Chapter Text
University life was just another challenge for Lily to get through. It had been a hard choice of whether to move back to Australia after high school or to continue her life in Korea and as much as she missed her dad, she stayed. She'd studied as much as she could and passed the entrance exam. With her ever supportive parents there was no pressure on what course so her family cheered when she was accepted into the Department of Composition, she could continue singing while expanding her song writing abilities. She kept up with her classes and had friends she could complete projects with and her university life moved forward.
Coming out of her afternoon class, she talked briefly with her classmates about the next assignment before waving goodbye, eyes scanning the hallway. She looked through the faces trying to spot her senior she had planned lunch with. It wasn't easy to spot her in a crowd of similar brunettes. One caught her eye, not her senior but someone familiar. Maybe from high school but she couldn't pinpoint the girl's name, there had only been a couple that she rarely talked to despite her outgoing-ness. The name nagged at the back of her mind, maybe a 'hieut'. A moment more and she may have been able to place her as a 3rd year transfer student that between band and studying she didn't get the chance to talk to but her own name was called from behind. With a swivel of her head Lily saw the senior was in front of her and they walked off, moving the familiar face across the hall to the back of her mind.
Stood in the hallway, the brunette noticed the Australian staring before walking away. Haewon remembered her like it was yesterday - fluent enough to be attending a Korean public school but not enough to catch the quick wit thrown between her classmates, laughing a second later than everyone else. Haewon was the new transfer in the third year, how couldn't she have noticed her? She'd been introduced to her as 'Jin-ah' but learning she was actually called Lily and, critically, a year older - Lily unnie fit her better. But only in her head. Despite Haewon being in band in her old school she pushed the perfect opportunity to talk to vocalist Lily to the wayside under the internal guise that had to stay on top of her grades now. Even now she was still too… scared? Anxious? She didn't quite understand the feeling she got when she looked at Lily but the idea of trying to hold a conversation with her and not embarrass herself made her stay away. The one thing she didn't seem to have confidence and determination to complete. She watched her from afar in the halls whenever she ventured into the music building, meeting her own friends or participating in clubs, but even more now she had to focus on her own grades. As such she moved along her own way to the library to complete an assignment.
The day continued, Haewon returned to her dorm with her work handed in online and ready to make herself a quick meal before relaxing. She messaged back her friends she'd ignored at the library about projects and events. Watching in the corner of her eye, other students walked to and from the library and dorms, buildings locked for the night and the sun dipped further below the horizon painting the sky red. As she stood outside her dorm building, she contemplated how she was spending the evening - studying or watching a movie in her room until 2am then sleeping until she has to wake up for a 9am class? It was a stressful week - every week is stressful, it's university and she's in her first year studying a language she's not fluent in yet using big words like morphology and psycholinguistics. With an assignment complete maybe a walk would help. She didn't even go in to drop off her bag, she just set off in a vague direction (she had her phone if she got lost).
Despite the later hour, the streets were still full - office workers still commuting home and students moving between the high school and study academies. After a few turns, she found a 7/11. Haewon grabbed a quick snack before setting off again. Many places around campus were well known and catered towards the student population giving offers to those with student IDs to entice them to eat outside of the campus cafeteria. Haewon watched as students moved in groups or solo to the different restaurants for their dinner while she dropped the gimbap into her bag to eat at whatever destination she ends up. Across the street she noticed the girl again, Lily walking out of a diner with a slightly taller girl laughing before waving goodbye, only the older girl walking back in the direction of the dorms. Haewon hesitated for a second before following behind Lily. She was concerned for her, being out in the dark in the big city of Seoul, that's why her idle walk became (somewhat creepily) following Lily unnie from across the street.
She seemed to have a destination in mind - only looking forward, definitive in her steps and turns - unlike Haewon earlier - strolling along checking each corner for if she wanted to turn or continue on. Eventually they came to a heavily wooded hiking park entrance. Lily entered unperturbed by the cooling wind and the basic safety of not hiking on a forested mountain at night. Haewon checked the surroundings for anyone who'd potentially follow them inside (there were other people but none paying particular attention to the university students) before crossing and stepping through the gate. The path immediately split and Haewon cursed to herself, she'd been too far behind that she couldn't see Lily anymore. There was a map next the gate that both paths converged back into the start of the actual hiking trail; she hoped Lily was sane enough to stay on the path and not start to actually climb the mountain.
The wind wasn't too strong but it was certainly making it colder and her stomach was now growling. She hesitated for a second before sitting on a bench close to the entrance to eat and kept an eye out for Lily returning.
10 minutes passed - Haewon noted a whistle of the wind through a particular tree. 20 minutes passed - she finished her gimbap. 30 minutes past - a chill ran down her spine and a high-pitched ringing started in her ears, briefly shaking her. 35 minutes - this was ridiculous, she could be in a nice warm bed now and instead she's sat on a bench worried Lily had been killed further in the park, why was she here so long? Curiosity and concern got the best of her. She grabbed her things and picked a path. The ringing died down to be replaced by the occasional bird call above. It was so dark with the moon and stars hidden behind the clouds and light pollution, trees covered any city lights shinning parallel into the park. Haewon was purely here to make sure Lily, a girl she's known of (but hasn't talked to) for just over a year now, doesn't die.
This is crazy. But it's too late to back out, she has to make sure Lily survives to see the morning.
Haewon started to round the corner to the point where the paths merged back together when she stopped in her tracks. A figure was sat on the bench. If it was Lily - fantastic, she hadn't started hiking and all the worrying was for nothing (except for why she wanted to come here in the first place) - if it was someone else - she was surely going to be lured into whatever trap Lily had fallen for and be killed as well. She contemplated turning around to wait at the entrance bench since, if it was Lily, she'd eventually leave and if it's a serial killer she won't get murdered - win-win. She took a singular step back before the head of the figure turned towards her like they had spidey sense. They were caught in a brief staring contest (the turn didn't help too much with identification but she wasn't dead yet so she hedged her bets it was Lily) but before a word could be spoken, a scream broke out from just up the hiking trail.
Someone was absolutely getting murdered; she should grab Lily and run out of the park as fast as possible. But something was pulling her into the woods. Clearly Lily felt the same, having already stood up, grabbed her bag and started walking towards the tree line. She'd come this far, might as well as continue on. (There'd been no reports of murders lately so what are the chances they would be the first).
They both made their way along the rough hiking trail, starting to incline up the mountain, Haewon having caught up to only be a few steps behind now. Neither said a word. This was such a crazy situation to be stuck in but here Haewon was. They couldn't see where the scream had come from so they didn't know what they were looking for, there hadn't seen anyone on the path and as they rounded a corner the darkness covered if anyone was ahead of them. Lily also seemed to realise this was a lost cause and paused - Haewon settled beside her. She almost interrupted Lily to start to drag her back down when a noise was heard. Under the wind through the trees a high pitched laughter could be heard to their left. Lily turned and headed through the underbrush, Haewon could only follow but her own curiosity was starting to beat out her concern for Lily's safety for why she kept moving forward.
The laughter got louder as they moved through the trees before drifting off for idle chatter they could still use to track the people. They stopped at the curve of a slight decline to a level pit with a couple of trees; Haewon spotted four figures across the area. Their conversation only grew louder, having already covered up the crunching of leaves and branches from their approach as none turned around. There was also something familiar about the voices and laughter of one or two of them but the blanket of shadow made it hard to define.
It was Lily that had no qualms in interrupting strangers' conversation in the forest and called out to them. "Was that scream from you guys?"
The four turned silent and spun around in stances as if they were going to bolt before realising Haewon and Lily weren't security. "Sorry, I slipped." One of them said before turning around to stare and point at the slightly higher wall on that side.
Haewon needed to take control of the situation so everyone got home unharmed and soon, "What are you guys doing here? Shouldn't you be on your way home?"
"We were on our way home but Jiwoo wanted to walk through the park and then we ended up here." Another explained with a simple shrug and pointing at her friend 'Jiwoo' who seemed to be the one that originally apologised.
"She told me she wanted to check out the park after dance practise so I brought Sol-ah to meet her." Another voice spoke.
The converging stories were confusing Haewon after her hours of library time and being unable to differentiate faces in the lack of light. The four were clearly too invested in whatever they saw here that they couldn't fully explain and—Haewon gave in. She looked carefully at the forest floor before making her way down the decline, after a delay she could hear Lily following. Walking between the few trees over to the group she could make out more details. Maybe staying up there would have been better, would have provided more authority than three out of four of them being taller than her. The tallest two were in the uniform of her and Lily's former high school while the others were in more casual or athletic wear, probably coming from the dance practise mentioned earlier.
While Haewon thought how to move them all along, Lily interrupted, "Oh, Yoon-ah," she pointed to the shorter of the uniformed two, "nice to see you again!" Both seemed more excited about seeing each other again than dealing with the situation at hand. (Though now that Lily had said the name, Haewon did recognise her, her visuals making it hard to forget the junior she had sometimes sat with in the school library and helped with her english homework).
"Jin unnie! What are you doing here?" Yoon-ah questioned back and Jiwoo finally turned back around at the name, turning happy at the sight of her.
"I just came on a walk for inspiration and heard a scream. It's so nice to see you two again." Lily was almost jumping up and down at seeing the juniors again.
"Once again what are you guys doing here and why are you not heading home?" Haewon tried to take back control, the wind was beginning to bite at her bones.
"Oh right, I heard that if you come here at night you can see these glowing lights from the woods and Kyujin entertained my thought." Jiwoo held Lily's hand as she turned to point at the rocky surface in front.
Finally Haewon could look at the surroundings. The group stood in this pit in the mountain as if hit by an asteriod but not perfectly circular and while most sides were only a meter down that wall they faced was considerably taller, maybe about 4 meters. As Jiwoo's hand swept over the surface, spots of varying colours gleamed below the surface, it seemed more like glass than rock. A growing ringing started in her ear again, this was no time for a bout of tinnitus."Okay but this is off the path, how did you find this?"
"When I was on the path over there," Jiwoo pointed vaguely eastwards, "I started hearing a ringing so followed it." She explained like that sounded something other than insane.
"You've seen the glowing lights so why don't we go now?" The glow was enticing, it didn't make sense. If there was more light she could probably tell that it wasn't stone from a glance and with the lights it had to be a form of glass but if it had gone this long un-researched, and therefore undiscovered, it had to blend in somehow.
"Haewon Unnie! We already came all this way, a few more minutes won't hurt anyone." Why was Yoona trying to negotiate with her?
"Yeah this is so cool! We should find out more." The tallest, Sol(?), went over and tapped on the material, getting a similar response of glowing lights pulsing in time with the hits. She looked around a moment before grabbing a rock with a sharp point and tapping that on the glass.
"Hey—" Haewon tried to stop her before they destroyed something either dangerous or part of park property and got in trouble but even the slightest tap with the rock started to crack the material so she kept going. With each hit the ringing in her ears got louder urging Haewon to grab her head and cover her ears, it must have just been the irritating scrape of the rock against the glass as she spotted Lily similarly plugging her ears next to her. The other casual outfit (not Jiwoo, Kyujin?) also tried to stop her but it meant nothing as the tallest hit harder and a chunk fell out, revealing a black glow encased in some golden stone that Kyujin picked up to inspect. Seeing it posed no immediate danger and another hand brush of the surface, Sol hit again dislodging more chunks with the glowing coins.
Silence. Blissful silence as once all the lights were scattered on the floor the ringing stopped. Sol dropped the sharp rock and picked up her own coin to inspect. Haewon tried to hold back and be rational that these coins could be dangerous and she shouldn't partake in the destruction of property but after Lily unnie picked up the blue one, she had to have a closer look. The remaining one glowed a deep red, it looked cracked but she couldn't be sure it was from the student's smashing of the stone, maybe it was just made shoddy or the years of being encased in the glass was too much pressure? (Haewon didn't remember much of the science from previous years but didn't think that was how stone or glass worked).
"What are these?" Lily was just voicing her thoughts but the others didn't have an answer either.
"Souvenir now, thanks Jinsol unnie!" Was Jiwoo's only comment. Haewon almost face palmed at the ridiculousness of the situation.
While they stood in silence, each admiring their own coloured rock, someone could be heard walking up the path and Haewon could just about differentiate the person's whistling from the wind. She panicked. "It doesn't matter, we have to go. Now."
Most likely it was a park worker making sure no one was stuck or lost before they closed (why they had the same closing time in late autumn to summer was a mystery) but if they were found around a destroyed stone everything Haewon had worked for might come crashing down. She can't be arrested. She shoved the coin in her pocket and pushed the kids forward to run alongside the path until she was sure the worker wouldn't see them emerge from the tree line; she grabbed Lily's hand to run alongside her.
The kids in front were attempting to be cautious of the uneven floor as they shoved their own coins in pockets and bags but running in the littered underbrush wasn't silent, the crunching of the debris caught the worker's attention and a flashlight was shone between the trees as he tried to spot them. Haewon kept pushing them to run even as the staff shouted for them to stop. They emerged from the forest and made a much less cautious dash down the path away from him as he radioed for backup. If they came out calmly they could have hidden their stolen treasure and maybe played it off as them losing track of time but now they were running leaving their trail of guilt for the staff to chase.
Haewon didn't even know where the kids should be heading to get home but the priority was getting out of the park before a guard captured them. Being a group of six helped, as they ran down the path a singular guard came to a stop in a ready position but he can't catch all of them. They split in a wide berth, slipping off the path briefly to go around him. They were left with a free sprint to the street. Haewon was running on adrenaline with the pure goal of getting as far away from the park as possible that she didn't realize she'd just urged the group to run straight across the street until headlights reflected from her eyes.