Haseul is a prim, proper, dutifully well-educated lady. However, she was also, perhaps, too educated, aware that she did not want to marry Byun Baekhyun, her parent’s pick of a husband. She has heard of him, sure - the most proper gentleman to marry, noble and aristocratic and also poor. It’s a double deal, for her family and his; his gets the money they need, hers get the nobility they so crave.

She had never exchanged more than ten words with him, at best. When she met him for the first time, she did not like him - it’s not him, per se. He was educated and nice and knew what her favorite book was about, but he spoke over the pianist playing the Moonlight Sonata, which happened to be her favorite song, and for that, he cannot be forgiven - even if it was no fault of his own.

The problem, in the end, was Haseul. She smiled politely at him when Baekhyun said that he wouldn’t mind hearing her sing more, thanked him for his kind words, and excused herself.

She did not miss the confused look he sent her. Haseul grabbed her skirts a little higher so she could walk faster, and all but ran (because this crinoline won’t allow her to do more than a brisk walk at most) to the garden, where she could find peace.

The birds sing to her, and she scoffed at them, going to the forest behind her home. Haseul can feel them pecking at her head, judging her for running away from the nice boy her parents found for her to marry, but what is Haseul if not a romantic at heart? She did not want an arranged marriage that will, effectively, trade herself for a higher status; all she wants is someone that will love her and that she will love in return.

She sat in a log when she was far enough from the house she can hear neither the music nor the birds, and sighed, putting her head on her hands, taking deep breaths to calm herself.

“I cannot do this. I cannot possibly do this.” She told herself out loud, as if she was talking to her diary. “He is nice, yes, but that’s all he is. A nice boy from a nice noble family that wants money.”

She absently-minded picked up a stick that looked bendable on the forest floor, making it a mock ring that she slides on her finger. It looks weird on her hands, a mockery of what was to come. Haseul slid it off, and was greeted by a wooden facsimile of a hand, sticking out of the ground like a corpse.

Nature was fascinating, if a bit creepy, sometimes.

“What am I even going to tell him, during the vows? These lies?” Haseul sighed, and huffed, memory working. Her parents had made her write her own vows, what did they say? The piece of paper slipped in her mind, and worked out the words. “I promise to hold our love everlasting, not just for this moment, not for an hour, a day, a year…”

She slides the mockery ring in the wooden hand.

“But forever and always.” She finished, and smiled. Simple vows for a lie she’ll play.

The wood cracked as if alive, and something rose up - a torso, dressed in the prettiest wedding dress Haseul had ever seen, chestnut hair in gentle waves, and big, brown deer eyes. Haseul noticed, dimly aware, she was sitting on someone’s lap. How unladylike of her.

The girl smiled.

“I’ll love you forever, too.” The girl replied, voice soft and quiet, and Haseul promptly fainted.

---

When Haseul woke up, she was in a bed. There was a soft song being played from somewhere, and the ceiling that greeted her was unfamiliar and strange, inclined and blue-ish.

She sits up, and looks around, finding the girl from before sewing quietly, humming to the song the gramophone was playing. A heavy moon hung outside the window, bathing the room in a silvery glow that makes the girl look ethereal. She is sewing a dress, focused on it, and it made her so, so pretty, albeit Haseul couldn’t exactly forget how she simply popped out of the earth.

There’s also the fact that the moon wasn’t a full moon last night, but the start of a crescent one, and this set off more alarms than Haseul would like.

“Hello?” Haseul asked, and the girl’s eyes rose up. “Uh, excuse me, I’m not sure we were acquainted…? You’d be…?”

The girl smiled prettily, and Haseul’s heart skipped a beat. A slew of curses a proper girl like her shouldn’t know flew through her mind as she absolutely panicked at the sight of the girl.

“That’s okay. We have all the time in the world.” The girl rose up, making a small curtsy, inclining her head, the veil on her head accompanying the movement. “My name is Kahei. Yours would be…?”

The girl walked slowly to the bed, hands together in front of her, her wedding veil trailing behind her. The wooden ring Haseul had made in a spur of the moment decision glinted on the weird moonlight.

“I’m Haseul, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She smiled, bowing her head, and the girl seemed as bright as the sun, sitting on the bed that creaked noisily. “Sorry to ask, but where are we? The moon...”

“Oh, we’re in the Land of the Dead,” Kahei said, almost flippantly so, and she put her hands on her lap. Proper, prim lady. Pretty hands. “After we married, I figured we could live in my house, since I assume your parents wouldn’t be accepting of, well, me being a zombie and all that.”

Haseul’s mind comes screeching to a halt, like a faulty gramophone. She was dead? She was married? She was married to a zombie? That was going to be hard to explain.

“Married?” She echoed, and Kahei’s smile could power up a small house for a week.

“Oh, yes. It wasn’t quite like I’d dreamed when I was young, but you said the vows so nicely and slid this beautiful ring onto my finger…” She showed the ring, and it did look more like a solid ring than a bent piece of wood. Weird. “How could I say no?”

Well, at least she wouldn’t have to worry anymore about the wedding with Baekhyun. Still, probably should be more worried she was in a Land of the Dead. Well, dead married women couldn’t marry.

“Okay. Okay.” She repeated, and nodded to herself. “So, uh, I’m kinda new at this whole… Marriage thing? So I may not be… The best wife material?”

Kahei giggled, soft and cute, and Haseul really wanted to hold her hand.

“That’s okay. I’m new as well.” Kahei said, picking up Haseul’s hand. It was soft and cold. “We can figure it out. Together.”

Feeling herself blush, Haseul nodded.

---

Kahei wasn’t exactly human, Haseul nodded, after a few days exploring the Land of the Dead with her (and subsequently meeting her friends, a whole slew of weirdos that Haseul wasn’t as sure as how they had managed to live until the age they died), noticing that she was quite at ease with reattaching her limbs.

They didn’t tend to stay in place, however, so one day, after Kahei had to reattach her left arm for the third time, she sighed, grabbing the emergency sewing kit from her pockets, one hand stopping Kahei.

“Sit down,” Haseul said, threading the needle, and Kahei looked up, one arm in hand. They were in the middle of the local park, and skeleton dogs flew by them. Somehow. Haseul was starting to not question the logic of this place. “I’m going to sew your arm. I’m not the best, but…”

“Thank you,” Kahei said, smiling, and sitting down on a bench, her left hand in her lap. Haseul nodded in answer, and took away the veil from Kahei’s shoulder, also putting the girl’s hair away. It was surprisingly soft. She was all softness. “I usually can’t sew myself there. It’s quite hard to do it.”

“We’re married, if I didn’t do at least this I’d be an awful wife,” Haseul replied, concentrating on sewing Kahei. “How did you die, anyway? Most people here have marks, but…”

Biting her lower lip, she remembered poor Chaewon, who died after a chandelier fell on her and now had candles and glass sticking out of her skin; she remembered poor Hyejoo, mauled by wolves; she remembered poor Heejin, who drowned. They all looked awful, and yet, there Kahei, perfectly well, if not for some falling limbs - although all of them had those issues, so it wasn’t just some after effect of Kahei’s death.

“Poison. My husband-to-be didn’t want to get married, after all.” She smiled sadly, and Haseul nodded. “Too bad for him, though! Thanks to getting murdered and buried in the woods, I got to marry you!”

Haseul choked on her own spit, and Kahei laughed too softly about her own murder. Was that normal, between the dead? The others had been pretty much the same.

“You what?” She spluttered, and Kahei nodded. “You got murdered?”

“Oh yes. My husband offered me a glass of wine, and so I drank. Then I died, and I saw as he dragged my corpse out.” A smile preyed her face. Cruel, fast, and quickly erased, substituted by a chipper smile. “The look of surprise on his face when I became like this and came back for vengeance was quite nice.”

So Haseul had married the revengeful zombie. Great. Although, who really could blame her, really? It was the husband’s fault for not speaking to his betrothed, and deciding to murder her instead of breaking things up. Had he only talked to her, this wouldn't have been a situation.

She ignored her own hypocrisy and kept sewing.

---

Haseul kissed Kahei for the first time one morning, when the girl appeared with a small gramophone cylinder and put it to play, the recording of the Moonlight Sonata playing through the small room they called theirs familiar and comfortable.

Haseul rose up from her chair when she heard the first notes, and looked at Kahei, who seemed pleased at herself. Haseul could feel her heart drumming against her chest, face red and as bright as a candle.

“Is this…?” Haseul started, approaching the girl. “Where did you get it?”

“Jungeun owed me one,” Kahei replied, putting a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “Do you like it? It’s quite hard to get these cylinders, but I thought it’d be a nice change of pace.”

“It’s my favorite song.” Haseul grabbed Kahei’s hands, who seemed surprised. “Thank you, Kahei. It was… Very nice of you.”

Kahei kissed Haseul’s forehead, and Haseul blinked. That was nice, yes, but she had expected something else entirely.

“It is my wifely duty to make you happy, Haseul.” Her name sounded so melodic in Kahei’s tongue, and she distantly worried how it might taste. "How could I consider myself yours if I didn't do the bare minimum?"

Haseul was still wondering, distantly, her mind away from her as if feverish, so she did the logical thing of kissing Kahei. It wasn’t very logical, but what was logical about being married to a corpse bride, after all? Nothing, nothing at all. So damn logic.

Kahei simply hummed against , for a mere moment, and allowed it. Haseul was satisfied with her marriage.

When they separated, they remained together, Kahei's hands on Haseul's, and Kahei smiled.

"Thought you'd never do that," Kahei said, simply, and Haseul laughed. "Can I kiss you?"

"Of course," Haseul replied, leaning into her wife's body.