"How?"

That was the first question that left Taeyong's mouth, after a long, unbroken silence that had led the group to the interior of the safe house. The redhead was sitting on one of the low leather couches, back straight, seemingly shaken, but his eyes never left Hwang.

"Canvas rolls, fire escape, blood collected into a bottle," Seulgi explained in an almost bored tone. Despite her very convincing act of nonchalance, it was still an act. Beneath her catlike lounging posture, she was just as tense as Taeyong. She simply chose not to show it. "She never hit the ground. It was easy enough."

"Blood from the gunshot wound," Taeyong realized, finally tearing his eyes away to look at her in reluctant acknowledgement. Then the spell was broken hardly seconds after his words, for his gaze simply swiveled back. "That's why you shot her in the arm. That's why she wouldn't say it was you."

"I didn't know if it was going to work," she explained, rubbing her leather-clad arms nervously. It was a habit Seulgi recognized from over two years of working together, along with many others. Her eyes jumped from Taeyong to Vernon awkwardly, lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but never managed to say it. "I didn't want her to be in danger because of me."

Taeyong glanced at Vernon, an action Seulgi noticed he reiterated every few seconds. It wasn't a glance looking for reassurance, like other racers looking to Vernon for leadership or approval like she remembered from many years ago, but a look of concern. Concern for him. Taeyong was worried after all—for Vernon.

Seulgi couldn't say she wasn't surprised.

Vernon, on the other hand, had been silent for the duration of the entire conversation, standing against the wall with his arms folded over his chest as he looked on blankly. His gaze was fixed on a point just next to the table, lips slack but jaw tensed, standing in position like a doll. Seulgi had never seen that look before. She knew Vernon—or at least, the Vernon from two years ago—and she knew that the years couldn't have been kind to him. She had been guarded around him then, and she was guarded now. Frankly, the look scared her.

"What have you been doing for—two years?" Taeyong started, almost sputtered, like an old CD that skittered at the beginning before playing properly. His fingers curled at his knees, and his shoulders were tense. He seemed to be trying to deflect the conversation towards a less dangerous topic, which she understood. Lee Taeyong, mediator. Another surprise.

"Cleaning out the clan, mostly," Seulgi replied, glancing sideways at her partner, who was still sitting frozen in place. "Same as you. Except we were a bit more subtle about it." Her cherry lips lifted into a smirk. "Single-handedly caused the massacre back then, didn't you? I could think of better ways to be secretive."

Vernon bristled, but said nothing. He didn't seem to care much about anything that was said, really, judging from the vacant expression. Seulgi knew she was playing a dangerous game by trying to get a reaction out of him, but she couldn't help it. It was in her nature, and besides, she hadn't seen these two in years. It wasn't hard to get curious about what had changed about them...and others.

"Your brother?" Taeyong asked lowly.

Seulgi's smile dropped. "First on the hitlist," she said, tone stiff despite her attempts to keep it nonchalant. "Some people you can't drag back from the hellfire."

She said it deceptively calm, but in truth, it was still a raw wound. One she had managed to control her reactions over. Most of the time.

"Is Hyunjin—" Y/N started, then pressed her lips together. "Is my brother okay?"

"Shouldn't you know that?" Vernon spoke up. Seulgi's eyes flicked to him, brow furrowing, but his gaze didn't lift from the table. His voice was calm, not cold, but the way he said it made her skin crawl, like there was the scent of a storm in the air. "Seeing as you've been keeping an eye on us for so long."

"I—we weren't," she answered, sounding surprised. Seulgi could see her hands tightened into fists in her lap, like she was trying to hold her emotions in them. "We don't know that much."

"But you knew enough," Vernon said. He finally lifted his eyes, to hers, and what Seulgi saw in them was nothing. It was like his gaze was cutting a straight path directly into her eyes, and Seulgi was simply a bystander, unable to see the path for herself. Like a tin can telephone. "You could have told me you were still—there."

Me. While just moments ago, Taeyong had been clinging so firmly to the concept of us. Seulgi could see hurt in Taeyong's face at his words, and had no doubts that he had caught onto the same phrase as she had. It was a revelation, that word, Vernon slipping back into his old habits of me, myself and I when agitated. And he was agitated. She could see it now.

"What I was trying to do," Hwang said, her tone deathly grave, "meant that I could die any moment. I didn't want to put you through that—or the danger of what we were doing, because I was—"

I was sure I was going to die. Seulgi knew the unspoken words that remained, but she seemed to have choked on them. It wouldn't be hard to understand. There was memory behind those words, weeks and months of dead eyes and suicidal tendencies that Seulgi had had to deal with. It was hard trying to have someone's back when they were their own worst enemy.

"Well, you put us through that anyway, didn't you?" Vernon questioned. Some emotion had come into his voice, some animation to his fire-gold eyes, the slightest beginning curves of a snarl to his lips. Us. When it came to pain, it was us. What had happened to these two? "And we put ourselves through the danger part, so another fucking failure."

She had gone white around the mouth when Seulgi looked at her. Swearing. That was new. "I didn't know," she insisted. She was strong, Seulgi knew, knew after seeing her gut and shoot and choke, but there was an evident vulnerability there now. "If I'd known, I wouldn't have. I would never have."

"You ruined our life," Vernon said softly. He didn't speak the words so much as breathe them, his pretty eyes narrowing slightly in a world of pain, features slackening. He looked fractured, like a broken window in an old warehouse, one of the warehouses where they tortured people for intel. Without another word, he turned and went out of the door, but it seemed to abrupt to be a planned exit.

Hwang stared after him with bated breath, fists unclenched in her lap, but she seemed to be glued to the seat. Taeyong shot her an uncertain look. "He doesn't mean it," he said, but he didn't sound sure. "Just—give him time. He'll come around."

Saying this, he followed Vernon out through the door.

"Wow." Seulgi raised an eyebrow. "Seems like all your doubts about them killing each other were unfounded, huh? Looks like they care more about each other than you now."

The girl turned to look at her in disbelief, but there was something sharper filtering through her expression, the slight space between her lips and the marginal widening of her eyes. Despair. Seulgi immediately felt sorry she had even said anything. "You really think they—" she broke off, appearing to gasp for air in the middle the way she did before a kiss. Not that Seulgi would know. "That they hate me?"

"Honestly?" Seulgi glanced at the door they'd just left from. The sitting area was spacious enough, simple but tasteful, mainly due to the lack of visitors. She could almost smell dead people in the air, ghosts and rust-blood. She supposed they were ghosts too, in their own way, back from the dead to haunt the living. "No. I don't think they could ever hate you."

She had more to say, but bit her tongue when she saw that her answer appeased the asker. "What am I supposed to do?" the girl asked, whispering the question like a helpless confession. "I shouldn't have come back at all. Maybe—maybe it was better to let them think I was dead."

The word 'dead' hung in the air like smoke from a lit cigarette. Perhaps she hadn't expected the reunion to turn out this way, but nothing ever did.

"You heard what he said," Seulgi said softly. "Give them time. There's nothing else you can do, anyway."

──────

She was apprehensive even before she got to the car.

It was a Jeep, a simple black paint job, as opposed to the gold-plated Ferrari she had had to leave behind so long ago. The door was already open, and even before she slipped in, she already knew there was only going to be one person inside. She had played the exact same situation a thousand times over in her head, imagining different tones and moods and scenarios—an accidental run-in at a store, a mistaken raid, maybe a deliberate break-in. Nothing as simple as this, yet it seemed fitting.

Jennie didn't run into her arms or cry or even brandish a gun at her when she slipped into the seat beside her. The brunette's features were calm and cool, slitted eyes giving her a casual glance before sliding over her to the windshield again. "Look at what the cat brought in."

Seulgi would have normally made a clever remark or quip to play it off, but her words seemed stuck in her throat. She had always been genuine with Jennie, the one person she could never deceive—out of choice. Her little island of safety, surrounded by rough winds and rocky waves, and it was deserted now.

So she settled for silence.

Jennie glanced at her again, raising an eyebrow as she did. "Where's your brother?"

"Dead."

"By the Lees?"

"By me."

The words seemed to catch her off-guard, and Jennie's grip momentarily stiffened on the steering wheel before relaxing. "Why?" she asked, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

"I know you're not going to say I told you so, but he was too far gone," Seulgi answered softly. She remembered the incident like it was yesterday, blood on her arms and her red dress and the cry that tore itself from her throat when she pulled Yuchan's lifeless body into her arms, his head into her lap. Then she blinked, and the image was gone. The breathlessness remained. "I know I should have listened to you—knew you were right even before it happened, but I had to try, Jennie." Her voice was a whisper. "I had to."

"I know," Jennie said, equally softly. Her eyes had lost some of their sharp harshness, but her hands didn't leave the wheel.

"He bled out in my arms." Seulgi closed her eyes, letting her head fall against the headrest. "I watched him die."

"Oh, Seulgi," Jennie whispered. When she opened her eyes, the brunette was looking at her tenderly, expression pained. "I told you, nothing good ever comes out of chasing ghosts."

"I know now," Seulgi said, feeling the woman's warm hands on her face, pulling her closer. She didn't even brush her lips against hers, and instead pressed them against hers fully, reaching behind her to cup her neck. The kiss was soft and sweet, leaving all kinds of nostalgic emotions blooming in her chest. "I'm so sorry."

"We're safe now. It's all over," Jennie murmured against her ear. It was then that Seulgi realized that this was what she had been chasing—not ghosts, but the very real warmth of a very real body by her side, holding her close and facing the world by her side. "You're safe now. No more monsters."

──────

did i basically foreshadow/spoil all of this in the april fool's chapter?

why, yes. yes i did.

(and a lot more to come)

love, 
Manx.