Sooyoung’s idea of “playing” was much different than Yerim thought it would be. Yerim had imagined it would be some kind of intricate form of magic, involving interdimensional travel or something just as surreally similar.

    But it wasn’t. Not even remotely.

    To begin, Sooyoung’s room appeared almost exactly how Yerim expected it to; very pink and very girly, with a lavish bed and lots of stuffed animals. The taller girl had led her in there and immediately sat her down in front of the vanity mirror. Then, she’d requested to do Yerim’s makeup. The confused brunette had tentatively agreed, and was unsurprised when the end result turned out to be a ridiculous, clown-like look, with a thick layer of pale makeup, far too much mascera, and an absorbent amount of cherry-red lipstick. Yerim had the feeling that Sooyoung knew exactly what she was doing, because midway through applying the makeup, the older girl fell into a fit of child-like giggles that were so contagious that both girls had to take a five-minute break to gather themselves. Then, upon Yerim’s insistence, Sooyoung had reverted her face back to normal, using that much appreciated magic of hers.

    After the whole makeup fiasco was over, Sooyoung had gone into her closet and pulled out many different board games. She highlighted “Connect Four” as her favorite, although they pretty much went through every single one of the games, besides “Monopoly” which Sooyoung stated was simply “too boring”. Curiously, there were many board games that looked like they came from a long time ago, such as a 1960s version of “Monopoly” and a 1930s version of “Chutes and Ladders”.

    Yerim noted that while Sooyoung was child-like, she was also very intelligent. Her strategies in many of the games, particularly chess, were complex and unreadable to the younger girl, who had no hope whatsoever of figuring out what the mysterious witch was thinking of, and usually ended up losing. Sooyoung was an amazing sport about it too, always complimenting Yerim no matter how badly she performed.

After they’d exhausted all of the board games (which seemed to take both forever and no time at all, much like everything else that occurred in the house), they played rock-paper-scissors and various hand and word games that Yerim had learned in school. She refrained from teaching Sooyoung any of the more inappropriate ones, as she felt the older girl was too pure to be introduced to such things. Eventually, Sooyoung offered to tie Yerim’s hair into braids, returning them to the vanity mirror from which they’d began. As Sooyoung went about her work (Yerim had insisted that she take it a bit more seriously this time), Yerim found herself wondering what life was like for Sooyoung on a “daily” basis.

    “So what do you do all day, Sooyoung?” Yerim asked, wincing slightly as the older girl pulled just a bit too hard on her hair, “Since nobody else here plays with you?”

    “Well, I usually play with myself,” the girl paused for a moment, a small blush forming on her cheeks, “Not in that way. I mean like, I just kind of do things alone. I put a lot of makeup on, try different hairstyles, try on different dresses… stuff like that.”

    “Doesn’t that get boring?”

    “Well, sometimes. I can also play with magic, just creating things and stuff, but that’s honestly more boring to me. But I do it sometimes. And it’s not like the other girls never play with me. It’s more like, they don’t play with me often. Sometimes we’ll all cook together in the kitchen, or read books, or just talk about things. Sometimes I’ll play the games Wannie likes to play, but they get too violent for my taste.”

    “Violent?”

    “Yeah, she… oh, actually, she’s doing it now. Come look.” Sooyoung took Yerim, half-braided hair and all, and pulled her over to the large window on the opposite side of the room.

    Outside, in the clearing behind the house, there was a single archery target set up. The details of the scene were only slightly visible to Yerim, as all she had to go by was the moonlight streaming through the treetops. Seungwan was standing about one-hundred feet from the target, loaded crossbow in hand. She took a moment to draw a proper bead on it before firing, hitting the innermost of the red rings with a bolt. This didn’t seem to satisfy her, however, because she cursed loudly before reloading the weapon and taking aim once again.

    “Why does she play those kind of games?”

    Sooyoung shrugged.

    “I don’t know, I guess she finds them fun. I do too, sometimes. But not all the time. They’re the only games she plays, really. Except she sometimes plays chess with Joohyun. But not Seulgi. Seulgi’s bad at chess.” Sooyoung giggled a bit at this, as if it were common knowledge that Seulgi wasn’t the brightest.

    “Why don’t you play games with Seulgi? She seems like she’d be willing to.”

    “Seulgi isn’t really fun to play games with. She’s too easy to beat, and Joohyun is always calling her to do things. They spend hours in their bedroom sometimes.”

    “Uh… yeah, that’s weird, huh?” Yerim said, feeling her face grow hot, “Anywho, what else does Seungwan normally do?”

    “Sometimes she has throwing axes, sometimes she practices with swords… She always beats me in sword fights, so I don’t really like to play that game.”

    “Wait,” Yerim turned to Sooyoung, her eyes widening, “You use those weapons on each other?”

    “Yeah,” Sooyoung said nonchalantly, guiding Yerim away from the window and sitting her back down in front of the mirror, “We can’t really… hurt each other. Or get hurt at all. Well, not physically, anyway.”

    Yerim was about to ask what she meant by that when there was a sudden knock on the door. Sooyoung gave a perplexed look before striding over and opening it.

    It was Seungwan, looking just as indifferent as she had when she’d first walked into the kitchen downstairs. For a moment, Yerim wondered how the petite girl had managed to make her way up here so fast. But then she remembered that nothing really made sense in the world anymore, so she kind of just rolled with it.

    “Sooyoung, don’t you think it’s about time Yerim goes home?” Seungwan asked, and Yerim was not appreciative of the dangerousness in her tone.

    “But time doesn’t pass here,” Sooyoung said plainly, “And I’m not done braiding her hair.”

    Seungwan waved her hand, and Yerim’s hair was completely braided, albeit in a different (admittedly better) pattern than the one Sooyoung had been working on. The taller girl did not seem to appreciate this, however, and scowled.

    “Stop it, Seungwan,” Sooyoung said indignantly, and Yerim’s hair went back to its half-braided state, “Leave us alone.”

    “She has to go.” the auburn-haired girl said firmly, stepping inside the room.

    “After I braid her hair.” Sooyoung insisted through clenched teeth.

    “No. Now.”

    There was a second of silence in which the two girls glared at one another, with Yerim desperately looking back and forth between them as they did so. The middle of this argument was the last place the poor girl wanted to be.

    “I-I’ll go if I have to,” Yerim spoke up finally, causing both girls to whip their heads in her direction, “It’s no big deal, I’ll-”

    “No, but,” Sooyoung whined, stomping her foot against the ground, “I wanna play with you for longer...”

    “Sooyoung, I’m starting to get hungry anyway, and-”

    “But I can make you food here! Anything you want!” the tall girl said, her voice cracking on the last word, “You don’t have to go anywhere.”

    “Sooyoung.” Seungwan said, “She wants to go home now. Please, just let her go.”

    “B-but… I don’t want her to,” Sooyoung looked down at the ground, her hair blocking her face as she stared at the carpeted floor, “She’s so sweet and pretty and fun to play with… I don’t want you to leave, Yerim.”

    At the last sentence, Sooyoung turned to the younger girl, and the loneliness that was being projected from her dark orbs was nearly palpable. She looked like a sad little puppy, and all Yerim wanted to do was hug her and make her feel better.

    “Seungwan, if it’s okay, I can stay a bit longer, just so she can finish braiding my hair.”

    Sooyoung nodded frantically, looked at Seungwan for confirmation, but the shorter girl merely crossed her hands over her chest and shook her head.

    “No,” Seungwan’s eyes flitted over to Sooyoung now, giving the girl a fiery, almost furious look, “Do you want her to get trapped here, too? Are you really willing to condemn her to that, Sooyoung?”

    A heavy silence fell over the room.

    “What do you mean?” Yerim asked, glancing over at Sooyoung, who was now biting her lip while tears formed in her eyes.

    “N-nothing…” Sooyoung murmured, although by her tone, it was clear that it was far from nothing.

    “If you stay here too long, you become like us,” Seungwan practically spit the final words of the sentence, her expression growing dark, “You get trapped here. I don’t know how long it takes, because I don’t really understand time anymore, but the sooner you leave, the better.”

    “Sooyoung,” Yerim said, trying her best to keep her words calm and even, “Is this true?”

    “I… I don’t know…” the way the older girl was acting made her seem like a child who’d gotten caught doing something she shouldn’t have.

    “You know damn well, Sooyoung,” Seungwan said, her voice rising, “You just didn’t want to tell her.”

    “S-stop it.”

    “You just wanted her here to play with you forever, you wanted to trap her.” Seungwan was starting to yell now, and as the two girls’ emotions rose higher and higher, strange things began to happen in the room.

    The furniture was starting to shift around, as if push by some unseen force.

    “No, Wannie, don’t-”

    “You wanted to take her away from her family, from her friends, from her life, Sooyoung. You can’t do that. Why-”

    “STOP IT!” Sooyoung finally screamed, all the emotion releasing from her like a bursting dam.

    Yerim yelped out and ducked as the vanity mirror shattered, the window exploded out in a shower of glass that shot across the yard like bullets, the bed split in half down the middle like a piece of cardboard, and the ground shook as if a bomb had just gone off. The quake died as quickly as it started, and all that was left was the sound of tinkling glass settling on wooden surfaces.

    It was then that the two girls seemed to remember that Yerim was there. Seungwan ran over to her, bending down to inspect if she was okay. Sooyoung merely stood, hands over , her eyes wide with horror as she looked down at Yerim.

    “Are you alright?” Seungwan asked, and the younger girl was surprised by the amount of concern in her voice.

    “I’m okay,” Yerim panted, inspecting her hands and hair for any shards, “I think I’m okay.”

    “Yerim,” Sooyoung said in a low, broken voice, “Yerim I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

    “It’s okay,” Yerim said in the most soothing voice she could muster, standing up and brushing her now messy hair away from her face, “I’m okay, see?”

    Just then, Joohyun and Seulgi appeared in the doorway, making absolutely no noise at all as they approached, both looking more fed up than surprised as they observed the damage Sooyoung had caused. The younger of the two women waved one of her hands casually, and the damage was instantly reversed. Yerim was starting to grow accustomed to such things, as it barely phased her this time.

    “Did you make her mad?” Seulgi asked, curiosity the only emotion present in her voice.

    “No,” Sooyoung muttered, “Yerim was nice to me. Seungwan came in and started yelling-”

    “Yeah, because you’re trying to trap Yerim here-”

    “Alright, enough.” Joohyun said firmly, and the two girls ceased immediately, “Seungwan is right, Sooyoung. Yerim needs to go home now. She has a family who will miss her dearly if she never shows up again.”

    Sooyoung nodded slowly, her mask of melancholy quickly becoming a wide smile.

    “But, since Yerim lives nearby, she can come back and visit, right?”

    “That’s if she even wants to at this point…” Seungwan muttered, and Sooyoung responded by sticking her tongue out and making an exaggeratedly angry face.

    “She’s welcome to come visit anytime, if she wants,” Joohyun said, looking at the brunette with something like pity in her eyes.

    “You’ll come back, right? We can play again. And this time, when you feel like you’ve been here too long, you can go step right out of the circle and come right back in, and you’ll still be free!” Sooyoung said enthusiastically, a big grin dominating her cute features.

    “Uhh… yeah, sure, I’ll come back,” Yerim said uncertainly, scratching the back of her head. In truth, she had no idea what she would do; all she wanted to do right now was to go home, lay in bed, and sleep forever.

    “Do you promise?” Sooyoung asked.

    “Don’t force her to promise you anything,” Seungwan cut in, earning a look of pure animosity from Sooyoung, “She’s not obligated to come back to this hellhole.”

    “No, no, it’s fine. I’ll come back. For real. I promise.” Yerim swore, and for some reason, she felt as though she really would. Oddly enough, she wanted to come back here and play with Sooyoung, to spend time with these girls again. It was somehow appealing to her.

    As soon as Yerim finished her sentence, Sooyoung sprinted over and enveloped her in a tight hug, lifting her off her feet and rocking her back and forth in air.

    “I can’t breathe…” Yerim gasped desperately as her vision began blacking out.

    “Sooyoung, you’re hurting her!” Joohyun warned, and Sooyoung gently placed the distressed girl back on her feet, but not before planting a long kiss on her cheek. Yerim felt a blossom of warmth radiating from the point of contact, and her head felt as if it were swimming, and not just from the oxygen deprivation.

    “Come on,” Joohyun said, extending her hand, which Yerim, in her punch-drunk state, took without hesitation, “I’ll walk you to the edge of the circle.”

    “I’ll see you later, Yerim!” Sooyoung said, waving as the brunette was led away by Joohyun.

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As you can tell, I'm really into this story right now. So, another double update today! This seems like a nice place to stop for now. Hope you find it interesting so far (:

Thanks for reading<3