Chapter Two
OuroborosChapter Two
It was a lazy start for a Thursday. Mina and Joy both woke up relatively late compared to usual as neither had particular commitments in the morning. Mina had set up to meet Wendy for lunch and the three could go over the material together.
They arrived at the university while the air was filled with a peculiar haze, one that covered all of Seoul into a blanket of mist. The air was also unusually cool for an early autumn day with temperatures hovering at fifteen degrees Celsius - a complete reversal of the previous scorching day. The mist was thick enough that you could taste it and the weather reports had not said anything of such a sudden drop of temperature, they had promised the same burning days that had plagued them the past week.
Mina quickly strode with Joy in tow through the main building to the back and into the Social Sciences department where most historical scholars resided - where both Wendy and Mina worked. The main campus building was a fancy glass structure with wide open walkways, seating areas with greenery and cafes to gather in for a chat - a modern building showing the status and affluence of the university. Medical, business and law students got to call this section their home. The Social Sciences department however was a whole different story.
It was a building made sometime in the 1960s, a brick building with an ugly gray stucco finish which had with time become even dirtier and gray making the whole building feel extremely oppressive. The front door to the building was a sad little thing with little pomp and flair and it brought you directly into one of its many narrow corridors. All the classrooms and offices lined along long corridors that winded with the building, a maze of rooms that required way too much signage to navigate through. Even people who had worked there for many years sometimes got lost.
The neglect of the building also reflected a little to the neglect the school admin has towards the funding and in turn the curriculum of the faculty. While everyone performed their teaching duties fine there was a lot less oversight from the top on what they did, giving the professors and teachers a lot of time on their own to pursue research that they wanted to. Often, this was on their free time as the university hadn’t allocated many resources to aid in research, but for the bookworm types in this department the chance to pursue their research as long as they got paid their other fees was enough.
Making their way through the winding bland and identical corridors, Joy had completely lost her sense of direction and location within the first couple of turns but with Mina’s expert guidance found Wendy’s door. It was unimpressive as all others with a standard placard on the side of the door with Wendy’s name on it. They knocked but got no response, knocked some more, and when they still got nothing Mina opened the door and stepped in. To their surprise they found Wendy in the room fully immersed in her work and oblivious to their arrival.
Her office wasn’t particularly large just enough to fit a small desk and bookshelves to both sides of the room leading all the way from the door to the other end. She had a north facing window in the room to let in sunlight, but her rather thick burgundy curtains were drawn darkening the room and flushing it in a red hue.
Currently she was hunkered down by her desk surrounded by books and engrossed in one, reading it intensely before turning another page soon after. Her hair was in a bit of a mess, disheveled from either not brushing it in the morning or from pulling her hair in frustration and bewilderment. It looked like she had rushed to work early, no makeup on today and tucked into an oversized beige woolly sweater and thin rimmed round glasses resting against her nose.
“Hey, Wendy!” Mina called out announcing her entry into the room. Joy followed in after her having only really met Wendy once or twice in the passing before. Her nose still pressed against the book, Wendy seemed to be completely out of this world right now. Her dazed expression was kind of cute and Joy stood back to follow the exchange with interest.
Mina sneaked up to the desk and then carefully rounded over to the other side managing to get herself right behind and next to Wendy. She poked her head over Wendy’s shoulder, their cheeks all but touching at this point.
“Reading something?”
Books flew into the air and a scream like a crow in fright filled the office as Wendy looked to her left and reared back, her glasses falling off her face and herself almost tipping over in her office chair. She instinctively grabbed onto Mina with surprising strength almost pulling them both down before finally finding her balance clinging to dear life onto Mina’s green canvas jacket.
Eyes wide she stared at Mina from her lower position the latter bursting into laughter after managing to keep her balance and support Wendy’s weight.
“YOU... …” Wendy started off strong but let out an exasperated sigh and pulled herself up from the chair.
“You didn’t hear the knocks on the door or us coming in and announcing our presence,” Mina replied giddily as she spun back around with a smooth pirouette to the other side of the desk to stand next to Joy.
“I… I’ve been busy.”
“We can see,” the duo eyed the room closer now, seeing all the books strewn about and papers in a mess. She must have been in a research frenzy. “What were you reading for?”
“Ahh just this, thing. I thought I saw a pattern…”
“Pattern?” Mina looked quizzically at her friend which soon turned into a look of concern looking at the state of her; totally unkempt. She fished out a brush from her bag and walked over.
“Why don’t we take a break from this,” she gestured the room, “and go have a nice lunch. Then we’ll look at our papers yeah?”
This perked Wendy up from her confused stupor she had been exhibiting since they had walked into the room. “Yes! Papers! Where are they?” She attempted to stand up but was pushed down by Mina onto the chair.
“Sit. I’ll brush your hair, then lunch, then papers.”
It wasn’t until now that she properly noticed Joy standing in the room.
“Oh, I’m so sorry I completely missed you. It’s been a while Joy,” once again she tried to stand up only to be pushed down by Mina. “Sit. Brushy brushy. Lunch.”
“Yes mom,”
Wendy replied with a grin on her face as Joy let out a little chuckle.
With Wendy’s hair straightened and a little emergency face washing the quick clean up was done, followed by a trip to the university restaurant where the food selection was wide and reasonably priced. Enough so that a lot of student and staff ate there instead of going out of the campus to eat. It contained both more traditional Korean food section and a rotating ‘Western’ food section, essentially reflecting foods from Europe and the Americas.
The restaurant was a wide and large hall with a high bare ceiling showing the ventilation giving it an industrial look. Large and wide arched windows on the largest wall allowed for lots of light but had wooden slats installed on the outside as shades to protect from the worst glare. One side of the wall had small crevices with smaller windows on the side facing east and thus at this time of the day didn’t have direct sunlight shining in. The three settled in one of these crevices giving them a good deal of privacy from the overall noise level in the restaurant and any prying eyes.
Once settled in and with the first few scoops of food in their mouth Joy pulled out her binder with the pages and her laptop with all her notes and the translated text.
“This is what we managed to translate from them,” Joy pushed the laptop over to Wendy who gave the text a quick read.
still full of food she suddenly stopped chewing. Her focus was uninterrupted, the pupils dilating as her eyes appeared to grow, almost bulge, out of her sockets. She scanned through the translated document in a fervent speed back and forth between the lines before finally reaching the end.
“Is… everything alright?” Mina asked seeing the reaction from Wendy’s eyes.
“Yeah…” Wendy said thoughtlessly with a mouth full of food, before swallowing it all and looking up to focus on Mina, “yes everything is okay. Are you certain this is what those pages says?”
“Yes certain. This is all that we could translate.”
“Can I see them? Do you have the pages with you?” Wendy said with sudden intensity in her eyes.
“Yeah, of course,” Joy opened her binder and gave it to Wendy who immediately put on her gloves and began shifting through them, touching each page carefully and examining them while reading the text on the pages.
Mina saw her careful examination, clearly in the process of reading it. “I didn’t know you could read German.”
“Huhh- oh yeah I can. Not as good as my Italian but yes,” Wendy replied absentmindedly continuing to focus on the papers. She took one of her gloves off and gave the paper a touch, trying the fabric and seeming to examine it’s make from the touch alone.
“This is definitely paper from the 1800s in Europe, particularly in Prussia and Bohemia, Germany and Czech lands respectively. These last two pages though are from the Ottoman Empire.”
Both Mina and Joy looked at Wendy in astonishment, “You can tell all that just from touching and looking at the paper?”
Wendy was once again lost in thought before turning to look at the two again, “Uhh… yes. Yeah I’ve seen these a lot in my studies so it was an easy fit. Of course more extensive analysis would need to be made to confirm…” She smiled sheepishly returning her gaze at the pages. “Where, did you find these per chance?”
“Oh, they were brought into the Eummo Newspaper archives from the private collection of Choi Kwang-soo who passed away recently and donated a huge part of their collection-”
Wendy nodded as Joy spoke but her mind quickly zoned out and all she could hear was an incoherent mumble that tickled her ears, the meaning never reaching her consciousness. Her mind lost in thought and a world of her own she quickly flicked over the pages eventually landing on the drawing of Lady T.
“Trudi!”
“What?” Both Mina and Joy exclaimed in confusion at Wendy’s sudden outburst which had interrupted Joy’s explanation.
“Uhhh zurück, I said zurück. Which means back in German. I… would you mind going back and repeating what you said? Sorry my mind is… all caught up in translating now that I’m speaking German to you, hahaha….” she let out a sheepish and very unconvincing laugh.
Mina leaned in closer to Wendy and placed her forehead against hers. “Are you alright? You don’t have a fever but you seem rather out of it.”
“I didn’t sleep a lot last night. I’m fine though, don’t worry. I was just surprised by the beauty of the woman in this drawing I zoned out for a moment. She’s so beautiful though isn’t she?”
Wendy returned to focus on the drawing to divert attention from her, both Mina and Joy also following her eyes but still worried for their friend's condition.
“Yes she is. It looked like she was the lover, or love interest, of this Herr Bauerschaft who would appear to be the author of these texts. If you also look at the next page you can see a couple symbols belonging to what we presume are two separate groups against one another.”
Wendy turned another page and upon seeing the two symbols, managed to keep herself from another noisy outburst, however her wide eyes and the slight quiver of her lips almost betrayed her emotions. To the two others by her side though she looked like she was either very sick or very tired. Perhaps both.
Joy continued with her explanation. “This one is for one called ‘The Eternal Ladies’ and this one the ‘Children of the Void’.
“Uhhuhh,” Wendy nodded carefully.
“Do you know anything about them given that this is in your time period of expertise? Ever heard of them? An internet search yielded no results at all, and I wouldn’t know what journals and studies to go look for more information.”
“No I’ve never heard of these, but I would love to,” Wendy looked up from the papers at Joy and Mina. “Could we perhaps go to Choi Kwang-soo’s house and ask to see if more of the pages could be missing?”
“Yes, that was the plan. I really want to get to the bottom of this.”
“Would you mind if… if I tagged along? I would love to learn more of this. Professional curiosity you see. If it’s a secret society in my area of expertise I’ve never heard of I need to know it.”
“Of course. The more minds we have on this the better chance for us to figure out what is going on!”
“Can we go now?” Wendy asked already half packing her stuff.
“Sure…” Mina looked over at Joy before continuing, ”Are you sure you are alright though? You don’t need rest or anything?”
“Yeah, I’m fine don’t worry,” Wendy continued her packing as the other two began to do the same. “This is too exciting to let rest and the sooner we figure out more the more time we have to study whatever it is we uncover.”
The excitement and rush was palpable on Wendy’s face and body, like a kid receiving a birthday gift she couldn’t wait to to open the box and see what wonderful presents of information were hidden inside.
“Let me call the Choi residence first and ask if it is alright,” Joy said trying to temper the speed and unbridled excitement emanating from Wendy.
“Oh right, of course,” Wendy stopped her rushed packing before looking at the almost uneaten food in front of her. “I guess I should finish eating first”
“Yes you should,” Mina said giving a light tap on Wendy’s forehead as they finished their meals while Joy called to find out if a visit would be possible today.
---
The nausea and retching from the night before had subsided but she had still stayed in bed for a lot longer, taking a day off from work. She was practically fine but decided to take in a day of rest considering how severe the reaction had been. Laying in bed wrapped up in her duvet she had been staring at the ceiling for a good half an hour. The day was fast approaching noon and she figured that it was about time to get up.
That’s when she heard the beep from her doors codelock, the front door open and close and rapid feet rushing towards the direction of her room. Her door flung open so fast it risked smashing into the cupboard before being held onto by the entree.
“You’re still in bed? How are you feeling? Still ill?” The rapidfire questions were followed by the said person gliding over to sit at the edge of the bed. With a graceful little bump the bed bounced for a second before her hand went out to touch the others forehead, checking for temperature.
“I’m fine, just felt like sleeping in longer. I don’t feel sick anymore.”
“Well that’s great news then. I brought lunch over since it’s noon, although in your case it’s breakfast. Want me to bring it to bed?”
The still lying figure finally sat up in her bed and reached out grabbing onto the cheeks of the other and squeezing them softly.
“Sana, you’re the cutest and sweetest. It’s okay though I’ll get up. I need to get up,” she said releasing her hold of the cheeks and giving a sniff of her pyjama shirt before scowling. The duvet flew off in one fell motion and she got out of bed walking towards the kitchen. “What did you get for lunch?”
“Just your favourite,” Sana, the one who had arrived with the food said as she followed her friend out rushing past her and jumped in a exaggerated presentoer fashion cutting her off. “Chocolate!”
Dahyun gave a big bellowing laugh, “Sana you didn’t have to, also that isn’t much of a breakfast or lunch but you won’t see me complain!”
“Of course I had to,” Sana said opening up the package as her friend arrived next to her, “you were really, really sick yesterday Dahyun. I was so worried.”
“Well, thank you. You didn’t have to but I appreciate,” Dahyun said rounding the table as Sana emptied the food from the bag and laid it all out.
The small side table used for eating was quickly filled with the food; chocolate pancakes, chocolate cornet’s, chocolate eclairs, chocolate chocolate chocolate, and a chocolate milk to top it off. Dahyun eyed Sana for a moment as she emptied the food bag. Had she really only brought chocolate things? She was really doing her best to make her feel better. With all the foods on the table Dahyun could only laugh before mouthing a thank you to Sana who smiled back in pride before the two dived in.
“I’m going to have to eat salads for the rest of the week after this.”
Dahyun dove in happily clearly feeling and looking a lot healthier, her face was no longer pale and had regained its colour. Sana looked on happily at her friend munching away at the food. Yesterday she had seemed completely out of it, had collapsed suddenly and for a moment she didn’t know what to do. Afterwards Dahyun had gotten a very high fever, although it did seem to be dying down on the tail end of the night, and by morning she had told her that it was all gone but she was taking a day off to rest regardless.
Dahyun caught her friend staring and cocked an eyebrow in bemusement.
“What? Something on my face?”
“N- no. You just look a lot better so I’m happy.”
“I feel a lot better too. With this food doubly so. Also, I was thinking…” Dahyun said before taking another bite out of the chocolate crepe cutting herself mid sentence. She didn’t usually tell others her plans; where she was going or what she was doing, not really to her family or really any friends either, anybody but Sana. She always felt she had to at least let her know what was going on as she was her best friend after all.
Sana watched her chew waiting for her to continue but her impatience got the better of her. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I haven’t taken a holiday in a very long time, and maybe yesterday was a reaction to overwork and stress. So… I want to fly to Venice for holiday.”
“Holiday sounds good yes, for Christmas maybe. Why Venice?”
“I’ve always wanted to go there and I clearly need a break from everything. But I was more so thinking of trying to get a week off next week so I can fly this Friday after work.”
Sana’s chopsticks dropped and she began to flounder getting flustered. “This Friday?! Why so soon?! How on earth will I manage to get time off work by then?”
Dahyun looked up from her food. “Why would you need to take time off?”
“I…” Sana looked away, “I would like to go with you. Besides you just had a severe episode. I can’t in good conscious let you fly all the way to Europe on your own, not so soon after it. What if something like that happens again?”
“It won’t hap-”
“You don’t know that! Also it’s Venice! It’s like the anti-matter of going solo! You can’t just go to such a romantic city filled with couples all alone!” Sana had gotten off her chair and was zealously making her point, almost reaching her body out over the table right close to Dahyun’s face, the latter leaning back to avoid head collision.
The two stared at each other in silence, Sana leaning over the table with Dahyun slowly chewing her food while leaning back. The whims and wants of Sana sometimes completely caught her off guard but after all these years of friendship she was rather used to it, even if she didn’t always know why they happened.
“Oh- okay then. If you’re so passionate about it we’ll go there together,” Dahyun said immediately seeing a overjoyed reaction on Sana’s face, her lips spreading into a joyful smile.
“Perfect! Besides it’s more fun to share a trip and experience with someone else yeah? Okay good I’ll go back to work now and I’ll beg for a week off next week. You do the same and start looking at flights for Friday. But first, food!”
There was a burst of excitement and speed in Sana’s movements, unbridled joy having filled her heart. The happiness was so pure and overflowing that even Dahyun began to smile. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to go together after all.
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