Siyeon didn’t like the moon. It had been source of so many sufferings for her kind, fuelled by the ignorance and fear of those who live in a closeted world. Although, in their lack of knowledge they had managed to get something right: she was indeed a child of the ivory sphere, as were all werewolves.

It was said that in the Forgotten Times, during the early ages of the world when the Sun and Moon had just been created and were still full of life and magic, the Folks were born from their union. Some of them inherited the radiant energy of the burning star while the others took after the quiet presence of the calming moon. The First-Borns must have been quite a spectacle to behold back then. Those who had survived this far into the age of Men all told great tales of magic and wonders, cities hidden under the sea and secrets held deep into sacred woods. Nothing was left of those forgotten days.

During nights like these when the full moon shone bright in the starry sky, Siyeon liked to wander into the forest of steel and concrete that humans called a city. As much as she hated her own nature there was nothing she could do about her instincts. The moon called to her and she had to answer it. She liked to believe that by diving deep enough into the forgotten alley-ways of Shinjuku, even the pale orb would eventually forget about her and leave her alone under Tokyo’s nightscape.

In her perambulations through the famous night spots where the city’s youth liked to spend their evening away she ended up at a familiar crossroads. One linked to memories of loss and hope.

 

***

 

“What are you doing alone at this hour little one? It’s almost curfew. You might get arrested if you don’t come back to your family.”

The woman with orange hair was sitting on her heels to match the child’s height and looked at her with a kind smile. Seeing that the child stared back at her with nothing but fear in her eyes, the adult whispered to create a sense of complicity.

“You’re one of the Folks too, aren’t you?”

The two little eyes widened in surprise. Although still wary, her body language unconsciously drove her toward the woman.

“Do you have nowhere to go?”

The child shook her head. The adult’s smile faded, leaving its place to a sad knowing expression. The Folks always lived in communities. Even those who were known to be more independent, like vampires, had to rely on a clan of some kind. Children with no families were rare and could only mean one of two things: their family were dead or they had been abandoned by them. Both of these were absolutely devastating for the child.

“Do you want to come with me?”

The little girl’s face was giving two distinct answers all at once. Her eyes were saying she wanted to go with the pretty lady. Her pout indicated that she wasn’t too sure about following a stranger. Her uncertainty made the woman giggle.

“It’s okay, you can leave in the morning if you want.”

This statement was just a hollow promise until proven right, yet for the little one it was a solid evidence that the pretty lady was nice and could be trusted. Therefore, she followed her through the pedestrian streets lit by the neon ads of the bars and restaurants clashing against each other and bathing the street in a soft reddish light only contested by a few blue letters shining bright in the night.

 

***

 

Siyeon’s eyes were wandering in the sea of neon colours above her head when her gaze stopped on promising red letters. “Insomnia Bar”. How fitting. She pushed the door of the izakaya to escape the chilling breeze of late winter and made her way through the crowd of people cheering and talking loudly over the music being played in the background. She arrived at the counter filled with stools for lonely people like herself and ordered a beer.

The drink arrived soon enough but instead of sipping from the glass, the young woman just toyed with it, creating small waves inside. A storm to match her thoughts. Her mind drifted away, slowly. She was five years old when she was lost and found. Now she was nineteen and lost again, but this time there was no one to find her.

“Are you lost or are you just wandering?”

The voice of a woman startled her.

“What?”

“In your thoughts. Are you lost or just wandering?”

The young adult averted her gaze to the customer sitting next to her. She was so immersed in her thoughts that she had not sensed the other woman approaching. Upon seeing her, she admitted it would have been a shame to miss out on this view. A wide sincere smile stretching on a delicate face, lips matching the wine colour of her hair and small dark pupils lit with a warm spark.

“I was just reflecting. Did I seem lost?”

“Sometimes I like to think back to that sentence I read: ‘Not all those who wander are lost.’ You seemed to be wandering but I wondered if you were lost.”

The young wolf stared dumbfounded at this human oddity that was talking to her with such a calming voice. She had not realised that her lips had separated slightly in an “o” shape and she did not make any effort to push away the streaks of raven hair that had fallen in front of her brown eyes. The other giggled softly.

“Now, you seem lost.”

Siyeon blinked and shook her head to get a grip of herself. She brushed off the streaks of hair and started drinking to try to get her mind fixed on something concrete, because everything else about the situation looked surreal.

“Do you often do that?”, she asked to the strange woman.

“Do what?”

“Talking to strangers in bars using thoughtful quotes about life.”

“Ah!”, the red-haired girl laughed, “Not really, but you looked like you didn’t want to be alone so I gave it a try.”

A light gasp got caught in Siyeon’s throat. She looked like she didn’t want to be alone? No one had ever cared about that before. When people hooked up with her, usually it was because she was hot and looked vaguely mysterious. And when the girls looked good, Siyeon made the effort to forget that they were only interested in the fantasies they projected on her and played along for a night or two.

“Don’t I look enough like a lone wolf?”

“But even lone wolves are not meant to be alone. They’re just looking for a pack.”

“Are you looking for your pack too then?”, Siyeon deflected with what she thought was a witty comeback.

“Hum? Oh no, I’m not that greedy. One meaningful person can be enough.”

She peered into Siyeon’s eyes with that kind smile still illuminating her face and the raven-haired girl just froze. Was this real? How could she be so confident? She had pierced through her walls and she didn’t even know her name. Name. That’s what she was supposed to ask.

“Can I have your number?”

Close enough.

“Sure. Give me your phone, I'll write it down.”

Siyeon’s clumsiness made the strange woman’s laugh even brighter. The white of her teeth were now completing the already pleasant picture of her smile. She wrote her number and gave the phone back to Siyeon who immediately looked at the screen to get the name. Kim Minji, with a little pink flower emoji next to it. “Cute”, the wolf thought, a vague smile stretching on her face. She quickly sent a text to give her number back. “Hi! I’m Lee Siyeon”, with a wolf emoji. Minji picked up her phone to look at it and giggled when she read the text. She averted her gaze back to the girl sitting next to her with a contented smile.

“Nice to meet you, Siyeon.”

 

***

 

Winter was coming to an end faster than Siyeon would have thought. She used to hate that part of the year when the days were shorter, because it meant that the moon was out more often to taunt her with her light. But recently she found herself enjoying her late evening hangouts. A lot of it had to do with Minji.

The two had been seeing each-other regularly through the month of February, always at the same time, when the last remnants of daylight dwell on earth for an extra minute before the night takes over them. Tasokare-doki, the moment of unexpected encounters.

Siyeon was waiting on a bench near the artificial canal dug next to the gravel path that travelled around the park, watching the amber light glimmering on the water. Soon there would only be the pink lining of the clouds against the night-blue sky. The moment would be lost. As her eyes were catching the last reflections of the lights, she heard a distant tinting sound. It wasn’t something from this side, it sounded from far, far away. Sounds from the Spirits World always meant something, Siyeon knew that from Han Dong, but she had never heard this one.

A plastic cup smelling like hot chocolate appeared jiggling in front of her eyes, waking her up from her thoughts.

“Tadaaa!”

The werewolf raised her head to find Minji bent over her with her beaming smile, a few centimetres away from her lips, causing her to blush.

“Sorry for being late, I got detained at the flower shop.”

“It’s okay, I got here early.”

Siyeon seized the cup and wrapped her hands around it to keep them warm while Minji moved around the bench to sit next to her with her very own cup filled with coffee.

“You remembered I prefer chocolate”, Siyeon said in a little voice.

“Of course I remembered. I care about what you say, you know.”

“Right”, the werewolf muttered to herself, still impressed by this basic attention.

The two wrapped themselves in a bubble of comfortable silence while drinking their hot drinks. Minji’s scent of lilac and roses mixed with the sweetness of the cacao beans left Siyeon in a state of sweet dizziness. She loved Minji’s fragrance. Especially because it wasn’t a fragrance, she could always tell the chemical scent of perfumes, but her natural body scent. It was sweet and refreshing and it was as simple as natural things can be but at the same time too complex to be found in nature in this form. A perfect harmony of paradoxes very akin to Minji herself.

As the night went darker the trees lit up with hundreds of little lights covering them and transforming the park into a magical forest. Minji looked at the thousand and one lights reflecting in Siyeon’s irises. The younger one’s amazement made the whole scene endearing.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

The werewolf broke out from her trance. “I had never seen these illuminations before.”

“It’s because you’re always having fun in Shinjuku and Roppongi,” Minji scolded her nicely.

“But isn’t it similar though? The lights of the city and the lights of these trees. All those gaudy colours shining bright into the night.”

“You’re right. The city is not that different from this forest at night. No matter the scenery, we are always lured by the artificial lights.”

“It’s because they are familiar and easy to understand. It’s just electricity making its way through the night.”

“You prefer the neon lights to the stars and moon?”

“I don’t like the moon. It’s always… ominous.”

“But there’s a rabbit living up there, it can’t be that scary!”

Siyeon laughed at the innocent, yet very logical argument. “Right. I’ll remember that next time I look at it.”

Another moment of silence passed between them. Siyeon felt like she didn’t want to move her eyes away from Minji’s. The older girl didn’t want her to look away either, but there was something else she wanted to do that night.

“Do you want to go see the other illuminations?”

“There are more?”

The raven-haired girl had said that with the naïve anticipation of a child which made Minji giggle softly. She stood up from the bench and offered her hand to Siyeon.

“Come.”

The younger girl took her hand and followed her through the path that the glimmering trees were drawing in the dark. Eventually, they arrived at a clearing where a few people were already gathered to enjoy the spectacle of light that was presented to them. It was like a sea of blue stars covering the floor. A fountain of shiny diamonds was in the middle and waves of white and red were spreading from it in circles above the sea of lights while flickering bubbles were suspended above.

Siyeon was hopping up and down and pointing at all the details to Minji who, no matter how insistent Siyeon was, couldn’t take her eyes off the raven-haired woman. So many things were reflecting into the red-head’s eyes as she took in every single detail of this magical night. The lights around them, the sparkles of wonder in Siyeon’s eyes, fulfilment, love. She hadn’t missed how the younger one looked at her sometimes when she thought she wasn’t paying attention to her. It was the same look she was giving her now that she had stopped pointing at the lights.

Minji hadn’t missed those moments, but Siyeon was realising for the first time how the red-haired woman looked at her. Her eyes were lost in surprise for a few seconds, making sense of the gaze Minji was sending her. But in reality there wasn’t much to make sense of. It was a beautiful night, she was accompanied by a beautiful girl and all the feelings that she had developed had been understood and were now being reciprocated in that one beautiful smile. The rest was simple. She leaned forward, closed her eyes and welcomed Minji’s lips against hers.

The kiss didn’t last long, only their lips touched and when they separated, Minji’s lilac scent stayed on Siyeon’s skin. Still dizzy, she smiled awkwardly as if this had been her first kiss. Not realizing fully what was happening, she got reminded of their surrounding when her acute hearing distinguished a few sentences out of the whispers. “Ew! Did they have to do that in public?”, “That was gross”, “Stop looking at them!”.

Siyeon had almost forgotten how it felt to be rejected simply for existing. Her own pack feared her existence and humans judged her for who she loved. No matter what she did, there was always something preventing her from fitting in. She felt two hands cupping her cheeks. Minji’s obsidian pupils were lit with a fire the intensity of which she had never seen on the red-head before.

“Don’t let them tell you who to love.”

The tinting rang again in the young woman’s ears. Minji was right. She couldn’t live her life according to what others said all the time. She leaned to kiss her again.

 

***

 

Spring had begun before Minji could see it coming. The flowers were blooming, the trees were green again, all those scents spread in the air and perfumed the streets with that fragrance so characteristic of Spring sunny days.

Siyeon was now in vacation, which meant that they could see each other more often until the beginning of her second college year in April. Their relationship was moving steadily and organically. Minji felt it was important to give Siyeon time and space to explore all the possibilities that being in love offered. Something told her that the younger woman had not been given that chance often in her life.

She figured the music student had to be strong because one does not achieve the confidence she shows in public naturally. It was a shell she had built around herself over time. Perhaps it was because of this that her love felt so pure, protected behind her walls, it had never been tainted.

At times Minji wondered if she deserved to receive such raw affection. It made her want to know more about Siyeon. How did she end up with so much love to give and so few people to give it to? The next dinner with Siyeon’s adoptive mother should answer those questions.

Minji was surprised too when the younger girl asked her if she wanted to meet her family.

“It’s just my adoptive mother though. I don’t have anyone else, but she’s important to me, and I want you to meet her.”

The red-haired woman couldn’t say no. Not when it meant so much for her girlfriend. So there she was, in front of Siyeon’s mother’s apartment. The raven-haired woman rang the bell to notify she was there and immediately opened the door.     

 “I’m home!”, Siyeon shouted as soon as she entered.

“Singnie, welcome home!”, a feminine voice answered from the end of the corridor.

The two newcomers left their shoes in the little storage cabinet near the entrance and followed the voice through the main corridor and to the living room where a woman with orange hair was busying herself in the open kitchen.

“Mom, this is Minji.”

“Nice to meet you Mrs. Han.”

Siyeon had told Minji in advance that Dong had managed to get legal custody over her when she was five but wasn’t legally her mother, so Siyeon had kept her biological parents’ family name. The woman in the kitchen raised her head at the sound of an unfamiliar voice in her home. She instantly adopted a politely cheerful tone to welcome her guest.

“Hello Minji, nice to meet you.” Her gaze moved from the task she was doing to greet the young woman more appropriately but as soon as her eyes rested on the red-head her lips separated in a contained surprise. “You’re a–”

“Yes, I’m the girlfriend”, the young woman interrupted with a smile.

“Right.” Dong closed and went back to her previous polite manners. “Siyeon talked a lot about you. But please take a sit and make yourself comfortable, I’m just finishing the last meals.”

She rummaged through the ingredients and utensils on the counter, seemingly looking for something.

“Actually, Singnie, I don’t have enough nori leaves for the maki rolls, can you go get some?”

“Really? But I’ve just arrived here”, the young woman pouted.

“Come on, we can’t make our guest go. Plus, the Konbini is right at the corner, it won’t take you long.”

“Fiiiine!” Siyeon said in an exaggerated manner before leaving the room.

Han Dong waited until the young wolf closed the main door to avert her gaze to Minji who had already understood where this was going. The woman who seemed to be in her forties changed to a younger appearance. Almost nothing was changed except for the pointy ears and the seven fox tails waggling behind her.

“Surely you won’t mind if I stop pretending to be a simple human in front of you.”

“Do as you please, this is your home after all.”

Dong was studying Minji, openly wary of her guest. The other was patiently waiting. Nothing could seem to disturb the vague smile that was painted on her face. Kitsunes were ones of the wisest among the Folks. Not only were their spiritual and magical abilities fundamentally superior, but the older they got the greater their powers grew. Minji could sense that Han Dong was particularly powerful. Eventually, the fox broke the tension.

“I always knew Siyeon’s life wasn’t going to be ordinary, but I hadn’t realised how much.”

Her opening statement was surprisingly peaceful. The young woman just kept being her usual self.

“She is indeed very special in more ways than one. I wasn’t expecting a wolf to live with a fox.”

“When are you going to tell her what you are?”

“I was planning to let her lead the pace and wait until she is ready to tell me what she is.”

“And what if she’s not quite what you expect?”

“I will never reject her and I think you’ve already sensed why.”

Han Dong huffed at the other’s confidence. “Children of the Sun are always so genuine.”

“And children of the Moon are always so melancholic.”

The fox’s smile was wider now. She liked Minji. She knew she could trust her. The red-head heard the distant tinting of a bell from the Spirit World.

“I think she’s coming back already.”

The other woman changed back to her older form and welcomed Siyeon with a cheerful smile when the young woman came back with the nori leaves and some additional treats.

The rest of the evening went well. The three of them ate the meal Han Dong had prepared while talking about Minji and how the two met. When dinner was over, the couple moved to Siyeon’s bedroom for the night and stayed until the next morning.

It wasn’t until later that month that Minji would fully realise what Han Dong had meant by “not exactly what she expected.”