REMAIN IN LIGHT

she spoke softly, "morning, i didn't expect to see you awake already." juwon shuffled past her to take a peek at herself in their shared bathroom, her eyes widening to see herself so disheveled. "last night didn't go at all according to plan...i'm guessing the same for you?"

It's a crack of light that wakes her. A thin, minuscule, innocuous sliver of a beam that seeps in through the curtain and lands directly on Eunjae's face. Cracking a bleary eye open, she looks about the room, trying to gain her bearings.

Save for the glint of sunlight peeking in, the room is still relatively dark and Donggu, still human, lies by her side, snoring softly with his arm draped over her. Carefully extracting herself, she pads around the room trying to make more sense of her situation. Her body aches severely, and her mouth feels dry while her head throbs terribly with every step she takes; it's a hangover of monumental proportions. Of course, it's expected, blood moons are always like that, but paired with the drinking and traipsing about the woods, along with the fact that Eunjae is thirty-one and lacks the ability to drink as well as she once did, it's a hard, sobering reality to face the new dawn.

It's half a miracle she manages not to wake the rest of her roommates as she makes her way to the bathroom, gracelessly slapping at the wall for the light switch, only to hiss and squint when the light fills the room. Even though her hard leer, Eunjae can tell she looks awful. Her face is bloated, hair mussed to the point of looking like a rats' nest, and dark circles malign her face. The effort to wash up feels almost colossal as she tries to go about making herself halfway decent, but even a hot shower, freshly brushed teeth, and eye masks can't conceal the fact that she still looks just as shit as she feels. In the end, when she finally comes out, quickly snapping the light off, she finds herself wearing an overly large sweatshirt that almost certainly isn't hers, a pair of shorts that are almost certainly from high school, and a pair of sunglasses of unknown origin. In short, she looks a wreck, and it's Eunjae's misfortune, or maybe perhaps Juwon's, that she meets Juwon in this very state.

"G'mornin'." It's a garbled mess in her mouth; speaking seems to make her head throb more, and she all but throws herself onto the empty third bed in their room, her wet hair leaving water droplets across the duvet as she does so.

Theoretically, the lesson is easy enough: she's just meant to move the book from point A to point B. It's something she accomplishes easily, without thinking, in everyday life. In the morning, her phone finds its way to her hand without much effort, keys make their way to her when she's in a rush out the door, a brush, chapstick; any of the little innocuous aspects of daily life manage to make their way to her. But now, as she stands in front of Kang Jiho, the task suddenly feels monumental.

Stretching out a hand, she reaches for the book, only to be utterly embarrassed when it barely moves a centimeter. Sighing, she rolls up her sleeves and rolls her shoulders back, adopting a more confident stance, then outstretches her hand once more. Now, the book moves about a foot before coming to a halt.

Eunjae is aware she ought to be patient with herself. Where the rest of the student populace seems to have spent her life enmeshed with magic, Eunjae's own journey has been that of two years. Still, frustration builds in her. It's simple, she's not creating some insane hex or spell, she's moving a book across the room⎯ it should be easy.

She groans now, hands finding their way to her hips as she throws her head back; her exasperation evident.

"I can do this when I'm not thinking about it," she announces to Jiho in a bid to assuage her own bruised ego. "When I'm first getting up, or I'm not thinking about anything, it happens so easily. But when I try⎯"

She fails.

Eunjae doesn't bother to finish the sentence. Only sighs and paces about the room for a moment, trying to soothe her frustration.

"It's like I get in my own way." She finally finishes, her voice somewhat defeated as she admits to her own failings.

he doesn't check the time. he'd pulled her legs over his lap sometime after sitting down. he can't remember when now, it must've been the right thing to do at the time. he's only paying attention to her shape in the dark, his hands resting on her knees, listening or staring. they're talking about something, anything under the moon. "i just like being with you," he says. "is it like that for you too?"

"Yeah."

Eunjae means to tell Donggu about what her life was like before they met; the miserable monotony of it all and the loneliness she masked as solitude. She wants to tell him how ignorant she was of her own misery until he came walking into the saju cafe looking equal parts lost and somehow relieved. There's a million things she wants to say, but Eunjae's mouth and brain can't seem to agree on what should come out, so they settle on a succinct and simple 'yeah'.

It's not enough; still, the right words don't come to mind, and instead of saying something else, Eunjae rests her hands on top of his and marvels at how even now his fingers seem to dwarf hers. When she was twelve, she'd drawn up a list of traits she'd like in an ideal husband: big and strong, kind-hearted, sweet-faced. Sometimes now she wonders if the wish list had been more of a spell, something conjured to tie Donggu to her even then.

"You know, truthfully, I don't like most people." She says softly, the right words finally making their way to her mouth. "That's probably shitty of me to say, but⎯"

Eunjae stops for a moment and stares down at their hands. Maybe it's a side effect of the blood moon; it loosens her tongue in a way it shouldn't, and she finds that as she speaks, she's perhaps more honest than she should be.

"⎯The whole world could fall away out there, and I wouldn't really care so long as you were with me." The words carry more weight than she's willing to give credence to in the current setting. Shifting, somewhat uncomfortably, she settles herself more in Donggu's lap, her back to his chest in a small effort to hide her face from his. A sudden fear hits her, one of being found unseemly and strange; a fear of rejection.

“thank you for letting me come along,” haein says after a moment of silence. he has errands he needs to run. organise some things at the clinic and then arrange the rest of his appointments. it’ll go by quickly. he needs to show his face to prove he’s not disappearing from this world. dentistry is competitive.  i know we… we got off on the wr… no. “i really appreciate it,” he decides on.

She hums in acknowledgement. It's the best she can manage.

Haein doesn't deserve her vexation; if anything, he's just collateral damage, ⎯ an easy target to hone in on and direct her anger towards. Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she glances at Haein only for a moment. He seems nice enough, Donggu talks about him as if he's a saint among men, but Eunjae feels a certain level of irritation sit in the pit of her stomach whenever he does.

It's not fair, not really. Eunjae tries to shake the shame of resentment in kind, one-off actions. She lets him sleep under her bed, as long as he stays a cat, and tells him she doesn't even mind if he sleeps on her bed, keeping Donggu company at night; she never mentions the caveat of how he ought to stay a cat when he does so. Haein, she's sure, knows all the same.

Envy brings out the worst in her, leads her into small cruelties and unkind little moments because she can't bring herself to announce why she's so affected by rapacity whenever Haein is around. It's not as if she owns Donggu, bonded or not; his heart is his own, and his affections can lie wherever he leaves them. Eunjae owns nothing and has no say on anything; his soul may be bonded to her but not his love. There's no crime to be found.

Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she flips on her blinker, merging into another lane.

"So Donggu tells me you're a dentist." She says, finally. Maybe Donggu hadn't told her that, maybe Haein had and she can't be fully bothered to remember the things he tells her because she's a miserable jealous bitch. "There must be good money in that."

Enough money to have his own car, she thinks.

Yushu doesn't get to ponder it for longer, the thought spirals like a fly bouncing inside his skill. Restless fingers will do nothing, but grow tired. Dwindling stars are sucked into the black canvas as the heart of the nearby town emits enough light to take on the role of a lighthouse⎯ a guiding light at the end of a seemingly never-ending journey. "There is a bar over there if you take a right turn here," Languid fingers point towards the direction. "If you still want to drink, I can drive us back." A significant pause as he reconsiders the offer. He doubles down, the bare hint of a smirk rises on its stead with the same warmth as the streetlights. "I can be a pretty good driver."

"Pretty good?" Eunjae's face contorts into one of incredulity. "I've only got the one car. I'm going to need a rating of 'really good' if you're gonna drive us back. Did you see how many switchbacks there were?"

Despite her needling, Eunjae takes the right turn and pulls into the bar's parking lot. Cutting the engine, she sighs for a moment as if to weigh her options. It's not the most fashionable-looking of places. Then again, out here, everything looks dated⎯  Decorations celebrating the Seoul Olympics still adorn the side of the building. Another poster, one from when Kim Youngsam was still president,  has faded enough to be barely legible. Yushu and Eunjae are not the clientele this bar craves.

Still, she supposes it doesn't really matter. Cutting the engine, she climbs out of the vehicle and groans as she stretches for a moment.

"We can just get a designated driver if you want to drink too, you know." She says, quickening her pace to catch up with Yushu's long strides. "Even in bumfuck nowhere they've got kakao. I'm sure we can find someone on the app to drive us back."

Her mouth feels dry as they enter the bar. There's a peculiar feeling about the place , as if somehow they're intruding, and Eunjae instinctively takes a step behind Yushu's larger frame in an effort to shield herself from consternation.

"Then again," she says in a low deadpanned voice as an older woman behind the bar calls to them to pick a table to sit at, "maybe you should stay sober. Wouldn't kill you, would it?"

As they make their way to the table, Eunjae gets a better feel for the room; she and Yushu are the youngest patrons by a long shot, and save for the woman running the establishment, Eunjae seems to be the only feminine company visible. It's the kind of country establishment you see in the backdrop of movies that fill you with a certain amount of terror; she sits down on the wooden chair uncomfortably, hands smoothing non-existent wrinkles on her jeans as she scans about the room.

"Real... romantic spot you picked." She says flippantly, eyes scanning the menu boards above the bar. It's the typical fare of any bar: jokbal, jeon, yangyeom chicken, and dubu kimchi. Nothing wows her, but the familiarity sets her at ease somewhat, and she relaxes slightly in her chair.

"wait, sorry, say that again? i was, uh..." her words momentarily trails off as she lifts a hand to vaguely gesture towards her half-finished cardigan. "so focused on remembering the pattern that i missed like, probably half of that. at least the most important parts." she softly pushes her work further down on her lap, signaling that her roommate now has her full attention. "what was this about crows again?"

The hypocrite that she is, Eunjae finds herself letting out a long, melodramatic sigh upon the realization that Nayoung is not listening to her ramble.

"Crows, pecking at a well-dressed man in Apgujeong. Going for the eyes mostly."

Her words are tight and concise, though only partially related to her irritation over Nayoung's lack of engagement; the rest of her concentration is back on her knitting, counting stitches to make sure she's following the pattern's guidelines.

Pausing for a moment, she looks at the yoke of the sweater in her hands and frowns. She'd followed the pattern precisely, done the math to make a nice medium sized pull over, and yet it feels too large. There is perhaps the odd conclusion that Eunjae is unaware of her own body or perhaps unconsciously seeks to create for others. Still, something feels unsatisfactory about the whole situation.

"Do you think this gauge is off, or am I just losing my mind?"

It's meant to be a slightly oversized sweater for Eunjae, slightly being the operative word, but as she holds the sweater to her chest for Nayoung to review, she finds it oversized to an unflattering degree.

"Should I just give it to Donggu or Hyunwoo?"

It's a rhetorical question at this point; the decision has already been made in her mind's eye. The sweater's fate is clear⎯ it's tremendously large in comparison to Eunjae, and no doubt only suits the build of a man with a handsome build. She should ask Juwon later if she thinks the sweater would suit Hyunwoo; if not, she's certain Donggu wouldn't mind yet another sweater in his closet.

If it were a shittier car, she might not care nearly as much, but as it stands, this car, even if it's thirteen years old and not even the most luxurious of foreign cars, is still the nicest thing Eunjae owns by a long shot. One of the few things she bothers to take meticulous care of⎯ only for her hard work to be done by a shitty country road in the middle of a long stretch of forest.

Flexing her grasp, she groans audibly as another pebble smacks against the windshield; this new one leaving a minuscule chip against the corner of the window.

"Fuck." She mumbles under her breath. Maybe there's a shop in the city that can fill the rock chip, or perhaps there's even a spell for that⎯ she'll have to check with Jiho when she gets back to school.

"You can turn on some music if you'd like." She finally acknowledges Bitna's presence in the passenger seat. They've sat in complete silence for what feels like the better part of twenty minutes, running out of polite small talk before they'd even reached the outskirts of the closest town, and now sit in silence save for the sound of the car ambling down the long stretch of highway.

"If you don't mind me asking," Eunjae starts again, trying to fill the void of silence and satiate her own curiosity. "Why exactly do you need to go to the city anyway?"

The car lurches in another tight turn, and Eunjae moans again. The road to Seoul seems to go on forever, and she half-wonders if maybe she's taken a wrong turn somewhere. Maybe they're headed to the DMZ instead, set to drive into some international crisis, no doubt.

"It's not that I mind driving." She lies. "But you know, just wondering."

"speaking of the moon," he starts, "do you feel stronger than usual tonight?... like, are your powers super-charged?" is it a stupid question? would she fault him for asking a stupid question? without giving her a second to answer, he adds, much more excitable now, "... do you know who's going to win?"

Eunjae winces as feedback plays from the speakers. Or maybe it's not the speakers, maybe it's something else entirely; it's hard to tell with how many witches have converged on the forest. She takes her to rub her eyes before looking back at Haoran.

"I mean, I saw a woman with black hair finding the redretch but," she gestures vaguely about the area, bringing attention to the several dark-haired women that surround them, "take your pick of potential winners, y'know?"

There's a part of her who still has the sense to feel disconcerted by her lack of ability to see anything, or rather her lack of competence she seems to be suffering from as late. It's the blood moon, she knows it, turning everything on its head and making the difficult seem plausible, and the effortless feel impossible.

"Truthfully, you'd be better off asking me what's going to happen twenty years from now than what could happen tonight." Eunjae explains with a sigh, "foresight sort of works like a camera lens, y'know? Time is the aperture, and the vision is what you see through the lens. Usually, it's so much easier to see what's closer to you, be it a few minutes or hours, or days. Weeks and months you can still see well, but it's a little hard to make out specific details."

She trails off for a moment, wincing again as the loud bang of a bass drum comes across the speakers. Some foreign song begins spilling out of the speakers, and the crowd goes wild once again.

"Seeing things years ahead is almost impossible. It's like trying to take a picture of the moon with a disposable camera, you get nothing really, just the light."

It dawns on Eunjae somewhat belatedly that though he's asked, Haoran probably doesn't care to hear the particulars of how peering into the future works. Wrinkling her nose, Eunjae feels her cheeks go hot in mortification. She doesn't know the last time she's spoken to Haoran this much; usually, their interactions consist of him talking and her nodding absent-mindedly. The blood moon might be messing with her magic, but the alcohol is making her graceless.

"last one," he lightly taps her cup with his. "gotta keep our heads a little clear if we really wanna catch this thing." he presses a kiss to her forehead, like a period at the end of a sentence. he just doesn't know what to do with his hands sometimes.  for some reason, maybe just for the fact of her attention, maybe for the moon, a laugh bubbles out of him. how to tell her he wants her to keep scratching his skin, that nothing has ever brought him so much peace. his hand taps a quick, pleased, erratic rhythm against his thigh on instinct. but the human body isn't made for the instinct of an animal, so his wrist starts to cramp. he cracks a knuckle to make it stop.

She's about to say something stupid when his mouth meets hers. It's the sort of tame, inoffensive kiss you get at a tender age that makes you realize there's more to life than just platonic relationships. For the briefest moment, it's enough to shut her up and strike her dumb.

Then the epiphany strikes, and she's left feeling like the witless thing she's always been. This means nothing. Donggu is a dog at heart in the literal sense; quick to show affection at the slightest opening. A kiss is just a kiss and nothing more⎯ she should take it as such.

Laughing, somewhat ruefully into her cup, Eunjae takes another sip before nodding at Donggu's direction. He's right, the drink and the moon have addled her mind; she's lost the plot somewhat. Ultimately, they're only here to catch the stupid redretch⎯ maybe if luck's on her side, she'll be the one, though something in the back of her mind tells her that the bloodied fox is not hers for the taking. Still, she should get a handle on herself and think less of Donggu's clumsy kiss or the way her head swims slightly if she turns too quickly.

"C'mon."

Slowly, she removes her hand from the back of his shirt, fingers trailing over his side before they find their way to Donggu's forearm. She tells herself it's just so she won't lose her balance, even if she's not that drunk, the possibility isn't zero. Her desperate grasp has more to do with being drunk than wanting to hold him close by.

Eventually, she entwines her fingers with his nervous ones that play along at his side. "Let's go find a nice place to sit and chat, that way we can figure out a plan to try and catch this little ugly thing."

Tugging him along, they sit at the outer bounds of the party⎯ the cacophony of revelers still ever present though now somewhat removed from the pair of them.

"It's nice to see you this way." Eunjae doesn't look at him as she speaks. She's not embarrassed by the admission; she tells herself, there's nothing wrong with telling someone you've missed an aspect of them. Donggu's spent the better part of the last two weeks as a dog, leaving Eunjae reliant upon cocked heads, perking ears, and barks as forms of communication. It's nice to have someone discuss the little minutiae with again. Even still, the sentiment feels too raw and vulnerable to lay out properly. So Eunjae does what she does best: she talks around the matter.

but, she ends up floating like moonlight on the black sea. glowing palms splayed against the moon. he barely heeds to his instincts as a familiar on a good day, but a laugh singed on the edges slips past him. even the proudest wolf can't deny the presence of the moon. once the world sinks onto a dark silence and the sun-rimmed clouds travel past the horizon, yushu begins his search. as he reaches closer to what he believes is the right location, he raps his knuckles against the closest door. leans in to see if she is there. taking a bet, "hey, are you ready to go?"

Yushu was meant to be here two cigarettes ago.

A ludicrous method to keep time, but the truth nonetheless. Yushu was meant to be here two cigarettes ago.

She should quit smoking, she thinks as she takes a long drag off her cigarette. She'll be maligned with wrinkles and sagging skin sooner rather than later if she doesn't, but then again, maybe that's the benefit of being a witch. Surely, there's a spell or a potion or something to alleviate the burdens of a life lived poorly.

Eunjae can't be the only witch looking to outrun the consequences of their actions.

She exhales, watching the smoke rise and dissipate into the night sky. Still, it wouldn't kill her to quit, she thinks again as she finishes the cigarette. The embers burn so close to the filter that she nearly burns her fingers flicking the filter away. She'll quit, at some point, she's sure.

Tonight, however, is not the night. She doesn't know how to handle the idle minutes of waiting for someone else. She's a hypocrite, of course. Eunjae loves to make the rest of the world work on her time schedule⎯  coming and going as she pleases without a word of warning. But waiting for someone else feels akin to torture. Sitting on the hood of her car, she drums her fingers trying to force the anxiety out of her fingertips.

She doesn't know why she feigns astonishment. Chen Yushu had been much the same the first time she'd known him. Of course, the setting and circumstances had been much different, but the facts had remained the same⎯ he was elusive at best and impossible to know at worst. People like that aren't ones to adhere to an agreed-upon timeframe; she should know. She and Yushu are cut from the same cloth.

"Very well." She grunts as she pushes herself onto the hood, making her way to the driver's side door, slamming it loudly as she slouches in the cold leather seat. If Yushu shows in the next ten minutes, she'll pretend her impatience is nothing more than an untoward expectation on her end, and if he doesn't⎯

A loud rapping on the door breaks her out of her reverie.

"Your ears must be burning." She says, rolling down the window. "I was just shit-talking you in my head."

She got a caustic grin on her face, but the laugh that she lets out after is full of mirth. A certain relief washes over her in knowing she wasn't stood up; her fear of dejection abated as she unlocks the passenger side door.

“I got a rental,” he says. Gaku looks at Eunjae. They’re on the first floor of the hall, right as he promised of where he was gonna meet her. “What? You thought I forgot?” he sneers. Something about her makes him smile. Nothing much has happened. It never has to when he’s with her. Gaku wants to say her name. It’s the only name he knows that makes his mouth tender and good.

Kaneyama Gaku looks like an actor from an old movie⎯  handsome and austere.

Eunjae wonders if he looked the same when he was a boy, with a terse expression painted on an otherwise sweet face, or if this persona is a new apparition; something contrived in order to protect old, barely healed wounds. She leans against the cool wood of the door frame as she analyzes his face, narrowing her eyes, watching how his brow furrows as he speaks. He must’ve been a sweet boy. Sweet and naive.

Crossing her arms, Eunjae purses her lips.

“I was more hoping you forgot.”

The last time they played billiards, she’d won by a pure fluke, a trick shot she’s never performed or since that still seems more like accidental magic more than anything. Even still, she wants to win again. By nature, Lee Eunjae is not a competitive woman. She’s blasé and dispassionate as a general rule, too uninterested in the ongoings of others to bother. But, as with everything else, Gaku proves an exception. She wants to win against him, claim victory, and smile broadly in his face⎯ she wants to be seen as important to him, too good for him even.

Where the mean-spirited desire comes from, she can’t tell. It’s not her. Still, she longs for it all the same.

Shrugging her shoulders, she tries to feign as if she’s not excited, even if a small smile plays at her lips.

“Did you book the billiard hall in town?” Her voice is calm and controlled, but her grin grows wider. “I’ll drive.”

Eunjae doesn’t wait for Gaku to follow, only pushes herself from the wall before turning on her heel. She tells herself it’s in the interest of time management. If they leave now, they can get back at a decent hour, and maybe Donggu won’t worry so much about where she’s been and why she’s out so late. It’s a basic consideration, she tells herself.

“I don’t know why you want a rematch.” She calls back to him, the gravel crunching under her feet as they walk to the car park. “I think you should do the decent thing and accept that maybe you’re not the pool shark you think you are.”