Lurker n⁰7

[past]

[past]

[past]

your fingerprints remain

[past]

[past]

"And I don't know how to fix it."

Currently: the gang are hiding out at Miyeong’s apartment, and spent the morning working through some very mundane trauma… only for Minji’s grandmother to give them a reminder that the wraiths are looking for them. At least they got to see the healing spirit first?

"We have been taking an active stance," says Celine, calmly but firmly disagreeing with Rumi. "We would only put ourselves in greater danger by moving faster than is wise. We have been training the others to reduce the risk of engagement. We have been gathering information on our enemy, who we had not even located until two days ago, and about whom we are still lacking significant intelligence. We have been recovering from extremely compromising injuries," and she says that with so much annoyance and distaste Zoey has to hold back a giggle.

(Okay, maybe she's also had a beer in the last half hour. Or a little tiny bit more than that. But they cracked open the samosa box for an afternoon snack and Zoey's tolerance for spice is moderate at best, she needed something to cool herself off. It's fine, she could still do the alphabet backwards. She can do that when she's plastered, actually, courtesy of working in a library shelving books for several years, but the point is, it's fine, she didn't actually giggle, she just wanted to. She's totally good.)

"We have been taking action appropriate to our original situation," Rumi says, just as polite, just as firm. "Our situation has changed. The honorable river spirit has restored Mira and yourself to your full capabilities. Zoey and Miyeong-nim have shown consistent accuracy with the shinkal, and Mira has gained access to her family's knowledge of wraiths. Our enemy escalates, and threatens Minji-nim's family. Our response must change as well."

Celine is unmoved. "Minji-ssi's grandmother is safe, and has bought us time," and then Zoey completely zones out the rest, because there's a tapping, on the windowpane, and she pulls herself out of the armchair and beelines to let Suspicion-ssi in.

"You're early for the party," Zoey murmurs, though there isn't really a reason to be quiet; Rumi and Celine fell silent once they saw what she was doing.

The spirit caws and puffs up, I'm doing you a favor, there can't be a party until I'm here, drawing a chuckle out of Celine that she tries unsuccessfully to disguise as a cough.

But she turns grim at Suspicion-ssi's next words, turning back to Rumi with a heavy sigh, and then a wry smile and an apologetic dip of her head and shoulders. "It seems you have the clearer view of the situation, Rumi-nim."

"What did the bird say," says Miyeong, fingers pressing into her temples, a woman who does not want the answer to her question but feels obligated to ask it anyway.

A part of her is still processing the rest of her conversation with Minji-ssi’s grandmother—a formidable woman, even in passing, but certainly one willing to gossip about her granddaughter’s habits once she understood that Celine only wanted to help—in spite of how much the current one demands all of her attention.

Kkachi-ssi continues, and it’s all she can do not to wince.

“And, uh, working their way up, obviously,” Zoey adds. “Big goal is Gwi-Ma. But right now it’s dead guy central.”

“How far along are they?” Mira asks, gaze lidded and calm, but voice tight.

The summoner is an amateur, Kkachi-ssi declares. The wraith has to teach him everything. Unfortunately, the sacrifice won’t need to be big to get results, so it’ll probably be soon once he gets the idea.

“Uh, still on bookwork?” Zoey translates. “But with everything… it’s gonna be easy once they get all the pieces in place.”

“Wraiths can only be summoned at twilight,” Mira points out. “So we’ve got at least a day and a half?”

Kkachi-ssi caws her agreement. You are not skipping my party.

“We would never,” Celine agrees. It would be a great insult to meet the aid and favor of a spirit not just with no returned tribute, but with the promise thereof and then its withdrawal. She would hate to see that beak set to work with any actual malice.

This, perhaps, is too solemn a response for Kkachi-ssi’s taste, as she sends her triplicate side eye Celine’s way.

“Suspicion-ssi reminds us that the party is mandatory,” Zoey explains and, from the looks on Minji-ssi and Rumi-nim’s faces, probably quite necessarily.

“Well, at least there’s that,” Miyeong-ssi says brightly. “How fucked are we in general, though? We brought six to ten down to four to eight, what would this go up to?”

She reports, through Zoey— who, based on Celine's varying, not-quite-controlled facial expressions, is working very hard to moderate the magpie's snark— that several of the wraiths frequenting the target building wear the logo of Changwon Commercial Shipping, that they're in and out at roughly eight-hour intervals, and they have at least one car ("Hate that for us," says Mira flatly, with the voice of experience). The magpie remembers the plate, and Miyeong writes it down for further inspection, and gives the most gracious thank-you she can manage; the spirit did find out everything she asked it for, after all.

Zoey's polite "She says you're welcome" would be more convincing if the bird wasn't squinting all six eyes and sniggering when she says it.

And then Zoey and Mira are off to set up the folding table, and Minji and Rumi are putting the food and alcohol out in the kitchen, buffet-style, and it's Thursday, so Miyeong goes out on the balcony to water her plants. Because this is the day she waters her plants. Restraining herself from starting a fight with a bird is not a factor.

Celine follows her out and leans against the railing, amused. "You know she picks on you because you react so strongly."

"Bully logic from the spirit world," Miyeong shoots back.

"Friendly teasing," Celine corrects, but she does sound genuinely sympathetic.

And honestly, Miyeong will take the pity; it's probably better than whatever she'll get if she actually tries to argue with a mudang about a spirit, so she just shakes her head and changes the subject.

"How was the conversation with Minji's gran?"

"…. illuminating," says Celine.

"Yeah?" Miyeong's done watering, so she just leans next to Celine. "What's our concern level, there, generally? Because mine isn't zero."

Celine considers it, the slightest crease in her brow. "… not zero, no. Her grandmother had some insight, but..." She pauses. Still thinking about it, Miyeong thinks. Illuminating, but maybe not immediately obvious what to do with it.

"She'll need you," Celine finally says, one thing at least that she's apparently sure of, "once the wraiths are dealt with and she's able to start contacting her friends."

Start finding out who's left alive, she means.

Miyeong tips her head back and traces a striated line of cirrus clouds across the sky. "You know, some of them are my friends too?"

It feels strange to say, comes out uncertain, but—

"It's not, I haven't thought about it at all, but. Take Donghyun, he's a radiology tech, constantly snacking, has a niece he helps his sister take care of, he's an absolute idiot. If you asked me who I'm close to, his name wouldn't cross my mind— but I've known him for the better part of a decade, met his family, know his coffee order and his go-to cocktail after work. And if he was on shift that day? If I never see him again—"

She'd thought Minji didn't like her. She'd thought Sieun found her vaguely annoying on Minji's behalf. She thought the whole lot of them mostly just tolerated her because she was Yeonggi's girlfriend, and kept inviting her out once he was gone out of, what, inertia? But she was wrong about Minji, probably wrong about all of them, and if she never hears Donghyun try to goad someone into a stupid bet again…

Miyeong pauses a moment, and then snorts, still studying the sky. “Would you believe that you’re not the first person to tell me that?”

Celine is certainly startled by it, and she afreely admits as much.

“Yeonggi,” Miyeong explains, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I always thought he didn’t like it when I talked about my exes because he was insecure, but… it might not have all been that.”

A surprisingly clear-eyed view of the man, after Minji-ssi’s assessment that she’d thought him too good for her. Idly, Celine wonders what he was really like.

“Who would you say you’re close to?” she asks, instead, which is a slightly more relevant matter.

Miyeong-ssi does not answer her for a long time.

It’s not the first time that she has had such a response to that kind of question. She’s seen it in almost every way possible, she thinks.

“You?”

Everything stops. Fragments. Reconstitutes itself, fundamentally changed.

Miyeong laughs a little. “Kind of pathetic, but—I don’t know. I’ve been out of practice with talking to people about hard things for a long time now. So… Minji, and you, and the kids.”

“Fear has a tendency to linger in the strangest of places,” Celine replies, almost automatically.

She feels as if someone has changed the oxygen content of the air, or maybe the strength of gravity. Lightheaded. She holds on to the balcony rail tightly, hoping not to fall, though she knows that it’s silly.

You.

“…I guess so,” Miyeong says. “You’ve got a proverb for everything, don’t you?”

“I guess so,” Celine answers.

Zoey glances at Rumi, and her face turns a pretty shade of bright red. “I am not translating that.”   The spirit nips her ear.

Zoey wrings her hands, “Suspicion-ssi would like you to shift the table to the left.”

Rumi smiles and bows to the spirit. “Of course, Kkachi-nim.”

Under the magpie spirit’s haughty gaze, Mira and Minji transfer the platters and glasses from the folding table onto Miyeong’s table.

Rumi lifts the folding table and shifts it to the left. The magpie spirit caws indignantly.  “Ah, suspicion-ssi meant the other table.”

Mira bites back a sigh, the bird gives them all the smuggest side-eye as they clear the platters from Miyeong’s table and put them back on the folding table.

With one smooth movement, Rumi lifts Miyeong’s table as easily as Mira would lift a paper cup. She has to fight to keep her jaw closed as Rumi’s shirt does precious little to hide her lithe muscles working underneath.

Minji gives her a knowing look. Mira can’t find it in herself to care, as with grace that would make a ballerina green with envy, Rumi moves the table to the magpie spirit’s desired spot.  “Is this location acceptable, Kkachi-nim?” She asks.

From her perch on Zoey’s head, the magpie spirit radiates judgment. 

Confusion then surprise shoots across Zoey’s face. “But she jus—” 

The bird cuts Zoey off with a nip on the ear.

She sighs and gives way.  “Suspicion-ssi asks that you, uh, put that table down, she meant the other other table” 

Other other table? Mira looks around Miyeong’s apartment. Rumi has moved all the… Her eyes catch on the coffee table.  

“Oh, as you wish,” Rumi says, as she strides over to the coffee table and carefully removes the TV remote.

The coffee table is a squat, heavy thing; it has clearly been well-loved. Rumi lifts it like it’s nothing.

Mira’s throat goes dry.

“Do you need help with that?” Mira asks, mostly for the sake of saying something.  

A playfully affronted look crosses Rumi’s face, “There is no need—” With that dangerous gleam in her eye, Rumi shifts her weight slightly and pulls one hand out from under the coffee table. “—for I am quite comfortable here.”

Mira’s jaw drops, the bird cackles and flits over to perch atop one of the nicer wine glasses. Her three eyes narrow at Mira.

She sees Zoey’s sharp intake of breath out of the corner of her eye. 

“Suspicion-ssi says you may put the coffee table down; she now requests karaoke.” Zoey translates. Minji crows with laughter. She says something about fetching Celine and Miyeong.

Mira doesn’t hear her as she feels the floor drop out from under her.

“Any song requests?” Zoey asks, cheeks pinkening.

The honored whispering magpie spirit looks deeply amused.

“Then it is a singing game?” Rumi asks, circling around the couch to return to the area in which they’ve congregated.

“Uh, yeah,” Mira says, looking as if she might prefer to abscond from the feast now and fight a wraith. “We put on a song without the lyrics and then perform it. It’s pretty simple.”

It does, indeed, seem far simpler than Rumi had expected from their reactions. She tilts her head, wondering if there is some trick to the game that she has not understood. “So… how does one lose?”

It is at this moment that Minji-nim, Miyeong-nim, and the honored shaman return from the balcony, shutting the sliding door.

“At karaoke?” Miyeong-nim asks, grinning. “By being a really bad singer, I guess.”

“I… see.” (Rumi does not see.)

“Suspicion-ssi has a request,” Zoey announces, scrolling on her phone with all of the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner.

The honored shaman’s lips twitch. Whatever this request is, she is certainly as amused as the honored whispering magpie spirit. “Miyeong, do you think that we could connect Zoey’s phone to your television?”

“I know we can connect my laptop,” Miyeong-nim replies, still grinning.

Minji-nim’s eyebrows arch, and she looks between the two of them with some curiosity—perhaps at the new degree of intimacy to their speech?

Either way, Rumi must remain focused on the matter at hand. She leans into Zoey’s space, skimming the lyrics of the song she’s brought up.

It is a rather tender love song, one somewhat reminiscent in style of the song Miyeong-nim had led them in during their skirmish at the hotel. Romances are in fashion these days, from what Rumi has heard, so she does not understand why Zoey looks so embarrassed.

Mira's not sure how Miyeong defines 'lucky,' but she's absolutely certain it's not the same way she does.

Celine is entirely certain that she will not be getting out of this without some form of mild humiliation herself, and can only hope that the magpie spirit will find some kind of other shiny subject to fixate on than matchmaking soon. As she settles in, bracing herself, Mira, Zoey, and Rumi-nim retreat back off for food.

“Look, somebody has to eat first, and everyone always gets weird about it, and I’m not doing it! Food is a friend!” Zoey declares, before turning back to where they’re clustered around the laptop. “Do any of you want us to make a plate?”

“Please,” Celine says, before any awkwardness might develop.

“I could go for one of those burritos,” Minji-ssi adds. “And something to drink?”

“Yeah, I’ll could use some more soju,” Miyeong says, and it’s subtle. That’s not the word, exactly, given that they’re all aware of the matter—fluid, perhaps?—but were they not, Celine doubts anyone would’ve thought twice. She can see it in the beat after, too, how Miyeong sees them noticing and wishes they hadn’t.

And then they move on.

They should sing “Some”, Kkachi-ssi decides, whistling a bit of the tune as if the name weren’t already identifiable.

Zoey makes a face. “Isn’t there a rap part in that?”

Singers’ choice how to manage it, Kkachi-ssi decides.

“We have a request, I take it?” Minji-ssi asks dryly.

Celine silently leans over and starts finding it for them, her own face already burning from secondhand embarrassment.

Miyeong giggles, and wraps an arm around Minji-sis’s shoulder. “Feels like I’m yours, seems like I’m yours, but noooo—do you want SoYou’s parts or Junggigo’s ones?”

Minji-ssi flushes, and makes momentary, devastated eye contact with Celine.

“Um, I… I’ll take the higher ones,” she says.

Miyeong squeezes her shoulder briefly, and flashes her a smile. “Hey, don’t worry. If nothing else, imagine all the audience members in their underwear, right?”

Miyeong is light, delighted, thoroughly buzzed, and hamming it up more than a little, and so Minji-ssi is already past paying attention to herself and fighting laughter to get her lyrics out by the time they hit the rap bridge. Which they hadn't actually decided how to handle, so at first neither of them take it, then they both try to pick it up simultaneously, and then they both break down in drunken giggles, Miyeong's arm around Minji-ssi practically the only thing holding her up as they stumble through the rest.

Celine, carefully nursing a single room-temperature craft beer with peach undertones that she intends to last her at least half the night, will have no such salvation. Not that she's all that afraid of being dragged into singing a love song in front of everyone— mudang would have been a poor profession to commit herself to, if singing any number of strange or silly things in public was apt to bother her— but she suspects Kkachi-ssi is fully aware of that, and is not looking forward to finding out what actual vulnerability the spirit might have spotted to poke at instead.

Mira plops down next to Celine and hands her a plate, somewhere in the middle of the nonsense, and says, very quietly, "I don't remember ever being warned the spirit world was so fixated on relationship drama."

"Kkachi-ssi doesn't care if anyone gets together," murmurs Celine, an eye on the spirit in question as she cackles at Miyeong and Minji-ssi's hopeless antics. "She just knows what will get her the best reaction. Now, whatever the Han told you… that was meant sincerely, to ease a genuine pain."

Mira, who has apparently been convinced to try one of Zoey's mixed drink recipes, takes a very long swallow out of her very colorful glass, and mutters, tipsy and disgruntled, "….he said we all have two hands."

And enduring whatever Kkachi-ssi has planned for her sober is worth Celine being able to swallow back her initial response to that.

"You don't feel you can choose between them?" she asks, instead, quiet and very carefully neutral.

"What? No." Mira seems genuinely a little offended. "They're perfect for each other. I've got nothing to do with it, I'm not trying to take either of them from the other."

Celine looks over at Rumi-nim, watching Zoey demonstrate how to fold a pizza slice with apparently genuine awe, and tells Mira, "You know, in Rumi-nim's day, nobles like her often had dozens of lovers at once."

While no one had responded well to their chosen songs, it seems this is not any better of a situation for the honored shaman to be placed in (and it is, unfortunately, one that she alone is placed in. Rumi’s repertoire in this modern time is highly limited, leaving her with no ability to provide aid).

She grimaces, torn, as she rises, considering her options and looking between Rumi and the honored whispering magpie spirit as if they are the tusks of a boar closing on either side, ready to gore her.

Rumi offers her most reassuring smile. “I am in your hands.”

Yet the honored shaman looks even more upset at Rumi’s words, despite her intention.

Finally, she sighs and pulls out her phone. “Why don’t you give it a listen before you make a statement so unequivocal? I—I’ll write it out phonetically for you.”

The song is turned down very low when she hands it to Rumi, such that no one else in the room, currently giving them curious looks, will be able to hear. It is an… interesting video to look at.

Which is to say the bright, pulsating colors very much hurt Rumi’s eyes, though they do suit the strong beat of the song.

It’s not in Jejuan or Korean, or even Mandarin, but the words are quite simple. She can likely manage, especially with a guide.

“This is a joke, yes?” Rumi asks.

“Oh boy,” Zoey murmurs.

The honored shaman nods, looking miserable.

Rumi grins, and leans in closer. “Is it funnier if I understand the meaning of the words, or if I simply try my best?”

“It’s just about dancing,” the honored shaman answers, her voice dropping lower, tension finally fading slightly as she seems to realize that Rumi is happy to perform beside her, not just sing. “You can take that however you wish.”

She passes Rumi the words, written in Hangul.

“Pum-p up—heh?” Rumi tries.

“Th,” the honored shaman corrects. “The.”

“Te?” She shakes her head, immediately hearing the difference. “T—h—t—thhhhhhh. Theh?”

She wiggles a hand in mid-air. Not perfect, but better.

“Theh?” Rumi repeats. She can hear it’s still not right. “Pum-p up theh jam. What an awful mess I’m making of this language. Perfect, then?”

Mira gives her a look of fond fascination, and Zoey grabs her hands and drags her up from the couch and over to Rumi and Celine. Rumi takes the hint faster than Mira, copying her Italian stomp and freestyle arm pumping even at the cost of dropping lyrics, and oh.

Oh no.

Rumi is strong, and kind, and incredibly competent, and absolutely gorgeous, and so achingly earnest, and full of random fascinating quirks like eating like a weird snake with no gag reflex, and that was bad enough. Zoey was not prepared to learn that she is also a shameless dork, throwing herself gamely and with clear delight into butchering both the English language and the art of techno dancing—

Zoey is distracted from the perfect woman by the other perfect woman, who makes an undignified snort at their antics and then breaks out into dance, actual dance, skilled and fluid and perfectly on beat and what the hell did she just work a drop in there and bounce back up, Zoey knew guys back in Burbank who did break dance five nights a week on a cardboard box who would kill to move the way that Mira is moving right now, and Minji is cheering and Miyeong is whooping, and Zoey throws her arm around Celine's waist for the last chorus and makes her jump with her because Mira is perfect and Rumi is perfect and the food and the music and the SoCal special mixed drinks and the grown-ups and the magpie spirit laughing her head off from the top corner of the TV it's all perfect, and that energy has to go somewhere, and the first couple hops almost take them both to the floor but then Celine gets it and jumps with her until the song runs out.

At the words "drinking Game" Miyeong knew she was in trouble. She had been in trouble for awhile - ever since her body had realized that she had a beautiful woman in her bed every single night and another one outside her bedroom door- but now she was truly deep deepin trouble. 

“Never Have I Ever,” she says, already falling into laughter at her own joke, “been born in Korea.”

Rumi tilts her head, earnestly confused. “Yes?”

Combined with a chance meeting of Miyeong’s eyes, that’s enough to get Minji cackling again—thankfully, Mira takes over explaining the game while Celine goes and gets them glasses.

“You say something you’ve never done, and if anyone else has done it, they drink,” she says. “So if Zoey said that, I’d drink and those two and, uh…”

“I would,” Celine says as she walks back. “My adoptive parents are French, but I was born here. And Rumi-nim, technically, though Jeju was more of a conquered territory at the time.”

“It’s an all arounder,” Zoey cheers, pumping her fist.

Celine sets glass after glass down, somehow having balanced them almost magically in the fingers of one hand, with a bottle in the other. “Usually you have a given number of shots, but we only have so many glasses, so it seems to make sense to put a finger down for every drink taken.”

“You,” Miyeong tells her, taking the bottle the moment the first drink is poured and tugging Celine off her feet as she takes over, “are exactly the too-sober one Zoey was talking about.”

(In spite of this, she doesn’t fill their glasses over-generously, which Minji is sure she’ll be grateful for in the morning.)

“So if I wanted to do something targeted, I could say, like, never have I ever had purple hair,” Zoey explains. “But that would be kind of mean.”

“No, it would not. I am the least capable of intoxication, and thus if only makes sense to target me,” Rumi argues, sweetheart that she is.

“So drink,” Minji says, hoping the joke lands but already wincing at the too-harsh sound of it out of her mouth.

(This is likely made easier by the fact that she's supporting at least a third of Miyeong's weight, at the moment.)

Minji reads lips fairly well— it's always been a good party trick— but Celine is a little obscured from this angle, and Minji's take, is there anything I can bring you that you can eat, is at least half guess. Miyeong's response, after a moment of staring at Celine like she's being extremely unfair, is much more drunken, and thus just loud enough for Minji to pick it up, "… there's instant ramyeon in the cupboard?"

And so by the time Rumi says, thoughtfully, "Never have I ever driven a car," Celine is gently extracting herself from Miyeong's weight and, with the most obligatory possible apologetic bow, excusing herself to the kitchen.

Minji is much too drunk to be doing this, but she follows, anyway.

"I'm much too drunk to be doing this," she warns Celine, hopefully more aware of her volume than Miyeong had been, as Celine starts a pot of water boiling. "But. The whole 'stepping on Miyeong's boundaries without knowing it' thing was... shit. I don't want to do it again."

Celine folds her arms and leans against the counter, patiently.

"You drank, with me, when we'd barely known each other a day," says Minji, assembling the evidence for her own sake more than Celine's. "You're drinking tonight. And I know you care if Miyeong eats. But you timed that to avoid that last shot."

Celine tips her head slightly, acknowledgement. "I do drink. I do not get drunk, anymore."

"Okay," says Minji.

She stares at the pot, trying to put a conversation together through the shifting, floating distraction of her pickled brain, and Celine continues to stand there nearby, quietly unmoving, like a very pretty, very patient kitchen appliance.

"… hard rule, then? Uh. Trust thing? Like Miyeong?"

"It's not a question of trust, but of responsibility," says Celine. She gestures, indicating the noodles, waiting on the counter for the water to boil. "If we were all drunk, who would make sure Miyeong gets dinner?"

It's not a yes, on the hard rule. Minji closes her eyes, buries her hands in the front pocket of her stolen sweatshirt, and tries very hard to wrangle the thought. It's not a no, either. It's an evasion? She doesn't want to talk about it. That means Minji doesn't have enough information. Lack of information means guessing, which means harm. That means it is a hard rule, regardless.

So she doesn't make Celine drink past her tolerance. Easy. She doesn't let other people try to make her, either. Harder. Snapping turtles can't defend without biting, and Celine probably doesn't want Zoey or Miyeong bit. Almost certainly. Neither does Minji, for that matter. It's not her place, anyway. Celine isn't hers, the way Miyeong is. They've only known each other a few weeks.

The thought catches, somehow. Minji watches the other woman, as she dumps a square of Neoguri noodles into the water, and tries to work her way through it. "You take care of everyone else."

Celine nods, absently, and starts tearing open the flavor packet.

"Who takes care of you?"

Celine goes still, over the stove, the paper half-torn in her hands, shoulders just a little hunched, and Minji shouldn't be able to see it. Minji finds body language opaque on a good day and her eyes feel like they're crossing from the alcohol and Celine just reacted strongly enough that even she could see it.

And then the shaman just… adjusts, and goes loose and calm again, and Minji could almost believe she made the whole thing up in a drunken stupor. "Also me," Celine answers, easily. "They do say self-sufficiency is a virtue."

"Sounds lonely," Minji says.

Currently: the gang are hiding out at Miyeong’s apartment, and spent the morning working through some very mundane trauma… only for Minji’s grandmother to give them a reminder that the wraiths are looking for them. At least they got to see the healing spirit first?

"We have been taking an active stance," says Celine, calmly but firmly disagreeing with Rumi. "We would only put ourselves in greater danger by moving faster than is wise. We have been training the others to reduce the risk of engagement. We have been gathering information on our enemy, who we had not even located until two days ago, and about whom we are still lacking significant intelligence. We have been recovering from extremely compromising injuries," and she says that with so much annoyance and distaste Zoey has to hold back a giggle.

(Okay, maybe she's also had a beer in the last half hour. Or a little tiny bit more than that. But they cracked open the samosa box for an afternoon snack and Zoey's tolerance for spice is moderate at best, she needed something to cool herself off. It's fine, she could still do the alphabet backwards. She can do that when she's plastered, actually, courtesy of working in a library shelving books for several years, but the point is, it's fine, she didn't actually giggle, she just wanted to. She's totally good.)

"We have been taking action appropriate to our original situation," Rumi says, just as polite, just as firm. "Our situation has changed. The honorable river spirit has restored Mira and yourself to your full capabilities. Zoey and Miyeong-nim have shown consistent accuracy with the shinkal, and Mira has gained access to her family's knowledge of wraiths. Our enemy escalates, and threatens Minji-nim's family. Our response must change as well."

Celine is unmoved. "Minji-ssi's grandmother is safe, and has bought us time," and then Zoey completely zones out the rest, because there's a tapping, on the windowpane, and she pulls herself out of the armchair and beelines to let Suspicion-ssi in.

"You're early for the party," Zoey murmurs, though there isn't really a reason to be quiet; Rumi and Celine fell silent once they saw what she was doing.

The spirit caws and puffs up, I'm doing you a favor, there can't be a party until I'm here, drawing a chuckle out of Celine that she tries unsuccessfully to disguise as a cough.

But she turns grim at Suspicion-ssi's next words, turning back to Rumi with a heavy sigh, and then a wry smile and an apologetic dip of her head and shoulders. "It seems you have the clearer view of the situation, Rumi-nim."

"What did the bird say," says Miyeong, fingers pressing into her temples, a woman who does not want the answer to her question but feels obligated to ask it anyway.

A part of her is still processing the rest of her conversation with Minji-ssi’s grandmother—a formidable woman, even in passing, but certainly one willing to gossip about her granddaughter’s habits once she understood that Celine only wanted to help—in spite of how much the current one demands all of her attention.

Kkachi-ssi continues, and it’s all she can do not to wince.

“And, uh, working their way up, obviously,” Zoey adds. “Big goal is Gwi-Ma. But right now it’s dead guy central.”

“How far along are they?” Mira asks, gaze lidded and calm, but voice tight.

The summoner is an amateur, Kkachi-ssi declares. The wraith has to teach him everything. Unfortunately, the sacrifice won’t need to be big to get results, so it’ll probably be soon once he gets the idea.

“Uh, still on bookwork?” Zoey translates. “But with everything… it’s gonna be easy once they get all the pieces in place.”

“Wraiths can only be summoned at twilight,” Mira points out. “So we’ve got at least a day and a half?”

Kkachi-ssi caws her agreement. You are not skipping my party.

“We would never,” Celine agrees. It would be a great insult to meet the aid and favor of a spirit not just with no returned tribute, but with the promise thereof and then its withdrawal. She would hate to see that beak set to work with any actual malice.

This, perhaps, is too solemn a response for Kkachi-ssi’s taste, as she sends her triplicate side eye Celine’s way.

“Suspicion-ssi reminds us that the party is mandatory,” Zoey explains and, from the looks on Minji-ssi and Rumi-nim’s faces, probably quite necessarily.

“Well, at least there’s that,” Miyeong-ssi says brightly. “How fucked are we in general, though? We brought six to ten down to four to eight, what would this go up to?”

She reports, through Zoey— who, based on Celine's varying, not-quite-controlled facial expressions, is working very hard to moderate the magpie's snark— that several of the wraiths frequenting the target building wear the logo of Changwon Commercial Shipping, that they're in and out at roughly eight-hour intervals, and they have at least one car ("Hate that for us," says Mira flatly, with the voice of experience). The magpie remembers the plate, and Miyeong writes it down for further inspection, and gives the most gracious thank-you she can manage; the spirit did find out everything she asked it for, after all.

Zoey's polite "She says you're welcome" would be more convincing if the bird wasn't squinting all six eyes and sniggering when she says it.

And then Zoey and Mira are off to set up the folding table, and Minji and Rumi are putting the food and alcohol out in the kitchen, buffet-style, and it's Thursday, so Miyeong goes out on the balcony to water her plants. Because this is the day she waters her plants. Restraining herself from starting a fight with a bird is not a factor.

Celine follows her out and leans against the railing, amused. "You know she picks on you because you react so strongly."

"Bully logic from the spirit world," Miyeong shoots back.

"Friendly teasing," Celine corrects, but she does sound genuinely sympathetic.

And honestly, Miyeong will take the pity; it's probably better than whatever she'll get if she actually tries to argue with a mudang about a spirit, so she just shakes her head and changes the subject.

"How was the conversation with Minji's gran?"

"…. illuminating," says Celine.

"Yeah?" Miyeong's done watering, so she just leans next to Celine. "What's our concern level, there, generally? Because mine isn't zero."

Celine considers it, the slightest crease in her brow. "… not zero, no. Her grandmother had some insight, but..." She pauses. Still thinking about it, Miyeong thinks. Illuminating, but maybe not immediately obvious what to do with it.

"She'll need you," Celine finally says, one thing at least that she's apparently sure of, "once the wraiths are dealt with and she's able to start contacting her friends."

Start finding out who's left alive, she means.

Miyeong tips her head back and traces a striated line of cirrus clouds across the sky. "You know, some of them are my friends too?"

It feels strange to say, comes out uncertain, but—

"It's not, I haven't thought about it at all, but. Take Donghyun, he's a radiology tech, constantly snacking, has a niece he helps his sister take care of, he's an absolute idiot. If you asked me who I'm close to, his name wouldn't cross my mind— but I've known him for the better part of a decade, met his family, know his coffee order and his go-to cocktail after work. And if he was on shift that day? If I never see him again—"

She'd thought Minji didn't like her. She'd thought Sieun found her vaguely annoying on Minji's behalf. She thought the whole lot of them mostly just tolerated her because she was Yeonggi's girlfriend, and kept inviting her out once he was gone out of, what, inertia? But she was wrong about Minji, probably wrong about all of them, and if she never hears Donghyun try to goad someone into a stupid bet again…

Miyeong pauses a moment, and then snorts, still studying the sky. “Would you believe that you’re not the first person to tell me that?”

Celine is certainly startled by it, and she afreely admits as much.

“Yeonggi,” Miyeong explains, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I always thought he didn’t like it when I talked about my exes because he was insecure, but… it might not have all been that.”

A surprisingly clear-eyed view of the man, after Minji-ssi’s assessment that she’d thought him too good for her. Idly, Celine wonders what he was really like.

“Who would you say you’re close to?” she asks, instead, which is a slightly more relevant matter.

Miyeong-ssi does not answer her for a long time.

It’s not the first time that she has had such a response to that kind of question. She’s seen it in almost every way possible, she thinks.

“You?”

Everything stops. Fragments. Reconstitutes itself, fundamentally changed.

Miyeong laughs a little. “Kind of pathetic, but—I don’t know. I’ve been out of practice with talking to people about hard things for a long time now. So… Minji, and you, and the kids.”

“Fear has a tendency to linger in the strangest of places,” Celine replies, almost automatically.

She feels as if someone has changed the oxygen content of the air, or maybe the strength of gravity. Lightheaded. She holds on to the balcony rail tightly, hoping not to fall, though she knows that it’s silly.

You.

“…I guess so,” Miyeong says. “You’ve got a proverb for everything, don’t you?”

“I guess so,” Celine answers.

Zoey glances at Rumi, and her face turns a pretty shade of bright red. “I am not translating that.”   The spirit nips her ear.

Zoey wrings her hands, “Suspicion-ssi would like you to shift the table to the left.”

Rumi smiles and bows to the spirit. “Of course, Kkachi-nim.”

Under the magpie spirit’s haughty gaze, Mira and Minji transfer the platters and glasses from the folding table onto Miyeong’s table.

Rumi lifts the folding table and shifts it to the left. The magpie spirit caws indignantly.  “Ah, suspicion-ssi meant the other table.”

Mira bites back a sigh, the bird gives them all the smuggest side-eye as they clear the platters from Miyeong’s table and put them back on the folding table.

With one smooth movement, Rumi lifts Miyeong’s table as easily as Mira would lift a paper cup. She has to fight to keep her jaw closed as Rumi’s shirt does precious little to hide her lithe muscles working underneath.

Minji gives her a knowing look. Mira can’t find it in herself to care, as with grace that would make a ballerina green with envy, Rumi moves the table to the magpie spirit’s desired spot.  “Is this location acceptable, Kkachi-nim?” She asks.

From her perch on Zoey’s head, the magpie spirit radiates judgment. 

Confusion then surprise shoots across Zoey’s face. “But she jus—” 

The bird cuts Zoey off with a nip on the ear.

She sighs and gives way.  “Suspicion-ssi asks that you, uh, put that table down, she meant the other other table” 

Other other table? Mira looks around Miyeong’s apartment. Rumi has moved all the… Her eyes catch on the coffee table.  

“Oh, as you wish,” Rumi says, as she strides over to the coffee table and carefully removes the TV remote.

The coffee table is a squat, heavy thing; it has clearly been well-loved. Rumi lifts it like it’s nothing.

Mira’s throat goes dry.

“Do you need help with that?” Mira asks, mostly for the sake of saying something.  

A playfully affronted look crosses Rumi’s face, “There is no need—” With that dangerous gleam in her eye, Rumi shifts her weight slightly and pulls one hand out from under the coffee table. “—for I am quite comfortable here.”

Mira’s jaw drops, the bird cackles and flits over to perch atop one of the nicer wine glasses. Her three eyes narrow at Mira.

She sees Zoey’s sharp intake of breath out of the corner of her eye. 

“Suspicion-ssi says you may put the coffee table down; she now requests karaoke.” Zoey translates. Minji crows with laughter. She says something about fetching Celine and Miyeong.

Mira doesn’t hear her as she feels the floor drop out from under her.

“Any song requests?” Zoey asks, cheeks pinkening.

The honored whispering magpie spirit looks deeply amused.

“Then it is a singing game?” Rumi asks, circling around the couch to return to the area in which they’ve congregated.

“Uh, yeah,” Mira says, looking as if she might prefer to abscond from the feast now and fight a wraith. “We put on a song without the lyrics and then perform it. It’s pretty simple.”

It does, indeed, seem far simpler than Rumi had expected from their reactions. She tilts her head, wondering if there is some trick to the game that she has not understood. “So… how does one lose?”

It is at this moment that Minji-nim, Miyeong-nim, and the honored shaman return from the balcony, shutting the sliding door.

“At karaoke?” Miyeong-nim asks, grinning. “By being a really bad singer, I guess.”

“I… see.” (Rumi does not see.)

“Suspicion-ssi has a request,” Zoey announces, scrolling on her phone with all of the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner.

The honored shaman’s lips twitch. Whatever this request is, she is certainly as amused as the honored whispering magpie spirit. “Miyeong, do you think that we could connect Zoey’s phone to your television?”

“I know we can connect my laptop,” Miyeong-nim replies, still grinning.

Minji-nim’s eyebrows arch, and she looks between the two of them with some curiosity—perhaps at the new degree of intimacy to their speech?

Either way, Rumi must remain focused on the matter at hand. She leans into Zoey’s space, skimming the lyrics of the song she’s brought up.

It is a rather tender love song, one somewhat reminiscent in style of the song Miyeong-nim had led them in during their skirmish at the hotel. Romances are in fashion these days, from what Rumi has heard, so she does not understand why Zoey looks so embarrassed.

Mira's not sure how Miyeong defines 'lucky,' but she's absolutely certain it's not the same way she does.

Celine is entirely certain that she will not be getting out of this without some form of mild humiliation herself, and can only hope that the magpie spirit will find some kind of other shiny subject to fixate on than matchmaking soon. As she settles in, bracing herself, Mira, Zoey, and Rumi-nim retreat back off for food.

“Look, somebody has to eat first, and everyone always gets weird about it, and I’m not doing it! Food is a friend!” Zoey declares, before turning back to where they’re clustered around the laptop. “Do any of you want us to make a plate?”

“Please,” Celine says, before any awkwardness might develop.

“I could go for one of those burritos,” Minji-ssi adds. “And something to drink?”

“Yeah, I’ll could use some more soju,” Miyeong says, and it’s subtle. That’s not the word, exactly, given that they’re all aware of the matter—fluid, perhaps?—but were they not, Celine doubts anyone would’ve thought twice. She can see it in the beat after, too, how Miyeong sees them noticing and wishes they hadn’t.

And then they move on.

They should sing “Some”, Kkachi-ssi decides, whistling a bit of the tune as if the name weren’t already identifiable.

Zoey makes a face. “Isn’t there a rap part in that?”

Singers’ choice how to manage it, Kkachi-ssi decides.

“We have a request, I take it?” Minji-ssi asks dryly.

Celine silently leans over and starts finding it for them, her own face already burning from secondhand embarrassment.

Miyeong giggles, and wraps an arm around Minji-sis’s shoulder. “Feels like I’m yours, seems like I’m yours, but noooo—do you want SoYou’s parts or Junggigo’s ones?”

Minji-ssi flushes, and makes momentary, devastated eye contact with Celine.

“Um, I… I’ll take the higher ones,” she says.

Miyeong squeezes her shoulder briefly, and flashes her a smile. “Hey, don’t worry. If nothing else, imagine all the audience members in their underwear, right?”

Miyeong is light, delighted, thoroughly buzzed, and hamming it up more than a little, and so Minji-ssi is already past paying attention to herself and fighting laughter to get her lyrics out by the time they hit the rap bridge. Which they hadn't actually decided how to handle, so at first neither of them take it, then they both try to pick it up simultaneously, and then they both break down in drunken giggles, Miyeong's arm around Minji-ssi practically the only thing holding her up as they stumble through the rest.

Celine, carefully nursing a single room-temperature craft beer with peach undertones that she intends to last her at least half the night, will have no such salvation. Not that she's all that afraid of being dragged into singing a love song in front of everyone— mudang would have been a poor profession to commit herself to, if singing any number of strange or silly things in public was apt to bother her— but she suspects Kkachi-ssi is fully aware of that, and is not looking forward to finding out what actual vulnerability the spirit might have spotted to poke at instead.

Mira plops down next to Celine and hands her a plate, somewhere in the middle of the nonsense, and says, very quietly, "I don't remember ever being warned the spirit world was so fixated on relationship drama."

"Kkachi-ssi doesn't care if anyone gets together," murmurs Celine, an eye on the spirit in question as she cackles at Miyeong and Minji-ssi's hopeless antics. "She just knows what will get her the best reaction. Now, whatever the Han told you… that was meant sincerely, to ease a genuine pain."

Mira, who has apparently been convinced to try one of Zoey's mixed drink recipes, takes a very long swallow out of her very colorful glass, and mutters, tipsy and disgruntled, "….he said we all have two hands."

And enduring whatever Kkachi-ssi has planned for her sober is worth Celine being able to swallow back her initial response to that.

"You don't feel you can choose between them?" she asks, instead, quiet and very carefully neutral.

"What? No." Mira seems genuinely a little offended. "They're perfect for each other. I've got nothing to do with it, I'm not trying to take either of them from the other."

Celine looks over at Rumi-nim, watching Zoey demonstrate how to fold a pizza slice with apparently genuine awe, and tells Mira, "You know, in Rumi-nim's day, nobles like her often had dozens of lovers at once."

While no one had responded well to their chosen songs, it seems this is not any better of a situation for the honored shaman to be placed in (and it is, unfortunately, one that she alone is placed in. Rumi’s repertoire in this modern time is highly limited, leaving her with no ability to provide aid).

She grimaces, torn, as she rises, considering her options and looking between Rumi and the honored whispering magpie spirit as if they are the tusks of a boar closing on either side, ready to gore her.

Rumi offers her most reassuring smile. “I am in your hands.”

Yet the honored shaman looks even more upset at Rumi’s words, despite her intention.

Finally, she sighs and pulls out her phone. “Why don’t you give it a listen before you make a statement so unequivocal? I—I’ll write it out phonetically for you.”

The song is turned down very low when she hands it to Rumi, such that no one else in the room, currently giving them curious looks, will be able to hear. It is an… interesting video to look at.

Which is to say the bright, pulsating colors very much hurt Rumi’s eyes, though they do suit the strong beat of the song.

It’s not in Jejuan or Korean, or even Mandarin, but the words are quite simple. She can likely manage, especially with a guide.

“This is a joke, yes?” Rumi asks.

“Oh boy,” Zoey murmurs.

The honored shaman nods, looking miserable.

Rumi grins, and leans in closer. “Is it funnier if I understand the meaning of the words, or if I simply try my best?”

“It’s just about dancing,” the honored shaman answers, her voice dropping lower, tension finally fading slightly as she seems to realize that Rumi is happy to perform beside her, not just sing. “You can take that however you wish.”

She passes Rumi the words, written in Hangul.

“Pum-p up—heh?” Rumi tries.

“Th,” the honored shaman corrects. “The.”

“Te?” She shakes her head, immediately hearing the difference. “T—h—t—thhhhhhh. Theh?”

She wiggles a hand in mid-air. Not perfect, but better.

“Theh?” Rumi repeats. She can hear it’s still not right. “Pum-p up theh jam. What an awful mess I’m making of this language. Perfect, then?”

Mira gives her a look of fond fascination, and Zoey grabs her hands and drags her up from the couch and over to Rumi and Celine. Rumi takes the hint faster than Mira, copying her Italian stomp and freestyle arm pumping even at the cost of dropping lyrics, and oh.

Oh no.

Rumi is strong, and kind, and incredibly competent, and absolutely gorgeous, and so achingly earnest, and full of random fascinating quirks like eating like a weird snake with no gag reflex, and that was bad enough. Zoey was not prepared to learn that she is also a shameless dork, throwing herself gamely and with clear delight into butchering both the English language and the art of techno dancing—

Zoey is distracted from the perfect woman by the other perfect woman, who makes an undignified snort at their antics and then breaks out into dance, actual dance, skilled and fluid and perfectly on beat and what the hell did she just work a drop in there and bounce back up, Zoey knew guys back in Burbank who did break dance five nights a week on a cardboard box who would kill to move the way that Mira is moving right now, and Minji is cheering and Miyeong is whooping, and Zoey throws her arm around Celine's waist for the last chorus and makes her jump with her because Mira is perfect and Rumi is perfect and the food and the music and the SoCal special mixed drinks and the grown-ups and the magpie spirit laughing her head off from the top corner of the TV it's all perfect, and that energy has to go somewhere, and the first couple hops almost take them both to the floor but then Celine gets it and jumps with her until the song runs out.

At the words "drinking Game" Miyeong knew she was in trouble. She had been in trouble for awhile - ever since her body had realized that she had a beautiful woman in her bed every single night and another one outside her bedroom door- but now she was truly deep deepin trouble. 

“Never Have I Ever,” she says, already falling into laughter at her own joke, “been born in Korea.”

Rumi tilts her head, earnestly confused. “Yes?”

Combined with a chance meeting of Miyeong’s eyes, that’s enough to get Minji cackling again—thankfully, Mira takes over explaining the game while Celine goes and gets them glasses.

“You say something you’ve never done, and if anyone else has done it, they drink,” she says. “So if Zoey said that, I’d drink and those two and, uh…”

“I would,” Celine says as she walks back. “My adoptive parents are French, but I was born here. And Rumi-nim, technically, though Jeju was more of a conquered territory at the time.”

“It’s an all arounder,” Zoey cheers, pumping her fist.

Celine sets glass after glass down, somehow having balanced them almost magically in the fingers of one hand, with a bottle in the other. “Usually you have a given number of shots, but we only have so many glasses, so it seems to make sense to put a finger down for every drink taken.”

“You,” Miyeong tells her, taking the bottle the moment the first drink is poured and tugging Celine off her feet as she takes over, “are exactly the too-sober one Zoey was talking about.”

(In spite of this, she doesn’t fill their glasses over-generously, which Minji is sure she’ll be grateful for in the morning.)

“So if I wanted to do something targeted, I could say, like, never have I ever had purple hair,” Zoey explains. “But that would be kind of mean.”

“No, it would not. I am the least capable of intoxication, and thus if only makes sense to target me,” Rumi argues, sweetheart that she is.

“So drink,” Minji says, hoping the joke lands but already wincing at the too-harsh sound of it out of her mouth.

(This is likely made easier by the fact that she's supporting at least a third of Miyeong's weight, at the moment.)

Minji reads lips fairly well— it's always been a good party trick— but Celine is a little obscured from this angle, and Minji's take, is there anything I can bring you that you can eat, is at least half guess. Miyeong's response, after a moment of staring at Celine like she's being extremely unfair, is much more drunken, and thus just loud enough for Minji to pick it up, "… there's instant ramyeon in the cupboard?"

And so by the time Rumi says, thoughtfully, "Never have I ever driven a car," Celine is gently extracting herself from Miyeong's weight and, with the most obligatory possible apologetic bow, excusing herself to the kitchen.

Minji is much too drunk to be doing this, but she follows, anyway.

"I'm much too drunk to be doing this," she warns Celine, hopefully more aware of her volume than Miyeong had been, as Celine starts a pot of water boiling. "But. The whole 'stepping on Miyeong's boundaries without knowing it' thing was... shit. I don't want to do it again."

Celine folds her arms and leans against the counter, patiently.

"You drank, with me, when we'd barely known each other a day," says Minji, assembling the evidence for her own sake more than Celine's. "You're drinking tonight. And I know you care if Miyeong eats. But you timed that to avoid that last shot."

Celine tips her head slightly, acknowledgement. "I do drink. I do not get drunk, anymore."

"Okay," says Minji.

She stares at the pot, trying to put a conversation together through the shifting, floating distraction of her pickled brain, and Celine continues to stand there nearby, quietly unmoving, like a very pretty, very patient kitchen appliance.

"… hard rule, then? Uh. Trust thing? Like Miyeong?"

"It's not a question of trust, but of responsibility," says Celine. She gestures, indicating the noodles, waiting on the counter for the water to boil. "If we were all drunk, who would make sure Miyeong gets dinner?"

It's not a yes, on the hard rule. Minji closes her eyes, buries her hands in the front pocket of her stolen sweatshirt, and tries very hard to wrangle the thought. It's not a no, either. It's an evasion? She doesn't want to talk about it. That means Minji doesn't have enough information. Lack of information means guessing, which means harm. That means it is a hard rule, regardless.

So she doesn't make Celine drink past her tolerance. Easy. She doesn't let other people try to make her, either. Harder. Snapping turtles can't defend without biting, and Celine probably doesn't want Zoey or Miyeong bit. Almost certainly. Neither does Minji, for that matter. It's not her place, anyway. Celine isn't hers, the way Miyeong is. They've only known each other a few weeks.

The thought catches, somehow. Minji watches the other woman, as she dumps a square of Neoguri noodles into the water, and tries to work her way through it. "You take care of everyone else."

Celine nods, absently, and starts tearing open the flavor packet.

"Who takes care of you?"

Celine goes still, over the stove, the paper half-torn in her hands, shoulders just a little hunched, and Minji shouldn't be able to see it. Minji finds body language opaque on a good day and her eyes feel like they're crossing from the alcohol and Celine just reacted strongly enough that even she could see it.

And then the shaman just… adjusts, and goes loose and calm again, and Minji could almost believe she made the whole thing up in a drunken stupor. "Also me," Celine answers, easily. "They do say self-sufficiency is a virtue."

"Sounds lonely," Minji says.

Currently: the gang are hiding out at Miyeong’s apartment, and spent the morning working through some very mundane trauma… only for Minji’s grandmother to give them a reminder that the wraiths are looking for them. At least they got to see the healing spirit first?

"We have been taking an active stance," says Celine, calmly but firmly disagreeing with Rumi. "We would only put ourselves in greater danger by moving faster than is wise. We have been training the others to reduce the risk of engagement. We have been gathering information on our enemy, who we had not even located until two days ago, and about whom we are still lacking significant intelligence. We have been recovering from extremely compromising injuries," and she says that with so much annoyance and distaste Zoey has to hold back a giggle.

(Okay, maybe she's also had a beer in the last half hour. Or a little tiny bit more than that. But they cracked open the samosa box for an afternoon snack and Zoey's tolerance for spice is moderate at best, she needed something to cool herself off. It's fine, she could still do the alphabet backwards. She can do that when she's plastered, actually, courtesy of working in a library shelving books for several years, but the point is, it's fine, she didn't actually giggle, she just wanted to. She's totally good.)

"We have been taking action appropriate to our original situation," Rumi says, just as polite, just as firm. "Our situation has changed. The honorable river spirit has restored Mira and yourself to your full capabilities. Zoey and Miyeong-nim have shown consistent accuracy with the shinkal, and Mira has gained access to her family's knowledge of wraiths. Our enemy escalates, and threatens Minji-nim's family. Our response must change as well."

Celine is unmoved. "Minji-ssi's grandmother is safe, and has bought us time," and then Zoey completely zones out the rest, because there's a tapping, on the windowpane, and she pulls herself out of the armchair and beelines to let Suspicion-ssi in.

"You're early for the party," Zoey murmurs, though there isn't really a reason to be quiet; Rumi and Celine fell silent once they saw what she was doing.

The spirit caws and puffs up, I'm doing you a favor, there can't be a party until I'm here, drawing a chuckle out of Celine that she tries unsuccessfully to disguise as a cough.

But she turns grim at Suspicion-ssi's next words, turning back to Rumi with a heavy sigh, and then a wry smile and an apologetic dip of her head and shoulders. "It seems you have the clearer view of the situation, Rumi-nim."

"What did the bird say," says Miyeong, fingers pressing into her temples, a woman who does not want the answer to her question but feels obligated to ask it anyway.

A part of her is still processing the rest of her conversation with Minji-ssi’s grandmother—a formidable woman, even in passing, but certainly one willing to gossip about her granddaughter’s habits once she understood that Celine only wanted to help—in spite of how much the current one demands all of her attention.

Kkachi-ssi continues, and it’s all she can do not to wince.

“And, uh, working their way up, obviously,” Zoey adds. “Big goal is Gwi-Ma. But right now it’s dead guy central.”

“How far along are they?” Mira asks, gaze lidded and calm, but voice tight.

The summoner is an amateur, Kkachi-ssi declares. The wraith has to teach him everything. Unfortunately, the sacrifice won’t need to be big to get results, so it’ll probably be soon once he gets the idea.

“Uh, still on bookwork?” Zoey translates. “But with everything… it’s gonna be easy once they get all the pieces in place.”

“Wraiths can only be summoned at twilight,” Mira points out. “So we’ve got at least a day and a half?”

Kkachi-ssi caws her agreement. You are not skipping my party.

“We would never,” Celine agrees. It would be a great insult to meet the aid and favor of a spirit not just with no returned tribute, but with the promise thereof and then its withdrawal. She would hate to see that beak set to work with any actual malice.

This, perhaps, is too solemn a response for Kkachi-ssi’s taste, as she sends her triplicate side eye Celine’s way.

“Suspicion-ssi reminds us that the party is mandatory,” Zoey explains and, from the looks on Minji-ssi and Rumi-nim’s faces, probably quite necessarily.

“Well, at least there’s that,” Miyeong-ssi says brightly. “How fucked are we in general, though? We brought six to ten down to four to eight, what would this go up to?”

She reports, through Zoey— who, based on Celine's varying, not-quite-controlled facial expressions, is working very hard to moderate the magpie's snark— that several of the wraiths frequenting the target building wear the logo of Changwon Commercial Shipping, that they're in and out at roughly eight-hour intervals, and they have at least one car ("Hate that for us," says Mira flatly, with the voice of experience). The magpie remembers the plate, and Miyeong writes it down for further inspection, and gives the most gracious thank-you she can manage; the spirit did find out everything she asked it for, after all.

Zoey's polite "She says you're welcome" would be more convincing if the bird wasn't squinting all six eyes and sniggering when she says it.

And then Zoey and Mira are off to set up the folding table, and Minji and Rumi are putting the food and alcohol out in the kitchen, buffet-style, and it's Thursday, so Miyeong goes out on the balcony to water her plants. Because this is the day she waters her plants. Restraining herself from starting a fight with a bird is not a factor.

Celine follows her out and leans against the railing, amused. "You know she picks on you because you react so strongly."

"Bully logic from the spirit world," Miyeong shoots back.

"Friendly teasing," Celine corrects, but she does sound genuinely sympathetic.

And honestly, Miyeong will take the pity; it's probably better than whatever she'll get if she actually tries to argue with a mudang about a spirit, so she just shakes her head and changes the subject.

"How was the conversation with Minji's gran?"

"…. illuminating," says Celine.

"Yeah?" Miyeong's done watering, so she just leans next to Celine. "What's our concern level, there, generally? Because mine isn't zero."

Celine considers it, the slightest crease in her brow. "… not zero, no. Her grandmother had some insight, but..." She pauses. Still thinking about it, Miyeong thinks. Illuminating, but maybe not immediately obvious what to do with it.

"She'll need you," Celine finally says, one thing at least that she's apparently sure of, "once the wraiths are dealt with and she's able to start contacting her friends."

Start finding out who's left alive, she means.

Miyeong tips her head back and traces a striated line of cirrus clouds across the sky. "You know, some of them are my friends too?"

It feels strange to say, comes out uncertain, but—

"It's not, I haven't thought about it at all, but. Take Donghyun, he's a radiology tech, constantly snacking, has a niece he helps his sister take care of, he's an absolute idiot. If you asked me who I'm close to, his name wouldn't cross my mind— but I've known him for the better part of a decade, met his family, know his coffee order and his go-to cocktail after work. And if he was on shift that day? If I never see him again—"

She'd thought Minji didn't like her. She'd thought Sieun found her vaguely annoying on Minji's behalf. She thought the whole lot of them mostly just tolerated her because she was Yeonggi's girlfriend, and kept inviting her out once he was gone out of, what, inertia? But she was wrong about Minji, probably wrong about all of them, and if she never hears Donghyun try to goad someone into a stupid bet again…

Miyeong pauses a moment, and then snorts, still studying the sky. “Would you believe that you’re not the first person to tell me that?”

Celine is certainly startled by it, and she afreely admits as much.

“Yeonggi,” Miyeong explains, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I always thought he didn’t like it when I talked about my exes because he was insecure, but… it might not have all been that.”

A surprisingly clear-eyed view of the man, after Minji-ssi’s assessment that she’d thought him too good for her. Idly, Celine wonders what he was really like.

“Who would you say you’re close to?” she asks, instead, which is a slightly more relevant matter.

Miyeong-ssi does not answer her for a long time.

It’s not the first time that she has had such a response to that kind of question. She’s seen it in almost every way possible, she thinks.

“You?”

Everything stops. Fragments. Reconstitutes itself, fundamentally changed.

Miyeong laughs a little. “Kind of pathetic, but—I don’t know. I’ve been out of practice with talking to people about hard things for a long time now. So… Minji, and you, and the kids.”

“Fear has a tendency to linger in the strangest of places,” Celine replies, almost automatically.

She feels as if someone has changed the oxygen content of the air, or maybe the strength of gravity. Lightheaded. She holds on to the balcony rail tightly, hoping not to fall, though she knows that it’s silly.

You.

“…I guess so,” Miyeong says. “You’ve got a proverb for everything, don’t you?”

“I guess so,” Celine answers.

Zoey glances at Rumi, and her face turns a pretty shade of bright red. “I am not translating that.”   The spirit nips her ear.

Zoey wrings her hands, “Suspicion-ssi would like you to shift the table to the left.”

Rumi smiles and bows to the spirit. “Of course, Kkachi-nim.”

Under the magpie spirit’s haughty gaze, Mira and Minji transfer the platters and glasses from the folding table onto Miyeong’s table.

Rumi lifts the folding table and shifts it to the left. The magpie spirit caws indignantly.  “Ah, suspicion-ssi meant the other table.”

Mira bites back a sigh, the bird gives them all the smuggest side-eye as they clear the platters from Miyeong’s table and put them back on the folding table.

With one smooth movement, Rumi lifts Miyeong’s table as easily as Mira would lift a paper cup. She has to fight to keep her jaw closed as Rumi’s shirt does precious little to hide her lithe muscles working underneath.

Minji gives her a knowing look. Mira can’t find it in herself to care, as with grace that would make a ballerina green with envy, Rumi moves the table to the magpie spirit’s desired spot.  “Is this location acceptable, Kkachi-nim?” She asks.

From her perch on Zoey’s head, the magpie spirit radiates judgment. 

Confusion then surprise shoots across Zoey’s face. “But she jus—” 

The bird cuts Zoey off with a nip on the ear.

She sighs and gives way.  “Suspicion-ssi asks that you, uh, put that table down, she meant the other other table” 

Other other table? Mira looks around Miyeong’s apartment. Rumi has moved all the… Her eyes catch on the coffee table.  

“Oh, as you wish,” Rumi says, as she strides over to the coffee table and carefully removes the TV remote.

The coffee table is a squat, heavy thing; it has clearly been well-loved. Rumi lifts it like it’s nothing.

Mira’s throat goes dry.

“Do you need help with that?” Mira asks, mostly for the sake of saying something.  

A playfully affronted look crosses Rumi’s face, “There is no need—” With that dangerous gleam in her eye, Rumi shifts her weight slightly and pulls one hand out from under the coffee table. “—for I am quite comfortable here.”

Mira’s jaw drops, the bird cackles and flits over to perch atop one of the nicer wine glasses. Her three eyes narrow at Mira.

She sees Zoey’s sharp intake of breath out of the corner of her eye. 

“Suspicion-ssi says you may put the coffee table down; she now requests karaoke.” Zoey translates. Minji crows with laughter. She says something about fetching Celine and Miyeong.

Mira doesn’t hear her as she feels the floor drop out from under her.

“Any song requests?” Zoey asks, cheeks pinkening.

The honored whispering magpie spirit looks deeply amused.

“Then it is a singing game?” Rumi asks, circling around the couch to return to the area in which they’ve congregated.

“Uh, yeah,” Mira says, looking as if she might prefer to abscond from the feast now and fight a wraith. “We put on a song without the lyrics and then perform it. It’s pretty simple.”

It does, indeed, seem far simpler than Rumi had expected from their reactions. She tilts her head, wondering if there is some trick to the game that she has not understood. “So… how does one lose?”

It is at this moment that Minji-nim, Miyeong-nim, and the honored shaman return from the balcony, shutting the sliding door.

“At karaoke?” Miyeong-nim asks, grinning. “By being a really bad singer, I guess.”

“I… see.” (Rumi does not see.)

“Suspicion-ssi has a request,” Zoey announces, scrolling on her phone with all of the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner.

The honored shaman’s lips twitch. Whatever this request is, she is certainly as amused as the honored whispering magpie spirit. “Miyeong, do you think that we could connect Zoey’s phone to your television?”

“I know we can connect my laptop,” Miyeong-nim replies, still grinning.

Minji-nim’s eyebrows arch, and she looks between the two of them with some curiosity—perhaps at the new degree of intimacy to their speech?

Either way, Rumi must remain focused on the matter at hand. She leans into Zoey’s space, skimming the lyrics of the song she’s brought up.

It is a rather tender love song, one somewhat reminiscent in style of the song Miyeong-nim had led them in during their skirmish at the hotel. Romances are in fashion these days, from what Rumi has heard, so she does not understand why Zoey looks so embarrassed.

Mira's not sure how Miyeong defines 'lucky,' but she's absolutely certain it's not the same way she does.

Celine is entirely certain that she will not be getting out of this without some form of mild humiliation herself, and can only hope that the magpie spirit will find some kind of other shiny subject to fixate on than matchmaking soon. As she settles in, bracing herself, Mira, Zoey, and Rumi-nim retreat back off for food.

“Look, somebody has to eat first, and everyone always gets weird about it, and I’m not doing it! Food is a friend!” Zoey declares, before turning back to where they’re clustered around the laptop. “Do any of you want us to make a plate?”

“Please,” Celine says, before any awkwardness might develop.

“I could go for one of those burritos,” Minji-ssi adds. “And something to drink?”

“Yeah, I’ll could use some more soju,” Miyeong says, and it’s subtle. That’s not the word, exactly, given that they’re all aware of the matter—fluid, perhaps?—but were they not, Celine doubts anyone would’ve thought twice. She can see it in the beat after, too, how Miyeong sees them noticing and wishes they hadn’t.

And then they move on.

They should sing “Some”, Kkachi-ssi decides, whistling a bit of the tune as if the name weren’t already identifiable.

Zoey makes a face. “Isn’t there a rap part in that?”

Singers’ choice how to manage it, Kkachi-ssi decides.

“We have a request, I take it?” Minji-ssi asks dryly.

Celine silently leans over and starts finding it for them, her own face already burning from secondhand embarrassment.

Miyeong giggles, and wraps an arm around Minji-sis’s shoulder. “Feels like I’m yours, seems like I’m yours, but noooo—do you want SoYou’s parts or Junggigo’s ones?”

Minji-ssi flushes, and makes momentary, devastated eye contact with Celine.

“Um, I… I’ll take the higher ones,” she says.

Miyeong squeezes her shoulder briefly, and flashes her a smile. “Hey, don’t worry. If nothing else, imagine all the audience members in their underwear, right?”

Miyeong is light, delighted, thoroughly buzzed, and hamming it up more than a little, and so Minji-ssi is already past paying attention to herself and fighting laughter to get her lyrics out by the time they hit the rap bridge. Which they hadn't actually decided how to handle, so at first neither of them take it, then they both try to pick it up simultaneously, and then they both break down in drunken giggles, Miyeong's arm around Minji-ssi practically the only thing holding her up as they stumble through the rest.

Celine, carefully nursing a single room-temperature craft beer with peach undertones that she intends to last her at least half the night, will have no such salvation. Not that she's all that afraid of being dragged into singing a love song in front of everyone— mudang would have been a poor profession to commit herself to, if singing any number of strange or silly things in public was apt to bother her— but she suspects Kkachi-ssi is fully aware of that, and is not looking forward to finding out what actual vulnerability the spirit might have spotted to poke at instead.

Mira plops down next to Celine and hands her a plate, somewhere in the middle of the nonsense, and says, very quietly, "I don't remember ever being warned the spirit world was so fixated on relationship drama."

"Kkachi-ssi doesn't care if anyone gets together," murmurs Celine, an eye on the spirit in question as she cackles at Miyeong and Minji-ssi's hopeless antics. "She just knows what will get her the best reaction. Now, whatever the Han told you… that was meant sincerely, to ease a genuine pain."

Mira, who has apparently been convinced to try one of Zoey's mixed drink recipes, takes a very long swallow out of her very colorful glass, and mutters, tipsy and disgruntled, "….he said we all have two hands."

And enduring whatever Kkachi-ssi has planned for her sober is worth Celine being able to swallow back her initial response to that.

"You don't feel you can choose between them?" she asks, instead, quiet and very carefully neutral.

"What? No." Mira seems genuinely a little offended. "They're perfect for each other. I've got nothing to do with it, I'm not trying to take either of them from the other."

Celine looks over at Rumi-nim, watching Zoey demonstrate how to fold a pizza slice with apparently genuine awe, and tells Mira, "You know, in Rumi-nim's day, nobles like her often had dozens of lovers at once."

While no one had responded well to their chosen songs, it seems this is not any better of a situation for the honored shaman to be placed in (and it is, unfortunately, one that she alone is placed in. Rumi’s repertoire in this modern time is highly limited, leaving her with no ability to provide aid).

She grimaces, torn, as she rises, considering her options and looking between Rumi and the honored whispering magpie spirit as if they are the tusks of a boar closing on either side, ready to gore her.

Rumi offers her most reassuring smile. “I am in your hands.”

Yet the honored shaman looks even more upset at Rumi’s words, despite her intention.

Finally, she sighs and pulls out her phone. “Why don’t you give it a listen before you make a statement so unequivocal? I—I’ll write it out phonetically for you.”

The song is turned down very low when she hands it to Rumi, such that no one else in the room, currently giving them curious looks, will be able to hear. It is an… interesting video to look at.

Which is to say the bright, pulsating colors very much hurt Rumi’s eyes, though they do suit the strong beat of the song.

It’s not in Jejuan or Korean, or even Mandarin, but the words are quite simple. She can likely manage, especially with a guide.

“This is a joke, yes?” Rumi asks.

“Oh boy,” Zoey murmurs.

The honored shaman nods, looking miserable.

Rumi grins, and leans in closer. “Is it funnier if I understand the meaning of the words, or if I simply try my best?”

“It’s just about dancing,” the honored shaman answers, her voice dropping lower, tension finally fading slightly as she seems to realize that Rumi is happy to perform beside her, not just sing. “You can take that however you wish.”

She passes Rumi the words, written in Hangul.

“Pum-p up—heh?” Rumi tries.

“Th,” the honored shaman corrects. “The.”

“Te?” She shakes her head, immediately hearing the difference. “T—h—t—thhhhhhh. Theh?”

She wiggles a hand in mid-air. Not perfect, but better.

“Theh?” Rumi repeats. She can hear it’s still not right. “Pum-p up theh jam. What an awful mess I’m making of this language. Perfect, then?”

Mira gives her a look of fond fascination, and Zoey grabs her hands and drags her up from the couch and over to Rumi and Celine. Rumi takes the hint faster than Mira, copying her Italian stomp and freestyle arm pumping even at the cost of dropping lyrics, and oh.

Oh no.

Rumi is strong, and kind, and incredibly competent, and absolutely gorgeous, and so achingly earnest, and full of random fascinating quirks like eating like a weird snake with no gag reflex, and that was bad enough. Zoey was not prepared to learn that she is also a shameless dork, throwing herself gamely and with clear delight into butchering both the English language and the art of techno dancing—

Zoey is distracted from the perfect woman by the other perfect woman, who makes an undignified snort at their antics and then breaks out into dance, actual dance, skilled and fluid and perfectly on beat and what the hell did she just work a drop in there and bounce back up, Zoey knew guys back in Burbank who did break dance five nights a week on a cardboard box who would kill to move the way that Mira is moving right now, and Minji is cheering and Miyeong is whooping, and Zoey throws her arm around Celine's waist for the last chorus and makes her jump with her because Mira is perfect and Rumi is perfect and the food and the music and the SoCal special mixed drinks and the grown-ups and the magpie spirit laughing her head off from the top corner of the TV it's all perfect, and that energy has to go somewhere, and the first couple hops almost take them both to the floor but then Celine gets it and jumps with her until the song runs out.

At the words "drinking Game" Miyeong knew she was in trouble. She had been in trouble for awhile - ever since her body had realized that she had a beautiful woman in her bed every single night and another one outside her bedroom door- but now she was truly deep deepin trouble. 

Currently: the gang are hiding out at Miyeong’s apartment, and spent the morning working through some very mundane trauma… only for Minji’s grandmother to give them a reminder that the wraiths are looking for them. At least they got to see the healing spirit first?

"We have been taking an active stance," says Celine, calmly but firmly disagreeing with Rumi. "We would only put ourselves in greater danger by moving faster than is wise. We have been training the others to reduce the risk of engagement. We have been gathering information on our enemy, who we had not even located until two days ago, and about whom we are still lacking significant intelligence. We have been recovering from extremely compromising injuries," and she says that with so much annoyance and distaste Zoey has to hold back a giggle.

(Okay, maybe she's also had a beer in the last half hour. Or a little tiny bit more than that. But they cracked open the samosa box for an afternoon snack and Zoey's tolerance for spice is moderate at best, she needed something to cool herself off. It's fine, she could still do the alphabet backwards. She can do that when she's plastered, actually, courtesy of working in a library shelving books for several years, but the point is, it's fine, she didn't actually giggle, she just wanted to. She's totally good.)

"We have been taking action appropriate to our original situation," Rumi says, just as polite, just as firm. "Our situation has changed. The honorable river spirit has restored Mira and yourself to your full capabilities. Zoey and Miyeong-nim have shown consistent accuracy with the shinkal, and Mira has gained access to her family's knowledge of wraiths. Our enemy escalates, and threatens Minji-nim's family. Our response must change as well."

Celine is unmoved. "Minji-ssi's grandmother is safe, and has bought us time," and then Zoey completely zones out the rest, because there's a tapping, on the windowpane, and she pulls herself out of the armchair and beelines to let Suspicion-ssi in.

"You're early for the party," Zoey murmurs, though there isn't really a reason to be quiet; Rumi and Celine fell silent once they saw what she was doing.

The spirit caws and puffs up, I'm doing you a favor, there can't be a party until I'm here, drawing a chuckle out of Celine that she tries unsuccessfully to disguise as a cough.

But she turns grim at Suspicion-ssi's next words, turning back to Rumi with a heavy sigh, and then a wry smile and an apologetic dip of her head and shoulders. "It seems you have the clearer view of the situation, Rumi-nim."

"What did the bird say," says Miyeong, fingers pressing into her temples, a woman who does not want the answer to her question but feels obligated to ask it anyway.

A part of her is still processing the rest of her conversation with Minji-ssi’s grandmother—a formidable woman, even in passing, but certainly one willing to gossip about her granddaughter’s habits once she understood that Celine only wanted to help—in spite of how much the current one demands all of her attention.

Kkachi-ssi continues, and it’s all she can do not to wince.

“And, uh, working their way up, obviously,” Zoey adds. “Big goal is Gwi-Ma. But right now it’s dead guy central.”

“How far along are they?” Mira asks, gaze lidded and calm, but voice tight.

The summoner is an amateur, Kkachi-ssi declares. The wraith has to teach him everything. Unfortunately, the sacrifice won’t need to be big to get results, so it’ll probably be soon once he gets the idea.

“Uh, still on bookwork?” Zoey translates. “But with everything… it’s gonna be easy once they get all the pieces in place.”

“Wraiths can only be summoned at twilight,” Mira points out. “So we’ve got at least a day and a half?”

Kkachi-ssi caws her agreement. You are not skipping my party.

“We would never,” Celine agrees. It would be a great insult to meet the aid and favor of a spirit not just with no returned tribute, but with the promise thereof and then its withdrawal. She would hate to see that beak set to work with any actual malice.

This, perhaps, is too solemn a response for Kkachi-ssi’s taste, as she sends her triplicate side eye Celine’s way.

“Suspicion-ssi reminds us that the party is mandatory,” Zoey explains and, from the looks on Minji-ssi and Rumi-nim’s faces, probably quite necessarily.

“Well, at least there’s that,” Miyeong-ssi says brightly. “How fucked are we in general, though? We brought six to ten down to four to eight, what would this go up to?”

She reports, through Zoey— who, based on Celine's varying, not-quite-controlled facial expressions, is working very hard to moderate the magpie's snark— that several of the wraiths frequenting the target building wear the logo of Changwon Commercial Shipping, that they're in and out at roughly eight-hour intervals, and they have at least one car ("Hate that for us," says Mira flatly, with the voice of experience). The magpie remembers the plate, and Miyeong writes it down for further inspection, and gives the most gracious thank-you she can manage; the spirit did find out everything she asked it for, after all.

Zoey's polite "She says you're welcome" would be more convincing if the bird wasn't squinting all six eyes and sniggering when she says it.

And then Zoey and Mira are off to set up the folding table, and Minji and Rumi are putting the food and alcohol out in the kitchen, buffet-style, and it's Thursday, so Miyeong goes out on the balcony to water her plants. Because this is the day she waters her plants. Restraining herself from starting a fight with a bird is not a factor.

Celine follows her out and leans against the railing, amused. "You know she picks on you because you react so strongly."

"Bully logic from the spirit world," Miyeong shoots back.

"Friendly teasing," Celine corrects, but she does sound genuinely sympathetic.

And honestly, Miyeong will take the pity; it's probably better than whatever she'll get if she actually tries to argue with a mudang about a spirit, so she just shakes her head and changes the subject.

"How was the conversation with Minji's gran?"

"…. illuminating," says Celine.

"Yeah?" Miyeong's done watering, so she just leans next to Celine. "What's our concern level, there, generally? Because mine isn't zero."

Celine considers it, the slightest crease in her brow. "… not zero, no. Her grandmother had some insight, but..." She pauses. Still thinking about it, Miyeong thinks. Illuminating, but maybe not immediately obvious what to do with it.

"She'll need you," Celine finally says, one thing at least that she's apparently sure of, "once the wraiths are dealt with and she's able to start contacting her friends."

Start finding out who's left alive, she means.

Miyeong tips her head back and traces a striated line of cirrus clouds across the sky. "You know, some of them are my friends too?"

It feels strange to say, comes out uncertain, but—

"It's not, I haven't thought about it at all, but. Take Donghyun, he's a radiology tech, constantly snacking, has a niece he helps his sister take care of, he's an absolute idiot. If you asked me who I'm close to, his name wouldn't cross my mind— but I've known him for the better part of a decade, met his family, know his coffee order and his go-to cocktail after work. And if he was on shift that day? If I never see him again—"

She'd thought Minji didn't like her. She'd thought Sieun found her vaguely annoying on Minji's behalf. She thought the whole lot of them mostly just tolerated her because she was Yeonggi's girlfriend, and kept inviting her out once he was gone out of, what, inertia? But she was wrong about Minji, probably wrong about all of them, and if she never hears Donghyun try to goad someone into a stupid bet again…

Miyeong pauses a moment, and then snorts, still studying the sky. “Would you believe that you’re not the first person to tell me that?”

Celine is certainly startled by it, and she afreely admits as much.

“Yeonggi,” Miyeong explains, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I always thought he didn’t like it when I talked about my exes because he was insecure, but… it might not have all been that.”

A surprisingly clear-eyed view of the man, after Minji-ssi’s assessment that she’d thought him too good for her. Idly, Celine wonders what he was really like.

“Who would you say you’re close to?” she asks, instead, which is a slightly more relevant matter.

Miyeong-ssi does not answer her for a long time.

It’s not the first time that she has had such a response to that kind of question. She’s seen it in almost every way possible, she thinks.

“You?”

Everything stops. Fragments. Reconstitutes itself, fundamentally changed.

Miyeong laughs a little. “Kind of pathetic, but—I don’t know. I’ve been out of practice with talking to people about hard things for a long time now. So… Minji, and you, and the kids.”

“Fear has a tendency to linger in the strangest of places,” Celine replies, almost automatically.

She feels as if someone has changed the oxygen content of the air, or maybe the strength of gravity. Lightheaded. She holds on to the balcony rail tightly, hoping not to fall, though she knows that it’s silly.

You.

“…I guess so,” Miyeong says. “You’ve got a proverb for everything, don’t you?”

“I guess so,” Celine answers.

Zoey glances at Rumi, and her face turns a pretty shade of bright red. “I am not translating that.”   The spirit nips her ear.

Zoey wrings her hands, “Suspicion-ssi would like you to shift the table to the left.”

Rumi smiles and bows to the spirit. “Of course, Kkachi-nim.”

Under the magpie spirit’s haughty gaze, Mira and Minji transfer the platters and glasses from the folding table onto Miyeong’s table.

Rumi lifts the folding table and shifts it to the left. The magpie spirit caws indignantly.  “Ah, suspicion-ssi meant the other table.”

Mira bites back a sigh, the bird gives them all the smuggest side-eye as they clear the platters from Miyeong’s table and put them back on the folding table.

With one smooth movement, Rumi lifts Miyeong’s table as easily as Mira would lift a paper cup. She has to fight to keep her jaw closed as Rumi’s shirt does precious little to hide her lithe muscles working underneath.

Minji gives her a knowing look. Mira can’t find it in herself to care, as with grace that would make a ballerina green with envy, Rumi moves the table to the magpie spirit’s desired spot.  “Is this location acceptable, Kkachi-nim?” She asks.

From her perch on Zoey’s head, the magpie spirit radiates judgment. 

Confusion then surprise shoots across Zoey’s face. “But she jus—” 

The bird cuts Zoey off with a nip on the ear.

She sighs and gives way.  “Suspicion-ssi asks that you, uh, put that table down, she meant the other other table” 

Other other table? Mira looks around Miyeong’s apartment. Rumi has moved all the… Her eyes catch on the coffee table.  

“Oh, as you wish,” Rumi says, as she strides over to the coffee table and carefully removes the TV remote.

The coffee table is a squat, heavy thing; it has clearly been well-loved. Rumi lifts it like it’s nothing.

Mira’s throat goes dry.

“Do you need help with that?” Mira asks, mostly for the sake of saying something.  

A playfully affronted look crosses Rumi’s face, “There is no need—” With that dangerous gleam in her eye, Rumi shifts her weight slightly and pulls one hand out from under the coffee table. “—for I am quite comfortable here.”

Mira’s jaw drops, the bird cackles and flits over to perch atop one of the nicer wine glasses. Her three eyes narrow at Mira.

She sees Zoey’s sharp intake of breath out of the corner of her eye. 

“Suspicion-ssi says you may put the coffee table down; she now requests karaoke.” Zoey translates. Minji crows with laughter. She says something about fetching Celine and Miyeong.

Mira doesn’t hear her as she feels the floor drop out from under her.

“Any song requests?” Zoey asks, cheeks pinkening.

The honored whispering magpie spirit looks deeply amused.

“Then it is a singing game?” Rumi asks, circling around the couch to return to the area in which they’ve congregated.

“Uh, yeah,” Mira says, looking as if she might prefer to abscond from the feast now and fight a wraith. “We put on a song without the lyrics and then perform it. It’s pretty simple.”

It does, indeed, seem far simpler than Rumi had expected from their reactions. She tilts her head, wondering if there is some trick to the game that she has not understood. “So… how does one lose?”

It is at this moment that Minji-nim, Miyeong-nim, and the honored shaman return from the balcony, shutting the sliding door.

“At karaoke?” Miyeong-nim asks, grinning. “By being a really bad singer, I guess.”

“I… see.” (Rumi does not see.)

“Suspicion-ssi has a request,” Zoey announces, scrolling on her phone with all of the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner.

The honored shaman’s lips twitch. Whatever this request is, she is certainly as amused as the honored whispering magpie spirit. “Miyeong, do you think that we could connect Zoey’s phone to your television?”

“I know we can connect my laptop,” Miyeong-nim replies, still grinning.

Minji-nim’s eyebrows arch, and she looks between the two of them with some curiosity—perhaps at the new degree of intimacy to their speech?

Either way, Rumi must remain focused on the matter at hand. She leans into Zoey’s space, skimming the lyrics of the song she’s brought up.

It is a rather tender love song, one somewhat reminiscent in style of the song Miyeong-nim had led them in during their skirmish at the hotel. Romances are in fashion these days, from what Rumi has heard, so she does not understand why Zoey looks so embarrassed.

Mira's not sure how Miyeong defines 'lucky,' but she's absolutely certain it's not the same way she does.

Celine is entirely certain that she will not be getting out of this without some form of mild humiliation herself, and can only hope that the magpie spirit will find some kind of other shiny subject to fixate on than matchmaking soon. As she settles in, bracing herself, Mira, Zoey, and Rumi-nim retreat back off for food.

“Look, somebody has to eat first, and everyone always gets weird about it, and I’m not doing it! Food is a friend!” Zoey declares, before turning back to where they’re clustered around the laptop. “Do any of you want us to make a plate?”

“Please,” Celine says, before any awkwardness might develop.

“I could go for one of those burritos,” Minji-ssi adds. “And something to drink?”

“Yeah, I’ll could use some more soju,” Miyeong says, and it’s subtle. That’s not the word, exactly, given that they’re all aware of the matter—fluid, perhaps?—but were they not, Celine doubts anyone would’ve thought twice. She can see it in the beat after, too, how Miyeong sees them noticing and wishes they hadn’t.

And then they move on.

They should sing “Some”, Kkachi-ssi decides, whistling a bit of the tune as if the name weren’t already identifiable.

Zoey makes a face. “Isn’t there a rap part in that?”

Singers’ choice how to manage it, Kkachi-ssi decides.

“We have a request, I take it?” Minji-ssi asks dryly.

Celine silently leans over and starts finding it for them, her own face already burning from secondhand embarrassment.

Miyeong giggles, and wraps an arm around Minji-sis’s shoulder. “Feels like I’m yours, seems like I’m yours, but noooo—do you want SoYou’s parts or Junggigo’s ones?”

Minji-ssi flushes, and makes momentary, devastated eye contact with Celine.

“Um, I… I’ll take the higher ones,” she says.

Miyeong squeezes her shoulder briefly, and flashes her a smile. “Hey, don’t worry. If nothing else, imagine all the audience members in their underwear, right?”

Miyeong is light, delighted, thoroughly buzzed, and hamming it up more than a little, and so Minji-ssi is already past paying attention to herself and fighting laughter to get her lyrics out by the time they hit the rap bridge. Which they hadn't actually decided how to handle, so at first neither of them take it, then they both try to pick it up simultaneously, and then they both break down in drunken giggles, Miyeong's arm around Minji-ssi practically the only thing holding her up as they stumble through the rest.

Celine, carefully nursing a single room-temperature craft beer with peach undertones that she intends to last her at least half the night, will have no such salvation. Not that she's all that afraid of being dragged into singing a love song in front of everyone— mudang would have been a poor profession to commit herself to, if singing any number of strange or silly things in public was apt to bother her— but she suspects Kkachi-ssi is fully aware of that, and is not looking forward to finding out what actual vulnerability the spirit might have spotted to poke at instead.

Mira plops down next to Celine and hands her a plate, somewhere in the middle of the nonsense, and says, very quietly, "I don't remember ever being warned the spirit world was so fixated on relationship drama."

"Kkachi-ssi doesn't care if anyone gets together," murmurs Celine, an eye on the spirit in question as she cackles at Miyeong and Minji-ssi's hopeless antics. "She just knows what will get her the best reaction. Now, whatever the Han told you… that was meant sincerely, to ease a genuine pain."

Mira, who has apparently been convinced to try one of Zoey's mixed drink recipes, takes a very long swallow out of her very colorful glass, and mutters, tipsy and disgruntled, "….he said we all have two hands."

And enduring whatever Kkachi-ssi has planned for her sober is worth Celine being able to swallow back her initial response to that.

"You don't feel you can choose between them?" she asks, instead, quiet and very carefully neutral.

"What? No." Mira seems genuinely a little offended. "They're perfect for each other. I've got nothing to do with it, I'm not trying to take either of them from the other."

Celine looks over at Rumi-nim, watching Zoey demonstrate how to fold a pizza slice with apparently genuine awe, and tells Mira, "You know, in Rumi-nim's day, nobles like her often had dozens of lovers at once."

While no one had responded well to their chosen songs, it seems this is not any better of a situation for the honored shaman to be placed in (and it is, unfortunately, one that she alone is placed in. Rumi’s repertoire in this modern time is highly limited, leaving her with no ability to provide aid).

She grimaces, torn, as she rises, considering her options and looking between Rumi and the honored whispering magpie spirit as if they are the tusks of a boar closing on either side, ready to gore her.

Rumi offers her most reassuring smile. “I am in your hands.”

Yet the honored shaman looks even more upset at Rumi’s words, despite her intention.

Finally, she sighs and pulls out her phone. “Why don’t you give it a listen before you make a statement so unequivocal? I—I’ll write it out phonetically for you.”

The song is turned down very low when she hands it to Rumi, such that no one else in the room, currently giving them curious looks, will be able to hear. It is an… interesting video to look at.

Which is to say the bright, pulsating colors very much hurt Rumi’s eyes, though they do suit the strong beat of the song.

It’s not in Jejuan or Korean, or even Mandarin, but the words are quite simple. She can likely manage, especially with a guide.

“This is a joke, yes?” Rumi asks.

“Oh boy,” Zoey murmurs.

The honored shaman nods, looking miserable.

Rumi grins, and leans in closer. “Is it funnier if I understand the meaning of the words, or if I simply try my best?”

“It’s just about dancing,” the honored shaman answers, her voice dropping lower, tension finally fading slightly as she seems to realize that Rumi is happy to perform beside her, not just sing. “You can take that however you wish.”

She passes Rumi the words, written in Hangul.

“Pum-p up—heh?” Rumi tries.

“Th,” the honored shaman corrects. “The.”

“Te?” She shakes her head, immediately hearing the difference. “T—h—t—thhhhhhh. Theh?”

She wiggles a hand in mid-air. Not perfect, but better.

“Theh?” Rumi repeats. She can hear it’s still not right. “Pum-p up theh jam. What an awful mess I’m making of this language. Perfect, then?”

Mira gives her a look of fond fascination, and Zoey grabs her hands and drags her up from the couch and over to Rumi and Celine. Rumi takes the hint faster than Mira, copying her Italian stomp and freestyle arm pumping even at the cost of dropping lyrics, and oh.

Oh no.

Rumi is strong, and kind, and incredibly competent, and absolutely gorgeous, and so achingly earnest, and full of random fascinating quirks like eating like a weird snake with no gag reflex, and that was bad enough. Zoey was not prepared to learn that she is also a shameless dork, throwing herself gamely and with clear delight into butchering both the English language and the art of techno dancing—

Zoey is distracted from the perfect woman by the other perfect woman, who makes an undignified snort at their antics and then breaks out into dance, actual dance, skilled and fluid and perfectly on beat and what the hell did she just work a drop in there and bounce back up, Zoey knew guys back in Burbank who did break dance five nights a week on a cardboard box who would kill to move the way that Mira is moving right now, and Minji is cheering and Miyeong is whooping, and Zoey throws her arm around Celine's waist for the last chorus and makes her jump with her because Mira is perfect and Rumi is perfect and the food and the music and the SoCal special mixed drinks and the grown-ups and the magpie spirit laughing her head off from the top corner of the TV it's all perfect, and that energy has to go somewhere, and the first couple hops almost take them both to the floor but then Celine gets it and jumps with her until the song runs out.

At the words "drinking Game" Miyeong knew she was in trouble. She had been in trouble for awhile - ever since her body had realized that she had a beautiful woman in her bed every single night and another one outside her bedroom door- but now she was truly deep deepin trouble. 

Normal owner with her normal dog 👍

One more time with feeling

In the first version of this it was pointed out to me that Splinter’s teeth were wrong. So fixed them and reposting

From my Yakuza AU world. So Mikey has always been a chaos goblin. Getting out of bed in the middle of the night, hanging from sewer pipes, it is a wonder Yoshi didn’t go grey early. And the bigger problem was Mikey didn’t want to listen to Master Splinter when he tried to correct him. So, Splinter made this stuffed octopus (who still needs a name and I am open to suggestions). Mikey climbed up on the bookshelf? Octopus could convince him to get down. Mikey won’t eat his veggies? Octopus says he loves veggies so Mikey will give them a try. And as with all well loved toys sometimes kids love just a little too rough so he needs repairs over the years.

So I don’t usually do backgrounds like this. This was supposed to be just a sketch. Then it was supposed to be just flats. Then my SO convinced me to do the whole thing lol