“Your swings are sloppy,” Soojin notes. Shuhua’s sword fails to cleave the bundle of bamboo in half, stuck three quarters in. “Has a week of rest made you forget everything you’ve learnt?” 

Shuhua tugs her sword out and slashes again. Cleanly passing through. “Hardly.”

“Your technique has gotten better.” 

“I’d hope so.” If she hasn’t, what does that make her? She has improved by a longshot. By leaps and bounds. Technically, she doesn’t need to train with Soojin anymore. 

She’s a swordmaster in her own right. 

“You’re still worse than me, but you’re better than Minnie.” A compliment that’s not really a compliment. Apparently, Minnie was the odd one of the bunch at birth, missing a weapon in her hands. It works out though, the elder girl prefers using her fists and elbows. Plus her knees and shins. 

That being said, Minnie handles a sword like a beginner grasping the intricacies of wielding chopsticks. Poking and stabbing.

Her eyes have yet to recover from the time she saw Minnie try to stab a minotaur with one of Soojin’s swords. ‘Messy’ cannot describe the scene adequately.  

A true disaster of blood and guts had come to life. Anyone would turn into a vegan on the spot. Not even vegetarianism, skip over that step. They’d go straight to veganism. 

“You’ll never say I’ve surpassed you, huh?” Complaining, sheathing her blade, Shuhua wipes at her forehead. The sun is setting, but for them, the day has aptly just begun. 

Hunting in broad daylight has become a nightmare of an activity to cover up. These days, anyone could film them on their phones and broadcast six girls randomly weaving, doing interpretive dancing. An avant-garde jive around monsters. 

Even the police won’t approach the monsters, telling all citizens to run for their lives and hide if they ever encounter them on the street. 

What’s to say six ordinary, absolutely normal and inconspicuous girls, would stand a chance against those beasts? This is a fool proof recipe for going viral on the internet, attracting unwanted attention.   

Not that Shuhua cares as demonstrated by her impromptu tendency of hunting on campus. Whenever and wherever.  

“Nope. In your dreams, child, you’ll never be better than me.” Soojin kicks the sliced bamboo into a pile, shuffling around. Refusing to squat and pick them up. “By the way, congratulations on surviving the whole week without going crazy. Soyeon told me to tell you that she’s mad.”

“I would’ve never guessed our dear leader is angry.”

“Your use of sarcasm could be improved too,” says Soojin. 

“Duly noted. I’ll try harder next time.” 

Soojin isn’t the type to sigh, already accustomed to Shuhua’s antics. She just seems done. “Soyeon has been checking every social media site to make sure you and Miyeon don’t go viral for your stunt.”  

“Blowing up the lab is nothing. Repairments aside, I think we’ve done a service to the university, they’ll devote their money to something useful instead of spending it all on leaf-blowing.” Shuhua can’t believe blowing leaves off the paths on campus is where the bulk of student fees go. 

A travesty. What a true atrocity. 

“We moved back into the city not long ago. Do you want to return to the middle of nowhere in the south?” asks Soojin. 

Shuddering at the thought, the south hasn’t been good to her. Miles and stretches of floating ice. The never-setting sun. Her blood already didn’t circulate well, the cold was unbearable. 

Shuhua would take the three years, a short fanciful experiment of living in the desert, over the south. “I’m surprised people don’t know reapers exist yet, but to answer your question, I’m good. I don’t want to hunt killer penguins in chilly weather.”

“Then we have an understanding. Soyeon also wants you to know and I quote, ‘Shuhua better sort out her angsty teen crap with Miyeon or else we’re moving back to the Antarctic.’ She’s threatening you to play nice.” 

Oh, she’s trying all right, there’s been a massive step forward. She hasn’t insulted Miyeon in any capacity for several days. But she hasn’t gone further than that. None of them live in the same house anymore, they meet when they hunt together. 

All this week, she hasn’t been hunting so there was no reason to see Miyeon again after the spur-of-the-moment excursion to the mountain.   

Shuhua points out something else. Grimacing. “Soyeon needs to stop learning modern slang.” 

“Agreed.”    

----

And so she decides to put in an even greater effort. Purposefully inviting Miyeon through text to hunt with her. Just the two of them. 

Shuhua stares at the message she sent. Wondering if she was hasty in her decision, whether her text was too blunt. Was it too performative? She doesn’t want the other woman to think she’s doing this only because of Soyeon or Soojin. Would Miyeon even know that Soyeon is threatening her to play nice?

Waiting for Miyeon to reply is a personal hell in itself. 

She can’t quell the uneasiness in her stomach. Pocketing her phone, she sets these wandering thoughts aside. 

At the northern entrance of the park, if she doesn’t see Miyeon within five minutes of the suggested meeting time, she’ll hunt on her own.  

----

When she arrives, Miyeon is already there, a small smile on her face, waving. “There’s going to be a vampire hag, I saw it already.” Uncharacteristic radiance exudes from the other woman, catching Shuhua off guard.

Pausing for a bit, it dawns on her what Miyeon is trying to say. “You mean strigoi?”

“Yeah, a male vampire hag.” Under wraps and barely contained, Miyeon’s energy is infectious. “I haven’t hunted one since the 1900s. They all went into hiding after Dracula was published.”

As she naturally falls into step beside Miyeon, listening to her speak, it scares Shuhua how much she has missed this. 

AN: End of the year update oho (that I had written a month or two ago). 

I hope you guys are all doing well.