Ok, shit got long, so starting a new post. This is a continuation of the dream-to-nightmare AU provoked by @fishyupmywishy & taken up by @kenkuheart, with the most recent installment here at kenku's tumbl. To recap: our Celine is in a world where Miyeong is alive, the two of them have Rumi and two boys together, and the Golden Honmoon happened when Rumi was four; the Celine from that world is in the movie!verse. Neither of them are having a good time.
--
Just breathe. Celine just has to breathe. That's what her mentors taught her when she was young and stupid, as anxious as Zoey had been and angrier than Mira. Just breathe until you can work, and work until the feeling is gone. So she counts, and she breathes, and she sits down at the desk and opens the laptop and pretends her chest isn't caving in.
She doesn't really have a solid plan, unfortunately, just the conviction that she needs to know more about what's going on. Her initial vague thought was the VPN on her personal computer; a direct line to the internal SLE network. From there she could send a few careful emails to department heads asking for updates, use the company's resources to do searches, get a better picture of what the rest of the world looks like and how far this impossiblity spreads.
But, while the laptop lets her in easily enough -- there's a post-it on the desk with the password, which Nayeon in IT would have Celine's head for if she knew -- there's no VPN to be found. In fact, a number of increasingly confused Naver searches and several frantic googles later, Celine is forced to conclude that Sunlight Entertainment does not even exist.
What in the hell has she been doing for twenty years, then?
The Sunlight Sisters, she discovers, have two extra albums and two world tours to match, which accounts for five of those years, at least. She listens to some of the music, old rips posted to YouTube with lyrics and grainy concert footage. She breathes. She counts. She splays her hands on the desk so her nails don't mark her palms. She goes back to her search.
Celine finds herself on an English fan forum, reading through a contentious thread about Sunmi's solo career (expected) and specifically her latest album (completely unrecognizable, though admittedly Celine hasn't tracked her work since the girls took over care of the Honmoon). At one point a moderator has to step in, and Celine knows just enough about American pop culture to recognize that their handle, "CheloniousMonk," is a turtle music pun worthy of Zoey.
Wait.
Celine stalks CheloniousMonk's profile. She's a woman and was young when the Sunlight Sisters were big. She lives in California and speaks five languages, including Korean. Her bias is Celine, but she has an extremely long and well-researched post about Sunmi's importance to the entire kpop genre as the originator of the maknae archetype. She visits Korea regularly but hasn't seen it in the winter.
Because, Celine knows, the terms of the divorce included summers with her mother.
Celine stares at the laptop for what feels like a very long time, and then slowly goes back to her Naver tab, her heart in her throat, and starts looking for Lee Mira.
There are a number of Lee Miras, of course, but it's not hard to find Celine's. She's an idol with Endless Music Entertainment, in a group called Forever. She's skinnier than Celine has ever seen her. Her hair is black. Celine watches a Forever video, sound low. The choreography is basic hip-hop moves. If Celine didn't know their lead dancer like her own ssang geom, she'd think her smile was authentic.
Celine closes the laptop and stares at the Nintendo Switch, thinking, of course, and that's how Rumi finds her.
"Hey," Rumi says, reaching out to hand her a cup and saucer, and for a moment the fog breaks. "I brought tea. You've been in here a while, I thought you might be thirsty."
"You're very sweet, thank you, Rumi-ya," Celine replies gratefully, nursing the cup in front of herself and letting the jasmine-scented steam float up across her face, grounding herself in the kindness.
Rumi lingers a moment, uncharacteristically off-balance, and then says, a little uncertain, "You know, I'm twenty-four, now. I graduated. I have a steady job. I vote. I even have a little apartment and a cat that I've managed to keep alive for three whole years."
Celine raises an eyebrow, and Rumi tilts her chin up and puts a little more confidence into her voice.
"I'm just saying. I know you used to take antidepressants and I know sometimes you still go out to the garden and just stare at the leaves until you feel like you can be around people again. I know you're not fine this morning and you're not letting Eomma help. And I may not be an actual real-life superhero like you guys used to be, but I'm not a kid anymore. You can tell me things and I won't break."
Celine can only stare at her.
Rumi seems to take it as disagreement, and presses her case. "You always say that family is the people who are always there for you. Well, we're family, you're my Maman, and I'm here for you. Okay?"
--
Celine is wondering where this world's Celine keeps her phone when she notices the looks on the girls' faces. Zoey and Rumi are both cringing, their eyes meeting in some kind of silent but slightly frantic conversation, but it's Mira who speaks, glancing sideways at Zoey's wince.
"Why do I feel like I should know that name?"
There's a half-beat of silence that feels much longer to Celine, and then Zoey says "Kwon Sunmi was the third Sunlight Sister," and a look of understanding crosses Mira's face, almost immediately replaced by her own pained cringe.
It's Rumi who manages to address Celine, apology in her voice. "She might… not want to talk to you." A fortifying sip of tea later, she adds, "I'm actually not sure we even know how to get ahold of her?"
Celine stares. "What do you mean, she might not want to talk to me?"
"Well, she'll think you're our Celine, right?" Zoey, again. "She and our Celine don't talk. We've never even met her. Unless you count Eunbi's funeral, but I don't think I would, she never said anything to us and she left after the first day and we only even knew it was her because I recognized her from my many years of fangirling."
"It wasn't disrespectful!" Rumi rushes to add. "Leaving early. She's super busy, she's on tour everywhere all the time. She always sends dasik for Seollal for the Hunters who came before."
"Wait, those are from her?" Mira asks, and Rumi says something back, all three of them slipping into banter again, but Celine can't process it. She and Sunmi don't talk? How can this Celine and Sunmi not talk? Especially since -- If Miyeong died Celine would never let Sunmi out of her line of sight again.
Unless --
When they'd first found out Rumi was coming, first learned about Jeongho, they'd both been so furious with Miyeong. Celine, her pain heavier than her anger (for reasons she wouldn't admit to herself for years), had stayed at her side through the pregnancy regardless. But Sunmi had left, had taken advantage of the hiatus they managed to pry out of the label to disappear completely, hadn't returned until Rumi was two months old, when she walked through the door sobbing and sorry and forced them all to actually face the hurt between them.
Her eyes sting viciously. It can't be, surely. They'd been so much stronger, so much more honest, so unbreakable after that day. But if, if that never happened -- if this world's Mieyong had died when they were still broken --
If this world's Mieyong had died then, she would never have known her daughter at all --
It's the sudden silence that brings her attention back to the girls, and then Zoey says, eyes wide, "Wow, you really aren't our Celine, are you."
Celine can only blink wetly, and Mira says, "Don't be rude, Zo," but then allows, "You have cried more times tonight than our Celine has in -- actually, have you guys ever seen Celine cry?"
Zoey shakes her head, but Rumi looks thoughtful.
"Once when she broke a few ribs," is her conclusion. "She teared up a lot when she tried to do… anything."
"Oh, I bet, broken ribs are awful," says Zoey sympathetically, and then cracks into a tremendous yawn and immediately apologizes -- both hands moving and a much-too-concerned "Sorry! Sorry" -- and Celine realizes, abruptly, how late it is. Rumi had served that first round of tea, before the cabinet came off the wall, with the last shred of sunset in the sky (it occurs to Celine, like a note of distant madness, that all that wood and shattered porcelain is still on the floor), and now, three cups later, there are morning stars out the window behind the tree's dark silhouette.
"Don't be sorry, it's late," she says, the autopilot of years of parenting letting her speak through her wrecked confusion. She doesn't talk to Sunmi. "We should all try to get some rest. We'll think better for it, and we can get back to solving all this tomorrow."
Celine never taught Rumi how to speak French.
It wasn't necessary for an idol, so she focused on drilling English, Japanese, and Mandarin into her instead.
She regrets it now, as she looks at this girl—this girl with short, jet-black hair and clear arms. This girl, who says words like "Maman" and phrases like "je t'aime" so easily mixed into her Korean.
Would Rumi have said words like that? Would she have blended the languages into something that was hers entirely? Would she have been Celine's? Truly Celine's?
This girl, who somehow manages to look more like Celine than the woman and demon man that gave birth to her.
Celine only ever tries to see Miyeong in Rumi, but this girl...
This girl is—
"—Maman? You good?" Rumi quirks a perfect eyebrow, a trait that only Celine herself could have taught her.
Celine shakes her head subtly, trying to empty her head of the regrets. She can dwell on them after she manages to get back home.
"I appreciate the offer, Rumi," Celine smiles. Strained. But she succeeds nonetheless. "But it's nothing you have to concern yourself with."
A look of puzzlement crosses Rumi's face as she tilts her head at Celine quizzically (a trait surely learned from Miyeong, or inherited, perhaps. Though she's never seen her Rumi do something like that).
Celine doesn't understand the confusion.
"Strange," Rumi mutters, eyes downcast. "Speeches like that usually works."
Oh. Celine finally understands.
This world's Celine is a pathetic, vulnerable loser.
Shit.
----
This world's Celine sucks. What is her problem?
The more Celine thinks about it, the angrier she gets.
Sunmi is their soulmate, a third of their entire being. It doesn't matter that Celine and Miyeong didn't love her the same way they loved each other; they still love Sunmi just as deeply.
So why did this Celine let her Sunmi go?
They couldn't possibly be this different, could they?
Celine tosses and turns in bed. The bed that's harder than a slab of stone.
The bed that belongs to the Celine of this world.
Genuinely, what is wrong with her?
From what Rumi, Zoey, and Mira said, she seems to be the most emotionally closed off, dysfunctional person ever.
Celine doubts she's even been to therapy.
And Rumi. Her daughter. The happiness and joy in her life calls her by her name.
Not even a familial title like imo. Just straight "Celine."
Celine is aware of self-punishment. She knows what it's like to torture herself to hell and back. But to completely distance herself from the child?
To the point where that child is uncomfortable because Celine chose to hug her?
Celine groans loudly, as she tosses in bed again, pressing the heels of her palm to her eyes.
This world's Celine fucking sucks.
Quelle connasse.
(Ramadan Mubarak fishy, and don't apologise for your writing at all - I'm having so much fun playing in this sandbox with you both and I love your Celine angst & how you contrast her internal monologue with what she chooses to say/do! And @the-fallen-blue I really love the way you write dialogue, the voices for the girls + Celine all sound very natural!)
--
There was a children's book she once read to her Rumi, back when she was pregnant with the twins and Rumi had been extra cuddly. Two little girls who used to trade lives with each other while they slept. Rumi, her Rumi, used to tuck herself into Celine's side and toy with Celine's pyjamas while she listened. Celine finds herself thinking of that now, as she lies in this other Celine's bed, face pressed into a pillow which smells of nothing but her own shampoo.
Unhelpfully, all Rumi says is "Which one?", rhetorically, like an old joke.
Celine did have years of media coaching, though, so she just gives an enigmatic smile in response. It seems to be enough for Rumi, who is probably just pleased that her -- that Celine finally has control of herself.
Rumi doesn't know. The thought ricochets inside her, meaningless until it finds its logical conclusion: Rumi doesn't know any better.
Rumi thinks the way her Celine has treated her - sent her out there for the world to devour - left her riddled with scars and still forced in front of the cameras -
Rumi looks at her like all that is normal, like she doesn't understand the depths of that violation, and Celine staggers backwards, reeling as if she's just been struck. She would have preferred it if she had.
This Rumi is thinner than her own.
Bile rises in the back of her throat. Celine makes a fist and presses it against her stomach until she thinks she can open her mouth without snarling.
There are parts of her that never really stopped feeling twelve years old, gorging herself on rage because even back then Celine had known it was that or starve to death. She'd learned to temper it - admittedly, the medication had helped - but this world seems uniquely designed to worm its way past every single one of her defences and make her look at the worst possible version of herself. Every single nightmare Miyeong has had to talk her down from, and now she's been forced into this world where all of them are true.
This Rumi's eyes are huge, white; her hand reaches out towards Celine but stops before it can make contact. Celine feels the nauseous urge to grab hold of it again and pull her out of this house, burn the fucking building down if she has to, and then she feels horrified at the thought of leaving Miyeong all alone and even more horrified at the idea that this is what the other Celine must have felt. She's angry at her horror and angry at her other self and angry at Sunmi and angry at Miyeong and angry at her anger and angry at this whole world for daring to still exist when Miyeong is gone.
Images flicker through her mind - hands under her shirt - ice and cotton wool - Sunmi holding her down and threatening to feed her like a baby bird - cameras flashing outside Miyeong's bedroom window - and Rumi. Rumi, her baby, has been thrown to the industry like chum in the water, for Dispatch and the sasaengs and the men, always the men with their hands everywhere, to eat her alive.
Miyeong returned from hiatus about ten hard-won pounds heavier and had been forced to apologise to her fans for not making more of an effort to lose the weight. That's what this Celine wants for Rumi, is it? This Rumi, with all of her scars. Celine doesn't even know the kinds of things people will be saying to her--
Celine turns on her heel and slams her fist into the wall. The girls flinch and Celine, already turned inside-out and upside-down with self-loathing for a self that is not her own, just thinks, Of course.
"...I would like to maybe revisit the demon possession theory," Zoey is saying, in a whisper which is considerably more voce than sotto.
There's an undignified snort. Celine doesn't know which girl it comes from.
Bleakly, Celine looks at the girls. Drops to her knees and rests her head against the floorboards.
"She should have protected," Celine mutters. "Your Celine-- Rumi, bunny, you deserved so much better--"
---
The others return - with no Asterix, which Celine is supposed to be disappointed by, but the boy who is not Hajoon dangles a book in front of Rumi's face that makes the tip of her ears turn pink.
Celine, who recognises mischief when she sees it, plucks it from his fingers and makes a show of flicking through it.
"Hm, is this the kind of thing you're into now? I'll be sure to remember that for your birthday," she tells him.
"Maman!"
Rumi and Hajoon both laugh at his plight, and Miyeong sees them and wraps her arm around Celine's waist, hugging her from behind. Which. Is nice.
After a moment, in which Miyeong doesn't let go, Celine dares to rest her own hand over Miyeong's. And. That is also. Very nice.
(The inadequacy of her language makes her want to kick herself. 'Very nice', to have Miyeong choose to hold her like this - hold her on purpose - and to feel the warmth of her skin against Celine's own. She hosted the 46th Baeksang Awards, for God's sake.)
Eventually, Rumi excuses herself, saying she needs to wash some clothes before she heads back home. The boys disappear off to their rooms, citing the need to study.
"Study their new manhwa, more like," Miyeong mutters into Celine's shoulder. "I swear, they get more like you every day."
She punctuates that thought with a pinch to Celine's hip - a light one, meant to be teasing, but one that makes Celine remember things. Miyeong was always so tactile, always touching one or the other of them, and then Celine had realised that she was reading things into those touches that Miyeong could not have meant - that it would have been grossly unfair to let Miyeong carry on touching her as though Celine wasn't trying to burn that secret fault out of herself - and so she'd made sure to stop taking advantage of her friend and kept her distance.
Celine is starting to suspect she might be the biggest idiot on the planet.
There's no time to think about that further, though, because Miyeong brushes her lips against the side of Celine's neck and says, "Glad you're feeling better, love."
Celine turns to tell Miyeong - something. She isn't sure what, exactly. But as soon as she does, Miyeong pulls her forward by the lapels of her jacket and kisses her.
There are no sensible warnings echoing in her head - no remnant of their mentors' warning about faults and fears - just twenty five years of aching, and Miyeong's mouth warm and soft against her own. Celine has been kissed before - she's sure of it - but somehow, in this moment, it feels like every other kiss was just preamble. All of it only leading to this.
She feels herself lurch forward - sick with wanting, she's been hungry for so long - and bunches her unworthy hands in Miyeong's blouse, parts her lips, and allows herself to take.
Miyeong moves. Her lips, her hands, she leans up into Celine and Celine wants --
she wants --
"So, what, she's... sorry about the drawbacks of fame?" Rumi asks.
Zoey shrugs, Rumi furrows her brow at Celine, and Celine has no idea how to even begin to help these girls, but she has to try.
everyone please pretend i didn't fail to copy+paste the last two lines of this bit and not notice for literally the entire day thank you
In her home, she has a calendar on the kitchen wall where they keep track of activities. Work and school and appointments and shows and Seojoon's baseball games; when Rumi plans to come back and visit, when they plan to go and see her; when Sunmi needs them to water her plants. Over the years, they've developed a shorthand of symbols and initials to try and cram everything in.
In this house, this Celine has a calendar on the kitchen wall. There is a single 'R' on yesterday's date. Every other day is blank.
“Actually,” says Celine, because she has not made a rational decision yet today, and why start now, “it’s fine. I’ll go over there myself. You hang out with the kids for a while. I don’t want to cut into your time with Rumi.”
Sunmi gives her a piercing look, then glances over at Miyeong, who is staring at Celine just as suspiciously. But when Miyeong meets Sunmi’s eyes, she just shrugs a little, and Sunmi, after another long beat, says, “Okay.”
As it happens, Celine asked herself the same question once before. More than once, those strange quiet months between Sunmi leaving and Jeongho's death.
Her own Rumi - for whom demons were almost entirely make-believe, something that only existed in storybooks - had never really thought of it as a betrayal. Truthfully, by the time Rumi was old enough to think of her father as anything more than an abstract biological prerequisite, Rumi had almost forgotten that her mother was a demon hunter.
This Rumi curses, speaks about Miyeong as though she's something to be ashamed of. Celine remembers that time after Miyeong told them, the nights she'd spent staring up at her ceiling feeling
"Rumi, that is no way to speak about your mother!"
Rumi looks like a spring, coiled tight. The cover of the journal she's holding is starting to bend and Mira, in one practiced move, tugs the book away and replaces it with someone's rubber band ball. Rumi doesn't appear to notice.
"Hey, maybe we could-" Zoey tries to say, but Rumi speaks up again.
"Why shouldn't I? She was supposed to help you fight demons, wasn't she?" Her voice sounds brittle. "Didn't you hate her for letting you down?"
Not for the first time, Celine's heart aches at whatever this other version of herself must have been saying to the poor girl.
"Not for a second, bunny," she says, truthfully.
Celine had hated herself a lot more. For the way she looked at Miyeong - the way she wanted Miyeong to look at her in turn. But she'd been used to that kind of hate; learning that Miyeong had developed feelings for a demon had made her jealous, but it had still made sense to her, back then, that Miyeong might look at her and see something even lower and uglier and more monstrous.
Sunmi, who had escaped the worst of that tangle of self-loathing, had been furious. And then she'd got over herself.
"She didn't-- It wasn't an easy time," she tries to explain. "We were working a lot, and Miyeong had just wanted someone to talk to."
"And she picked a demon?"
(Zoey, quietly, coughs something that sounds like "Jinu", which Rumi doesn't acknowledge.)
"He was... There for her. She was having fun. And they liked each other a lot," Celine eventually settles on. She's made her piece with everything that happened with Jeongho, and she knows that without him Rumi - perfect, miraculous Rumi - would never have existed.
Still. He did also fuck her wife. She doesn't love the guy.
So she adds, "Anyway, she'd had worse boyfriends. Jeongho might have been a demon but at least he picked up a book once in a while--"
It's the sort of joke she wouldn't think twice about making to her Rumi; in fact, she probably has, just to see her squirm about her eomma having had any kind of dating history at all. But all three girls jolt in surprise.
"J-Jeongho?"
Celine knows what's coming. She feels the need to steel herself for it all the same.
"You didn't know his name?"
---
"Huh," Sunmi says. She boosts herself up to sit on the edge of a table and then doesn't say anything else. Celine slides the drawer back into its slot a bit more vigorously than is really warranted, and starts shuffling through the next lot.
She should have come down here sooner. Shouldn't have waited for Sunmi, like she was going to help. Shouldn't have spent all that time indulging herself, spending time with Rumi and Miyeong and the boys as though--
"Is that the only clue I get?"
Celine shoots her a look. Sunmi just grins and holds her hands up, playing at surrender like they're kids again, and Celine hates her for that too.
"Just saying, unnie. I might be great at it but I'm not able to read minds. Anything more specific?"
The only thing, the single thing that has been playing on repeat in her mind all day - today and every other day for the last 25 years - is: "Miyeong's dead."
That at least wipes the smirk off Sunmi's face. Celine notices and feels a savage thrill at the way she flinches, decides to push even more.
"Miyeong died twenty five years ago."
Sunmi's mouth falls open at that, horrified. Celine keeps her voice even, controlled as she looks away from the drawers to meet Sunmi's gaze directly.
"I raised Rumi alone, with all her patterns. And I taught her to hate herself so much that she asked me to execute her."
Fear and disgust pass over Sunmi's face. Celine feels only a cold satisfaction over it. Let her see. Let Sunmi be the one to carry this. To be alone and helpless and ashamed. To hate Celine as fiercely as she deserves to be hated.
Celine takes a step back and opens the next drawer, mechanically starts to page through its contents.
The version of Celine who lives in this world would probably fall to pieces over such an admission. Show the most disgusting, weak parts of herself and expect the others to coddle her over it, act as though she could ever be anything more than this.
Celine gets through another entire, useless drawer, and another half past that, without Sunmi so much as breathing loudly behind her.
What Sunmi says, though, when she eventually replies, is just,
“Did you?”
Celine runs her thumb over the back of Rumi's knuckles carefully. Even the unscarred skin feels different: whereas her own Rumi's palms are much softer, this Rumi has callouses at the base of each finger. She's a fighter; it's a shame she ever needed to be.
This Rumi isn't her Rumi. She didn't live the same life as her Rumi, and it wasn't fair to treat her question as if it was the same as when her Rumi had asked her about her mother's relationship with her father. Then, Rumi had been looking for reassurance, needing to know that things wouldn't change after the babies were born, and enough time had passed for the answer to be simple. If Miyeong hadn't been with Jeongho, there would never have been a Rumi, and by then that had felt unthinkable.
If this Rumi was her Rumi, and if this place was her home, Celine could wrap her arms around Rumi and comfort her while she cried; if this Rumi was her daughter, Miyeong would hold them both and together they would fix whatever was hurting their girl, and if Celine knew how to go home then she would do it in a heartbeat, sick as she is of this monument to her own weakness. But if this Rumi was her Rumi and Celine was her mother, and if wishes were horses then this would already be resolved, somehow, with a long hug and some Kleenex and a cup of hot chocolate.
"You're right, I'm sorry," Celine says. Three pairs of eyes spring towards her, and she has to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the other Celine again. "You don't have the same relationship with Miyeong as my- as the Rumi I know."
Her heart hurts at the thought of it. She gives Rumi's hand a gentle squeeze, hoping that at least this bit of comfort won't be rebuffed.
Rumi, after a long moment, squeezes back. Her long fingers grip Celine's hand tightly - she watches Rumi notice the plaster and turn their hands over to look.
"Just a scratch," she tells Rumi.
"There's gotta be something here that tells us how to fix this!" Zoey says brightly, despite the shininess of her own eyes. "We'll get our Celine back and send this other one to her world in no time!"
Mira nods. "And Celine's got to be trying to solve it from her side, too. Can you imagine her stuck in the Land of Talking About Feelings?"
"Oh my god," Rumi groans, smiling despite some of her tears. "If this is the way everyone talks in that world-- Uh, no offence."
"None taken. I'm sure I don't want to think about what your Celine might be doing to my life, either," Celine says drily.
She hasn't given much thought to it, what the other her might be doing, how Miyeong and the kids would cope to find some stranger wearing her face. The best part of twenty years has been spent trying to shield the kids from seeing the parts of herself that this other Celine seems to have given in to a long time ago; Celine chose to learn how to be gentle and calm and how to remove herself from a situation when she was struggling to be either, and nothing Rumi and her friends have said makes her think that their Celine knows how to do the same.
She'd never wanted the kids to know those things, really. They've worked so hard to make sure all three could grow up happily, safely, protected from the worst the world had to offer. It had taken a long time and a lot of effort for Celine to stop counting herself as part of that.
---
Moon Yongsu had, evidently, been one of the more prolific diarists of her era. Celine, who has settled into the familiar armour of anger given a direction, decides to resent her for that too when they find the thick stack of papers she left behind.
Silently, Sunmi splits the stack in half, taking the top for herself and leaving Celine with the bottom. The papers haven't been kept in chronological order, as one of the first entries she reads describes Yongsu's climb up the slopes of Moaksan and the following pages are talking about the training she was undergoing. Celine takes a moment to miss the database she and the girls had painstakingly pulled together, everything indexed by date, author and theme, and feels a vicious pleasure at the thought. Huntr/x had done much better than this Sunmi and her false Celine, who had wasted years getting fat and happy from indulging in her every weakness.
"I can take it from here," Celine says stiffly.
"I'm sure you can," Sunmi tells her, and makes no move to leave. They skim through their pages a while longer until Sunmi lets out a low whistle.
"Got it. Here, listen to this: Chunja woke today, very distressed, telling a strange story. She is convinced that I was married and apologised for some argument she thought we had about me neglecting my responsibilities to the Honmoon - she only became more upset when I told her this never happened and I had no intentions of leaving her. Sound familiar?"
Celine does not wince, or flinch, or react outwardly in any way. She just forces herself to unclench her jaw.
"Is that all she had to say?"
"Looks like this happened in May 1942. Anything dated from around then should help." Sunmi spreads out another chunk of papers, plucks out one or two that must match the date, and sets the rest aside to sift through the next chunk.
Celine watches her for a moment, head bowed over her work. Sunmi's curls are gathered into a loose ponytail at the back of her neck, little flecks of grey running through them, and there's a scar in her eyebrow that Celine doesn't remember her ever having had. For a second, she thinks she could scream at the sight of her, sitting there as calmly as if they were back in class and the years between them had never happened - but for this Sunmi, she supposes they never had.
"I can do it myself," she says again, mostly so she doesn't say something else - worse - more pathetic, like Why would you come back for her here? or Why wasn't I enough? She doesn't want to know the answer anyway. It wouldn't change a thing.
"What, are you trying to get rid of me?"
The yes is obvious enough that Celine just glares at her. She doesn't want to be sitting here, relying on Sunmi's assistance to do anything. She doesn't want Sunmi to see her like this, raw and split open in ways that don't mean anything - aren't real, or a reflection of her, or anything to do with this version of Celine who has survived this long without Sunmi and has every intention of continuing to do so for the rest of her life.
When she doesn't answer, Sunmi glances up and blinks at whatever she sees on Celine's face. "OK. Fine. Someone should go tell Miyeong what we found, anyway."
Something cold and heavy slams into Celine's gut at the mention of Miyeong. Celine's shoulders stiffen. An image crosses her mind - Miyeong, back pressed against the wall, lips kiss-swollen, breathing heavily with her arms wrapped around Celine. That hadn't been meant for her. That had been for someone else - someone with her name and face but nothing else in common with her. Someone who might have been the kind of person that could say things like Rumi asked me to execute her and nobody would have to check whether or not she actually had. Someone who would never need to say that kind of thing at all.
She grabs onto the table to keep her hands from shaking, and reaches back for her earlier fury to steady herself. But in this place, unchanged from her own childhood, it's easy to let her anger run its most familiar course and turn itself inwards.
You should have known, she tells herself, and breathes in unsteadily.
You touched her, and she'll feel sick every time she thinks about it, now that she knows what you really are.





















