as told by; jonghan; 2/2
It goes like the doctors had said it would: seven months. The rest of March is the hassle of accustomizing, for Wei Ling and Lu Han both. Jongin walks the line between, careful. April brings the idiomatic showers, and Lu Han's kids all wear green hats and brown gloves as they work on their garden patches. Jongin takes breakfast time to ask Lu Han about things she hadn't asked about before.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Seriously?" A laugh, not rare anymore, but just as precious. "Red!"
They celebrate Lu Han's birthday at midnight, party hats and candles and ice cream topping on the cake. "Make a wish," Jongin says, surprising herself. Those words came out by themselves. Lu Han makes an amused face at her, then clasps their hands together before blowing out the candles. "There," she grins, "All wish-wooshed. You sap."
Dinnertime is time for Lu Han's woes and the kids' progress. May brings a late cold for Wei Ling and Lu Han plans her students' assessments, working on her books at night.
Jongin ends up reading more than she'd thought she would have, given the circumstances. Wei Ling gets her to read everything from the English translation of Anna Karenina to Frankenstein to I Robot, and Zong Pu's Red Beans, Acheng's The Chess Master and Tong's Blush. There's countless stories translated from German and French, and Jongin has to read them all. She doesn't get parched throats, as a rule, but she's pretty sure if Lu Han were in her place, she'd have dried up into petrified stone.
June is sunny sun sun, and Lu Han and Jongin discover The 1975. At night they lie back on the floor, spread eagled as the vinyl records play a remix of James Vincent's Cavalier and the song Chocolate. They link hands sometimes, looking in opposite directions, their hair tangling in each other's, socked feet tapping to the beat. July, Wei Ling gets worse, and Jongin tumbles into the apartment regularly past two in the morning, making sure Wei Ling takes her medicines on time. Lu Han waits up for her, falls asleep waiting. Jongin carries her to bed. Moonlight drips heavy on the windowpanes by the time Jongin curls up next to her, and the sun rises barely three hours later.
August and September pass in a haze of rain and news alerts of monsoons in Guizhou and Hainan. Lu Han turns the TV off to avoid the pictures, Jongin pacifying Wei Ling by wheeling her out around the hill on the days it doesn't rain, and keeping her under the canopy of her porch on the days it does. Sometimes, she takes her out anyway, with an umbrella over the both of them. Wei Ling puts up as much of a fuss as she can, but ends up in the chair anyway. "You'll breathe fresh air," Jongin insists, "And you'll feel salt on your face."
"I'll drown in the weather," Wei Ling mutters back. It's an exchange that grows to be a bit of a ritual over the months.
◓
When it comes, Wei Ling's end doesn't make Jongin cry, doesn't scare her. Wei Ling had been so tired, all along, and it's rubbed off substantially on Jongin by the time she goes.
Wei Ling's a dark bundle of human and blanket in her bed, the afternoon light filtering in through the window murky and grey. The sky's dark with clouds and the breeze ruffles the curtains, the smell of wet earth and salt welcoming Jongin when she comes in. "Good day out," she calls, as cheerfully as she can. "Might get you out and about under an umbrella today."
"I won't," the woman says, dully.
"Of course you will," Jongin shakes her head, untucking the blanket from around her determinedly.
"I don't mean it like I mean it every day," Wei Ling replies, irritably. "I really won't, this time."
The conviction in her voice has Jongin pausing and looking at her face. "What d'you mean, Ma?"
"Only call me that when you think Liu's going nuts, don't you? Liu can't tell her own daughter apart from a ruckety young girl who don't know how to do nothing, huh?"
She was only partly right. Sometimes Jongin just wanted someone to call her mother. Self-sustenance got tiring. "No, Ma."
A grunt. "Not going anywhere," Wei Ling insists. "Nowhere at all. You sit by the window and read the Bible to me. I want some guidance."
Jongin gives her a wry smile. "Fine, then. Guidance coming right up."
She's barely finished a passage when her skin starts tingling. She glances up sharply. Wei Ling's eyelids are fluttering, hands shaking. "Wei Ling," Jongin says, quietly, standing up.
"N-No going."
"Wei Ling."
"No going out t-today. I said."
Wei Ling's skin looks doused in a shimmer of blue and purple that's spreading out. It glows over her neck and her arms the most, glittering and running over every inch of her, like so many white, shining bugs. "Said," Wei Ling breathes, and her body jerks completely, pausing in the motion grotesquely, before the colors and light fade. She sinks back into her mattress, and Jongin steps closer, holds her warm hand. Wei Ling's eyes stares at her, but Jongin knows they aren't seeing anything anymore. From Wei Ling's open mouth, a slim oblong disc slips out, shining violet. As Jongin looks at it, it shrinks, bends, then falls in her lap. Jongin's other hand closes around it.
She teleports.
◑
The trip from Kyoto Station to Neutralys is two hours.
She sits in the train, packed between other angels. They talk amongst each other, pausing in their conversation once in a while to glance at her. Cliques, Jongin thinks, miserably, and takes out her book. She reads aimlessly, eyes focusing, defocusing every few words.
She's probably on the same page for ten minutes when someone comes to stand in front of her. "I'm Kyungsoo," one of them says, extending a fiercely inked hand. The tattoos mingle with her angel markings and etch all the way up to her shoulder; it's a scene of lava meeting ocean, a winged girl in the midst. Jongin shakes her hand absently, staring at her arm. Kyungsoo grins. "Neat, right? Probably the only good decision I made when I was a mortal."
"I'm sure you made a few other ones, at least," Jongin says, politely, but right then they reach Kyungsoo's stop, and their would-be conversation comes to a halt. She bows her head in respect as the other leaves with a wave. After that, the air is less tense. "Kyungsoo's a good judge on rookies," a short boy speaks up. "If she said hi, you're probably not going to fall from us too soon." The others nod, some narrowing their eyes at her, others going back to ignoring her.
Jongin figures she should feel encouraged, but she's not too sure.
The rest of the trip is relatively peaceful. The soul in her vial whispers to her mind once in a while, just phrases and fragments of thought.
How long has it been since then...
"Not long," Jongin whispers back. "Not long, and we'll get there soon enough."
...I had promised I was going to... he had promised too...
"And you're keeping your promises. Both of you are."
Any gap, any chink in the walls, she has to use to her advantage. For Level II, she has to try her best to convince the human into service. She tries to gain Wei Ling's trust, affirming everything positively, reassuring her through her dubiousness. Finally, she feels the soul quiet down with satisfaction. The vial turns heavy, and Jongin opens herself up to her, pouring her consciousness through her fingers and into the glass. She feels the spirit move through her mind, opening and closing drawers, starting up a projector and watching her memories, rifling through her papers and factoids.
"You are not too happy now," the spirit says.
Jongin can't refute that. Whatever she says, the thing's in her brain. It knows her, probably even more than herself, right now. "Not too happy," she admits. "But not the most unhappy person, either."
A sharp probe. "Not a person. Angel."
"True."
"And I? What am I?" the voice is Wei Ling's voice, the concentration of urgency almost painful.
"You are a spirit, Wei Ling. That is... that is all you are. For now. But you can be more."
An indignant hiss. "You're trying to hurry me along this, aren't you?"
"Wei Ling," Jongin says, patiently. "I'm only saying this because we don't have much time. Listen to me..."
◒
Finally. Finally, she's proving herself. Silgi sihoem, completed.
The gatekeeper to the entrance offers her a nod and a key. She walks by, her legs shaking.
The Hall is like a huge storage room, only furnished with a lot more grandeur. The shelves are made of marble and wrought in with white gold, the doors to each locker made of silver. The names and specifics of each angel are hammered into the door, each character and diacritic glittering with jade. Her key pulls her towards the assigned locker. She unlocks it and slides her vial inside. The second it reaches the center, it disappears to a place where the higher angels will judge her work.
It's up to them, now.
◐
When she gets back, no time has passed. Liu Wei Ling's eyes are open but not yet glassy, the hand in hers just turning cold. Jongin sits there heavily, for a while, staring out the window. It starts to rain. Up and down her arms, she feels a thousand needles prickling under skin, a dragging sensation from her shoulders to her elbows. Her marks have arrived.
No longer a rookie; she is Kim Jongin, 1st Level, Armorial Guard.
Level up, level up, DJ Spock.
◓
Lu Han's asleep when Jongin comes back. Jongin leans against the doorframe, arms folded, considering. Lu Han stirs a bit, then stills. Inside her head, Jongin hears the powers calling her back. Incessant, incessant, incessant. Loud and angry. She should've gone right back on the Navitrain after calling the hospital and making sure Wei Ling had reached safely. She leaves after sticking a quickly scrawled post-it on the mirror of Lu Han's dressing table, throwing one last glance over her shoulder.
◑
She gets briefed in on her mission via a vibration, extremely uncomfortable, resonating throughout her body while she moves towards Asthar's Temple. The information trickles in through her senses like liquid fire.
"Could always use a heads-up." Jongin rubs the back of her head, where it feels slightly singed. An Eigard angel passes her by, nodding his two of his three heads in understanding. "Really gets to you sometimes, doesn't it?"
Jongin drops in a coin at the Temple and places her hand on the glass block. It glows red for a second, before allowing her passage to the train.
◒
She'd known she wouldn't be alone on this mission, but it's still strange to her, to look at all these angels in the box and have her mind receive direct, intended signals from theirs, to assign them all positions and assess her own place among them. Teamwork. A human in her place would think if she would be able to 'handle' it. Jongin can handle it, of course she can. She has to. Her body will go against her if she tries not to. The problem will be if she likes it or not.
"Aqua shit-tards at it again," someone mumbles, at the far end of the carriage. "I get home from a three year job, testing in for the damned machine the RDs are building. That machine, right? I go to every year from the eighteenth century onwards, and every damned twelve-month they make a ruckus. Fudgin' hurricanes everywhere! Tornadoes! If they're so jealous of us landers, why don't they grow a pair of legs?"
Jongin winces at the mention of fudgin'. No doubt he'd been trying to say fucking and his tongue had gotten a mind of its own. Things are annoying that way, with service.
"Now, Vlad," a woman appraises. "Don't get all hyped up. The higher ups will run us to the ground 'til they see fit. As for the Aqua 'noids, they were built that way. Nothing anyone can do about it."
"You know someone can," the first guy, Vlad, replies. He sounds a bit ominous, and the situation is kind of hilarious. Like tap dancing in front of the Overseer for attention and yelling, Hey! I heard you didn’t like tap dances! I wanted a favor from you but you weren’t doing anything so here I am now! Tap dancing in your face! Ha! Everyone in the carriage, previously mumbling within themselves, turns awkward and silent.
"Well," a taller-than-usual Lillium speaks up, all eyes blinking nervously and out of sync, "It's nice to meet you all, anyway."
"Yeah, yeah, kid," Vlad scowls, and snorts as he turns away to watch out the window. Apart from the rookie markings on his neck, Jongin can't make out any others on him. Probably one of the rookies who stayed rookies. No wonder he seemed perpetually angry. She remembers running into him earlier, on another job, and he'd been sitting furiously in a jacuzzi, evaporating the pool water, his skin on fire. "Just let me at 'em!" he'd shouted, straining to get at the human who owned the mansion. But his body wouldn't let him hurt a human-- that wasn't part of the job description. Jongin had been sent to replace him and get the soul discretely.
Vlad seems to notice her gaze and turns around, frown deepening. It's that skunk, she catches, distinctly, before he faces the window again.
Jongin takes out her book. It's short, not exactly one of her favorites, but still a good read. The Westing Game. She has never properly understood Turtle, but Jongin finds her fascinating nonetheless. She reminds Jongin a bit of Wei Ling.
◐
They're deep under the ocean, waiting for the guards to let them in to the palace of the Queen.
The Aqua Humanoids angels work differently from the Terra ones. They have their own hierarchy, their own rulers and their own world. They don't serve the humans overland and they don't serve the merpeople under water. If anything, the merpeople work for the Aqua Humanoid angels. And once a year, these fish-tailed cousins of the humans spin up water and weave it with the wind to form one half of a hurricane. The Hawks of Strato, their allies, drive the dry winds towards the damp ones to create hurricanes.
It's a well-rehearsed play since the beginning of the planet, and nobody had minded until the humans came. Then the humans minded-- a lot. Still, unable to do anything against the stormy monsters, they don't end up doing much except running for cover and hiding. If they discover the merpeople, though, it might bring about man-made Armageddon. Jongin still isn't sure if the Armageddon isn't just something that some storyteller guy in Syria made up. Either way, it fuels a lot of good dystopian fiction, so she doesn't mind.
"All variations of Humanoids," the taller-than-usual Lillium groans, every eye closed in resignation except for the two in her face, "Are tiresome. No offense," she adds, to Jongin.
"Hey," Jongin raises her hands, "None taken. All Lilliums are short. It's okay."
The Lillium grins. "Hey," she echoes, nudging Jongin in the elbow. "Just because I'm soft and let you get away with things doesn't mean I'm not tough."
Jongin nods, pretending to be serious. "You keep talking, ma'am. I'm all ears."
◓
As expected, nothing actually comes of the meeting. The Queen rejects their audience, the guards throw them back up on geysers, and they end up floating around like abandoned buoys in the middle of the Pacific. "This is a problem, or my name isn't Arya," the Lillium says.
Jongin starts, sinking a few inches before rising. "Your name is Arya?"
Arya narrows her eyes. "This is not what we should be focusing on. You should be more upset and teleport us out of here."
"Ah, yes," Jongin sighs, laying back on the water. "The tiresome Humanoid must teleport the nonteleportic Lillium."
"I don't understand!" Arya frets, waving her arms about and getting water in all her eyes. "You're never this snarky with anybody else! It's always me you have to pick on and relax with!"
◑
Jongin packs Arya off (she suspects this new name is a hoax, though) with one of the ruby-encrusted shells they'd meant as homage to the Queen and stays in the water for a few minutes. The sun overhead is a sweltering disc of angry white, and Jongin soaks the heat in for a while before she turns her head east, raises her hand and disappears. The water ripples in her wake.
◒
The apartment door is the same as it was before, just a bit more worn. There's a smudge of yellow paint on it, and on the lock, too. Evidence of a hard day of handpainting in class, probably. Jongin knocks.
◐
The first thing that happens after the door opens is a scream, obviously. Then a hug, and then a vigorous shaking of Jongin's shoulders. "You are terrible at keeping in touch," Lu Han hisses, wringing Jongin's hand. "You just took off! I can't believe your guts! Two whole months."
"I left a note," Jongin says, protesting, though she knows she should have left something more than just that. "Didn't you see it?"
"Useless! I want letters!"
Jongin bites back a smile. "Alright, princess. You'll get letters."
"Regularly," Lu Han adds, eyeing her suspiciously, as if she'll disappear again within the second. As if Jongin would. As if Jongin could.
"Regularly."
◓
Jongin doesn't know if she can pinpoint anything specific that makes her want to stay, that makes her want-- that makes her want, full stop. Lu Han just is, and Jongin must know her, must go back to her, must see her as long as Lu Han will let her. There was a time, Jongin remembers, when she'd only looked after Lu Han on Minseok's behalf, because she believed Lu Han deserved at least that much, but that time is long gone. Jongin's grown more selfish, now, and that's probably against every rule in the book but it's happened, and she doesn't regret a thing.
"So," Lu Han says, grinning as she sets down the bowl cheesy nachos, "What's up, buttercup?"
The TV's on some art channel and the show hosts are discussing an exhibition in a museum. There's a piece on pegasi, and Jongin will never not be fascinated about how humans always get those wrong. They've got two sets of wings, and their necks are longer than the usual horse's. "I can't believe," Jongin says, absently, "That they paint pegasi wrong all the time."
Lu Han laughs, crunching on a nacho loudly. "What d'you think pegasi are like, then, Salvador Dali?"
Right. Lu Han doesn't know about her. Jongin's always been on the verge of forgetting that. "Well," Jongin wriggles closer, throwing an arm around Lu Han. "I dunno, I've always imagined them to be... larger? Not just huge wings pasted onto exact horse carbon copies. Wouldn't that be kind of boring?"
Lu Han tilts her head, stuffs her mouth with five huge nachos at once. It's kind of impressive, if Jongin ignores the grossness of the situation. "I guess," Lu Han says. "Yeah, it is, actually. Tell me more."
"Alright," Jongin replies, agreeably. "She wishes, I command..."
◑
"Had a dream about the pegasi you told me about," Lu Han croaks, first thing in the morning.
Jongin tries to yank her eyes open but it doesn't work. They're stuck shut so hard, she'll need forceps to get them apart. "Mmm," she ends up saying, into her pillow.
"It was amazing. They even breathed fire, like you told me they would." Lu Han rolls around, elbowing Jongin in the back. "You should try writing stories, you know. That stuff you come up with once in a while is deep."
"Once in a while," Jongin repeats. "That stuff. Should I be flattered?"
"Very," Lu Han sighs, stretching and dragging herself out of bed. "Come on, let's have breakfast before I hole myself up with my laptop and ignore you."
"You realize this isn't a choice way of dealing with your best friend?" Jongin tumbles out in a mess of blankets and three pillows. She frowns at the sunlight. Lu Han pauses on her way out, turns back to grin at her. "Best friend, huh?"
Jongin chews her lip, nervous.
"Damn right we're best friends," Lu Han wiggles her eyebrows. "We scratch each other's backs, right?"
"I gave you a bath when you got so drunk that you threw up all over yourself and called yourself Madonna," Jongin points out. "And I got called a 'ruddy peasant' for my efforts."
"Well," Lu Han amends, "You scratch my back and I love you for it."
"Good to hear," Jongin groans, faceplanting into the floor. The powers are calling her back, and her head aches with the echoes and re-echoes, the consistent lava their words pour into her mind. "I love you, too."
When she looks up, Lu Han's still standing there, a quivering smile on her face.
"Hey," Jongin says, realizing what they've just said. "Hey. Don't cry on me."
Lu Han laughs. "Who said I'm going to cry?" But her laugh tapers off shakily and she wipes her eyes in a hurry.
"Aegi," Jongin mumbles, and Lu Han smiles again, brighter and fiercer.
"Whatever, man. Come quick, or I'll finish all the cereal."
◒
Goodbyes are always the hardest. Jongin can face off a thousand gargoyles without breaking a sweat, but that doesn't mean she isn't a coward. She leaves again when Lu Han's asleep, this time writing a carefully thought out letter (handwriting no better than it had been the year before), and promising to send more. She'll find a way to write from Heaven somehow.
◐
"You know," Arya says, as a way of greeting when Jongin gets back. "I've only ever had to use the term 'lady love' with Terra Humanoids who weren't ladies, and believe me, I wasn't too pleased to say it. Half of them didn't even deserve the gold they got. But my important question! Does this make you my, ah, what do your mortal kind call it these days? My 'token' friend?"
Jongin gives a weak laugh. "Yeah, I'm your token gay friend. I guess."
Arya shakes her head. "An angel. And the mortal humanoids think it is sin? Aren't you the highest of beings in their esteem?"
"Kind of," Jongin shrugs, wryly. "After God, of course. And I'm not so sure about what the Aqua 'noids think of sexuality."
Arya's eyes flicker and narrow, then look away. "I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about the ones who kicked us out on hot water."
Jongin pats her on the arm, making sure she isn't batting an eye. "No pressure," she says, and they head towards the Training Grounds together. There's always something new for Armorials to learn-- new tactics, strategies, defense plans, armor, weaponry pouring in from every corner of the Universe every day.
◓
Jongin does find a way to send her letters to Tōng Zhōu, Beijing, China. Kyungsoo goes down daily, furthering the underground works and supervising the lava castle constructions. Perhaps in a few Mortal centuries, Terra 'noids will have their own holding in their own planet. Teleportation will be more convenient, for one thing. No more air pollution if there wasn't any air. Kyungsoo's okay with a feather-light parcel to deliver through any of her rookies in training. She can't pick up replies from Lu Han, of course, partly because Lu Han won't know Kyungsoo personally, and partly because Jongin doesn't want to ask. That would be pushing it, and prolonged contact with a non-mission human is technically illegal.
Jongin's pretending they don't know about it, but she's sure they do-- Arya is proof-- and they're testing her. Or perhaps they know and they're ignoring her. She's not sure; they're a bit short on Terra 'noid angels these days with the constant wars off in Andromeda. Anyway, when it all boils down, she's scared. Whatever she has right now, she doesn't want it in danger-- doesn't want Lu Han in danger.
The powers were for good, but that didn't mean good never hurt.
◑
Jongin's next trip to Earth is a year later. She's sent a total thirty eight letters to her, thrice a month and then one on Lu Han's birthday, to ask her how it was going, and one on her own, to tell her how it went.
When Jongin goes back, Lu Han doesn't scream, but she pulls her in lightning-fast and gives her the tightest hug Jongin's had in her life. She's pretty sure even a basilisk doesn't squeeze that hard, and by this time, she's weathered through quite a few. Those monsters are terrible. "You," Lu Han hits her on the shoulder, eyes wet, "Are an asshole. I love you. You asshole."
"Nice," Jongin nods. "I like that. You are a... mouth hole. The polar opposite of me. Nice hole."
Lu Han glares at her, but there's no seriousness in it. "Why are we talking about holes?"
"Maybe we're discussing the state your house," Jongin suggests, and Lu Han throws her head back, laughing.
◒
"Hey though," Lu Han tweaks Jongin's nose. Jongin goes cross-eyed in response.
"Yes," Jongin says, a little pained. Lu Han's pinching a bit too hard, and she's trying to read Richard Siken on Lu Han's iPad without getting a nosebleed.
"Want to take a look at my current journal? I've been looking for ideas and I just want to get your feedback on some notes."
"Spill," Jongin spreads her arms, and Lu Han drop-rolls off the sofa towards the bedroom.
It's been a few months since her last mission, and she's here on break. Because yes, the higher ups are apparently capable of mercy towards the servants in the Creation pyramid.
These days the records play mostly instrumentals, and Jongin recognizes a Yiruma piece that the boy with crimped hair played to himself almost every night, back at the dorms. These days, Lu Han is much freer than she used to be, like she's finally stepping into herself. She holds onto Jongin more, shows her all the new places she's been to since Jongin had come last, shows her the post-it notes she keeps in her notebooks and the list of movies she's toted up for them to see, the letters she'd written back but couldn't send.
When Lu Han comes back, five minutes later, she slides on her socks and bumps into the sofa, bowling over. "Here we are then," she starts, adjusting her glasses.
"Fire," Jongin sits up straight, and Lu Han begins to read.
In the middle, though, Lu Han goes off to drink some water, and Jongin finds herself asking if she's seeing anyone. Lu Han looks up with a slight frown that smoothes over into a little smile as she blinks at Jongin. "No," she shrugs. "I don't think I need to. Not since--" She breaks off suddenly and blushes, staring down at her glass, but Jongin feels a little leap.
Not since you.
Lu Han clears her throat and walks back to her notes. "Anyway," she continues. "Let's get back on track here."
◐
Lu Han starts sending letters back, instead of storing them for Jongin to read later when she’s over. Kyungsoo hides a smile behind her hand as she hands over the envelope. The first letter Jongin reads, opens with,
Well, now I've got an idea! If you're reading this in a place that isn't my apartment, it's succeeded. I've sent you a letter!!!!! Guess who's a genius! Me!!!!
Jongin grins, reads on. Lu Han tells her about her day, how the kids she'd been teaching back when Jongin had first stayed over are in fifth grade now, and a few of them didn't remember her when she met them last week. Can you believe it, Lu Han's impeccable penmanship deteriorates to an angry scribble, They DIDN'T REMEMBER me. You don't just FORGET the person who taught you how to count on your fingers and write your alphabet and teach you MORALS. I taught them MORALS. Really GOOD ones too. Jongin laughs out loud. Lu Han, and good morals? Lu Han steals her last bites of lunch if Jongin isn't looking. She makes a mental note to write that down in her reply.
Oh, but I have decided to write something for you. I've written two books already, and one is being edited, and the other I am polishing up the second draft for. But I want to write something and have you in the acknowledgements, and you to thank. Best friend!!!!! You must tell me what you want me to write for you. Dystopian? Regency Era in Chinese, for a whitewashed girl like you? Horror? Mystery? I know you love mystery! Your wish is my command this time.
Jongin sits up and smiles. It's a great sentiment, but honestly, seeing up close the torture that Lu Han puts herself through with writing-- staying up til five in the morning on her laptop, scrapping chapters and chapters while being near tears of frustration, sometimes hanging up her board and spending up to five months collecting pictures and printing them out to pin on the corkwood, for inspiration... Jongin can't really bring herself to put Lu Han through that. She'll say no to that, and tell her why, in case Lu Han made a fuss and accused of her not being a real friend or something similar that she usually resorts to.
Lu Han starts a new paragraph, shares a recipe and tells her to take a picture of her cooking it and to send it over as soon as humanly possible (Jongin bites back a snort at that). Then she signs off with,
Love,
The prettiest!!! You know it!!!
P.S. yours, of course
Jongin shakes her head in disbelief. To think that these words and the ones that she actually writes in her books come from the same person... she'll never understand. She feels a smug warmth at the postscript, though, and folds the letter, pushing it under her pillow.
The next day, she sits down to write a reply, but she gets a signal for another job to work on, and has to leave.
◓
The hardest souls to convince are the babies, believe it or not. They actually don't go to heaven at once-- considering they haven't done anything bad but also not anything good, they've got to choose: Heaven or service? And people would think, with all the cherubs around, that babies are pretty easy to persuade. But Jongin, and every other angel with experience, knows; babies are the downright devil. For one thing, deciphering the babble is near impossible. Isaphim had been the quickest angel to converse with understanding with a baby, and he'd taken three days. Jongin secretly thinks they know everything that happens and just don't let on, but hypotheses don't matter in the face of unstoppable wailing. Jongin sweats it out for a week, and by the time she's done, she feels like throwing up everything she'd eaten in her past life.
Still, she makes it to Lu Han's in commendable time (a full minute, given her condition), but ends up knocking the door with her forehead instead of her knuckles.
◑
Lu Han takes this occurrence commendably, too. She doesn't pale or pass out herself or shriek and call the police. She drags Jongin to the toilet, sets her up on the seat, and douses her in ice cubes and water. The ice cubes wake Jongin up. Lu Han looks at her very intensely before bursting into tears.
◒
"Alright," Lu Han huffs. "You won't let me write you something. You'll have to do something for me instead."
"Very well," Jongin replies, staring out the window. It's wonderful weather outside, March bounding in with the light step and giddiness of spring.
"You're going to tell me really long stories at bedtime," Lu Han makes a face. "It's the worst I can come up with, sorry."
"The worst, really?" Jongin chuckles and glances at her. "You're losing your touch."
"Contrariwise," Lu Han says, tartly. "I'm getting too fond of you, is all. Be grateful."
"I am," Jongin says, seriously. "I am very grateful."
Being grateful doesn't cut it, though. She has to leave in the middle, as usual, all the time. The stories she tells Lu Han are of dragons-- real dragons, the ones that prowl the solar systems (they prefer binary ones for mating, though)-- and demons, werewolves and pegasi, the Knights of Teranyth, the Elves of Ikhlam. Sometimes raised humans, prophets and the Scrolls of Storr, but never angels. Jongin wants to leave that until later. Until she tells Lu Han the truth.
Some days, when Jongin can still afford to stay in the city until the day after, Lu Han looks at her wonderingly and tells her her dreams.
◐
"Tell me where you're going," Lu Han says. "Just this time."
Jongin stares at her feet and shakes her head. "We've been at this, what. Six years now?"
"Don't mention the time!" Lu Han squeals. "I don't want to know how close I am to turning thirty!"
"Alright, alright." Jongin leans back to ruffle her hair. "You still don't look a day over, uh, five."
"Gross. You're gross. Where're you going!"
"I'm sorry, Hannie," Jongin sighs, getting up. "I just can't tell you."
"You're so mysterious," Lu Han hugs a pillow to her, and she laughs but it's not entirely happy laughter. Jongin turns to look at her, brimming with the words she wants to say, the full story. She owes her-- but her throat's so full that her tongue only loosens itself enough to say, "Isn't that something you like?" It falls weak to Jongin's own ears, but Lu Han whoops likes it's the funniest thing she's heard all week.
"Jongin, Jongin," she gasps, at the end. "What do I do with you."
What do you do without me? Jongin wants to ask, but she just smiles and walks out the door.
◓
They're half-asleep, drifting back to unconsciousness. It's half past two in the morning, and Lu Han draws little circles on Jongin's shoulder, eyes shut. They shift at the same time, laugh at that, legs tangling. "Make me feel things," Lu Han whispers in a semi-croak, poking Jongin, accusatory. Jongin wills herself not to freeze up. (If she does, she knows Lu Han won't say anything else.)
Lu Han stretches her arms. "You know my favorite books, right?"
"Know some of them."
"Mmm," Lu Han sighs, moving over to lie on top of Jongin almost completely. "Well, one of my favorites is that..." she lifts her head to squint at Jongin's chin, then flumps her head down. "That watchamathing. You know."
"You were about to let me know," Jongin laughs, hand coming up to comb through Lu Han's hair. They're longer now, reaching her elbows.
"Yeah. Mmmmf. I like your boobs, know that?"
"Yeah? I like yours."
"Tit for tit."
"For tit," Jongin agrees, yawning.
"So the book," Lu Han resurfaces. "Alden Bell is the guy. Girl? Human. Who wrote it."
"Tree."
"I said human. I mean human."
"Alright, alright. Human. Wrote a book."
Lu Han trails a finger lazily up Jongin's arm; tries to tickle her, but it doesn't really work because her eyes are half closed and she's tapping at the bedsheet instead. Jongin doesn't know what's going on. Lu Han clears her throat in an effort to make things serious. "The Angels are the Reapers, it's called."
This time Jongin does stiffen, but Lu Han doesn't notice. "Angels?"
"Correcto. Comprendo," Lu Han wiggles to get comfortable. "And the first part is, well. Kind of hard to read, I think, but it gets better with each sentence. And it's about this girl in a world of zombies. There's barely any real humans left and she isolated herself on this island. Believed God had cursed her. She kind of let her younger foster brother die, but that comes later."
"Sounds like a fairytale," Jongin drowses, eyelids getting heavier with each passing second. Really, the things Lu Han did to her body. She hadn't let herself sleep for seven months straight, and here the girl is, knocking her out in a matter of hours.
Lu Han punches her in retaliation.
Jongin winces. Knocking her out, literally.
"Yeah, so. She's barely fifteen and she's standing at the shore and she sees this thing she calls the Miracle of the Moon. I think. It's because the moon is so shiny and low in the sky? And there's bright lit up jellyfish flying around her feet in the water."
"Swimming."
"Huh? Wait, yeah. Swimming in the water. Around her feet. And she feels so... so clean about it." Lu Han sighs, flips over, off Jongin.
"Why," Jongin mumbles. "You were warm."
"She feels clean about it," Lu Han ignores her. "Like she believes God has cursed her and all and that she's a dirty sinner, but she feels clean now, with this empty island and the water and the jellyfish and the moon. And she feels pure and good and it was... I just. Reading that, the passage, over and over again, it was so unbelievable. Each time it seemed new and her cleanness made me feel clean. Like I just had some rain fall on my face. Well, not too vividly, of course." A nervous laugh. "But, you know?"
Jongin's hand finds hers and curls around it. "I know."
"You make me feel clean," Lu Han says, quietly. "Like you're a miracle of the moon."
Jongin rolls over to lie on top of her, and their foreheads press. "You make me feel everything."
Lu Han manages a tiny smile. "No miracle?"
"Very miracle."
◑
Lu Han's out on one of her walks, again. "The search for inspiration," she'd said before leaving, slapping on her floppy hat with a pout.
Jongin walks around the apartment, fingers trailing over the surfaces. The cream walls, the mantelpiece over the fake fireplace Lu Han had installed a year ago ("It looked pretty! And it's going to be all warm and authentic in winter." "You can't defend yourself, Hannie, this is a total waste of space." "My apartment, my rules!"), the writing desk, the bed, the many shelves filled with books, the windowsills and curtains. She pauses at the bedroom window, smiling as she sees Lu Han walk across the street after looking both ways with her hand on her hat.
Tonight Jongin will start on her Neutralys journey, boot up as part of a galactic diplomat guard. Once she succeeds, she'll get to Level IV, Lieutenancy. Why they have military terms and way of life is no longer a question; Jongin has seen the solar wars first hand now. With the higher up angels on her side, though, it had been more massacre than battle. Those are things she won't be telling Lu Han anytime soon.
But there is one story that she will tell her. With promotion comes shedding, shedding of the human elements in her. If she turns overnight into a Minseok somehow, cold and detached and uncaring, she wants to come clean to Lu Han on the truth about herself first.
Jongin still hesitates at the thought of telling her-- a truth as big as this could be the end of everything, even if she returns to Earth the next week with all her feelings intact. If anything, though, it might help Lu Han write. She'd been in a block for years, now, just little short stories here and there breaking the dry spell. She's been publishing the extra novels she'd come up with before.
Distractedly, Jongin reaches up on tip toes to pull out Peter Pan from the top shelf, then settles down to read.
◒
Lu Han doesn't take very well to being tucked in (and is probably the only mortal to feel this way), but Jongin coaxes her into it. When they're lying down, side by side, Lu Han turns to her and yawns hugely, chin disappearing into her neck. Jongin laughs at her and tells her to stop, so Lu Han just holds her mouth there, wide open enough to fit a burrito in it sideways. "Wha ah," Lu Han gargles. "Ya, ya."
"What's up? Yo yo?" Jongin guesses, and Lu Han nods expressively before closing her mouth.
"God, that was tiring. My jaw hurts now."
Jongin laughs again, a finger coming up to tap Lu Han's chin, which starts wagging at once. "You've got something to say. Tell me at once."
"What if I don't want to?" Jongin teases, but she knows she'll have to say it, one way or another.
"Then I'll turn around and won't let you spoon me."
"Is that really your idea of a threat?"
"Sounds pretty threatening to me," Lu Han admits. Jongin curls up closer around her, and they stay in silence for a while; Jongin playing with Lu Han's hair, Lu Han drumming her fingers on Jongin's waist.
"Jongin," Lu Han starts, eyebrows going up in earnestness, then drawing together mulishly. "Nothing."
It's the writing that's been bothering her. "Was reading Peter Pan before you came in," Jongin says, nonchalant. She feels Lu Han relax under her. "You know that famous quote from it?"
Lu Han snorts. "Clap your hands if you believe?"
Jongin bats her shoulder. "No. The other one. Death is just the next big adventure."
"That's not the exact quote," Lu Han argues, propping herself up on an arm. "You're paraphrasing."
"Yeah, yeah. That. I was just thinking..." Jongin trails off. She wants to talk about what she's thinking, of death at different levels, at different stages, in different ways. You go to bed and some memories will die off, you wake up and the you that was the night before won't be exactly the same. Death and differences and lives kept forever. And she's thinking this because she's leaving before the sun rises, again, and she's thinking this because she doesn't want to leave, and somewhere, interconnected somehow and under all those words, she doesn't want to tell Lu Han, and at the same time she does. "I was just thinking about your writing," she says, finally, and lets the words hang in the air.
Lu Han sighs. "You know I've pretty much given up, Jongin. It's not something I can help. I sit down, nothing comes. If something does, it sucks. That's it."
"One more time?"
"Jongin!"
“Not even for me?” Jongin tries to wheedle a smile out of her. It works, but only just. Lu Han grins for a second, her hand coming to touch Jongin’s.
“Maybe. For you.”
"Alright, then," Jongin pulls away and lies back down, wriggling a little to get comfortable. "Because I've got a lot to tell you."
"Is it about your work?" Lu Han pounces, eyes bright. "Is this the great revelation? The second coming of the Messiah?"
Jongin shrugs. "Something like that. Maybe."
"Maybe?" Lu Han grins. "Just maybe? No boom? No pow wow and sticks turning into serpents and man-eating whales?"
"Blasphemous," Jongin laughs. "You're going to get struck by lightning and turn into barbeque."
Lu Han wrinkles her nose. "That's Zeus. I never did dig him."
But they quiet down and get serious, and Jongin closes her eyes and begins.
Telling it now, speaking all these words that speak the story of her life, it seems surreal. She has the urge to laugh at some points, hysterical under the weight of all the memories now coming flooding back-- but with Lu Han’s eyes on her, when her voice wavers she stops. Takes deep breaths and calms herself down. She must be the worst angel at the moment, honestly. Nobody lasts so long with this these human weakness, bodily or emotional.
It's not that long or stunning-- the human part, at least. Growing up, growing away from home, moving to the next town for a proper high school. But then Minseok enters the story, and Lu Han stiffens, blinks, frowns. But she doesn't say anything, not until Jongin reaches the part where she dies on the beach, swimming after Minseok. She'd been going to ask Minseok out to the fireworks that night, she's sure. It's a pretty pathetic joke, honestly.
And then, for the first time since Jongin started, Lu Han speaks up.
"Prove it," she says. Her voice has gone hoarse.
Jongin looks at her for a moment, startled and undecided. She could stop, at this point. She could just reach out to her wrist and erase her memory. Jongin blinks, ends up in the kitchen. When she blinks again, she's at the doorway to the bedroom.
The color drains from Lu Han's face. "Okay," she says, quietly. "Okay. Go on."
When Jongin reaches the part when she first met Lu Han, she takes a deep breath and ploughs on. She'd had a bad feeling about telling all this from the start, but this is getting worse every second.
She tells the truth about everything, about the volunteering, the nights she had to go, the times she'd only meet Lu Han for a few hours, the stories she used to tell when they went to bed, how she sent the letters. It takes hours and hours, and Jongin loses all track of all Time for once, Mortal and Upper both. When she finishes, the clock shines a green 4.36 AM. at her, and the stars and planets stuck on Lu Han's ceiling are glowing in the dark before sunrise.
Lu Han is silent.
Jongin says, "I'm sorry."
But Lu Han isn't saying anything-- and that itself is an answer.
Heart heavy, threatening to rip at the seams, Jongin fades. Right there, in front of her.
◐
Years pass. Pass in angel time, in human time, in all time. Dimensions and unit warps don't matter anymore.
A book, As Told By, is published, in China. Jongin buys it at the duty free, because she sees the author's name. The acknowledgements say, 'from j', which is odd, because acknowledgements aren't from, they're for.
Jongin has never been promoted after telling Lu Han. She's not sure if it's because her movements have always been tracked; she doesn't care that much, either. Sometimes the only thing she knows is that she hasn't lost an ounce of her feelings since. Lu Han resides in her skin, under her fingers, in her hair and the close way her clothes hug to her when they morph on her, every time her feet touch Earth. She does not think about the acknowledgements section. She spares the reviews a glance, New York Times, Saturday Post, Whitebread, lets herself smile a moment. Her muscles don't feel too fake in their movements. For the first time, she skims through a novel instead of reading it fully. She puts it back when she's done. She does not allow herself to think about the book.
◓
Touching down in Beijing again after all these years is tumultuous, to say the least. Every corner she turns, she sees flashes of humans she'd crossed paths with, half-imagines she smells the remains of Minseok's body, and misses the name of that girl. That girl and her hair and the way she wrote and the way she slept on her shoulder and-- Jongin shakes herself every time her thoughts turn that way.
She's tracking a soul about to rest so she can begin Armory, when she hears Lu Han, clear and strong. Like an angel talking to her, but not like an angel. Jongin blinks. She knows Sehun patrols the Bay for demons and confused, in-training Aqua Humanoid angels. She hesitates for a second, then calls out to Sehun, relays the mission, tells him to hold the soul for her, and disappears.
Within the second, she's at Lu Han's door. She raises her hand to the ring the bell, ends up knocking instead. She waits a few minutes before knocking again, hears the familiar shuffle.
The door opens wide.
"Missed you," Lu Han says, her voice weary and cracked. Her nose is red and her eyes are red and she has tissues clutched in her hand. Jongin says nothing, just stands and stares, drinking the sight of her in. "Oh, Jongin," Lu Han laughs, sounding parts sad and parts amused. She sneezes, then, and Jongin gathers herself together, pushes her in and closes the door behind her.
"You called," Jongin says, awkwardly, and Lu Han's shoulders slump.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry I sent you away."
Jongin lifts a hand to hold Lu Han's, pauses, lets it fall back. "Nothing," she shakes her head. "It was nothing, really. I had to go, after what I'd done." She's about to say more, but Lu Han raises her head and looks at her, just looks at her, and Jongin will be damned, yes, she will fall, she will fall for this human, from grace and level and heaven, she will doom herself for this, for Lu Han, to hold her and to touch-- Jongin raises her arms, and Lu Han pulls her in, close, trembling until Jongin's arms rest on her shoulders. "Haven't slept in so long," Lu Han mumbles. "Couldn't sleep without you anymore. Two whole weeks. I'm almost afraid I'm imagining you."
Jongin holds her tighter. "Right here," she says. "Lu Han, I'm right here."
They talk. They talk for hours. They would talk, perhaps, for days. But then Lu Han interrupts herself and--
"Stay," she pleads, hand coming up to cup Jongin's cheek, and Jongin manages a laugh.
"I'm not going anywhere for long, you know. Just... just standard procedure, when the job's finished. I'll probably be back soon, and I'm not going anywhere right now."
"No," Lu Han says, "You're flickering."
Jongin looks down at herself, startled. Her body is fading before wavering back to opacity. Lu Han must have caught onto her surprise, because her hand slips down to Jongin's lap and presses down hard, on her thighs.
"Jongin? Jongin?" Her voice rises with panic.
Jongin pulls her close, wraps her arms around Lu Han. Jongin's chin tucks comfortably over Lu Han's shoulder, and Jongin rocks her back and forth. Lu Han's shaking, slightly. "I don't want to lose you," she whispers into Jongin's sweater. "I don't want you to go."
"Shhh."
Jongin thinks of promises made and never kept, broken carelessly and strewn carelessly like bottles across the shore. She thinks of painful hours of waiting and expectations dashed, and she knows she can't do that to Lu Han. She wants to swear to this girl in her arms that she'll never leave, that she doesn't want to leave, that nothing would ever keep Jongin from her. But that would all break, eventually. Every word would turn over and over in her mind as days passed into weeks and years, until it was all meaningless. Until Lu Han resolved her for a liar and shred any memories of them that she had left.
Lu Han now, the present Lu Han, in her arms and trusting and desperate, breathes deeply. She's finally asleep. Jongin sighs and pulls away, lays Lu Han down on the bed; brushes her thumb over a pretty ear, Lu Han's sharp jaw.
"I'll try," Jongin says, finally. "For you. Always."
◑
Level up, level up, DJ Spock.
The trip from Kyoto Station to the nearest binary system is wild and three hours long. Not human hours, of course. She’ll do her best to get in and get out with guard job, but by the time Jongin returns to Earth, at least a year and a half will have passed on the planet. She’ll write to Lu Han, though, and Lu Han will be there, waiting at the door maybe, when Jongin comes back.
thanks to r, h and m for always being so supportive. ❤