hotel blue moon | 8
“Why are you all angry again?”
“Mago. What else?”
"Just Mago? It had nothing to do with that author? Again?"
part 1 | part 7 | read on page (not for the mobile app, but prettier)
a/n: spoiler alert for episode 13 and 14, so im putting those under the cut!
since the newest revelations kiiind of broke my plot (which tbf is what i get for writing fic while the show is ongoing), let’s say we’re officially in au territory and nurse park isn’t moonyoung’s mom. cool? cool
also, for those who haven’t watched hotel del luna (obviously spoilers for hotel del luna ahead), mago is a god-like figure who does... stuff... and knows fate and stuff... and the tree is connected to the hotel owner’s life. if it’s dead, the hotel owner is immortal, but once it starts to bloom, the hotel owner dies when its flowers fall.
also also don’t hate me too much xo
Bastard, she thought at him as Moon Kangtae walked away. She could picture it—words from her mind gaining physical form and launching themselves at him like bullets. One “bastard” through his shoulder. One “hypocrite” in his spine. One expletive no children's author should say in his upper leg. Her hand, stretching and stretching, grabbing him by the throat, until he told her what the hell his problem was, ideally with apologies and grovelling.
She stormed back towards her car, absolutely fucking starving. Who did he think he was? He'd been flirting with her since the day they'd met. Moonyoung wasn't an idiot. The leg up hers—the wink as he walked away from her the first time—telling her Sangin had called him—the way he'd followed her out and calmed her down on that day—the way he'd stopped that man from even reaching her, then turned around and checked if she was alright, even though they hadn't made any contact—
Forget about that hotel.
If it was just a front, why had he gotten so upset over her description of the castle? That there had been fear, recognition of sorts, something that proved to her that she was right, that she had seen it, that that hotel was more than a three-storey redbrick covered in ivy, that it was—
—there.
There, in the distance, lighting up the sky. A palace. Undisguised by the rain, lighting up every drop of water. A palace she had never seen before, but one she had, hadn't she? Forget about that dream? Well, it was no dream, and nothing Moon Kangtae told her to forget would fool her now.
She turned around and walked toward Hotel Blue Moon.
When Kangtae had returned to the hotel from Hwaseong, the hotel's tree had been alive with leaves.
Just little buds that barely brought greenery to it, but—it was more alive than it had been in the last many, many, many years. And that might have been enough to scare him, but.
But then she had called, and he had gone, content to pretend the tree coming alive had nothing to do with the first person he had spoken to more than once in the years he'd been running the hotel.
It could be anything, he had reasoned.
But Mago—her he couldn't trust. A flower because she was pretty? If he didn't know what she was, he would have tried to crush her right there, throw her out of their sight, stop her interrupting the few hours of pleasure and entertainment and—moon forbid—relaxation he found once in a century or so.
By the time he reached his car, having taken the roundabout way to avoid running into her again on the way there, the moon had risen, and he could see the hotel shining past the other buildings, its crescent moon brighter than the moon itself, its towers taller than any other building in that direction. That was his hotel. A ghost light, shining ever-present on the skyline, always following him, always just there.
She had seen it. The short description of the palace had been enough to prove that; there was no way she would assume it resembled a palace otherwise, rather than those modern glass buildings that every other hotel in the city was.
He passed by two ghosts walking toward the hotel, one drenched and damp with eyes turned to the hotel like it was a beacon, the other with sockets in place of eyes—both a pallid blue that looked like death. He clenched his jaw and drove on. That was the problem. Kangtae rather liked Ko Moonyoung as she was. Pretty, and dangerous, and able to keep up with him... and alive. Human. So decidedly far away from his world, despite the way they had met, despite the ghost that had tried to pay him for revenge upon her. He would rather like, he thought, for her to stay that way.
So—no more meeting her, he supposed. Not if Mago was interfering, not if she could somehow see the hotel, if just in her dreams.
Not that it mattered. Ko Moonyoung was a human; Kangtae was the owner of Hotel Blue Moon. It had never been anything more than a little flirtation.
He stormed into the hotel angrier than the rain outside, and shouldered past when Jaesu tried to speak to him. He was in no fucking mood. The elevator took him to the top floor, and he grabbed one of his glass bottles before he strode onto the balcony. The rain itself shook around him.
Jaesu found him a few minutes later. "Why are you all angry again?" he asked—truly a man who didn't fear for his life. He tended to jump whenever one of the more gruesome ghosts came up to him, but he wasn't afraid of the one that could truly kill him. Kangtae scoffed.
"Mago," he answered, knocking back his drink. "What else?"
Jaesu crossed his arms. "Just Mago? It had nothing to do with that author? Again?" Kangtae ignored him, balancing his glass on the railing of the balcony and pouring himself another. "That writer means trouble, Mr. Moon. First you fought that ghost, and now the tr—" he cut off abruptly, apparently realising that he was treading on very, very thin ice.
Kangtae had nearly let someone drown in a frozen river once.
"Jaesu," Kangtae said, putting his drink away and glaring at him. "Stay out of what you don't know." He looked down to the ground, to the two ghosts just stumbling into the hotel, one in blue and one in a fluttering cream. "This has nothing to do with—" he started, and then stopped, looking down.
Cream. Like two balloons around her arms. She'd hovered so close to him the end of her skirt had brushed against his thighs. We match, she'd said.
All ghosts were blue from a distance.
The woman in cream grabbed the ghost's arm, and then both froze.
He was running downstairs before he realised, shoving past guests that tried to speak to him and the odd staff member that watched. This was his hotel—the stairs listened to him, moving faster than the elevators would, flying him through the levels until he was finally, finally, at ground, past the lobby, and outside.
Outside, where the blue ghost had her palms around Ko Moonyoung's shoulders. Moonyoung was a leaf in the wind, something resembling whimpers leaving her throat, as the ghost felt upwards and upwards, until her hands were at her neck and pressing, pressing.
Kangtae shoved the ghost away, nearly enough force to destroy her entirely. She stumbled away, hands scrambling for purchase, pits where her eyes should be, but he didn't care. Moonyoung fell, knees giving with the grip of the ghost on her, and he caught her, his arms around her, hints of blue around her shoulders and throat. Someone was shouting her name—maybe it was him.
Her eyes opened, finally, lucidity and recognition shining through. He could see the moon in them.
She said, "My lifejacket."
And then she went limp in his arms.
In the distance, Mago stood, basket of flowers in her hand