Yerim allowed Sooyoung to guide her along as she nestled into her thoughts, trying to process everything that Seungwan had told her. In the meantime, Sooyoung spoke of the many different hairstyles she wanted to try on the younger girl, namely crimson and blonde (Yerim momentarily slipped out of her deep contemplation in order to register that she despised both of those colors). As the pair had just finished descending the stairs, Yerim heard a commotion coming from the kitchen behind them. Two voices were talking heartedly, in tones that sounded as if they were meant to be hushed. The brunette grabbed Sooyoung by her arm, causing the older girl to stop mid-sentence and turn around.

    “You don’t like curly hair, then? Maybe we can try-”

    “Sooyoung, shush,” Yerim said, gesturing over to one of the open doorways into the kitchen.

    Yerim slipped out of the taller girl’s grasp and walked over, hugging the wall and standing directly adjacent to the doorframe. Sooyoung joined her shortly thereafter.

    The voices were, undoubtedly, Seulgi and Joohyun’s. Under normal circumstances, Yerim’s mother would chastise her for her terrible habit of eavesdropping, but unfortunately for the couple in the room adjacent to them, Yerim’s mother was not around.

    “Joohyun, we have to do it,” Seulgi said, sounding both exhausted and frustrated, “There’s literally no other way. It’s not like we’re forcing her-”

    “Of course we aren’t, but she’s going to feel that way. She’s going to feel pressured into doing this, especially if we explain the entire situation to her. And she’s still almost a child, what makes you think she can handle such a thing?”

Joohyun’s anger caused the hair on the back of Yerim’s neck to stand up. Yerim hadn’t heard the older girl speaking like this, even after she’d killed the man. It was the emotional of equivalent of hearing a mysterious noise late at night in one's home. Unsettling and disturbing.

    “But she’s our only hope at this point!” Seulgi’s voice became louder now, echoing off the walls bombastically, causing both Sooyoung and Yerim to flinch in surprise.

    “Seulgi! Keep your voice down.” Joohyun warned.

    Before Yerim could listen any further, she felt a gentle tug on the back of her sleeve. She looked up to see Sooyoung standing there, rocking back and forth and looking quite ashamed of herself.

    “Joohyun told me it’s rude to listen in on other people’s conversations…” she mumbled.

    Yerim listened for another brief second, catching the end of Joohyun’s whispered sentence:

    “...if anything happened to her, I could never forgive myself.”

    Unfortunately for the brunette, Sooyoung increased the frequency of her coaxing, letting out a low whine as she did so.

    “Yyyyeerrrriiii… Come on.”

    “Fine,” Yerim muttered, unconsciously reaching out and taking Sooyoung’s hand in hers as she tried to take the lead for once, “Let’s go.”

    Sooyoung froze, looking down at their intertwined palms with a rising blush beginning to work its way up her face.

    Yerim felt herself starting to get flustered as well, and, without a word, continued to walk towards the front door. Sooyoung obediently joined her, hand clutching Yerim’s in a way that reminded the younger girl of a scared child. Yerim tried not to focus on the clamminess of Sooyoung’s palm.

    As they emerged into the sunlight, Yerim remained preoccupied with her now intensified ruminations. What could Seulgi and Joohyun have been talking about? The brunette had a sinking feeling that they were discussing a matter related directly to her. Yerim didn’t like the verbage they’d been using either: “Our only hope”, “What makes you think she could handle such a thing?”, and “If anything happened to her, I could never forgive myself” were foreboding signs, especially in relation to a coven of immortal, god-like spellcasters. If they were worried about something, it had to be a big deal.

    “Hey, Sooyoung?” Yerim asked the overalls-clad girl beside her, “Do you know what Seulgi and Joohyun were talking about?”

    “No,” Sooyoung answered genuinely, still blushing and refusing to make eye contact with the shorter girl, “Seulgi and Joohyun talk about a lot of confusing things like that with Wannie. I don’t really pay attention to it. It’s mostly boring, anyway.”

    “Ah, okay...”

    The two girls continued their walk in relative silence, until they’d reached the point that demarcated the edge of the circle. It was unremarkable in appearance, though the air temperature noticeably increased the closer they came to the magical boundary’s periphery.

    “So if I just step in and step out, I’ll be good to go?” Yerim asked.

    “That’s what Joohyun told me,” Sooyoung said with a shrug, “And Joohyun isn't usually wrong about things, so I think it’s safe to take her word for it.”

    Upon finishing her sentence, Sooyoung released the younger girl’s hand and smiled shyly. Yerim took a big step out of the circle, giving herself a moment to assure that she’d fully exited the magical boundary before stepping back inside and rejoining Sooyoung. As soon as Yerim had fully reentered the area, Sooyoung reached out and took her hand again. Yerim held back a chuckle at how cute the older girl was.

    “Since time doesn’t pass here,” Yerim said as they began making their way back to the house, “When does it change from day to night?”

    “When people leave and enter the circle. That’s usually how we know someone’s around.” Sooyoung hummed.

The taller girl seemed to be getting bolder, as she was now swinging their arms in wide arcs as they walked.

“You can have the same weather for really long stretches of time without any changes? Doesn’t that get boring?”

“Not really,” Sooyoung pointed up at the sky, which was now becoming darker, clouds appearing from nowhere, blanketing the sun and muffling its previously strong rays within seconds. This alarmed Yerim, as the weather had essentially been stagnant since she’d arrived, “We can control the weather in here, too. It doesn’t affect weather outside the circle, but if one of us gets bored or something, we can change it.”

    “But if your magic only works inside the circle, then how come my necklace worked outside of it?”

    “Because you took the necklace outside of the circle, duh.” Sooyoung quipped jauntily, still staring up the clouds, which were now forming a halo of wispy greyness around the sun, apparently at her whim.

    “That… doesn’t make any sense.” Yerim’s perplexed tone elicited a giggle from Sooyoung.

    “Nothing really makes sense here. You gotta get used to that.”

    They re-entered the house then, and Yerim’s ears instinctively perked up, listening for any more signs of conversation coming from the kitchen as they passed. However, the house was silent aside from two pairs of footsteps, footsteps that occasionally became muted as the pair made their way over alternating stretches of carpet and hardwood. As they turned to go to Sooyoung’s room, Yerim glanced back, and was mildly disappointed to see that Seungwan’s door was shut. She was hoping to invite the auburn-haired girl in to play with them.

    “You can really go play with Wannie if you want, I promise I won’t be mad,” Sooyoung said, following Yerim’s gaze.

    “I was actually gonna invite her to play with both of us, silly,” Yerim said, squeezing Sooyoung’s hand delicately in order to provide reassurance, “I wouldn’t abandon you like that.”
    Sooyoung smiled again, that radiant smile that never failed to make Yerim feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

    Luckiest girl in the world? What the am I thinking? She’s not my girlfriend…

    “Wannie doesn’t like to play the games I play, remember? Maybe if we play chess or something…”

    Sooyoung opened her bedroom door and led Yerim in. The room was decorated exactly the same as it had been the last time the brunette had been there. Sooyoung sat her down in the little chair in front of the vanity mirror and went right to work on Yerim’s hair.

    “So, do you want to try a different color or length?” Sooyoung asked, digging around in one of her drawers, her arm reaching much farther down than the shallow container should have gone, “I think you’d look beautiful with long, blonde hair. Even more beautiful than you are now, if that’s possible.”

    “Th-thanks…” Yerim mumbled, feeling her face warm at the offhand compliment, “Sure, if you wanna see what it looks like, that’s fine. You can just change it back though, right?”

    “If it looks nice, I won’t want to, but if you don’t like it I will.”

    “I don’t like that answer much to be honest.”

    Sooyoung giggled, choosing to ignore Yerim’s half-hearted protest. She then daintily tapped the top of Yerim’s head, and the younger girl’s hair instantaneously changed. The hue became a marvelous platinum blonde, one that reflected what little light there was in the room in a way that made it almost sparkle. Additionally, the sheet of gold now cascaded down her back and shoulders in smooth curves. Yerim could feel her jaw dropping as she ran a finger through her locks, marveling at the smooth silkiness that had been imbued in them.

    Sooyoung crossed her arms over her chest, looking smug.

    “So, do you like it?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

    “Holy crap, Sooyoung, yes!” Yerim said, smiling at the older girl in the mirror, “It’s amazing!”

    Sooyoung let out a noise of victory as she jumped up and down, clapping her hands together cutely.

    “And that wasn’t even the fun part,” she said, placing both of her hands on Yerim’s shoulders, “Now I get to do your hair for real.”

    “Without magic?” Yerim inquired nervously.

    “Mhm. It’s no fun with magic.”

    “Well,” Yerim said with a sigh, “Have at it then.”

    And so, Sooyoung got to work. Her hands moved like lightning as she fiddled with Yerim’s new hair, moving rapidly and unceasingly towards whatever insane end-product she had in mind. Yerim sat patiently, enjoying the sensation of Sooyoung playing with her hair. It was so pleasant that her eyelids were actually starting to droop, and, remembering what Seungwan had mentioned about not falling asleep, she decided to make some conversation.

“So what happens if one of you guys tries to leave the circle?” she asked, watching as Sooyoung fixed a seemingly random clip near her hairline.

“We just can’t. It’s like trying to walk into a wall without magic.”

“Oh. Have you ever tried to find a way around it?”

“Not me personally, but Wannie, Seul, and Hyun all try.I don’t know what they do exactly, but it has something to do with the basement.” the way Sooyoung whispered the word “basement” made it sound like some kind of unspeakable swear word.

“Basement? I didn’t know you guys had a basement.”

“We do. There’s a trapdoor in the kitchen. I… I don’t like going down there,” Sooyoung said, becoming slightly uncomfortable, even as she began fixing some rainbow-colored beads at the ends of Yerim’s hair, “It’s scary.”

“Scary how?” Yerim asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Sooyoung paused, biting her lip in unsurety, shifting her weight back and forth on each foot, looking thoroughly perturbed.

“Hey,” Yerim said, turning around in her chair, ignoring her comically-decorated hair as it bounced around her head in an almost neon blur, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“O-okay…” Sooyoung said, taking her place directly behind Yerim once again, “I’m sorry…”

“And you don’t have to apologize to me so much. We’re friends, we should be comfortable around each other.”

“I know,” the crimson-haired girl said, tapping to top of Yerim’s head to return her hair to its normal state before starting over, “You just… make me nervous sometimes.”

“Why would I make you nervous?” Yerim asked, her eyes flicking up to meet Sooyoung’s in the mirror.

They were only like that for less than three seconds, but to Yerim, it felt like an eternity. As if she were staring into two fathomless pools of obsidian that held endless amounts of mystery, mystery that came in the form of bubbling emotion, emotion that the newly-christened blonde wanted nothing more than to dive into.

“I don’t know,” Sooyoung said finally, a light-pink blush filling her cheeks as she looked away, “I-I don’t know…”

The brunette immediately came to the conclusion that Sooyoung wasn’t very good at making excuses, or hiding her feelings.

“That’s okay,” Yerim said soothingly, “You’d better add some of those beads to my hair. They looked pretty.”

Sooyoung’s attitude instantly shifted from apprehensive to bubbly and energetic as she gained a new fervor.

“I knew you’d love them!”

Yerim smiled in response and allowed the redhead to continue assaulting her hair.

So there’s no doubt about it then, Yerim mused to herself, She has a crush on me.

It was out of the blonde’s character to be so presumptuous, but she would be stupid not to see the signs. Sooyoung wore her heart on her sleeve, more so than anyone Yerim had ever met. It was honestly flattering how worried about Yerim’s opinion of her the older girl could be. Not to mention the fact that Sooyoung was drop-dead gorgeous. Even her child-like nature was a positive for Yerim, as the older girl seemed so carefree and pure that it was heartwarming.

On the other hand, there was absolutely no way a relationship between the two of them could work. How would it? They lived in two different worlds, separated by an impassable barrier, one that constantly harbored the looming threat of locking the younger girl within its confining borders for eternity. It saddened Yerim to think that even if she chose to escalate her relationship with the older girl, she couldn’t. How would she even explain such a thing to her mother? Or her sisters? Or anyone for that matter? It was all still very overwhelming, even for her. There was no doubt in her mind that she would swiftly be labeled as insane.

And, speaking of insanity, how was she going to approach this Jungkook situation? Sure, avoiding him from now on was the best option, but what would happen when he told everyone at school about what she’d done to him? Sure, most wouldn’t believe him, but she knew how high school students were; she would likely be teased endlessly about it. Not that she particularly minded this, but she knew that Sae-ron would also be ridiculed for hanging out with her so much. And she didn’t want her best friend to have to go through such a thing.

Not to mention the troubling conversation Seulgi and Irene had been having in the kitchen. They could have only been talking about her, unless there was someone else who visited the house, which was highly unlikely, as Sooyoung probably would have mentioned it by now. What could they possibly want her to do? It sounded as if there was some kind of danger to whatever task they wanted her to complete. Such a prospect sent a shiver down Yerim’s spine (she hoped Sooyoung wouldn’t notice).

It didn’t make any sense though. If Seulgi or Joohyun couldn’t do it, what made them think she could?

These thoughts weighed heavily on Yerim as she sat there, pondering the utter madhouse her life had become.

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I woke up at 4am this morning, and got home at 7pm... I'm so tired but I had to post another "Peek-a-boo" update tonight because I was literally paragraphs away from finishing it. Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading<3