Blood cult au part sixteen (first, most recent, masterpost)
Currently: the gang are hiding out at Miyeong’s apartment, and spent the morning working through some very mundane trauma… only for Minji’s grandmother to give them a reminder that the wraiths are looking for them. At least they got to see the healing spirit first?
Minji has been pre-gaming a little, since Celine made Mira put the evil book away and sent them back out into the living room (Rumi has too, but apparently she just doesn't get super drunk so Zoey's giving her a pass). She also still seems a little thrown from whatever happened this morning (which is maybe why she's pre-gaming, in which case, fair). Zoey is trying to decide how rude it would be to ask if she's fully up to plotting, before they get into it, when the impossible happens—
"We have been taking an active stance," says Celine, calmly but firmly disagreeing with Rumi. "We would only put ourselves in greater danger by moving faster than is wise. We have been training the others to reduce the risk of engagement. We have been gathering information on our enemy, who we had not even located until two days ago, and about whom we are still lacking significant intelligence. We have been recovering from extremely compromising injuries," and she says that with so much annoyance and distaste Zoey has to hold back a giggle.
(Okay, maybe she's also had a beer in the last half hour. Or a little tiny bit more than that. But they cracked open the samosa box for an afternoon snack and Zoey's tolerance for spice is moderate at best, she needed something to cool herself off. It's fine, she could still do the alphabet backwards. She can do that when she's plastered, actually, courtesy of working in a library shelving books for several years, but the point is, it's fine, she didn't actually giggle, she just wanted to. She's totally good.)
"We have been taking action appropriate to our original situation," Rumi says, just as polite, just as firm. "Our situation has changed. The honorable river spirit has restored Mira and yourself to your full capabilities. Zoey and Miyeong-nim have shown consistent accuracy with the shinkal, and Mira has gained access to her family's knowledge of wraiths. Our enemy escalates, and threatens Minji-nim's family. Our response must change as well."
Celine is unmoved. "Minji-ssi's grandmother is safe, and has bought us time," and then Zoey completely zones out the rest, because there's a tapping, on the windowpane, and she pulls herself out of the armchair and beelines to let Suspicion-ssi in.
"You're early for the party," Zoey murmurs, though there isn't really a reason to be quiet; Rumi and Celine fell silent once they saw what she was doing.
The spirit caws and puffs up, I'm doing you a favor, there can't be a party until I'm here, drawing a chuckle out of Celine that she tries unsuccessfully to disguise as a cough.
But she turns grim at Suspicion-ssi's next words, turning back to Rumi with a heavy sigh, and then a wry smile and an apologetic dip of her head and shoulders. "It seems you have the clearer view of the situation, Rumi-nim."
"What did the bird say," says Miyeong, fingers pressing into her temples, a woman who does not want the answer to her question but feels obligated to ask it anyway.
Suspicion-ssi nips lightly at Zoey's ear, and Zoey swallows and translates, "They're making new wraiths."
Rumi-nim hisses through her teeth, making a face, and Celine finds herself feeling much the same way.
A part of her is still processing the rest of her conversation with Minji-ssi’s grandmother—a formidable woman, even in passing, but certainly one willing to gossip about her granddaughter’s habits once she understood that Celine only wanted to help—in spite of how much the current one demands all of her attention.
Kkachi-ssi continues, and it’s all she can do not to wince.
“And, uh, working their way up, obviously,” Zoey adds. “Big goal is Gwi-Ma. But right now it’s dead guy central.”
“How far along are they?” Mira asks, gaze lidded and calm, but voice tight.
The summoner is an amateur, Kkachi-ssi declares. The wraith has to teach him everything. Unfortunately, the sacrifice won’t need to be big to get results, so it’ll probably be soon once he gets the idea.
“Uh, still on bookwork?” Zoey translates. “But with everything… it’s gonna be easy once they get all the pieces in place.”
“Wraiths can only be summoned at twilight,” Mira points out. “So we’ve got at least a day and a half?”
Kkachi-ssi caws her agreement. You are not skipping my party.
“We would never,” Celine agrees. It would be a great insult to meet the aid and favor of a spirit not just with no returned tribute, but with the promise thereof and then its withdrawal. She would hate to see that beak set to work with any actual malice.
This, perhaps, is too solemn a response for Kkachi-ssi’s taste, as she sends her triplicate side eye Celine’s way.
“Suspicion-ssi reminds us that the party is mandatory,” Zoey explains and, from the looks on Minji-ssi and Rumi-nim’s faces, probably quite necessarily.
“Well, at least there’s that,” Miyeong-ssi says brightly. “How fucked are we in general, though? We brought six to ten down to four to eight, what would this go up to?”
Kkachi-ssi shuffles her feet, feathers rustling. Zoey translates. “Maybe four this first time. They’ve got a lot of power, but not focus.”
Unfortunately, before the party can start, Miyeong has to talk to the damn bird again.
She reports, through Zoey— who, based on Celine's varying, not-quite-controlled facial expressions, is working very hard to moderate the magpie's snark— that several of the wraiths frequenting the target building wear the logo of Changwon Commercial Shipping, that they're in and out at roughly eight-hour intervals, and they have at least one car ("Hate that for us," says Mira flatly, with the voice of experience). The magpie remembers the plate, and Miyeong writes it down for further inspection, and gives the most gracious thank-you she can manage; the spirit did find out everything she asked it for, after all.
Zoey's polite "She says you're welcome" would be more convincing if the bird wasn't squinting all six eyes and sniggering when she says it.
And then Zoey and Mira are off to set up the folding table, and Minji and Rumi are putting the food and alcohol out in the kitchen, buffet-style, and it's Thursday, so Miyeong goes out on the balcony to water her plants. Because this is the day she waters her plants. Restraining herself from starting a fight with a bird is not a factor.
Celine follows her out and leans against the railing, amused. "You know she picks on you because you react so strongly."
"Bully logic from the spirit world," Miyeong shoots back.
"Friendly teasing," Celine corrects, but she does sound genuinely sympathetic.
And honestly, Miyeong will take the pity; it's probably better than whatever she'll get if she actually tries to argue with a mudang about a spirit, so she just shakes her head and changes the subject.
"How was the conversation with Minji's gran?"
"…. illuminating," says Celine.
"Yeah?" Miyeong's done watering, so she just leans next to Celine. "What's our concern level, there, generally? Because mine isn't zero."
Celine considers it, the slightest crease in her brow. "… not zero, no. Her grandmother had some insight, but..." She pauses. Still thinking about it, Miyeong thinks. Illuminating, but maybe not immediately obvious what to do with it.
"She'll need you," Celine finally says, one thing at least that she's apparently sure of, "once the wraiths are dealt with and she's able to start contacting her friends."
Start finding out who's left alive, she means.
Miyeong tips her head back and traces a striated line of cirrus clouds across the sky. "You know, some of them are my friends too?"
It feels strange to say, comes out uncertain, but—
"It's not, I haven't thought about it at all, but. Take Donghyun, he's a radiology tech, constantly snacking, has a niece he helps his sister take care of, he's an absolute idiot. If you asked me who I'm close to, his name wouldn't cross my mind— but I've known him for the better part of a decade, met his family, know his coffee order and his go-to cocktail after work. And if he was on shift that day? If I never see him again—"
She'd thought Minji didn't like her. She'd thought Sieun found her vaguely annoying on Minji's behalf. She thought the whole lot of them mostly just tolerated her because she was Yeonggi's girlfriend, and kept inviting her out once he was gone out of, what, inertia? But she was wrong about Minji, probably wrong about all of them, and if she never hears Donghyun try to goad someone into a stupid bet again…
"I'd genuinely miss him. I'd miss all of them, I think. They're good people." She sighs. "Poor Minji."
“You are allowed to just feel bad for yourself,” Celine points out. She doesn’t give any of the caveats politeness begs that she add—they both know Minji-ssi is suffering, and Miyeong-ssi doesn’t need any paths to minimizing her own pain further.
Miyeong pauses a moment, and then snorts, still studying the sky. “Would you believe that you’re not the first person to tell me that?”
Celine is certainly startled by it, and she afreely admits as much.
“Yeonggi,” Miyeong explains, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I always thought he didn’t like it when I talked about my exes because he was insecure, but… it might not have all been that.”
A surprisingly clear-eyed view of the man, after Minji-ssi’s assessment that she’d thought him too good for her. Idly, Celine wonders what he was really like.
“Who would you say you’re close to?” she asks, instead, which is a slightly more relevant matter.
Miyeong-ssi does not answer her for a long time.
It’s not the first time that she has had such a response to that kind of question. She’s seen it in almost every way possible, she thinks.
“You?”
Everything stops. Fragments. Reconstitutes itself, fundamentally changed.
Miyeong laughs a little. “Kind of pathetic, but—I don’t know. I’ve been out of practice with talking to people about hard things for a long time now. So… Minji, and you, and the kids.”
“Fear has a tendency to linger in the strangest of places,” Celine replies, almost automatically.
She feels as if someone has changed the oxygen content of the air, or maybe the strength of gravity. Lightheaded. She holds on to the balcony rail tightly, hoping not to fall, though she knows that it’s silly.
You.
“…I guess so,” Miyeong says. “You’ve got a proverb for everything, don’t you?”
“I guess so,” Celine answers.
Miyeong smiles at her, and Celine thinks that she might just be okay with living in this gravity.
Mira decides that the magpie spirit is out to get her specifically. The moment Celine steps out with Miyeong, the spirit alights herself on Zoey’s head. There is a vicious gleam in her six eyes as she looks between Mira and Rumi. The spirit squawks once.
Zoey glances at Rumi, and her face turns a pretty shade of bright red. “I am not translating that.” The spirit nips her ear.
Zoey wrings her hands, “Suspicion-ssi would like you to shift the table to the left.”
Rumi smiles and bows to the spirit. “Of course, Kkachi-nim.”
Under the magpie spirit’s haughty gaze, Mira and Minji transfer the platters and glasses from the folding table onto Miyeong’s table.
Rumi lifts the folding table and shifts it to the left. The magpie spirit caws indignantly. “Ah, suspicion-ssi meant the other table.”
Mira bites back a sigh, the bird gives them all the smuggest side-eye as they clear the platters from Miyeong’s table and put them back on the folding table.
With one smooth movement, Rumi lifts Miyeong’s table as easily as Mira would lift a paper cup. She has to fight to keep her jaw closed as Rumi’s shirt does precious little to hide her lithe muscles working underneath.
Minji gives her a knowing look. Mira can’t find it in herself to care, as with grace that would make a ballerina green with envy, Rumi moves the table to the magpie spirit’s desired spot. “Is this location acceptable, Kkachi-nim?” She asks.
From her perch on Zoey’s head, the magpie spirit radiates judgment.
Confusion then surprise shoots across Zoey’s face. “But she jus—”
The bird cuts Zoey off with a nip on the ear.
She sighs and gives way. “Suspicion-ssi asks that you, uh, put that table down, she meant the other other table”
Other other table? Mira looks around Miyeong’s apartment. Rumi has moved all the… Her eyes catch on the coffee table.
“Oh, as you wish,” Rumi says, as she strides over to the coffee table and carefully removes the TV remote.
The coffee table is a squat, heavy thing; it has clearly been well-loved. Rumi lifts it like it’s nothing.
Mira’s throat goes dry.
“Do you need help with that?” Mira asks, mostly for the sake of saying something.
A playfully affronted look crosses Rumi’s face, “There is no need—” With that dangerous gleam in her eye, Rumi shifts her weight slightly and pulls one hand out from under the coffee table. “—for I am quite comfortable here.”
Mira’s jaw drops, the bird cackles and flits over to perch atop one of the nicer wine glasses. Her three eyes narrow at Mira.
She sees Zoey’s sharp intake of breath out of the corner of her eye.
“Suspicion-ssi says you may put the coffee table down; she now requests karaoke.” Zoey translates. Minji crows with laughter. She says something about fetching Celine and Miyeong.
Mira doesn’t hear her as she feels the floor drop out from under her.
That fucking bird.
Rumi has always the only way to survive a playful spirit is to delight in their games yourself, and the honored whispering magpie spirit is certainly in fine form this afternoon. She does not know what ‘karaoke’ is, but she chooses to be excited to learn.
“Any song requests?” Zoey asks, cheeks pinkening.
The honored whispering magpie spirit looks deeply amused.
“Then it is a singing game?” Rumi asks, circling around the couch to return to the area in which they’ve congregated.
“Uh, yeah,” Mira says, looking as if she might prefer to abscond from the feast now and fight a wraith. “We put on a song without the lyrics and then perform it. It’s pretty simple.”
It does, indeed, seem far simpler than Rumi had expected from their reactions. She tilts her head, wondering if there is some trick to the game that she has not understood. “So… how does one lose?”
It is at this moment that Minji-nim, Miyeong-nim, and the honored shaman return from the balcony, shutting the sliding door.
“At karaoke?” Miyeong-nim asks, grinning. “By being a really bad singer, I guess.”
“I… see.” (Rumi does not see.)
“Suspicion-ssi has a request,” Zoey announces, scrolling on her phone with all of the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner.
The honored shaman’s lips twitch. Whatever this request is, she is certainly as amused as the honored whispering magpie spirit. “Miyeong, do you think that we could connect Zoey’s phone to your television?”
“I know we can connect my laptop,” Miyeong-nim replies, still grinning.
Minji-nim’s eyebrows arch, and she looks between the two of them with some curiosity—perhaps at the new degree of intimacy to their speech?
Either way, Rumi must remain focused on the matter at hand. She leans into Zoey’s space, skimming the lyrics of the song she’s brought up.
It is a rather tender love song, one somewhat reminiscent in style of the song Miyeong-nim had led them in during their skirmish at the hotel. Romances are in fashion these days, from what Rumi has heard, so she does not understand why Zoey looks so embarrassed.
“It’s, uh, a duet,” she says, shoving her phone at Mira. “I know the words already so. Yeah.”
"So who gets to be the lucky second?" Miyeong-nim looks from Rumi to Mira, as eager as a fangirl at her favorite kpop group's concert. "Mira?"
Mira's not sure how Miyeong defines 'lucky,' but she's absolutely certain it's not the same way she does.
Miyeong volunteers herself to take the next song—executed with a skill that reminds Celine that she was once, in fact, professionally trained, despite the shot she took as she got up—before, at Kkachi-ssi’s urging, grabbing Minji-ssi to guide her through a duet.
Celine is entirely certain that she will not be getting out of this without some form of mild humiliation herself, and can only hope that the magpie spirit will find some kind of other shiny subject to fixate on than matchmaking soon. As she settles in, bracing herself, Mira, Zoey, and Rumi-nim retreat back off for food.
“Look, somebody has to eat first, and everyone always gets weird about it, and I’m not doing it! Food is a friend!” Zoey declares, before turning back to where they’re clustered around the laptop. “Do any of you want us to make a plate?”
“Please,” Celine says, before any awkwardness might develop.
“I could go for one of those burritos,” Minji-ssi adds. “And something to drink?”
“Yeah, I’ll could use some more soju,” Miyeong says, and it’s subtle. That’s not the word, exactly, given that they’re all aware of the matter—fluid, perhaps?—but were they not, Celine doubts anyone would’ve thought twice. She can see it in the beat after, too, how Miyeong sees them noticing and wishes they hadn’t.
And then they move on.
They should sing “Some”, Kkachi-ssi decides, whistling a bit of the tune as if the name weren’t already identifiable.
Zoey makes a face. “Isn’t there a rap part in that?”
Singers’ choice how to manage it, Kkachi-ssi decides.
“We have a request, I take it?” Minji-ssi asks dryly.
Celine silently leans over and starts finding it for them, her own face already burning from secondhand embarrassment.
Miyeong giggles, and wraps an arm around Minji-sis’s shoulder. “Feels like I’m yours, seems like I’m yours, but noooo—do you want SoYou’s parts or Junggigo’s ones?”
Minji-ssi flushes, and makes momentary, devastated eye contact with Celine.
“Um, I… I’ll take the higher ones,” she says.
Miyeong squeezes her shoulder briefly, and flashes her a smile. “Hey, don’t worry. If nothing else, imagine all the audience members in their underwear, right?”
This does not appear to help.
Ultimately, alcohol saves the day.
Miyeong is light, delighted, thoroughly buzzed, and hamming it up more than a little, and so Minji-ssi is already past paying attention to herself and fighting laughter to get her lyrics out by the time they hit the rap bridge. Which they hadn't actually decided how to handle, so at first neither of them take it, then they both try to pick it up simultaneously, and then they both break down in drunken giggles, Miyeong's arm around Minji-ssi practically the only thing holding her up as they stumble through the rest.
Celine, carefully nursing a single room-temperature craft beer with peach undertones that she intends to last her at least half the night, will have no such salvation. Not that she's all that afraid of being dragged into singing a love song in front of everyone— mudang would have been a poor profession to commit herself to, if singing any number of strange or silly things in public was apt to bother her— but she suspects Kkachi-ssi is fully aware of that, and is not looking forward to finding out what actual vulnerability the spirit might have spotted to poke at instead.
Mira plops down next to Celine and hands her a plate, somewhere in the middle of the nonsense, and says, very quietly, "I don't remember ever being warned the spirit world was so fixated on relationship drama."
"Kkachi-ssi doesn't care if anyone gets together," murmurs Celine, an eye on the spirit in question as she cackles at Miyeong and Minji-ssi's hopeless antics. "She just knows what will get her the best reaction. Now, whatever the Han told you… that was meant sincerely, to ease a genuine pain."
Mira, who has apparently been convinced to try one of Zoey's mixed drink recipes, takes a very long swallow out of her very colorful glass, and mutters, tipsy and disgruntled, "….he said we all have two hands."
And enduring whatever Kkachi-ssi has planned for her sober is worth Celine being able to swallow back her initial response to that.
"You don't feel you can choose between them?" she asks, instead, quiet and very carefully neutral.
"What? No." Mira seems genuinely a little offended. "They're perfect for each other. I've got nothing to do with it, I'm not trying to take either of them from the other."
Celine looks over at Rumi-nim, watching Zoey demonstrate how to fold a pizza slice with apparently genuine awe, and tells Mira, "You know, in Rumi-nim's day, nobles like her often had dozens of lovers at once."
She… probably should have been looking at Mira when she said that, so she could time it better, and prevent the poor woman from choking on her drink.
Rumi’s entry into the game of karaoke comes opposite the honored shaman—the honored whispering magpie spirit decides, apparently, that the two of them are to choose their own song.
While no one had responded well to their chosen songs, it seems this is not any better of a situation for the honored shaman to be placed in (and it is, unfortunately, one that she alone is placed in. Rumi’s repertoire in this modern time is highly limited, leaving her with no ability to provide aid).
She grimaces, torn, as she rises, considering her options and looking between Rumi and the honored whispering magpie spirit as if they are the tusks of a boar closing on either side, ready to gore her.
Rumi offers her most reassuring smile. “I am in your hands.”
Yet the honored shaman looks even more upset at Rumi’s words, despite her intention.
Finally, she sighs and pulls out her phone. “Why don’t you give it a listen before you make a statement so unequivocal? I—I’ll write it out phonetically for you.”
The song is turned down very low when she hands it to Rumi, such that no one else in the room, currently giving them curious looks, will be able to hear. It is an… interesting video to look at.
Which is to say the bright, pulsating colors very much hurt Rumi’s eyes, though they do suit the strong beat of the song.
It’s not in Jejuan or Korean, or even Mandarin, but the words are quite simple. She can likely manage, especially with a guide.
“This is a joke, yes?” Rumi asks.
“Oh boy,” Zoey murmurs.
The honored shaman nods, looking miserable.
Rumi grins, and leans in closer. “Is it funnier if I understand the meaning of the words, or if I simply try my best?”
“It’s just about dancing,” the honored shaman answers, her voice dropping lower, tension finally fading slightly as she seems to realize that Rumi is happy to perform beside her, not just sing. “You can take that however you wish.”
She passes Rumi the words, written in Hangul.
“Pum-p up—heh?” Rumi tries.
“Th,” the honored shaman corrects. “The.”
“Te?” She shakes her head, immediately hearing the difference. “T—h—t—thhhhhhh. Theh?”
She wiggles a hand in mid-air. Not perfect, but better.
“Theh?” Rumi repeats. She can hear it’s still not right. “Pum-p up theh jam. What an awful mess I’m making of this language. Perfect, then?”
The honored shaman smiles. “I suppose.”
