No Dogs Allowed

Your S(e)oul Like A Match

(*party poppers* this story has made it to the wattys 2023 shortlist for ongoing stories!! yayy :) thank u all so very much for your support on this very chaotic story, it means the world that you have followed along this far :) the little star is so very grateful, as am i, to see you here!)

[WARNING: READER DISCRETION ADVISED:

This chapter contains sexual content as well as discussion of eating disorders and weight/body image that some readers may find uncomfortable. If so, please refrain from reading further. Thank you.]

A week passed before I made the mistake.

For both our sakes, I'll tell you about the week first.

Nami stopped going into what was supposed to be my room by Sunday.

"Ahem."

I cracked open an eye. Nami glared down at me. I looked down at my bare torso. I yawned, "It's not like that."

She said, "You should tell me what it is like, then."

I pulled the covers over me. "We're not that close yet, Nami."

"Ahem. The Wang family is to attend the Neugdae Market in the town. As a guest, you will go with."

I said, "I thought eating dogs was a stereotype."

"It is a shopping market for the lycan community," she snapped. "Please get up. And put on a shirt."

"This sounds like a long to-do list for such an early hour."

"It's eleven."

"I'm on LA time, Nami."

"I am not. Please get up now. I will call Mister Wang."

"Trust me, once you've lived with that kid, you learn to filter out most of that nagging anyway."

A hand grabbed my ear and pulled my head up from the pillow. Kane raised a brow down at me. "Ya," he snapped. "What are you going on about?"

I swatted at his hand. "This was a set-up."

Kane let go of me and I rubbed at my ear. "Get up. We leave in fifteen."

"What? To where? What's with all these crunched time frames?"

"I told you to get up an hour ago," Kane said, pitiless. He turned on his heel as he fixed the last two of his buttons on his shirt. "You sleep like a gumiho in hibernation. Get up."

Nami gave me a smug look. "Now."

I sighed, and got up.

The Neugdae Market of outskirt Busan was a market dedicated to small lycan shop-owners and their respective patrons. A section of it was dedicated primarily to food—mostly meat—while the rest of it was occupied by trinkets, clothes, and practical tools.

We readily avoided the food section and headed for the materials instead. Sunhee and Nami accompanied us, Nami with much reluctance as she stared at the markets' booths with mild disdain. Sunhee and Kane had enough enthusiasm for her, though.

"Echo, Echo." She held up a pair of blue and green incense sticks. "What do you think?"

I said, "Can you smoke them?"

Kane hit me on the back of the head. "Decorum," he said. "Noona, you already have two boxes of those you haven't gone through. Do you need more?"

She clicked her tongue, giving him a look. "Ya. How many shoes do you have again?"

Kane sighed, turning on his heel. "I'm going to see if they have any pumpkin essence."

"Don't buy any more shoes!"

Kane pretended not to hear her. I said, "Pumpkin essence?"

"Good for lycan skin," she said, patting her face. She put the sticks back and hurried over to a different booth. "Oh! Dried squid. She always sells it cheap."

I let her drag me sideways and right back into the unending crowds.

I stood in front of sets of braided charms and keychains. I lifted a Busan one to my eyes, pink and green threads winding in kaleidoscopic patterns until it formed the distinct scene of Gwangan Bridge, lit up with neon beads in the night.

Kane leaned over me, his chest to my back. "It's pretty," he said.

I hooked it back onto the wooden knob. "It is," I said.

"Do you like it?"

"Don't do that."

I ducked away from him and headed to another booth holding baskets of carrots and broccoli. When Kane found me a minute or so later, he handed me the charm. I stared at him.

"Dude," I said.

Kane said, "Half the fun is buying memorabilia," he said, browsing the carrots. "Besides, you don't own any kind of decor for anything. It'd be nice if you personalized a few things every now and then."

I thumbed the charm. "If I keep it, will you not buy me anything else for the rest of this outing?"

Kane plucked two carrots from the leftmost basket and presented them to the lycan. He said, "All right."

I hooked the charm to my jeans' belt loop. "All right," I repeated, and, "Carrots? Really?"

"Vitamins," he explained. "Let's see if they have any goguma here."

I perked up. "Goguma?"

We returned nearly two hours later, arms full of bags or baskets, Nami nearly toppling over with all the things she held in her arms. She peeked at us from behind a cardboard box of sweet potatoes just to glare at me. "With all due respect," she snapped, "no adolescent of your size should be eating this much sweet potato in any form."

"You're very judgmental, Nami," I said. "That's the cheapest I'll ever get goguma for. What else am I to do?"

"Eat like a normal lycan," she muttered as she stumbled for the second kitchen.

I headed upstairs towards my designated room with nothing but my charm and a package of dried goguma. I heard footsteps behind me and said, "This isn't your room."

Kane rested his chin atop my head. "Not yours either."

"Tell that to Nami." I pushed open the door.

Kane wrapped his arm around my waist and tugged me against him. He pressed his nose into the crook of my neck, and heat raced up to my face. "You gotta return my shirt anyway," he murmured.

I glanced to the stairs to see if Nami or one of her henchmen had wandered up. When it was empty, I said, "All right."

We headed towards his room. I tore open my package of dried goguma to toss some into my mouth. "You really keep track of all your shirts?" I said. "Because I'm pretty sure you have plenty to spare."

Kane set all his bags down on the bed and gestured at them. "Here. Go through them, take a look."

I frowned, sitting beside them. "Why?"

Kane didn't answer, heading for his closet to change out of his sun-soaked button-down. I pulled out a variety of shirts and shorts, hats and gloves, essences and serums, bracelets and necklaces from the bags. I lifted a thin bracelet up to the light. A tiny star dangled from its clasps.

"You're gonna be a decorated man," I said, setting it back down.

Kane returned in a T-shirt and sat beside me. He lifted the bracelet up to both our eyes. "Do you like it?" he asked.

I hummed. "You're a star," I quipped.

Kane considered that. He took my wrist, and wrapped the bracelet around it, clasping it tight. I stared down. Kane said, "It looks nice."

I shook my head. "Take it."

"I have enough jewelry." He got to his feet. I gawked. He glanced back at the rest of the goods. "Do you like them?"

"Oh, you're crazy," I said with a nod. "You're out of your mind."

"Do you?"

"If I say no, will you take them back?"

"No."

"Ugh." I crossed my arms. "Too bad anyway. Take it back. I don't want it."

He took a sweater from the pile, a pale blue thing. A goose was sewn into the breast, a single quack escaping from its embroidered mouth. He said, "I thought you'd like an upgrade."

I blinked. I stared at the little goose. I narrowed my eyes. "Oh, you're good."

Kane shrugged. "Or I'll keep it."

"Give me that."

"Thought you wanted me to take it back."

"Don't fuck with my geese, Kane."

He tossed it to me with a laugh. He pulled a bag of creams and serums towards him. "These are good," he went on. "This helps the skin texture. This is sunscreen because you never wear any. This is good for your eyes."

"You should open a store, man," I said. "Mister Wang's Emporium."

Kane took out a slim bottle, colored pink and white. "Use this, at least," he said, handing it to me. "It's for Omegas. For scarring."

I paused. Kane placed the bottle in my hand. I stared down at the smooth texture in my hand.

After a beat, I said, "Thank you."

Kane shook his head. "Don't thank me." He got to his feet. "We're going to Seoul tomorrow, by the way."

I did a double take. "Seoul?"

Kane hummed. "We're gonna stop in Gangnam for the day to see Sungki. We'll leave at nine tomorrow."

"What's in Gangnam?" I asked.

Kane cocked his head from side to side. "You'll see," he promised, then ruffled my hair over my eyes. "Let's get lunch. We can go to Daegu."

"What's in Daegu?'

"I'll be outside in ten."

I sighed, and flopped back onto the bed of goods. "The chaos of Korea," I told the goose.

I smiled.

Gao would decidedly accompany us to Gangnam, via train.

Unlike some sections of America—as in, LA—Korea's busy cities and busier people had begged the need for some seriously good public transportation. Therefore, the creation of an intricate and timely subway system had been born, alongside the ever-advanced bullet trains that crossed the entirety of Korea from one end to the other in a matter of hours.

We stood in Busan's station right at edge of the deep tracks the screens above and around us reading off times and stations and stops for their trains in bright neon. The hour swayed lazily over our heads, hot with August, sweet with dawn. Gao stood a bit of a ways away from us, glancing around at the world through his black glasses, while Sunhee explained the important details.

"We'll stop in Gangnam and meet up with Sungki for lunch," she explained. "Then I'll go with him to Rodeo. You two can come with or we'll meet you at COEX, have dinner at Hyundai, then call it a night. Okay?"

We nodded. Sunhee grinned at me, her nose scrunching with it. "Echo. Your first time on KTX. Are you excited?"

"Isn't it just a train?"

She clicked her tongue, waving me off. "You two are too similar, you know that?"

I frowned. "I think I'm offended."

"Me, too," Kane agreed and I gaped.

Gao said, "We'll board in a few minutes."

The train zoomed into the station promptly enough, shaped much like a bullet as it promised, its body white and blue and blurry with speed. It slowed to a stop with a scream, shuddering and deflating, before ultimately stopping in its tracks.

Kane pushed me forward. "Come on."

We went.

I sat against the window, the red seat soft against me and the window warm with incoming sun. Kane sat beside me , lit up in a slice of sun. He said, "We'll go to COEX before Sunhee and Sungki. Corvus sent me a list of what they want."

"What's COEX?"

"A mall," he said, "but bigger."

I raised a brow. "Do I want to know?"

Kane shrugged. "You'll see."

"You gotta stop saying that."

He grinned. His hair was freshly blow-dried, falling in fluffy waves over his face and around his eyes. He reached into his bag, rifled around, before he withdrew two packs of sesame and pumpkin seed crackers. He handed me one.

"You can't go to Gangnam and not shop," he said. "They've got Sanrio."

I scoffed. "Don't bribe me."

I tossed the cracker into my mouth. We watched Busan trail behind us, a mess of city life and greenery and seaside winds.

Stepping into Gangnam was much like stepping inside a geode.

Buildings jutted up high into the sky like towering crystals, phantoms sprouting up from clean concrete and reflecting the faces of neon billboards or chromatic banners, of the rich and the richer. Streets flowed with sparkling doors wide open for worthy patrons, were filled to the brim with glassy windows containing mannequins and celebrities dressed to the nines. Trees as green as rare gems provided some shade from the sun and the city's dazzle, a few narrow alleys packed from head to toe with local shop names providing proof of some life below the upper class. But for the most part, from the perfect white street paint to the glowing skyscraper crowns, Gangnam was a city for the spoiled, by the spoiled, with the spoiled.

I said so.

"I'm not spoiled enough for this," I told Kane.

He narrowed his eyes. "What's that mean?"

"You remind me of a poodle sometimes."

"You remind me of a human highlighter."

"Did you just call me a human?"

Sunhee said, "Ya. What are you two talking about? Come on, Sungki said he's already there."

Gao gestured at a Kia Carnival with a bow of his head. "Welcome to Gangnam, Mister Echo," he told me. "We'll be going to Gugudang now to meet Mister Wang."

"Do you people just have a garage of cars in every district?" I asked.

Kane stared at me. "Yes," he said solemnly. He withdrew two black masks from his pocket and handed me one. He pushed me towards the door. "Now go."

I went.

Sunhee sat in the front. "Did your kkamagwi send you a list?" she said with a laugh.

Kane shook his head. "Every time."

"You're a group of shopaholics."

"Like you wouldn't believe," I said.

Sunhee laughed high in her throat. Gao closed the doors and started up the engine, before we were pulling off the road and right into the chaos of Seoul traffic. Kane lifted his hand, and slipped it into mine, his thumb brushing the bracelet around my wrist. He leaned over while Sunhee and Gao were discussing, and whispered, "Having fun?"

I quirked a grin. "Who knew you knew how to have fun?"

Kane laughed, and the sound melted between the wind.

Sungki looked like his mother.

We pulled onto the side of the street where a staircase led down to the turquoise building labeled "Gugudang" in crisp white Hangul where Gao let us off to find parking. I went to take off my mask, but Sunhee shook her head. "When we're inside," she said.

I frowned. "Why are we wearing these exactly?"

Kane cocked his head to the side. "I'll tell you later," he said, "Come on."

We descended down and into the restaurant, where a waiter bowed his head and guided us to a booth in the very back of the establishment, the light dim under the onslaught of sun being let in by the lattice windows. On one side, a young man sat with a bright red drink already out in front of him, his white button-down tucked into his navy blue pants, the Ferragamos on his feet shimmering under the sunlight. He turned his head at our approach, and I saw Mrs. Wang's moon-shaped face holding bright brown eyes and a wide grin. He lifted his hand, and waved.

"Noona," he called. "You dressed up for me."

"Be quiet, Sungki," she said, waving him off, but twirling around to let her white and pink skirt sail around her anyway. "I always dress up."

Sungki laughed. He got up to reach for Kane and sling an arm around him. "Ah, byeongali," he said with a laugh. "I swear you grew."

Kane smiled. "I hope," he said, and patted Sungki's back. "Nice to see you didn't, hyung."

"Punk." Sungki released him to ruffle his hair. "You get more of an attitude over the year?"

"Comes with the height," he said, then gestured at me. "This is Echo. He's one of the new Corvus racers this season."

Sungki peered around Kane at me. He was only a few inches shorter than Kane was, but he still stood far taller than me, and seemed to realize such when he looked me up and down. He held out his hand. "Wang Sungki," he said. "Nice to meet you, Echo." He said it like Eko.

I said, "Nice to meet you."

"Echo. Do you have a Korean name?"

"Echo."

"Echo?"

"Echo."

"Hey," Sunhee said, smiling. "There's an echo in here."

I sighed. "It's a prison."

Sungki laughed. "A nice name," he said. "Do you like steak?"

I hesitated. "I don't eat meat."

Sungki threw his head back at that. "A lycan that doesn't eat meat!" he said with a laugh. "Hey, I won't judge. No meat, then. They've got mushroom?" He slid into the booth seat. "A chaesigjuuija lycan. Never heard of that one."

I frowned. Kane slid into the seat beside me and said, "Vegetarian."

I shrugged. "As long as it's not vegan."

Sungki said, "You race, Echo?"

I nodded. "Sometimes."

He laughed. "What's byeongali like on the track then? I haven't seen him race since he was a rookie kid."

I glanced at Kane. "What's byeongali?"

Kane hesitated. He glanced at Sungki. "Hyung, stop calling me that."

"Sungki, be nice," Sunhee snapped.

"Ah, come on, it's cute," he said. He glanced at me, then said in English, "Chick."

I said, "Like, a baby chicken?"

"Oh? Ah, you know him now," Sungki said. "Well, you know, Echo, before Kitae was a big-shot racer and too tall for the doorways, he was pretty different. Like a byeongali."

Kane frowned. "Hyung," he said, sterner. "Come on. Talk about something else. How's work?"

"Sungki," Sunhee snapped, sending him a significant look. "Stop."

Sungki waved them both off. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Kitae. You get more serious every time I see you. All that tattoo ink seeped right into your head." He pointed at Kane's scars, then laughed. He tapped his own hair. "Or all the dye?"

Kane waved him away. "How's work?"

Sungki took a sip of his drink and acquiesced, diving into a different road that involved complaining about Janchi's new division and the upcoming Atlas model to be released. I glanced at Kane's hair, the black scars on his skin.

I let the sun devour me by the minute.

Sungki bid us goodbye with a flick of his hand and a grin sent my way. "You ever need a ride in Seoul, kid, let me know. Kitae's friends are my friends."

I nodded. "Thank you."

Kane hugged Sungki goodbye and exchanged a hushed conversation with him briefly before they were separating. Sunhee waved us goodbye and promised to meet us soon enough at COEX. Before we left, she snagged my sleeve and said, "Echo. If you go to Hyundai's food court before us, you have to find the fae that sell the cookies."

"The...what?"

"You'll know," she said with a wink. "Okay, have fun, be young, be in love, stick with Gao!"

Gao bowed his head. Kane and I whirled around in our seats inside the car.

"What?" we yelled.

But Gao shut the door in our faces, leaving Sunhee and Sungki cackling on the sunlit streets of Gangnam.

__________________

Kane lied against the bed's frame, bare in nothing but the sheets and the moon, a contraband Lucky Strike hanging from his naked fingers. He blew the cloud out the open window, the sea breeze frigid in the air, the cigarette an acrid, bitter smell in my lungs. I lied against him, the duvet over my legs, my lungs full of second-hand smoke. The air was potent with foreign seas and riptides, Lucky Strikes and clandestine affairs.

I said, "Why do you let your aunt call you Kitae?"

Kane rested his arm on my shoulders, the heat of it burning my neck. "I know she says it from a different place than Luan or any of those other guys," he said. "They only call me Kitae to mock me. She calls Kitae because it's who she's known for so long, you know?'

I turned my head into his bicep, my lips ghosting against the skin there. "Do you miss Kitae?"

Kane considered that. He let his cigarette rest in my mouth for a while as he pulled me against him, my head against his chest, his arm on my stomach, hand drawing maps on my hip. His breath rustled my rainbow-colored waves.

"No," he decided. "I don't."

I dropped the cigarette into a glassy blue dish on his bed stand. I said, "What are you going to do after Red?"

Kane hummed. "I don't know."

"Then, after this season?"

"It's sort of late to have so many questions, no?" He brushed my hair from my face, impossibly gentle. He rested his cheek on my temple. "Don't worry about it now."

"Such a planner," I said. "Who are you to tell me not to worry?"

"No one." Kane slipped his fingers from my hip bone to my thigh, from my thigh to the space between my legs. "No one at all."

I said, "Corvus will want an answer."

"Probably."

"You don't want to talk about it."

Kane moved his hand. I tilted my head back until the crown of my skull rested on his collarbone. He reached up to slide sea salted fingers from my throat to my chin, across my lips and down my throat. I felt the pressure on my tongue like holding a knife between my lips.

"No," he admitted in my ear. "I don't."

I groaned around his fingers, arched my back up from his grasp, and watched the sounds fade into dust and nothingness in the silent night. Like starlight.

Like silver.

____________________

Starfield COEX Mall was exactly what it said it was: a starfield, and a mall. Only far, far bigger.

COEX was a monstrosity of half a dozen levels, hundreds on hundreds of stores, an entire underground food court, and an aquarium for no other reason other than the fact that, well, why not? From luxury names to middle-class brands to obscure retailers, trending jeans or famous monograms or triple-sole sneakers, vermillion lip tints and crow-colored jackets and delicate jewels, the question was more so what wasn't there to find in COEX, rather than what was.

I said, "We'll be in here until I die."

Kane withdrew his phone, where he opened a page of notes that seemed to extend to the length of the Wall of China. I gawked. He closed his phone and said, "Let's go?"

"You're trying to kill me," I said. "Slowly. With vengeance."

Kane slung his arm around my shoulders and hauled us through the crystalline double doors. "Let's go."

We went.

Kane knew the mall a little too well for me to feel settled for his wallet, but I figured I should remain at ease considering all the money he'd spent up to that point. That being said, I couldn't resist.

"More shoes? How many feet do you have?" I said, gesturing at the pair of Adidas in his hands.

Kane pretended he hadn't heard me speak. He held up the green and white sneakers to me. "Do you think the green on the outside or in the stripe is better?"

"I think you have two feet. I think you have more than two shoes in your closets."

Kane set them down. "I'll get the green stripe one. But grab a pair of those blue and red ones on the shelf, Zahir wants a pair."

I grabbed a pair. Kane said, "Do you want anything?"

"To run?" I said. "From what? My problems?" I handed him the shoes. "I'm all right."

"They have racing cleats."

"Stop buying me things."

Kane headed for the register. I glanced at a jacket, cream and black blocked into the windbreaker's sleeves. I returned to his side.

Kane stared at me. He turned to the man at the register. He said to me in English, "Go grab Rosalie that red jacket on the hook there, medium."

I sighed. "Errand boy," I muttered, and headed over to grab it.

When I returned, Kane already had everything bagged up and tossed the jacket in with it. He said, "Anywhere you wanna go?"

I shook my head. "Although your sister mentioned a fae with cookies?"

Kane considered that, then grinned. "We'll hit it last. As a treat." He took up the bags and handed it to Gao, who raised a brow at him. "Kenzo wants a coat from Zara, and Zoe wants a skirt."

"You're like a mother crow," I quipped.

Kane shook his head. "Come on."

I brushed my hands over a jean jacket, the patches reading off cities and sayings in Hangul all across its sleeves and back. Gao said, "It's a nice jacket."

"You gotta stop creeping up on me, Gao," I told him.

Gao hummed that away. I left the jacket behind, heading over towards where Kane was examining black and blue coats hanging from the silver racks. He held one up to me. "You think he'd want it?"

"Was it made from the skin of innocent children?" I asked, and Kane elbowed me. "Ow. Hey, it's true."

Kane tossed the coat over his arm. "I'll get it." He turned on his heel. "Let's look at the pants. You need something more comfortable than jeans and sweats."

"What gets more comfortable?"

Kane ignored me in favor of sifting through the cotton and linen fiber pants. After several minutes of me standing and watching, he finally withdrew two pairs of tapered cotton pants to drape over his arms. "Let's go."

"Stop. Buying. Me. Things."

Kane ruffled my hair. "Call it a gift," he said. "Gaja."

I glanced at Gao. "You're seeing this?"

Gao turned his back to me. "There is still much of COEX left to see, Mister Echo."

I groaned, and followed after.

"Just what am I gonna do in a makeup store?" I said, then pointed at Kane. "Don't say what you're gonna say."

He closed his mouth. He turned back to the eyeshadows. We stood in OLIVEYOUNG, the bright LED lights lighting up rows upon rows of crowded bottles and containers, jars and palettes. I felt less like a kid in a candy store and more like an adult man in Build-A-Bear.

"It's not for you," Kane said. "Wynter wanted lip tints. Sunhee said these two are the best brands." He held up a bottle and a stick. "Unless you want some for yourself."

"You think you're funny," I said, turning around to head for the wall of skincare, "but you're not."

Kane laughed after me. He leaned against my back and said, "Maybe you can find something to wash the dirt off your mouth."

"When you find something that washes the attitude off your face," I said, swatting him away.

"I heard zinc is good for that."

"I've got something better. Like silence."

His grin was all stars and August, burning up the air around me.

"In your dreams," he said.

Kane stood behind me in the red walls of SPAO, a shirt hanging over me and his silver eyes scrutinizing in Korean harsh enough for passing strangers to send us strange looks.

"Stop fidgeting like a toddler," he snapped. "This comes in gray, too."

"I refuse," I said. "I want in transparent. I want it in the color 'nothing'."

"Tempting," Kane said, and switched it out for black. "All right. This makes your hair look brighter but your posture looks bad."

"My posture is always bad," I said. "I look like a goddamn parabola. That's not new."

Gao coughed on something like a laugh and turned away. Kane sent him a look. He traded it out for a pink one. I said, "Really?"

Kane said, "You match."

"Stop. Doing that."

Kane put them back and placed a cream one over my front. "It'll work," he decided and tossed it to Gao. "Where are the shirts?"

"You have a problem. You need rehabilitation for this." I reached into his back pocket to procure his wallet. "This is an intervention."

Kane turned his back to me. "I don't keep my card in my wallet. Come on, let's go."

I opened the leather folds and gaped. "Where the hell else would you keep it?"

Kane tossed the sweaters over his shoulder. "Nowhere you can reach," he said.

"Your bra?"

"Let's go."

I stood in front of a pair of purple and white cleats, a single golden star on their sides, their thick leather pristine under the blaring white light. I tapped the sides of the lugged soles, where bright silver teeth jutted out of them.

Kane peered down at them. He said, "They're nice."

I said, "I guess so."

"Do you like them?"

"I think they're nice," I corrected.

Kane said, "TRAX is best for cleats. Yours are getting old anyway."

"I've had them for less than a year."

He shrugged. "You should change your cleats when you can. The teeth wear down pretty fast. Yours are already getting dull." He plucked them up. "They're nice."

I shook my head. "Don't even."

Kane ruffled my hair. "Want any new socks?"

"Stop buying people things," I told him. "They'll owe you."

Kane stared at me. Then, gave me a small, thin smile. He turned away from me.

"You don't owe me anything," he said. "I promise."

Class A Gallery was for the influencers that had yet to influence squat. Why I was there, well, let me know when you find out.

Kane pushed his phone to the woman at the desk to point at it. He explained something quickly, sending the woman off to the back to retrieve something. I said, "What's that?"

"Aster ordered photo prints. Her cousin works here, so she gets it for free," he explained. "I said I'd pick it up for her."

I leaned against the counter. "You were all one big group?"

"Something like that."

"Is Aster the only one worth keeping in touch with?"

Kane considered that. After a beat, he said, "Zoe reminds me of her. In that, they're both clumsy about things, but they always try their best." The woman returned with a manila envelope to hand to him with a smile. "Aster and I have history. You know how it is."

I didn't, not really at least. Cass and the witches were the closest I'd come to having history with anyone, but even them, I'd never shared anything beyond casual conversations and class. I'd never had someone in the first place to lose.

Kane must have seen something on my face that made him re-think his statement, because he said, "Forget about Aster, though. It's in the past." He put the envelope into a bag and turned around. "Let's grab coffee or something and go."

"Didn't we already have coffee?"

Kane frowned. "So?"

"Koreans and their coffee," I deduced. "Where's a cafe?"

"Anywhere within ten steps," he snorted. "Come on."

Gao began to lead us out of the store, before he stopped in front of a small white booth. For the first time since I'd met the man, he smiled. He gestured at it and glanced to Kane.

"Mister Wang," he said. "You used to love these as a child."

Kane sent him a look. "Gao."

"Mister Wang has a photo strip from every photo booth in Seoul," Gao told me confidently. "It's his hobby."

"I was nine."

"A great joy of his."

"Nine years old, Gao."

"Likely still is." Gao gestured at it.

I said, "What do you do?"

Kane frowned. "Have you never been in a photo booth?"

I frowned. "No."

Kane's eyes widened. He considered the booth for a few moments, then handed Gao his bags and beckoned for me to follow him. "Come on," he said. "Consider this your exposure."

"Do you win a prize?"

He laughed at that. "What? No. It's just for photos."

I shrugged. Gao went to wait outside while Kane slid behind the blue curtain and onto the leather seat. A little screen was situated in front of us and Kane pressed the start button.

"You get four photos," he explained to me, tapping different settings and options that went over my head. "They'll give you three seconds in between each photo. You pay and get two strips."

"What're the photos supposed to be?" I asked.

"Anything," Kane said. "No rules." When I just gave him a blank look, he waved me away and turned on the timer. "Here. Like this."

The first countdown began. I frowned at it, just as Kane wound an arm around my shoulders and yanked me into him. He pushed the corners of my lips up into a smile with his fingers and grinned at the camera next to me.

The photo snapped into place. I sputtered. "That cannot be right."

"And you say I'm uptight," he murmured, releasing me.

I scoffed at that. "You are," I said. "Like it's your hobby."

Kane glared at me. I slung my arm over him and stuck my tongue out at the camera. Kane laughed, his breath grazing my neck.

"Annoying you," he said, "is a pretty fun hobby."

I stuck my tongue out at him. He stuck his tongue out at me. I broke into a laugh. I said, "Who knew you were any fun?"

"Hey," he snapped from under my arm. "Who's been taking you around places?"

"Sunhee."

"You're funny," he deadpanned. "You're too much."

I laughed. "'Hey'," I said, "is for horses."

Kane pulled me to him by my collar, and kissed me to the sound of the camera's shutter.

"You must like Gangnam," I said. "All of its shopping."

Kane took a sip of his latte. "Maybe. It's somewhere to go for the day, though," he said. "I only got into shopping when I started racing."

I hummed around the lip of my iced americano. "Did you always have to help yourself out?"

Kane paused. "Something like that," he said. "My parents gave me a flat sum of money when I went to America for the first two years."

"Where did you live?"

He drummed his fingers against the coffee cup. "Friend's place," he explained, then frowned at me. "Where did you live?"

I froze. "A few places," I said. "Can I ask what started the shoe obsession?"

He snorted. "No backstory, actually. I just like them. I think they make the outfit, you know?" He showed me his black and pink high tops, the toes studded with silver, a statement among his quiet gray and black get-up.

I said, "Which ones are those?"

"Dunno. Sunhee gave them to me. Do you like them?"

"Don't buy anything," I told him, getting to my feet. "It's almost five. Where we going now?"

Kane got to his feet and turned on his heel. "Let's find those cookies, yeah?"

I watched his pink shoes blur into the crowd as he walked, the waves of the world parting for him.

The Hyundai Department Store's Food Court was the epicenter of high-brow cheap eats.

The walls were a dark charcoal, cut up and smoothed by careful hands, lit up only by white beams hanging from a low ceiling. Tables were filled to the brim with patrons dressed to impress, workers shouting over the bustle as they raced between registers, trays, glass cases, and hot pans to deliver the delectable goods. Gao stood behind us, holding his arms out to block hurrying strangers from bumping into our sides.

Kane scanned the room, squinting. He chewed his lip. He glanced at Gao. "Where is Yeobo?"

"Right here, yeobo," I quipped, and snickered when he batted me away.

Gao raised a brow at us, then frowned at Kane. "To the left, right there." He pointed a booth in the corner. "You know what it looks like."

Kane didn't reply to that. He searched the corner, positioned as if to walk, but not walking. I tugged at my collar, and brushed past him.

"I see it," I said, tapping Kane.

I headed for the booth, a turquoise sign reading in delicate, golden Hangul YEOBO BAKERY. I stood in front of the glass cases, and spotted the display on hand.

Yakgwa stood in turquoise boxes and rows on rows of golden cases, some with jam, some with seeds, some with pastes, some all on their own in their individual, honey glory. I stared, gaping.

A fae glided over towards us and folded her hands, black nails curling into her skin. She gave us a razor-toothed smile. "Best yakgwa in Gangnam. Gourmet. All different kinds." She gestured at the case. "You try?"

I stared at the honey cookies for a long, long moment. Kane leaned over me. "Do you have the raspberry one?"

She grinned and nodded. "Three in a box! Six in a pack! A dozen, for family?"

I said, "It's yakgwa."

Kane glanced at me. "It is."

I said, "It's bougie yakgwa."

Kane said, "It is."

I looked up at him. "You found yakgwa."

Kane peered at me with amusement. "Well, it's Korea. You can find it anywhere, really," he said. "But, yes. I found yakgwa."

Gao cleared his throat. He turned to the woman to begin picking out various kinds for two boxes, each a dozen. Kane beckoned to the other fae, her black nails carefully kneading dough balls through transparent gloves.

He said, "Can I get an individual one? The raspberry?"

She nodded and plucked a turquoise box from the counter. She took a pair of tongs to pluck a single raspberry-topped yakgwa from their rows, and place it inside the box. She pushed it towards us and held up her hand. "De-thaw for one hour, okay?"

"Can we eat it now?" he asked.

"Very sticky," she warned, but nodded. "Still good!"

He took the box from her and handed Gao his card in the same exchange. He opened the box, and the sticky flower stared up at me, red as blood in the middle. He pushed it towards me. "Try it," he said. "It's probably the best yakgwa you'll find in Seoul."

I stared down at the perfect blossom, the honey glistening off its cold petals, the jam sticky and solid in the pistil. I thought of my brother, holding out the same flower, more mottled from being trapped in his palm, smaller from less care, sweet from too much honey. I thought of his grin above it, waiting. One soul.

I looked up.

Kane didn't smile, but rather, simply waited.

I placed the cookie in my hand, and took a bite.

It was as sweet as the Busan summer.

Kane said, "How is it?"

I chewed it thoughtfully. The flavor was so sweet, so potent, it almost hurt. I lifted it to his mouth. "Try it."

Kane stared at me for a long, long moment. Then, bit into the other end of the flower.

When he smiled, I felt a black hole form in my chest, and swallow me up from the inside out.

"Now that's yakgwa," he told me.

_________________

"Yun is on for the Olympic team this upcoming year."

I stopped right in my tracks, my body halfway out the doorway. I watched the kitchen from my vantage, Nami cooking alongside Mrs. Wang shook her head down at her phone as she fiddled with her bowl of grapes. Kane frowned into his mug of black coffee.

"Yun?" he repeated. "Elias?"

I didn't even dare to breathe.

Sunhee let out a loud scoff from the other entrance. She waltzed inside with a bin full of clothes and shoes in her arms. "Yun? That punk. He barely deserves to be on the Bloodhounds with how he races! Ya, King, you take his place. I told you nepotism is a crime."

"The second biggest chaebol of Asia are my parents," he said. "I'm not really an underdog."

"Anyone is better than that kid. There's something up with him, I don't trust it," she said. "When we had that dinner with RIYU, he would always look at me like he was trying to see if I was lying." She snapped her fingers at Kane. "It's a good thing he'll be out of here in a few years. Hey, maybe you can go to the Olympics."

"I've got no time to worry about Yun. And whatever happens to him when RIYU shifts isn't my problem anyway," Kane said with a sigh. "Displacing RIYU doesn't have anything to do with me."

"One good thing?" she tried.

Kane scoffed, taking his mug with him. "Everyone needs a good family outcast."

"Kitae," Mrs. Wang said, frowning. She folded her hands in front of her. "Let's not discuss RIYU and Janchi right now. We are still in the process of negotiations."

"You mean displacing," he murmured.

"That's not what it is," she said.

"I already know what you and Umma and Appa are doing," he told her with a sigh. "It's not a secret. I'm not a kid. I know you can't tell me, but at least don't lie to me when I say it."

"Then you should know Yun falling out of grace will open a good opportunity for you," she countered. "Kitae, I know you are against it, but this is a chance for you to come back."

"Come back where?" he sighed. Kane headed towards my doorway with his mug. "Umma and Appa will never let me re-associate with Janchi, even if I wanted to."

"You should try. You would not have to break your back with all that racing anymore. You could relax," she tried. "You could stay here?"

"And grovel at my feet to them to let me back?" he scoffed.

"Kitae. Please."

Sunhee looked as torn between supporting her mother and standing with Kane. She pursed her lips, going quiet.

Kane walked away from them with a bitter shake of his head. "I'd rather break my whole body with racing than ask them for even a penny," he said. "I'm not a dog on their leash."

I slipped as fast as I could behind a thin dresser holding dishes and chinaware, holding my breath just as he crested the stairs. He paused a moment, likely to search for the culprit sound.

When he found nothing, he walked away, leaving Sunhee and Mrs. Wang alone in the kitchen.

"His pride won't let him," Mrs. Wang said, "but he would be smart to return to Wang. There is no better timing than now where they'd be willing to be lenient. And Yun will likely lose traction in Korea enough for Kitae to take the spot."

"King won't come back, Umma," she said. "You know he can't. They'll never let him. That's not part of the deal. He'd have to give up everything he has in America."

"They would replace it easily! Or we would!" Mrs. Wang said, scoffing. "Then he could at least take a break. He has enough sponsorships. Janchi has a hold in his team's sponsorships. We could try to funnel him a bit to hold him over for a break. I worry, you know that. He looks worse every time I see him."

"Umma. You know we can't," she said. "King will have to come back or keep as he is. A lot of racers make themselves."

She didn't speak for a moment, then said, "And a lot of racers kill their career before it's even begun."

"He's careful."

"And if he's not? He will have no one to help him. Racing is a rich man's sport, Sunhee. Not to race. But what comes when you can't." She mumbled something under her breath. "He should come back home."

"Umma. It's Kitae," Sunhee tried. "You'll never change his mind once it's made."

I slipped out from the behind the dresser. I walked upstairs.

Kane was in front of the door of his old room, the door halfway closed. When he heard footsteps, he shut it all the way, and glanced at the sound. I froze. He frowned.

"Where were you?" he asked.

I thought of my twin brother, once less than a foot away from Kane, the prince of Korea's amateur square racing world facing the king of America's. I thought of my brother smiling at him, holding out his hand. I thought of me doing the same. Same face. Same soul. Different bodies. Different worlds.

I said, "Nowhere."

Kane cocked his head to the side. He said, "Wanna get breakfast?"

I was wrapped in two layers of cellophane, coated in the sticky sap of my own lies.

I smiled. "Yes."

___________________

We met Sungki and Sunhee for bibimbap and jajangmyeon for dinner.

"Ah, I missed this," Sungki said with a nod. He leaned down to scoop mouthfuls of black bean noodles into his mouth. "Oh! Yakgwa?"

Kane pushed the gilded box at him through a mouthful of rice and veggies. "For you, hyung," he said. "Since I can't see Sungho-hyung this summer. Share it with him."

"You like Sungho-hyung more than me, I know," Sungki said with a click of his tongue. "What gives? No hodugwaja?"

"You know how much those were?" Kane snapped. "Better than hodu."

"Nothing is better than hodu," Sungki argued, but took the box anyway. He smiled at me. "You enjoy COEX, Echo?"

I nodded. "It's very big," I said.

He nodded. "But that's the fun of it! Eat well? Kitae take you out everywhere?"

I nodded. "Everywhere."

Sungki smiled. "Got to see Korea while you're here," he said. "Are you heading out to Itaewon after?"

Kane shook his head. "No. Nowhere like that."

"What? Wang, you were the wang of Itaewon," he argued with a snicker. "Itaewon headed after you!"

Kane grimaced at that, like there was a sour taste in his mouth. Sunhee jutted her elbow into her brother.

"Sungki," she snapped, glaring. "If you don't shut up and eat your noodles, I'm gonna twist your nose off. Like this." She made an unscrewing gesture with her knuckles.

Sungki shuddered as if he knew what she meant. "I'm just saying," he said. "You should show Echo the nightlife, too! Don't drink if you don't want to—although I can't imagine why you wouldn't—but at least check out the scene."

Kane took a sip of his sikhye. "No, hyung. Itaewon is too hectic."

I frowned. I turned to Gao. "What's in Itaewon?" I asked quietly.

Gao considered me. "It's a popular place for the young folk," he explained. "A popular nightlife scene for them. Bars and clubs, many things that are open late."

"Well, if you're not going to take him, we should," Sungki said.

"I don't drink," I said.

Sungki sighed. "How are you two Korean?"

"Ya. Shut up," Sunhee snapped, then leaned over the table. "You don't have to drink. You can dance, too. If you two don't drink together, then it can still be fun. Echo, if you want to see it, I'll go with you, how about that?"

I shook my head. "It's all right. I don't need to go." I'd seen enough "nightlife" to last me decades thanks to Mercy.

Kane was focused on mixing up his bibimbap, but said to me in French, "Do you want to go?"

Sungki hissed. "Tsk, hey, hey. No French at the table."

Kane ignored him, waiting for me. I said, "I'm all right. I don't need to see it."

"But do you want to?"

"What is it?"

"Without the drinking, it's just club scenes and eating out," he said. "It can be pretty fun, though, admittedly."

"Do you want to go?"

Kane's spoon paused. He said, "It's been a while," which wasn't really an answer, but was.

Sunhee raised a brow at me. "You speak French?"

I hesitated. "I took it in school," I lied.

Kane said, "You did?"

I hesitated again. "Yeah."

Kane seemed to sense that lie and left it at that. He glanced at Sunhee. "It's up to you, noona." Sungki cleared his throat. Kane said, "Go home, hyung."

"Ya, you little punk, I'm not too old for Itaewon yet," he snapped.

"Shouldn't you be organizing your fridge or something?" Kane sighed. "Or whatever ahjussis do on Thursday nights?"

"Ahjussi? Did you just call me ahjussi?" Sungki snapped, pointing his chopsticks at him. "You just wait, kid. You'll know when you're twenty five."

Kane pretended not to hear him. My stomach churned at that number. I glanced at the threads climbing up Kane's neck.

I said, "Let's go."

They all looked to me.

"Let's go," I repeated. "We've been on the beaches for all the nights before this. The city might not be so bad." I glanced at Kane. "If you're okay with it."

Kane drummed his fingers against the tabletop. After a beat of consideration, he nodded. "All right. We can go."

"I'll go with," Sungki vouched, but Kane shook his head.

"Bad influence, hyung," he argued. "Noona, come with us."

Sunhee clapped her hands. "I'm always for getting a little tipsy on a Thursday. Take that, Sungki."

"Favoritism," he muttered, sipping his sikhye.

You were the king of Itaewon.

We ate in silence.

Itaewon was best described as an alley of Seoul, a Narnia of nightlife.

From top to bottom, telephone lines to cobble streets, neon signs to neon music, drunkards to sober minds, young to younger, bar to bar, drink to drink, drug to drug, meal to meal, cafe to cafe, Itaewon was damn alive, a sector running on adrenaline and adrenaline alone, a heart that never caught a rest from 200 beats per minute.

Gao rolled down the window and called over the pulsing music, "Call for pickup," he said. "I cannot stay here."

"Ah, Gao! You'd miss this?" Sunhee said, gesturing around.

Gao stared at her. "Yes," he deadpanned, and drove away.

Sunhee shrugged. She bounced on the balls of her feet and slung both arms around us. "Ah! This makes me feel young again!" she yelled into the damp night. "Like a damn teenager, running around without a head."

"What's changed?" Kane quipped, and she bonked him on the back of his head.

"Anyway," she snapped. "Let's go, let's go!"

"How do you even find anything in this place?" I called to her.

"Just follow the right scent," she laughed.

I glanced around the streets. People either overdressed to excess or underdressed to questionable legality, their skin studded with tattoos and stars, their faces shadowed with makeup and streetlights. The scent of alcohol was pungent in my nose, the scent of cigarettes noxious in my lungs. They made my head spin and my chest seize. The air was a drug in itself.

Sunhee stopped in front of a black hole of a club, the line snaking around the side and to the back, bouncers staged at either end of the black glass entrance. Sunhee waved at one of them and yelled something. One smiled, threw his head to the side, and waved at Kane.

"The King!" he called, and laughed. "Hey, man, I thought you'd never come back here."

Kane gave an awkward smile. "Me, too," he admitted. "We're just here to show my friend around, he's visiting with us for the summer."

"That shrimp over there?" the bouncer asked, then cackled. "He's cute. You here for a good time?"

"We're just hopping around," Kane assured.

I said, "Shrimp?"

The bouncer slid aside. "All yours, Wang."

Kane pushed us both inside. I said, "Shrimp?"

Kane shrugged. "He's not wrong. Now go in."

We went.

You'll never know a night like Korea's.

And if you did, well, my apologies.

I sat at a booth amongst several other strangers who had negative levels of interest in me, too enthralled with each other and the dozens of drinks in front of them. The dance floor pulsed ahead of us, burning with energy unmatched in any sober setting, lights flashing with no tomorrow above them, the air screaming with sweet and acrid scents.

Sunhee had gone to get herself a drink, Kane accompanying her, leaving me with nothing but the second-hand smoke to ease the pounding. I watched girls slide and slink up against men, men watch girls with sickening grins, men and women alike flirt, dance, and flee. Young debauchery at its finest.

Sunhee returned with a drink in her hand and Kane at her side. He seemed relatively unfazed by the utter chaos, to my surprise. He slid in next to me while Sunhee sat on his right.

She took a sip and said, "If you're not going to drink, you have to at least dance. You two look so sad sitting here."

"I'll kill someone if I dance," I told her. "By a wayward hand or upon seeing me."

She laughed. "You don't have to be good! Everyone is drunk anyway, what does it matter?" She tugged on Kane's sleeve. "Come on. King, you dance!"

"I'll kill myself if I dance," he muttered.

"Dance or I make you," she snapped, hauling him to his feet. "Go, go, I'll finish this and catch up."

"You shouldn't be alone," he argued.

Sunhee sighed. Then, in one fell swoop, downed her drink to its ice and slammed it down on the table hard enough that even the other drunken patrons turned their heads. She yanked me to my feet and shoved Kane and I forward, right towards the dance floor.

"There. Go, go! Let's dance!" she urged. "Did you even visit Itaewon if you didn't dance at a club?"

"Guess we didn't visit," Kane said.

"Kane King." Sunhee pushed him forward. "Go dance like a normal twenty one year old."

And just like that, the sea of the crowd swallowed us whole.

__________________

Kane rested his chin on my shoulder. I shut my phone off, tossing it onto the vicinity of the foot of the bed. Kane's mouth found my bare shoulder, his hand traveling down my forearm and onto my palm. The light was delicate, barely morning, pale like a ghost.

I said, "You should probably sleep."

Kane kissed my neck, my jaw, traced a pulse up behind my ear. "Probably," he admitted. He pulled my back against his chest. His skin was warm with sleep and summer. My eyelids drooped with it. "But you're awake."

"So?"

"So I'm awake."

"What kind of logic?" I asked.

"None. Too early."

I pushed his hands down my waist, my stomach, over the bones of my hips and in between my thighs. His thumb traced the face of the Stirling brand emblazoned on my skin, the mark of an Omega seared there by fate.

"Nami will come in to wake us up," he told me. He pulled my leg up, his hand already reaching for his drawer.

"Thought it was too early for logic," I murmured into his bicep. "What gives?"

Kane laughed. The sun was still awakening, its rays still unable to find us. I wondered if it could stay like that. If I could remain in that translucent hour, that forgetful space, not yet dawn and not yet night, too early for thoughts and too late for risks, too early to the end of a dream and too early to start a new one. I wondered if I did, if I could stay in the heat of Kane's skin, a makeshift sun in the wordless, empty hour where nothing dared take up space but us.

I tilted my head back until it fell against his shoulder. He mouthed at the space below my lips, moved his hand to the roll of his hips. He said, "Your aversion to logic makes sense."

"Be quiet," I told him. "Just your logic."

"My logic says stop fidgeting," he said. "And let go of my arm. You're gonna leave a scar."

I clung tighter. My stomach knotted itself tight, embers like liquid in my gut. "Good," I told him.

Kane pulled his fingers from me. He said, "If you come back next year."

"Hey, man," I said. "We're not even done with this year."

Kane's breath grazed my shoulder blade as he pulled my legs apart, the heat rolling in slow waves around my stomach. He hummed like he pretended to understand what I meant. I raked my hands into his hair at the pressure, at the slow, sweet punch in my lungs that sent my breath escaping me in a low groan.

He said, "If you come back next year, we could stay in Gangnam, too. With Sungho. He has two penthouses there, on the outskirts. If you want to be in the city."

It was almost worse, I deduced, not seeing Kane but feeling him everywhere else; the loss of one sense made the other pay the price. I rolled my hips, groaned at the prodding, and I barely bothered to bite away the sigh in my throat.

"What's so nice about Gangnam?" I breathed. "Busan is prettier."

"You think?" He rolled his hips slowly, languidly, a lazy gesture and careful rhythm. I felt it right up to my throat. "I like Busan better."

"The house is nice."

"The peace is nicer." Kane traced lines down my arms until he could rub his thumbs over my knuckles. "A part of me could stay here forever." He held onto my hips a moment later just to move against me, with purpose, with a bite.

"Then stay," I huffed.

"Come back next year."

"Terrible reason to stay."

"I'd stay either way." He pushed his palm against my stomach, below my belly button, and stars prickled at the edges of my vision as I groaned. "You'd be a nice reason, though."

I felt those words like blades in my throat. I didn't reply, clamping my mouth shut, content to lose the next several minutes in the non-existent space between his chest and my back, his hips and my own.

It wasn't until I was lying atop him, kissing him like I never needed air in the first place, a knock coming for us with dawn and vengeance at the door, that I bothered to return to the words at all.

"King!" Sunhee snapped. "We're gonna go soon? You in there?"

"Busy," he snapped. "Give me ten."

"So rude," she said.

I said, selfishly, cruelly, "Could I come back here?"

Kane didn't realize what I meant at first until he found my eyes. He frowned, sitting up. "Sure. Why not?"

I considered that. Coming back. Returning. Having somewhere you could return. A fantasy. A fiction. A hope.

Kane kissed my knuckles. "You can always come back," he promised. "Why not?"

I felt the year of my life stretch out before me in an cloud of that very hour, that hazy space, the shapeless dream, that periwinkle-and-cotton time where neither dawn nor night could ever find. I felt it sit with a brick's weight in my hands. Corvus sat inside. Kane. Korea. My brother.

I smiled. "Yeah," I whispered, like a fool. "Why not?"

________________

The shadows found me with teeth and tongue.

Which is a dramatic way of saying I got lost.

Being well below average adult height made me relatively well-adjusted to getting lost in crowds, just as well as it made me adjusted to having to slither back through to find people. But with no light working for me and all the bodies working against me, it didn't take long for me to slowly accept the fate that I'd likely remain in the ocean of lycans, gumiho, fae, and humans forever.

I sighed. "You gotta be kidding me," I said.

"Hey, kid," a girl shouted at me through red lips. "Can you be in here?"

"I ask myself that a lot," I muttered, and slinked away from her.

I bumped into a man coated from neck to ankle in leather. He glanced behind me, and grinned wide enough it pushed up his black-lined eyes. "Well, well, hello there," he said in crisp English.

"You a lycan?" I asked.

"All human, all organic, baby," he said.

I held up my hand. "I don't fuck with flesh, but thanks," I said.

He frowned, half-confused and half-offended, but I was slipping under hands and arms before he could muster up a comeback. I turned my head left to right in some poor attempt to find a familiar face.

A hand snagged the back of my shirt. I whirled around.

Kane said, "You make this tracker thing really difficult, you know."

I sagged with relief. "That is my objective," I said. "Where were you?"

"I was going to ask you that. You have a serious fucking talent for getting yourself into bad situations." He said it almost amused, though. He glanced behind me. "Who were you talking to?"

"A leather-bound man," I said. "Nothing you're missing."

Kane snorted. He glanced over my shoulder at the man, frowning. I raised a brow. I said, "Would you like to meet the leather-bound man?"

"What are you talking about?" he said, waving me off. "That's just an open-ended description to go off of."

"Go off of? For what? You trying to hook up with leather-bound humans?"

"Please stop talking," he sighed, putting a hand over my mouth.

I gasped, and tore his hand off. "Are you jealous?"

Kane glared. "Quit spouting bullshit, Echo."

"Oh, you're jealous. You're green. I can see it."

"Be quiet."

"It's just seeping right out of your face."

"Ya."

"You should stop that. It's unbecoming."

"You live to piss me off."

"It's radiating out of you. It's like a beacon of jealousy. Hey, I'd never trade you in for a human, man. Maybe a less grumpy lycan, but never a human. Take heart."

Kane glared down at me. Lights and shadows were in a fight for their lives on his skin, purple like royalty and black like secrets. He said, "I'm not jealous."

I held my hands up. "Whatever comforts you most," I said, and leaned in. "But I'll know."

He leaned down. "You're not funny."

"You say that, but look where we stand."

"I don't really linger around people if they're funny. Look at Diego."

"Damn, and the guy's not even here to speak for himself. This isn't about him anyway."

"Who's jealous now?"

"So clever."

"I am."

"Are you?"

"You said it first."

"So you care what I think."

"Have I ever?"

"You seemed pretty pressed about the human."

"When have I ever wasted energy on a human?"

"Dunno. Look where we are."

"We're not anywhere."

"The land of jealousy."

"I'm not jealous."

"The rolling hills of green."

"Jealous. Of a human."

"The vines of envy."

Kane hooked his fingers into the belt loops of my jeans. He yanked me into him, chest to ribs, hips to hips, his face a few breaths from mine.

"All right," he murmured. "If I am, what of it?"

I stared. I said, "Never heard of a lycan being jealous of a human, is all."

"Not jealous," he said.

"So you say."

"Echo."

"You're no fun," I sighed, and pulled him against me.

He tasted like honey and skin, summer heat and sea salt. I kissed him like I could drink it down for myself.

Kane grasped my chin and tilted my head back, opening my mouth with his. His fingers pressed against my cheek, my jaw, a steady force on my bones. I felt electric, victorious, an undefeated champion.

He whispered, "Wanna dance?"

I smiled against his lips. "Yes."

Sunhee dragged us out of the door, cackling to herself, two drinks deep and just buzzed enough to make us feel buzzed, too.

"Yeesh!" she howled. "I feel twenty two again. Let's hit this one!"

"Another?" I asked, breathless, body aching.

"You gotta hop, Echo! If you party right out here, you can clear half the street." She headed down the road. "Let's go, let's go. Before I remember my age."

We laughed. Kane's face glowed under the red and blue lights, his hair wild and silver-streaked on his head from being torn through so many times, the buttons on his shirt undone all the way down to his sternum to expose sweat-spotted skin and oil-slick scars. He sparked with life, a live wire in the shadows of Itaewon.

He smiled. "All right. Let's go."

Sunhee lit up and went dashing down the concrete.

I said, "Are you sure you want to?"

Kane slung his arm over my shoulders, leaning against my body. "Yeah, actually," he admitted. "I forgot how fun this can be."

I grinned at that. My heart beat out of my chest, violent pulses of lightning shooting out in every direction. I escaped his grasp, and ran ahead.

"Ya! Echo!" he called. "What are you—"

"Keep up, tracker," I called back with a laugh.

I chased Sunhee, Kane chasing me, as we went bounding through the neon night.

After hearing what I did, I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that Sunhee and Kane knew how to party. And I didn't mean how to dance or drink or talk.

I meant how to have a damn good time.

Sunhee twirled around on the floor, laughing high in her throat. She grasped my hand to twirl me around. I tripped and fell against her arms, and she laughed even harder.

"How are you a racer when you're so clumsy?" she asked me.

"You should see me on wheels," I said with a laugh.

Sunhee spun into the crowd, raising her hands high above her head to sway with the music. The bass rattled my vertebrae, my ribs, the metatarsals in my feet, out of place. I wondered if this was a normal feeling people found on normal days, if this was always in reach for the strangers around me. If they were used to always feeling this alive.

Someone spun me around. I faced Kane, who held a thin purple pod in his mouth. He plucked it from his lips. He leaned down, holding me by the back of my neck.

"Open your mouth," he said.

"Déjà vu," I told him, and opened my mouth.

He kissed me with open lips, the sweet smoke a fire on my tongue, dregs escaping at the corners of our mouths. I ran my hands past his heartbeat, under his shirt, fingers pressing against the bare skin there. He pulled away, and blew the last of the smoke up into the air. He was a violet-colored god, a smoke trick, an illusion of the light.

"Bad habit," I told him.

His nose brushed mine. "This or you?"

I just laughed.

Sunhee took us for food after the third club.

"I love you, Echo," she told me, "but I need meat like a dying woman."

I waved her off. "Eat all you want."

Kane said, "They've got mushroom stew."

"Done," I said.

I ate away from Sunhee, shoveling the stew into my mouth like I hadn't eaten in months. Kane shared at the meat with Sunhee, and the two finished off two plates' worth before Sunhee was pushing her card at the pixie and leaning over to both of us, pointing at our faces.

"Cafe?" she said. "Cafe. Then we go home. Promise."

We said, "Promise."

The pixie returned her card and she slid out of her seat. Kane said, "Noona, I could've paid—"

"Ah, quiet, quiet," she slurred. "Noona treats you. Let me do something for you, Kitae."

He stared after her as she went. I stood beside him. He sighed, pushing his hair back from his face. He glanced at me. I said, "Just let her."

Kane said, "I know."

I wrapped my arm around his waist. "Cafe?"

Kane ruffled my hair. We headed out.

"You're acquainting better with Korea by the hour," he told me.

But his smile didn't reach his eyes.

It took two cafes and another two clubs to get us home.

Sunhee nearly fell into the street as she waved her hand for Gao to find us. When he did, he seemed accustomed to the routine, and was prompt to hoist Sunhee up to the front seat with a pat on her back as she assured him she could find her own way up.

"You're so uptight, Gao!" she called. "I know a damn car when I see one. I call front."

"That's the trunk, ma'am," he told her.

"Liar. You lie."

"Of course, ma'am."

"Don't patronize me, Gao."

"That is still the trunk, ma'am."

"Patronized! This society."

Gao helped her to the front.

Kane and I slid into the backseat, the shadows hanging over us, the middle row separating Gao and Sunhee from our reach. Sunhee began to chatter away about the two lattes she'd consumed in the span of one hour, leaving Gao nodding dutifully as he started up the car. He looked at us through the rear view mirror.

"Are you two sober-minded?" he asked.

We held up a thumbs-up. He nodded.

Kane slumped against the leather seat, August heat beading down his neck and chest, over his temples and jaw. The scent of sugar and alcohol, skin and sweat, clung to us with claws. He glowed in the dim shadows.

I rested my head on the seat, watching him. My heartbeat ran like liquid down my throat and into my stomach. I swallowed it down. I watched the traffic lights of three AM shift and shake over us, panels of color appearing and disappearing all at once.

I craned my head at him. I leaned my head on his shoulder. Kane said, "Have fun?"

I reached up and pushed my hand in the opening of his shirt, my fingers grazing his damp skin. He hummed into my hair. I undid the last few buttons, heat in the back of my head.

"You didn't answer my question," he said.

"I'm answering it now," I murmured.

"We're in the car."

"They can't see."

He scoffed. "Brazen," he said. "What happened to you?"

I shrugged. "You," I said.

I traced the line of his abdominal muscles, intercostal, obliques, stopping at his stomach. Kane finally turned his gaze on me. He took my wrist in his fingers, dragged my hand down, down, down. I watched violet cloud his eyes, heat flood from his eyes to mine. If Hell was a body, if damnation was a face.

Kane craned his head down to kiss my neck, lips ghosting over the shell of my ear. I pushed my palm down and he bit the skin below my jaw with a hiss. I pressed harder. Kane wrapped fingers tight around my forearm.

"Not here," he told me.

"They're not looking."

"You're trying to kill me," he deduced.

"If this is all it takes to kill you, you've got a long way to go," I said.

Kane laughed low and quiet against my skin. I moved my hand again, felt the shift of his hips against my palm, the pressure of boiling heat form in my gut. I mouthed at his neck and found a vein there to bite.

"Ya!" Sunhee snapped. "What are you two doing?"

We jumped apart so fast Kane hit his head on the ceiling with a ricocheting thud, sending his elbow flying wayward and right into my side. I wheezed, doubling over, holding my aching rib.

"Are you two okay?" Gao called.

"Noona," Kane hissed. "What the hell?"

"What? You were so quiet, I was just wondering!" she snapped, then giggled to herself. "Were you two making out?"

"No!" we snapped in unison, although mine was raspier as I fought to catch my breath.

Sunhee burst into a cackle as Gao frowned at us in the mirror. "Mister Echo, are you okay?"

I held up my hand. "Fine," I gasped. "Bruised a lung but fine."

"What?"

"Kidding," I coughed. "Maybe."

Gao seemed content with that and continued swerving through late Seoul traffic. Kane said, "Are you okay?"

"Your freakishly sharp elbows," I wheezed, "can take fucking shotgun next time."

I waited for his comeback to that, but when it never came, I glanced at him.

Kane held his head, his mouth wide, laughter bubbling out from him. His smile bloomed like spring.

"Noted," he told me. "Duly noted."

The night was an endless world, uncharted and unmapped, waiting for the light to find it.

______________________

I sat in a Blue Room, the blood long-dried on my skin and clothes, my nails dark with it. D let the door slam shut behind him. He tore off his bloodied gloves and tossed them into the trash, frowning down at me.

"You look like shit, kid," he told me. "Don't you have homework?"

"Did it," I said.

"Aren't you smart?"

"What else do I do?" I sighed. "Homework and bodies."

D cocked his head at me. He knelt down and situated himself at my side. He withdrew a pack of Camels, and plucked two from the pack. He handed one to me. I said, "I can't smoke."

"Why not?" he said. "Who's stopping you?"

I blinked. He dropped the cigarette into my palm. He withdrew a lighter, red as the walls, and lit the end of his.

"You should get a hobby, you know," he told me. "Every kid has a hobby. It's, like, their thing or something."

"Or something," I agreed.

"You should get one. This is no hobby." He gestured around us, at the metal tools, the metal table, the blood in the floorboards, the lives under our fingernails. "Maybe a sport. You're gonna need to learn to drive soon for Mercy."

I lifted the cigarette up. He lit the end. I took too big of an inhale and nearly coughed my left lung out. D gave me an enthused thump on my back, and with it, thumped out my words for me.

"I'm not racing," I coughed.

"Why not? Side money."

"Mercy wouldn't let me keep that."

"She doesn't have to know." I stared. D shrugged. "I won't tell if you won't. Just don't get your ass kicked and don't bet what you can't pay. You're a lycan, Omega or not. A Class III Stirling ghost." He blew acrid smoke into the already-acrid air. "Racing will do you some good, kid."

I sat with the burning cigarette dangling from my fingers, the curls of dragon breath flying upwards into the nothingness. I chewed my lip.

"How would I start?" I asked. From nothing? From less than?

D glanced at me. He performed a slow drag, an example puff, a gesture meant to be imitated. I tried my very best, inhaling slow, exhaling slower, holding back the cough as well as I could even when my eyes watered. D nodded.

He said, "What kind of question is that? You just start." He blew the smoke right in my face. A blind, silver storm. "You know, kid, the best racers aren't the ones that can race. The best racers are the ones that wanna win." He poked my chest. "Do you wanna win?"

I stared. I said, "Yes."

D got to his feet, and headed back for the door.

"Then you're already halfway there," he said.

______________________

It was Friday, a placid morning, nothing but the sea and the distant city available to make noise. Kane was out walking the length of the coves, Nami cleaning the kitchen with a quiet rag, Mrs. Wang out for business, Sunhee still fast asleep. I sat on the roof, an ESSE cigarette in my mouth, smoke curling out between my teeth in gray tendrils.

At some point in time, my phone pinged alive. I debated on answering it, then decided better and checked the notification.

11:23 AM - kane

do you want to get lunch?

I blew a puff of gray into the sky. I glanced around, peering down where the coves rolled about to see if I could spot him.

11:24 AM - echo (echo)

ok

"Echo," Sunhee called from the door. She yawned into her sleeve and placed her hands on her hips. "What are you doing up there? That's dangerous. I swear you and King are no different sometimes."

"Insulting," I said as I slid down. "To both parties." I planted my feet on the green grass. "Kane says he wants lunch. Where to?"

Sunhee grinned sleepily. She pushed her black waves back from her face. "Let's do...haejangguk. We need the remedy. My head is still pounding. Meori apeuda." She turned around. "Tell King to meet us downstairs."

I texted him such and headed after her. My phone pinged again.

11:26 AM - kane

can u grab my jean jacket? the one w the elephant patch

its in my room

I said, "I gotta grab his jacket."

"Jacket? So hot," Sunhee said, frowning, but shrugged. "All right. Be quick."

I nodded and headed for the stairs. I veered for the hallway and spotted Kane's bedroom at the end of the hall.

I headed for it and went for the closet, shuffling about the drawers and the closets and the wardrobes in efforts to find his jacket. I frowned, coming up empty. I headed for the bed, the floors, but turned up with nothing.

My room.

I hummed. His old room, maybe.

I closed the door behind me and spotted the bronze handle of his old room. I pulled out my phone.

11:29 AM - echo (echo)

did u mean ur old room ???

When another two minutes passed without a response, I shrugged and headed for the door on my own. Kane's wrath was not to be trifled with, but I much preferred his to what Sunhee's likely would be if we missed lunch. A hungry lycan was nothing to fuck with.

I opened the door.

Kane hadn't been kidding about the room being turned into storage.

Boxes and bins littered the corners, piled higher than I could even jump to reach, some with labels and some with sloppy marker abbreviations. One wall occupied a bed, fluffy with baby blue blankets and green pillows, two stuffed dinosaurs situated on the duvet. Two large drawers pulled out from the bed, and in them, a dozen packages of candies and drinks, snacks and instant foods were stowed. The carpet was soft and worn, pale like the flower lamp situated on the white nightstand. The entire room was round, the walls a washed-out green, the lights round like the sun and small as dying stars. A wall was dedicated to a plush bay window, adorned with moon-shaped pillows and stuffed animals, a window shaped just like the yakgwa cookie we'd eaten the day before taking up the rest of the space to let the night and day shine in.

But it wasn't so much the strange, child-like aspect of the room that struck me, but the shelf and wall full of photos instead.

I could immediately see Kane's room from the Talon, steeled right into the skeleton of the room here. The only difference was in the timing. Where Kane had no photos from anything earlier than his later high school years in the Talon, the gap of time was filled in with all photos from every time earlier.

I crept forward, sliding around boxes and bins, until I eventually stopped in front of the shelf. I peered up and tried to trace the timeline back to every Kane I'd never met before.

Most of the photos were not of Kane at all, but of relatives or his cousins, friends I didn't know the name of. Many were Luan's group, their faces younger and bodies smaller. I frowned at the shelf above. The same as the Talon, trophies and medals, banners and jerseys, but unlike the Talon's, none were of any significant victory. Most were runner-up awards, participation trophies, some not even awards at all. Photos of little leagues and amateur teams were framed beside them. But I couldn't find Kane in any of them.

I plucked a photo up from the shelf framed in carved wood and gold threads. It was a boy alongside a young man who held his shoulder, his wavy hair cut in choppy bangs framing a chubby face and crooked teeth. He smiled brightly at the camera, holding the young man as high as he could reach, which was really only his hips.

I frowned. I put the photo back. I took one that seemed meant for school, the same boy before a blue background, his body heavy both in weight and in the way he carried himself, his shoulders hunched, his wavy hair over his eyes, a bandage over his clearly-broken nose, his teeth trapped in braces and his smile stiff.

The photo and I stared at each other for a long, long moment, until I spotted a distinct mole, situated right beside the boy's left brow.

I blinked. I murmured, "No wa—"

"What are you doing?"

I whirled around, nearly tumbling right into a nearby box in the process. I whipped my head to the voice.

Kane stood in the doorway, the sea having tousled his black and silver hair away from his face, leaving black and gray eyes, a nose like Sunhee's, and straight teeth staring back at me. For a brief moment, I tried to place the boy's face on top of his.

I glanced at the photo, my lip quirking. "Is this you?" I asked, gesturing at the picture. I smiled at it. "Is this where all your old pictures are?"

Kane didn't speak. He stood frozen where he was, staring me down with unreadable eyes. "What?" he said.

I turned around. "They're cute," I said. "Are these all you? Why did you put them—"

"What the hell are you doing in here?"

I glanced behind me. Kane moved, heading for me only to snag the photo right from my hands.

"I...was looking for your jacket," I tried. "I thought maybe you left it in here."

"I told you not to come in here," Kane snapped. He turned on me, his face iron and ice, eyes like stone. His voice could have cut through bone. "I told you not to go in this room. I told you to stay out of it."

"I'm...sorry, I didn't think it was a big deal. I just thought—"

"You never think anything is a big deal," he spat. "Why don't you ever take anything I say seriously? Why the hell don't you ever just listen to me?"

"Kane, I didn't—"

"This isn't your room. This isn't your fucking home." He turned around, placing the photo on the shelf, shoving it to the back. "Just, get out."

"Kane."

"I said get out," he snapped. "Go."

A cold wind had blown into the room, a gust that eradicated any August or its accompanying sun like a mass summer extinction. I stood like an oblong line, jagged in my corners, suddenly entirely out of place in the room. The frigid room, chilly like winter, with the only heat source being the fury from Kane's skin and the embarrassing truth on mine.

This is not your home.

I turned around.

I walked out of the room.

____________________

I held a box of croissants I didn't make, Kenzo at his desk, me bruised and battered in the doorway. April was pungent, a putrid, dry, musty month between spring's infancy and winter's remnants.

Kenzo didn't look at me, content to conduct his fourth round of titration calculations in the midst of an Alanis Morissette marathon, his hand furious and his eyes lazy. I said, "I got croissants."

Kenzo didn't answer. I set the box on the table in the living room and returned to his door. He flipped the page of his homework, tapping his nail to the beat of Hand in my Pocket. I said, "Ahem."

Kenzo finally said, "What?"

I said, "I need to talk to you."

Kenzo considered that. "Not really."

"Yes, really."

"Why?"

"It's about Kane."

He sighed, unimpressed. When he failed to reply, I took that as a sign to say, "I want to know something about his family."

Kenzo circled an answer in a fill-in-the-blank. He said, "No answer is no conversation."

"Can you at least tell me about his parents?" I said, switching to Japanese in some cheap shot he'd listen.

It was a cheap enough shot, because a moment later, he set his pen down and turned down the music bursting from his laptop. He turned around in his chair to face me. Kenzo didn't bother waiting for my specific question.

"Kane and his parents are not on a casual basis," he said, this time, in Korean. "A chaebol Drachmann cannot leave his family without a price. Coming here was his test."

"His test," I repeated. "Between being a ghost and a golden child."

Kenzo eyed me. "Yes," he finally said. "So you are one."

"I never said that," I replied. "Who's your sister?"

Kenzo turned back to his work. "Kane cannot afford failure," he told me. "His existence depended and depends on it. Without racing, he brings no use to his family's name, and he's failed to prove his worth. Even golden children aren't free from becoming ghosts eventually."

"But he doesn't talk to them."

"That is part of the deal."

"What deal?"

"Have you ever thought to ask him these things?" Kenzo sighed, exasperated. "I am not your messenger."

"He'd never tell me."

"I wonder if it's for a good reason."

"He needs the 607."

"Then get him the 607." Kenzo waved me away. "These are not my problems. Take them to Ramos."

"You don't even care that he's going to die?"

Kenzo went quiet at that. He turned away for the last time, facing me with a cold, bitter face, a dark shadow in his black eyes.

"How long have you been here?" Kenzo asked. "Months? And you've wreaked all the havoc that you have? You've wrought all the issues we face?"

I pursed my lips, hesitating.

"You have jeopardized this team time and time again with all your games and secrets. We may all have somewhere to return to if Corvus takes another strike, but Kane does not," he said. "Kane would rather die from the poison than stop racing. They would be the same fate." Kenzo faced his work, away from me. "So don't ask me if I don't care. I think you should ask yourself."

They would be the same fate.

I didn't ask more. I knew I couldn't.

I left the cookies to grow stale on the table.

I fled into the night, and hoped if I ran fast enough, I could leave all my ghosts to die in my wake, never to be seen again.

__________________________

I stood on the shore, waves lapping at my toes, the foam bubbling on my skin, the hour breaking open the atmosphere to let the yolk of the sun slide out heavy and thick onto my back. I stared out at the blue waters, waiting for the waves to rise. When they never did, I turned to the clouds. But the only storm brewing on the shores of Busan was the one I had created.

I knelt down, plucked a shell from the grains. I watched the sea slip out of it.

"You left me all alone, you know."

I turned around.

Sunhee stood a few yards away, still clad in her blue and pink dress, its thin, silky fabric flowering around her in rolling waves of color and crisp buds of spring. Her black hair had been released from its bun, the waves tumbling wild and out of symmetry around her moon face.

I blinked. I said, "I'm sorry."

Sunhee gave me a sad smile, like my response made her glum, and I knew she knew. She walked towards me with her sandals in her hands. I said, "We can go now."

Sunhee shook her head. "It's all right, Echo."

"I'm sorry."

She stared a long, long time at me. After a few moments of what seemed like deliberation, she came to a stop at my side, her eyes watching the shoreline, the sun a syrupy, warm thing on her pale skin. We stood together, shoulder to shoulder, as if waiting for the sea to swallow us up whole.

This is not your home.

Sunhee said, "Do you love my cousin?"

I was halted at that question. Shot in the back. Struck in the jaw. Trapped in a headlock. On the stand, before the jury, in front of God.

"A part of me is so happy with who he is," she said. "Another part of me is so sad." Sunhee swished her dress over her ankles, let the sea nibble at the hem. "I always think to myself what would be different had I told him to stay in Korea. Who he would have become with someone there with him." Sunhee held a hand over her heart like it hurt just saying the words. "He was such a carefree kid, you know? So easily happy, no matter what. Always smiling. Always laughing. But as time went, and he grew up, I could see things changing. People change, of course." Sunhee sighed. "I just hoped."

I said, "What happened?"

She shook her head. "He never liked to talk about his time in America with us. For a while, I thought he wasn't allowed to. But after some time, I realized he just preferred us not knowing," she said. "I think, I never realized how secretive Kane could be."

I ducked my head, watching the nothingness of the ocean sink into the sands. I didn't know anything to say that would help.

"At first," she continued, "I thought it was because he was prideful. And he is. I think that's part of it." Her laugh was sad. "But I realized, after Poppy died, that it was just fear."

"Of what?"

Sunhee considered that, then said, "Losing." She nodded. "Kane, no matter what, has always feared losing."

I'm afraid that I'll lose.

Sunhee glanced at me. "Do you love Kane?"

I considered that, but I drew a long, opaque blank in response. Love was a far-off concept to me, a detached experience I'd looked in on from a window outside. Love had not been lovely, had been a hazy creature, a shadow in the corner, a scar carved into my skin. Love was voracious, selfish, a knife fight and a shootout. Love was a violent thing. Claws out, teeth attached. The only beast you chased as fast as it chased you.

I had sliced people open, shot people dead, stolen and lied, been somebody nonexistent, been nobody at all. I had never once looked at love in the face. I had never once had it look at me.

You make me real.

I faced the sea. "I don't really know what that feels like," I admitted. "I'm sorry." I was. To her, to me, to him. "I can't tell you for sure."

Sunhee was quiet. She tapped her fingers against her sides as she kicked at the phthalo waters.

"Are you afraid of him?" she asked.

I frowned. "What?"

"Do you ever get scared?" she said. "Do you ever get scared of Kane?"

You're always going to be afraid of something.

I thought of Kane, the silver in his blood, the smell of soap from his hair and cotton on his skin, the mole below his brow, the speed of his bike, the fangs within his gums, the heat of his bare body on mine. I thought of his heartbeat, the shape of his crooked grin, the rock salt in his anger and the rampant desperation in his race.

I said, "Always."

Sunhee hummed, as if she already knew that'd be my answer. "I think it's hard, sometimes, to know whether you love someone. Kane always has trouble, you know." She laughed to herself. "To me, he loves in the peripheral."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "In small things," she explained. "You never see it until it's already in front of you."

I looked down at my shoes, at the phone in my back pocket, the kiss still fresh on my mouth and the country shore surrounding me. In the peripheral.

Sunhee lifted her skirt. "I don't ask you to pressure you," she said. "I don't want you to feel anything but what you feel."

I said, "Then, why?"

Sunhee considered me. "I guess," she sighed, "I don't want to see him lose either."

She lifted her feet from the waters, brushing past me to walk back towards the house. I watched her go. I said, "Sunhee-ssi."

Sunhee stopped. She turned around.

"He won't," I said.

Sunhee stood in the sun and the winds, looking after me like I'd disappear into thin air at any moment. When I didn't, she gave me a grin, solemn, sweet, an understanding in it that startled me.

"Eko-ya," she told me. "Just call me 'noona'."

I watched her walk away, sand and secrets in her wake, with me left behind.

I had found a grouping of rocks to perch myself on for the day, and was only found when the sun began to dip below the horizon, turning the world into fractured, amber resin shards. The air had grown colder by the minute, leaving me pulling at the sleeves of my baby blue cardigan, content to freeze to death under the moon's witness.

Kane had different plans.

I threw my hundredth broken shell out into the sea, watching it plop once before sinking below the surface. I felt that weight. I sighed, resting my forehead on my knees, my hair damp from the constant sea. I figured I would just wait out the night altogether.

"Ya," someone called. "Wet hair and you'll catch a fever."

I looked up.

Kane stood below the rocks, looking up at me with silver eyes, clad in a jean jacket and hoodie, slides hanging from his hands, his feet and the hem of his cotton pants soaked from the tide. A tiger roared in its mighty patch cage on the breast.

I said, "You found it."

Kane blinked. He glanced down at the jacket. He said, "Nami had taken it to wash."

I said, "Ah."

Kane said, "Come down. It's getting cold."

I said, "It's all right."

Kane stared. He said, "All right."

I heard him grunt and glanced over. I watched him make his way up the rocks, nimble on his feet as he climbed up, barely slipping, ever graceful. When he finally found his way up to me, he shucked off the jacket, the inside lined with thin, blue cotton, and tossed it over my shoulders.

"That's not a real jacket," he told me, gesturing at my sweater.

I shrugged, smoothing my hands on the blue threads, my mother in its gaps. "I like it."

We sat in stiff silence, nothing but the ocean and the wind, Busan and the sky available to break it up in jagged increments. I traced the sleeves of the jacket, thumbed the buttons on the cuffs.

Kane said, "I'm sorry."

I pursed my lips. I shook my head. "Don't be. I'm sorry," I said. "You're right. I shouldn't have gone inside."

"I shouldn't have yelled at you," he said. "What I said was wrong. I know you didn't mean anything by it."

"I'm sorry, that I didn't listen."

Kane shook his head. "It's all right," he said. "I shouldn't have gotten mad, I just..." He sighed out a broken breath. "I was just embarrassed."

I always think to myself what would be different had I told him to stay in Korea. Who he would have become with someone there with him.

I thought of the bruises on his throat. I thought of Luan's grin. I thought of Kenzo's warning, Ramos's words, Rosalie's tears. Silver. Beryllium. Blood. Smoke. I thought of the photos on his wall, the boy in the frame, Poppy, Corvus, everything before, everything after.

"Why," I asked, "did you become Kane King?"

The words were brick towers, built over months on end, the final block threatening to topple them all over the rock and sand around us. Busan watched us with moonlit eyes, soft hums, and patience.

Kane stared out at the sea. He pulled his legs up to his chest. He looked years younger, and older, all at once.

He said, "I was supposed to be a ghost child."

The breath left my lungs.

Kane pursed his lips. "My parents sent me here when I was young because they thought I'd never become what they needed. The only reason I wasn't was because of my aunt, she convinced them to give me a chance. But when I found out they had never wanted me anyway, I decided to leave. It was too late to be off the records, but it wasn't too late for me to try and change them. So I went to America.

"I'd only tried racing in increments, and I liked it, but I never really loved it. It wasn't until I came to America that I really went after it," he went on. "But leaving my family meant leaving my whole family. So they gave me some money and left the rest to me to figure out, said that if I found a way to make my name something, they'd leave me free, and if I didn't, they'd do what they planned from the start." Kane shrugged sadly. "So I had to find a way to do well on my own."

I stared. I said, "You were a kid."

Kane's scoff was weak, his eyes glassy. He shook his head. "No," he said softly. "No, I was a loser."

"That's not true."

He shook his head, like the very thought of himself disgusted him.

"Everyone always says I was a really happy kid, and they always talk about it like it's something I should be sad to lose, but it's all bullshit. I might've been happy, but I was oblivious. My parents were right to think to cast me aside at first," he scoffed. "Even coming to America, I was at rock bottom. I didn't have any friends. I barely spoke English. I was shit in school and shittier in tests. I was overweight, got all the worst features of my family's faces. I had no talent, no skill, in anything." Kane ducked his head down, and I saw a silver tear fall onto his knees. "I was a no one. I was nothing."

I tried to see it, tried to erase all the accolades, all the crowns, everything that had make Kane King a king in the first place. Tried to see nothing but Kane. When I did, I found him awfully young, frantic, a kid on a throne too big for him to take up.

Kane rested his chin on his knee and wiped his eyes. "Luan came up to me at lunch one day. Think he felt bad because I was always eating alone. He was friendly, didn't seem to care about me but what I had to tell him. I liked that. He eventually introduced me to his friend group, Baluyot and the twins and Aster and all of them. I was so desperate to have friends that I didn't even bother questioning whether I should stay. Since Luan wanted me there, they wanted me there. It was nice.

"Luan offered for me to stay with him when he found out I was staying in a motel because I didn't have anywhere to go," he explained. "He was a racer too, was captain of Greylaw's varsity team at the time. So he introduced me into conditioning and practice drills, taught me the basics on the track. He even gave me one of his old bikes because I couldn't afford my own." Kane's voice was bitter fondness, a sad hope. "He told me that, if winning was easy, everyone would be a winner. That's why not everyone can be."

It felt unreal, untrue, to see the two like that. Still, the look on his face promised its truth.

"I got older," he continued. "Got braces, took speech classes after school, started studying in between classes, got a job waiting tables. I threw myself into racing, did every early and late practice I could by myself or with Luan, lost weight, got in shape. I did street racing on the side every now and then for the money. When I went into sophomore year of high school, I had enough money that I decided to move districts to transfer into Greylaw and change my name.

"High school got better," he went on. "Not a lot of people knew what I was like beforehand. I got into varsity. I had friends. I performed well in school. I did well on the team. Luan's friends became my friends. When he went into college, we started dating." Kane shrugged, his lip twitching. "It felt like, for the first time in my life, I was someone people wanted."

It's why he came here in the first place.

And, I don't think he can ever go back.

"Things changed in senior year," he admitted, his voice growing softer, like telling a secret. "My parents started talking to me about coming back into the family, about going back to Korea for good. They said they didn't think the high I was riding would last. I'd burn out." He closed his eyes. "I'd always be Kitae in some way or another."

"I thought they told you not to," I said.

"Sunhee says they got nervous about what would become of me without some kind of say," he said. "I was a loose end. It was a reminder that I wasn't a golden child yet. If I failed, I would disappear."

I stared. I said, "What happened in senior year?"

Kane paused. "I started getting desperate," he admitted. "Luan's friends began to get more and more into street racing, so I joined them. But it got me into a lot of trouble, made me befriend some questionable people, made me greedy. I started getting into fights, and Luan would get so mad at me that he'd just..." Kane sighed shakily. "It was a miracle I even kept my offer with Avaldi with how bad my grades got. The press started following me because of my parents. I hated eating. I hated my friends. I had to live with Luan because I had nowhere else to go. I couldn't even race because of the stupid injuries I got from fighting." Kane sighed. "I just got scared. That my parents were right. That I'd never really make it.

"Corvus hated me," he said. "I was a constant hazard, for press and on the track. I didn't want to be their friend. I would still go back to Luan every time he wanted me there. If Poppy wasn't there, I probably would have gotten myself killed or kicked out." He sighed. "When she died, it felt all the shitty stuff I'd done leading up to it was reaping itself right in front of me. I knew Corvus wouldn't survive without her, not with all the crap I'd gotten us into before. But it was selfish too, because without Corvus, I wouldn't survive either."

"You took captain," I said.

"It was my fault," he said. "Everything up to it. It was my fault. I had to try."

It was infinitely strange, seeing the path that Kane had taken to where he was. Kane had made himself a king out of a fight to feel success. I'd made myself a ghost out of a fight to survive. Kane, who had remade himself and the world around him just to be worth something. Kane, who was more terrified than I'd ever really seen him to be.

I'm afraid that I'll lose.

I'm afraid that I'll disappear.

It was a cruel, possible, honest promise.

To be no one.

"You," I said, "weren't no one."

Kane scoffed at that. "I was nothing," he said. "Trust me. I was fucking nothing." I watched glass break from his eyes. "I hated myself. I hated my life. I was a loser in every fucking way. Trust me, Echo," he whispered. "I was nothing."

What success did it take, I wondered, to be something, then?

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "That I never told you. But I was just embarrassed, about all of it. It was nice. It was selfish, but it was nice. Just being Kane to you. I liked that you, that Corvus, didn't know anything about what I used to be." He sighed. "It felt like a chance at a do-over. I feel like I'm always trying to do it over." Kane rested his cheek on his knee. "I don't know. I hoped...I wanted to get it right this time."

A chance.

There are no chances.

There are only choices.

I said, "It's lonely though, at the top."

Kane shrugged. "Maybe," he whispered. "But it's fucking scary at the bottom."

But couldn't a choice be that chance? When did you get your second chance then? Did you choose it? Did you choose someone to make it? Did you lose it?

I stared at Kane for a long moment.

I made my choice.

"You are not no one," I said, startling myself.

Kane turned his eyes to me. The black was depleting now, the silver becoming overwhelming in his irises, threads of it cracking into his pupils in terrible, intrusive veins. The amber of the sun turned it gold.

"You are not no one," I said. "You make mistakes. You make shitty choices. You take those chances. You're Kitae, you're King, you're Kane. You're hurt, you hurt. People die, people live, shit goes wrong, shit goes right. You move on. It's over." I held his gaze. "You can't punish who you are now for who you were before. You can let it be over. You can move on. It's okay to move on."

You are not no one.

"Everyone is somebody's somebody," I said. "And, you are not no one."

You make me real.

I had spent my whole life being no one. I had lived every day as no one. I had never been anyone's somebody. I was the twin that hadn't been chosen, a half of one soul that had been forgotten, a child that disappeared and a name that had become a ghost and a face that was nothing more than an echo of another's. I had never fought for me. I had never been fought for. I had never been a choice or a chance. To the world, I had never even been.

I reached over and took Kane's hand in mine, the gesture strange, soft like cotton. I placed my finger under his wrist to feel the heartbeat there. To make sure he was real.

He brushed his thumb against my pulse point. Maybe to prove to himself the same thing.

Kane held onto my hand, pressed my knuckles against his cheekbone. He said, in hushed Korean, "Thank you. For saying that."

I pressed my shoulder against his. I listened to his heart.

"First rule," I told him.

I had never felt realer.

(this chapter caps at EXACTLY 17000 words and that stands as a new record of the longest chapter i've ever written, so, thank you very much for sticking around for this VERY long very drama chapter, i'm v grateful for u and ur presence, as is the little star. about 1/4 left to go w/this story :DDD the star and i are happy to have you with us!)