in the piano room are still drinking their hearts out. Drunken fools. They hunger for magnesium and gold. “He often told me fairy tales when the days seemed so dismal,” she continues. The nightmare waits at the end of a pew. Let him kiss the ends of her curls.

 

There are tears in others’ eyes, there are supposed to be screeches and sadness, but Minhee is cold, heartless even. If she was allowed to, her lips would curve into a smirk and drink off the misery. Cynical really, but which one is the most opaque of them all? Who is the one that is transparent? Who is the person with the lifeless smiles, a chemical formula that has a product of hydrogen gas?

 

“Hanyoung is a ghost that I’ve had a penchant for. The same kind of penchant that others have for family and friends, loves. He spent nights reading the same fairytales so I felt safe. I’ve found fairies to hide in mason jars, created forts to watch movies and while he hated the touch of a human being, he allowed me to touch his hands, body, his soul.”

 

The humans stare back at her with a confused look. Hanyoung argued before that Minhee and he were the abnormal humans. The ones in the pews lived a classical life of orthodox tales and calculations. She would rather live her life as a walking wonder than an average person. The confusion is almost exciting at this point.

 

“My first and only wish was for him to find what he was searching for. If he found it, then I would be content. I spent his last few breathing days listening to the tale of his younger brother, and the fairy tale of his adventures written in a black notebook. They were scrawled, really. And I’ve had the joy to see how his eyes had a sparkle. I will always remember that he died with a treasure at the end of the journey. His Odyssey had a bittersweet ending, but an ending nonetheless.”

 

She steps down from the podium. Humans are extremely strange. The ceremony continues and she doesn’t cry when he is cremated and she has the ashes. She’ll wait a hundred days before she throws them somewhere. She’s not sure where or how yet. She’s not sure if she really should. Her body is numb to the crying she did hours ago. She’s still not ready to say goodbye. She internally giggles at the sanity of humans. Her insanity takes its rightful throne, and she has to let it be. Normality is too strange for her.

 

They start to leave and she thanks them, briefly with a small smile, but someone else catches her eye.

 

A figure that is as lanky as her soulmate, someone who has the same dark eyes, but perhaps a more interesting physique and something that reminds her of Hanyoung, only a bit. She doesn’t remember the guest list at this point, but she remembers the inky eyes that her other half has.

 

Intrigued, she takes a few slanted steps towards the boy. His visuals aren’t the same like Hanyoung and he is not a clone of her other half, but he’s so similar. The same dark color hair, the same dark eyes, and the same lankiness that Hanyoung always had. She bends her knees, smiles and asks, “Are you Hanyoung’s brother?”

 

The boy nods his head in a way that makes her clench in pain. There is something different about him. The Hunchback of Notre Dame would be a suiting name for his being.

 

(“But you must meet my brother before you do so.”)

 

The ice melts slowly. She pulls out Hoonie from the backpack she carried to the funeral because she knows Hoonie would never want to miss this one.

 

“My name is Minhee,” she whispers. “Are you safe?” she asks, her eyes wander aimlessly because she’s not sure what to say to strangers that remind her of the other half. Safe is a word that she doesn’t understand. There is nothing captivating about safety, but there is something amazing about danger. But she has to be on the same level as the boy in front of her.

 

“No…” he says quietly. She remembers that there are humans who are born with a third copy of the twenty-first chromosome. She remembers that humans also could have disfigurements and she should never call him The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but his brother never had a nickname. She doesn’t have a name to call him.

 

“I know who you are,” he says slowly, his tongue swings in and out as quickly as it does. They have a mental IQ of 50 is what she remembers. There is a slow realization that perhaps, Hanyoung has talked about her before to him. She was important to him somehow.

 

“Would you like a home?” she asks, continuing to ask the questions, her eyes entranced by the inkiness of his eyes.

 

“Yes.”

 

“I’ll take care of you,” she states softly, she gives him Hoonie the bear. Takes his left hand and guides him to her apartment that is too empty. There are short stories she tells, but she lets the busy streets speak for her. There are moments when her smile shakes. There are moments when she tries to remind herself that accepting death is normal.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Minhee lets him sleep in her bed as she brews tea in the kitchen. Her smile is soft and like those of fairies at times when others need her. His last words bother her, but she only shakes her head. They don’t sound like Hanyoung. His brother is not him. It takes her a moment to remember. It will take a lifetime to understand that he is not Hanyoung.

 

Hanyoung will haunt her until she dies whether it be in his brother, or in the spirits. There are promises to keep, and words that will always stay the same. A part of her dies with Hanyoung while Hanyoung’s half still beats in hers.

 

She’ll haunt the mortal world with him when she has the chance, but she’ll keep his last wish on his will.

 

(Dear Minhee,

 

To you, I cannot give you much. I do, however, need someone to take care of my kin when I become too ill to protect him from the dangers of the outside world. Perhaps, you can do that for me. The gods don’t enjoy disfigured mortals, they enjoy disfiguring them. I digress. But Uranus, I will see you soon.

 

-Hanyoung)

 

Minhee drinks her green tea at the kitchen table. A childlike grin appears on her face.  The silence is almost deafening, but she can hear the soft whispers of her favorite ghost. The Latin plays like a violin. The French is a scent she can’t get rid of. She always had a penchant for ghosts, their transparent smiles, their veins are colors she still can’t see, and their whispers would always speak the truth.

 

“Goodnight, Hanyoung. I will see you among the stars tonight.”