I feel Noona’s slender fingers run through my hair as she stands up from the bench beside me. My entire left side is suddenly cold, chilled to the bone by the absence of her heat. Even for Winter, the shadow seethes - the thought of my Noona running after someone, anyone, and leaving me behind is completely unacceptable, as is the possibility of her walking through the woods with a hungry –
“Noona, w-wait!” My vision blurs; I free myself from Seo Yunho’s overbearing arm and scramble to catch my girlfriend’s hand - a hand that was already outstretched to pull me from the bench alongside her. Of course. She clasps my clammy palm, a satisfied hum slipping from her precious lips, and I find my concern for her safety skyrockets. “What if that tiger really is out there? Winter said it hurt people before - shouldn’t we - I don’t know, take a gun or something, in case it tries to kill us? Take… take Johnny, at least?”
Alarmingly, the party around us falls still, all background chatter ceasing in favor of an increasingly uncomfortable silence. My bug-eyed twin is staring down the picnic table at our Dad, who I’m horrified to see staring back at me - face red, confused, as if I’d slapped him out of nowhere. Mom gestures wildly for Noona to come with her now.
The Bull leans back, his massive torso nearly touching the wooden beams of the gazebo, blocking us from joining our mother in the woods. “That old tiger won’t hurt you,” Yunho says with a smile, in what I’m sure is meant to be a reassuring, uncle-y way, but it comes through as incredibly menacing, especially since I can feel Noona shaking through my arm. “But if you’re really worried, here - take my Magnum.”
I guess I needed a break. The past few months have been spent in detox - from the internet, from idol culture, from the rampant consumerism being pushed our faces non-fucking-stop. Sorry about the wait.
Hopefully, what happens next will be better for it. I invite you to rejoin Yongbok and Noona when the time comes.
In two days (Oct 23) it will be the two year anniversary of the first ever chapter of Yongbok and Noona's story, What It Is To Burn. As of this moment, there are 179,282 words written across 3 'books'. We've listened to 62 songs together, each one an ode to the desperate high of young love.
In two days, I will post the next chapter of These Things I've Done to celebrate, and then I will take a little vacation. I will be on hiatus until New Years, which coincidentally is where we will leave Bokbok on Wednesday night :)
Thank you to everyone who has read and appreciated what I was trying to do with this story. It wasn't always well-received due to the subject matter, but I do plan to continue on with Bokkie and Noona.
Hello everybody :) This is your regularly scheduled Lili, back from hiatus! In this post, I will first recap what has happened since the beginning of O Serpent Heart, then introduce a sneak peek of the next chapter!
In What It Is To Burn, we were introduced to Han Noona, an 18 year old high school graduate, big sister to Jisung and his best friend Lee Yongbok, 14. Her last summer before adulthood uncovered many secrets (her parents' past involvement with the Seo Family, a criminal organization; Changbin's father, the head of said Family, being released from prison; and the secret of Yongbok's paternity).
Despite the tumult, Noona and Yongbok developed a bond beyond siblings, and Part One ended with Noona going away to college.
O Serpent Heart:
Chapter One - September. College-bound, Noona moves into the Seo Family summer home; a huge house, several hours away, conveniently and suspiciously rent-free. The separation is very difficult for Bokkie and Noona. Unable to be with Yongbok for his fifteenth birthday, Noona promises a special video call instead.
Chapter Two - Lee Yongbok dreams of marriage. He suffers through high school, taking difficult classes to graduate sooner. Jisung and Minho are dating publicly. Changbin is increasingly busy with the Family business. Winter finds herself in a public school for the first time. Chan promises his producing skills to a Romeo and Juliet production, the last before he graduates. Hyunjin and Seungmin are acting weird. Noona’s sexy video call does not go as planned.
Chapter Three - October. Noona and Yongbok have morning visitors bearing information. An oblivious Yongbok discusses the reason he is called ‘Felix’ with his biological father, Seo Yongsun.
Chapter Four - ???
Chapter Five - Changbin’s uncle forces Noona to tour the murder tunnel underneath her house. Karina gets handsy. Yongbok’s mom Lina disappears. Captain Lee Jihoon reveals he has proof of Bokkie’s first night with Noona, but is keeping it to himself for now.
Chapter Six - Yongbok blames himself. A storm brings overwhelming feelings for our boy, who realizes he is completely alone for the first time in years. Noona calls, though.
Chapter Seven - Noona is coming home for Halloween, but gets stuck in traffic (probably I-30). Yongbok is nervous, wondering if things will be the same between them. They are. Also, Noona promises something new.
Chapter Eight - The friend group catches up over Mexican food before a Halloween party. Noona can’t keep her hands off Yongbok under the table. After an embarrassing situation leads to an honest conversation, Yongbok asks his Noona to skip the Halloween party. They decide to spend the night at Chan’s trailer instead.
Chapter Nine - After 150,000 words, Yongbok finally gets a blowjob.
Chapter Ten - Yongbok’s shadow appears. Noona almost takes it too far. Also, butt play for the first time?
Chapter Eleven - While patching Noona’s orgasm injury, Yongbok admits that he scares himself. Noona resolves not to rush him into anything he’s not ready for. Bruised, bitten, scratched and scraped, they go to sleep.
Chapter Twelve - November. Noona lies awake, feeling guilty. Seungmin arrives at the trailer after a fight at the Halloween party. He asks Noona uncomfortable questions about her relationship with Bokkie. Eventually, Seungmin admits he walked in on Hyunjin about to have sex with a man. When Seungmin knocked the man out, Hyunjin himself beat the shit out of Seungmin, who wandered to the trailer. In the middle of the drama, Noona decides to go back to bed.
Chapter Thirteen - Special Hyunjin Chapter. Kim Seungmin is a fucking psychopath. Hyunjin, covered in blood, recalls his last sexual encounter with his stepbrother. When he decides to leave the party (and never speak to Kim Seungmin again), he makes a surprising new friend.
Chapter Fourteen - Back at the trailer, Seungmin breaks down. Chan comes looking for him. The man he hurt is rich and his family wants Seungmin’s head. With a phone call from Changbin’s Uncle Yunho, it is decided to relocate the entire group to the Seo-owned nightclub, the Church.
Chapter Fifteen - On the way to the Church, Yongbok begs to do more butt stuff. Noona considers.
Chapter Sixteen - Captain Lee Jihoon surprises Yongbok for a second time. Noona is prepared to fistfight a cop. It is discovered the Hyunjin’s mother has been working for the Seo’s for some time. As a favor, Seungmin will go into hiding with a Seo Family member. Yongsun steps in and demonstrates his power to a grateful Yongbok.
Chapter Seventeen - Noona gives Yongbok head in the car before going home to yell at her parents. Yongbok is visited by Han Peter for a chat.
Chapter Eighteen - Yongbok spends a day with the people he loves most. Noona’s Dad begs his wife to visit the Seo residence for a cookout - he is eager to spend time with his old friends again. Regina concedes, and Noona sends Yongbok to take a shower.
Chapter Nineteen - ???
Chapter Twenty - The Seo mansion is packed with people; Family, Dad says. Karina pulls an injured Noona through a quick tour of the house to her impressive bedroom. Karina’s bodyguard Jackson makes an appearance. Changbin shows up to the barbecue looking very tired. Noona promises a wild night.
Chapter Twenty One - Sneak Peek
In this chapter, Changbin tries to stay engaged with his party guests - but he keeps slipping into unpleasant memories.
“...and so he’ll be out in a year. Tops.”
Police Captain Lee Jihoon struts around my Uncle’s office like a preening cock. He’s come to the Church to tell us that he, with his almighty power and silver-tongued persuasion, has devised a plan to release my Pops from the pen. It doesn’t make sense to me - he’s the prick that put him there in the first place –
“You’re really going to do this?” Uncle Yunho asks, his face a blank, bored mask during the presentation. “You’re ‘the man that slayed the Dragon’. If Yongsun’s conviction is overturned, what does that mean for you?”
Jihoon leans over the edge of the heavy oak desk, an icy sparkle in his blue eyes. I think he looks like Satan himself, Hitler’s Lebensborn down to the blond buzzcut. In any other setting, Felix’s father would be terrifying - an immovable, immutable authority, probably why he’s been so successful as a fucking pig - but in here, he’s nothing, nobody. I love to see it.
His nearly six-foot frame is dwarfed by present company - the Bull, even when seated, towers over Jihoon’s pretentious ass. The Captain cocks his head to the side without looking at me. “You sure you want to talk about this in front of the kid?”
Maybe he can feel the needles I’m sliding into his eyeballs in my mind. Being in the same room with this man makes me intensely angry. I sit silently on the couch in the corner, a witness to a conversation and nothing more, at my Uncle’s instruction.
“Do you think he’d be in the room if I didn’t?” Uncle Yunho is not someone most people will allow within arm’s reach of their necks. I can’t help but be a little impressed at Jihoon purposefully keeping his jugular so close to a fist as big as his head, considering he’s the reason our lives went to hell. Yunho gently places his cigar-bearing hand on Jihoon’s police badge, ashes falling on the shiny metal of his name plate, and flicks it with his fingernail. “Don’t waste my time with stupid questions, Captain.”
The title is verbally sour; I can feel the disgust expressed from Yunho’s tongue. My Uncle leans back in his massive office chair, obscuring his face in the cigar smoke permeating the air. Lee Jihoon frowns as he brushes the debris from his navy lapel, smudging gray streaks around the badge.
“Kids are stupid and weak, Bull,” the Captain responds calmly, as if he was never touched. “You know how easy it is to get information out of them.” He gathers his keys and gun (magazine cleared) from the desk, preparing to leave for a press conference or something. “Just keep your end of the deal, Seo. And Changbin… don’t slip up. I’ll know if you tell your friends -
my son can’t keep a secret to save his fuckin’ life.”
Hi everybody, I posted the new chapter on AO3 last night :)
O Serpent Heart - Chapter 22
Tiny, freezing fingers sneak down the back of my pants, palm cupping my bare ass hidden in the folds of the lawn chair. “Bok, no!” I hiss - a touch of his slick tongue to my earlobe and my brain feels foggy, like my conscience is speaking in a garbled muffle, like it's being suffocated beneath a pillow. “We can't! My lipstick will get all over your –”
“Wipe it off,” he begs, breath hot on my skin. “Please, Noona. It's just one kiss, just for a second, right over there. I've been good all night.” Incredible how he can lie with a straight face. The hand in my pants squeezes adamantly, a stark reminder of his behavior all weekend.
Our parents are supposed to be in the mansion presently. That doesn't mean they are; truthfully, they could be walking down the trail toward us right now and we'd be none the wiser. What my sweet boyfriend is proposing - venturing into the pine woods, in the dead of night, for what I'm sure will turn into more than ‘one kiss’ - is dangerous in so many ways. Not to mention, we'd be leaving Winter by herself to tend the fire pit, which is something I'm certain is a bad idea.
“No, Yongbok,” I decide firmly. He protests as I pull his hand from my pants, head buried angrily in my neck, but I have to put my foot down. “I am a million percent serious right now. It’s not safe here, not even for kissing. Stop it.”
“Okay, but,” Bokkie leans back to argue entirely too loudly, startling Winter into a shielded crouch, “I really have to pee, Noona, and - and I can’t go in the woods by myself! There’s all kinds of scary things out there! What if a bear gets me? Just come keep watch –”
This little shit.
“Lee Yongbok,” I whisper harshly, threading my fingers through the curls at the base of his skull, “I need you to behave. When we get home, you can touch me however you want.” His hips jerk into my stomach, those precious brown eyes widening. “I promise. But here - there are worse things in these woods than bears, Bok. There’s a Bull, there’s a Dragon –”
“There’s a t-tiger,” Winter adds, somehow standing directly at my right elbow, pale as a ghost.
“What?! You - I - we can’t talk about it, Changbin!” Noona punches my arm solidly. “It’s a secret! I can’t believe Bokkie told you, that little –”
“He didn’t tell me, actually,” I admit, handing her a beer from the cooler at my feet - mostly to occupy her hands. “I heard it from, uh, Kim Seungmin earlier.”
“Kim - Seungmin? I… I’m going to strangle Yongbok.” She wrenches her bottle cap off instead of hitting me. Nice. “No, I’m going to murder all of you gossiping little voyeurs, but I’ll start with Yongbok. I don’t care what you heard, Bin. Forget every word of it, right now.”
Usually, I only believe about half of the shit that comes out of Lee Felix’s mouth anyway. When he suddenly started boasting about sexual experiences with an ‘older girl’, l wrote it off as a teen boy’s fantasy - especially when the ‘older girl’ started to sound exactly like his sister. He never would tell us the chick’s name, you know, which didn’t make it much more convincing, but he swore we’d finally meet her at his birthday party.
In walked Sexy Noona, wearing that skin-tight dress from Wet Seal with her mom’s stripper heels, and Felix, wearing a smug grin with his hand up her fuckin’ skirt. Chan and I thought we were hallucinating, possibly ate the wrong brownies; or maybe his sister was acting like a slut to humor the kid, help him look cool in front of his homies; any situation was more likely than what we were witnessing.
Later that night, Sexy Noona screwed my cousin and let her little brother watch. With Karina being the conniving demon she is, I believe even less of what she boasts, but this time she confirmed what Channie’s been telling me for a while now - there’s something wrong with Noona.
Despite being the girl next door, our ‘normal’ big sis turned out to be just as fucked up as the rest of us.
Tonight, Yongbok flirts with homicide... and Winter has a big mouth.
“This is the best steak I have ever had in my entire life! Damn!”
Noona’s opinion is met with enthusiastic nodding, most of the raucous party’s mouths too full to echo her statement, though she’s absolutely correct - even on Dad’s best days, our backyard grill has never produced such a succulent spread; a carnivore’s dream, dipped and smothered in combinations of flavors my adolescent tongue has never dreamt of.
Johnny waves a pair of tongs from the fire pit, floral apron tied just below the Glock tucked in the back of his belt. “My mama taught me good, right?” That’s an understatement. For the first time this weekend, I’m choosing to use my hands for something other than touching my sister. Noona sits happily at my side, ankles intertwined beneath the picnic table, shoveling brisket into her mouth with sticky fingers. Ugh, she’s so cute.
“Oh, puh-lease,” Jackson smirks at his brother’s side, flipping a spatula with one hand, “you should see what I can do with a king crab. Come by the restaurant before you leave tomorrow; I’ll make you something special.”
“Definitely,” Noona agrees with a sloppy grin, honey barbecue sauce on her cheek, and I feel a sudden urge to shove Jackson directly into the flaming coals. Cocky motherfucker wouldn't be so handsome with his eyes melted shut. I push my giant plate of poisoned barbecue away, disgusted.
Noona is leaving me tomorrow. Again. A miserable anxiety has been building since we woke up this morning, the knot in my chest getting tighter the higher the sun rose. Now that it’s set, constellations of stars clear above our heads, I feel sicker than ever. We don’t have much time left. I just want to go home, to be alone with her, for as long as I possibly can.
My Noona bonks into my shoulder playfully, snapping me out of my depressive musing. “Mariscos is kind of expensive for a college student… What do you say, Bokbok? Will you take me on a date tomorrow?”
She pouts her lips, like she even needed to ask - I’m nodding my head vigorously before her question is completely finished. That’s actually a great idea. I’ve never been alone with Noona at a fancy restaurant before, and I’ve got more than enough allowance money to pay for it all myself, like a real date. Did she mean it like that? Could we hold hands at the table? Could we act like a c–
In the middle of my daydream, the picnic table rocks with a mighty force as Seo Yunho seats his massive ass directly beside mine, bouncing every person on the bench about five inches in the air at once. Seungmin, unlucky enough to be on the end, flies off into the bushes with a glazed rib in each fist.
“A date, huh?” the Bull snorts. The man is so big, I’m folded up under his arm like an umbrella, trying to make myself impossibly smaller. Noona scoots over as much as she can, but Chan’s on her other side, taking up more space than necessary with his elbows on the cedar wood. We’re stuck. “I thought you and Karina were a thing. You just fucking her in your free time?”
“What?!” Several voices cry out at the same time, including mine, embarrassingly high pitched. All of my so-called friends are laughing hysterically, except Seungmin, who is still in the bushes, chomping away. Dad’s eyebrows fly into his hairline but he’s doing that thing where he pretends not to hear what he just heard. Across the table, Karina blows dramatic kisses to my startled Noona, who slaps around blindly until she finds my balled up fist beneath the table. I can feel my brain shiver at her touch, the nice thoughts of our day tomorrow scattering into a mess of angry fireworks right behind my eyes.
“No, we are not a ‘thing’!” Noona says firmly, pounding her free hand on the tabletop, right next to the dinner rolls. “What did you tell him, Karina?!”
“Only that I met the love of my life, babygirl,” Satan hisses gleefully, with her narrowed eyes locked on my face, waiting for my reaction. Noona’s hand squeezes my fist desperately; I return Karina’s stare and vividly imagine stabbing this Laguiole steak knife right through her windpipe –
Yunho laughs so hard the cups shake on the table. Dad studies his beer label, seemingly very interested in the ingredients. Our gossip-loving Mom, who is visibly enthralled by the turn of conversation, piles yet more mashed potatoes on Winter’s towering plate. As I saw through the spinal cord, Winter chirps, “But, I thought Unnie was d-dating Channie-oppa?”
Karina’s beheading is interrupted by a cacophony of wicked cackling and an intense hatred for my beloved Chan hyung, who has stopped mid-bite with his mouth open, confused. “No, I’m - we’re not - what?”
“Well, you’re always n-nice to her,” Winter scowls, like the party’s laughter is offensive, “and this morning, you s-said you found her p-panties on your desk –”
The smallest Seo yelps, very obviously kicked beneath the table by at least one boot, but I don’t buy her innocent, teary eyes one fucking bit - she’s a demon, just like her sister. Winter knows exactly who took Noona’s panties off in Chan’s room last night. She’s been following us around, slinking just out of sight in the shadows since we got here, pretending not to watch me grope all over my girlfriend. Nothing but a family of freaks.
