#she's so...

vs after getting to know her

Tae-hee hearing about Rumi's death and trying to come back into Celine's life...

Celine putting up a fight because how dare she Tae-hee left, she ran. What right does she have to come back now?

What right does she have to come back now that it's convenient.

Celine lost everything and Tae-hee left.

She left. She couldn't handle it. Handle what? A kid? She wants to come back now that the kid she couldn't deal with is dead? Fuck her.

Obviously, that wasn't Tae-hee intention. She didn't leave because of Rumi, no matter what she implied in her and Celine's last fight. She just... needed to leave. She didn't have the words to tell Celine why. She was grasping at straws, trying to explain, and it came out all wrong.

It came out all wrong, and then she left. She never called or visited because that's what Celine wanted. The cost of leaving was never coming back. Celine told her that herself.

Maybe it was wrong of her, maybe it wasn't but at the end of the day... Tae-hee lost everything too, right alongside Celine.

But she came back. She came back because Celine lost everything again. She isn't going to let her do it alone again.

Celine doesn't want her there, helping her.

She fights her on every little thing.

The dinners she make always ends with Celine's portion in the trash.

Every gentle push for self care is met with an indignant, "I don't need you."

Even when Celine is drunk and messy, she puts up a fight. Bitching as Tae-hee drags her inside, refusing to let her spend all night outside and infront of graves.

Celine doesn't want her help. The most ground she gives her is letting her stay in their home and deal with what Celine cannot.

Tae-hee gets to arrange a funeral for a girl she regarded as a daughter but never got know.

Tae-hee gets to reconnect with the honmoon and essentially take over Celine's duty as Zoey and Mira's mentor.

Tae-hee gets to grocery shop.

Tae-hee gets to be the one to finally get rid of the carpet stained with Rumi. Celine couldn't because a sick part of her felt it was getting rid of the last of Rumi. Mira and Zoey couldn't because even being too close to it makes them feel physically ill

Tae-hee gets to do all that in the middle of her own grief. She loved Rumi. Since before she was born. She knew her parasocially, stalking Celine and hers public presence. Every piece of them she could reach without actually interacting. When there was an Olsen twins style countdown made about Rumi, Tae-hee was the one who got it taken down. Tae-hee loved her, knew her, but not really. Tae-hee saw the part of Rumi that the world got, not the parts of Rumi that mattered.

The guilt of knowing she could have known Rumi had she just stayed eats her alive.

Tae-hee gets to deal with all this grappling with the truth. There was no avoiding it. Knowing what actually happened to Rumi, finding out who her friend actually was. Ji-ho was a demon, Rumi was half demon. Celine had kept that a secret from her for 15 years, Mi-yeong had kept that from them for 3. Ji-ho was a demon, Mi-yeong knowingly fell in love with a demon, Celine raised a half demon. No one ever told her.

The betrayal stings.

Tae-hee gets stuck, picking up the pieces of two teenage girls who didn't know any better and Celine's grief in the midst her very own demons.

Eventually, Celine readjusts to her presence. No longer acting actively hostile despite being the one to let Tae-hee be there.

Eventually, the girls move out, and Tae-hee isn't needed to pick up Celine's slack. Tae-hee stays anyway.

They live as strangers. They don't talk. They live separate lives. They can not stand the thought of the other leaving.

They both grow to hate the other a bit.

Tae-hee's frustration and feelings of betrayal festering into resentful hate.

Celine's unhealed grief and feelings of betrayal turning Tae-hee into something villainous in her head.

Neither of them like each other anymore. They need each they need each other, though.

They live as strangers, but sometimes..

Sometimes, late into the night, multiple drinks in, in front of Mi-yeong's grave. They live as ghosts instead. Reminiscing and laughing, and they can pretend it's the same as a time before it all went to hell. On those nights, one of them wakes in the wrong bed.

They lived as ghosts, but strangers are what know now.