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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?

the-fallen-blue

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."

secondtolastrow

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.”

the-fallen-blue

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."

secondtolastrow

“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.

serpentbeardwrites

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.

secondtolastrow

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.”

frozenwolftemplar

"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.

secondtolastrow

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.

the-fallen-blue

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.

secondtolastrow

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.”

the-fallen-blue

Zoey wouldn't have expected Technotronic from Celine— she seems like more of a belty pop karaoke sort of woman, or maybe some kind of croony rock ballad— but it's definitely an excellent party song. They're barely into the first chorus when Zoey finds herself shouting along, and by the second chorus, she has to put down her drink or risk spilling it with her hopping and sliding.

Mira gives her a look of fond fascination, and Zoey grabs her hands and drags her up from the couch and over to Rumi and Celine. Rumi takes the hint faster than Mira, copying her Italian stomp and freestyle arm pumping even at the cost of dropping lyrics, and oh.

Oh no.

Rumi is strong, and kind, and incredibly competent, and absolutely gorgeous, and so achingly earnest, and full of random fascinating quirks like eating like a weird snake with no gag reflex, and that was bad enough. Zoey was not prepared to learn that she is also a shameless dork, throwing herself gamely and with clear delight into butchering both the English language and the art of techno dancing—

Zoey is distracted from the perfect woman by the other perfect woman, who makes an undignified snort at their antics and then breaks out into dance, actual dance, skilled and fluid and perfectly on beat and what the hell did she just work a drop in there and bounce back up, Zoey knew guys back in Burbank who did break dance five nights a week on a cardboard box who would kill to move the way that Mira is moving right now, and Minji is cheering and Miyeong is whooping, and Zoey throws her arm around Celine's waist for the last chorus and makes her jump with her because Mira is perfect and Rumi is perfect and the food and the music and the SoCal special mixed drinks and the grown-ups and the magpie spirit laughing her head off from the top corner of the TV it's all perfect, and that energy has to go somewhere, and the first couple hops almost take them both to the floor but then Celine gets it and jumps with her until the song runs out.

And then Zoey does collapse, mostly into Mira, who catches her with a little oof and sets her upright with way too much poise and coordination, and Zoey declares, indignant, "Some of you are way too sober, let's play a drinking game!"

frozenwolftemplar

(this update brought to you by @grundpfeiler who tumblr has barred the door against for some reason)

At the words "drinking Game" Miyeong knew she was in trouble. She had been in trouble for awhile - ever since her body had realized that she had a beautiful woman in her bed every single night and another one outside her bedroom door- but now she was truly deep deepin trouble.

secondtolastrow

Unfortunately, they spend enough time talking for the bird to think of an idea, as both Zoey and Celine turn to the sound of its shuffling. Celine makes a face, but Zoey grins.

“Never Have I Ever,” she says, already falling into laughter at her own joke, “been born in Korea.”

Rumi tilts her head, earnestly confused. “Yes?”

Combined with a chance meeting of Miyeong’s eyes, that’s enough to get Minji cackling again—thankfully, Mira takes over explaining the game while Celine goes and gets them glasses.

“You say something you’ve never done, and if anyone else has done it, they drink,” she says. “So if Zoey said that, I’d drink and those two and, uh…”

“I would,” Celine says as she walks back. “My adoptive parents are French, but I was born here. And Rumi-nim, technically, though Jeju was more of a conquered territory at the time.”

“It’s an all arounder,” Zoey cheers, pumping her fist.

Celine sets glass after glass down, somehow having balanced them almost magically in the fingers of one hand, with a bottle in the other. “Usually you have a given number of shots, but we only have so many glasses, so it seems to make sense to put a finger down for every drink taken.”

“You,” Miyeong tells her, taking the bottle the moment the first drink is poured and tugging Celine off her feet as she takes over, “are exactly the too-sober one Zoey was talking about.”

(In spite of this, she doesn’t fill their glasses over-generously, which Minji is sure she’ll be grateful for in the morning.)

“So if I wanted to do something targeted, I could say, like, never have I ever had purple hair,” Zoey explains. “But that would be kind of mean.”

“No, it would not. I am the least capable of intoxication, and thus if only makes sense to target me,” Rumi argues, sweetheart that she is.

“So drink,” Minji says, hoping the joke lands but already wincing at the too-harsh sound of it out of her mouth.

Gamely, Rumi smiles anyway and takes her first drink, letting Celine refill it for her.

the-fallen-blue

Minji watches Celine sit two rounds ("Never have I ever had a dog," "Never have I ever shoplifted even as a dumb rebellious teenager yes I'm looking at you Miyeong"), and then the shaman leans over and says something very quietly in Miyeong's ear.

(This is likely made easier by the fact that she's supporting at least a third of Miyeong's weight, at the moment.)

Minji reads lips fairly well— it's always been a good party trick— but Celine is a little obscured from this angle, and Minji's take, is there anything I can bring you that you can eat, is at least half guess. Miyeong's response, after a moment of staring at Celine like she's being extremely unfair, is much more drunken, and thus just loud enough for Minji to pick it up, "… there's instant ramyeon in the cupboard?"

And so by the time Rumi says, thoughtfully, "Never have I ever driven a car," Celine is gently extracting herself from Miyeong's weight and, with the most obligatory possible apologetic bow, excusing herself to the kitchen.

Minji is much too drunk to be doing this, but she follows, anyway.

"I'm much too drunk to be doing this," she warns Celine, hopefully more aware of her volume than Miyeong had been, as Celine starts a pot of water boiling. "But. The whole 'stepping on Miyeong's boundaries without knowing it' thing was... shit. I don't want to do it again."

Celine folds her arms and leans against the counter, patiently.

"You drank, with me, when we'd barely known each other a day," says Minji, assembling the evidence for her own sake more than Celine's. "You're drinking tonight. And I know you care if Miyeong eats. But you timed that to avoid that last shot."

Celine tips her head slightly, acknowledgement. "I do drink. I do not get drunk, anymore."

"Okay," says Minji.

She stares at the pot, trying to put a conversation together through the shifting, floating distraction of her pickled brain, and Celine continues to stand there nearby, quietly unmoving, like a very pretty, very patient kitchen appliance.

"… hard rule, then? Uh. Trust thing? Like Miyeong?"

"It's not a question of trust, but of responsibility," says Celine. She gestures, indicating the noodles, waiting on the counter for the water to boil. "If we were all drunk, who would make sure Miyeong gets dinner?"

It's not a yes, on the hard rule. Minji closes her eyes, buries her hands in the front pocket of her stolen sweatshirt, and tries very hard to wrangle the thought. It's not a no, either. It's an evasion? She doesn't want to talk about it. That means Minji doesn't have enough information. Lack of information means guessing, which means harm. That means treat it as a hard rule, regardless.

So she doesn't make Celine drink past her tolerance. Easy. She doesn't let other people try to make her, either. Harder. Snapping turtles can't defend without biting, and Celine probably doesn't want Zoey or Miyeong bit. Almost certainly. Neither does Minji, for that matter. It's not her place, anyway. Celine isn't hers, the way Miyeong is. They've only known each other a few weeks.

The thought catches, somehow. Minji watches the other woman, as she dumps a square of Neoguri noodles into the water, and tries to work her way through it. "You take care of everyone else."

Celine nods, absently, and starts tearing open the flavor packet.

"Who takes care of you?"

Celine goes still, over the stove, the paper half-torn in her hands, shoulders just a little hunched, and Minji shouldn't be able to see it. Minji finds body language opaque on a good day and her eyes feel like they're crossing from the alcohol and Celine just reacted strongly enough that even she could see it.

And then the shaman just… adjusts, and goes loose and calm again, and Minji could almost believe she made the whole thing up in a drunken stupor. "Also me," Celine answers, easily. "They do say self-sufficiency is a virtue."

"Sounds lonely," Minji says.

Celine just pours the noodles into a bowl and turns toward the sitting room. "Let's feed Miyeong, hm?"

secondtolastrow

Everyone drinks for driving, though Mira suspects that everyone else has gotten their licenses—which gives her a great idea for what to say to get… well, Zoey and Miyeong, since Minji and Celine have walked off to the kitchen.

“Should we make them drink when they come back?” Zoey asks, looking like this is somehow of grave importance. She’s also kind of flushed, underneath her freckles, and Mira’s thinking some truly stupid shit about what she could do with her two hands because she looks really cute that way.

“No,” Rumi says, equally seriously. It’s possible that Mira has a type. An incredibly specific type. “A game is no fun if one is forced to play it.”

Which… doesn’t exactly make sense, seeing as they’re all being forced to play at the spirit’s whims, but since Celine’s been nursing the same beer all night, Mira’s not going to argue with letting her stay sober.

She wonders if Rumi said that to target the spirit, or if she was just trying to avoid pointing Celine’s behavior out (especially with this morning), or if it really was guileless.

She doesn’t come to any real conclusions, not when they’re all looking at her expectantly and Mira realizes she’s probably been zoning out. “Never have I ever had a driver’s license.”

“Wha—oh, screw you!” Zoey declares, and takes her shot.

“And why were you driving?” Miyeong asks, after doing the same.

Mira shrugs. “I stole my mother’s car to try to run away one time. Ran into a telephone pole and she promised me I’d never be allowed to learn how to do it right.”

It wasn’t even one of the cars her mother liked. Mira had made certain of that before she took it, even if her mother had done her best to convince her otherwise afterward.

Miyeong snorts, instead of any of the awkward expressions of sympathy Mira was bracing for. “I dated a cop once. I swear, he used to stalk all of my friends’ records for stuff like that. Uh… never have I ever… taken classes in a foreign language?”

Zoey sticks her tongue out about it, but Mira has to drink too (years of English and Japanese lessons).

Rumi hesitates, hand over her glass. “What do you mean by ‘foreign’?”

Miyeong frowns back at her, and she elaborates:

“My home had its own language in my youth, which is the only other one I speak, though I never took formal lessons to learn it, only in such crafts as poetry.”

Which is the point when Mira remembers that Jejuan is a thing.

“Jejuan isn’t, like, extinct,” she says, overlapping with Miyeong’s firm “Drink.”

And so Rumi takes her shot, and Miyeong refills everyone’s glasses, and turns to where Minji and Celine are returning from the kitchen with such delight that—

Well, they all have two hands, Mira figures, and some thread of drunken logic decides that if it’s okay for them, with Miyeong looking like a flower turning towards the fucking sun at Celine and Minji as she takes her bowl of ramyeon, then maybe maybe it might be okay for her too.

the-fallen-blue

"Extinct," Rumi says, the way she does when she thinks a word might not mean what she thinks it should, as Minji and Celine make their way to the loveseat. "Do you mean to say that Jejuan is still spoken?"

"Not widely." Celine joins the conversation, forced to perch on the arm of the loveseat due to Minji appropriating her previous spot next to Miyeong. She makes it look very elegant, which Minji decides to attribute to her sobriety for the sake of her own sanity. "Enough, though, that I can use it for a discount at the right stalls at market."

"Mudang-nim, you speak Jejuan," says Rumi, not even quite a question, mostly just wide-eyed awe. A hazy, muddled study drifts through Minji's memory, something about native languages and patient outcomes, but the connection doesn't click, so Minji lets it go.

"I wouldn't say fluently," Celine demurs, "but it's part of my order's training."

"Okay," says Zoey, suspicious, "but do you mean, actually not fluently, or do you mean like how you 'don't speak English fluently'."

Celine blinks at her. "I… would consider my proficiency in the two comparable, I suppose."

Zoey flops her head down on Rumi's shoulder. "Yeah say whatever you want to her, she'll get it."

Rumi doesn't respond to that, other than to go very pink, which is very cute.

Miyeong puts down her bowl— did she finish that inhumanly fast or is Minji just too drunk to know what time is anymore?— and drags them back on track. "Never have I ever punched a man."

Rumi drinks immediately and unsurprisingly. Mira asks, "Does it have to have landed properly?"

"Attempts count."

Mira salutes with her glass. "To Kunwoo then, the shithead, who I did at least successfully bite before our parents separated us."

And then Miyeong is saying to Minji— who's quietly and casually placing her empty glass back down on the table, like that could possibly prevent Miyeong from noticing— "Easy score on the martial artist, huh."

Minji makes a thoughtful, drunk little huh. She could take the out, probably should. But it's Miyeong, asking, so… "I was actually thinking about when I got kicked out of the Cherry Blossom, but I guess sparring counts too."

"You tried to start a bar fight?!" repeats Miyeong, doing a very poor job of sounding more scandalized than delighted.

Minji looks up, belatedly noticing all eyes are now on her, and very deliberately looks back down at her shot glass. "You don't remember? The tech bro, what was his name, Seongjin maybe? Right after you broke up with him. I think you were at the bar? In the bathroom? Sieun tried to politely explain that fuck off means fuck off not come to my favorite bar looking for me but he tried to push past us. So I explained less politely."

Miyeong stares at Minji until Minji looks back up at her under the pressure of that gaze.

"That's why you left halfway through Hyeonju's promotion party!?"

"Oh, it was her party, wasn't it—"

Miyeong's hand on the side of her face shuts her down like a TV with a pulled plug, words gone, thoughts gone, nothing but the warmth on her jaw, the faint stroke of a thumb along the apple of her cheek, Miyeong's eyes, so dark, so close—

Miyeong's lips are on hers, Miyeong is kissing her, and Minji's whole body surges forward to kiss back. It's drunk, sloppy, Minji reacting on a half-second delay, Miyeong's bottom lip chapped and it tastes like six kinds of alcohol, and it's the most inevitable, wonderful thing Minji has ever felt, warm and soft and right, a key turning perfect in a lock or a Lego piece clicking into place, some offset mechanism in Minji's heart that she never even realized was loose sliding suddenly home.

Somebody whoops, there's a giggly cheer, and Minji and Miyeong are looking at each other again, breathing the same breath, Miyeong's hand is on Minji's shoulder, Minji's hand is in Miyeong's hair. The last seven years of Minji's life flip themselves slowly upside down as she looks at Miyeong, her wide, reckless smile, the wide blown dark of her eyes. Features so familiar she could trace them in her sleep, and yet somehow it feels like Minji's never actually seen her before this moment.

And then Rumi says something, and Minji does not speak Jejuan, but she thinks it sounds very much like a curse.

secondtolastrow

Rumi is on her feet. Rumi is on her feet and the air is not in her lungs and she does not know what to do but she does know that she cannot allow an act such as—an act of such—a violence akin to—

She cannot allow—

(Miyeong-nim is kind and clever and so much better than she has been made to think.)

(Minji-nim is caring and strong and so incredibly steady in spite of the violence that has been done unto her entire world.)

The room is staring at her. Rumi has had many rooms staring at her.

(There are lusts that have rooted themselves beneath Rumi’s skin, things that she cannot burn out, but she does not allow them to rule her. She cannot allow her companions to lapse, either.)

She forces her tongue to shape itself to Korean. Simple things. Straightforward words that she knows well. “Get away from her.”

She watches. Blankness falls over Minji-nim’s expression. Miyeong-nim’s hand squeezes tighter on her shoulder.

“Get away. Stop touching her,” she says. Her chest feels tight. Like she is drawing her first blood all over again, throwing herself in front of Chaeyoung with nothing but the knowledge that she could not allow someone to hurt her friend.

“Rumi,” someone says, Mira says, and Rumi does not understand why she is being treated as if she is overreacting, but she knows she is not.

She is a blunt instrument, but a necessary one. If she is too aggressive now, she can make amends later. But she cannot allow someone to do harm in her presence.

“Get away from her,” she repeats, and this time Miyeong-nim finally listens. “I do not know if you did this from—from a misplaced sense of gratitude or from something worse, but you will not do that again.”

Miyeong-nim looks at her and smiles, a blatantly false thing. “Do what, exactly?”

Something shudders up Rumi’s spine, angry and alive. “Kiss her. Touch her. Nor any other woman for that matter.”

“Oh, shit,” Zoey says, softly, almost to herself, and Rumi doesn’t really look away as she looks over to see the fact that she’s looking at Rumi, the fact that Mira is looking at her with a resigned kind of hollowness in her expression.

“Rumi-nim,” the honored shaman says slowly. “I believe there has been some misunderstanding.”

“I’m sure,” Minji-nim agrees, her voice quiet and tight and she is also looking at Rumi. “What, exactly, was your issue?”

grundpfeiler

Miyeong knew the tone that Minji asked the question in and also knew that Rumi would not hear the true question: "Why am I not seeing what I am seeing?"

Minji had been angry already, the scaffolding she kept to announce her emotions to the world, to communicate falling away, ephermal constructs fading away as Minji stopped caring about passing as normal. The practiced posture - a historical reenactor performing behaviors they didn't truly understand - traded for adrenaline born tenseness. muscles kept from becoming loaded springs only by forced calm. And that Minji had listened to Miyeong's silent plea to not escalate.

(Miyeong should be signaling Minji to stand down. She couldn't find the words.)

And now Minji was asking a final measure to the world: "Is there anything I am missing?"

It did happen. One family coming in with a teen covered in bruising from the parents - because they had gone into a sudden seizure and holding them down was the better option to the teen falling off the side of a mountain to their death.

Or much more frequently someone - sometimes Miyeong herself - came alongside Minji to catch her up on a social nuance she missed.

Miyeong felt Minji's eyes on her for three heartbeats. She should speak, there must be a reason. A good one. Rumi wasn't hateful like this.

Miyeong couldn't speak or meet Minji's gaze.

Rumi answered first - and the turtle's jaws opened.

"You treat people Minji-nim. You know that it's inherently harmful-"

Minji laughed, dark and cruel. Miyeong recognized the tactic, though not in this register or tone. Minji sometimes laughter to force someone to stop talking and buy herself a few final fleeting seconds to lock down her own words. To lock down the angle of the scalping turtle's bite.

"You sound remarkably like the parents that come to the ER sometimes. The ones that are trying to make the fact they beat their kid half to death reasonable." Miyeong didn't look but the already tense silence of the room tightened.

Minji could and did muddle simple conversations sometimes. Occasions where she got a sentence wrong and springed onto a different interpretation. But those incidents were not for lack of studying people. Nevermind that Minji's thumb was tapping her fingertips, no longer interested in hiding, Minji knew what response she was after.

"What two consenting adults do is their own damn business as long as none gets hurt and no one is coerced."

Miyeong felt herself cringe - as she suddenly remembered Minji's sleeping arrangement with her, and that Minji was forced to stay at Miyeong's apartment because that was where the demon defenses were.

"Neither Miyeong or I are so drunk we don't have our faculties. And I don't think you would have raised an eyebrow if one is were a man."

Rumi opened her mouth to speak and Minji bore down.

"I don't care why you said that. The same way I don't care that when they beat left handed children for writing with their left hand it was 'for the soul of the child.'" Miyeong heard the mocking, cruel smile Minji wore. They had worked together on designing that smile - some bully attempting to go after Minji for an instance of social confusion out of work.

"Or that when they put the hot poker to children who couldn't look anyone in the eye it was to convince faeries to bring the "normal" child that had never existed back." Children like me Minji didn't say.

Miyeong finally looked up - seeing horror in the back of Rumi's eyes as the woman stood ramrod straight.

"I care that you are a bigot in the same mold as those who kick their kids out into the streets. And then the kids end up at my hospital - some missing fingers or toes from exposure, others addicted to drugs for energy, warmth or to numb the pain from an infection that's slowly killing them. Emancipated, ribs too prominent or just beaten up. And sometimes, it's someone finding them, calling an ambulance and the ambulance waits for the doctor to pronounce them dead, and they're taken straight to the morgue. Because all help came too late.

Because so much better for the world to stay in neat tidy boxes than for a boy to dream of marrying a boy and then go and chase frogs at the creak."

Rumi proved herself smart enough to stop talking, just standing there. Minji glanced at Miyeong - taking quick inventory of her condition before turning to Celine. "Deal with this." The ER charge nurse ordered - dealing out the assignment with practiced efficiency.

Then Minji turned to Miyeong, reaching out a hand. Rumi drew a breath - but someone gave the woman a look, pinched her, or something because nothing was said. Instead the voice Miyeong heard was Minji - sounding like herself again, concern creasing her eyes and forehead.

"Miyeong, are you ready to call it a night?" Carefully toneless - with only Miyeong's knowledge of Minji herself letting her know that Minji wanted the answer to be yes.

Miyeong nodded, wanting to hide, Rumi's voice too close to memories and whispers she thought long exorcized and banished off all power.

Mira caught Miyeong's she and nodded to the bird.

Miyeong managed to force out, "Good night, honoured guest" which Minji grudgingly echoed. The crow accepted it, attention turning to the remaining four as Minji only stopped long enough to fill two large glasses of water before leading Miyeong back to th- her bedroom. At which point Miyeong set the glasses down at her bedstand and collapsed onto the bed. Just before Minji started playing the sounds of a thunderstorm as loudly as she could on her phone, turned off the light and laid a loose cloth or maybe some clothing left on the floor at the gap between door and floor to stopper sound and light from coming in.

Only when she had finished did Minji speak - apologetically. "Ah, I should have asked you before I did -"

"It's fine. You're trying to calm down aren't you?" Miyeong managed - easier to speak in the dark where Minji couldn't see her face.

"Is it?" Minji asked, stepping towards Miyeong but not sitting down.

Mi-yeong reached towards Minji's voice and felt a wrist. "Sit with me please?" She asked.

Minji obliged and Mi-yeong curled around the other woman, leaching strength from Minji's sturdy form.

"Rumi is right that I shouldn't have-" Miyeong cut herself off. Minii waited long enough for Miyeong to find the words. "You're staying in my apartment because the wards are on my place, and because demons broke into your apartment."

Miyeong felt the eye roll in the dark. "Miyeong- if I really needed to be away from here we'd call the two clean detectives for a safe house or other safe location, and then Rumi, Mira and Zoey would do a reenactment of being agile mischievous monkeys with occult knowledge. And I don't want to be away from here. I sleep next to you because I trust you, I find you comforting. And... I enjoyed the kiss." Minji finished simply, one hand held in Miyeong's hold, the other slowly threading through Miyeong's hair.

"Rumi-"

"Rumi was wrong. And she's for Celine, Zoey and Mira to figure out." Minji interrupted kindly, terribly kind. "I am making sure you are comfortable." Miyeong nodded slowly into Minji's shoulder, the calm finally settling in. It was just the two of them. Her and the guard turtle who had just reminded everyone of her bite.

Miyeong felt her lungs fully fill as the comfort of her personal guard turtle registered. The same silent promise when she felt arms wrap around her as Minji found the source enmenating warmth in her sleep.

"This is better " Mi-yeong admitted. Minji gave a gruff laugh after a pause to confirm Miyeong was done speaking. Miyeong felt the vibration absorb into her bones.

"Better than that is not a high bar." .

Minji shifted her held hand, offering more of her forearm to rest upon Miyeong's. And damnably the nurse felt more tension ease in Miyeong's posture.

"You relax with more physical contact." Not a guess at all.

"It's not a sex thing." Miyeong blurted, then stopped, feeling hot blood rush to her face.

Minji smiled - Miyeong knew the other woman was smiling, could hear it in her voice. "Mi-yeong - I have helped remove objects from orfices I am obligated to not talk about. I have given sponge baths to patients in the ICU and triaged infected bite marks in locations of anatomy neither me nor the patient wanted me to be looking at. If anyone understands that nudity doesn't unilaterally mean sex it's me." Miyeong drank in the the familiar wry amusement and the precious acceptance.

"Nudity is vulnerability." Trust neither said.

"Can we cuddle on the bed?" Miyeong asked instead. Searching for equilibrium and Minji meeting her with a stable response.

"Yes." Minji leaned back. Soon they were staring up at a black ceiling, the recorded rain and thunder drowning out any conversations from outside. All was hidden by the shadows. And Miyeong had one foot resting upon Minji's leg.

"Is there anything else I can do?" Minji asked.

Minji would give you anything but you must ask. Celine's voice echoed in Miyeong's mind.

Would you be alright removing the sweater? Miyeong asked - heart in her throat.

Minji thought about it in languid silence, body loose and relaxed next to Miyeong. "Yes, I'm okay with that." And Miyeong heard the soft overly large sweater go over Minji's head and land on the floor.

"Is there anything else?" Minji asked as she returned to Miyeong's side - the warmth of bare skin cutting through the dark.

Minji's mouth ran off with the last of the liquid courage of the night. "If you keep asking that neither of us will be wearing anything." Minji didn't immediately respond - except for her thumb tapping Miyeong's knuckles.

"I'm still angry. Any sex could possibly be partially out of spite and you deserve better than that. ... And that may have been too forward." Crisp analytical - and chased with a wince that made Miyeong smile at the well worn pattern of Minji. "But I am good with kissing, cuddling or naked cuddling."

Of course she was, Miyeong realized as the pieces clicked, the slow one this time. Minji had her pride and was terrible at asking for help. Minji saw nakedness as vulnerability and for weeks now had been sleeping next to Miyeong to ward off nightmares - and Miyeong had been present for the aftermath of every one that wasn't warded.

Minji had been vulnerable before Miyeong a long time before this.

"I am fine with those boundaries." Miyeong answered, confident enough to press a kiss to Minji's forehead.

"Hmm," Minji answered into Miyeong's neck - but Mi-yeong felt the smile. And then the sound of clothing being removed continued.

"Th-" Miyeong tried but Minji just nuzzled into her neck. "Let's just nap." Minji's voice held no bite, just warm sleepiness. "Everything looks better after a nap."

secondtolastrow

The great Rumi does not move, standing and watching Minji lead Miyeong away. A stone in a river. A woman out of time.

Celine can feel some kind of sound building in her chest, some kind of sound that she cannot make, not with Kkachi-ssi still watching and Minji’s request ringing in her ears: Deal with this.

“Good night, honored guest,” she repeats. Mira and Zoey follow suit.

The great Rumi does not speak.

Kkachi-ssi cackles as she takes flight. Good luck with this one, shaman.

Finally, her patron, her model, her idol unfreezes slightly, head shifting to look at Celine as she asks in Jejuan, “What did she call me? She said she cared, but I did not know the word.”

Bigot.

Celine wants to laugh. She wants to scream. She wants to call the woman who had shaped her life an ignorant child of an ignorant time.

“One who hates those different than them,” she answers, in the same language, before repeating the word in Korean.

The great Rumi frowns, a faint hint of something troublesome to struggle with finally making its way into her expression. She does not say anything, though, and Celine is unspeakably grateful for it.

She looks at Mira and Zoey, softening herself as much as she can, steadying herself to be able to make this right for them, wanting to apologize to Mira so desperately for having offered her— “You can go to bed, if you like. I can clean all of this up. It won’t be any trouble.”

“No,” Mira says, and rises to her feet, picking up the scattered glasses. “I want to hear this.”

Rumi flinches.

Zoey looks up at them, worrying at her fingernails, eyes wide. “Rumi, you—I’m too drunk for this but I know I wouldn’t be able to sleep without—you don’t actually think—you’ve been flirting with us since we met!”

Rumi flinches again. Harder. Pales.

“And I figured you didn’t mean it but that’s because I’m me, not because I’m—“ She makes a wide, frantic gesture, attempting to encompass her entire gender.

It’s clear she means to continue, but Rumi surges into the gap, seemingly unable to stop herself, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “I am sorry. I had thought—I hadn’t thought—I do not understand. This is not—this is a thing of taking. A violence of lust. It is not—one cannot allow—“

“Be quiet,” Celine says. Snaps, if she’s honest.

The great Rumi-nim falls silent, looking at her with frantic, confused, helpless desperation. As if Celine will offer her some reassurance that her homophobia is perfectly acceptable, and this has all been but a passing illusion.

Glass hits the counter so hard the Celine is surprised it doesn’t crack. Mira says, low and disgusted, “That, you’re sorry about. Making a girl think you were a dirty queer like her. Not attacking two people for being in love.”

“But it is not love,” Rumi says, sounding so earnest and confused that Celine can’t help but pity her as much as, in that moment, she hates her.

“Why not?” she asks, carefully very, very calm.

the-fallen-blue

"Mudang-nim," says the great Rumi, desperate, confused. "You— you are of my work, you must know. You must have seen—"

She stammers to a stop, glances over at Mira and Zoey. Struggling with the Korean, Celine realizes, but knowing how much more angry Mira would become if Rumi cut her out of her explanation.

Or, perhaps, Celine thinks to herself a little hysterically, just aware that speaking in front of someone in a language they don't know is rude, and the great Rumi is, whenever possible, unfailingly polite.

There may not be much more angry for Mira to become, anyway. The moment she realizes Rumi won't continue, she growls out, "What, Rumi? What has Celine seen that proves how sick and evil the woman who opened her home to you is?"

Rumi flinches, and turns beseeching eyes on Mira, opens her mouth, but Zoey grabs Mira's arm, first, says in quick unhappy English, "Maybe we don't make this harder for Celine?" Her eyes cut over to meet Celine's, knowing and sad. "I can't even deescalate shit like this when it isn't about me."

"Who says we need to deescalate," Mira shoots back. "We could just kick her out." But she says it in English, too, and despite her glare, she relaxes her posture just a notch, bites back any further provocation.

Who takes care of you, Minji had asked. Apparently the answer is a drunk twenty-something. Under ordinary circumstances Celine would be pretty upset about that, but right now, she'll take the win.

Rumi, her face ping-ponging back and forth between the other two with an intense furrow in her brow, like she expects to magically translate the words if she can just focus hard enough, says, carefully, "It does not— Miyeong-nim is a kind and thoughtful person, but—"

"Do not finish that sentence," Celine cuts in, and it's only barely not a snarl. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Minji asked her to deal with this. Zoey and Mira need her to deal with this. Deescalate. She was taught that skillset. She throttles her voice back to calm. "You were telling me what you've seen."

She wasn't, quite. But it's the only direction in which Celine can even guess at a shred of hope.

"I—" One last anxious glance at Mira, still glaring, and Zoey, still holding Mira's forearm in both restraint and a desperate bid for support, and then Rumi turns that so confused, so earnest expression back to her. "I hosted many, in my time. Those with no homes, or whose homes were not safe. Some among them had been namsadang. These were actors and musicians who traveled for coin and food, young men from the lowest class who left home to spare their families another mouth to feed. Boys, I should say, rather," and there's venom in it, suddenly. "Barely old enough to grow hair on their chins, those who came to us seeking shelter. The nobles who hosted them used them in this way," the confusion is gone, her whole body tightened up with anger, ready to strike. "Spent their cruel, violent lust on traveling children, and dared to condemn the boys for their own depravity. To say that the immorality was in the namsadang."

She locks eyes with Celine, angry and right back to that burning confidence, utterly sure of herself, of her righteousness. "The immorality was in themselves. In their desire to take against nature for their own satisfaction. This impulse is one of abuse, a desire to wreak unspeakable cruelty—"

Celine puts her hand up to halt the diatribe, and, remarkably, it works. Which is good. Celine could not have spoken to save all four of them.

Zoey, she thinks, still gripping Mira's arm and staring wide-eyed at Rumi, may be too young, too American, to have been taught that she was a predator. Celine hopes so. She knows Mira is not so fortunate, sees it in the way her eyes are pulled shut, the way her jaw is locked, sees the accusation Mira knows enough to reject scraping up against those she embraces, the guilt of her name, her history, the book she spent the afternoon studying, the way one wound reopens and tears into the other.

Celine cannot look away from Rumi's face, cannot close her own eyes. Her sobriety, Minji's request, two decades of duty do not permit it. So she meets Rumi's defiant gaze, reminds herself of Minji, curled up in her sweatshirt, of Miyeong, pressed up against her chest, of every woman who has passed through her office or her order's shelters, of every expression of trust in her strength and care across all her years that has built her into who she is.

And she lets herself see, for perhaps the first time, that Rumi is very far from a very different home, and very, very young.

It is not enough. But it is enough to pretend. And so Celine finds the words, asks, with a calm she does not feel, "And how did those same nobles treat the women in their care?"

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