talkingtothemoon | 맘을 숨겨둔 Lonely night

맘을 숨겨둔 Lonely night

Never miss a hunt. It's one of Yena's rules.

Miyoung has broken more of those than she wants to think about this year, but she's tried hard to keep the rest. She tries, too, not to think about how tired she is, how unhappy; she never misses a hunt, feeds every month. On her own, it takes a lot more work to be sure she chooses her victims well, but she does it. Part of her wonders what the point is in being a monster to stay alive when it means living in a place like this, so far from wherever their home would be now, so far from her mother. From Jihoon.

She's been away longer than she knew him. Does he still remember her? They say people don't even notice the absence of those in Darrow, but she doesn't trust that.

Why doesn't Yena find her?

Her life moves in predictable cycles, shifting with the moon. She goes to school, she keeps her head down, she gets her work done. She avoids the other students and their snide comments, avoids the others in the Home. The more she ignores her classmates, the more she fades into the background for them, though that isn't as easy to keep up in the Home where she has to live with others. A few more weeks, though, and that will be over. She's been saving her monthly stipend from the city, buying very little she doesn't need, so she can rent her own apartment the minute she's able to do so. Even if she knows she'll be a proper adult in a few days, the Home will have to agree in mid-January.

She tries not to think about how it means living alone for the first time. At least she'll have her own space.

And every month, she hunts. Her free hours are spent in only a few ways: watching television, listening to music, exploring the city to see if she can find an exit in spite of what everyone else says and so she can learn it, and hunting. Watching her prey. Stalking men in the night. It turns her stomach to do so, if only because of all the things she has to see or expects to see. Choosing to eat only predators means seeking out the worst of the worst. She has no one to blame for that but herself.

Tonight will be the full moon, her tenth in Darrow.

She's made her choice already, though, and if she just sits around, waiting, for nightfall, she'll absolutely lose her mind. With school out for the winter holiday, she doesn't have much else to do, though.

There is one thing, though, that she wants to do, and today is as good as any for it. She's heard talk of Kagura for weeks, listening in on classmates and roommates alike. It sparked her curiosity from the start — she saw the building earlier in the year, when it was empty, abandoned — and she wanted to go sooner. There's a rumor, though, that makes the rounds, hand-in-hand with all the other gossip about the place, whispers of cursed mistletoe. It sounds silly, really, that a plant could trap someone under it until they kiss someone, and she's inclined to dismiss it as nonsense. Still, she of all people knows better than to think magic can't be real, especially here. So she's been waiting.

But Christmas was last week, so it should be safe now, she decides. It's a good day to go — somewhat cloudy, but not too dark, no snow — and she bundles up and takes the little tram out through the countryside and up the hill.

She's not entirely sure what she was expecting. Having seen the building abandoned, it's unsettling to see it now, like this, bright and alive, people coming and going. There are couples wandering arm in arm, hand in hand, through the snow, some of them carrying ski gear and others carrying cocoa. Children play in the snow. Miyoung is alone.

Would Jihoon have liked it? She wonders this so often. He would have found a way to make this fun — Darrow, Kagura, all of it.

There would probably be snow down the back of her shirt as a result, though.

She marches inside, bewilderment flickering across her otherwise placid features. What was once entirely empty is now glittering, the silence replaced with soft music and distant conversations punctuated by laughter. She hesitates a moment, taking it in, unsure what she wants now. Part of her tried to look at this as some kind of fact-finding mission. Part of her just wanted to do something fun. Instead she just feels lost. Even with the holiday over, there are bits of Christmas decorations still strewn about, holdovers easing into the New Year festivities. It's not like she and Yena ever did anything special, really, no extravagant tree or traditions, but it still aches to have spent Christmas without her mother.

She swallows hard, glancing around, then abruptly takes a left turn down the hall. There's no right way to go about exploring the place. She can't just stand here and feel sorry for no good reason. Walking quickly enough won't mean leaving her thoughts behind, but maybe she can just occupy herself with other thoughts.

Something in her jolts, sharp and sudden, like she's come up against an unexpected wall, and she almost tips over, head over feet. Almost, because she can't seem to move forward at all. Whirling around, she tries to go the other way and comes up short again. Whatever's holding her has her stuck in a very small radius, her hands curling into fists as she scowls, trying to pretend her heart isn't beating faster with fear. There's nothing here she can see that should hold a gumiho, nothing but clear air, but she's trapped.

She tips her head back, barely repressing a frustrated sigh — and then not repressing it at all, spotting the mistletoe overhead. "Are you kidding me?"

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If Miyoung had given him the slightest opening, any signal that she wanted more out of the kiss than a quick escape, Nova would've given it. She's beautiful, too beautiful to simply be human and there's power that rolls off of her in waves. He may not know what she is, but he has a feeling it's the kind of thing that retaliates if it doesn't like where a kiss is going.

Nova's sense of self-preservation is poorer than he'll admit, but not so penniless as that. So he steps back.

"Wasn't exactly a hardship," Nova says, giving her a wink. "Watch out though. It moves." He gestures upward at the mistletoe again.

Then, because call him old fashioned but he likes to get to know a person better if they've kissed, he nods toward the bar. "You want a drink or something? They have coffee too." He flicks her a grin, "I won't even step in and buy it for you, if you like."

Miyoung arches an eyebrow at the offer, relieved enough to be free that she's more amused than anything else. She's made it fairly clear, she's sure, that she sees through his nonsense, and she didn't exactly give him the go ahead just now. Most men, she knows, would take offense to her reaction to his initial offer of a kiss. They'd take the hint, too, certainly not let it roll off their backs and keep playing.

He's an odd one, she'll give him that.

He's done her a favor, too. She'll have to pay him back on that somehow, someday, but she's not about to say so. It's not reason enough to get any kind of a drink with him, but still she shrugs her assent. "I might even let you," she says, deadpan. "I guess I could do with a hot drink."

Being 'odd' would be a soft blow to land on him. There's a part of Nova that wishes he could charm Miyoung the way he's always been able to charm others. He's not stupid enough to say he likes a challenge, because that's not what Miyoung is. She's a complex being (there's something too powerful enough for Nova to just call her a person) and it fascinates him.

Nova gestures at Miyoung to go ahead of him and order.

"So, besides getting stuck under mistletoe, what've you been doing this very festive season?"

Miyoung huffs, something just shy of a laugh, as she slips ahead of him toward what appears to be the hotel café. "Oh, very festive," she says wryly, trying not to let any hint of melancholy creep into her tone. It's been a hard holiday for her. She's not even entirely sure why. It's not like Yena was ever really one for family traditions of that kind, no cozy mornings spent around a tree opening gifts and laughing with each other.

Still, she misses her mother.

"The usual holiday things," she says airily, even as she looks up at the menu. "Avoiding everyone I live with, enjoying not going to school." Exploring the city, hunting cruel men and looking for an exit she knows isn't there.

"You only do that at Christmas?" Nova asks. He's a little too pleased to have gotten anything like a smile out of her, which isn't very slick of him. A sign tells them to seat themselves and Nova grabs some menus out of the stand, offering one to her.

"You still at the home?" Because then he definitely understands. Nova may have only had a few months that he would have been stuck there but he'd struck out the second he could. Better to sleep on the streets and be his own master than another moment in the system.

"Avoiding everyone?" Miyoung asks, following him toward a table as she takes the menu. "No, that's year-round." It's flippant for her, but no less true. Really, as much as he can annoy her, it's not like she doesn't push everyone else away too. He's not all that special in that regard.

She's here now, though, taking a seat and skimming the menu. "Mm, I move out next month." She's still annoyed about that situation, finding their logic in keeping her foolish and flawed. Still, she could have run away if she wanted. With every landlord in Darrow agreeing she wasn't yet 18 for whatever reason, though, finding a place of her own would have been hard. This way, at least, she's been able to save to find somewhere decent.

"I left that place the second I could," Nova agrees. "Moved into the Bramford a few months after." Luckily, he'd turned eighteen before autumn could really start becoming winter. He's slept rough in cold months before but it sucks.

It's not an option that he can imagine for Miyoung. It's not that she couldn't tough it out, it's that she seems like the type who has too much pride for that. Nova has very little of that at all.

It's one of the buildings Miyoung has been considering, but she's not about to admit as much, not when he's mentioned it first. She'd be embarrassed if he thought for a second he had any influence on where she lives. But it's a strange old building. She likes that about it.

"It's... uncomfortable," she says. "Sharing a room with so many people." So many strangers, she thinks. All these months later and she hardly knows the others at the Home. She's kept herself apart on purpose, more of Yena's rules she's held to. She's not sure she has anything left of home but those rules. "I like having space."

It wouldn't surprise him if she did. The Bramford seems to draw many of Darrow's magical population to it, like some weird genus loci inhabits it and wants to know them as much as they want to know it.

"Don't have to tell me," he says. "I got eight brothers and sisters." That life, however, hadn't been nearly as jam packed as the group homes he'd experienced in the system or in juvie. Even his grandma's place had been swarming with foster kids. Because Angela Santiago was better equipped to take care of strangers' kids than her own.

"I've had enough homes turn me out that I wasn't gonna let that place do it to me." It's more honest than he likes but Miyoung makes him curious. It's not likely to get her to open up to him, but it gives her something about him.

She doesn't understand him, she thinks. Nova says things she never would, admits things casually she would keep close to her chest. She's already startled by the number of siblings he has when he says that, and she can't help the look of faint surprise that crosses her expression.

"Why would they turn you out?" she asks, her menu forgotten, trying not to look as curious as she is. She doesn't think it's her business to ask why he was in these homes to begin with.

Well, he said it. It's only reasonable that she asked. At the same time, it's strangely gratifying for someone to look at him, his scarred hands, the color of his skin, and not inherently assume the reasons for being in the system.

"Stole food, stole money, picked the lock on the liquor cabinet, talked back, fought back..." Nova counts out only a handful of infractions on his fingers. "I wasn't a good kid."

It bothers Miyoung more than it should. After all, the list of offenses suggests that her instinctive distrust isn't wrong; like all men, he steals and fights, undoubtedly lies. The context, though, frustrates her in a way she's hard-pressed to explain at first.

But then it clicks. He wasn't a bad kid, she thinks. He was just a kid. If he stole food, he needed it. If he had to fight back, he needed that, too.

She doesn't know how to say it.

Instead she shrugs. "Not bad enough to get kicked out," is what she settles on.

From her, it seems almost like kindness and Nova smiles. He's not grateful, exactly, but it feels nice to be seen, a little.

"Wish I'd had you as my social worker, then," he says. "A lot of my foster parents were assholes anyway. I would've gotten taken out of them one way or another."

A waitress comes over and Nova orders his coffee and a cinnamon roll, but blanches a little when she asks him if he's also paying for his date. He glances to Miyoung. "I can cover you if you want," he says. "Even if this isn't a date." His eyes flick pointedly back to the waitress.

Though Miyoung's ready to bare her claws (metaphorically, not physically) at the question, Nova's immediate response amuses her enough for her to relax. There is, she thinks, just a note of panic behind it. Maybe it's mean to enjoy that, but she actually appreciates it.

"Thank you," she says, polite mostly because someone else is here, and she's a bit older than them, and it's Miyoung's instinct to be respectful in the presence of her elders, even if the woman is dumb to assume such foolish things. "But I can get my own. I'll have an Americano and a pain au chocolate, please."

She has no interest in letting Nova pay for her, though she's got a new apartment to pay for soon. It's not like he's any likelier to have cash to spare than she is. Biting back a smile as the waitress steps away, she arches a brow at him. "I don't think I've ever met a man so eager not to go on a date with me."

Nova grins, a lopsided, disarming expression that oozes charm, learned from his mother. On most people, his blue eyes mixed with that smile can open more doors than a skeleton key but it never worked on Alex. It definitely isn't gonna work on Miyoung.

"Trust me, I'm still figuring out why you won't fall in love with me like all the other ladies," he says. And maybe, Nova from Brooklyn would mean that. Nova before the Devourer and Alex Mortiz and casimuertos would mean that. Right now, in front of Miyoung, he lets her see it for the act that it is.

"But," Nova says, dropping the smile into something easier and more real. "I remember the first time we met." He puts his own hand around his throat and mimes squeezing, the way he'd thought Miyoung looked tempted to do.

This, Miyoung thinks, is what drives her crazy about Nova — not just the easy confidence, the self-assured charm, but what's under it. They both know it's an act, and she can see glimpses of something that says as much, but she can't unravel what's under it, what's real and what isn't.

She rolls her eyes at his theatrics. "I don't like people making assumptions about me," she says, before she realizes it's a lie. She just doesn't like people making assumptions about her she doesn't want them to make. It's not a difference worth debating. "And I don't need to be taken care of." She shrugs, her guard relaxing just a little. "And it was a bad day."

"I know," Nova says. "I seen bad days like that. Lived them." He'd acted based on what he would have felt, on which blow to his pride would have stung the least. In the end, someone stepping in would have been preferable to multiple people witnessing his struggle. He thinks Miyoung would have preferred it to.

"I'm not stupid enough to try and rescue someone who could kick my ass," he says, grinning at her again.

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맘을 숨겨둔 Lonely night

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