In the world of the fairies—there is an ancient rule.

A rule to never, ever fall in love.

Love—was the worst sort of poison that a fairy could ever come across. At least, that was what Joohyun was told. Before, she saw first-hand—what love did to another.

A fairy in love would wither under the weight of their love, even more so, if the said love was unappreciated or reciprocated.

It was for this exact reason why fairies had never moved out from their hidden abode, pledged into secrecy within the shimmering veil of the fairy world, that existed in the same plane as all other supernaturals, but lingered, shielded—protected, as they should be, behind The Veil.

Fear of falling in love was the greatest thing for many fairies, and thus—lingering outside the Veil was also considered a taboo for many within the community, since the Veil itself protected the fairies from both dangerous ideals and potentials of falling in and out of love.

And yet—still, the number of fairies hidden behind the veil dwindled, petals of flowers falling from their lips, and fingers clutching their chests.

So, a new rule was put in place. The word, love, would be forbidden to ever be spoken. Marriage—between fairies would never be something out of love anymore. They would be arranged, and a surgery conducted to both male and females alike, after marriage, to remove that part of themselves that was so causing such worry, pain and misery.

Love.

It had to be done so that no feelings blossomed between a couple—something that Joohyun herself witness firsthand recur for more than half of her entire life, as she watched her mother, the gentler of the two, roll out on the hospital gurney, fingers clamping over her wrist and eyes terrified, peony petals suffocating her lungs with each cough that battered her lips, and her father’s head resting in his hands as the operating theatre light blinks on, blood red as the trail of blood that dotted her mother’s lips, the sickening smell of dandelions upon each wheezing breath.

Fairies. Are ill-fated people, Joohyun thinks, only ten as she buries her moon necklace that her mother stuffed in her hand before each surgery, deep into her palms, a moon’s imprint right upon the middle of her hand.

She’ll never fall herself. Never.

The surgeries make it too difficult for them to stay in the fairy world—the apparatus and the surgery specialised for fairies both expensive and time consuming. Half of the time that one of her parent recovers, the spend the equal amount of time staying in the hospital or locked at home, awaiting recuperation…until the next relapse once again.

It wasn’t even something to look forward to, Joohyun thought bitterly to herself, covering her nose as she swung open the door, stepping back into the house filled with the tepid smell of peonies and dandelion flowers.

Besides. Joohyun tossed the few sparse letters from the fairy community inviting her back into their community for a special tea ceremony right into the dustbin. None from the fairy community wanted to associate themselves with a couple that had repeatedly broken the taboo of the fairy world, even if their friendliness extended, both out of pity and out of distaste, to her.

Each time she held a wet cloth to her mother’s body, chest scarred over with tissue from the constant surgery—she’s reminded of the bitterness of their reality, fated to scar themselves with surgeries unwanted, and love never able to be lost.

Why were fairies such ill fated people? Would accepting the fact that they could love someone else be the salvation to all of their issues? Why was everything—in particular, so difficult? Joohyun often thought to herself, the drip of water as she pressed the soaked rug to her mother’s shrinking body with a pursed set of her lips.

“Mama.” She murmurs, eyes soft and sigh bewildered. “Why did you have to fall in love?” She watches her mother, catatonic and traumatised from the multiple surgeries, head listing lightly as she tried to muster some words, or even a smile, her eyes trained upon the prone figure of her father on his bed.

A faint cough, sparse with the dandelion scent, scatters into the air, the soft breath of her mother’s peony scented breath upon her face following.

“Right. Love.” Joohyun grimaced, the splash of water loud in her ears as she watched the water droplets run in rivulets, down the bony landscape of her mother’s body. “I ing hate love.”

They end up sending her to the normal school, whilst other fairies her age mingle around with their friends happily within the fairy community, setting their paths for their own futures.

You should have seen what we did for the tea party last week! The shrill sound of one of her friend’s voices pierces through her eardrums as she picks on the fraying blankets covering her parents as they slept.

“Uh huh. Must be fun.” She deadpans, watching the other fairy on the other line fall flat into awkward silence.

I know you didn’t join us, but shouldn’t the least you could be is nice about it? Her fingers slam against the end call button at the sound of the other girl’s accusatory voice, tossing the mobile phone into an unrelated corner, adamant to fiercely forget it as soon as she left the room. (She would pocket it quickly into her back pocket, minutes later, whilst leaving the room.)

“I’m going to school.” She says loudly to a house with nothing but silence and dying flowers, pulling her dark hair over her pixen ears, and a jacket to conceal those shimmering wings upon her back. “Maybe I’ll never come home again.” She says, just loud enough for her parents to hear, a stinging moment of pain panging from her chest as she hears her father’s soft wheeze for breath in reply, closing the door upon them once again.

They all know that what she says—is nothing but a lie.

Joohyun could never leave her parents behind. Call her too compassionate, too understanding, too incapable of putting down someone that she should have already put down ages ago. What ends in her pathetic attempt to put behind everything and leave, is the sting in her heart as her mother drools onto the armchair of her bed, eyes trained on her with warmth, as though encouraging her to go.

It’s guilt tripping, Joohyun tells herself, unable to confront herself with her incapability to leave them behind. Not that she’s compassionate.

“Oh, Mama.” She always ends up sighing, pulling the bound lady to her, tears in her eyes as she pressed her forehead to her mother’s own.

…

Humans. Both supernatural and non-supernatural, were superficial. Joohyun thought to herself, watching as young teens twined their tongues together in hallways with a hot kiss, the loud catcalls of other teens whistling through the hallways at the sight of her stalking through the corridors. Superficial, , and useless. She scrunches her nose as a couple slam their way into the toilet, oblivious to her presence in it, loud moans and kissing following as they find their way into the nearest cubicle, shedding clothing on the way and cementing her thoughts on them.

Humans—were nothing but dumb and superficial.

Her point is proven even further with the sudden spread of rumours around the school campus about the new girl, with beautiful crescent eyes, long lustrous hair, and a quivering smile upon her sweet lips, on top of porcelain skin. It’s her they’re describing—she’s sure of that, noting the people peeking through the school windows and pointing at her as she tried to concentrate in class.

Humans did like people who were beautiful, after all. Joohyun could only shrink in her seat from all the sudden attention, her hair shielding over her pale face like a curtain, the rustle of the pages in her book all too loud in her ears.

It’s a jock that approaches her first—a lopsided smile, pimpled face from breakouts, crooked teeth, and a terrible stink of cheese and onions upon his breath from lunch. Joohyun picks on the beans and sprouts in the school lunch morosely, eyes trained upon the silver coloured plate before her as though willing the jock away with just the pure force of her mind, in an attempt to chase him away.

Please go away. She wanted to say, fingers curling into her palms once more as she stared even more fervently at her plate of food, suddenly uncaring of the catcalls and the sniggers of the jock’s friends as he continued to pester her for an answer she didn’t want to say.

Just when she thinks that she’d like to smash her platter of food right onto the boy’s obnoxious face, his breath vanishes away from her ear, tight fingers pride open and away from her shoulder, and a crack of a broken nose and a howl of the jock fills to the air, much to the silence of everyone else around. Her head whips up, eyes wide, and a cute, dimpled smile swims right into her sight, cheeky and affectionately arrogant.

“I could have handled it myself.” She tells the other girl with a tilt of her chin, a huff upon her lips as she relaxes her fingers from the sides of the tray, watching as the other girl open and close like a fish out of water. “ If you’re expecting a thank you…” Joohyun pauses for a moment, tilting her head slightly towards the other girl begrudgingly. “ Thank you. But again, I could have handled it myself.” She scowls slightly as the other girl grins like a cat that got it’s favourite cream, catching herself quickly as she stretched, and ambling after her with her arms lazily braced against her head, much to her own personal chagrin.

Seulgi. That's the name of the girl that she learns, over the next week. A pretty name, for a pretty face, she thinks, catching herself just as quickly as she thinks of that thought, banishing it far down into the depths of somewhere else that she would forget.

And the worst of it all is that—Seulgi follows her, almost everywhere that she goes. It’s almost as though she’s her shadow, trailing after her footsteps, appearing wherever she’d least like her to be. (and most of course, like an angel from heaven, swiping all the men with their foul cheese and onion breaths, away from her side.) She doesn’t let the other girl catch the small smile that paints her lips at the sight of the other girl intimidating yet another jock as she sits daintily in her corner, chewing peacefully upon her lunch as though it was anything but normal.

“Aren’t you gonna pay me back one day, for being your bodyguard?”  Her eyes flicker up slightly as Seulgi slides into her usual seat next to her, stealing a fry from the right side of her plate (she would never admit to having kept those fries specially for Seulgi, even if she didn’t fancy eating such food).

“There’s your payback.” She taps her fork against her plate, hiding her smile once more as she shook her head, laughing quietly to herself as the other girl throws her hands up, whining about how inequivalent her reward was to her effort.

It goes on, just like this—for one fine year, until Joohyun goes back to her fairy community for a reunion with the rest of her family, the comforting sound of bells and light touches of the other fairies washing away her worries like a refreshing breath to her tarnished soul.

It’s barely for a week, and already—she misses Seulgi. Not that she was ever going to tell the other girl that.

It’s been a trip that she’s been looking forward to, this return to the fairy community, a meeting long awaited, especially since she finally gets to meet her younger adopted brother once again, after a year or two of separation, with both of them on different sides of the country, both marginalized in their fairy community, and living amongst humans.

You see, Jungkook was slightly different from her—a half breed, as most fairies would call him. Half human, and half fairy as attested to by his heavenly features, and voice. His mother had risked everything to bring him into the world, nine months of spewing lilies from her lips, with Jungkook’s father by her side, until she brought him into the world with the last of her strength, and faded from existence, the scent of bloodied lilies tarnishing the very room that he was born in.

Her family had reached out to them—for a young fairy in the human world, whether half or full blooded,  was a dangerous existence within a world that could not tolerate the purity of their existence.

He’s thinner, she thinks. Lankier. Bulkier. Maybe a little more muscle than when she last saw him, those goddamned genes of a human raging in his height as she looks up at him with the most disgruntled stare as she could.

“You grew. Again.” She whines, throwing herself into his arms for a hug, the warmth of his arms curving around her a warm welcome to the cold days in the human world. Her eyes slide towards the rest of the adults, a soft sigh of relief leaving her lips as the adults leave them be, since she couldn’t be happier than to be further away from the sickening smell of dandelions and peonies.

“How have you been?” She turns brightly to her brother as soon as the doors of the room close, watching him with glittering eyes and anticipating lips. “ Did you manage to—”

Jungkook barely opens his mouth when a petal of a black dahlia falls from his lips, and her world plunges back into a pit of despair.

“Noona.” His voice is rough, ridden with guilt and shame, tortured by the endless days of hiding a secret that he never should.

No.

The first words that fall from her lips is one of rejection, fingers plastering to the wall as she recoiled, watching with goosebumps trailing over her skin as he doubles over, coughing up his first lung of dahlias, and collapsing to the ground.

No! She barely remembers herself screaming as they take him to the hospital, nor the sight of the paled face of another girl when the paramedics brush past, tugged back by another male as she sobs her eyes out, a hand clutching her brother’s hand.

It’s Seulgi that finds her, hours after she calls the latter, blabbering with tears and inconsolable, the door to the hospital cabinet she’s holed herself up in slamming open, her hands wrapped around her knees, and the scent of the foul dahlias still in her nostrils.

She allows the younger girl to sweep her into her arms, the comforting scent of the freshly baked bread the other girl had just been making hours before, the anchoring scent to her fragile psyche.

Jungkook, is fine in the end. The doctors say. They’ve cut away the growing flowers in his chest with her permission—but it seemed as though that he had kept this a secret for a little too long, for the flowers had grown to a bountiful degree, hence his pallid face and the choking scent of flowers that he inhaled with each passing breath.

She walks into her brother’s hospital room, tears in her eyes as she watches him stare emptily at his hands, the reddened scar of the surgery stark upon his chest.

Why didn’t you just let me die like that? He whispers, eyes empty, heart no longer whole, words accusatory as she stands before him, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Why did you let them take that away from me?

She doesn’t have an answer to his question, watching haplessly as his hospital door shoves open, and the pale faced girl that they had passed in the hospital corridors stands, eyes wide and terrified in the middle of the door, the silent beat of unacceptance filling the room as Jungkook stares at her for a moment, and turns his face away from her stare.

Joohyun slides the door close.

She doesn’t want to hear it, even as the girl’s voice filters through the closed door.

Why didn’t you tell me?

You didn’t tell me!

She hears the tears in the girl’s voice, broken and lost.

You didn’t tell me that you were in love with me!

She needs to run away from this place, Joohyun thinks to herself, lips dry and stomach roiling nauseously, catching onto Seulgi’s hand with a hapless look on her face.

She wants a place where there isn’t love, she thinks—tears slowly b those long lashed eyes, feeling Seulgi’s hand tighten around her shoulders, and her chest—constricting round her . Wants, a place, where she could be free from all these burdens and worries.

“Are you okay?” It’s Seulgi’s soft words that swim through the haze of her thoughts, bubbling into her drowning ears.

She’s not okay. Her lips part, heart bleeding in her chest, fingers—curled against the hem of Seulgi’s shirt as her forehead thumps onto the solid warmth of Seulgi’s chest.

Something feels stuffy in her chest, she thinks to herself, through the tears and terror. And she doesn’t want to know what it’s all about.

….

Seulgi whisks her away without her even uttering a single word, her hand over her own as they sit in the car, Joohyun’s eyes fixed onto the shining moon above, silence the gap between them as the car failed to ease their worries with its soft, soothing purr.

“We’re here.” Joohyun nearly trips over her own feet as she follows Seulgi into the forest, roots tangling her dainty feet, led only by the warmth of the hand encased around hers, the sound of birds twittering in her ears.

“Where—”

“My place.” The keys jingle as Seulgi throws them down onto the table, the wooden door swinging open as she fell onto the hammock that swung in the middle, the scent of spring and lavender filtering through the air as Joohyun followed through, bewildered.

“What—”

“ You needed a place to be away.” Seulgi’s shoulders lifted and rested. “So I presumed, and offered my place without you needing to say.” The cheeky smile returns, and Joohyun’s heart throbs in her chest.

“You don’t have to.” A finger swipes against the petals of the growing orchid in a pot, her voice quiet as she dropped her head slightly to mumble.

“Well, we’re already here. And you don’t have anywhere else to go. Nor do you know how to go.” Joohyun’s lips curve slightly at Seulgi’s words, a huff of disbelief buffeting from her lips as she shook her head lightly with a faint twitch to her lips.

“You just want me to stay, don’t you?”

“Bin—go.” Seulgi grins at her once more, dusting off the imaginary lint upon her pillow as she rested her arms above her head. “And maybe once you do, you can start telling me what unsettled you so much.”

Joohyun turns slightly, eyes flickering as she watches the silhouette of the other girl, lean in the thin but silvery moonlight.

“Maybe.” She allows the words to part her lips, strangely comforted as she glided across the room, fingers tentatively nudging Seulgi’s own.

Maybe.

…

They end up spending about an entire month in Seulgi’s sanctuary, with her keeping mum about the traumatic experiences of the past night. Joohyun leaves the thought of Jungkook behind—yet another selfish notion of hers in her refusal to confront her adoptive brother in the last thing she wanted to witness. Seulgi doesn’t ask—something that Joohyun feels grateful about, just like how she doesn’t ask either, when they both wake up in the morning, tangled in each other’s arms in that hammock, her form curled into Seulgi’s chest, and lips barely brushing each other.

“ Good morning.” A sleepy Seulgi is a strangely endearing one, Joohyun can’t help but think to herself, watching the other yawn and rub sleep from her eyes, still lying in the hammock, the blanket they both share half draped onto the floor.

Her own feet touch the cool floor minutes later, following Seulgi into the bathroom as though it’s the most common thing in the world, even as the shower turns on minutes later, and the familiar scent of Seulgi’s shampoo fills the room.

It’s nothing.

Joohyun tells herself.

Her eyes don’t stray towards the form of Seulgi’s in the misty glass, toothbrush in .

Even as she sings that stupid song of hers on top of her voice, making googly faces at her just to make her choke on the toothpaste as she brushes her teeth.

Her chest doesn’t feel warm anymore at the thought of Seulgi, a particular development that she’s happy about, a small chuckle bubbling from her lips as Seulgi plasters her face comically onto the glass, spreading her lips and rolling her eyes in the weirdest way that makes her snort hard enough till she nearly chokes.

It’s all fine. Perfectly fine. Until that first snort turns into a laugh, and that laugh turns into a gasp for air—and she sees Seulgi’s face change into alarm, their semblance of peace shattered once more as a mouthful of ash bursts from her lips and scatter, like snowflakes, into the chilly air.

…

Seulgi is the one that saves her once more, hoisting her onto her back with a panicked yell, water sluicing off her body, hair half soaped as she pulls on a shirt and pants, sprinting out of the door, wind upon their face, and Seulgi’s feet bare as she coughs periodically, scattering ash into the wind as they reach the end of the road and the beginning of the forest.

Was the forest always this close to the road? Joohyun’s mind blurs as she watches Seulgi pant, each rise and fall for breath solid against her own stuttered ones, the other girl’s irises blown, and hair slicked back from how fast she’d been running, even with a girl upon her back.

Were humans always this fast when it came to running like that?

Joohyun’s fingers trail lightly against the side of Seulgi’s cheek, a light press of her index to the chubby terrain of the other girl’s soft curve of a fleshy cheekbone.

A forest, speed faster than a human’s, and a home far from the road.

She should have known.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Bae Joohyun.” Seulgi snaps, as though feeling her wane for a moment, losing her grip upon the world, her nails digging deep into her back. “Don’t you dare—”

“A werewolf, huh?” Her breath is mixed with ash, soft and with the scent of burning embers against Seulgi’s cheek.

Seulgi stiffens, if just not for a moment, feeling her drop her hand slightly as she rests her face once more against Seulgi’s shoulders.

“I’ll explain when you get well.” She wonders if the trembling that she feels from the other girl’s body is from fear. The fear that she’ll fade away suddenly, expire on her back, leaving nothing but a last breath of ash to the cruel world—or just the adrenaline, rushing through the other’s veins.

“Aren’t you going to ask about me coughing up ash?” She coughs once more, air choked in her lungs as she expelled a few more breaths of soot with each hacking breath.

“You can tell me later. Just like how you can tell me later about what happened that day, at that hospital.” Seulgi speeds past a crowd of humans, making a beeline for the hospital at their nearest destination.

“No hospitals.” Seulgi’s feet are cut up from the run from the forest, but still—her feet screech to a stop, her chest rising and falling with rigour as she tries to process her words.

“Okay. No hospital.”

Joohyun wonders if she’s being cruel—watching as Seulgi struggles to unload her onto the nearest bench, her fingers digging hard into the flesh of her arm as she stares at her, struggling with her own decision and yet honouring hers.

“Do werewolves imprint on others?” Joohyun’s breath is soft, tight but desperate to know, clinging to Seulgi’s arm as though it’s something of an anchor. She watches as Seulgi’s head rears, snapping back as though flinching from a sting. “ Ah, so they do.”

“Don’t go.” A year of knowing Seulgi—and this, this is the only time, or the first time, that Joohyun ever hears Seulgi’s voice slightly break.

“Was it at lunch break?” She’s a selfish person in the end, Joohyun thinks to herself, watching as Seulgi crumples little by little before her, twisting in upon herself as they crack apart Seulgi’s little secret, and keep the lid tightly closed upon her own.

“When you first walked into the doors of school.” The words are whispered back, softly. Reverently. “I thought to myself—how could there be someone so pretty.”

Joohyun wants to laugh, because those words are nothing but just like what Seulgi would think.

But all it causes is yet another chestful of ash to bubble from her lips.

Seulgi’s hands fluster, gathering up the ash, her breath roughening as she stops short in her movement, wanting to stuff the ash back from where it came—and yet, understanding that she could not.

Death was such an intriguing thing, Joohyun thinks to herself, feeling calm settle over her bones as she watches Seulgi panic and gather the ash she spewed onto her lap, grasping at the rest of the little flecks that were carried off in the wind, attempting to bring them back.

It makes everyone accept things that they deny, for years.

Like for instance.

Love.

Joohyun finds herself thinking about it once again as she looks at Seulgi’s face, a sob leaving her lips as she folds herself into Seulgi’s arms, overwhelmed with realisation and desperation.

“ I don’t want to go.” It’s the first words of truth she speaks, hovering on the edge of death, fingers cupping Seulgi’s cheeks as they press a kiss to each other’s lips—mingled with tears, and the taste of ash.

“Then don’t go.”

“I don’t know if I can—don’t go.”

“Try.”

Their forehead rest against each other, nuzzling close, lingering and yearning for just a little more time.

“Trying.” Joohyun whispers, feeling less conscious by the minute. “Did you know, no one in my family has ever spoke the word love in their life?”

Seulgi stills, as though trying to process what the other meant in her words.

“Never?”

“Never. But—”

“Then try saying it, at least once.”

Joohyun wonders if it’s worth Seulgi interrupting her like so, especially when she wants to impart to her some other words before she drifted away and ceased to exist. Her eyes lift, fixing on the drooping eyes of the other, etching every feature, from mole to the way the corner of lifted with each word into her memory.

She supposed, even if the last words that she spoke to the other girl was the words she wanted to hear—it would still, be all worth it in the same exact way.

“I love you.” She smiles, eyes creasing as the warmth blooms once more in her chest, affection unending as the words sigh from her lips, diving a little deeper into Seulgi’s embrace.

Seulgi’s eyes softens, breath delicate upon her lips as she beamed at Joohyun with the brightest smile she’d ever seen upon the other’s face. Her face—pallid, and ashen, reflects in the most beautiful way in the chocolate irises of Seulgi’s eyes.

Perhaps that’s why they fell for each other, Joohyun thinks to herself, fingers plastered against the side of Seulgi’s cheeks affectionately.

Pity that they don’t have a lifetime to find out why.

She inhales, a last breath, mixed with ash and the scent of bougainvilleas in the air.