Hyunwoo Park has had Myungsoo Kim on speed dial since his daughter graduated from Springfield High on June 14th, 2014. He takes comfort in the concept of soulmates. He threw it around liberally when Hyunjoo brought her “not boyfriend” home for dinner. 6.5 thousand kilometers separate the History from the Art History majors, so they traipsed around conventional labels—quite the pair of pragmatic eighteen-year-olds. 

“The Talk” maintained its stereotypical awkward coughs and pauses. 

“She’s yet to fully transition,” Hyunwoo warned. “Since there’s no handbook for halfsies, let’s play it by ear. That means protection, young man.” Myungsoo choked on his dinner roll. What an opener to the rest of a painfully long evening. “She can never be too safe.”

But he was right. It could happen anywhere: behind the pile of moving boxes in her room; a bed of leaves in the forest; Springfield’s new teenybopper hotspot, the lake; on the dated leather of her cherry red Volkswagen’s backseat. There was no guarantee Myungsoo would be there to ease her into it. 

So—speed dial.

“Secure her feet!” Hyunwoo roars to the jet-lagged, in way over his head “not boyfriend.”  

Hanbyul Song installed humane restraints under her daughter’s mattress on June 15th, 2014. Miraculously managing to raise a curious girl in a supernatural world hardened her demeanor. She tightens the straps around the ankles of her exposed heart. Chants, “Stay with me, baby,” like she did at 3:14 a.m. on June 19th, 1996. Hyunjoo Song was born prematurely. 

Fur blooms in cascading waves across Hyunjoo's skin. Werewolf genes part a red sea, and in floods brilliant gold: a coat curtesy of the Park family. She screams bloody murder, unable to see the promise land. Unable to believe it even exists past the vengeful pain rushing through her. 

“She’s a force against nature,” Sunggyu Kim often declared at the end of a long day. 

Hyunjoo inspires hope at 3:14 a.m. when the stars are dim and you wonder if anyone’s listening. 

Myungsoo isn’t the religious type, but he prays over her writhing body for two days. Watches the blending of human and wolf features mesh into the two-legged beast of lycanthropic lore. A single sneeze reverberates through defined musculature. “Tissue?” he asks. She snorts back. 

“She thinks she’s better than you,” Hyunwoo says, sniffing at her poignant air of superiority. “Can you do this by yourself?” Myungsoo thinks her father wants him to lose. 

“I’m almost certain she’ll tear me to shreds,” he replies, undoing her restraints. 

Pack mentality is a leash that reigns in deviant behavior. In the late nineteenth century, werewolves without alphas tended towards mass slaughter. With innovation came sophistication; lone wolves turned towards petty criminal activity to achieve the equivalent high.

“Deviant” her middle name, Hyunjoo’s bestial instincts craved release; she had sprung into Springfield’s woods immediately after her father set her loose, heading south. South, souther, southest—Myungsoo followed her for hours. Sunggyu Kim was the premier option for a transitioning werewolf’s alpha. But it appears Hyunjoo decided against settling in Springfield, Canada. 

The “not boyfriend” was to stall for time whilst Prince Charming flew in on his 9 a.m. plane. Myungsoo presently stood at the forest edge, catching his breath under dawn’s dim moonbeams. A single caveat upends the comfort of plans made in foresight; what was Myungsoo supposed to do if Hyunjoo Song decided to hightail it to the land of freedom, fries, and fallacies: the United States of America?

“Well, ,” Sunggyu Kim declares the morning of what is sure to be a particularly long day.

Sunggyu never explained why werewolves abandoned the home of the brave. Hyunjoo assumed the topic never came up. Now she knows he never knew why. 

“Mush, doggo!” Sunhwa snaps at the leash attached to Hyunjoo after many attempts at sedation. If you can’t drag the werewolf over the border, then follow her into the middle of a no-name American forest: Sunhwa’s idea. “Mush!” she gleefully orders. 

Apropos considering the Park family descends from the Alaskan tundra. But Kyung stopped finding Sunhwa’s joke funny hours ago. Insurance would not cover the damage done to their improvised sled: a (rented) convertible. 

“Turn a little to the left,” Kyung begs behind the steering wheel. The promise of a beachside vacation had dissolved in the span of a two-minute phone call, but Sunhwa refused to let her bikini bod go to waste. She appeases his hopes and dreams, sprawling across the convertible’s hood with a well-timed yawn. “Run away with me.”

“You’d never,” she laughs, feet kicking in typical dream girl fashion.

“Watch me.”

“I did.”

She watched a two-minute phone call from Sunggyu Kim snatch Florida from under his feet. “Florida;” the word that got them through months of Atlantic separation. Kyung explains the true meaning of friendship for the umpteenth time. Freedom, fries, and fallacies abound in this no-name American forest. 

Hyunjoo’s monstrous growls interrupt Kyung’s excuses; she found something. Sunggyu never explained why werewolves fled the home of the brave. Hyunjoo knows it’s because werewolves were never brave to begin with. 

Lycanthrope claws make quick work of overgrown shrubbery. A round, rotting, oak door falls with Sunhwa’s barefooted kick. Toppled books, stacked jars, and a big, black pot beneath a fire pit paint a pretty putrid picture. “Knock knock, is the wicked witch dead?” Kyung jokes, pausing for reaction. Sunhwa doesn’t laugh. 

“Waiting outside,” she declares, pausing for no man. 

Hyunjoo’s tail swishes frantically at dragging drapes. Dirt flings in dry clouds. Strange smells overwhelm the senses. Kyung wants to leave. He can—he can still have Florida. Loyalty roots him in place as Hyunjoo proudly presents her find, effectively destroying everything he believes in. 

“Did we even expect anything less?” Sunggyu Kim declares at the start of what is sure to be a mystery even grander than those that came before it.