Chapter: Miyeong
“Where are we?” asked Miyeong.
The thicket was far more wild than the other forests they trained in, but the duo crossed them, leading to clearing of what looked like an abandoned group of hanok houses. The straw roofs started to have holes, pavements were already in dissarray, and parts of a former town had tall pigweeds and a pine smell that masked something sinister.
Miyeong stopped in her tracks, feeling the suffocating air clung to her skin that even the Honmoon recoiled.
Celine was up ahead—unperturbed by the heavy pressure around the place—walking up to an abandoned hanok that had two stone mounds in the front yard. She stepped over the rotting log posts and made her way to the graves.
“Celine?” Miyeong was on guard but mindful of her friend’s wishes. “This isn’t…”
It couldn't be the missing town Poppy had teased about during their sleepovers.
Her friend kneeled in front of the two graves. Canola flowers from the hunter's compound were placed on top of the brown ones.
“Eomma, Appa,” Celine said, “I’m home.”
Oh.
Blood ran cold in Miyeong’s hands. Her heart plunged a thousand feet deep as everything finally clicked. Their mentor’s poem:
“There was a town,
a joyful abode,
until demons said ‘no more,
no more.’
They snatched and feasted,
chasing human souls,
all gone,
all gone,
except one,
crying alone.”
Celine looked over her shoulder, meeting Miyeong’s gaze. Nervously, she turned back to her parents' graves.
“Eomma, I brought a friend,” said Celine, her voice sounding shaky but sincere. “Her name is Miyeong, and she’s a hunter, like me…and a good person.”
She got up and offered her hand to Miyeong.
The air and her heart were solemn; carrying sorrow in breath and in breeze. Celine had always carried that. Whether in songs or small talks, underneath love buried a past—one Miyeong had sensed and now saw—where bitterness could transform into something else: love and hope.
Wordlessly, Miyeong went past the gate and took Celine’s hand. For comfort or sadness, she didn’t know.
Smiling, Celine said to the two stone mounds, “We're going to debut soon... so you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’ll be fine.”
Perhaps it was Celine’s assurances that Miyeong nodded back in return. A confidence that things will be better.
With the three of them, they’ll be fine.
They will be fine.
