There was something about sitting in traffic that made Minji's soul unwind from the day. She didn't exactly love the way that the cars ahead of her only creeped forward moment by moment, but it gave her time to take all the stresses from her job and just let them work themselves out in her mind before she arrived home. Her work wasn't what one would call high-stress: she worked at a telemarketing company, where she was one of the kind of people that she herself hung up on gladly when they called her. Of course she got cursed out far more often than someone who might work as a barista, but she didn't mind so much. Her job paid the bills and it was quite easy, and best of all, it was one that she didn't even have to go into the office if she didn't want to. She had the option of working from home, but she rarely took it just because she actually enjoyed getting dressed up and heading to work.

Plus it ensured that anyone looking for her at home wouldn't be able to find her during the daytime hours, which where they only likely times that her old associates would be looking for her. Night time was dangerous to witches like her, and so she enjoyed the fact that she could smoothly avoid her old coven without actually having to go out of her way to do so.

As she eased her car into the assigned parking spot in her apartment complex, she realized that there had been one worry she couldn't shake during the commute. It was an unidentifiable one, lingering in the back of her mind like a slight itch, but she couldn't push it aside. Biting her cherry pink lower lip, she stared forward at her apartment door, only a good fifty feet from her parking spot, and considered her options. Usually when she had an unknown worry like this one, it would be her magical intuition warning her of bad things coming, but she didn't think anyone or anything would be able to find her in the big city. Not only that, but most supernatural creatures avoided the city as much as they could. But if it were one of her old coven, or worse, her mother...

"Okay, mom," she said grudgingly, and grabbed her purse from the passenger seat before letting herself out of the car. If Mikyung had decided to come up from Gyeongju to the city to see her daughter, then so be it. Minji would just have to be ready for a fight - though hopefully not a physical one, this time. The last time Minji had an actual conversation with her mother had ended in the older woman physically kicking the younger witch out of her house and out of her coven, all over a difference of views. Mikyung had been upset that Minji didn't want being a witch to define her entire life because, as her mother said, 'it is our life, Minji. You can't just turn it off because you don't want it.'

Now, four years later, they had shared only a few awkward phone calls on the holidays and birthdays, and Minji had not set foot back in Gyeongju since. She hated to admit that her mother was halfway right, at least - she had found that she couldn't give up her heritage just because she wanted more from life. But at least here in Seoul she had found a good balance, with a social life, her work, and her witchcraft - though of course she had to keep that last part a secret from anyone that she became friends with. Because of that, and because her craft was such a big part of her life, she had come to realize that she would always be an outsider, while in Gyeongju everyone knew who was in the coven and trusted and relied upon them to protect the town. When Gyeongju had been the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom, it had been a stronghold for witches and they had worked to keep the dynasty running strong. It had been her ancestors that had ruled Silla for almost 600 years, and her mother made sure that Minji would never forget that they descended from royal witches. As such, Seoul was a far cry from Gyeongju, but for now it was her home.

Slipping her key into the lock, she moved the fingers of her free hand in a small but sharp pattern, whispering a small phrase under her breath. It was a mild spell, easy to cast and undo, but she did it each day and it gave her a sense of safety as she felt her wards come down. They hadn't been tampered with, and so she stepped into her home and closed the door behind her, tossing her keys and purse onto the long table beside the door. "Hey cat," she greeted her feline as it sat sitting on the back of her couch, one paw leisurely and watching her unlace her boots. She had never loved cats, but they really did make the best familiars and she had caved and adopted one a couple years prior. They had an interesting relationship in that it was happy that she fed and watered and petted it occasionally, and she was happy in that she could access it's innate natural power to enact the tougher spells that she, as a lone witch, never could have succeeded at without a familiar.

"Oh," she grumbled after she had already taken one laced boot off, "the mail." After a brief moment of consideration, she simply finished taking her second boot off and stepped back outside in her stockinged feet. Of course she could have just left it alone, but as it was with this tingle in the back of her mind, she figured she ought to check and see if she had anything that could explain it. And as soon as her fingers fell on the plain, thick white envelope amidst the bills, she knew: it was a message from her mother. Minji could understand why she would write instead of calling, but she frowned when she looked at the familiar handwriting anyway. She meandered her way back up her walkway and set the bills down on the table, her finger poised to open the message from her mother, when an irrational annoyance bubbled up inside her. 

"Later," she told the letter firmly, and set it aside with the bills on the door-side table. Closing the portal once more, she locked it and whispered her spell once again, setting her wards for the evening before heading upstairs to finish her evening routine. Letting her long black hair down from the updo she had arranged it into this morning, she pulled her striped white blouse from her dark grey pencil skirt and ed it as she moved through her bedroom to the conjoined bath suite. That was one of the many perks of working - she paid for all the things she had on her own and no longer had to rely on her mother's money, despite the fact that she knew she would be living a far nicer life if she were tapping into the older witch's bank account. She just felt cleaner doing it this way, without the generations of old money that was earned off of other people's blood. She wasn't naive enough to assume that the money was earned in the right ways, after all, it was a dark time for witches in the centuries past.

Kicking off the rest of her clothing, she turned the shower on to the hottest it would go and waited for the steam to build up before she stepped in. Her apartment complex all used the same heating and the water never got too hot, but it was enough to turn her skin pink and make something in her soul shudder with pleasure. She took a long time in the shower, as she did each evening, and then stepped out to reach for her fuzzy pink robe. "Yah!" she sounded, giving a start as her hand came into contact with a solid body. Only when she realized that it was her cat did her racing heart slow down, and she shoved the feline off of the bathroom counter with a frown. "Get out of here, you," she admonished, plucking the robe from where the cat had been sitting and wrapping it about herself. It was only then that she realized that her mother's letter had made its way into the bathroom, and now it lay on the floor at her feet, likely pushed off the counter by the cat when Minji made it leave. 

That was another one of the benefits of having a familiar, in that they gained more sentience than an average animal through the use of being used as a conduit for magic. The cat probably sensed the magical touch of her mother's letter, and for a moment Minji considered opening it just to get the ordeal done with. Her fingers traced the back of the sealed envelope as she considered, then she shook her head and put it on the shelf in front of her mirror. "After wine," she told her reflection, even though she knew she was lying. She felt mildly guilty about that, looking at the pale, tired girl in the mirror, but she pushed that aside as she moved back through her bedroom to head for her kitchen. If it were important, her mother surely would have called.

After a simple dinner of rice and steamed vegetables, and two glasses of wine, she settled onto her couch to turn on the television, the letter forgotten in her bathroom. She fell asleep watching a typical romantic drama, and when she woke she had a chill over her and her heart was racing. Her eyes couldn't make out anything in her apartment except where the television cast its glow over her and the immediate vicinity, but something felt wrong and she couldn't shake that. Pulling herself into a sitting position, she mumbled the words to a battle spell she had learned years ago when she was an avid pupil to her mother's teaching, and, bolstered by the fact that she had it ready to loose with one word, she stood and made her way to the light switch.

As soon as she hit it, she