(ty for reading, ur much appreciated. the little star says hello and as do i, and we apologize this chapter finds u so late. I've been 10x more busy than usual, and i'm sick :( so if it's 1x a week for posting for the next month or so, please forgive me and understand !! ty ty ty)
(the video above is the song that Kane was and has been humming, by the way! if you want to take a listen :)
CH3CH2OH
Ethanol.
Organic compound, alcohol. Colorless liquid with a pungent odor, often used in alcoholic beverages as a psychoactive drug, anesthesia processes, and as an antiseptic or antidote. Highly flammable and volatile.
____________________________
Yakgwa is a fried, honey-coated cookie shaped similarly to a flower, and comes in various flavors and sizes. It's a popular dessert and treat of Korea. I have only ever had it once.
My mother was in the kitchen with one of the servants, the two of them mixing whatever little spices and meats we had in the house up to create some form of jigae for lunch. My brother had snuck in courtesy of his sly convincing of one of the assistants. He peeked his head inside the room, the round window behind me displaying the golden sun in a long ellipses of light before me. I said, "Hyung?"
Elias swiveled his head back. He crept for me. He said, "Echo." He said it like Eko. "It's almost Chuseok."
I glanced out the window. It was actually a handful of weeks from Chuseok, the leaves outside still only tinged with amber, the sun not yet cold and the air not yet brisk. Still, I nodded. "I guess so. You're not supposed to be."
Elias pressed a finger to his lips. "So? You don't want to see me?"
I frowned. "I didn't say that."
Elias crouched down before me. He pushed his fists at me. His grin was bright, a merry and mischievous thing. "Take a guess."
"For what?"
"It's almost Chuseok," he said, then frowned. "I won't get to see anyone on Chuseok. Appa is making me train. Umma doesn't want to see me at all." His voice was sorrowful and bitter at the last part. "That leaves you. Yuma emo says that twins have to stay together. Twins are like a soul split in two. Chuseok, that's for family. That's for going home." He smiled at me. "What else is home but your other soul?"
I stared at him. Two halves. One soul. My brother and me, the ghost and the gold. I wondered if that was the case, if he had the other half of my splintered heart, broken by the hammer of my father's wrath, my mother's fear, the marks on our hips.
I tapped his right fist, took the bet. He opened his palm. Nothing.
He opened his left. A parchment-wrapped cookie sat inside.
He dropped it into my waiting palms. "Yakgwa," he told me.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Something delicious," he promised. "Try it."
I unwrapped the sweet cookie. I took a bite. The soft honey melted in my mouth, stuck to my teeth and tongue. "What is that?" I said, taking another bite.
Elias laughed. A sweet thing, green like summer, his face like my mother's. He said, "Told you. Do you like it? I can bring more. I'll try, some other time, maybe."
I nodded. "Thanks, hyung."
Elias said, "Echo. Does Umma ask about me?"
I said, "Not really."
His face fell. "Ah."
I said, "Does Appa ask about me?"
Elias shook his head. "No."
My face fell. "Ah."
Elias pursed his lips. He took the parchment from my hands to put into his pocket. He grasped my hand with his. "I don't know what's going to happen, Echo," he told me. "But you have to promise me, that no matter what Umma and Appa decide about us, there'll still be an us." He pressed our palms together. "One soul. We don't have anyone else."
My mother had made secrets her skeleton, her life-force and force of her life. I knew a secret when I heard one. Elias had just given me two without even knowing.
I nodded. "All right."
"Echo!" my mother called. "Come eat!"
Elias winced a little at that, then let me go. He got to his feet, heading for the other door. He said, "Bye, Echo."
I stared after him. I said, "Happy Chuseok, hyung."
It was the only time I'd ever seen his smile look so real. It was the last time.
The honey clamped my teeth shut, sewing the secrets up behind it, and leaving no trace of my brother's kindness behind but the fading aftertaste on my tongue.
One soul.
The sweetness trickled down my throat, and rotted my half from the inside out.
_____________________
I called Mercy two evenings before the flight.
A few days following Green Diamond had passed, and along with it, much of the commotion of the press and whatever the hell they had to say about our victory. We were off to face the rest of the regions in Red. My first Red, and likely my last, but I didn't want to think about that part. Not when Corvus—between running back and forth from their families' houses to the Talon, packing bags or suitcases with their three weeks' worth of travel needs, calling relatives of all kinds in long lists of various tones or languages—was so keen on discussing their plans for this Red Diamond and all that came after.
"After this one, next year's Yellow will be a breeze, just watch," Zahir had laughed from behind his two suitcases in the living room. "I heard the prize is gonna be crazy this year, too. You rookies will be taking us out on the town!"
"Not rookies for much longer," Rosalie sang as she passed the doorway. "You three are readying to get over your initiation and start pulling your weight around here." She looked me up and down. "Well, as much as you can."
I gaped. "Damn you."
"Ah, just wait, cobayo! You'll be racing circles around her next year, put the seniors in their place!" Diego laughed as he stuffed his abhorrent amount of jackets into his less-than-capable suitcase. "Except for me. We'll always be besties."
"Damn you, too."
Zoe said, "Are we ever going to go on a group vacation?"
"That's usually in the winter," Meredith said. "Although we could think about next spring break? Oh, it's been so long since we've done a group trip!"
"England?" Zoe tried.
"Korea?" Meredith said, grinning up at Kane. "As in, the food?"
Kane slung his duffel over his shoulder. "Just pack your shit."
I stood in the chaos, and said nothing of it.
I'd practically abandoned my own bed, the sheets likely dusty with disuse, my body always somehow finding its way onto Kane's blankets instead. Somehow.
Kane stood in the doorway and spotted me with a bowl of instant ramyun as I headed for my room. He said, "Dinner?"
"Hey, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do," I defended.
Kane reached behind the door and withdrew his bowl of non-frying, organic instant ramyun. He said, "True."
I snorted. "That's a disgrace on real instant ramyun."
"Hey, think of your health."
"Thought of and considered." I headed for his room. "What're you doing?"
"Aster and I are watching the Bullet Ants match," he said. At my grimace, he said, "Give her a chance."
"Whatever works for you, man." I pushed past him. "Smells better in here than in my room anyway."
"I'm not gonna ask," Kane said, and shut the door behind us. We sat on his floor, his computer displaying the match, his phone open to a call with the ID reading Asteroid. "Echo's here."
"Hi, Echo!" Aster called. "The match is getting really good, you're just in time. How was seeing them in person?"
"Good," I said curtly.
"That's good! Are you two eating ramyun? Ah, ramyun and TV," she said, then giggled. "Maybe I should go?"
"Huh?"
"I can leave you two to your dinner da—"
Kane snagged the phone to turn it off speaker. "I gotta go, I'll talk to you later. Shut up, that's not—I never said that. No. Stop calling it that. It's not funny. Bye. I said bye."
I stared. Kane said, "Stop staring."
I said, "Yeah, okay."
And so on.
Two nights before we were to leave, I sat across Kane's lap, his hands trying to braid the longest strands of my overgrown hair. The air was warm with the faint scent of soap and sex. Kane was humming again.
"Do you know what yakgwa is?" I asked Kane.
"Sure," he said. "Sort of sweet for me, though."
"Is there yakgwa where we're going?"
Kane paused, then let out an amused laugh. "Yes," he said. "Do you want to get some?"
I considered that. I closed my eyes. "Maybe."
He let me sleep.
All of which brings me back to Mercy, at the tender hour of 12AM, with a favor to ask.
She picked up on the fourth ring.
"Ghostie," she drawled into the crackled speaker, and I grimaced. "I want to say I'm flattered."
"I know you're not, so I'll make this quick," I snapped. "I need a passport."
She paused. Then let out a raucous cackle. "Ghostie. Whatever do you mean? You have a passport."
"That's a shit passport and you know it. It'll only pass by eye. I need one that will scan."
"Scan? Traveling?" Her laugh was cruel now. "And where are you going?"
"Doesn't matter. I need it by tomorrow."
"Are you God? Are you Almighty? Are you an angel on high, a devil in disguise? Hey. Ghost," she sneered. "A man in debt doesn't usually go making demands."
I said, "I'll owe you."
"What do you have to your little name?"
"I'll owe you an unconditional," I said, and I could practically hear her perking up. "No questions asked. Anytime, any place, anything. You'll have me there. But I need that passport by tomorrow."
Mercy considered that. She said, "I'd like to know what you need a passport for."
"None of your business."
"Oh, yes, it is," she sang. "Any Bengal, any ghost, out of the country, roaming about God-knows-where, no strings but my own faith and trust and fae dust! Don't tell me you're running away, Ghostie. I'd think you so much smarter than that."
"If I was running away, why the fuck would I tell you about it?" I hissed. "The team is going on a group vacation, we all need passports. The ticket's paid for, so don't worry about the money. I just need the passport."
"A team trip? A vacation! You, on a vacation? I'd weep."
"Can you do it or not?"
"I can do it. But should I?" she said. "After all, an unconditional is only as fun for me as it is terrible for you, and with all you've seen, well. What more is there?"
I winced at that. I glanced around my room. I glanced at my own hands. I said, "Put me back on bodies. Bodies and an unconditional. That's the best I've got for you."
Mercy hummed to herself. After a beat, she said, "All that racing has made your bets better, Ghost." She moved something around, moved herself. "You've got yourself a deal. One passport, order up! Hope you're not afraid of flying. It's been so long since you've been above ground." Her cruel joke was only funny to her. "Ghost?"
I gritted my teeth. "Yeah?"
Her grin laced her words with venom. "Safe travels, yeah?"
The line clicked dead.
I lowered my phone. I buried my face in my hands.
Kane sat up, only half-awake, at my approach and the low creak of the door. He frowned. "What's wrong?"
I considered my options. I said, "Dunno."
Kane scooted over, opening the blankets. When I slipped under the covers, he wound a warm arm around my body, and said, "You're cold."
I swallowed. "Nah, I'm fine."
Kane rubbed his thumb along my forearm. I felt his heartbeat through my back. I thought of blood dripping over my fingers, soaking his sheets, marring his skin. I thought of the beating hearts under my palms, carved out with a scalpel. I thought of Kane's chest being split right down the middle, torn to shreds with the blade, his lungs, his liver, his heart, his stomach, red and mottled like death in my hands.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I dreamt I took a bite of a honey-coated cookie, and hitting cold bone.
______________________
Los Angeles International Airport—LAX, and no, no one knows why there's an X, not even those from LA—was your main aviation stop for trips, taxes, tourists, and the TS-fucking-A.
"If I fake a seizure, you think this line will go faster?" I said.
Kane said, "Do it and I'll leave you here for Rosalie to whisk you away to London."
"What do they eat there? Fish? Beans? Both? In each other?" I shook my head. "I'll think of something else. I'm undocumented, does that count?"
"Wait, what."
"I'm kidding," I promised, then said, "But would that hypothetically be an issue?"
Kane closed his eyes.
Rosalie, Zoe, Kane, and I were all leaving on the tenth, the rest of Corvus having already left to their own destinations. Our flights were at the unripe hour of 9AM, meaning we reported to the airport at 7AM. So, with the morning hour glowing over me, I stood in the massive airport, white as pearl, dirty with travelers and tourists, honking like music to the chaos awaiting us inside. I hadn't even witnessed stadiums so big, so glassy-eyed.
I said, "So this is LAX?"
Kane said, "Your main stop for trips, taxes, tourists, tribulations, and the TS-fucking-A."
He was correct. At least, definitely about the tribulations, and the TS-fucking-A.
"Let's go, people, let's go! What, do we have all day? I don't got all day! Shoes off! Hey, you, shoes off, let's keep it moving. Am I speaking loudly? Tablets out, phones out! Hey, take that phone out, take it out now. Hey. Shoes. Off. Yeah, you with the pretty little sneakers, take 'em off."
"Beasts," I muttered, yanking off my shoes.
Kane set his glittering sneakers in the bin, dividing his things with practiced hands, pushing both of our things and me forward. I said, "How many times have you flown before?"
Kane tossed his watch into the bin, ignoring the TSA eyeing his pricey shoes. "Enough," he told me. "Go on."
"Stop there," a very tired man in blue said, sighing as he held up a hand at me. "You got a guardian? You traveling alone?"
I stared. "I'm nineteen."
He blinked. He shrugged. "Yeah, okay. Passport?"
Moment of truth.
I withdrew the booklet. I stared down at the gold print, the allegedly-legitimate stamping and print. My face stared back at me, daring me to sweat.
I swallowed. I handed it to him.
He snagged it, took a glance at it then me. I swore he could see my heart beating right out of my chest, the sweat prickling the back of my neck. I swallowed hard.
The agent pressed it face-first into the scanner.
I held my breath. The beeping of scanners and machines, the chatter of people surrounding me, all drowned out by the green light of the scanner before me. I waited for it to light up red. I didn't dare even twitch.
The agent took one more look, then clapped a stamp into the first page and slammed it shut. He handed it back to me. "Thank you. Safe travels."
I could have melted right through the tile. I took the passport with shaking fingers. "Thank you."
I tossed it into the bin along with the rest of my things, and walked through the last of the scanners.
I waited for Kane at the other side. He eyed the metal detectors with a pursed face, hands tight at his sides.
The agent beckoned for him to walk.
Kane walked.
The metal detector screeched. The agents seemed unbothered, gesturing for him to walk again. He did, only to see the same red light go off. He sighed, mumbling something. I frowned, then paused.
Silver.
The TSA agent took a look over him, scanning him with her bar. She caught an eye of his neck, exposed by his T-shirt, and paused, her bar right below his scarred wound.
She stepped back. She extended her hand for him to go. "You can go ahead, sir."
There was a sympathy in her eyes that I could only pray Kane couldn't see.
We gathered our things. I said, "You okay?"
Kane shoved his phone into his pocket and slid his shoes back on. "Let's just find the gate." He stuffed his passport into his backpack before I could attempt to lighten the mood by teasing him about his picture. He said, "You get through okay?"
I nodded. "They let in the undocumented."
"Not funny." He pointed forward.
A good start, then.
We found our gate, AE517, before resigning ourselves to the second most important aspect of any airport trip: food.
Kane said, "Second most important aspect of any airport trip, food."
Having never been in an airport before is likely being reflected in this story, I can tell.
I craned my neck to look through the glassy walls, spot the gargantuan planes set up for the ride, the blue sky faded behind the air of August. It smelled of antiseptic and air freshener. The floors were nearly dented with the footprints and suitcase wheels running into it, the patter of feet, the bustle of voices, all trailing from one gate to another as everyone readied for their departures.
Kane stood before a directory. He pulled something from his neck, looped with a thin chain. A glassy prism magnifier. I said, "You brought that?"
He shrugged. "Lots of reading in an airport. My eyes get too tired to try and read it without help." He didn't let me get sentimental about it and quickly scanned the words on the directory. "There's mostly just fast food, a few pizza restaurants or bars. What do you want?"
"Food," I said, and he rolled his eyes.
"Come on," he sighed. "There's a Panda over here."
"Fake Asian food before going to real Asia," I observed.
Kane slid into the lengthy line. He took about five seconds to glance at the menu and then turned to me with a quizzical look. "How do you have a passport, by the way?"
I froze. "What?"
"You said you've never been out of the country," he said. "That you don't really have any real records."
Me and my big fucking mouth. I considered my options, ran through a rollerball of lies. Kane took my hesitation as enough merit to say, "Is it a real passport?"
I gaped. "What."
"Just wondering," he said. "You don't have to tell me."
I pursed my lips. I kicked at the dust of the floor. "Would you be mad?"
Kane shrugged. "Impressed, maybe," he said.
"That's concerning."
"I could turn you in, if you'd like."
"Let me get some food first," I said. "Can't get arrested on an empty stomach."
Kane's lips twitched. We got to the counter, and he listed off the orders.
When we both got our plates, I said, "Who goes to Panda Express just to eat greens and rice?"
Kane shrugged. "Not that hungry." He pushed his card to the woman. When I opened my mouth, he said, "Don't open your mouth."
"You say that now," I muttered, and Kane sent me a look.
The woman raised a brow, and rung up his card.
Kane's eyes glittered silver. I searched for the black.
I sat beside him as we waited for the gate to open. The sound of airplanes taking off and returning were cacophonies muffled only by the thick walls and glass windows.
I said, "Are you more excited to go to Korea or come back to America?"
Kane was staring ahead, his gaze fixated on something or other in the distance. He didn't look at me at first. "Depends," he admitted. "Korea has its own issues. I like the food better in Korea."
"What's the food like?" I said. "Better than what you make?"
Kane smiled. He shrugged. "Probably. My cooking is only as good as what's edible."
I snorted. "What about the weather?"
Kane looked almost amused at my curiosity. He turned his body toward me, the two of us facing each other as if sharing secrets at bedtime. "Cold at night, hot at daytime, but it's nicest in the morning. Not too hot, not too cold."
"What about where you live?"
"Well, Busan is further into the country, so the weather is a lot more forgiving," he admitted. "Although in August, it's humid no matter where you go." He laughed at my face. "Most of this is something you could Google, you know that, right?"
I shrugged. "I like it straight from a reliable source. What about your family? Who do you stay with?"
"Aunt. Uncle. Three cousins," he said. "My parents live in Gangnam. It's a bit of a trek to cut through everything to get to them, but my cousin makes a trip of it and it's always fun."
I said, "Tell me about it."
Kane bought first class seats, because he could.
"First class?" I snapped. "Why?"
Kane bowed his head to the flight attendant and headed for the seating. "Because I can," he replied. "It's a fourteen hour flight."
Fair. I hadn't thought of the numbers.
The flight attendant gestured towards the two booths at the center. She looked at my hair, did a double take, then to me. "Welcome, please take your seat."
Kane said, "Told you to bring a hat."
"In passing," I muttered, and took the terribly comfortable seat.
I shook my head, slightly mortified at being seated where I was, although Kane seemed perfectly familiar with it and frowned when I left my hand hovering over the armrests. He said, "You're not gonna break it."
"I wasn't scared of that," I snapped. Although now I was.
Kane shrugged. "You wanna watch a movie?"
"I want a refund," I said.
Kane opened the screen before him and reached over the divider to tap mine on, too. He said, "Too late. You ever seen 101 Werewolves?"
"The book is better," I said. "Maybe if we ask them nicely."
"A Pixie's Life."
"Stop that."
"The Gumiho and the Hound."
"Kane."
He leaned over and pushed my hair over my face. "Stop complaining, just enjoy it," he said. His thumb stroked my brow for just one additional second. He settled back into his seat and continued scrolling. "All Lycans Go To Heaven?"
I shook my head. "You're terrible."
His smile stunned me on every nerve. He clicked the movie on both our screens.
"That's all right," he assured.
"Sunhee, Sungho, Sungki," Kane counted off. "Sunhee's the oldest."
I was halfway through their allotted meal of bibimbap and fruit, Kane relaying the hierarchy of his family to my curious questioning. I took a spoonful and said, "Sunhee is the one you're close to, right? How old is she?"
"Seven years older than me," he said. "Sungho is six years older, and Sungki is four. You won't see Sungho or Sungki though. They're in Seoul for most of the year."
"Do you go to Seoul?"
He shrugged. "Sometimes. If we want to go shopping, we'll take the train there or to Gangnam."
"You like Busan best?"
Kane shrugged. "You always like home best, you know?"
I didn't. But I could try. I popped a grape into my mouth. "What's your home like?"
He grinned to himself. "You'll see."
I smiled back.
"...skipping rocks, but I never really learned how, so I was left to sort of learning on the fly, you know? We used to go to the markets on the weekends and eat snacks from all the booths until we could barely walk. Our aunt would get mad at us, but Sunhee would tell her that at least she doesn't have to make us dinner..."
The lights had gone out, signaling a need for sleep. I'd leaned my elbow on one side of the divider, Kane on the other, his hand fiddling with mine and tracing the shape of my bruised and battered knuckles. He was a perfect purple, a forbidden blue, in the manmade night.
"Does it hurt?" he asked me. "Going to Korea without your mother."
I pursed my lips. "Bittersweet, maybe. I never thought I'd go back in the first place," I admitted. "Did Poppy take any of you anywhere?"
Kane's face glazed over with that same bone-deep melancholiness, the sadness as dark as a light-swallowing black hole. "I took her to Korea."
Guilt was a pin needle. "I'm sorry."
Kane shook his head. "It was fun," he promised. "It was really fun."
I slipped our fingers together. "We don't have to talk about it."
Kane slipped his hand out of mine and hummed. "No," he agreed.
The silence was a thick, opaque thing, like silver.
Kane slept for a only an hour or so before he woke.
I was too scared to sleep for fear I'd have a nightmare and wake the whole damn plane. Kane seemed to have more faith in himself, although it didn't hold out if his face said anything when he awoke.
He jerked once, then opened his eyes so wide they seemed to swallow light. I looked up from my paper. "You okay?"
Kane took a beat, a labored breath, then said, "Yeah." He righted himself. "Weird dream." He leaned his elbows on his knees. His frame held itself up unsteadily. "Sorry."
I shook my head. "You want water?"
"No. It's all right."
I returned to my paper, a back of a torn-out page in the plane's allotted catalogue, now littered with my bored doodles considering I didn't dare turn on my phone. When enough minutes had passed, Kane looked over. The scent of silver met my nose.
He pointed at a tiny crow. I said, "It's you."
He clicked his tongue. "I'm not that short."
"What do you have against being short?"
"What do I not?" he murmured. I batted him off and his lips quirked. He said, "Five more hours."
Half of me wanted to tell him I hope we'd never land. The other half wanted to jump right out of the plane altogether.
I handed him the paper. "Draw me."
Kane took it. He drew a small stick figure, then wolf ears, then an angry face. I snagged the paper right back.
"All right, drawing privileges revoked," I muttered. "You think you're funny."
Kane said, "Reminds me of when I first met you."
"You know what reminds me of when I first met you?" I said, and began to draw a poor depiction of a gremlin.
Kane plucked the pen from my hands. "Drawing time is over."
I laughed to myself in the lightless plane.
I said, "Did you bring snacks?"
Kane said, "I can't believe you're all adults." He unzipped his bag and handed me veggie chips and a granola bar.
I flashed him a smile. "Why, when you can be the adult instead?"
Kane rolled his eyes. He said, "Forty minutes to landing."
I said, "Are you nervous?"
He said, "Are you?"
I could almost laugh. "Unimaginably."
Kane shook his head. "Don't be."
"I'm a little."
"Don't be."
"I am. I'm getting more so."
Kane grasped my chin in his hand as gently as a grasp could be and tugged me into a hummingbird-quick kiss. He squeezed my cheeks with his fingers. "Trust me," he said. "Don't be nervous."
I stared up at him, slightly dazed. I murmured, "'Kay."
The flight attendant said, "Coffee?"
Kane let me go, leaving the imprint of his fingers on my face, warm and crisp as clean cotton.
I counted the minutes until we would land.
"...and I'd sit in the garden with Sunhee when we ate, because it was nicer temperatures at that time since it was summer, and she'd tell me about all the cities she'd travel to with my aunt. It was sort of like going with her, just because of how she'd tell it, and she told me to go with her one day when I had the time, even though I never really did..."
Something tapped my nose. I opened my eyes, blinking away the lost hours of sleep. A blurry face stared down at me, lavender in my nose.
"A guardian angel," I deduced.
"For you?" Kane scoffed. "You'd need a guardian devil." He got to his feet. "We've landed. Come on, get up." He pushed my hair back from my face. "Gonna leave Korea waiting?"
Korea.
I sat up.
We grabbed our things—I'd only brought my duffel—and headed out the aisles, the flight attendants bowing their heads and bidding us goodbye as we went. The sixteen-hour time difference had left me utterly sapped of all will to live. But Kane looked, if anything, reborn from it.
I caught a glimpse of a criminally blue sky outside, a pristine airport corridor ahead of me. I stopped mid-yawn and glanced at Kane. "What city is this?"
Kane said, "Busan."
One soul.
I watched Korea watch me.
Kane turned a corner towards the baggage claim. He handed me a black mask, and I frowned. "Why?"
Kane hesitated. "Er, precaution."
"Precaution?"
He pulled it over my face. "Just wear it."
We stopped in front of a slow-moving conveyor belt, the metal shiny and blank without suitcases. I pushed my knuckles into my chest, trying to knead my heart back into working. Korea. Korea. Korea. It felt like I'd gone in a roundabout maze, all the way back to where I'd started.
I glanced around me, at the strangers returning or leaving home, young and old vacation-goers, young and old natives. I thought of the house with the sun-shaped window.
You are no one.
I. Own. You.
Kane said, "Nami is picking us up, by the way."
I closed my eyes, and willed the ache into my bones where I wouldn't be able to find it. I cleared my throat and said, "Who's Nami?"
"...see the ocean, it's hard to not want to be by it every day. I think that's why they bought that house, because they used to live farther inland, but they loved the view and the feeling so much that they moved closer. Sometimes I don't miss Korea at all, but most times it feels like coming home, you know? But anyway..."
It was not difficult to tell who was meant to pick Kane up.
We exited the terminal from two large sliding glass doors and into a fenced-off sea of people waiting for their loved ones to come out too, a dozen or more signs all held up high in some attempt to find them. In the lefthand corner, three people in pitch black stood like well-painted statues, their hands folded over their fronts, eyes shielded by glasses, and a single sign in front of the centermost girl with Wang written on it. King.
I said, "Don't say that's you."
Kane pushed me forward. "That's me."
Drachmann. So fucking dramatic.
The woman bowed her head at Kane. "Mister Wang, welcome home. Safe flight?"
"Yes, thank you," he said. "This is Echo. He's the friend I told you about."
Oh, sure. Friend. As if the guy hadn't had his tongue down my throat several hours earlier. Still, I bowed my head and said, "Nice to meet you."
Nami bowed her head back. "Echo. Pleasure to meet you."
"You don't have to do that," I said.
Nami pretended I didn't speak. She turned back to Kane. "We'll take your bags."
"Don't be mean," he told her.
"Does your aunt know you brought...someone?"
Kane frowned. "What's that mean?"
Nami directed the other two at her side to take his bags. She shook her head. "I'll bring around the car."
I frowned at Kane. "The car? How are you more extra here than in America?"
Kane steered me towards where Nami was headed. "Let's just get to the house, yeah?"
I didn't know how to feel about that one.
Nonetheless, if I had to trade one pit in my stomach for another, I figured it wouldn't be bad to take Kane up on it.
I slung my duffel across my back and walked out into the bustling evening of Busan.
Nami pulled around a Mercedes-Benz GLC 450 SUV and I briefly considered walking to Kane's house myself.
I looked at Kane. "Couldn't just call a taxi, huh?"
"It's my aunt's," he said. He seemed about as happy to ride in the vehicle as me. "Don't give me that look, I told her to send the Kia. Get in."
"Send the Kia," I repeated.
Kane pushed me inside. "Ppalli."
He shut the door and went around.
I sat in the very back and positioned myself as if crisp black leather might poison me. Nami and her two minions took the passenger seat and centermost seat ahead of us. Nami turned her head and lowered her sunglasses. Red eyes, bloodier than blood itself, stared back at me with a pale, lifeless solemnity.
"Ready to go?"
Kane gave her a nod and she pushed the button above, closing a window between her and the back of the vehicle. I gaped as we disappeared from sight. As soon as the distinct click of the divider closed, I whirled on Kane.
"A bloodsucker," I hissed.
Kane was staring at his phone, frowning at the screen. He didn't look up, but said, "I think you're the last person that can be prejudiced against any creature."
"Except a bloodsucker," I said. "Nasty things. Have you seen their eyes? You can almost see through those papery little pupils right to their souls. Oh, wait, they don't have any."
"Twenty one percent of Korea's population are bloodsuckers," he said. He finally shut off his phone and turned it on silent before turning to me. "And those are stereotypes. That's like them saying all lycans have anger issues."
"All lycans do have anger issues," I argued. "And ego issues. And airhead issues. And criminal issues. The stereotypes are true. You know what else is true? Bloodsuckers are just the dark-roast-black-coffee immortal editions of gumihos."
"Lycans are just the pompous editions of werewolves."
"Werewolves are animals."
"We're werewolves," the bodyguard in front of us said.
I hesitated. I leaned over. "Animals...of good nature, sir."
He just hummed.
Kane sighed, tilting his head back. "That reminds me," he muttered, "maybe watch your mouth for the first few days before you revert back to your true self. Just to keep from giving my aunt a heart attack."
"A few days?" I murmured. "Korea better be damn interesting to keep me that busy."
Kane glanced at me. He scooted over and reached for my face. He grasped my chin in his hand, and turned my head to the window.
"You could try taking a look and seeing," he said.
I took a look. I saw.
Busan's skyline crashed into the river, and I watched my mother wave from the shoreline.
___________________
It took another hour to get us to Kane's home.
It was a grand, mahogany craft, its rooftops slated with thick black tiles and and its windows wide, long things cut up by carefully-carved patterns reminiscent of ancient culture. Its main body sat the highest, stretched the width of the cove, two stories tall and stretching back to accommodate its organs inside. One arm wrapped around the left side, a smaller building with only window and one door, the other looping around the back like a wall to block off what was inside, carved-out sections of its walls letting strangers peer inside. A wide, wooden fringe of a deck sat around it, chairs and tables available for sitting, grass well-watered for viewing, stairs well-swept for walking. The only thing that separated the house from the rest of the city was a tall, wooden gate and half a mile of green plains. Before them, the sea stretched for miles and miles, out to the east waves.
Salt and wind whispered into my hair, an attempt at cooling the beading sweat on my skin from the humid air, August a heavy and voluptuous figure in the sky, bearing down on my body with a heavy listlessness. The ennui of summer was an unhappy claw running down my back, leaving prickling sweat and heat in its wake. The slosh of ocean waves and the presence of the bodies around me were the only indications I wasn't hallucinating the sight before me.
Kane said, "What do you think?"
I stared at the house. "I think I know why you like it here."
Kane's grin was amused, but I meant it. No city. No students. No sound but the earth and you. A terrifying thing. A coveted thing.
Nami and her goons bowed their heads at us, our bags slung about their shoulders and arms, their skin unaffected by the heat, pristine and sweatless. "We will return to escort Echo to his room later." She bowed her head. "It is good to have you home."
Kane smiled. "Thanks, Nami."
We watched them go. I turned towards the shore, where it waited below the sand and dirt hills that kept the house above it all. I said, "What now?"
He shrugged, turning his gaze out towards the waters. "The sun is going to start setting in an hour or two, so if you want, we can go to the town for dinner. Or Nami might cook something, so we can stay for that. You might meet my cousin, if they're home."
"You say it like you hope they're not."
He laughed. "No. They're fun. You'll see."
"Well, if you like them," I said. "They must be something."
"What's that mean?"
"Means you're an ass."
Kane flicked me in the forehead and I swatted him away. Kane pushed my hair over my face. "Like you're any better."
"Whoa, maybe like attracts like." I blew the hair from my face. "You think I should go purple for Corvus colors?"
"I think you should give your hair a break." Kane tugged at a strand for emphasis. "What do you want for dinner?"
"You'd know better than me." I stood straight, brushing myself off. "I feel more like a foreigner here than in America."
Kane shook his head at that. He pushed his fingers into my hair, pulling my bangs back, his palm warm on my scalp. "The hair doesn't help—" I glared at him. "—but this could be your chance to learn. Make up for lost time." His lip quirked. "Or lost food."
"I like the way you think," I said. I reached up to push his hair back.
Kane said, "You're standing on your toes."
I said, "Why do you pain me?"
He let me go with a grin. For a moment, his hand lingered down my temple, fingers brushing against the strands of my multi-colored hair. I leaned into it.
"Kane!"
We both startled. I nearly tripped on my own foot and went reeling into Kane, only stopping myself with grasping his arm and swiveling around.
A woman stood a ways away from us, wrapped in a white and blue sundress, her short black hair wild around her face and eyes, her smile visible even from our distance. She held both her hands up and waved happily, the sky burning amber behind her.
I glanced to Kane to see if he knew her.
His face lit up like newborn star, eyes bright like a child's. He raised his hand. "Hi, noona."
She hurried towards us. I said, "Who's that?"
Kane's smile was a brimming, half-dimpled thing, a sun in the sky of his face.
"That's Sunhee," he said.
Sunhee Wang. I took a closer look.
She wasn't far behind than Kane in height, only by a handful of inches. Her hair was as black as her eyes, nearly ebony in their shade. Her face was round, a moon face, pale by diligence and soft by structure. When she spoke, it pulled her cheeks up, and scrunched her eyes into slits.
"Wa, wang!" She laughed and yanked Kane into a bone-crushing hug. She gasped. "Ya, you lost weight, are you eating over there? And what did you do to your hair? Or your eyes? Are those contacts? Is this a new trend again? Umma is going to kill you."
"Nice to see you, too," he said, and squeezed her back. He pulled away and tugged at his strands. "You don't like it?"
"You look like a bad K-Pop idol," she snickered. "Did you get taller? Hey, I told you to get this tattoo removed!" She tapped his blacks scars. "You're going through a rebellious phase again, I see."
Kane waved her off. "I'm not," he promised. "You keep cutting your hair, I see."
"Hey, that's the trend."
"Hypocrite."
"Say that to my face, punk." She tugged at his ear and he laughed. Sunhee pinched his cheek. "You're lucky this face is worth so much or I'd pinch it off."
"Your hands are too small. Ow." He rubbed at his ear and smiled down at her. "Noona, you got stronger."
"Don't mock me," she said with a laugh, and pushed his face away with her finger. In doing so, her eyes landed on me, and she quickly gasped. Sunhee righted herself, sending Kane a look, before turning a sweet smile on me. "You must be Kane's friend," she said. "I heard a lot about you."
"Me, too," I said, and bowed my head. "It's nice to meet you."
She turned to Kane. "What's that mean? What are you saying?"
"All good things," he promised.
"I'm sorry," I said.
She waved that off. "Ah, don't do that! Kane's friend is our friend, yeah?" She patted my shoulder and held out her hand. "I'm Sunhee."
"I'm Echo," I said.
"Eko?" she repeated.
"Echo."
"Eko."
"Echo."
"Eko?"
"Echo."
Sunhee blinked at me like she was being punked. I had the urge to tell her, "I don't know why either."
Sunhee stared. Then, threw her head back in a laugh. "Ah, hey! There's an eko in here." She grinned at her joke.
Kane stared, expression dead. "You're not funny."
Sunhee elbowed him. She returned her attention to me. "Echo is a pretty name," she said. "You speak Korean well. You grow up here?"
I shook my head. "I lived here for a short time when I was young," I lied. "This is the first time I've been back."
"You haven't been to Korea since?"
"No."
"Kane. You always leave out the best details," she said, clicking her tongue. She clasped her hands. "Well, no better opportunity than this, right? I'm glad Kane brought you, in that case." She sidled up between us and linked her arms through ours. "For the next three weeks, we're your family, okay? Our home, your home. Whatever you need, you can take. Or you can ask Nami and she'll get it for you. You two haven't eaten?"
We shook our heads.
She hummed. "Well, since Echo hasn't seen Korea in a long time, we should show him around. It'll be a real trip, Kane. You can stop sleeping on the beach all the time and have some fun."
"I don't only do that," he snapped.
"Echo," she said, leaning towards me. "You can come with us tomorrow. We'll get you and Korea reacquainted."
I felt my entire stomach bottom out, the world a cruel amber, the air sweet and salty on my skin, hope a vicious beast in my gut. I hoped. I hoped. I hoped.
The sky melted into evening.
I said, "I'd like that."
Sunhee's smile looked faintly familiar. I thought of Kane's in its place.
She said, "Good. Then we'll need our energy! So, who's hungry?"
We headed inside.
___________________
Nami opened the door to a plain room doused in cream, alleviated by blue curtains and a blue rug, nothing but a bed, a dresser, an elongated window, and a desk available to occupy the space. The light above our heads glowed a sweet pudding yellow.
She said, "This will be your room. You may set it up how you like."
"Thank you," I said.
She nodded, then frowned behind me. "I can take care of this just fine, Mister Wang."
"Don't call me that," he said. "And I know, I was just coming by to talk to him."
Nami eyed him, then me, then hummed. "I'll be in the kitchen," she said, descending the stairs.
As it turned out, no one but Sunhee was in the house at the time, since her parents were coming back from Seoul that day and her two brothers were to remain there on business. Nami had been nice enough to cook up a large pot of soondoobu and rice for our dinner, leaving us in the smaller dining room to devour it. I'd barely been able to talk since I'd been so busy wolfing down the spicy delicacy, nearly missing key details passed between Kane and Sunhee.
"Are you going to see your mother?" she asked Kane, and he stiffened, spoon halfway to his mouth. "We're going to stop in Seoul eventually."
Kane considered her for a long moment. "I'll see if she wants to see me."
"Your father wants to."
"I'll see."
I pretended not to hear.
"Are you going to see your other friends?" she asked as we neared the end of the meal.
"They're not here right now," he said briskly.
"No? I thought they came here the same time as you. Racers."
"Maybe one of them," he admitted. "I don't know."
We dropped it.
I stared at Kane now, who stood against the doorframe in nothing but a thin cotton shirt and thinner sleep pants, his black and silver hair wild and fresh from a shower. Nami descended the stairs and disappeared, leaving us alone in the quiet, wood-laden hallway.
I said, "Hi."
Kane said, "Hi."
I leaned against the opposite edge of the doorframe. "Nice house."
He shrugged. "It works."
"Nice cousin."
"She is."
"Other cousins?"
"They try."
"Other visitors."
"Ah. No."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"Have there been?"
"Yes."
"You just don't wanna talk about it."
"No." Kane chewed his lip with guilt. "Is that okay?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, man. That's okay." I glanced at the room. "Nice room."
Kane said, "It works."
I said, "Where's yours?"
He pointed behind us towards the end of the hall. I fixed my bag over my shoulders and headed for it. The sconces were boxy, lamp imitations, their gold faux candle a shuddering whisper against the soft cream colors, the mahogany designs like trails of spiders running up towards the ceiling.
I paused at one door farthest from the one at the very end. A cardstock paper taped above the door handle read KITAE, and I went for the knob. "This one?" I said, pushing it open.
Kane lunged forward. He grasped the knob and slammed it shut. "No," he said quickly. "No. Um." He bit his lip. "That's my old room," he hurriedly explained. "I don't use it anymore. It's just got junk in it. Don't go inside."
"Junk? That's my kind of decor. Let me see."
"No." His voice was ironclad. I stopped, my hand above the knob. Kane's eyes were harsh on me. "Don't go inside, okay? Really," he said. "Just...it's all useless. Just leave this room alone."
I raised a brow. A part of me was too curious about what junk Kane was keeping inside so secretively that he wanted anyone and everyone out. But I figured I was in no place to know and just nodded.
"All right," I said, holding my hands up. "I won't."
Kane seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at that. He ushered us both to the door at the end of the hall. "I'm in here."
He opened the door.
The room was both very Kane, and not Kane at all.
It was divided by a wall with a moon-shaped entrance cut out of it, steps leading to a dais hosting a gray and blue bed, an office chair spun out of control from its black wood desk, a window the size and shape of the sun giving the resident a million-dollar view of the shoreline below. The other half of the room was occupied predominantly by bookshelves and a plush blue carpet, the walls bare save for a few postcards or photos. A closet sat nestled between one shelf boasting textbooks and calligraphy guides and another holding photographs alongside accolades. Every photo seemed fairly recent, as if any Kane before his sophomore year had been erased.
I stood in front of a photo of him and Sunhee at what seemed to be a market, their faces shielded by hats and sunglasses. I said, "When was this?"
"Last year," Kane said. He sat down on the rug. "I like the Talon, but this worlds better."
I could see why. I sat down across from him. "It's very pretty. I can see why you like it."
Kane smiled. "How is it, being back in Korea?"
I shrugged. "It works." He cocked a brow. I laughed. "It's different," I admitted. "I don't know. It's difficult."
He frowned. "Difficult?"
I picked at the fluff of the rug. "My family spoils so many things," I sighed. "I guess a part of me is worried whether they spoiled Korea." I pulled my knees to my chest. "In a way, it's why I never came back. I never wanted to find out if they did."
Kane's silver and black eyes were ever-swirling hurricanes. He scooted over to me until his knee touched my thigh. He took my hand with his, fingers tentative under my palm. The entire position, the gesture, felt so sweet I couldn't tell if I'd be sick or saturated from it. I stared at Kane's hand. I thought of the bruises on his knuckles. I thought of the blood on mine.
"If they did," he said, voice soft as a lullaby, "then we'll just have to find a different Korea to see."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "Every summer I come here, it's a little bit of a different Korea. I think that's mostly because I'm different than the summer before, you know?" He linked our fingers together. "Things change. People change. Maybe your memories can change, too."
A chance. A life.
To remake was a privilege you didn't get every day.
I laid my head on his shoulder, perhaps just to feel the warmth through my skin. "I hope so," I said.
The waters rushed for me with hope.
In the horizon, I saw a hurricane form, its wrath coming towards us with all its terrible truths.
(ty for reading! updates are likely to switch now to every saturday as my schedule has suddenly become abhorrently busy, so thank you so much for reading and for all your support, y'all are the real ones and the little star above thanks you for it :)