#13xseulgi

“nonsense, my love.” she smiles a toothy grin, a wicked grin, a grin that splits her face in two like a wolf, glinting in the faint, pale light from the moon high above, although that dims slightly in contrast to the much sharper gleam off the knife in her left hand. she holds herself still, on her knees in the grass, seulgi laying out horizontally before her, staring up at her with wide, skeptical eyes kana refuses to pay any heed to. “i’m the only one who needs to bleed for this and i assure you, i’ve bled much worse for much less.” she drops a wink down towards the young cat familiar, raising the blade high over her own head along with her other hand, as though calling down the stars, a prayer for the howling night, palms open and begging to receive an answer other than millenia-old supernova light.

she closes her eyes, her tone low and murmuring, the circle around the two of them spread out and stinking of rotted rabbit meat and mulch, the sounds of the surrounding forest cooing and chirping selectively. “night of the elder world, hear my blood, know my name.” she runs the knife across her palm deeply, scarlet oozing out and down her arm, dripping quickly into her own hair. “alight me with knowledge of a thousand burning suns.”

she pauses a moment, eyes peeking open to look down at the changeling in front of her knees once again, before she slowly leans over and begins to paint strange, mystical shapes across seulgi’s forehead in red.

it’s later in the evening, after the dancing, after the joking, after the jubilation period, when kana’s feet are throbbing now and the sands are much too horrid now, scratching against her skin unpleasantly, worming its way through the straps of her heels ( a terrible idea to begin with but kana lives by certain rules she must abide by and  high-class fashion is one she’s not willing to break, even for nights such as this ). the moon hangs lowly this hour, a duller bronze than it had been before, a softening red, hueing more wane and pale as the minutes flit bywards, its descent across the sky mirroring kana’s own downward slope of disposition, her mood deepening, softening from her earlier joy.

“swear to me!” the woman howled through her tears and her fury, her aged voice on the other end of the phone line cracked and splintered, heaving morose and exhausted. “swear to me you’ll find her… that you’ll--…. that you’ll hurt her.”

“darling, i’m not that person anymore, i cannot--”

“you owe me. or have you forgotten, izanami?” kana bristles at the old nickname-- now hated in her ears. “shall i take my gifts back from you? are you no longer in need of them?”

“come now,” she attempts to sooth the older woman, thankful that the beastly creature cannot see kana’s strained face, cannot see her eyes flickering over to the other young woman, her prey, a changeling, sitting almost a world away at the other side of the shop, waiting for her order to finish up, unaware of kana’s attentions or intentions. kana keeps her tone low, safely in the baritones, where she is more powerful, where her voice resonates with control. “blackmail is beneath you, we both know it.”

“takeda-ssi…” the broken woman on phone inhales and kana can hear the pain in it. she’s dying. “my girl, my precious little girl is dead. because of that wretch. because of that mangy, filthy cat.”

“you told me you’ve already cursed her.”

“it’s not enough! that was before….”

kana pauses a long moment, understanding the implication without the need for words, understanding a little too much, a little too well-- the emptiness yawning inside her, spasming and echoing the ghost of her own child, the hollowness in his eyes, the tiny fingers reaching and reaching and reaching; it’s a hell, outliving one’s own family, being the last survivor. “i will deal with this for you, old baba yaga.” the decade-old nickname chuckles itself off her lips in reply, her chest tight with the hope that she sounds honest. she doesn’t know how she feels yet, not yet, not before she’s met this harsh, repulsive familiar, this cat with all the bad luck on the planet.

@13xseulgi​

You’re just living in it, Momo repeated in her head as she pulled out the newly laundered clothes, then throwing them straight to the trash bin beside her. Despite their cleanliness, less had to be said about the quality of the articles of clothing her roommate, and best friend, Kang Seulgi owned. They needed to be replaced, and she would have reached eighty and Seulgi would never buy new ones for herself. Much like the rest of Seulgi’s belongings, they were simple, old, and tattered. 

Momo knew she was lucky enough to live a comfortable life since she was a young girl, but it wasn’t the same for Seulgi. She knew the other had rough beginnings, and sometimes she felt that Seulgi still carried the weight of it, but Momo was sure that their fateful meeting was a blessing to both of them.