“Pass me more acorns.”

“Get them yourself.”

“Hey! You’re closer to them, Park.”

“Think fast!”

A brown orb whizzes by, barely missing the tip of Jisoo’s nose and smacking Yeri square in the face. Sooyoung snickers at the sight of the shorter girl’s shock, cackling when it turns into rage in a span of a second.

“You’re dead!” Yeri screams, springing up from her squat to grab her own bowl of peeled acorns on the adjacent stump and barrage the latter.

“Stop! Stop!” Jisoo squeals, arms out in a futile attempt to put distance between the troublemakers as they push against her smaller frame. The task to make acorn paste is simple, yet the two can’t do anything without provoking one another. Why does Joohyun even put them together?

“Bring it on!” Sooyoung taunts, grinning wickedly, and seizes a fistful of her own acorn.

“Joohyun!” Jisoo cries out, dropping down at her spot and covering her head to protect herself from the forthcoming rain of acorns. Before either of the two can initiate an attack, the door of the hut bursts open. Lo and behold, a peeved Joohyun with her hands on her hips and a sharp glower that cuts glass.

“What are you two doing?” Joohyun chastises, storming toward them and smacking the back of Yeri and Sooyoung’s heads respectively.

“She started it!” Yeri whines and jabs an accusational finger at the girl with a smug expression. “I asked her to pass over more acorns, but she threw one at me instead. I even asked nicely!”

Joohyun shifts her glare toward Sooyoung, wiping the smugness right off. For someone so tall, she shrinks incredibly from the regard.

“Is that true?” Joohyun asks dangerously.

“Well, I thought it would be funny — ah!”

Curses tumble out of Sooyoung’s mouth, tangled into incoherency as Joohyun pulls on her ear, twisting it for good measure. Yeri grins with glee and sticks her tongue out at the latter flailing around.

“Look! Yeri is making fun of me!” Sooyoung yelps, pointing a wild finger at the said girl.

Joohyun’s attention whips to Yeri whose tongue retreats back behind her lips just as quickly and her ear suffers the same painful reprimand.

“Ah! I didn’t do anything —!”

Jisoo giggles on the sidelines at the comedic scene of the two screaming girls falling to their knees at the mercy of Joohyun’s rebukes about them being careless among other things. Running footsteps near, and Jisoo’s fit falters when two distressed scouts bolt past them, leaving a billow of dust in their wake. What’s with the hurry? Curiosity pushes Jisoo to follow them to find out, but Joohyun steps in front of her.

“Where are you going?” she asks, having long released Yeri and Sooyoung from her deathly grasp. They sit on the ground, rubbing their abused ears and groaning. “You still have acorns to smash.”

“I saw Junmyeon and Jinyoung run by. They looked like they were in trouble.”

Joohyun frowns and purses her lips. “I’ll go check on them. Stay here and finish your chores. And you two,” she jabs a finger at Yeri and Sooyoung, “behave yourselves. One of you better not be dead by the time I come back.”

“Yes,” they sigh in unison, heads bowed down.

Jisoo’s jaw clenches, fists curled, as Joohyun jogs down the winding path and disappears amongst the cluster of other villagers pushing log carts. Being kept in the dark once again; turning a blind eye was easy, but this time, she can’t.

“You heard the woman.” Sooyoung clasps her hands together and returns to her squatting position. “We need to finish this paste before dinner.”

The girls return to their stations in silence: two of them in defeat due to the merciless scolding they received, and one of them because of the dark, uncomfortable feeling brewing in her chest.

☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯

Not even the dinner that night is enough to lift Jisoo’s spirits.

Joohyun has been missing all day. This meant Jisoo ate with Yeri and Sooyoung without the older girl’s supervision. But oddly enough, the two behaved themselves quite well if silence was their way of behaving. It’s unlikely from Joohyun’s reprimand because it’s been given so many times; it must be Jisoo's dismal mood bleeding onto the table, contrary to her usual liveliness. Picking at her food aimlessly, Jisoo doesn’t converse with the other two, her mind heavy with endless thoughts.

Endless thoughts such as: where is Joohyun? Why does dinner feel a little more empty today? Why is the foliage of the trees covering the night sky? Defensive? It can’t be a coincidence. Even the air wavers differently.

Joohyun doesn’t come home after dinner. The whole village shares Jisoo’s restlessness; the lanterns are still lit even after the curfew, yellow dots in the windows of several huts. Everyone is awake, yet everything is silent as if the forest is holding its breath.

“I wonder what’s going on?” Jisoo whispers to Rabbit trudging around his tank, her cheek resting on her arm on the shelf the tank resides on. He doesn’t pay her any attention, prompting her to pout. Ignored — by a mere tortoise at that!

“What do you even do all day?” she grumbles and presses her forehead on the glass. “I would think my thoughts are more interesting than the rock you sleep under all day. Are you still bitter that I haven’t been taking you out these days? It’s because of my chores, I already told you.”

Rabbit continues to do laps unbothered. Jisoo sighs and walks to the windowsill to gaze at the night above, propping her chin up with both elbows. Although blocked by the foliage, the moon shines through all the same, one day shy of transitioning to its full ball of light.

Is Jennie looking at the same moon right now?

The atmosphere is absent of breeze. Jisoo’s fingertips reach out to try to grasp onto something, but there’s nothing. It’s been such a long month, she misses the wind dearly. Only one more day, the next night, to greet it again, and yet.

“Jennie,” Jisoo whispers to the moon. “I miss you. I would like to hold your hand right now. I really — I really need to hold your hand right now. I’m so confused and tired. I’m living every day on thin ice.” She runs a hand through her hair and puffs, then smiles. “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. I hope you are resting well.”

Silence is her only reply.

Jisoo feels silly for a moment. Did she really expect a response when Jennie is leagues away? She scoffs at herself and turns away to the comfort of her sheets. Once she settles underneath them, the wind blows. So soft it caresses the tips of her hair with such delicate subtleness that it’s invisible to the eye, but Jisoo has grown sensitive to the wind no matter how slight because it has become a sensation she looks forward to the most.

Jennie? Her head perks to the window, eager hand clasping the air for more.

But there is nothing.

Is her mind deceiving her? Her optimism deluding her?

Her hand drops by her side. With a leaden heart, so and so that it becomes an anchor that drags her down deeper into this chasm of desolation, Jisoo buries herself under her bedsheets feeling lonelier than ever. The incense lulls her to sleep, and in the split second before she drifts off for the night, the door opens to a distressed Joohyun.

☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯

Sleep is meant to make the individual rested and energetic for the next morning, but Jisoo is only more fatigued, if not more than yesterday. Is that even possible?

The chirping of birds coaxes her swollen eyelids open to a cloudy sky. She takes steady breaths and lays for some seconds for the grogginess to dispel, her senses gradually sharpening until her ears pick up hushed voices talking somewhere in the room.

“What do we do about duties? She can’t go out to the forest with all that happening…” Joohyun frets.

“The adults will take care of the duties,” replies a deeper voice that sounds like Junmyeon. “The children will have to stay put in the village until further notice. Don’t worry.”

What are they talking about? Jisoo squeezes her eyes shut, hoping to appear asleep, and strains to hear more.

“Nothing bad will happen, right?” Joohyun’s voice uncharacteristically wavers. It’s rare that the older girl loses her confidence — in front of another person at that. Whatever it is, it must be serious. “Jisoo can’t go through that. None of the children deserve to go through that.”

“I hope not too, but I can’t say for certain. The only thing we can do is be ready and anticipate the worst. You know how it is… Remember to attend the meeting today.”

A sniff, a rustle, a sigh, then the groan of the door opening and closing. Jisoo peers through the crack of one eyelid at Joohyun’s slumped back and downcasted head, an empty stool across from hers. One sheep, two sheep — Jisoo roars a yawn and announces her arousal.

“Good morning, Joohyun,” she chimes, stretching her muscles dramatically.

Joohyun’s head whips over her shoulder as she hastily wipes her cheek with her palm. Something else to be noted is the way Joohyun’s hair is tousled; usually, it’d be tamed and brushed first thing in the morning because she loves her hair so much. She must’ve woken up not long ago. “Good morning, Jisoo,” she greets with a strained smile. “You look like you’ve had a good night’s sleep. The incense must’ve worked.”

“I didn’t see you all day yesterday,” Jisoo pouts, prodding the topic carefully in the persona of an innocent, worried sister. “What were you doing?”

Joohyun hesitates. Jisoo’s eyebrows rise. “Seunghyun called for an emergency meeting with the eldest of each household.” She looks away, her mane of dark hair hiding her profile. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

She’s a liar.

“But you look stressed, Joohyun. How is that anything to not worry about?”

“Do I?” she forces a chuckle, smoothening her cheeks comically. “I must be aging. Wrinkles come with age.”

She is lying.

The walls are beating, thumps the rhythm of Jisoo’s heart that fastens with the blood rush. Joohyun must not see nor hear the walls because she stands up and brushes down her dress — has her dress always been red? No, it’s brown, just like Jisoo’s because the color red isn’t part of the traditional colors of the Earth tribe — so calmly as though the house isn’t dangerously shaking. “I have errands to do —”

Liar liar liar —

“— you don’t have berry duty anymore, so stay in the village, okay? Play with Yeri or something, but make sure to not step one foot out. You can’t play in the forest today.”

— liar liar liar —

Jisoo smiles. Wide, toothless, and sweet. “Okay. Have fun on your errands.”

Joohyun regards Jisoo for a moment before leaving with haste. After the door closes, all fall silent. The house is still. The birds are gone. Taking a long look at the medicine pouch by her bed, Jisoo’s hand subconsciously reaches for it, pauses, and retracts.

She’ll throw some pills out later today. To make Joohyun happy.

☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯

“Something is going on and I want to get to the bottom of it.” Jisoo pounds her fist on her palm, puffing her cheeks. “I hate that the adults don’t tell us anything. Who do they think we are? Babies?”

Huddled in a tight circle, Yeri and Sooyoung bob their heads in unison, eyebrows stitched as they listen intently. They too are off the hook for duties and instructed to stay in the village by their parents for reasons just as unbeknown.

“You’re right,” Sooyoung declares. “We’re almost adults! We have the right to know what’s happening. I knew Joohyun seemed off these days.”

“I agree,” Yeri adds. “I haven’t seen the village this tense in forever.”

“Well, you haven’t lived that long.”

“I said that for dramatic purposes —”

Jisoo flaps her hands wildly to defuse the rising volumes and beckons them closer.

“They gather at the Chief’s house for their meeting,” Jisoo explains once they return their attention, not without mocking one another first. “We just need to eavesdrop without getting caught.”

“Eavesdrop?” Sooyoung echoes.

“Without getting caught?” Yeri reiterates.

They shoot each other a knowing grin. The mischievousness is a little unsettling, but given the context of the situation, excitement sparks and Jisoo is absolutely on board with the mischief. If she can’t play in the forest, then at least this will make today interesting and help the time pass quicker to the night of the full moon.

“You’re asking the biggest pranksters to do something we’re not supposed to do without getting caught,” Sooyoung gleams and bumps fists with Yeri. “We got this.”

Jisoo claps with a squeal. Without a doubt, these two are always the right people to ask to commit such a stunt. “They must be having a meeting right now. Joohyun left in a hurry this morning.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Yeri bounces upright, puts a fist to her hip, and jabs a finger into the air. “Let’s go find out what’s going on!”

☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯⚏☯

The plan is simple.

From the Chief’s hut, Yeri guards the north and east paths and Sooyoung guards the south and west paths while being as discreet as possible because the center of the village is the busiest. Keen eyes allow them to spy trouble from a mile away, be it a suspecting person or stray children unknowingly threatening their position. If such trouble arises, they will scream their alert word “acorn” to alarm the others and abort the mission.

As for Jisoo, she is crouched underneath the window of the meeting room, toe-deep in a plant box with fresh fertilizer that had to have been added this morning because it’s that fresh — putrid, cool, moist, and all. Luckily a cart of crates containing who knows is conveniently left by this window, concealing her from any passerby. Hopefully, the owner doesn’t come by anytime soon.

I’m sorry, Chief. Jisoo grimaces, pinching her nose as she navigates her feet around the plants to avoid crushing them and position herself directly under the window. Her position is uncomfortable, a half-squat with pressure mostly on the knees that are tense from said pressure and threaten to cramp at any moment. She struggles to make herself more comfortable without succumbing to kneeling on the fertilizer until voices speak. She freezes, lest she emits sound and misses any important information, or worse, brings attention to herself.

The voices are hard to fathom, but when Jisoo rises just so that the top of her head is below the windowsill, they become clearer.

“Scouts… last night…”

“The wind is restless these days.”

“But that could be anything!”

“With recent events… we can only assume the worst. Some Fires, from what I last heard, have been seen moving west.”

“West…? They’re not doing what I think they’re doing, right?”

“No way will the Water tribe give them the girl for their sick prophecy. Without a fight too? What are they thinking?”

“I think they want to avoid… the Fires tend to turn violent when things don’t go their way.”

“That’s what I hate about them. Ugh, this is preposterous!”

“Anything can happen… the Air tribe may be close and moving from their mountains if they had heard this news... high alert… deploy all scouts.”

Jisoo’s blood freezes.

“Scout the entire forest tonight.”

Her breath hitches, her hand sliding from the bridge of her nose to clasp on to contain any element of her shock. Jisoo tries to hear the rest of the conversation that seemingly dropped into a series of mumbles, but her footing breaks the stem of a young plant, her nerves leaping off her skin from the soft crack. In her surprise and panic, she slips on the moist soil, tumbling onto the ground with a yelp. Groaning with a scraped knee and forearm, she spits out some gravel that isn't very tasty.

“What was that?”

Uh oh.

Jisoo’s head perks up from the ground. She sharply inhales and holds it, scanning around for a place to hide. There is that cart of crates, but it’s too far away and she doesn’t have enough time before someone checks out the ruckus. With no other choice, Jisoo scrambles to the hut’s wall and presses her back against it, hugging her shaking knees as tightly as possible to pocket any inch of herself. The distinct movement of someone’s head looks left and right out the window right above Jisoo. A bead of sweat trickles down her forehead.

One sheep. Two sheep. Three sheep. Four —

“Must be a squirrel.”

The window shutters close. Trembling, Jisoo removes herself from the wall and scurries away before any further risk of getting caught. She doesn’t know where she’s going, just somewhere out of sight from the meeting room’s window. She ducks behind a tree and leans against it, clutching her chest, out of breath, knees wobbly, and hysterical beyond belief.

“Jisoo!” Yeri and Sooyoung bound toward her, a skip in their steps. Their merry smiles slack into frowns upon digesting Jisoo’s anxious state.

“What’s wrong?” Yeri exclaims, supporting Jisoo’s arm to keep her on her feet while Sooyoung holds Jisoo’s shoulder. “Did you get seen? You ran out of there so fast. We thought the mission was successful. I guess not?”

Jisoo swallows big gulps of air and lifts her head up to meet her friends’ worried gazes. Before she can start explaining, their gazes dart to something behind her. Mouths ajar and eyes wide, they release their grips on Jisoo and bow hastily.

“Hello, Elder,” the two girls chime.

Who?

Jisoo’s blood freezes all over, and her head slowly turns left to the said person. The man fashions the same gray robes — down to the last stitching — the same large stature, but… but…

“Good afternoon, Miss Park and Miss Kims,” the corner of his dusky eyes crinkle as he smiles at them. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Jisoo gawks at the man, but Yeri elbows her in the ribs and bares her teeth, probably trying to tell her to greet him. Sooyoung casts Jisoo a raised eyebrow, pursed lips communicating the same beg. Jisoo means no disrespect, but… but…

“This isn’t the Elder,” Jisoo says.

“What?” Yeri squeaks with a jump. She flashes a nervous smile at the man and pats Jisoo’s shoulder a tad too hard. “What are you saying, Jisoo? Come on, greet the Elder. Where are your manners?”

“This isn’t the Elder,” Jisoo repeats, facing the man. He has the same tuft of dark hair and green strands, but his face is different: his chin is wider, his nose taller, his eyebrows thicker.

Especially his eyes.

“It is the Elder,” Yeri argues, visibly nervous now with jittery feet and a contorted expression as if she stubbed her toe. “Greet him. Now.”

“The Elder’s eyes are red.” Jisoo regards the man looking at her quizzically. “Your eyes are black.”

“Of course his eyes are black,” Yeri hisses. “Just like the rest of us. No one has red eyes. Why would an Earth have red eyes?”

Why would an Earth have red eyes?

Red, a color no other Earth has.

Sooyoung doesn’t come to Jisoo’s defense, fixing an equally confused and concerned look. As a matter of fact, all of them are. They are looking at her weird, like a horn grew on her forehead, and Jisoo feels sick to the stomach from their stares. She takes a trembling step back, away from Yeri’s hand hovering uncertainly over her shoulder. Are they pulling another one of their sick stunts? Acting like they know nothing, painting Jisoo the crazy one? A crazy girl who needs help and counseling and gross medicine and extra care because she can’t take care of herself? Trapped in a world of lies, born amongst people — family — that are meant to be trusted, yet deceive her again and again? Powerless against everything and made to appear young and dumb and okay with all of it?

Don’t let them know.

Who exactly told her those words? Certainly not this man in front of her. But as the ability to distinguish between the real and the fake dwindles with each passing second, Jisoo has nothing else to hold onto except those words that seem ever the real, so she relents a bow and mutters, “Hello, Elder.”

The man, seemingly satisfied with the greeting, gives them a curt nod. “I’ll be going. Have a good rest of your day.”

“Wait,” Jisoo says.

The man stops in his tracks and turns around. “Yes, Miss Kim?”

“What’s your name?”

Sooyoung and Yeri look scandalized by the question. Jisoo acknowledges that it’s rude to ask any figure of authority, like the Elder and the Chief, their name unless you’re on the first name basis with them — even ruder for a child to ask.

But Jisoo needs to know.

His eyebrows rise, but he smiles. “My name is Dong Wook.”

After he sauntered off, Yeri and Sooyoung crowd back around Jisoo, eyebrows stitched and arms crossed alike.

“Jisoo, what’s with you?” Sooyoung pesters. “What did we say about playing it cool when an adult approaches us? We’re trying to not be suspicious, but here you are being exactly that. What did you hear there that made you so antsy and pale?”

Are they still playing dumb after that whole ordeal? Sooyoung and Yeri of all people. They… they’re supposed to be her friends. It hurts every time they do this to her. Why? Is it Joohyun’s orders? Peer pressure? Bribery?

Or are they perhaps scared of Jisoo too?

Jisoo bites her bottom lip and swallows down the queasiness. As much as she is reluctant about giving them the information out of spite, it isn’t a good enough reason. The three of them are together in this operation, after all. Jisoo wouldn’t have been able to get the information if not for these two. And, frankly, whatever happened minutes ago isn’t the most significant thing at the moment.

Because from what Jisoo heard from the meeting, there is something larger at hand.

“Big trouble,” Jisoo utters.

“What's big trouble?” Yeri asks, her tone softer this time around. “Jisoo?”

Jisoo looks down, fiddling with her fingers. “I don’t know, but I think the world. The other tribes. Our tribe. Us. Something is happening. I think there will be big trouble ahead.”

And Jennie will be the one to spark it.