AN.1.

Soon I'll be leaving Japan to go home. Looking at the cost of hundreds of thousand lives lost to the pandemic, I don't think I can feel at home. I just feel sick.

AN.2.

Been wanting to write a response fic or a fic inspired by Care’s “i'll never hear the sound of someone calling me home” since 2014. Took me six years, but hey, progress, amirite?

Other things referenced in this story:

Shakespeare’s “Parting is such sweet sorrow” (yeah, Shakes, yeah) The opening arson scene from Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) ending. Not my favorite Hitchcock, but the imagery is just too unforgettable. Dante’s “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” I dreamed of having Dante in a wenrene fic is2g. One day, maybe. Arya Stark’s request to Thoros: “Could you bring back a man without head?” Richard Siken’s “We’ve been to the moon and we’re still fighting over Jerusalem.” WH Auden’s /But in my arms till break of day/Let the living creature lie,/Mortal, guilty, but to me/The entirely beautiful./ Han Kang’s “Why, is it such a bad thing to die?” Antonio Tabucchi’s “Time ages in a hurry.” Stephen Crane’s “War is kind.” Yours truly: “The sky, stars, and Seungwan.” (Once again for the alliteration, not so much the sentiment.)

AN.3.

On Oct 15, I left a comment on pajamagirl/fanystaengoo’s fic and, long story short, let’s just say we agreed to disagree. (Or, rather, she blocked me.) I took no offense to that, and we went our own way. Starting from Oct 16, there were folks who tweeted that I treated other fic writers like robots with no feelings. Well, did I stop being a fic writer simply for disagreeing with other writers' work? Had I turned into Ex Machina’s Ava without my knowing? I was accused of hiding behind AFF crowdfunding to slight others (as if I were the only AFF author to make use of the crowdfund feature). I did collect screenshots of the tweets of wend-rp-l, marchi-rt-n, rvr--k-ec--k-e, 130k-l-m-t-rs (who also admins for one of Wendy’s biggest Twitter fanbases, smh), jsl--, baeq--, and a couple more as a self-reminder that, why yes, the hive believes we writers should aim for uniformity both in our work and our taste.

That, and my CuriousCat also turned into a daycare for kids who alleged me of disrespect and hiding behind anonymous review when, ironically, they did so by using the anonymous feature on CuriousCat. Time to meet the other Black brothers after Sirius, I guess: say hi to pot and kettle. As of now I’m content with my screenshots for personal archives, but I’m not a fan of humoring takes caterwauled by tiny tots, which to me are as useful as T. Rex’s arms. I do not trust a group of people who pat each other on the back for "taking care of their mental health" while dogpile on others, even more so anonymously and as a hive.

So.

Wherever you are heading, fandom, for better or worse, all things disappointing and eye-opening considered, I wish you safe travel. Most fondly, I thank my crowdfunding patrons, commenters, and readers. No more of this fandom and no more of fic writing for me. Namárië!

-.-.-

 

Such Sweet Sorrow

 

On December 1, the Oracle made it known to all Night Children that their Time would cease on December 26. The Communique was first relayed to the seven Superiors, then to world government liaisons, then to den heads. The Oracle is always right, the Superiors announced. We accept the Communique. We shall go. Wendy Shon did not hear the news until, a week after, a riot broke out in the shantytown Juan Pablo II, Santiago, an hour and a half from her residence La Sebastiana in Valparaiso.

It’s all over the news the morning after: desiccated, uniformed bodies in a precinct, the shantytown in ashes. A TV reporter found a few survivors amidst the wreck, and the camera zoomed in to a crying girl hiding behind her mother’s skirt. The mother ranted and the reporter let her do so. Monsters, damn them Night Children to hell. Why us? Happened so quick. Were just sleeping. Didn’t hurt anyone, did we? Why us, monsters? Monsters. Wendy turned off the TV just as the camera panned at what was left of Juan Pablo II.

Half an hour later, at one in the morning, a long-time acquaintance of hers who traveled on foot from Santiago to La Sebastiana knocked on her door. “Keeper, I have made my peace,” he told her as he showed her his hands. There’s dried blood caked under his nails. “To our own, I gave a merciful end. To our handlers, demise.”

“Had a good walk?”

“Yes. A bit cloudy, but I’ll take it. Could use some wine, though. The carménère are fruiting. I’m a bit tired now.”

Her visitor climbed to the third floor, lied on a bed he dragged from the second floor, and lied still. At four in the morning, she brought him breakfast, to which he asked if she had named each of the dishes, per the tradition of the old master of the house.

“Superior Neruda used to make up ridiculous names for his dish.”

“So I’ve read. I would love to recreate the Green Ink that Marred the Blue Harbor Bay.”

“What edible ink is green, Keeper?”

“I don’t know. I’ll look to it.”

“Let me know when you do.”

At five, assuming that he had finished his breakfast, she went to the dungeon of the house. There’s an old coat she brought from South Kensington when she first moved into La Sebastiana, dark and thick and adjusted to her figure. The seamstress who did the adjustment told her that she looked like she had that Old World’s bearing when she put on the coat, despite not being British or even European. “You’d fit well in London,” the seamstress had told her. She’d replied that she liked the air in the New World more. Better. Fresher. Less regal, but less diseased. The next day, she booked a flight to Santiago and took up the position of the Keeper of La Sebastiana.

Coat on, she went to the garage to take out her car. It took five minutes for the car to purr into life under her sure hands, and the time was enough to set the house on fire. It was ablaze on her side mirrors even miles after she drove away.

-.-.-

 

Such Sweet Sorrow

 

The first time she was in Madrid, she was malnourished, wan and worn and had to be flanked on both sides just to stand, then laid on a bed and held down by people much bigger, much stronger than her, then was pried open, then blood was poured into and then she gagged and gagged until she swallowed it all and swallowed it to the last drop, all the while calling out and cursing the one name she’d never thought she’d curse, all of which served as a reminder of a happy agony. She stayed in Ibiza for two months while she recuperated and learned, mostly holed in the back room of Park Sooyoung’s bleeder bar in Ibiza, surrounded by endless smell and voice of various kinds she thought she’d gone crazy from. She learned: that the best hours of the day were from 3 to 5 AM, where the bacchanalia quietened if only a little and bleeders only let out a soft sigh or two at the care of their Night Children patrons, that some bleeders cared about the means, some about the pleasure, and most about both, and that the latest were always the most avoided.

The ground attendant stationed at the executive lounge hurried to leave her as soon as she’s done showing her the reserved private booth in the executive lounge. She didn’t spare a glance back, and Wendy wasn’t surprised. A woman rose from a shadowed chaise, her figure cut in half by the play of light. She tipped her wide-brimmed hat up at Wendy. Red, red lips quirked up too in a light smile. “Keeper Shon,” she greeted. “Care to spend your four hours of transit with me?”

“Overseer Park,” she returned, taking the only chair across the woman. “You look splendid as usual, despite—well—everything.”

Park Sooyoung, Overseer de jure and de facto underworld governess of the Iberian peninsula, merely flicked a hand at the insinuation. Her manicured nails glinted in the dim light, a waft of her perfume she’d sprayed on her wrist that Wendy first recognized more than a century ago hitting her olfactory sense. Bergamot with a hint of sage on top, vanilla bridge, and solid patchouli base. Underneath the makeup and perfume, she’s all Night Daughter—all metallic tang, penny and battery, Wendy thought. Like me.

Sooyoung tilted her head to the side, her smile turning teasing and less a stranger. “You’ve learned well since the last time I met you.”

Wendy shrugged. “Too on the nose, Sooyoung.” It earned her a snort. “Where’s that liaison who keeps following you around? Kang?”

“Gone. To her birth place, I mean.”

“Right. How’s Jakarta?”

“A mess.” Sooyoung shrugged. She flicked her wrist again, as if doing so would get rid of the sore knowledge of the subject. “Men ate men, we ate men, everyone ate everything, what’s new. Warned them, didn’t I? If such fate befell Bangkok, what hope did Jakarta have in escaping?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Shush. Shouldn’t you ask about the same old news than, say, someone we both know you’re more concerned about?”

She sighed. “I am not concerned.”

“Oh my, pardon my choice of words. No, not someone. The one.”

She waved a hand in a garish impersonation of Sooyoung’s own. “You’ve had, what, ten lifetimes to be something and yet you chose to be annoying?”

“I love annoying you.”

“Would you have done it differently back then?”

Sooyoung reclined on her chaise and made a gesture at her to move her chair closer. She clasped her hands across her midriff, stretched and crossed her legs at the ankles, tugged her hat lower to cover her eyes, and was still. It was, unfathomably, just the way Wendy met Sooyoung for the first time after she was dragged back from the brink in her visit to Madrid. Shivering from the fever, teeth chattering and feet unsteady, she was brought to see Sooyoung, who for the next two months was her Lonely Planet guide to being a Night Daughter. I owe your maker a favor was Sooyoung’s only explanation.

Would you have let me rot in that Getafe sewer? You hate messy stuff, complicated stuff. What’s one newly turned Night Daughter to your whole bar? What’s an old favor to the pain of rearing a cub—and one that did not welcome it even more so?

Sooyoung opened to let the tip of her fangs come out and graze her lower lip. Breathed out. Tsk-tsked her. Grew quiet again.

Knowing she wouldn’t get any answers from Sooyoung, Wendy slouched on her chair. The dim light from the floor lamp fell on Sooyoung’s hat, shrouding her face in darkness, her red, red lips most visible.

Wendy cupped the side of her neck and felt it grow warmer under her palm.

-.-.-

 

En route to Doha, her second and final stop before Seoul, a flight attendant slid a tulip glass of whisky onto her table. Its condensation droplets fell on the coaster, a few hitting the back of her hand. She lowered her book to look at the attendant, who smiled at her. “Knappogue Castle, aged 12 years,” the attendant said.

Closing her book, she ran a finger down the tulip bowl of the glass. “I didn’t order this.”

“A gift from Ms Park. She wished you an enjoyable flight.” The attendant shifted her glass to let a corner of the small paper between the coaster and the glass show. “Enjoy your gift, Ms Shon.”

She put her book down, took the glass, took a sniff of it, took a sip. Her time in Chile had accustomed her to savory, ofttimes too tannic wine much lighter on the senses than Old World whisky, but Sooyoung knew her liquor. She’d miss Sooyoung’s mean highball, really.

She took the paper, flipping it between her fingers. The handwriting was neat—Sooyoung’s. She read it once and did as instructed: went to the upper deck, headed to the left side restroom, found the attendant who served her whisky earlier leaning against the restroom door. The cabin was unlit, and most of the passengers were asleep. “Hello again, Ms Shon,” she said, straightening up.

She took the attendant’s hand just as she was pulled into the restroom. It’s bigger than a regular restroom and she’s smaller and shorter than the attendant, so they fit inside. She put down the toilet lid and sat down on it, and the attendant sat on her lap and wound her arms around her shoulders. The attendant was about to undo her hair bun when Wendy stopped her. “Keep it that way,” she said.

The attendant hummed. “Easier access, no?”

She slid an arm around the attendant’s waist, another going for the dip between the collar of her shirt. “How long have you been a bleeder?”

“Paid for my college by being a reg at Ms Park’s bar.“

“All good?” Her fingertips inched under the white shirt. Cold skin met warm skin, its quiet throb pulsing as if calling her. She caressed a line down the hipbone, and her girl shivered.

“Mm-hm. Got what I needed. The bonus was good, too. It’s like without the pregnancy or STD risk.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Good to know.” Her other hand inched to pull the girl by her nape. “Lean down a bit.” She nosed the skin to find where the vein was. It took her only a few seconds now, courtesy of more than a century of practice. When her fangs did pierce, her girl let out a soft moan. She hoped it’s more pleasure than pain, but most of the time it’s a mix of both. Pleasure is pain, darling, she remembered Sooyoung’s guidance in her first time feeding of her own will. Live food will feel hot and delicious for you, and if you can find it in you to be generous to your food, you can make it feel good for them, too.

She too remembered the night she gained her new life. A call of her birth name, in barely restrained panic and in desperation, a cool hand reaching into the hole in her side, another cool hand pressing her chin down, cool blood in that turned her, her broken ribs realigning themselves, her fingers trying to grasp at emptiness. She mouthed a name, then rasped it out. I’m here, she remembered hearing. I’m here, Seungwan.

The throb traveled through her girl’s whole body, and this time they both moaned. Wendy drank and drank until she’s full, the throb in her own body feeling like a constant buzz all over. She pulled away and supported the weight of her girl, who slumped against her, head lolling on her shoulder.

“Okay?” she asked, touching the puncture wounds on the girl’s neck, her other hand rubbing her back. The wounds would scab and heal in no time. Her girl would need to replenish her energy, and she’d recover. Wendy didn’t take, never took more than she needed.

“Mm.” Her girl sighed. Maybe it’s her sense of duty as a flight attendant, or maybe it’s how normal humans behaved after a bleeding session, known creatures of curiosity and oddity, but Wendy was a bit surprised when her girl swiped two fingers across her lower lips, smearing blood and lipstick altogether. The girl put her fingers inside , and she cleaned them. Wanting to return the benevolence, she slipped her hand past the waistband of the girl’s dress pants but was stopped by a hand on her wrist. “I’m okay, thanks. God, I forgot how good it felt. You’re good.”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“What is there in Korea for you? A final resting place?”

“Already dead, remember?”

“Right, right. Well, I hope you’ll survive December 26, Ms Shon.”

“Thank you.”

“And if you do, lemme know if you’re in Madrid again, okay. I’m sure you know more bars than just Ms Park’s.”

She left the restroom first, clean and tidy, not a single drop of blood on her clothes. She’d always been a neat eater, something that didn’t change even when she did. Returning to her seat in the lower deck, she found that her table had been cleaned. Even her whisky glass was taken away. What a waste of such good whisky, she mourned with a sigh.

-.-.-

 

The thing about Daegu was, if she were to be completely honest, it made a special catalogue in her Keeping Up with the Homo Sapiens routine. In the short period she was staying under Sooyoung’s wings and in the longer period she wandered Earth’s many corners to hold the hands of the dying and the sick, she still tried to keep herself updated about Daegu. There had been a female president from the region—unsurprisingly a staunch conservative, a futile push to secede from the republic, a large effort to revive its dying textile industry, and of course the rising temperature that decimated the majority of its apple farming. In the last fifty years, there were more bleeder bars appearing in the region compared to the rest of Korea, ironic considering its reputation as the stronghold of conservatism. There’s also a spec