But your wings belong to the devil
The boy looked taken by surprise. Unprepared. His eyes were wide by an almost unnoticeable degree, but the picture didn't fail to catch the fear and uncertainty that filled them. For some reason, I felt like I, in some strange, abstract way, knew how he felt.
All at once, it became too overwhelming. I tore my gaze away from the thumb-sized headshot and looked at the sliding glass doors instead. They were closed at the moment, but I could hear the next train approaching.
It was a mutual thing, between me and Jeongyeon. Whoever reached Bomun station first waited for the other to arrive before setting out for the ten minute long walk to school.
I slipped the photograph into my pocket as the doors glided open and the flurry of passengers left and boarded the metro. Again, no sign of Jeongyeon.
My heart dropped a bit further into my stomach.
Was she going to show up? Was she even alive? Was . . . was last night really the last time we were seeing each other?
No. I immediately denied it. It couldn't be. If I was alive, she was supposed to be, too. No reason for Taeyong to leave me untouched if he'd already harmed her, right?
Right?
I recalled what the brunet wolf-eyed man had said yesterday about how he could help me with the Taeyong issue. Forcing me to take other people's lives didn't sound like any help, though. How was it supposed to protect me against Taeyong? And becoming a part of the . . . well, the organization just made me more of a target for him, I guessed. How was any of this supposed to make sense? And even if it, in some odd, twisted way, did, even if I somehow was protected against Taeyong now, if something was hindering him from coming after me, but not Jeongyeon, did that mean . . .
No. As simple as that. I wasn't going to accept otherwise.
Sighing, I looked up at the digital clock. It was almost time for school. Unusually late of her, but it wasn't as if it'd never happened before. I was probably just worrying for no reason.
But the picture in my pocket, whose presence felt too heavy for it to be real, reminded me that I had no shortage of reasons to worry.
I drew it out again, this time staring at the reverse side. Black and bold permanent ink stared back up at me, more terrifying than the scared expression on the face of the boy, in a way.
온수동
서림동
"Onsu-dong and Seorim-dong. Place of residence and place of probable whereabouts. You'll need that."
I swallowed my saliva. He really did expect me to spend my precious money on fares and travel to the other side of the Han River to do something I didn't even have the mental or the physical capability to do.
Thing is, I couldn't tell if he was or was not right in doing so.
Fighting the urge to crumple the piece of paper, I tucked it away into my school bag this time. Maybe, if I tried hard enough to forget the entire matter, it would cease from existing.
Couple of minutes later, the double doors slid open again. I scanned the length of the platform for my friend, and a sigh of relief made its way out of my mouth when I found her stepping out of a compartment off to the left. Almost immediately, her eyes caught mine, and a hint of alleviation appeared on her face as she strode toward me. Even from distance, I could see the dark circles that indicated that she couldn't sleep last night. I couldn't, either.
"About time," I said when she got into hearing range, my voice devoid of humour, while pushing myself off the pillar my back was leaning against. "I was worried sick."
"The only one you should be worrying about," Jeongyeon threw an arm over my shoulders and shepherded us toward the stairs, "is you, dummy."
"Hey, you get to worry about me, but I don't get to worry about you?" I protested. "That's cheating!"
She gave me a side glance. "I didn't ask."
I huffed.
"You can't even take care of yourself, brat," she lectured. "You better start learning, huh."
I don't need to, I have you. The words were at the tip of my tongue when I remembered. We won't be having each other for long.
My heart clenched.
It must've showed on my face because Jeongyeon's tone was gentle when she spoke next.
"Hey," she said, concern visible in her eyes. "Just . . . live in the moment, okay? There's no use fretting about what might happen in the future."
I pressed my lips together and nodded. She was right. There wasn't much time remaining, so it was better if we made the most of what was left.
We proceeded in heavy silence after that, passing the turnstile, exiting the station and walking down the busy morning streets. Till the studio came into view, that is.
Jeongyeon glanced up at me. "Are you still gonna work for him?"
There was already so much on my mind, I'd almost forgotten about the job. For some reason, my eyes avoided the studio building. And to think that it was just yesterday that I was in it. "I really don't know. . . ."
"Taehyung." There was something unreadable in Jeongyeon's eyes. "You . . . you're still . . . considering it?"
I was. I mean, I was already under two radars. What difference was it going to make? Besides, Mr. Jung actually treated me nicely. He was even letting me work despite the fact that I hadn't ever even taken any courses in dance. And I'd already resigned from the job at the restaurant. Plus, I was coming of age next month.
"Taehyung, he . . . he might be a criminal," Jeongyeon said in a low voice. "Aren't you . . ." She looked away for a moment, seeming to be choosing her words carefully. "You can't work for him. It's dangerous."
I bit my lower lip, my gaze refusing to meet hers. How was I supposed to make her look at things from my point of view? I couldn't tell her about what had happened last night after she'd left, could I? It wasn't as if she'd be able to help me if I told her. So why burden her with my problems when she already had so much on her own plate?
Or . . . should I tell her?
"Earth to Taehyung?" Jeongyeon was waving her fingers in front of my face.
Not now, I decided. Maybe later. If the situation calls for it.
"Y-yeah, I . . ." A sigh escaped me. "I don't have much choice," I said. "I need to find somewhere to live within a month, and I need money for that."
She pursed her lips. "I told you, you can crash at my-"
"I can't, Jeongyeon," I cut her off, finally making proper eye contact. "I thought you were kidding. I can't live off you or your father."
She gave me an almost pleading look. "You can."
"I can't," I refused. "Understand, please."
Jeongyeon averted her gaze. The short silence that followed made me think that she'd given up, but she was just thinking of what to say to convince me.
"If I were in your place, I would've done it," she said slowly. "I'd rather live off others than work for someone who might be involved in some illegal shit."
Mr. Jung wasn't going to harm me in any way. But how could I tell her that?
I heaved a sigh. "I'll start job hunting again, okay?" And I decided that I would. It would be hard to find working conditions as good as what Mr. Jung was offering, but I guess it was a tiny bit better if I stayed away from him. "I'll keep this one till I find another that pays well enough." If I live long enough for that. "And when I do, I'll quit. And then I'll never have to see him again. Happy now?"
". . . not really," she sighed. "I'm telling you again, you can stay at my place."
I opened my mouth to argue, but she beat me to it.
"But I know I can't force you." Her tone was sad. "So . . . yeah, it's up to you."
She genuinely looked so worried.
Should I tell her . . . ?
"Now c'mon, we have to rush or we're gonna be late," she said and speeded up her pace.
"Yeah. . . ."
I couldn't. I couldn't tell her unless I had a way of doing it without having to explain how I knew everything in the first place.
So I just kept my mouth shut as I quickened my steps.
Wordless, as we neared the school, I got that cliché but seriously eerie feeling that we were being watched.
By more than one person.
—
I stared down at my ugly, bitten nails, my back against the corner and arms hugging my knees.
What else could I do anyway.
The approaching footsteps echoed, but I didn't look up. What I'd done wasn't something to be proud of, after all. All I wanted to do right now was disappear.
Thank goodness no one had bothered me today- yet. I would've been in a senti mood and hence more likely to weep like a crybaby pre-teen otherwise.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him seat himself on the floor in front of me. The gesture gave me a feeling that he wasn't mad at me, but I couldn't be too sure.
Again, I didn't lift my gaze. I didn't have it in me to meet his. But I could tell it was trained on my face, and it didn't seem angry in any way, which just made me feel worse. I deserved all the anger.
"It's okay to make mistakes, you know," he said gently. "You've just started learning, and you can't really follow that path without stumbling along the way."
Stumbling. Exactly what I did. I buried my face into my knees immediately.
"H-hey, there wasn't any pun intended!" he claimed hastily.
I shrunk back into the wall.
"Taehyung, I . . . I'm sorry if I-"
"Why aren't you firing me?" My voice came out small and muffled.
There was a moment of complete silence before Mr. Jung spoke again, "What?"
I didn't repeat the question. Though if I gave it a thought, losing this job wasn't entirely disadvantageous, technically speaking.
"No offense, but do you realise that that's actually ridiculous?" His tone wasn't any less gentle than before, but a bit more assertive. "I mean, even I still make mistakes sometimes. Should I fire myself?"
The urge to smile tugged at my lips, but it wasn't strong enough. "No."
"Then what makes you think I should fire you?"
"You had options better than me," I mumbled, the words indistinct to even myself.
"I didn't hear you," he said, a bit sternly. "Look at me when you speak to me."
I almost winced, not because of the firmness of his voice, but because I'd never heard it being anything besides placid and serene whenever he talked to me. Slowly, I lifted my head, but still hesitated before finally looking at him.
Any austerity in his eyes faded away when they settled on my face. "Tell me," he repeated, softly like before, "why would I fire you?"
"You had options better than me," I replied timidly.
He examined me for a moment, his brown orbs almost calculating, and I wondered what he was thinking.
"I did," he agreed. "I had better options. But I wasn't looking for skill."
My mouth hung half-open as I blinked at him. His words took a few seconds to sink in, but they did. "What were you looking for, then?"
The corners of his lips rose by the smallest degree. I don't think I would've noticed it if the vague, unknowing smile hadn't lit up his eyes, the warmth they radiated so . . . fatherly.
"Potential," he said tenderly, like the most passionate florist caressing the petal of his most beautiful blossom. "I was looking for potential."
"But . . . why?" I asked slowly.
He shrugged. "If I picked someone with skill, all I would've done is give a job to someone in need. But by choosing someone unskilled, I did that and presented an opportunity to learn and develop. Besides, a job like this is too low ranking for someone who's completed any course. That's why there weren't many applicants."
Why was he so compassionate? So welcoming, so upstanding, so pure? Why did he have to make it so hard to be wary of him?
For a moment, I considered talking to him about it - his connection to the criminal world. Perhaps he could even give me some answers. . . .
Or perhaps he couldn't. What if he didn't even know about the entire thing? And if that was the case, I wasn't willing to mention a word of it to him. Either he wouldn't believe me, or he would most probably get scared out of his wits. In the few days I'd been working with him, I noticed that he was the kind of person who gets alarmed pretty easily. I still remembered the way he'd frozen up when he'd heard my footsteps back when I'd first met him, the trepidation in his eyes when he'd turned to look at me. Almost as if he was expecting something bad. . . .
Or should I just tell him everything? Warn him so that he's extra careful?
Then it hit me.
Of course I couldn't. It was like with Jeongyeon. If I did, I'd have to tell him how I knew everything in the first place. What would he think of me then? I knew it definitely wouldn't be anything good, though it still seemed unfair to him if I kept quiet about it.
"Thank you," I finally spoke. "I know it won't be enough no matter how many times I say it, but still."
"No, thank you for showing up that day," he beamed. "It always feels nice to watch someone learn and grow. Most who come here to learn just quit after some time."
Surprisingly, I let out a small chuckle. "You should be thanking my friend, she's the one who persuaded me to try."
"Well in that case, I'd surely like to meet this friend of yours sometime," he said amiably.
"She was here with me that day, when I first came," I mentioned. The words had already left my mouth when I realised how odd it felt to talk about Jeongyeon with someone else. Maybe because I'd never really done it before. Or maybe because no one except her had ever really been interested enough to listen about me or my life.
"Oh, her," Mr. Jung uttered in realisation. "I saw you two leaving. I thought she's your . . ."
He trailed off, expecting me to catch what he'd left hanging in the air.
I blinked cluelessly. "Um, sister?"
"Girlfriend," he sighed.
". . . oh." I frowned as I gave it a thought, but I couldn't really imagine it. "But why?"
"You two seemed close," he said, lifting a shoulder casually. "Plus, I don't get why any girl would friendzone a boy like you."
I scoffed, averting my gaze. "Who would want to be with me? I'm just a big fat loser."
Weirdo.
Scum.
Orphan.
Loser.
. . . I really am all of that, aren't I?
"Hey, you're not a loser," the dark-haired man frowned. "Whomsoever said so?"
"Everyone," I murmured, still not meeting his eyes. "Everyone says so."
There was a pause as my words dawned on the atmosphere. Or perhaps he was just thinking of how to respond. It must've been a struggle, I suppose. He didn't have to go through that struggle, but yet he was. Because of me.
Words rang in my head.
Burden.
A waste of space, you are.
Just extra, unnecessary load on earth.
Of course I was. What good had I ever done to anyone anyway? And going forward- if I even did- I was just going to end and ruin lives, wasn't I?
"Did it ever cross your mind that maybe 'everyone'," I heard Mr. Jung's soothing voice, "just want to make you feel lowly of yourself because they envy you?"
A bitter chuckle somehow escaped me. "What do I even have to envy?"
"Your face," he told me. "You can easily be a model. Or maybe an actor or an idol?"
It took me a moment to reply. "I know I'm not ugly. But that's it," I said quietly. "There are so many beautiful people out there, I fade in comparison."
He let out a disbelieving laugh. "Fade? Have you ever even looked at a mirror?"
"I have, but it's not my face." I finally let my gaze return to him. "It's you. It's your eyes, your point of view. You only see the good things. But not all people are like that."
"In that case, it's the others who are at fault. Not you." I could see the sincerity on his face and hear it in his tone. "If someone can't see something so beautiful that's on full-fledged display, it's them who should feel low about it."
His words were so convincing. I wanted to believe him, but I didn't know what held me back.
Well, at least it brought a little smile on my lips.
"See, that's even more handsome!" Mr. Jung claimed, laughing. "You're gorgeous, Kim Taehyung." He paused. "No homo."
I couldn't help the snicker. It just came.
"Get a girlfriend, y'know. It's High School, after all," he said. "Ask your friend to set you up or something."
"She doesn't talk to anybody else," I told him. "Everyone at school is pretty scared of her. No idea why."
He didn't seem to think much into it. "Well, if you ask me, I can set you up. Maybe with one of the students here."
That was possible, actually. But the thought of going out with someone suddenly made me nervous. "No. . . . Not now, at least. But thanks for the offer."
"Alright, just ask me whenever."
I tried to change the subject of the conversation. "Enough about me, what about you?" The corner of my mouth lifted slightly. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
He took his time, sighing before he answered. A small but dreamy smile graced his lips as he spoke. "She's lovely. Cute, but almost irresistible. And sweet, so sweet, so caring and thoughtful. . . . So perfect. . . ."
He's a lucky one, I thought, almost wistfully.
Suddenly, his smile dropped. "Only problem is that she doesn't exist."
—
"Why are the assets and liabilities of this damned Balance Sheet not matching?" Jeongyeon groaned in despair.
I looked over at her notebook and examined the accounts. "Because you've entered all the capital receipts and payments in the Income and Expenditure Account and revenue receipts and payments in the Balance Sheet?" I provided. "It's supposed to be the other way round."
She blinked down at her assignment.
Three, two, one-
"AAARRGGHHH!!!"
A very creative array of cusses started leaving her mouth. Fortunately, there wasn't anyone else in the compartment.
"Seriously, dude, you have to have slept out all the Accounts classes the entire year to not know a rule as basic as this," I told her.
"BUT WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW!?"
I giggled. "Draw the accounts all over again, what else?"
"And you have the audacity to laugh!" she wailed. "You know how hard it is to write in a moving train!"
I shrugged helplessly. "Your fault you procrastinated."
She buried her face in her hands with another groan. "I swear, Accounts is eating away at my brain like termites."
I exhaled through my mouth. "And English is eating away at mine," I mumbled. "We gonna be the brainless buddies soon."
Jeongyeon let her hands tumble onto her work, which was resting on her lap.
"Wind up for now," I told her. "It's your stop next up."
"Yeah. . . ." she sighed, snapping her books shut before stuffing them and her other stationery into her bag.
I reached for her phone- which she, being the nutcase she was, had actually gone back to that wretched bar all alone to retrieve, with "But I went there in broad daylight!" as her puny excuse- to check the time.
11:08 PM
That was enough, I supposed. I could make the detour and be in my bed maybe a little over one o'clock, if not sooner.
What was going to happen, what I was going to do, why I was even doing this, I didn't know. But there was no way I could figure any of it out if I didn't get moving. This was a crucial first step.
"Taehyung, listen. . . ." Jeongyeon's reluctant voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I looked up at her before replying with a hum as I handed her the phone. She received it wordlessly and placed it inside the front pocket of her bag before settling her attention back on me. "I . . . I've been wanting to say something. Um . . ." I watched her bite her lower lip, her eyes going astray for a moment. "I don't . . . like it. . . . You won't, either, probably. . . ."
A bad feeling lowered the corners of my mouth by a negligible degree. "Why are you beating around the bush?"
Her gaze found its way back to my face before fixating there, and her expression fell even further when it did.
"Look. . . ." Jeongyeon hesitated, swallowing before she continued slowly. "He's . . . after us," she said. "I'm almost sure; I've been constantly getting a feeling that someone's watching."
I nodded. "Me, too."
She bobbed her head in acknowledgement. "It's dangerous. And . . . and there's the Blood Season on top of that," she told. "It's back again, it was on the news."
A sense of foreboding coursed through me. It was back? I couldn't believe my luck - just when I was being forced into traveling across the city to go around killing people, it had to make a grand comeback. Now how was I supposed to move through the localities in the dark of the night without the chances and the fear of becoming a victim of it?
But wait. . . .
". . . kill a few people within two months and try to not die yourself in the process."
What did he mean by that?
. . . try to not die . . .
Did he know that it was about to begin?
. . . within two months . . .
Every Blood Season lasted for a couple of months. . . .
. . . was it somehow . . . connected?
"What I'm trying to say is that . . ."
I put a halt to my thought process for the time being and brought my focus back to Jeongyeon. Her gaze was sombre; it held loads, a range of emotions along the lines of dolour and longing.
". . . we shouldn't meet like this anymore."
"What?" My eyebrows creased slightly, the sides of my lips dipping again.
"It's not safe anymore." She sounded nearly guilty. "I'm sorry, so sorry. But he's after us. It'll be better if-"
"But what happened to 'Just live in the moment'? 'Don't fret about the future'?" I cut her off. "We're not safe anywhere, not even our homes!"
"Tae-"
"Wait, that place isn't even home, this is," I went on, dread of being separated from it creeping into my tone. How many days did I have left, anyway? "This is home, Jeongyeon." My voice reduced to a whisper. "You are home."
The sorrow in her almond-shaped eyes deepened bit by bit, morphing into almost anguish. I didn't know what was going on in her mind as she stared into the windows of my soul, trying to decipher the most earnest sentiments I had to offer. What she said next was consuming, quiet as a grave, but yet I heard it clear and well.
"And what if it weren't for me?"
Void. Blank. Black. That was what devoured me at the thought. Because that's exactly what would've been left of me if that were the case - nothing. There would be no meaning, no reason, no existence. Nothing to anchor me to this cruel, vile world.
If it weren't for you, I'd be homeless.
No, more than that.
If it weren't for you, "Then I'd be dead by now."
And it wasn't even an exaggeration. I knew I would've left long ago if she hadn't popped in and made efforts to make my life better, the efforts that made me feel guilty for rendering them pointless everytime I felt like ending it.
What had seemed to be 'almost' anguish before was definitely anguish now. No more words left her mouth, but her eyes screamed with emotions and implications that even I couldn't completely understand. There was an ominous tension in the air, one that spoke of the unspoken and of the unspeakable.
And all at once, I knew why.
She was scared. She was scared for me, scared of what I might do if she . . . if she went before I did.
But did she need to be scared? Would I do what she feared I would?
It didn't matter. There most probably wasn't ever going to be a situation like that, anyway. Because the Blood Season had begun.
Because if we were to meet again in the afterlife someday, it wouldn't be me joining her.
It would be her joining me.
—
Tiny white clouds that dissolved into the chilly winter air almost the moment they left my mouth.
I wondered if they could give me away now, the way I would wonder if others could hear the crunch whenever my teeth crushed potato chips.
Needless to say, I was keeping a low profile, even though there were no passersby. Seorim-dong- place of probable whereabouts- was where I'd decided to go first, and I planned on heading straight back to the orphanage after this.
Acting as furtively as possible for my inexperienced self, I kept an eye out not only for the boy in the picture, but also for anyone who might try to slaughter me to the Season. I didn't know why I still worried about that after having accepted my fate. Human nature, I guessed.
Right now, it'd been over half an hour since I'd begun roaming around this neighbourhood- and it's one of the smallest in the district, area-wise- yet no signs of any boy.
Damn, how much more? I thought. Is he even here? Should I have gone to his place of residence instead? What if he's in bed? Even if I somehow manage to find out where exactly he lives, I can't just break into his room, can I?
A question struck me out of nowhere.
Wait, what is this, 'probable whereabouts'?
Was it like, somewhere he hung around often? I mean, it was plausible, but didn't sound that likely for some reason. Though if that was the case, he obviously wouldn't knock about here at this hour, right?
Man, was this whole excursion a big waste?
I was so into my thoughts that I didn't even realise the other presence. A flash of light right in front of my face snapped me back to reality.
"Gah!" I started, heart skipping a beat, hands instantly shooting up to the space just ahead of me as my eyes flew up and around. They had to do a double take- my brain was that muddled by the more-than-abrupt change of events- to notice the caliginous figure leaning against the wall to my left.
"Not very satisfactory, Kim Taehyung," it sighed in mock disappointment. "Gotta stay alert to stay alive, don't we?"
The lit screen of the phone it was peering into illuminated its features dimly, contours of its face casting alluring shadows on them. In the moment, he very convincingly seemed like the charming protagonist of your everyday cliché horror film, preferably a werewolf flick. If his character itself was the beast, that is.
I lowered my hands, relaxing a little bit, but keeping my guard up. "You."
He looked up at me very casually, pocketing his phone. "Me."
We were currently in a narrow uptown alley and I had no idea how I'd ended up here. Because at the entrance to the alleyway- essentially, the intersection that connected it to the street- which was just a few feet away, stood rusty but locked metal gates.
So I guessed he really had been tailing me all along.
"You never really got my name, did you?" he realised.
I shook my head silently, though I didn't really care if I knew it or not. Wolf was just fine.
"Changkyun," he said, stepping forward to get off the wall. "Im Changkyun. Though you can call me sir. Or Changkyun-nim, if I'm in a good mood."
I wasn't gonna call him either.
"Anyway, that aside." His wolf eyes gave me a pointed look. "I think I know why Taeyong didn't keep you with him."
My ears perked up. I knew it wasn't going to do me much good, but Jeongyeon too was involved in this one. Maybe it could benefit her somehow. "Why?"
Changkyun crossed his arms. "If he did, he obviously would've had to lock you up. And to do that, he would've had to hold you at one of his properties. Which wasn't really a problem, till the fact that you were found in the middle of a clan battle came in," he said. "Now he couldn't be sure if you really were innocent, or part of some other clan, or maybe goons for the hire. And if one of the latter two was the case, then holding you in his property could've proven to be risky, if not absolutely dangerous. So he had only two options left; option one, either kill you, or- if he really wanted to keep you- torture you to the point you're incapacitated."
I winced at the horrible thought, but didn't make any comment.
"Which he didn't do." The man altogether ignored my reaction. "And option two- which he took- let you go but keep a close eye on you, follow your every movement, trace all your activities either till he finds something that tells him that you're working for someone else, or till it's been long enough without finding anything like that to safely conclude that you're clean. He has no other way of being sure that you're not involved in shit."
So that was why he let us go? I could never think of something so complex and elaborate. Just how much did Taeyong contemplate about it all in those scant few minutes we were there? I was sure I was taking more time to process it than he'd taken to devise it. Being the boss . . . must be hard.
"This is all just a theory, though," Changkyun added. "The most logical one I could come up with, but a theory all the same. Different minds work in different ways, and we don't know what goes on inside that scheming brain of his."
I pressed my lips together and nodded, feeling somewhat curious about why he was so antagonistic toward that man.
"Killing you was the easiest way out, y'know," he remarked. "I wonder why he's taking all the trouble. Though my money's still on trafficking."
"Wait, you-you said you can help me with that!" I uttered fearfully, trying not to panic. He hadn't been just kidding, had he?
His brows hiked up. "And I did."
"H-how?" I objected. "You just told me to kill, end lives!"
He scowled. "I made you a part of the Initiation, brat. Be thankful."
Clueless as to what it implied, I blinked.
The man heaved a sigh of exasperation, brushing his fingers through his brown hair before letting his arm slump at his side. "Just take it this way - it makes you less of a goner."
"But . . . how?" I asked feebly.
He rolled his eyes. "It's complicated and you ask too much. If you're that eager to know, become a part of the Clan first."
The last bit of his statement gave me a feeling that I was never gonna know. Not that I wanted to make it to the Clan, but the Blood Season was surely going to kill me before I could.
That reminded me . . .
"There's . . . something I wanted to ask," I began tentatively. "The Blood Season. Is it . . . somehow connected to . . . this?" For some reason, I felt disinclined to use the term he was referring to it as, but I did anyway. "Initiation?"
Amusement made its way into his expression as well as his voice.
"No, the Blood Season isn't connected to the Initiation," he rejoined. "The Blood Season is the Initiation."
I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Did that mean . . .
". . . kill a few people within two months and try to not die yourself in the process."
". . . kill a few people within two months . . ."
". . . kill a few people . . ."
". . . kill . . ."
. . . kill . . .
I had a role in the Blood Season this time. And that's what it was.
Kill.
I was the killer. The feared murderer, the mass slayer.
You're not the victim of it, Kim Taehyung. You're the executor of it.
I felt like the entire load of the earth had abruptly been thrown on my shoulders to be borne. I couldn't do it. I knew I couldn't.
Prepare for the lousiest Blood Season ever.
"The killings are just a by-product of the Ritual," Changkyun continued. "We've always called it 'Initiation Ritual', but the media coined it 'Blood Season'." He shrugged. "Has a nice ring to it. People are creative."
There was a moment of silence and stillness before yet another sigh left his mouth.
"Any more questions?" I didn't even have the time to consider it before he spoke again. "Wait, doesn't matter, I don't care. I'mma take my leave now."
He did a mock salute with his first two fingers. My eyes trailed after him as he ambled away, slipping his hands into his pockets as he went.
Suddenly, I felt something icy-cold on the top of my head. I looked up at the sky and realised, it had started to snow.
It was the first snow of the season. For once, I didn't like it. In fact, I hated it. It was as if even the heavens above were ridiculing me, bullying me, reminding me that the world was many times as merrier as I was miserable.
"Better watch your back, Kim Taehyung."
My eyes tore away from the sky and landed on him. He was almost at the nearest turn, his upper body twisted backward to face me, hands still pocketed. The distance, along with the meagre lights, made it a bit difficult to properly see his shape. But somehow, I saw the beguiling smirk that curved the wolf's lips very clearly.
"The Blood Season has begun."