When Yerim woke up, there was a feeling that something was missing. It was a feeling that wasn’t unfamiliar to her; she felt it every morning when she woke up as if she wished that she could go back to the world in her dreams. She could never really remember what exactly she would see in her dreams, but if the pain she felt in her heart was any indication, it must’ve been something nice. But as she awoke, dry and her eyes watery, her heart ached and ached. In what seemed like an eternity in a blink of an eye, she watched as a blur of memories passed, exiting her head as it did every morning. She remembered the first morning it had happened; her heart ached then too. It ached like that again now.

Yerim buried her face into her hands as she felt tears run down her cheek. When she woke up to mornings like this, she would often try to stop herself. But she would allow herself to cry today. She thought that she was getting better; it had been a while since she had last gotten a headache and an asthma attack. Yet, here she was, back at 0, completely stripped of whatever progress she may have had. She allowed herself to cry, for who she was now, for the her then that was missing. Her heart ached and ached. It ached then, and it ached now. When would it stop?

Upon hearing incoming voices, she quickly stopped her tears and feigned that she was still asleep. As the voices came closer, she immediately recognized them as Lalisa and Jimin.

“Is she alright?” Lalisa asked, her voice thick with concern. “She’s overexerted herself today. I don’t expect her body to recover well.”

“She collapsed,” Jimin replied but his voice was more assuring than panicked. “But Lady Joohyun had insisted to take care of it. She said that she will personally attend to the matter herself. She knows of Yerim’s incident and realized that you might overexert yourself healing two parties.”

Yerim felt a wave of guilt wash over her. She hadn’t meant to be an inconvenience. Seulgi’s well-being was Lalisa’s main priority on this trip. Her friend couldn’t even do her duty properly because of her.

“Don’t be too bothered or guilty about it,” Jimin spoke again. “Yerim’s health also means a lot to Seulgi. We need all our staff to be as healthy as they can be on this tour. We can’t let both you and Yerim get ahead of themselves so early on the tour. I’ll personally make sure to update both of you about her well-being.”

“Thank you, Jimin-ssi,” Lalisa replied. There was some shuffling before footsteps entered the room and the door was closed. Yerim shut her eyes tight and heard a breath being let out.

“I know you’re awake, Yerim.”

She immediately opened her eyes to be greeted by the sight of Lalisa’s gentle but tired face. She must’ve stayed up all night taking care of her.

“I’m sorry,” she began, her voice hoarse and cracky. “I didn’t mean to be a nuisance.”

Lalisa gave the same smile that she always did when Yerim would apologize every time she collapsed. “It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re okay.” Lalisa then placed her hand on Yerim’s forehead. “That’s a relief. It seems like your fever went down.”

Yerim watched as Lalisa’s busy hands got to work on making her medicine. It was a routine that Yerim had almost memorized. Lalisa would prepare a paste, spread it on her pressure points, and begin to chant. As Lalisa’s chant entered her ears, Yerim felt herself slip away and descend back again to sleep.

-----

Joohyun looked carefully at the sleeping mortal. The vision of the floating apparitions ran through her mind as she did. Joohyun had lived a long life but she had never seen anything like it before. Even before the poor songbird collapsed, Joohyun had immediately made up her mind that she must spend time with the songbird. Her potential was something that she herself could not fully conceive, and she was interested to know more.

She blew softly into her hands before molding her breath into a glowing white orb. She held it gently in her fingers before dropping it between the mortal’s eyebrows. Seulgi’s body began to glow brightly. The glow didn’t last long and dimmed as Joohyun created a soft breeze that wrapped itself around Seulgi’s body. The tension in the mortal’s face soon disappeared and she let out a soft breath before shifting into a more comfortable sleeping position.

Just as Joohyun sat down on the chair beside the bed, a soft knock was heard by the door. It opened with a small flick of her hand and Taehyung and Jimin entered.

“Is she doing okay?” Jimin asked.

“She’ll be fine,” Joohyun reassured him. “Just a little fatigued. Nothing too serious. I didn’t even need to use too much magic to heal her.” Joohyun stared at the sleeping mortal as a plan started to unfold in her mind. She began twirling her fingers in the air, a habit she had when she would think. “I would like to begin the tour as soon as possible.”

“Are you sure?” Taehyung said, his voice revealing how apprehensive he was to the idea. “Her body is still weak; we don’t know how bad it will be if she overexerts herself so soon. Plus, the fact that you volunteered yourself to take care of her… I know that you’re capable of powerful things but the last thing we want is the songbird to be a hindrance to you.”

She immediately waved him off. “You of all people should know that she is the last thing to being a hindrance to me. She’s got a lot of potential and I want to see personally how it grows. Her body is adjusting rapidly anyway if tonight was any indication.”

Taehyung immediately shut his mouth and let out a sigh. “Should I tell Tzuyu to ready the Cloud?”

Joohyun nodded and Taehyung exited the room. Jimin slowly followed him but not before turning around to take one last glance at the two females. Joohyun was staring at Seulgi so intently that he couldn’t help but wonder what in the world she was thinking. He headed outside, still wondering whether her intuition was telling her the same thing his intuition told him when he had chosen her: there was something about this mortal that they had not seen in a long time.

When the door closed, Joohyun let out a breath she didn’t know she was keeping. She let her hands fall to her lap as she bowed her head. To be truthful, there was a specific reason why Joohyun wanted to spend more time with the mortal. She had a suspicion about her that she had wanted to confirm. And if her suspicion were true, things were about to become completely unpredictable.

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