Seungwan wakes up with Irene's name on her lips--only to be met by the devil's hands wrapped around her wrists.

"Sooyoung," she gasps out, frantic eyes whipping around herself, trying to match sight with smell, smell with sight. 

Green? Matcha? Oil? 

What she finds instead are rows of blinding white lights above her. They seem to go on forever; an army of glowing rectangles, with their weapons held high in the form of monotonous beeping, not rhythmic but not random--purposefully abhorrent and headache-inducing.

The army has allies; an oppresive smog of disinfectant and sterilising agents that leave the enemy weakened and vulnerable, allowing their minions to charge in for the final attack--humans adorn long white coats for armour and have their stethoscopes around their necks, primed for the killing.

"W-Where--" is all Seungwan can say, feeling constrict in on itself the more she tries to force it.

"Hospital," Joy says and summons a glass of water in Wendy's hands, but the latter stares at it as if it offended her somehow. 

Sooyoung nudges her hand and coaxes her, "Drink."

After doing so--and doing so another four times because Sooyoung doesn't stop refilling her glass until Seungwan almost drowns--does Joy offer answers to Seungwan's questions.

"I got a call from a worried bear," Joy begins and summons her own glass of water, taking a gulp before continuing, "She said that Joohyun unnie had asked to crash at hers indefinitely. She put two and two together, called me, so I went to you but found you tripping balls in Seulgi unnie's art studio. I thought you took something and overdosed, you looked ing out of it, unnie!"

Seungwan doesn't have anything to say to that. She doesn't remember much except for the strange horror that was akin to a nightmare after Irene had walked out. The Canadian shakes her head, willing the memory to leave her.

"You passed out a few minutes after I got there. I couldn't wake you up so I took you here. Don't be mad," before Seungwan can ask why she would be mad at her friend for helping her, Joy adds, "Actually you have no soul you probably won't even care if Joohyun unnie's around, hey?"

"Irene's here?" At this moment, Seungwan takes a clear look around her hospital room and recognises the name of the hospital to be the one the eldest works at. "Does she--"

"Yes," Sooyoung says, "She's your emergency contact, remember?"

Seungwan's parents joined her sister in Canada around the time she and Irene started being roommates so it just made sense to put her down as her emergency contact.

"Well, where is she?"

Sooyoung shrugs almost mockingly to the point where Seungwan raises a brow and opens to say something before the devil retorts, "Dunno."

It's a clear mimicking of Seungwan's own words before Joohyun had stormed out. 

"W-What?"

"Unnie told me what you did, and  are you stupid," Joy spits and crosses her arms, leaning back in her chair as if she can't stand being so close to the girl. "You agreed to get your soul back, Wendy unnie. Sleeping with other people and revealing that to Joohyun unnie is not helping. It's making it worse! And you're hurting unnie in the process. Do you want your soul back or not? Because it seems like you're just doing whatever the you want."

Seungwan frowns at being verbally attacked by the devil and grumbles, "Listen Joy, you said that having no soul would take away my inhibitions--"

"Don't blame me for your actions, unnie," Joy yells, and the door slams closed as she stands. The room is quiet after the door locks and Joy sits back down. 

Devil magic is a little intimidating, Seungwan thinks.

"I know it's hard to empathise with people when you don't have a soul, unnie. But you know and you remember how to act around Joohyun unnie. How you should treat her and how you used to treat her. I don't understand why you can't just copy exactly what you used to do. Why do you need to flaunt your soulless persona so excessively in front of unnie? Your soul is crumbling to bits and you're messing around with Joohyun's feelings and barely caring about y