Chapter Text
Cha-young doesn't remember exactly when the rivalry started.
It simply... did.
While attending her last year at the University for Korea's Magical Arts (UKMA for short), Cha-young was recruited by a mysterious, older gentleman with a strong British accent and a rusty Korean dialect.
He had heard of her talents; a magical, powerful physicist with the trained ability to make anything out of nothing, make anything from anything, make gravity her own and manipulate space and matter like she had done it since birth.
And she had, really. Cha-young had a vague memory of turning her father's pen into her own little magical lollipop with the snap of her little 4-year-old fingers, just because she wanted something sweet and Mr. Hong had said no.
Now, though, she did more than that. A pen into a lollipop? Try turning three floors into one, giant space. Holes in the wall? Maybe she'd bend gravity to her will instead.
Her talents were incredible, unprecedented. And this man, this mysterious British who had known her talents to her extent and maybe greater, had offered her the offer of a lifetime.
Knowledge and power beyond her wildest dreams.
And so, there she was. Accessing the infamous, forever-lost (or so the world believed), Library of Alexandria, with shelves that moved on their own and opened up books specifically for her and only for her.
But there were some books she could never access.
Those were the ones she wanted, to find out why her mother died.
A small bump in the road, though. That's what she told herself when the unbearable sadness of remembering that she was just one step away from finding out the truth. A small bump in the road, on the road to endless knowledge, endless power, endless wealth, endless everything.
She'd get them. Eventually.
As long as one of the other stupid initiate chosen ones stopped getting in her damn way.
"You're always in the damn way, Hong," Vincenzo Cassano said simply and irritatingly, crushing an apple core in his palm then opening it to reveal the book he had been searching for, in the books chosen for him. "Maybe if you moved, we wouldn't have to cross paths a hundred times a day. Are you not as fast as the snaps of your fingers, Ms. Physicist?"
Cha-young's eyes twitched. For the Alexandrian society, six were chosen for initiation. Six of the best, most powerful, most unique magicians in the world, from all over the world.
One was herself, obviously.
And another, unfortunately, was Vincenzo Cassano, a young man from Italy who was also a physicist, like herself.
They were the only two who had another person in this six with the same powers, and Cha-young often wondered if it was a curse, considering-
"This isn't the first time we meet like this, though, is it?" Vincenzo smirked, and Cha-young rolled her eyes. No, unfortunately, it was not; because they had met multiple times, in multiple international magic competitions.
And they were always, always competing against each other, one on one.
And every competition, it had changed. Sometimes he would win. Sometimes she did.
And right now.
They were. At. A tie.
"Unfortunately." Cha-young shoved past him, moving back into the shelves that began to rearrange themselves accordingly. Switching from Korean to Italian, she adds, "Your presence is a nuisance. Go bother the other candidates who actually enjoy your time. Unless there is none?"
Vincenzo chuckled, watching her as she went. "Just you, Hong. But just because I'm the better physicist, doesn't mean you have to hate me for it."
"Fuck off, Cassano."
Then, before she went deeper into the shelves, he said, "What do you know about time?"
Cha-young paused. "What?"
"Time," Vincenzo repeated, and she turned, noticing the shift in the air as his tone changed. A habit she had noticed about him: the air naturally shifted around him, whenever his mood did. When his intent did. "Like gravity, but you're bending time instead."
Cha-young pondered at that. As much as she hated Vincenzo, their similar interest in deepening the understanding of their ability was the same. "Not much," she finally said after thinking. "But I believe you could manipulate it, if you see it as-"
"Gravity," Vincenzo interrupted her, but she listened, "but instead of up and down, it's-"
"Back and forth," Cha-young finished, and Vincenzo saw the flame spark in her eyes, intrigued. "Like force, but time."
Vincenzo nodded, and he began feel the vibrations of her excitement, the room turning slightly off its axis with her. It was an interesting thing, he thought to himself, to see her powers as strong, even stronger than his own. Even if she didn't think so sometimes. "The only way you'd really know that something changed, though, is the absence of heat."
"Because heat can't be lost, so if time was reversed, that heat would inevitably..." Cha-young got lost into thought and began to mumble to herself, and Vincenzo couldn't help the slight grin as he watched the gears turning in her head. "Oh my fucking God. You're right."
Vincenzo rose an eyebrow. "I'm always right, Hong. Haven't you realized that-"
"Shut up and come with me!" Cha-young forgot any thoughts she had about the shelves behind her and began rushing to the doors of the library, excitement running through her veins as sparks crackled around her, sparks only Vincenzo could feel. "No time to be a cocky bastard! We have to test this!"
"Cocky what?" Vincenzo turned to her. "Your insults just get more and more colorful, Hong..."
Cha-young stopped at the door when she realized he wasn't following her out. She turned on her heels and stared at him, and felt her magic spark at her fingertips, wanting to swallow him up with the floor for the way he was looking at her.
They both know she needs him for this to work, and now the bastard wanted an invite to prove himself right.
She hated that, too. The fact that he was always right. And the fact that, without him, her endless search to get stronger would be so much more bland, and so much more boring.
Without his ability to make everyone see her flames, she'd be a fire burning without light.
And she was beginning to wonder if she could truly be this good without him by her side, the bond inseparable since the day they met.
Another physicist, Atlas had said, because you can't have one without the other.
"Come on," Cha-young sighed, rolling her eyes at Vincenzo's victory smirk. "I need you."
And she had to hide her small smile of relief when he said,
"I've got you, Hong."
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