pointed teeth || iz*one

17

The day passed with them cold, breathing in fresh frosty air that froze their insides. Hyewon got an upset stomach from eating snow and Eunbi dragged her back to the dining table to have more soup.

...

"Hey, we could all live here," Yuri said, over chips before bed.

"And be away from our parents? Don't think so," Wonyoung said. Wonyoung did love her mother and father very much.

Sakura piped up, "I could live here... but I have a job and I have to earn as an adult, so..."

"What about your parents?" Minju asked. She fed Chaewon a chip.

"I don't have any, that's why I'm from an orphanage," Sakura said curtly.

"Do you think they're still alive?" Yujin asked. It was a genuine question.

Sakura scratched her knuckle. "I don't really care."

"If you could live here, do you think you could wait for us everyday?" Hyewon asked.

"We need to graduate, Kwangbae," Sakura said.

Hyewon hummed in response.

"It's twelve, midnight, go to sleep," Eunbi said, clapping her hands as though breaking a spell.

Hitomi crumpled up the chip bag and tossed it into the wastebasket at the corner of the cabin.

"Goodnight."

"Night, guys," Yujin called out before settling into a shallow slumber beside Wonyoung.

...

Saturday rolled around faster than everyone would like.

Sakura frowned, reluctantly getting into Hyewon's car after kissing Chaeyeon bye.

"You'll see her tomorrow," Hyewon laughed out of her window, driving away.

Sakura was safe to begin work again, after many complicated made-up excuses to her boss, and after Hyewon made sure Daeman would be there to protect her from Miyun if she came, so Saturdays meant she had to go back again.

Hyewon received her paycheck. She planned to get a board game for the group tomorrow.

...

Daeman was waiting for Sakura, smoking a cigarette at the steps.

A black Honda Civic rolled around. A girl in a blue sweater and cropped dirty-blonde hair stepped out of the front passenger seat. Daeman looked up and grinned, recognising Sakura.

"Hi Daeman," she greeted, tugging down the hem of her sweater and walking up the stairs.

"Hi! So, I'm here to protect you from that make-up wearing horseface."

"Oi, Daeman!" Hyewon shouted. "Quit smoking, you're just a baby!"

"This isn't lit! I'm just chewing it to look cool!" Daeman threw down the cigarette. "And you have no rights to call me a baby, I'm only two days younger than you!"

Hyewon just snickered and drove off.

Sakura settled at the check out counter again. Daeman checked out a random book of poetry and sat on a beanbag near the counter reading it.

A little boy ran up to her with a thick book under his arm. It was a translation of Aesop's tales, and it wasn't all that big, but it looked like an encyclopedia constrasting with his height.

He grinned, showing a front tooth missing as Sakura ran the scanner over his pick.

"You'll be a smart boy," Sakura said, handing him the book over the counter and ruffling his hair.

The boy looked up at her teeth. "Are you a vampire?"

Sakura kept silent, not knowing what to say. Her hand shot up in muscle memory to cover her mouth.

"I like monsters, I want to see a werewolf someday," he continued, as though telling a story.

Sakura relaxed. "No, I'm not a vampire. I heard that there are werewolves in the deep parts of mountains, but promise me that you won't start looking for them until you're big, okay?"

He gasped happily and nodded with stars in his eyes. "Promise!" he chirped, before running off with his book.

Sakura watched as he disappeared through the automatic doors hand-in-hand with his father. Probably chattering about the werewolves in the mountains.

...

The short hand pointed at five. The long hand pointed at six. Just half an hour before Hyewon would come to pick her up.

She thought she'd make it through the day.

As predictable as it was, Miyun turned up. She had no make-up on this time. It made her look ten times scarier than what she usually looked like.

"Stay away from Hyewon. I have to get her back. Please. I'm actually begging a monster, I'm stooping this low for Hyewon."

"She never was yours. She's not mine, either. She belongs to someone else. Now get lost," Sakura spat. Miyun was taken aback.

"If you don't, I'll kill you," she hissed, with real threat lacing her voice.

"Alright," Sakura said plainly, going back to sorting the returned books.

Miyun snorted in disgust before sitting on the counter, skirt riding up again.

"Please go away," Sakura said quietly, starting to arrange them by genre.

"You talk too much!" Miyun snarled.

Sakura never remembered her hand raised, but she felt the fingernails cutting into her perfect skin and the stinging impact of her palm.

She never remembered Miyun raising the dictionary off the counter either, but she felt the bottom of its spine come down on her forehead with a heavy sound and a bright purple bruise starting to blossom.

Another two blows with the front of the heavy book across her face and Sakura was struck from her chair and on the ground, blood trickling from her nose.

Only one thought crossed her mind before she blacked out: Daeman, where are you?