Chapter Text
They’ve moved out of the alley and onto a better-lit curb, scooched to its edge to keep out of the way of pedestrians and cyclists.
“Sorry for vomiting, Yoonji-yah. It wasn’t because of you.”
Yoonji doesn't see how it could have been because of anything else. “Are you sure you’re feeling better?”
“Of course,” Soojin says, head resting in her hand and eyes shut.
Earlier, Yoonji had left Soojin to run to the convenience store across the street. She’d come back with a pair of slides too large—her choices had been limited in there—and a vitamin drink, which, she had assured Soojin with one soiled hand behind her back, the sales assistant had helped to get.
Yoonji looks at her for a while like this, safe in front of her closed eyes, then returns to scrubbing the dried blood off her hands until something hits her on her arm.
“They didn’t have any wet towels at the store?” Soojin asks, watching Yoonji scratch her fingers pink.
Yoonji picks the pack of wet towels off the ground with mumbled gratitude.
Soojin had wanted to know, and Yoonji had given in. Given up. And really, Yoonji can’t think of anything less surprising than that.
Cold fingers poke at her cheek, and she turns to find Soojin staring at her, big-eyed and wary. “Hold on. You’re not dead, are you?”
Yoonji doesn’t get her at all, sometimes. “Unnie, please.”
Soojin flushes. “Don’t– don’t look at me like– you just said–,” she grumbles, then pulls Yoonji closer.
“What.” Yoonji startles again at Soojin’s fingers on her neck.
Four beats later, they’re gone.
Soojin frowns at her. “And you’re sure you’re a vampire?”
“When did I use that word?” Yoonji snaps. ”And when did you become such an expert?”
“I guess you’re right,” Soojin says. She’s taking all of it in quick stride. Yoonji would be impressed if she wasn’t scared out of her mind.
They sit: silent, watchful—Soojin of her socked toes, and Yoonji of Soojin.
“You eat, though,” Soojin says, wiggling her toes thoughtfully. “I mean, you eat normal food.”
“I need to,” Yoonji tells her, hugging her knees to her chest. “And I need this too.”
Soojin thinks about this for a while. “What happens if…”
They turn to each other.
(What happens, is Yoonji, eleven, being shaken awake by her eomma.
What happens, is her eomma’s frightened voice turning Yoonji sick with fear before she’s even seen what she has done.
What happens, is the blood, everywhere and over everything.
What happens, is their neighbour’s missing dog, and Yoonji vomiting, crying eomma I don’t know how– I didn’t– I–)
Yoonji shakes her head.
This time, Soojin doesn’t ask.
::::
“Yoonji, what are we going to do?”
It’s said so quietly that Yoonji doesn’t know if she’s meant to answer. Yoonji didn’t get to drink much before Soojin found her. She knows she’ll have to sneak out of the dorm again soon—tomorrow, if she can manage it. She knows what she needs to do, but she doesn’t think that’s what Soojin meant. “Can we go home now?”
“Yeah, duh.” Soojin stands and hikes her bag over her shoulder, extending a hand out for Yoonji to take. “Come on.”
Yoonji stares up at it, her own hands feeling tacky, so Soojin bends to grip around her wrist and pull her up. “Come on, I’m hungry. That was my dinner, over there,” she says, nodding back into the alley.
It’s meant to be a joke, she knows. Yoonji feels awful anyway. “Unnie, let me grab–”
Soojin laughs at her. “Let’s go home.”
::::
“–I thought we were all going to have to watch Namjoo drop awkward hints about respecting each other’s boundaries when we eventually found out about your secret boyfriend.”
Soojin had come up with theories about Yoonji’s disappearances, she learns.
Soojin points at her. “See. I knew you’d make that face about it too.”
::::
“–and then someone calls saying they have you, and Jeongsunie starts to cry, and–”
“Wait, go back, why would the kidnappers call you and not my parents?”
“That– don’t interrupt me,” Soojin says to Yoonji, but pauses to consider this anyway, finger resting on her lip. “You have a point,” she allows, seconds later. “Fine. Let’s say they call your parents, and then they tell us about it. Either way, Jeongsunie’s crying, and–”
::::
“And my secret boyfriend was behind all of it?”
“That guy?” Soojin scoffs. “Please. He sold you out to the kidnappers and ran the first chance he got.”
Yoonji laughs.
Soojin chuckles along with her. “Is that funny? Your secret boyfriend betrayed you and you’re laughing?”
“Unnie, why’s he such a tool?” Yoonji whines, feeling light enough to reach back with her own playfulness. “You couldn’t imagine someone nicer for me?”
Soojin’s smile gentles. She lets the question sit between them long enough for Yoonji to realise she’s getting a real answer. “You looked sad,” Soojin explains. “Would someone nice make you that sad?”
::::
Soojin gets to their front door a second before Yoonji does and makes no move to unlock it, so Yoonji has to start digging in her own pockets for her keys.
“Hey,” Soojin says, stopping her with a light hand on her elbow.
When Yoonji looks up at her, there’s no trace of the frantic upbeatness that had accompanied them on their journey back to the dorm. All that’s left, are the nerves they were meant to hide, and well. Here it is, Yoonji thinks, the other shoe.
And then Soojin tries to wrestle her.
“Have you lost it?!” Yoonji shrieks, as quietly as she can. She doesn’t want the whole building witnessing whatever this is.
Yoonji’s horror over the situation does nothing to stop Soojin. “Let me hug you, god!”
Some fruitless struggling later, Yoonji gives up. Soojin’s hold around her shoulders loosens a little, and she feels her hand pat lightly against her back, following an irregular, stuttering beat. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Yoonji says.
“Good. Just let it happen,” is Soojin’s strangled response—the only sign that this is strange for her too, until she steps away and reveals both her red face and her ducked eyes. “Don’t look so sad,” she grumbles, before finally letting them both through the door.
Inside, they find Taeyeon sitting on the floor of their unlit living room and spooning strawberry yogurt out of a small yogurt cup.
“What happened to your shoes?” Taeyeon asks Soojin.
“They’re here somewhere, I’m sure,” Soojin answers easily.
Yoonji nods at the yogurt Hosook had no doubt ripped into Namjoo over. “Where’d you hide that?”
Taeyeon taps the side of her nose with the spoon’s stem. “We didn’t see each other,” she informs them and goes back to her stolen yogurt.
Yoonji didn’t think it was possible to eat something of this consistency, this loudly. But Taeyeon manages to. She suspects the only thing saving them is Namjoo’s even louder snores rolling out over everything else.
Caught between Taeyeon’s lip-smacking and the four others fast asleep in their room, Yoonji accepts that the night, with all of its surprises, has found its end. Back in this house and back in their old life, Soojin is free to forget, Yoonji hopes. What she saw in the alley can become an uncomfortable dream.
And Yoonji can carry on the way she has.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spies on this Soojin: the one who has shared her terrible secret for over an hour now.
She doesn’t expect her to be looking back, or to be mouthing something at her: something significant, it would seem, given how earnestly (albeit noiselessly) Soojin delivers it.
It’s dark though, and Yoonji doesn’t catch it. She nods back dutifully anyway, filling in the blanks with the voice in her head that’s modeled after Soojin’s:
Yoonji-yah, chin up!
Yoonji-yah, hang in there!
Or something like that, she’s sure. Something sweet and optimistic.
Satisfied that Yoonji has received her message, Soojin ends it with a thumbs up and goes to grab her shower things from their room.
Yoonji follows behind her. With Taeyeon still up savouring her yogurt, she won’t be leaving the dorm again tonight.