Chapter Text
“Excuse me,” an extremely unwelcome voice calls. “You have a visitor.”
“You think I don’t know that? Just give me a second, damn it.” Han Sooyoung runs a hand through her bedhead and spends maybe two seconds wondering if digging through her closet for something to wear over pajamas is worth it right now. On one hand, the thought of not looking her best for the visitor outside makes her sick, but on the other hand, she really can’t be assed to do this first thing in the morning.
Han Sooyoung gives up and just wrestles a hoodie over herself. She’s looked worse in front of other people. “Fuck’s sake, what do you want that you had to come here at the ass crack of dawn?” she shouts, storming down the stairs and stumbling on the last step when her idiot familiar dashes out of nowhere like he’s trying to trip her up. If Yeomryeong’s scales weren’t so valuable Han Sooyoung would have sold him off by now. “Would it have killed you to wait for normal business hours?”
Her office, though relatively small, is always a mess in the mornings. Normally it’s the picture of mystery and mysticism, because she’s learned some clients like it that way; right now, though, there are potion ingredients scattered everywhere, business records too important for other people’s eyes are on full display, and her laptop is open on the (unedited and frankly embarrassing) draft for her current novel. Han Sooyoung slams her laptop shut and makes a mental note to also reapply an illusion on her fridge, where it’s standing by her desk like a client waiting for their appointment. When did that get there last night? Had she been so hungry for a midnight snack during her experiment that she accidentally brought over the whole fridge?
Through some miracle she gets to the front door relatively unscathed. When she finally wrenches it open, the first thing she does is groan and start renewing the barrier spell around her house that keeps authorities from finding her. “Are you crazy?” Han Sooyoung asks, though by this point she’s far from surprised. “Did you have to dispel my magic to get my attention?”
Ever-calm, ever-perfect, ever-so-fucking-annoying Yoo Sangah only smiles prettily down at her. “Well, it was in the way.”
“In the way? You’re compromising my business here!”
“I’m sure Sooyoung-ssi will do just fine without this…” Yoo Sangah pauses and stares at the inside of her office. At first Han Sooyoung wonders if Yoo Sangah’s just searching for a derogatory enough word to describe her job, but then she asks, sounding almost worried, “Has it always been that messy?”
“Oh, fuck you.” Han Sooyoung rubs her eyes, still half-crusted over with sleep. “What the hell do you want? This better not be a waste of time. You know the only reason I even got up is because I know you would have just fucking stood out here this whole time until I went out to what the fuck,” Han Sooyoung says, in a voice slightly higher than she’s proud of. “What the fuck is that!”
Yoo Sangah only keeps holding her phone up, like she’s completely unaware of whatever disgusting thing is displayed on its screen right now. Or maybe she’s completely aware and completely unsympathetic, which sounds more likely. “Don’t be rude. You don’t recognize it?”
Maybe Han Sooyoung should have stopped to shove her glasses on before heading down. She squints at the screen and tries not to dry heave. “That’s a corpse. Why the fuck are you showing me—”
“Not just any corpse. It’s the mummified remains of a historical figure from over a century ago, but I’m assuming you wouldn’t know who it is even if I told you.” Yoo Sangah closes her phone and continues speaking before Han Sooyoung can attempt to throttle her. “And it’s just gone missing.”
Han Sooyoung massages her temple. “So?”
Yoo Sangah looks like she’s managing a headache of her own. “So, would Sooyoung-ssi be so kind as to let me explain this inside? I’m sure,” she adds, pocketing her phone so she can gesture vaguely at their surroundings, “you wouldn’t like it if anyone happened to see us right now.”
This time Yoo Sangah doesn’t even bother with a clean break, just snaps her fingers with a harsh crack. Han Sooyoung newly-renewed barrier hadn’t even lasted two seconds before it shatters again, this time violently enough that she’s sure anyone within a 50-mile radius feels the vibrations of it on their skin. “Sweet fuck,” Han Sooyoung hisses, clutching her head and desperately trying not to unleash hell right there. “You crazy fucking bitch.”
Of course, Yoo Sangah only smiles, like she’s taking that as a compliment.
Han Sooyoung is going to be honest here (and this only happens once a year, so she isn’t fucking around): she has to admit that, for someone whose side-job revolves around knowing everything there is to know about people, she doesn’t know very much about Yoo Sangah at all.
There are the basics, of course: She’s a new hire in the publishing house that handles all of Han Sooyoung’s books. She’s diligent, intelligent, and responsible. She is a ruthless and therefore amazing editor. She uses some kind of crazy mental magic Han Sooyoung still doesn’t totally understand. And finally, when she’d uncovered Han Sooyoung’s illegal fortune-telling business, she hadn’t threatened to report Han Sooyoung to the police and instead agreed to keep quiet about it.
That last detail alone would have landed her directly in Han Sooyoung’s good books; everything else was just a plus. In fact, she would gladly have done anything Yoo Sangah asked as long as she kept their secret. But whenever Han Sooyoung tries to peer a little deeper into who she is—well, that’s where the problem comes in.
“Here, you freak,” Han Sooyoung says, planting a cup of pure black coffee on the small round table Yoo Sangah is seated by. Normally that table is empty except for some decorations she likes to arrange during work, like a crystal ball (she uses it to check her makeup) and a deck of tarot cards (she builds them into towers when she’s bored), but right now it’s a mess of books and papers and other odds and ends Han Sooyoung can’t even remember leaving there the day before. “I seriously hope you die from caffeine overdose one of these days.”
“Thank you,” Yoo Sangah says, serenely, and takes a sip. It’s scalding fucking hot. Someday the sun is going to explode and Yoo Sangah will probably be sitting atop the piece of charcoal that was once their planet and be taking a sip from her coffee, just like this. “Nice socks.”
The comment comes so out of nowhere that Han Sooyoung briefly wonders if Yoo Sangah’s lost her marbles when she remembers it hasn’t even been half an hour since she got out of bed. “Fuck off.”
“Really. They look warm.”
“They are. But fuck off.” Han Sooyoung drops down on a plush armchair near the corner of the office, suppressing the urge to yank her fuzzy blue socks off. Sue her if she doesn’t want to walk around this environmental hazard of a place barefoot. “Alright, talk,” she grumbles, nursing her own cup of coffee, which incidentally has a far more reasonable amount of sugar in it. “What’s this mummy or whatever got to do with me? FYI, I don’t go grave-robbing as a hobby, so if that’s what you came here to ask then forget it.”
But Yoo Sangah only looks curiously around the office and says, “Where’s little Yeomryeong-ie?”
“Yoo Sangah. I don’t have all day.”
Of course, Yeomryeong, that knowing piece of shit, darts out from beneath a cabinet and clambers up to curl atop Yoo Sangah’s lap, hissing contentedly. Yoo Sangah beams and rubs him on the spot between two curving horns. “There you are. Aren’t you a sweetheart? This is a much warmer welcome than what your master gave me.”
“What the fuck do you want me to do? Sit on your lap? Isn’t the coffee warm enough for your ice-cold heart?”
Yeomryeong gives her—Han Sooyoung, his very own master—a dirty look. One of these days Han Sooyoung is going to tear this stupid lizard limb from limb, assuming he doesn’t run off with Yoo Sangah into the sunset first. “Alright,” Yoo Sangah finally says, taking another sip of her disgusting poison coffee before continuing. “These remains—”
“The corpse?”
“These remains aren’t the first robbery. For some reason multiple historical artifacts have been stolen from a museum over the past several months.”
“A museum…” Han Sooyoung wracks her head. Yoo Sangah’s probably talking about the one a few subway stops away, right? The woman used to part-time there as a guide for things like school trips. Of course, the only reason she knows this is because… well, that’s not important.
Yoo Sangah nods, flicking through what must be more photos on her phone. There is something extremely distracting about the graceful curve of her fingers, but Han Sooyoung fixes her gaze somewhere around Yoo Sangah’s ear instead and pretends her hands are just like any other person’s. “First a vase. Some jewelry. Small things that go unnoticed by most visitors. But they started escalating recently: important records that were still in the middle of being translated. What we suspect may have been the first ever catalysts. And finally, what I just showed you.”
“The corpse,” Han Sooyoung repeats. She leans back in her chair and ignores the cold glare Yoo Sangah gives her over her phone. “Right. Cool. Okay. And this matters why?”
Yoo Sangah’s cold glare turns downright frigid. “Because these help us with uncovering her past? Learning new things? Don’t you care about our history?” She sounds as if she’d barely restrained herself from slapping her, or maybe throwing her cup of coffee in Han Sooyoung’s face… no, wait, she wouldn’t waste coffee like that.
“Ugh. This matters to me, why?”
“I was getting to that.” Yoo Sangah takes a moment to massage her temple before continuing. “After following some clues, I found out that these stolen artifacts were being sold on the black market. I’d like you to come with me there.”
Han Sooyoung stands up. “We’re done here. You see yourself out.”
“Sooyoung-ssi.”
“No, are you stupid? You think just because I—”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I want your help,” Yoo Sangah interrupts, irritation lacing her voice. Her brow is furrowed, her frown deep, and the only reason Han Sooyoung doesn’t force her out of the office right then and there is because she’s a little startled to see Yoo Sangah like this when she’s normally the most composed person Han Sooyoung knows. “It just… wouldn’t make sense. You have no interest in historical artifacts or earning more money than you already do.”
“Was that an insult?”
“It’s a fact. I’m here because you’re the only person I know with connections to the black market and the people in it.” Yoo Sangah pauses, staring at her long and hard enough that Han Sooyoung feels her skin prickle. It’s far from the first time she’s been on the receiving end of those unnerving, empty eyes, but are they a part of her magic too, or just something inherent to Yoo Sangah? “Aren’t I right?”
Okay. Deep breaths, deep thoughts. Han Sooyoung tries to rearrange all this information in her head in a way that makes sense. First of all, Yoo Sangah is asking her for help to do something illegal, which in itself is crazy and insane and possibly the first sign Han Sooyoung has stepped in an alternate dimension. There’s no way she wouldn’t have gone to the police first, right? Does Yoo Sangah have some kind of hidden agenda for wanting to check out the black market? Is this some kind of elaborate plan to expose Han Sooyoung’s fortune-telling somehow? She has always struck Han Sooyoung as a goody-two-shoes, despite how Yoo Sangah swore not to reveal her secret to the authorities, but then again that could also just be a facade to hide the greedy money-grubber beneath…
At the same time, this doesn’t feel like a scam, and Han Sooyoung will admit she’s intrigued. It probably won’t hurt if she goes along with this for a while… besides, she realizes with a little spark of sadistic glee, it feels pretty damn good to have the Yoo Sangah crawling to her for help.
Han Sooyoung exhales, trying to balance the warring suspicion and curiosity inside her. “And I should help you why?”
It’s a stupid question, and Han Sooyoung already knows Yoo Sangah will use this very office as leverage against her. But mostly Han Sooyoung wanted to see this: Yoo Sangah biting her lip, clenching her fists, raising her shoulders; Yoo Sangah glancing away for a moment, something in her eyes flickering before that glimpse of emotion disappears, like window blinds shuttering closed. After all, they’ve always kept up a professional relationship, even if Han Sooyoung has peppered that relationship with plenty of choice words and Yoo Sangah seems to find entertainment in poking her with passive-aggressive comments when they pass by each other in the publishing house. Seeing Yoo Sangah like this, asking for help from Han Sooyoung of all people, is a moment she wants to savor, just a little.
And then Yoo Sangah straightens her back and returns right back to normal. “Do you have any idea just how many times I’ve saved your first drafts from the brink of rejection?”
“Wow,” Han Sooyoung says, after a moment of stunned silence. Not fortune-telling-related blackmail—she went straight for the jugular instead. “You’re a bitch.” It’s not even a good argument; Yoo Sangah is paid to do that.
“So?” Yoo Sangah’s voice is one harsh note away from a snap, but she doesn’t sound angry so much as she sounds almost… concerned. “Will you help me or not?”
Why does she care about this so much? Han Sooyoung doesn’t think she’s ever seen Yoo Sangah this… ‘desperate’ isn’t quite the right word, but she’s certainly getting there. Then again, it’s not like Han Sooyoung spends much time with the other woman outside of work, but it’s still strange. Something tells Han Sooyoung there’s more to this than just some museum robberies—Yoo Sangah’s real goal might even be the black market—but…
For all her bitchiness, Han Sooyoung will admit that Yoo Sangah can act well—really, really, really fucking well. She’s seen the other woman at work, where she’s nothing but a perfect, polite employee who meets every single deadline, fulfills every single thing asked of her, and greets every single person with that grating smile on her face. But the instant she’s alone with Han Sooyoung, she drops the act. Normally she’s the cold, blunt, and almost unfeeling woman Han Sooyoung’s begun to grow used to; right now, she’s…
Well, she’s still cold and blunt, but definitely no longer unfeeling. They’re muted, almost suppressed, but this is the most emotion Han Sooyoung’s seen on Yoo Sangah throughout their relationship, and Han Sooyoung would be lying if she said she isn’t curious as to what would have Yoo Sangah in such a state.
Still, this is such a headache to have first thing in the morning. Han Sooyoung sighs. She looks at Yoo Sangah’s face and sighs again. She opens her mouth, runs her words in her head, then sighs once more for good measure. “I’ve got, like, five appointments today and I need to clean this mess up.” And I need to think about this. “We’ll talk later. Get out now.”
Yoo Sangah beams, all previous emotion gone and replaced by that saleswoman smile of hers. “Oh, it’s alright. I can wait.”
When people hear ‘fortune-telling,’ they probably think of things like asking about their fate, or if they’ve got some kind of destiny, or maybe about the end of the world. What they don’t realize is that fortune-telling is a lot less dramatic and a lot more challenging—it’s a careful combination of several different branches of magic, many of them thought to have long since died out in present times, and it takes years if not decades to fully master the art.
But of course, Han Sooyoung learned it all before she graduated high school, because she’s built different. Besides, it’s not like people go to her to find out about fate or destiny or the end of the world anyway.
“Okay, so, basically, just be yourself and get the white tulips,” Han Sooyoung says, tapping the sheet of paper she’d scribbled all her info on. Her client, an introverted teenage boy who has far too much cash after inheriting his dead parents’ money, looks nervous enough to wet himself right there. “Don’t think about their symbolism, they’re her favorite flowers. Absolutely do not get cheese-flavored popcorn, she’s allergic. You can go watch any of the movies, but she’ll like the slasher one most.”
The boy gulps, still just as nervous as the first time he’d walked in here. “I-I don’t think I can handle that…”
“Suck it up. Anything else you need?”
He shakes his head, managing a small smile. “T-This is good! I, uh, I can take care of the rest. Thank you so much as always, Director-nim. But, um… can I ask you something?”
Han Sooyoung tries not to let her glee show too much on her face when he digs out his wallet and hands over a truly obscene wad of bills. “What?”
“Who… is that…?”
Whatever glee Han Sooyoung had been feeling evaporates. “Ah.”
She should have known. The past three other clients who’ve come by so far have all asked the same thing, in varying tones of confusion and surprise, and with plenty of side-eyes and stage whispers, which Han Sooyoung can’t even blame them for. “She’s, uh…”
“I’m your Director-nim’s new assistant.” Yoo Sangah beams at them both from where she’s sitting on the couch. Han Sooyoung’s couch. She’s sipping tea from one of Han Sooyoung’s cups, tea she prepared with Han Sooyoung’s kettle, and has one of Han Sooyoung’s tattered textbooks open on her lap. Even Han Sooyoung’s familiar is asleep beside her. Han Sooyoung has half a mind to tell her to go ahead and change the name on the apartment lease while she’s at it. “Business is growing, isn’t it? So she finally thought to hire some help.”
“That’s not what happened,” Han Sooyoung says.
“Oh.” The boy is staring at Yoo Sangah, so Han Sooyoung can’t tell who he’s saying ‘oh’ to. “Um… that’s cool.”
Yoo Sangah’s smile doesn’t waver. “Thank you. I handle the paperwork and finances. She’s very awful at organization, you see.”
“I am not awful at—”
“I didn’t know you needed assistance,” the boy whispers, not very quietly. Han Sooyoung feels her right eye twitch. “Um… I… I’m happy for you, Director-nim! You’re always very hard at work, but it’s important to ask for help sometimes too!”
Han Sooyoung can feel that headache returning with a vengeance. “Just go already.”
The moment the boy closes the door behind him, Han Sooyoung whirls on Yoo Sangah, who has the gall to look entertained. “How many stupid ideas are you going to give them? You’re ruining my image here!” she sputters, smacking her office desk, her table lamp nearly toppling off the edge. “If you had to invite yourself in, at least don’t stay here where everyone can see you!”
Yoo Sangah tilts her head. “In your room upstairs, then?”
“Not fucking there either! Ugh, why won’t you just let me say you’re visiting? Is it fun making up bullshit about being an assistant?”
Yoo Sangah smiles wanly. “A bit, yes. You don’t like it, Director-nim?”
Han Sooyoung sighs. There’s probably no point trying to kick Yoo Sangah out anymore; earlier, when she suggested the woman wait outside like a normal person, she shot back with, ‘If Sooyoung-ssi suddenly establishes a powerful barrier, even I won’t be able to contest against that,’ and… well, Han Sooyoung is the last person to say flattery gets you nowhere. “Stop calling me that. You’re just being annoying.”
“I think it’s a cute name. ‘Director of the False Last Act’ is a bit of a mouthful, though, isn’t it?”
Han Sooyoung shudders, both from hearing that title in that voice and from the spark of security magic that runs down her spine. “Don’t say the whole thing. You’re not meant to say the whole thing.” None of her clients know her real name, for obvious reasons—she hardly needs any of them suddenly growing a moral backbone and running to report her to the authorities—and the magic attached to that moniker is meant to let her know if anyone, no matter how near or far away they are, says the full thing aloud. She’s cast much the same spell for this place’s address, in all possible iterations. “And for the record,” Han Sooyoung remembers to add, “I’m damn good at organization, so fuck you!”
Yoo Sangah rolls her eyes. “The state of this office when I went in this morning tells me otherwise. If not organization, you certainly need assistance with cleaning. Do you also perform experiments here in your off-time? Why were there potion stains all over the floor?”
“Do you have to micromanage my office? The stains… add to the atmosphere, okay!”
Yoo Sangah, thankfully, doesn’t drill Han Sooyoung about the museum robberies throughout the day; mostly she putters around the office, doing weird and useless things like stare at her calendar and flip through her books. But Han Sooyoung can’t help but feel her curiosity build up the longer the day goes on; she doesn’t care about the crime, exactly, but she does want to know why Yoo Sangah is so fixated on this that she would take the whole day off from work just to be here. Because, no matter how much of a goody-two-shoes Yoo Sangah might be, this is just weird—it’s not like she’s the museum curator, or some higher-up in the government, or, really, anything but an employee at a publishing house. Just what is she going so far for? Is there something else about this she’s not telling Han Sooyoung?
The thought annoys her more than she’d like to admit. It’s not like Han Sooyoung trusts Yoo Sangah either, but you’d think she’d lay out all the important details first if she was going to rope someone else into it.
It’s pointless thinking about it, but that’s exactly what Han Sooyoung does anyway, because giving herself headaches is one of her favorite hobbies. By the time her last appointment for the day rolls around, she’s both relieved and nervous for what will come after this; the fact that Yoo Sangah sits down to watch, staring silently and unnervingly at Han Sooyoung as she works, hardly helps. Her client—an old woman worried about her granddaughter’s future—doesn’t seem to notice, but Han Sooyoung still feels uneasy being watched by someone who hasn’t paid her to do it.
Plenty of people look down on fortune-telling as a business, and not without reason: most self-proclaimed fortune-tellers are just really good mind-readers with some proficiency in empathy magic. They’d combine the two to come up with the right thing to say to their client, reassuring or encouraging or comforting them, and they’d get paid a big fat check for, essentially, serving as a makeshift therapist. Their clients probably know they aren’t getting real fortunes, but they probably also don’t want it more than they want the reassurances and encouragement and comfort.
But—as she likes to tell first-time, skeptical-but-curious clients—Han Sooyoung’s the Real Deal.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Han Sooyoung says, slowly, when the magic has passed and the spell is over. She takes a moment to blink, resisting the urge to grab her eyedrops; she’s been told her eyes, usually a nondescript dark brown, turn almost violet when she uses her magic. It sounds cool and all, but it also leaves her eyes feeling painfully dry. “She still thinks it’s her fault her friend died, and she sealed a part of her magic away that day. It’ll be even harder for her to accept it when you die.”
She doesn’t need to turn to know Yoo Sangah’s raising an eyebrow right now, maybe even both, but the old woman only nods once. Han Sooyoung takes a deep breath, blinks a few times to get rid of the lingering dizziness, and speaks again. “I can’t see much once you’re dead, but as far as I can tell she’ll come to terms with both the people and the magic she’s lost someday. You don’t have to worry about her.” She pauses, considers it, then adds, “Call her on Saturday nights. Can’t tell which Sunday it’ll be, but she’ll feel better hearing from you one last time.”
“Ah.” The woman sighs, closes her eyes for a long moment. Just as Han Sooyoung begins to think she’s fallen asleep in her seat (it’s happened, more than once), she shakes her head and speaks, her accent thick in her voice. “I just can’t figure out how to use them dang phones. Every one of these apps looks the same. What ever happened to good ol’ telepathy?”
Yoo Sangah stands. “I can teach you how to make calls if you want, ma’am.”
“Will ya? Eh, who’re ye anyway?” The woman squints at her, her expression cycling through confusion, realization, and delight in under two seconds. She turns back to Han Sooyoung and, in an extremely audible whisper, “Would you look at that! You finally fished up a lady!”
Han Sooyoung wants to die. “What? No, I didn’t—”
“It’s about time, kiddo. So proud of you. Always did think ya weren’t getting enough game ’round here.”
“No! She’s not—She’s just—She’s my new assistant,” Han Sooyoung eventually sputters out, and then instantly hates herself when she realizes she could have just said Yoo Sangah was visiting. This must have been that devil’s plan all along, damn it. “A-Anyway, it doesn’t matter! That’s all I got for you today. Any other questions?”
The woman snickers. “How much for today’s session? Name yer price. This might be the last time I’ll swing by, after all.”
“That… Uh, haven’t you heard? I’m running a promo. Everything’s free for today.”
Both the woman and Yoo Sangah raise their eyebrows. “Now, hold on,” the woman starts.
“I gotta go. Bathroom.” Han Sooyoung stands up and gives Yoo Sangah an impatient look. “Well, assistant? Weren’t you gonna show her how to make phone calls?”
Han Sooyoung hides out in her bathroom for almost half an hour, idly listening to Yoo Sangah show the woman the magic of smartphones; they also talk Han Sooyoung’s involuntary ears off about how telepathy was a much more common practice in the old days, before telephone lines and cellphone towers fucked it all up. Han Sooyoung waits a little longer for the old woman to bid Yoo Sangah g’night and leave before finally coming out of her bathroom, immediately sinking back down into her chair with a relieved sigh.
“Really?” Yoo Sangah says, tucking her own phone into her pockets. “A promo?”
“Shut up.”
“Sooyoung-ssi is quite soft at heart, hm? If you don’t do this for money, is it really just because you enjoy it?”
“Shut up,” Han Sooyoung groans. Yoo Sangah smiles, a tiny thing, and maybe Han Sooyoung’s eyes are just tired from all the magic today but somehow that smile looks more real than any of the fake ones she sees Yoo Sangah wear in the publishing office. “You were staring the whole time back there,” she says, in a weak attempt at changing the topic. “Something you wanna ask, or were you just in awe of how much of a beautiful genius fortune-teller I am?”
“I did want to ask about something,” Yoo Sangah says, to Han Sooyoung’s surprise. “How do clients usually find you? Considering your profession, I thought your usual customers would be more…”
“Criminal?”
“…Yes.” Yoo Sangah sounds almost embarrassed.
“Well—I mean, you’re not completely wrong,” Han Sooyoung says, feeling almost embarrassed herself—she’d been ready for something more along the lines of a dismissive quip, or maybe Yoo Sangah asking if telling clients when and how they’re going to die is ethical. Han Sooyoung already had a repertoire of retorts prepared, most of them ending with ‘anyway, it’s none of your business.’ But to actually be interested in her work? “Most of them have connections to the black market. Like, that kid from earlier who wanted to go on a date? He lives with his aunt, and she sells illegal ingredients overseas. But the grandma from just now, I think her grandma was a fortune teller too, so there’s that.”
Yoo Sangah blinks, slowly. “Like… a mystic?”
Han Sooyoung’s hardly surprised she knows the archaic term for fortune teller. “Yeah. You’re lucky today wasn’t one of the days she went on and on about how much better the good old days were…” Fortune-telling is centuries old, after all; back then it was much more revered, seen as communication with gods and spirits. The magic was hereditary, too, though it still took a good deal of studying even when born with it as one’s natural magic.
Then casinos and gambling houses grew more commonplace, and suddenly knowing the future was ‘too dangerous’ and ‘put the world at stake’ and all that bullshit. Like outlawing fortune-telling wasn’t just because some politicians got pissed the casinos they were handling rarely raked in as much cash once people realized they could ask fortune-tellers for their day’s luck. Eventually fortune-telling turned into an underground business, real mystics were replaced by con artists, and without proper practice fortune-telling died out as a natural magic. The only reason Han Sooyoung had been able to learn about it at all was because her illusions helped with sneaking in and out of the restricted sections in libraries.
“I wouldn’t have minded hearing about it,” Yoo Sangah says, drawing Han Sooyoung out of her thoughts. “I’m sure she has a lot to say about its history… and about you, too. Is it true? Not a single woman has ever stepped foot in this office?”
Han Sooyoung throws a paperweight at her. Predictably enough it bumps into an invisible wall inches away from Yoo Sangah’s face and clatters noisily to roll around on the floor, where Yeomryeong proceeds to chase it around and probably use as a chew-toy. “Show-off,” Han Sooyoung grumbles. No way does anyone actually keep barriers like those up at all times. “So? Weren’t you going to tell me more about your oh-so-scary museum robberies?”
“Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me. Take a seat,” Yoo Sangah says, gesturing to Han Sooyoung’s armchair while sitting back down on Han Sooyoung’s couch. Her audacity is reaching levels Han Sooyoung hadn’t previously thought possible. “Before that, I’d like to, ahem… establish a precaution. To make sure this goes well.”
“I’m not getting a good feeling about this,” Han Sooyoung says, flopping into her armchair anyway. The paperweight rolls beneath it, and Yeomryeong zooms into the gap between chair and floor until only his long, whip-like tail is visible from above.
Yoo Sangah waves her off. “It’s nothing so big. Have you ever heard of soul bonds?”
Han Sooyoung stands up. “We’re done here. Again. You see yourself out.”
“Sooyoung-ssi.” This time Yoo Sangah sounds exasperated.
“We are not doing any of that binding contract shit! Do I look like an idiot to you!?” Han Sooyoung snaps, barely keeping herself from stammering. Of course she’s heard of soul bonds. Anyone who lived through the YA-novel boom some ten years back has heard of soul bonds. Anyone who’s ever been fifteen horrible years old has heard of soul bonds, because they were just the kind of thing kids that age latched on to: a magical link between two people, allowing them to share thoughts, emotions, and probably bank accounts too. Sort of like permanent telepathy.
To some, it was the peak of romance; to Han Sooyoung, she’d sooner describe it as, well, a binding contract trapping her to one person for the rest of her life. Sure, there are all sorts of modified versions, and she’s seen plenty of those while working through business deals. But to share her mind and soul with Yoo Sangah?
“You’re overreacting. It’s not going to be permanent.” Yoo Sangah is making the sort of face that tells Han Sooyoung she’s thinking, ‘As if I would ever want to have a permanent soul bond with you.’
Han Sooyoung scowls. “So you are going to propose a soul bond.”
“Sit down, Sooyoung-ssi. Does your only knowledge of soul bonds come from romance novels?”
“I’m not sitting down until you fucking explain yourself. There’s no reason we need to be bonding any souls over this stupid investigation of yours.”
“Fine.” Yoo Sangah spreads her arms. At first Han Sooyoung assumes it’s for emphasis, but then she sees it: a thin, golden thread connected to her palms. A thread Han Sooyoung has only seen a hundred damn times on the covers of bestselling books, though it looks a lot less dramatic in real life than those cover artists make it seem. “Let me be honest. I don’t trust you not to abandon this halfway through.” Yoo Sangah pauses, as if to let Han Sooyoung protest about that, but Han Sooyoung just shrugs; it’s not like she trusts Yoo Sangah one bit either, after all. “Establishing a temporary soul bond, or a mind link, means you’ll be helping me see this through until the end, and it’ll only last for as long as we’ll be working together.”
Han Sooyoung huffs. “Oh, come on. First you ask me for a favor, and now you, what, install a pet tracker on me?”
“You do act like a—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. Do we have to do this? You don’t trust me? Okay, stupid question,” Han Sooyoung realizes, when Yoo Sangah just stares patiently back at her. “Not like I trust you either. But is this really necessary? Some petty thief can’t be dangerous enough to warrant this.”
Yoo Sangah sighs. “You’re right. I don’t trust you all that much either, Sooyoung-ssi. But the thing about this ‘petty thief’ is that I don’t think they’re so easy to deal with either. Their magic…”
“Their magic…?” Han Sooyoung prompts.
“It’s something else,” Yoo Sangah says, which provides zero explanation whatsoever. “I don’t know how to explain it. All I know is that they must be an experienced thief, if they can hide their tracks so well.”
Had that been a compliment to the thief just now? Han Sooyoung mulls this over for a second. She’s spent enough time with Yoo Sangah to know that the woman sees through illusions and disguises like nothing else, so if Yoo Sangah is acknowledging the skills of whoever this person is… Han Sooyoung had been curious before, but now she’s really interested. Hell, maybe this criminal isn’t so bad and Han Sooyoung can get them to share their secrets on how to stump even Yoo Sangah. She’s dealt with her fair share of criminals anyway, and Han Sooyoung’s not half-bad at dealing with illusions besides her own.
“The mind link,” Han Sooyoung ventures. “You sure it’s temporary?” After all, that’s, like, 60 percent of the storylines in bad fanfictio—ahem, trending books and B-grade movies: the two main characters establish a temporary mind link, ‘just in case,’ and later on they get into some ridiculous situation that requires turning it into a permanent soul bond instead.
“Of course. Hopefully we won’t get into some ridiculous situation that requires turning it into a permanent soul bond instead,” Yoo Sangah says, dryly. “I promise it won’t be a big deal. Since it’s temporary, its functions are limited—”
“Limited,” Han Sooyoung scoffs. “It’s got enough functions to say no to, that’s for sure.” She’s read—from actual research, not just from shitty novels—all about what a temporary mind link offers: both parties (a) feel each other’s most intense emotions, (b) have automatic telepathy restricted to only the most extremely urgent thoughts, like cries for help, and (c)…
Yoo Sangah curls the gold thread around her slender fingers, over and over. “I can leave out the unimportant ones. What matters is that we can still sense each other’s approximate locations.”
“Oh, boy. Yeah, that one’s so much fun. Did you know at least a dozen new cases of stalking are reported every year thanks to that little function?”
“I’m well aware,” Yoo Sangah says evenly, though Han Sooyoung doesn’t miss (and kind of delights in) how her eye twitches. “We’ll be severing the link after everything, obviously. I have no plans on tracking your location once our business together is done, so you needn’t worry about me stalking you.”
“Wasn’t my point,” Han Sooyoung huffs. This still seems kind of unnecessary, but Yoo Sangah seems intent on it, and by this point Han Sooyoung might agree to anything so long as it helps them get to the actual crime sooner. Honestly, a mind link isn’t as bad as an actual soul bond—she can’t see any reason as to why Yoo Sangah would insist on keeping it established once this is done, and based on her experience it’ll be a mild inconvenience at most. Not that this will function the exact same as the business contracts she had for some work in the past, but… well, the important part is that it won’t render magical barriers useless like permanent soul bonds do. Han Sooyoung can still have some privacy if she really needs it. Plus, she can keep an eye on Yoo Sangah’s whereabouts too, because Han Sooyoung’s not the one acting most suspicious here.
…What’s most annoying, though, is how Yoo Sangah keeps winding that thread around her fingers, over and over and over. She can’t even meet Han Sooyoung’s eyes, because apparently playing with her silly yellow string is more interesting. If Han Sooyoung didn’t know better, she’d think Yoo Sangah is almost nervous right now.
Yoo Sangah still won’t meet her gaze when she speaks again, tone carefully level, as if she’d rehearsed this while she was in the bathroom for a weirdly long time earlier today. “Well, it was just a thought. I also worry getting caught up with criminals might mean one or both of us would end up needing help, so… but never mind. If you don’t want to—”
“Ugh, shut up already. Your guilt-tripping makes me sick.” Han Sooyoung sighs, trying not to think too hard about how Yoo Sangah apparently trusts her enough to think Han Sooyoung would save her if she were in trouble. “How do you do it anyway?”
Yoo Sangah blinks. “Do what?”
“Don’t be stupid. You know—” Han Sooyoung gestures at the thread. “Make… one of those.”
Without warning, Yoo Sangah brightens. She doesn’t smile, not quite, but light flickers in her normally-dull eyes, and it throws Han Sooyoung so completely off she almost misses the entirety of Yoo Sangah’s response. “It’s actually quite simple! It can only be established by those who specialize in empathy magic, whether natural or learned, but I have a… decent grasp on how to make it. So, since this is a mind link rather than a soul bond, it won’t hurt as much…”
“Soul bonding hurts?” That had never come up in the YA novels… that Han Sooyoung definitely didn’t read, of course. Or maybe they did, and she just forgot about it? It’s been a few years… since they were released and her classmates wouldn’t stop jabbering on about them in middle school. Of course.
“Much more than the media shows, yes. But mind linking is quicker and simpler. Just stand here, please, Sooyoung-ssi…” Yoo Sangah pauses, then adds, slowly, “You’re sure? It’ll be useful on our investigation, but if you’re uncomfortable—”
Han Sooyoung snarls. “Just do it already, woman!”
Yoo Sangah, at least, hadn’t been lying about the quick-and-simple part, and while it isn’t painful, it is supremely uncomfortable, mostly because she makes Han Sooyoung hold her hands and close her eyes. “This is definitely unnecessary,” Han Sooyoung says, hoping her voice doesn’t wobble too noticeably when Yoo Sangah, for some indeterminate reason, interlocks their fingers. Her skin is weirdly cold. Her fingers are slender. This is unimportant. “I never closed my eyes when I signed for contracts!”
“It’s completely necessary. Just for a moment, Sooyoung-ssi.”
Han Sooyoung groans but complies. “Only to graciously indulge your inner drama queen.”
She’d braced for impact, but she still almost punches the other woman in the face when she feels what she can only describe as Yoo Sangah’s magic invading her. It’s nothing like the mind links she had for contracts before, which only ever manifested as a subtle itch on her skin before fading; Yoo Sangah’s magic is cool, chilly, like breathing in the winter air and feeling snow settle in her lungs. Oddly enough it warms up after a moment, just as Han Sooyoung had begun to grow used to the strange coldness. If this is how Yoo Sangah’s magic feels, then how does Han Sooyoung’s…?
“Alright, it’s done. You can open your eyes now,” Yoo Sangah says. Nothing in her voice gives away what she may have felt, if anything.
“Wow. That was the worst experience of my life,” Han Sooyoung says, ripping her hands away from Yoo Sangah’s lest she grow any more distracted by how soft and smooth her palms are. She had not at all been expecting to see the glowing golden thread from earlier wrapped around her pinky finger, stretching to connect it to Yoo Sangah’s. “Oh, fuck! That’s gross!”
Yoo Sangah frowns. “And that’s rude. It’s just the link. Anyway, do you feel any different?”
“Not… really—actually, yeah.” Han Sooyoung doesn’t feel all that different just yet—no extreme emotions, no telepathic thoughts—but if she thinks about Yoo Sangah, even just her name, even just the idea of her, she can feel the thread tugging at her finger towards Yoo Sangah’s direction, right in front of her. Embarrassingly enough, Han Sooyoung remembers a line from one of the more popular YA novels that featured soul bonds: it was ‘like being each other’s compasses, pointing to the other person rather than North.’
Han Sooyoung scowls down at the thread, both to avoid meeting Yoo Sangah’s eyes and to distract herself from the thought. The last thing she needs is Yoo Sangah picking up on that one. “Is this thing, like, physical? It won’t get caught on stuff, will it?”
“Of course not. It’s only visible when you want it to be.” Yoo Sangah waves her hand, and the thread disappears. When Han Sooyoung waves her hand around the armchair and beneath the coffee table, nothing happens either. “Convenient, isn’t it?” she asks, smiling, and wow, Han Sooyoung is regretting this already. “Now we can know where the other is at all times. So, if you ever try to go back on your word to help…”
“I’ve got a decent grasp on soul bonds too,” Han Sooyoung says, snide, and also a little bit unnerved at how Yoo Sangah just trailed off like that. “I could totally break this link if I wanted to, then get the hell outta this apartment. Out of this country, if I have to.”
“Funny,” Yoo Sangah says. “I attached some mirror magic to the link, so it’ll be quite the show seeing you blow yourself up trying to get rid of it.”
“…Well.” Han Sooyoung should have expected that. “Fuck you too, I guess.”
“Think of this link as a contract. The sooner you fulfill your end of the deal, the sooner we can get rid of each other. Besides, it’s not like I want a link like this to last any longer than you do,” Yoo Sangah adds, sitting back down on the couch. “I hate how media has turned them into something they aren’t. Did you know they used to be much worse? The first ever soul bonds were for slavery. Every servant under their ruler had to form a soul bond with them, and if they ever went against any of the rules in the bond’s contract they would be instantly executed…”
Han Sooyoung also should have expected the history lesson, though it’s admittedly interesting. “Yeah, yeah, enough about this. More importantly,” Han Sooyoung says, eager to finally get to the whole reason Yoo Sangah is even here, “how did you find out these museum goods of yours were being sold on the black market anyway?”
“Oh, it wasn’t too hard.” Yoo Sangah folds her hands atop her lap. Despite her words, she sounds rather pleased with herself. “I just did what anyone else would do in my position.”
“I don’t think anyone would do what you’re doing now in this position.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t. What did you do?”
Yeah, Yoo Sangah is definitely preening right now. “Alright. Really, it was nothing. I simply traced the magical signature and followed where it led me.”
That is far too succinct an explanation for Han Sooyoung to so simply accept, but the latter part is what boggles her most. “You followed it… to the black market? Wait, wait. Seriously, start from the top.” If she’d been able to trace the thief’s magical signature, surely they’re just dealing with an amateur, then. Any self-respecting criminal would at least know how to—
“It took a bit of waiting, I admit,” Yoo Sangah says, tilting her head in thought. “But camouflage magic fades after a while and reveals the signature for a very short time. You know, that period in between the end of the camouflage magic’s duration and the end of the magical signature’s duration? I had no other leads, so I had to stake out in the museum for a while to catch it.”
“Uh. Yeah, how long was… a while, exactly?”
“Hm… a few days, give or take?”
Han Sooyoung’s voice cracks. “What the fuck?”
“I’m just glad I caught the signature before it faded,” Yoo Sangah says. Han Sooyoung hates how she sounds like she means it. “Anyway, I followed the trail then, and it led me to this empty warehouse not too far away. Apparently it disguised a secret passageway to a literal underground market. Quite the surprise,” she says, sounding the furthest thing from surprised. “I didn’t stay down there for too long, but it was obviously a branch of the black market.”
Han Sooyoung sighs. “Man, and you didn’t think it could’ve just been a mushroom market? Legal sellers do their business underground all the time, you know?”
“I thought that too,” Yoo Sangah says, “but aside from how there weren’t many mushrooms around, the barrier spells were exactly the same as yours, Sooyoung-ssi.”
“…Ah, fuck you.”
“I did think seeing through those barrier spells was too easy. It turns out I’m just used to breaking them.”
“Ah, fuck you,” Han Sooyoung snaps. Of course. Yoo Sangah hadn’t described everything in excruciating detail, but Han Sooyoung can unfortunately imagine exactly how it must have looked like: Yoo Sangah poking around the warehouse until she felt the resistance of an illusion barrier, and then her breaking it into itty-bitty little pieces with a flick of her wrist, with the same casual, effortless ease she always shows when tearing down Han Sooyoung’s defenses. At least she’d been smart enough not to linger in the market too long; Han Sooyoung can’t imagine any of the regulars there would treat a sudden newcomer too kindly, especially in the wake of a broken barrier spell.
Yoo Sangah just smiles, empty as ever. “That’s where the trail ends. So, I have no hard evidence of the museum artifacts actually being sold down there, but it seems the most likely conclusion, don’t you think? If I can look around in there a little longer, I might be able to find more clues. That’s where you come in.”
Han Sooyoung shudders. “Right, you want me to be your escort or something. How could I have forgotten.”
“But it works. People know who you are, and won’t question me if I’m with you.” Yoo Sangah smiles. Ohh, Han Sooyoung hates her so much. “Decent plan for something I thought up just the other day, don’t you think? I was so grateful to realize I’ve had a connection to the black market all this time.”
“Gods. Fine,” Han Sooyoung sighs. She can already feel herself nursing a headache. “We can go tomorrow once I’m done with work.”
“What? Not today?”
Han Sooyoung’s headache intensifies several hundred degrees. “Today? Like right now!?”
Yoo Sangah has the gall to look bemused. “It’s open tonight, isn’t it? You marked it on your calendar.”
That bitch. Not like she’d done anything wrong, or that Han Sooyoung had forbidden her to look at her traitorous calendar, but… that bitch.
“Anyway, you’re done with work now, aren’t you? It won’t take too long if we just head down for a quick check,” Yoo Sangah continues. “Besides, maybe I’ll even find our thief and we can be done with this whole thing in under a day.”
Somehow, Han Sooyoung doubts that; Yoo Sangah wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of a mind link, temporary as it is, if she seriously thought she could fix this problem of hers so easily. But Yoo Sangah also doesn’t look like she plans on backing down, so Han Sooyoung makes sure to groan as loudly and long-sufferingly as possible. “I hate you. I haaate you. You’re really making me want to tell everyone at the publishing house how much of a manipulative, emotionless bitch you are!”
“You wouldn’t be telling them anything they don’t already know,” Yoo Sangah says, and Han Sooyoung has to give it to her—she sounds like she genuinely doesn’t give a shit. This woman has to be a different species. “Shall we?”
“Ugh…” Han Sooyoung makes a mental note to relocate her calendar into her bedroom. “At least let me get changed first.”
Han Sooyoung has been in this branch of the black market more than her fair share of times. Mostly to renew her barrier spells that conceal it from the regular public, of course, but also sometimes just to check up on the competition once in a while. She’s been working in the area long enough that the regulars know not to mess with her, but she can’t say the same for the occasional bright-eyed, bushy-tailed newcomer who thinks they’re hot stuff just because they successfully predicted which university they’d attend. Wannabes like them can practice and hone their talent somewhere else, in Han Sooyoung’s opinion. Business is cutthroat, even—especially—when it’s their sort, the sort that isn’t even supposed to exist.
“…I know you’re not stupid,” she grinds out through gritted teeth, “so will you quit looking around like some kind of tourist? This isn’t a vacation spot! People are going to get suspicious!”
“Hmm? But now that I’m with you, things seem more interesting than scary.” Yoo Sangah tears her gaze away from a stall selling human organs to give Han Sooyoung her usual dazzling smile. Well, ‘dazzling’ as in ‘Han Sooyoung has to look away from it else she go blind from sheer rage.’ How is she not affected by all the different kinds of magic here? It used to bother Han Sooyoung all the time at first, giving her nausea and migraines, but now she’s grown accustomed enough to it that it’s just a faint buzz in the back of her head. Yoo Sangah makes it look like it doesn’t even exist.
“Still, I’ve heard of the black market before, but I never imagined it’d look like this,” Yoo Sangah says, glancing around at their surroundings again. “I thought it would be a bit more…”
“Seedy? Run-down? Dirty?” Han Sooyoung suggests. When Yoo Sangah just cocks her head to the side as if agreeing but not quite admitting to it, Han Sooyoung scoffs. “Oh, please. These people are raking in millions of cash everyday. Why wouldn’t they spend a bit on making sure the place they do business in is clean?”
At the same time, she supposes she can’t blame Yoo Sangah for that—no one who’s ever actually been to a black market would think it would look, well, normal. At first glance Han Sooyoung wouldn’t have been able to tell this place apart from the average department store: stalls and booths are arranged neatly in line with one another, leaving enough space in between for merchants to deliver their sales pitches and for customers to pass by, and the place is all clean white tiles, fluorescent lights, and cool air-conditioning. The only difference is, well, the products on sale.
And how pretty much everyone covers their face. And the nauseating melting pot of magic in the air. And how Han Sooyoung had to sign Yoo Sangah off as her ‘assistant’ at the gates when the security guards interrogated them.
Okay, so it’s got a few differences from a normal department store. Honestly, its neatness and cleanliness is less disguise and more preference; after all, it’s not like the average police officer is going to think even the cleanest and most sterile of markets is legal when it’s buried beneath one old warehouse and twenty different layers of illusions and barriers.
The branch’s disguise is, as Yoo Sangah mentioned, a warehouse so old it was probably here long before Han Sooyoung was even born. She had stumbled on it back when she had just graduated university and was searching for a new place to work in after some… business-related drama. It doesn’t matter now, but just thinking about it pisses her off again. She’d been so furious, she had walked straight through the so-called barrier that was supposed to keep people out and into the market itself. She’d nearly gotten herself beaten up by the guards until she realized what the place was and leapt at the chance to affiliate herself with them; it was a good thing she already had all the necessary paperwork certifying her as a true-blue criminal as PDFs in her phone.
After that they were all smiles, illegal sellers to illegal seller; it helped that she had a good reputation as a prodigy in fortune-telling, and some of the people there had heard of her name. In exchange for their support, she agreed to help their security staff with their barriers; honestly, just being near such shoddy illusion magic (well, for her standards) made Han Sooyoung feel embarrassed for them, so she was really doing herself a favor too.
“Well?” she prompts, when Yoo Sangah is once again distracted by a stall selling supposed cursed objects. “Found your criminal yet? I wouldn’t recommend that one, by the way, but if you’re interested I can set you up with a business partner…”
Yoo Sangah ignores her, but she does look away from the stalls and focuses on the tiles in front of her instead. “Found it,” she mumbles, striding forward, more purpose in her steps now, and Han Sooyoung reluctantly trails behind her, ignoring the strange glances she gets from the other merchants around them the whole while. Hopefully they don’t think she’s been kidnapped or something, even if that is kind of what’s going on here.
They take turns guiding each other, Yoo Sangah following the magical signature and Han Sooyoung steering her clear away from certain stalls—most of them are no big deal, but even going near some of the more dangerous ones unprepared can lead to a dizzy spell at least, and Han Sooyoung won’t be taking chances even if Yoo Sangah has the strongest mental barriers she’s ever seen in her life. They follow the traces through the winding market, but despite being one of their trusted security staff, Han Sooyoung is getting more and more odd looks. Everyone knows better than to attempt telepathy with anyone else in here, but the question is obvious on what little Han Sooyoung can see of their faces: Who the hell is this chick tracking one of us down?
Han Sooyoung had been lucky—she had built up a decent clientele when she was still in university, probably because fortune tellers as good as her were getting harder and harder to come by. The general feel of her magic fits right at home in here, too: illusions, disguises, every suspicious thing a person could think of. But Yoo Sangah?
The woman herself comes to a stop right in front of her. “Here.”
“Here?”
“The trail ends here.” Yoo Sangah’s face makes a funny sort of motion, like she desperately wants to scowl but knows she shouldn’t. “They must have stopped using magic then. I don’t see anything else.”
Han Sooyoung squints. They’re in one of the darker areas of the market, for merchants who’d like to stay away from window-shoppers and for merchants who literally need darkness to preserve their products. With how much Yoo Sangah had hyped this criminal up, Han Sooyoung had been expecting something a little dramatic, not a shabby, nondescript booth with a thick cloth draped atop most of it; the tiny sliding panel in front, where Han Sooyoung supposes customers are supposed to talk to the merchant, is curtained shut and ‘CLOSED’ is scrawled on a crumpled sheet of spiral notebook paper taped onto it.
“Oh, this is one of the newer kids,” she realizes.
“Kids?”
“If you haven’t been doing illegal business since you were 13, you’re a kid to me.” Han Sooyoung remembers when she first saw this booth appear; it had looked so boring, it actually stood out more. “They only showed up maybe a month ago? Not sure. Either way, I’ve never seen the owner.” Then again, most of these merchants are elusive at best for obvious reasons, so it’s nothing surprising.
Yoo Sangah still looks troubled, like she has no idea what to do now aside from stare at the closed stall, so Han Sooyoung sighs and looks around them. “Hey, you,” she calls; a nearby merchant sitting across from them glares up at her from his phone, before recognition flashes in his eyes and he jumps to his feet at attention. Han Sooyoung allows herself a moment of narcissism before getting straight to the point. “Who’s in charge of this stall? Tell me everything you know about them.”
“Director-nim.” He bows, a perfect 90 degrees. Beside her, Han Sooyoung can see Yoo Sangah’s eyebrows rising high enough they disappear beneath her bangs. “Er, uh. I don’t know them that well, really. They don’t speak to anyone and always wear different disguises, and… I’m not sure, but it doesn’t look like they have a schedule, since they’re always coming and going…”
Han Sooyoung frowns. “Is that it? What do they sell?”
“Oh! Uh… well… I’m not sure either.” He winces. “Their goods are always behind the curtain, and it looks like they only talk to customers who already made prior appointments.”
“Huh,” Han Sooyoung says. She dismisses the merchant with some thanks, and he returns to his seat with no small amount of trepidation. “Well, that’s suspicious,” she says, to Yoo Sangah. “And this is a place where you’re literally paid to be suspicious.” It’s not totally unusual for merchants to only work with trusted clients, but to have trusted clients in the first place, you’d have to make a name for yourself first. Plus, what does this person even sell? Just museum artifacts? Anything with historical importance? Whatever their client asks of them? If your goods and services aren’t well-known by the people sitting right next to you, then how the hell—
“Let’s follow them.”
Han Sooyoung almost chokes on her own spit. “Uh, what?”
“I’ll track them down somehow.” There’s a dangerous glint in Yoo Sangah’s usually dull eyes, but it looks less like emotion and more like bloodlust. Hasn’t she done enough tracking-down today? Is she a hunting dog or something? “Or I’ll wait here until they arrive. No matter how elaborate the illusion, I’ll tear their magic away, same as always.”
Han Sooyoung has no idea how many headaches this new one makes. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying right now?” she snaps. “These people aren’t just going to let you find them. Hell, this person probably wouldn’t even have left tracks behind for you to follow if they weren’t sure they could take you on! You’re not the police or a secret agent, Yoo Sangah, this—”
Yoo Sangah turns to her with such a murderous look on her face that Han Sooyoung almost doesn’t recognize her. “Don’t get in my way.”
“What the fuck—I’m trying to help here, damn it! That’s what you asked me to do, isn’t it!?” Han Sooyoung nearly shouts. They’re drawing too much attention, probably because she’s raising her voice too much, but she can’t help it—this has to be the most frustrating Yoo Sangah has ever been, which says a lot. “This isn’t smart,” she tries again, when mostly she wants to say, This isn’t like you. “We still have time to come up with a better plan. I mean, whoever this is clearly values their privacy. Don’t you think we’re better off just talking to them some other time when they’re here? Why are you so worked up over this anyway?”
Some sort of dark expression crosses Yoo Sangah’s face for a moment, like when someone who can’t take a hint is bothering her at work. At first Han Sooyoung wonders if she’s going to snap and flip the table booth, which would be both entertaining and terrifying, but before she can do that or even say anything, the man from earlier suddenly stands up again, phone held loosely in one hand. “Director-nim,” he says, but he’s looking right at Yoo Sangah as he speaks. “Is something going on here?”
She blinks. “What?”
And—oh, they drew way too much attention. Other sellers are looking their way, mostly at Yoo Sangah, giving her suspicious and warning glares; this wouldn’t be so bad, considering they’ve been doing it the whole time they’ve been down here, if it weren’t for how some of them are approaching. Magic crackles in the air—it’s a clear show of power, meant to intimidate outsiders, only Yoo Sangah doesn’t look like she even notices it. Han Sooyoung would bury her face in her hands if she weren’t certain someone might try to actually kill this woman in the next 30 seconds.
“Cool it, you all. She’s with me,” Han Sooyoung snaps, keeping her voice steady. She’s not afraid of them on their own, but taking on a whole bunch of criminals is a different story. Besides, she’s never been much of a fighter, despite her arsenal of learned magic, and she’s not confident she can disguise Yoo Sangah when the woman practically repels illusions.
A different merchant snorts. “Shouldn’t she know better than to try tracking one of us down, then? Your new assistant need some help learning the ropes, Director?”
“I don’t understand,” Yoo Sangah says icily, before Han Sooyoung can clamp a hand over her mouth and keep her from saying anything else that will get her assassinated. “Wouldn’t any seller want to be available for potential customers?”
Another one laughs, or at least makes some sort of throaty, wheezing noise. “Shoulda stopped at your first sentence. You really don’t understand!”
“Okay—Okay, we’re out,” Han Sooyoung says, grabbing Yoo Sangah’s wrist and tugging her away from the growing crowd. Her skin is cold to the touch, and it sends a tingle all the way up from Han Sooyoung’s hand to her shoulder, so sharp and vivid that she can’t tell if that had been actual magic or just her own imagination. Yoo Sangah jolts but settles quickly, though her entire body remains so tense Han Sooyoung can tell even without the edges of caution and wariness creeping in through the mind link. “Yoo Sangah. We’re leaving, now.”
There’s that flash in her eyes again, like the flicker of a snake’s forked tongue, testing the air for predator and prey alike—but the former must win out, because Yoo Sangah sighs, and Han Sooyoung can almost see the fight leaving her shoulders. “Fine. As long as we come back soon.”
“Okay. Great. Good to see you’ve still got a working brain in there. Nothing to see here,” Han Sooyoung calls, addressing their little audience. “We’ve got it under control. Shoo, shoo.”
The first merchant gives her an uncertain look. “Director-nim, are you sure—”
“Yes, I’m sure! Get going.” Han Sooyoung has to keep the relief out of her voice when she watches the crowd mutter but disperse, returning to their own stalls and booths. That had been beyond dangerous. She knows they wouldn’t hurt her, more because that would be counterproductive to their business than out of any actual attachment to her, but even Yoo Sangah couldn’t possibly defend herself against all these criminals combined. The last thing she wants is for Yoo Sangah to get hurt.
…Purely because it’d be a bother having to find a new editor, of course. Han Sooyoung shakes her head and drops Yoo Sangah’s wrist, because any longer and she has a feeling the permanent chill of her skin will seep into her own palm. “That was ridiculous,” she hisses. “Aren’t you supposed to be smart? Where’d all your brain cells disappear to just then?”
Yoo Sangah is silent, but at least she’s still following Han Sooyoung as they head towards the exit. Then she sighs; when she speaks again she sounds almost vulnerable, something Han Sooyoung never thought she’d ever associate with Yoo Sangah. “I… am sorry.”
“Whoa. You mean it, or are you putting a curse on me?”
“My judgment was muddled. I was caught up in the moment.” Yoo Sangah closes her eyes. “I should have been more careful. Thank you for your help, Sooyoung-ssi.”
…What the hell? This is almost worse than if Yoo Sangah had just gone full crazy and overturned the table booth after all. Sure, her words sound like she’s reading from a work email or something, but she sounds like she actually means it. Han Sooyoung has no idea what to do with the fact that she got an apology and a thank-you from Yoo Sangah in the space of a minute. “That… Well…” She coughs, clears her throat. “Yeah, you… better be sorry. And you better be thankful.”
Predictably enough, Yoo Sangah doesn’t seem to have heard. “Next time, we’ll have to track this person down from afar. Perhaps if I wait for them by the entrance instead…”
Han Sooyoung groans. “Seriously, a next time already? Come on, let’s just get out of here already—and don’t talk to anyone. Another word and I’m gonna have to drag you out of here as a corpse.”
“Hmm… Does this place have any other entrances and exits aside from the one we used?”
“Don’t talk to me either. You’re exhausting.”
They head past the stalls and towards the exit; the other people there, merchants and customers alike, shoot them yet more questioning looks and eye Yoo Sangah’s movements with clear suspicion, but thankfully no one makes a move all the way up the stairs and out the warehouse. Breathing in the fresh, relatively magic-less air after the market’s stink is almost as relieving as finally getting away from everyone’s eyes. “Well, that was pointless,” Han Sooyoung says.
“Not so much,” Yoo Sangah demurs. “We at least know the thief really is down there. Or at least conducts business there. Or they could have been someone’s client?”
“Yeah, I’m not playing detective with you.” Han Sooyoung’s office-apartment isn’t far from here, only a five-minute walk made even shorter with how brisk Yoo Sangah’s long strides are. Han Sooyoung has to hurry to keep pace, to her annoyance. “Chances are you’re not gonna find out anytime soon anyway.”
Yoo Sangah doesn’t even take offense to that, somewhat worryingly enough. She just looks lost in thought. “I’m sure we will. This isn’t that bad a starting point.”
If Yoo Sangah considers getting surrounded by a bunch of criminals, none of whom are strangers to murder, ‘not that bad,’ Han Sooyoung does not want to know what her definition of ‘pretty damn bad’ must be. “If we’re going to keep going down there, you’re gonna have to start listening to me, you know. Don’t cause a scene like what you did just then! It’s gonna look bad on me!”
“Is that your only concern?”
“It’s gonna be a pain explaining to the guys at publishing about your sudden death too or whatever,” Han Sooyoung graciously adds. Yoo Sangah rolls her eyes, but for once there’s little actual disdain in her expression.
At least, Han Sooyoung observes, she seems less on edge now than she had been a while ago down in the market. What had happened back then anyway? Yoo Sangah wouldn’t have lost control so quickly like that, and Han Sooyoung doubts it’s because she’s that emotionally attached to some museum artifacts. In that case, could it be because of the thief…? Did she see some hint or clue to their identity? But what could rattle her so bad that she’d try and pick a fight with literal criminals who can and would have hurt her?
“Yes?” Yoo Sangah asks. “You’re staring.”
Han Sooyoung jolts. “Was not.” She definitely was. Mostly she’d been thinking, but she’d also been staring. At Yoo Sangah’s face. She has a nice face. Han Sooyoung is aware of that because her face is pretty much 70 percent of every conversation she’s ever heard in the publishing office, but—“We’re back,” she huffs, relieved beyond measure when they come to a stop at her front door. “What are you gonna do now?”
Yoo Sangah shrugs. “Come up with another plan.”
“You’re not still thinking about staking out and waiting for them like you did at the museum, are you? I guarantee you’ll be killed first before you even get a look at their face.”
“It would have been worth it.” Yoo Sangah looks far from discouraged. “But I really will think about it. I hope you can help me again then.”
Han Sooyoung supposes wondering if Yoo Sangah would forget about this fool’s errand was past wishfulness and more along the lines of delusional thinking. “Whatever. Like I have a choice.”
A moment passes, two, threatens to stretch out into awkward silence. What else is there to say after everything that just happened? A lot, admittedly, but Han Sooyoung’s tired, and this is unfamiliar territory they’re stepping on—they’ve never stayed late enough together at the publishing office for something like this to happen. Han Sooyoung has definitely never seen Yoo Sangah like this, illuminated by the moonlight, clear and unhampered by clouds; for once the expression on her face looks a little softer than usual, and her eyes meet Han Sooyoung’s for a brief moment that feels longer than it should.
“Is this the part where I say goodnight and sweet dreams?” Han Sooyoung asks, snide, when Yoo Sangah’s lips part as if to speak. “Because I hope you have awful nightmares instead. All this running around has cut into my beauty sleep.”
Yoo Sangah blinks, looking taken aback for once. Then she shakes her head, and—Han Sooyoung catches a flash of something almost like disappointment across her face, too fast to really observe but too obvious to have been anything else. “Right. Well, thank you for today. See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, see you… wait!” Han Sooyoung squawks. “Tomorrow? You won’t even give me a day to recuperate!?”
“What’s there for you to recuperate from…?”
“From spending way too much time with you, of course!” Han Sooyoung sputters, but Yoo Sangah is already turning away, the hint of an amused smile on her face. No, that’s not a smile, she’s smirking, she’s definitely smirking, that bitch! “Hey! Don’t even think about coming back here tomorrow. I’m shutting you out and closing for business if I have to!”
“Sure, sure.” Yoo Sangah lifts her hand in a wave. Something stirs in Han Sooyoung’s gut, like the bit of Yoo Sangah’s magic inside her is protesting at its creator leaving. “Have a good night, Sooyoung-ssi.”
When she disappears down the street, the first time they’ve been away from each other for the past few hours, Han Sooyoung can feel it: that tug on her pinky finger, the compass in her chest pointing to Yoo Sangah.