bluefall

In the first movie alone, some of his greatest hits:

Successfully pickpocketed Rick on their first meeting, without Rick so much as joining the dots until later.

Survives a pitched battle on a burning ship without a scratch, and somehow gets the key from a burning hook-handed enemy mook in the process. (“And did I panic? I think not!”)

Survives a pitched battle in the Hamunaptra ruins while drunk, through liberal use of cover and picking off targets at range.

Rolls a Nat 20 on his deception check to avoid being massacred by a large group of hynotised enemies in the museum.

Survives the final pitched battle with the undead (again, through liberal use of cover, hiding and running).

Successfully makes his intelligence roll to translate the Book of Amun Ra (with the Help action from Evie).

Successfully uses the resulting control over the undead mooks to even out the battlefield, including the genius brain move of sending them after Ankh-Su-Namun to both save Evie and distract Imhotep.

Successfully pickpockets a lich while being strangled by him to regain the key and enable Evie to use the book to banish Imhotep altogether.

Yes, he’s fairly flimsy in direct battle, and if at all possible refuses to get to melee range with anybody. So he’s a ranged rogue, and has a tendency to use the environment to his advantage. But he’s clearly designed around Sleight of Hand, Charisma, and a decent sprinkling of Intelligence, and prefers to use object interactions and battlefield control to even out his odds. For all that, though, he fully will stay in melee range if he has no other choice, and take the opportunity to pickpocket the BBEG while he’s at it.

I didn't realise before, but this whole battle starts with Evie telling Jonathan that the only way to kill Imhotep is to open the book and read the spell to banish him. Jonathan says it's locked, they need the key, and Evie then tells him it's in Imhotep's robes.

When Jonathan sends the priest mummies after Ankh-Su-Namun with the spell on the cover (saving both Rick and Evie in the process), Imhotep is coming right for him. However, Imhotep is then briefly disabled by watching the brutal murder of his lover all over again, and Jonathan ... could have run. There's a beat there where Imhotep is completely focused on something else, and Jonathan absolutely has the presence of mind to use that, but he doesn't. Imhotep, now incensed that Jonathan has murdered his lover, promptly spins back around and goes to murder him back, and is only stopped because Rick returns the favour from earlier and saves him.

At which point a lightly-strangled Jonathan stands back up and tells Evie he got the key.

He fucking stayed put on purpose because he knew they needed the key, that Imhotep had the key, and that he was the only person who could fucking pickpocket the BBEG mid-strangulation and get away with it, so long as someone could swoop in before the undead wizard actually killed him. Imhotep is immortal and immune to damage if they don't do something about that. This is a fight of attrition they cannot win. And his sister told him what they needed to stop it, so Jonathan went and got it.

He cheerfully calls himself a coward, and then he goes and fatally pisses off a lich as a distraction, and then stands still to be murdered for it in order to get close enough to pickpocket the immortal pissed off undead. It wasn't that he took the opportunity while being strangled, he set up being strangled in order to have the opportunity.

Currently: our crew is hiding out in Miyeong’s apartment while trying to track some wraiths and prepare for battle—Minji and Celine making lunch, Miyeong and Zoey doing a Heist TM of Zoey’s belongings, and Rumi and Mira stealing some of Mira’s mother’s books. Unfortunately, on the way out, they’ve been stopped by someone who seems to have business with Mira.

First is that she's glad she didn't try to talk Rumi out of bringing the sword, after all.

Second is that that's a stupid thing to think, because these aren't supernatural horrors in a dark alley, they're human assholes in the middle of the hall in the heart of the Kang chaebol empire, and she can't actually just sic Rumi on these guys, that's not how the world works.

Third is that, wait a minute. That's exactly how the world works, Park's goons literally have guns, is the entire point and purpose of this confrontation not the threat of physical violence if she doesn't comply?

Fourth is that Park's goons literally have guns, thanks so much for that, Kunwoo-sachon, you unbearable twit (and Abeoji had rolled his eyes, too, had said "what are we, some classless Yakuza outfit or silly posturing Americans?" but he'd still signed off on the KNPA bribe, hadn't he), and as much as Rumi is a badass, she probably has no idea what a gun even is and that's maybe not the best position to be trying to fight people with them from.

So Mira puts on her slickest, most dangerous voice, the one she and Jaeho used to practice with each other, snickering, hiding out from Abeoji's parties on roofs and in coatrooms and behind kitchens, and tries to talk the men's hands off their weapons.

"A moment, Rumi," calm, like she's totally in control here. "I'm sure Park-ssi meant no insult," and just a hint of contempt, for that, like she's doing him a kindness, letting him pretend he wouldn't be fool enough to act above his place. "He is a longtime employee of my family, and there's no reason for a simple conversation with such a reliable friend to escalate to anything unpleasant."

She can't quite tell if the intimidation hits, but Park does say, carefully, "... of course. I apologize for my... enthusiasm," apparently at least willing to see where she's going, now that she's not trying to leave.

"Mira," murmurs Rumi, letting go of Park but still very pointedly standing between her and the men. "We should not linger here."

She can hear it, the hope behind the words, the desire to fix this for Mira, to keep her safe, like her presence alone isn't the only reason Mira is still upright and not screaming. Mira reaches out, mostly invisible to the men behind Rumi's broad shoulders, and brushes her hand briefly against the small of Rumi's back, the most reassurance she can afford.

Her words, she keeps directing at Park. "We unfortunately have obligations of our own. However, I respect your concern for the company and its affairs. It's especially important, now, with so much of the family... unavailable to provide their opinions."

Park's eyes narrow, to Mira's immense satisfaction. Serves him right for trying to make threatening veiled insinuations to a Kang, like her family didn't basically invent the practice.

"With that in mind, I'm sure I can find time for you tomorrow, or the day after, if you wish to arrange a more formal meeting. But at the moment, I'm afraid I have other messes to clean up. So, if you will stand aside."

“I am so excited to take my meds,” she tells Miyeong, delighted as it washes over her again, pulling out the bottle just to shake it. “I’ve missed these babies so! Much!”

Miyeong snorts, bemused. “Glad to have been of service.”

She puts the bottle back away and brushes against TeeJay’s worn fabric as she goes. “Do you think there’s a non-traumatic way to get Mira some of her stuff back?”

Not that Mira doesn’t make the slightly oversized look of Celine’s clothes look hot, but the constant borrowing has to suck. She deserves something of her own.

Miyeong grimaces, and Zoey winces at the non sequitur. No one else is in her brain, right.

“That… She was there when that happened, wasn’t she?” she asks quietly.

Oh. Or that. Zoey forgot that Miyeong had been inside. “Yeah. We all were.”

“We could ask her to make a list, maybe,” Miyeong agrees. She forces an awkward little smile. “The smoothie stuff being out makes more sense now.”

“I didn’t put that away?” Zoey’s horrified for all of a second, thinking of the smell, before the rest of the situation slams in again and she remembers that slightly off milk was the least of Miyeong’s problems.

It makes her laugh, at least. “You meant to?”

They zigzag a bit more on the way back than they did on the way there—it gets late enough that Zoey half-considers suggesting they stop and grab some food before catching the next bus, but she’s also still very broke, and probably going to be fielding a call from her mom about the new card showing up in the mail.

(It’ll be just slightly less painful than the last conversation between them, where her mom nearly cried and then Zoey nearly cried and then her mom really cried and also yelled at her for being so stupid.)

She also sees the way that Park's nostrils flare, the way that fury rises in the twitch of his eyes, a petty, jealous wrath as base as any demon, and she realizes, with a jolt, that she did not need to remind this man that he is small and fragile. This is a man who is so aware of his weakness that it consumes his every thought, drives his every action, a rat nibbling the flesh of a bound man in fear and hatred of the free man's boot, and she knows before he speaks what he will say—

"I'm afraid our business cannot wait, Mira-ssi," and he folds his own hands behind his back, the type of man who would not deign to dirty them, and begins to step out of the way of his dogs, "Yang-ssi, Jeon-ssi, if you would please restrain our guests—"

Rumi is already moving.

The taller man is the greater threat, his reach the only advantage these two have on her, and she slams him into the wall with a forearm across his chest before he has even shifted from his obedient posture; his head rocks back a half-breath behind the rest of him and claps sharp against the plaster, eyes unfocusing. Rumi hooks her foot behind his ankle and pulls left, shoves right, and the dog recovers the presence of mind to grapple at her as he goes down, prying at her wrist and tearing her collar in his grip (these modern clothes bear weight no better than sweat).

These are only men, and there is no need to be cruel. Rumi twists easily from his hold, tosses him to the ground, and kicks sideways at his knee, a satisfying snap ringing out and assuring he is incapable of pursuit. It has been long enough seconds that the other dog will have gathered himself, and Rumi turns toward him—

Agony rips through her ribs in a flash of light and a crack of thunderous sound, and she staggers back, and—

Blood.

Blood, loud in her ears, iron in her mouth, on her tongue, when she coughs. Distantly, she hears someone shout her name, and for just an instant, she remembers the molten brand of fingers on her spine, molten like the raging fire under Rumi's hand, beneath her breast, where the skin gapes, ragged edges, around nothing; molten like the coals that seem pressed into Rumi's wet back, torn open, flesh screaming, where she cannot see.

She looks down at her own crimson hand, and thinks, dumbly, I have no time for this, and then, her vision flickering briefly, her mind not quite able to grab the meaning of the word but sure of its desperate import,

She stumbles forward, towards the blood, not certain of what she’s about to do but needing—“Rumi. Rumi. Oh God, Rumi.”

And Rumi tilts her head. She forces her body to straighten, eyes locking on Park. Voice tight with pain and low with threat, she says, “That was rude.”

A breath hiccups out of Mira and she thinks, wildly, of the wire cutters stuck in the bag full of her mother’s books, splattered all over the floor and soaking up blood.

Rumi moves.

It’s one breath, two breaths, three. Then they’re just shells, empty on the ground. Mira falls to her knees and scrambles for the bag.

“Mira!” Rumi calls, impossible Rumi, should be bleeding out Rumi, as Mira heaves, clutching at the wire cutters like a fucking safety blanket. “Mira, are you—“

Mira’s no medical professional, but she knows—pressure. Pressure first. She tips the rest of the books out and turns to press the bag into Rumi’s wound.

The breath punches out of her, a loud thunk of pain, but Mira would rather she not die so she pulls her free hand around to Rumi’s back and searches up the blood-sticky skin in search of—

“Please,” Rumi says, gently taking her hands. “Let me.”

“You’re—calm,” Mira manages, falling back to the floor, “for someone who’s gonna need to talk to that healing spirit.”

Rumi shakes her head. “I heal more quickly the worse the wound. This should be mended within the hour.”

Which… makes sense of why her father had been trying to summon “The Unkillable”. “Any other magic tricks up your sleeve?”

Rumi shakes her head with a little smile, as if she isn’t splattered with blood and pale with blood loss. “I can sing?”

Mira turns to fight the urge to retch some more.

“Mira!” Rumi yelps, so panicked, so kind.

Mira breathes. “We—there’s bodies. We—someone’s going to call the police. You’re on camera.”

"Are you injured, Mira?" She would not be the first not to notice, and she does not heal so well as Rumi. "I do not know the nature of the weapon that struck me, but—"

"No," Mira cuts her off, that same firm yangban control now fully returned to her voice, a strange contrast to her still-trembling hands. "I'm fine, we can talk about guns in a minute. I need—" She twists the bag in her hands, opens a side pocket to find her phone. Blood streaks the mirrored surface, and she wipes it on her sleeve. "— Eunjeong, probably. I don't know why I didn't think about this until now. They're all fucking dead, I'm not disowned, I'm not a target, I'm the goddamn heir unless Minsu wants to fight about it—"

Her hands steady as she presses the machine, and by the time she pulls herself to her feet, she's standing tall, her breath evening out.

Rumi busies herself by tucking the wire cutters into her own pocket, and collecting the books. The blood slides off them like water from oil, save for the dark red tome, which drinks it in, soaking Rumi's life into itself to the last drop.

"… fixer, why do you think I called you?" Mira is asking her phone, icy with contempt. A pause, and then, "Park Seonggi developed aspirations above his station. In my mother's absence, I was forced to correct him myself. … Yes, and two company men. Confused in their loyalties, but they have answered adequately for that, please speak to Mun-ssi about the usual package for their families. …. The downtown tower, yes, thirty-ninth floor, just outside the office elevator."

The longer Mira speaks, the more her posture changes, the more her lip curls into something cruel and ugly.

"No, of course there isn't, and you should consider me generous to take that as due diligence and not a questioning of my competence. Not that some plebeian clean-up crew would have the wit to use them if I did leave anything behind. … No. No more questions. You have your instructions. Do your job, Eunjeong."

She removes the phone from her ear, and shudders, the hollow cruelty sloughing off her like the blood from those cursed books, and looks down at the bodies, for a long moment.

Rumi does not know what to do, what to say, where to stand or put her hands. She shuffles the bloody bag on her shoulder. "…. Mira?"

Mira breathes out, sharp, and looks up.

She does not look at Rumi.

"It's fine, I'm fine," she says, eyes on the elevator. "I need to make more calls but we need to get moving, there's a bathroom down the hall, we can't walk out of here like this. I…" She plucks at the hem of her ruined shirt. "I don't know about our clothes. I'll think of something. Maybe Abeoji left some coats in his office we can take."

Mira puts the phone back to her ear, turns down the hall, and her posture shifts, again. "Security? Yes, this is Kang Mira. Yes, I'm sure you are. The office elevator is barred to entry until further notice, and I'll need to speak to your camera technician. Lee Eunjeong will be arriving soon, admit her— yes— I did not ask," as though the man on the other end of the conversation, perhaps the poor soul who had been so alarmed by Rumi's sword, is no more than a worm beneath Mira's shoe.

She wants to tell Mira how to get the blood out. How to scrub under her nails. How just because she does not feel clean does not mean she is not, how she could scrub until her skin was red and raw and not feel clean, how Rumi has not felt clean in—

Well.

She does not.

Mira probably knows, anyway, given the things she has said of what she has been forced to do.

Rumi waits while Mira goes out again, stripping off her own torn and bloody shirt and the now-useless bandages from her earlier wounds and using some of the paper… napkins? Towels? at the side of the sink to clean the blood from her torso. And her arms. And her face.

Mira returns with a coat in her hands—scratchy on the outside, but silk-lined. The sleeves hang awkwardly over Rumi’s hands, too stiff to drape properly.

“Let me help you,” she says, shrugging it back off, the moment she sees Mira start trying to clean herself.

Mira does not say no.

So Rumi keeps going.

Eventually: “A gun is—it pushes a bullet—a pellet made of lead—out with a tiny explosion. Like archery but worse. That was what they shot you with.”

“Like a cannon?” Rumi asks, wiping the blood from Mira’s face, careful with her jaw. The makeup comes with it nonetheless.

“Yeah,” Mira says. Her eyes close, and Rumi freezes, scared to have hurt her, but then— “Fuck. I hate this. I have to—I have to call—I—“

Which is to say, Minji leads Mira to a kitchen chair and starts methodically checking her for shock, a sensible reaction to her pale skin and thousand-yard stare. At the same time, Miyeong is collecting the bag and shoes into a tub and then disappearing into the spare room, and Celine starts water and sets out mugs, all three of them immediately doing obviously useful things in a calm and efficient way.

Zoey, for her part, does at least manage obviously useful, and sits Rumi down in her own kitchen chair to make sure that none of the poorly-hidden blood all over the two of them is hers. But there's nothing calm or efficient about the noise she makes when she sees Rumi's torso.

"It is— I am well, Zoey," Rumi tries to reassure her. "The healing is almost complete."

"You said within the hour," says Mira, from the other side of the kitchen. She doesn't sound like she's in shock, but she does sound scolding and scared, which isn't much better. "It's been almost two. You got shot from half a meter away and there was a giant terrifying hole through your chest. Let Zoey look."

Zoey makes another extremely unhelpful noise of distress.

"It was a terrible moment," Rumi says, taking Zoey's hands between hers, warm and healthy and alive. "But the moment is over, and it does not negate our success. We took no lasting harm, and we returned with what we went there for."

"Yes," says Celine, sounding pretty displeased about it, "I can see that you did. Zoey, if Rumi-nim genuinely doesn't need your medical skills, I would appreciate you placing that barrier pattern you were practicing yesterday on that tub, while I construct something more permanent."

Zoey takes another long look at the mushroom bloom of violent purple-green bruising covering the entire distal half of Rumi's left side, and the shiny knotted ground-beef entry wound somehow closing itself in the middle. It actually does look incredibly close to healed, if still probably quite painful and definitely quite gruesome.

Rumi pulls the coat back around herself to conceal it, a little sheepishly. "Truly, Zoey. I am touched by your concern, but there is no need for it. If the honored shaman feels it is important to contain the books, that should be our priority."

Minji, having finished her appraisal of Mira and given her ice for her jaw, walks over and tells Rumi, "We can multitask."

Zoey gladly hands Rumi over to someone less likely to let warm hands keep her from telling her patient to be less of an idiot, and takes a sharpie over to the tub, skin prickling at proximity to what is apparently a bag full of evil books (!), to start drawing hanja.

Miyeong and Celine come back into the room a moment later, Miyeong with less bloody, better fitting shirts and pants in hand, and Celine with her box of inks and a small wooden storage chest which Zoey really hopes wasn't holding anything Miyeong considers important.

Her voice falters, uselessly, as she looks down at Celine’s pants. They’re disgusting. Literally stiff with blood and sticking to her skin at the same time.

“Don’t be,” Celine says, her voice strangely gentle.

Mira wants to say, I was kneeling in the blood because I was trying to keep Rumi from bleeding out. She wants to say, I don’t even know the names of two of the people we just killed. She wants to say, When I said I’d do anything not to be alone with him again, I didn’t mean it.

She doesn’t.

She goes into the bathroom. She thinks about Rumi’s biohazard jeans, piled in Celine’s sink.

She picks up the old shopping bag and wonders who else remembered them.

And carefully, she shucks off her father’s jacket, then the pants, then her underthings—at least her fucking bra isn’t ruined, fuck—piling the more stained garments inside the less, and shoving it all into the bag.

There’s blood in her hair, too, not just on her skin.

It doesn’t feel like hers right then. Doesn’t feel like anything. None of her body feels all that real.

She pulls on the long, fuzzy sweater. It doesn’t seem like something Celine would own, much less pack. She wonders if it’s Miyeong’s, oversized and for bad days.

She wonders if she’ll ruin it too.

She goes back out.

“Shower’s yours,” Mira says.

Miyeong stops her story. Rumi, sitting, bloody, in that same kitchen chair, rises with a quiet “Thank you.”

Celine comes from somewhere to take Mira by the arm, leading her to the couch.

Then it’s Miyeong appearing, her hand over Mira’s so she instinctively opens it and—

Cold.

She blinks down at the ice cube melting in her palm. “What the—“

“You seemed a little out of it,” Miyeong says with a shrug, like that’s a normal response to have to that situation.

Well. Everyone else eats.

Miyeong tries. She really does. She stabs her chopsticks in and out of the bibimbap half a dozen times, arguing back and forth with the queasy knot in her stomach. But there's never been any question of who would win, in the end.

She hides her abstinence under her well-curated array of stupid stories, competing with Zoey to provide the most distraction and coax the most eyerolls and grudging smiles out of Rumi and Mira. Zoey takes the crown handily, of course, but Miyeong thinks she does quite well considering her "not involved in that goofy hormonal mess" handicap.

She collects the dishes before anyone else can, deals with her all-but-full bowl before anyone can see. The dishwasher is loaded and she's scraping down pans when she hears the television flicker on behind her, more of the drama they've gotten Rumi addicted to about a mob-owned soju distillery and three generations of messy romance. She leans back around the corner to see Mira in the center of the couch, Zoey and Rumi draped against her, and Celine and Minji slipping into the cramped corner over the sink to help her finish dishes.

"If you're going to contact that healing spirit," says Minji, pitched low enough to travel no further than the three of them, "sooner is better than later. Mira's wiring is mangled, it's not properly supporting her jaw anymore."

Celine nods. "I'll take her down to the river tomorrow. And get the whole story out of Rumi-nim tonight, if I can."

Minji nods back, and then she and Celine exchange a significant look. Miyeong can't quite read it, but it Minji must be satisfied with whatever she saw, because she brushes a hand absently along Celine's shoulderblade and says, "I'm going to go read for a while, then. Don't do anything stupid to your stitches."

"I won't," promises Celine, an easy assent, and Minji wanders off to the bedroom, where it's entirely possible that they won't see her again until it's time for another long night of torturing Miyeong with her warm, grabby proximity.

After a moment, as they're beginning to wipe down the counters, three-handed, Celine says, softly, "You didn't eat."

Miyeong glances back at the couch, the pile of traumatized young women increasingly merging into each other just out of earshot. "… no, I didn't."

"Still worried about them?"

It had been Celine, a few hours ago, who found her spiraling in front of the dresser in the spare room; who Miyeong had curled up against, disassembled enough to not feel guilty about imposing on her personal space; Celine whose sternum had received Miyeong's mumbled, aching, "God, they're just kids." It had been Celine who wrapped her good arm around Miyeong's shoulders and held her, tall and kind and steady, until she pulled herself together and went back out into the kitchen to be useful again.

Mira shuffles and Zoey rips her eyes away from her study of Mira’s hair and back to Lee’s and Hae-won’s confession. 

Zoey glances back to Mira, just to see if she’s comfortable. 

Mira’s eyes snap to her. “I um,” She fights back a shiver as Mira’s arm tightens on her shoulder. “I left my turtle on the table, he’s been a comfort for me through hard times not that I’ve you know nevermind it was stupid.”

Mira looks at her with such warmth it could probably melt a yeti. Her voice is a hoarse whisper, barely audible above the TV. It sounds like honey to Zoey. “TeeJay would be nice.”  

She remembers his name. 

Rumi perks up. “Worry not, I shall acquire the Honoured Turtle!” “Rumi, it’s okay.” Zoey nodded to the TV. “I don’t want you to miss this! Episode twenty nine is the best.” 

Leaving the couch was a mistake, the thoughts came in waves. You useless—no! No! Not going there! They need me, focus!  

What could she—Mira could probably use more ice, yeah she could do that! 

Heavily accented Korean crashes into her train of thought. “If you not surrender distillery, Mr. Lee nim, I will take by force.”  

There was something—

“You will never get away with it, Goncharov. We have true love!” The TV blares. Wait. Episode twenty nine. How could she forget? What was she thinking?! 

She races back, and almost slips on the tile. Stupid Zoey, stupid! You forget the one episode! She catches herself on the corner of the couch. Rumi lets out a yelp of surprise. On the screen, Goncharov flicks back his black coat to reveal a revolver.

Zoey’s fingers fumble for the remote. It almost slips out of her hands.

The music crescendos. Goncharov fires.

Zoey hits the ‘off’ button just as Hae-won jumps in front of Lee.

She knows that the drama they've been watching is not real- "Like a play," Zoey had explained back in the hanok, "except you can watch it any time"- but she also knows it still holds power. That seeing these modern plays with the actors' faces so close you could see their eyelashes, stirring music that came from invisible instruments, and "special effects" that were akin to magic, hold power. And right now she's feeling this one sinking its claws into her.

An ache stirs in the freshly-healed wound in her chest, burning to life as her flesh remembers what it was to be shredded by a projectile- a 'bullet.' Once again, she feels the blood pouring out, soaking the thin twenty-first century clothes too quickly and seeping through her fingers. A hand comes up to where the bandage is wrapped tight around her ribs, and even though her probing fingers find the tension of whole and unyielding skin, a corner of her mind howls with the memory of when they found nothing but that gaping, ragged hole left behind by the piece of metal flying faster than any pebble from one of the village kids' slingshots.

It is not a pleasant feeling.

Worse, though, is the image that hits her next, of Hae-won leaping, desperate, in front of Lee.

She did not see what happened next, but from the haste with which Zoey turned off the show, she can guess.

And while Rumi is no stranger to violence and death, it feels…different, when delivered with the suddenness of a lightning bolt. If that bullet had hit Mira instead of her, she'd have been-

Rumi's stomach flips.

-dead before she hit the ground.

An age of wonders, but not all are wonderous.

The silence becomes uncomfortable, suffocating, and she clears her throat; Zoey and Mira's heads swivel to her like horrified owls. "That…was very brave of Hae-won. Lee is very fortunate."

Like Mira; Rumi did not like thinking about what could have happened if she'd not been with her.

"Is he?" Mira says dully, voice flat as her reflection in the screen, not looking at Rumi. "He just watched Hae-won get shot."

"Yes," Rumi hedges. "But Hae-won is a protector. It is her duty. She chose to save Lee. If she…gets injured in the process, she is fine with that, so long as Lee is safe."

"Maybe- maybe a different show?" Zoey jumps in and clicks the television back on, rapidly flicking through channels so fast Rumi can hardly tell what's on them. She stops on a tournament of sorts- women holding bows that Rumi barely recognizes as such and shooting arrows at a target.

She would rather shoot arrows herself than watch people do it, and there is no music from invisible instruments, but Zoey's plopped back down on the couch and is staring intently at the screen, so she relents, lets the discussion of Hae-won's unquestioned bravery that Mira is intent on questioning drop.

Next to her, though, she hears Mira mutter:

It’s probably for the best, though, today, as it means that the rest of the city hasn’t yet woken by the time they reach the shores of the Han River.

“I was expecting somewhere more… nature-y,” Zoey admits, kicking a little at the litter at the base of the bridge before bending to pick it up.

The whispering magpie spirit croaks one of her caustic remarks, so Celine clarifies, “Healing spirits tend to find themselves drawn to sick places.”

Though Celine tries not to cast judgment from a place of ignorance, their current environment certainly qualifies. She’s glad that Mira could get a mask on in spite of the state of her jaw; even through one, the air here is filthy—and further, the buildings are all old enough and in poor enough repair that she wouldn’t be surprised if the spirit was putting all their energy to containing the effects of asbestos exposure.

With one last nip at Zoey’s ear, the whispering magpie spirit flutters over to disappear directly into a poster taped on a shop window—some cartoon tiger mascot selling a juice drink.

They will get no more guidance.

Celine returns, however uncomfortably, to what she has: Even water from a cracked bucket can be drunk, as long as it is drawn from the well.

Plainly: I don’t care how pathetic you are, go help.

She ignores the bridge, carefully kneeling as close to the water’s edge as the railing allows, and hums a few notes.

The water ripples in her mind’s eye—not awakening, but stirring in their sleep, agreeing that they’re in the right place.

Celine knows the next steps of the ritual. She’s gone over it a million times since hearing the spirit’s pronouncement. She still has to hide the shaking of her hands as she rises and turns to Zoey.

"A gift, always," Celine tells Zoey, when she drops the ancient brass in the water, "personalized if you can. The Chinese coins were Kkachi-ssi's suggestion, in this case."

"And we're… sure she wasn't trolling us?"

Celine has been holding herself stiffly all morning— she's paid little attention to her shoulder up till now, but perhaps, like Mira's jaw, the impending promise of relief is making her more aware of it— but Zoey's question loosens her, a little bit.

"Despite appearances," she says, dryly amused, "she is a spirit of wisdom. Sabotaging an offering is an insult to both the mudang and the spirit in question, and that would be a very unwise move indeed."

Zoey gasps in mock offense. "You wouldn't dare hurt Suspicion-ssi."

"Not if the coins work, certainly," agrees Celine, without an ounce of sincere threat. "Music, please."

And when their harmonizing comes to an end, the river bubbles up, sudden and silent, and between one breath and the next, a spirit is standing in front of them.

He looks like an old man, stooped and gnarled, clad in a dark blue hanbok embroidered with loons and a willow tree and threaded through with gold that seems to actively move, every time Mira looks away, like bright lines of sunlight breaking on the bottom of a riverbed. He leans on a staff as gnarled as he is, and his long grey hair is tied back in an elegant queue and threaded through with strands of trailing algae and beads of wood and abalone.

Water drips off him, the ends of his sleeves and the turns of his elbows; it puddles around his feet, where he stops in front of Celine to peer up at her, though he himself seems perfectly dry. Celine looks a little pale, as she bows in front of him, nearly as deeply as she did when she met Rumi.

Zoey and Mira copy her, a little shallower, and Celine straightens, shifts her weight. "Honored spirit of the Han," she starts, low and formal.

"Granddaughter," greets the spirit, and his voice is lighter than Mira expected, almost young, though his tone— warm but measured, careful like he knows far more than he's saying— mostly just makes him sound like the shaman herself. "What can this humble old spirit do for Jang Celine of Jeju, this sunny morning?"

"You... know me," is Celine's startled response, apparently so taken aback that her manners desert her completely, which has got to be a pretty high bar for shock. The old man isn't offended, though; his eyes crinkle, as he looks up at her.

In practice - Minjj was fighting against her body hard to stay awake. It was immensely stupid because there was no need for her to be trying to sleep. She... wasn't working or on shift. She wasn't at the hospital. (She wished she was, that the others were still alive, that she was home.) If she got tired she could just take a nap. Minji dug her thumb into palm - balancing on the line of pain before the point of drawing blood. She needed to get used to sleeping without... without comfort again. The current situation was temporary - even putting aside the fact that she was hoping for Miyeong's suit to suceed. Mischievous and warm Miyeong fit with the centered and sheltering Celine. Clownfish and anemone. Once everyone was better, then they would move on to trying to find the wraiths and then eventually fighting. And it was only at that last part that Minji would become useful again. If someone got hurt - which she wouldn't be hoping for. Minji had learned before that she was meant for the hospital, for the emergency department where the rules were different, where her rough edges fit. In an emergency an eye for triage was useful instead of cruel. Blunt crispness and dark humor fit. Minji fit. (Where Minji couldn't bring anything to those she cared about. If she had just stayed at the hospital... No mistaking a slight cough for something innocent. Maybe then her father would have never gotten sick. Maybe her family wouldn't have been saying goodbyes across a virtual connection. Maybe then she wouldn't have been taking advantage that she was being exposed daily to be there to hold her parents hands as they died during the epidemic.)

Her? Called a healer? As if soothing a spirit’s rattled temper is the same as…

The river spirit smiles at her, the crooked smile of an old man who has won himself one more victory.

“We came with gifts,” Zoey says, smart enough to take the initiative as Celine falters.

“Your kindness is appreciated,” the river replies, sweeping a hand out so the coins are caught in his trailing sleeve.

“A token of our respect,” Celine manages, “for a spirit as venerable as you.”

Healer, he called her, as if it were the first and last thing to say. And yet she can’t accept it—fear still burns in her stomach at his gentle smile.

Why? What is so important about the fact that she cannot?

“Always playing by the rules, aren’t you, Granddaughter?” He laughs, the indulgent sound of water over stone. “You humans so love to talk in circles.”

Celine shrugs, one-shouldered, finally loosening up. “I merely did not wish to offend. My friend and I have an ailment to bring before you.”

She gestures, and Mira steps forward, carefully pulling the mask from her face.

“Let me see.” The river hums, stepping up to meet her. “She asks for you before herself. You must be very special to her.”

Mira gets an uncomfortable look on her face, and Celine cringes. Her first instinct is denial, not wanting to be misunderstood, but—the thought is pushed aside like a branch meeting the current, and Celine only braces a moment before allowing the spirit to draw the others forth.

However embarrassingly, Mira has become special to her in the brief time they’ve known each other. All of these people Rumi-nim has brought into her life have. She admires Mira’s strength and her kindness, and she enjoys the fact that she has gotten the chance to help her on her journey, even if just with borrowed shirts.

“Maybe,” Mira admits in a low voice.

The river clicks his tongue. “They did do their best to take your voice, didn’t they? Lucky for you, I’m a fan of metal.”

There's leftover bibimbap, but Miyeong pulls eggs and green onions out of the pantry anyway, heats up the cast iron, and starts making a scramble; Zoey walked her through it, at the beginning of the week, and she's taken quite aggressively to the idea of food she can neither mess up by cutting incorrectly or burn by walking away. It seems to work for her, well enough that Minji could probably leave her unsupervised and still expect to come back to something edible.

She sits down at Miyeong's tiny table, anyway, nursing a cup of tea until her throat feels warm enough, and her mind clear enough, to start an actual conversation.

"You came to bed pretty late last night."

"Celine-ssi didn't want to chase Rumi and her friends off the couch, so we went out on the balcony for a while."

Miyeong's tiny little balcony would barely have room for a chair even if there weren't a crowded little knot of potted plants jammed into both corners; the view isn't what Minji would call romantic, but the proximity would be, and she grins slyly at her friend. "So the courtship is going well, then."

Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, Miyeong immediately argues. "We've been over this, Minji, she's out of my league."

"That seems like her decision," Minji points out. Quite reasonably, in her opinion, but Miyeong just sighs at her as she tosses peppers into the pan.

"We don't even know if she's queer," says Miyeong, who is eternally stubborn.

"I feel like we do?" says Minji, who has eyes.

Miyeong's only reply is a canny "Hmm," a particular flavor of noise which means she's about to go on the offensive.

Minji tries to ready herself for it, but there's absolutely no way she could have prepared herself for what Miyeong actually says:

"And what about Celine-ssi and you?"

Minji stops her tea halfway to her mouth, and stares. "What about me and her?"

Miyeong turns away from her pan to start ticking things off on her fingers, which will probably be okay, since she hasn't put the eggs in yet. "You've been actively sitting on her every time she even glances at her shoulder. She's been letting you sit on her every time she even glances at her shoulder. You keep having little nonverbal exchanges where you look at each other and nod like you've actually exchanged information, as though you're on some kind of broody hyper-responsible telepathic wavelength together. You hand the kids off to each other like helicopter parents changing shifts. You keep wearing her sweatshirt that's four sizes too big for you instead of one of mine that almost fits. You offered to let her read your book. When Donghyun tried to touch your book you threatened to dump his beer on him!"

"Donghyun has hot sauce on his fingers ninety percent of the time that he's out of the hospital!"

Miyeong looks at her, folds down one single finger, looks at the five still upright, and then pointedly returns her gaze to Minji.

Minji puts her tea down, and stares into it for a long time, long enough for Miyeong to remember that she's cooking and flip around with a quiet curse to shift the vegetables in the pan and add the eggs.

"I…" Minji trails off, clears her throat, and tries again, quietly. "I'm not trying to make any moves on Celine-ssi, Miyeong. I am, in fact, in no position to be making any moves at all. I am barely standing upright."

Miyeong scrapes the eggs around the pan for a little while longer, before taking it off the burner, and looking at Minji with the same sad, sober eyes that identified Yeonggi for the police, all those years ago.

me: yeah i know, they’re all primary colors, it’s perfect

When you go for an MLS (Master’s of Library Science, which is a thing, and which is usually required for “professional-level” library work [which is also a weird and contentious concept that I won’t go into here]), one of the things you study is the organization of information. This deals with how to determine what a book or other material is “about"—a concept we tongue-in-cheek call “aboutness"—and how to convey that to a potential user of the item and make it easy for them to find. Things like keywords and subject headings, do I put this book about how often wild birds attack aerial drones in with books about birds or with books about technology, if its a fictional novel do I put fantasy in it’s own section or mix it in with all of the other fiction, so on and so on.

OP is organizing books by how they would look for them. OP’s partner is thinking in terms of aboutness. This is a system that works for OP because it’s their personal library: they know basically what books they own and they only own books that are relevant to them, and if they know what the book looks like, that can be a quick way to find it.

In a library that assumes the public (or people who do not own that particular collection of books) are using the collection, that doesn’t work. Books are often re-issued in multiple covers, or re-bound in new covers when they get worn out, and if the user doesn’t know what the book looks like or is expecting a different cover, they’re lost. That’s why non-personal libraries used standardized cataloging systems like the Dewey Decimal System or Library of Congress System to organize a book by what it’s “about”, and then put books about the same or similar topics together, marked with labels and signage so a person unfamiliar with the book or collection can find their way to it.

Basically, OP’s system works for their own personal library, because it’s best suited to how the primary user—OP themselves—looks for books. OP’s librarian partner is coming from a background of thinking in terms of a public-facing collection, where aboutness is the key criteria and communicating it to a user unfamiliar with the collection is the priority.

aka possessions which are just possessions, but which have noticeably improved my quality of life: for when people ask you “what do you want for your birthday/Christmas/graduation” and you instantly transform into St Francis and pledge fealty to Lady Poverty because your mind went blank

nice. new. sheets. I cannot emphasize this one enough. if you’re still using the same sheets you had in college, you should probably get new ones. get yourself some 100% bamboo rayon sheets—they’re silky and perfect for summer and great for sensitive skin! or, if you’re cold all the time, flannel sheets!

kitchen knives. or even just one really good kitchen knife.

new curtains—blackout if you are a creature of the night like I am

fleece lined anything, but especially sweatpants and hoodies. wool lined socks are also good. if you don’t have the option of coming home after work and putting on an entire outfit that is loose and fuzzy, you should change that, because you deserve that option.

cookie sheets with a layer of air between the top and the bottom. the bottoms of your cookies will never burn again.

kitchen scale!!! no more leveling off flour with a knife and getting it all over the table!! now all your measuring is just shoveling stuff in and out of bowls like you’re at the beach. baking is both more accurate and also way more fun.

coffee bean grinder. if you want to upgrade your coffee experience, this is a great one-time purchase. just-ground beans have a much better flavor than pre-ground.

Good luggage. Whether it’s a suitcase or a duffel bag or even just packing cubes, it’s all helpful!

Good art. If it’s someone you trust, you can ask them to surprise you with a piece they like, otherwise you can have a few back up suggestions of ideas (I saw a framed piece of just the hands from Michaelangelo’s The Creation of Man and have not forgot about it since)

Good good pillows or fluffy blankets to go along with those nice new sheets from above

Office supplies. Pens, markers, sharpies. All the sharpies.

Coffee travel mugs (can one have too many?). If they say they still want more ideas, also ask for a bag of their favorite beans/tea

Nice hand soap/ candles/ detergent - Make sure to clarify if there’s any smells you really do/ don’t want

Nice towels - The ones you want are called ‘bath sheets’, they’re extra large

Small table lamps/ indirect lighting - It is truly incredible how much using a few smaller lights vs The Fluorescent Sun That Lives On The Ceiling to light rooms improves existing in that room

Bath SHEETS, however, are much larger towels, and on me when i wrap them around myself, they reach from my underarms to just above my knees, and they wrap properly around me and arent threatening to part at the front if I take so much as a step forward, the way regular towels do.

- flavored syrups/mixers: most of these include non-alcoholic recipes anymore even if they were originally meant as cocktail ingredients, and you can make all kinds of incredible things with them. My best friend got me a watermelon-cucumber syrup that I made sodas out of all last winter when I forgot about the existence of summer

- little trays to collect stray objects. You know what I mean. You can never have too many little trays.

- odd silverware: this one’s tricky if you’re committed to having a matching set, but if you’re not, the right kind of person will have a blast finding you iced tea spoons, pie servers, dessert forks, any of those things you don’t need often enough to justify buying for yourself but really wish you had when you needed them

- a spare x, where x is something you use often and really like and would be devastated to lose or break. Good scissors, nice earbuds, chapstick in your favorite flavor, the water bottle in the size you’ve finally determined is perfect for your needs. Something you notice you’ll get up to find the Good One even if a different option is close by

- a more interesting/unique version of something you already have: I do not need or want another lamp, but a few years ago one of my friends got me a lamp hand painted by a local artist with Van Gogh’s sunflowers. I adore Van Gogh, I never shut up about it, and this is just a stunning and spectacular thing that is also useful! I was thrilled to get rid of a cheap Target lamp and replace it with this. Other good options for Artsy Versions of things you already own: 8x10 picture frames, mugs, hooks/knobs/fan pulls (you can swap these out easily even if you rent)

This is why it is not assimilationist for gay/queer people to want to enshrine marriage rights in their country/region

Similarly, this is why polyamorous people are fighting for the right to have their relationships recognised by their states through marriage and/or similar agreements

Oh, and because on top of those aforementioned financial and medical protections, these laws also help you maintain connection to any kids you have and/or raise together!

Every older queer you know who is in a longterm relationship will have similar stories of how we planned our whole lives to protect what would have been granted nigh automatically if we were heterosexual.

We’ve all been there ✊😔

@imagine-0314

Boy am i glad that the con has a facebook page so i can post this photo: