FOUR.
REBOOT.Taehyung doesn’t bother me for the rest of the afternoon. In the middle of cooking up some subpar spaghetti, Andrews quietly informed me that Taehyung had ordered pizza an hour ago.
“Of course,” I grouse, stomping up the spiral staircase. “What else was I expe- ow.”
I look up in shock. Sasha is standing in front of me, one perfectly tweezed eyebrow arched.
“Oh, you’re still here?” she says, sounding mildly taken aback.
“Unfortunately,” I mutter, and continue making my way upstairs. Stupid Sasha. Stupid Cloe. Stupid all of them.
But then a few moments later, I realize that I have been walking up the stairs for about a minute. Usually, it takes me about 15 seconds. I frown, running up the stairs two at a time. But the staircase keeps spiralling on and on and on in a neverending loop. I slap my cheeks frantically rub my eyes.
Still in the middle of the stairs.
“What the hell,” I gasp, frantically sprinting up as quickly as I can. “Where-,”
And then I see it.
A tall black door sits at the top of the staircase. There are no other rooms next to it, no hallways, nothing.
Am I dreaming?
Curiously, I open the door and step inside.
My jaw drops.
“Holy .”
I have just stepped into a high-ceiling, brightly lit room, packed with rows and rows of colorful books. None of their titles sound familiar to me; in fact, most of them are written in a foreign language I cannot recognize.
“Weird,” I say. I’ll have to make a mental note of this place so I can come back later. Right now, though, I’m hungry as hell-
I freeze.
I blink once. Twice. Rub my eyes to make sure I’m not dreaming.
The door is gone.
I run to the front of the room, frantically patting for a doorknob. No way. This has to be some sort of hallucination. There’s- I literally entered the room through a black door. Where is it now?!
“Help!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Help me!”
Three hours have passed.
I can’t scream anymore- my voice has gone completely hoarse. I’ve tried both pinching myself and going to sleep so I can try and get out of this nightmare. My phone’s back in my room, and no one has heard my yells.
I’m trapped.
I am sitting on the floor with my head between my knees, taking deep breaths and forcing myself not to hyperventilate.
“Come on, Joo, it’s okay,” I whimper. Tears run down my face and drip onto the hardwood floor. “It’s going to be okay. Just think about this logically.”
I need to calm myself down. I need to distract myself. I shakily stand, glancing towards the bookshelves.
I’ll just read a book to pass the time until the door appears. It’ll be okay.
I scan the book titles, looking for a tome written in English. Finally, I spot a faded gold book whose spine reads, Magical Objects Explained. Its spine is unraveling, its dirty white pages are mouse-bitten, and it looks like it hasn’t seen the light of day in a century.
“If this book is about s, I’m burning it,” I sniffle.
I. Introduction
Magical objects are commonly used by sorcerers of all caster levels. However, it is necessary to fully understand how chi itself is created and functions. Then, one may grasp the manner in which one must wield and meld these objects. This will allow usage of one’s full magic potential.
Magic? I furrow my eyebrows. Is this an ancient book from the medieval times or something?
However, when I start reading Chapter One, that theory is instantly destroyed.
Quarks are the subatomic particles which make up hadrons (including protons, neutrons, and mesons). Mesons, for instance, are comprised of a quark bound to an anti-quark. Although quarks normally aggregate in groups of twos and threes in the natural world, we will be exploring the principles of four-quark and five-quark particles. Scientists from the natural world are just now discovering the existence of these particles, but have not grasped their full potential.
One report simply cited the discovery of pentaquarks as being indicative of the existence of a high density “quark star”, but have not realized that the collection and manipulation of these particles are at the core of magical practice.
My head is spinning. This isn’t “magic”- this is straight quantum physics. I remember reading an article about the existence of pentaquarks, but there was nothing about... magic. Jesus, this text is so dense it’s actually calming me down. Rubbing away my tears, I read on...
It is 6 in the morning when I finish the book. I wearily close the book.
It feels like my brain has been tossed into a blender, pureed, and served in a soup.
Everything I previously believed about physics, chemistry- science itself- has been completely upended. This book- this book provides instructions on how to manipulate matter itself. Magic apparently exists in this world, in the form of manipulated subatomic particles. You could theoretically make objects that, in a way, transcend the rules of.... well, this planet, at the very least. And if you adhere to the rules of order of the universe, you could manipulate the universe.
I groan, burying my head in my hands. No way. This isn’t real. What that book is talking about is ridiculously impossible. If it were real, then that book would be world-famous, and scientists would be controlling the world and someone would’ve ed up and we’d all be dead by now.
I slap my cheeks with my hands.
“Don’t be overdramatic,” I mumble. “Stop thinking about this.”
After placing the book on the floor, I slump back into my chair.
At least it’s a Friday night and I don’t have school to worry about tomorrow. I’ll just take a little nap, figure out what to do in the morning.
Taehyung finally got his wish, I wryly think as I doze off. I disappeared.
I am awoken by the sound of a door slamming open.
Andrews is standing in the doorway. When he sees me, his eyes widen.
“I found her!” he calls.
“Andrews,” I gasp. “Thank god-,”
Taehyung sprints into the room. His brown hair is in an absolutely disheveled mess. He stares at me with wide eyes, his chest heaving. I blink up at him in confusion.
“Jooyeon,” he breathes, and I realize that that is the first time he has said my name.
“The door,” I say softly. “It’s there now.”
“How did you get in here?” Taehyung asks in a low voice.
“I don’t know. All I remember is talking to Sasha, and walking up the stairs for forever, and then seeing a black door.”
Taehyung closes his eyes, clenches his jaw.
“Sasha,” he mutters.
“I couldn’t get out,” I say. “I- I don’t know why, but the door just vanished.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t have my phone! And besides, would you ever really help me?”
“You’re a ing moron,” he says, his voice rising. “What do you mean, the door disappeared? What the were you tripping on?”
“I’m being serious!” I exclaim, shooting up. “I screamed for hours, but no one heard me-,”
“And why would you just walk through a random door?” he shouts. “Are you ing stupid?”
“Master Taehyung,” Andrews says, raising an arm, but Taehyung slaps it away.
“The stairs kept going!” I say. Despite my will, tears begin to prick at my eyes again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to cook you food and do your work and be your , Taehyung. I can’t imagine the emotional trauma inflicted upon you by not having me at your beck and call for a night.”
“You’re absurd,” he scornfully tells me, and stalks out the door. Andrews and I are left staring after him.
“Come on now, Mistress Jooyeon,” he says, proffering the door for me. “I’ll make you some breakfast.”
“Can you just... give me a few moments, Andrews?” I ask, swallowing.
“Of course. Come down when you’re ready.” He makes to leave, but I quickly say, “Wait! The door... won’t disappear, right?”
The butler gives me a soothing smile. “Of course not, Mistress.”
“Thanks, Andrews.”
He leaves the room, and I take a deep breath, trying to recollect myself. What the hell happened last night? Was I really imagining the door not being there?
This is the most upset I’ve ever seen Taehyung. He was probably worried that his allowance would get cut if his mother discovered he had lost her dearest Jooyeon.
“Pull yourself together, Joo,” I mutter to myself. “Let’s go.”
As I am walking out from the desk, my foot hits a book sitting on the floor.
Magical Objects Explained stares up at me. I chew my lip.
“What the hell,” I finally say, picking it up.
There’s a lot of stuff in there I want to fact-check. I’m sure it’ll be alright if I borrow it for a little bit of research.
“I’m still a little worried, though,” my mom says, squinting at me through her laptop. “You look too thin.”
“It’s just the camera, Mom,” I laugh. “Don’t worry.”
“So are you and Taehyung still getting along well?”
I force a wide grin onto my face. “Yup! Best of friends, as usual. We’re really getting along.”
“That’s so good to hear! You know, me and his mom were best friends back in Korea. We had the craziest adventures- oh, I remember once, we were at this museum in downtown Seoul, and-,”
“Mom, stop,” I groan. She chuckles.
“Talking about the good old days never gets old.”
Smiling softly, I stare at my mother on the screen.
“Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“What if I came back home?”
Her eyes widen. “What? Why? You’re having such a great time in Windsong!”
“Yeah, but you know. I’m worried about the potpourri shop.”
“Oh, please.” My mother bats her hand. “Becca’s doing a wonderful job helping me out. And besides, I know it isn’t the shop that’s on your mind.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “I just really, really miss you and Lindsborg and everyone else.”
“Sweetheart.” My mother rests her head on her palm. “We miss you and love you, too. But listen to me, Jooyeon. You’ve always deserved better than our town.”
“What?! Lindsborg’s the best-,”
“No, it’s not.” Mom takes a deep breath. “You are so, so intelligent. You need to go to a school that challenges your mind and lets you get the education that you deserve.”
“Mom. Windsong isn’t even that good. I told you what happened in my Physics class. The only thing people have here is money.”
“Exactly! Windsong has so many resources. How about that lab you were telling me about?”
I sigh. “Yeah, I mean, I guess the lab’s alright. It’s literally like a professional lab- like, all the equipment you could ever need for any experiment’s in there-,”
Suddenly, Magical Objects Explained catches my eye.
Wait a minute. Windsong literally has university-grade equipment in its labs. I remember seeing all the metals and machines in there.
If I were to theoretically attempt to create an object from the book that harnessed pentaquarks and other manipulated subatomic particles... could I use the Windsong lab to do it? Would it even be possible?
“Sweetie?”
My eyes snap back to my laptop screen. “Yeah, sorry. Hey, Mom, you just gave me an idea. Do you mind if I take off to do some work?”
“Now that’s what I like to hear.” She blows me a kiss. “Take care, hon! Oh, and I’m sending some more potpourri in the mail-,”
“Don’t!” I squawk. “Bye!”
I don’t leave my room for the next 38 hours.
Papers are strewn all over my desk, along with science textbooks, chemistry lab manuals, and my laptop (which has about 20 tabs and 14 PDFs open on its own). Magical Objects Explained, or MOE, as I’ve affectionately dubbed it, is sitting in the middle of this enormous mess like the crown jewel of my tiara of loserdom. It is turned to a page on the creation of protective amulets, which apparently guard against other magical forces. I don’t particularly care about defending myself from magical forces that may not even exist, but this is the most straightforward object to comprehend in this book.
After taking another gulp of coffee, I look back at the instructions in the text. It calls for a source of energy to elevate the existing mesons’ energy levels. Something like a hydrogen split would make that possible, but how the hell am I going to do that in a high school laboratory? Furthermore, would it affect the orbital speed of the electrons?
“,” I mutter, wringing my hands through my hair. I have to figure this all out by Monday so I can get started on making this thing-
A loud voice catches my attention. I narrow my eyes. The walls here are soundproof, but I can clearly tell that the shouting is coming from Taehyung’s room. Slowly, I creep into the hallway.
“-told you this was a horrible idea!” he says. “She’s been here a month and Cloe’s scratched her, Sasha trapped her in the library-,”
Taehyung pauses. I creep back into the shadows.
“Ban them from the house? Are you kidding me? Just because of her? She isn’t even hurt!”
Ah. So he’s on a phone call.
“No, she didn’t take anything from the library. You sound so surprised by all of this. What were you expecting? Why would you ever think this- no, listen to me!”
“So what if I’m not treating her like a ing fairy princess?” he grumbles after a pause. “That’s not my problem. All this would’ve happened even if I was all buddy-buddy with her.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” He pauses, and then yells, “What?! Mom, what the hell? How is that going to solve anything?”
My eyebrows shoot up. Mom? He’s speaking to Mrs. Kim?
“Okay, okay, sorry. I won’t use that language,” he mutters. “But Mom, what- no, listen to me- are you serious? Mom!”
I hear the sound of something being slammed onto the wall. That’s my cue to leave. I scramble backwards, attempting to quickly hurry back into my room-
Taehyung’s door opens. He freezes when he sees me.
“Hey,” I say.
“How much did you hear?” he snarls.
“Just the last few minutes.”
“Didn’t they teach you it was rude to eavesdrop from the hovel you came from?”
“For your information, Lindsborg is a million times better than this place could ever be.” I turn around to go back to my room. “Your mother deserves to know the way you’re treating- ah!”
Taehyung has pinned me up to the wall. There is a dark expression on his face as he glares down at me, his eyes blazing.
“You’re not saying a word to her,” he utters. “Do I make myself clear?”
I defiantly stare back up at him. Suddenly, something snaps; I feel like I’ve just run a marathon in 100 degree weather. My limbs turn to Jello and I slump against the wall, my eyes glassing over.
“I said,” Taehyung says, lowering his face to mine. “do I make myself clear?”
“Fine,” I whisper.
He backs away, satisfied. My fatigued feeling disappears.
“Good,” he says, and strides back into his room.
A/N: IF U HAVEN'T SEEN, I UPDATED THE FOREWORD, SO READ THAT!!
OMG guys i woke up this morning (well.... at 2:20 pm) to like 21 new comments!! :D I LOVE U GUYS!! btw, sorry if i haven't replied to ur comment yet, ive been cooking a lot these days and it takes SO much ing time, like i know this sounds soooo dumb LOL but literally for example i started cooking at 5 pm and its 7:41 pm right now and im still not done ugh
please tell me ur thoughts and theories!!! i love talking to u guys about characters, places, etc
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