Legend [YEONBIN] ✓

sixty-three ; yeonjun

“You didn’t have to knock,” I said as I opened the front door. Then I froze. Instead of Soobin, Sunghoon stood in front of me, his hands folded, his head bowed.

“What are you doing here?” I didn’t mean to make my voice so flat; it just came out that way.

“I need—” He broke off, tried again, and failed. And his choked attempts softened me

“Can I come in?” he whispered.

I hesitated. I knew how dangerous this boy was.

But he looked at me with such hope it melted the rest of the ice around my heart.

I opened the door wider to let him in.

Sunghoon settled onto the sinking cushions of my halmeoni’s couch. It somehow made him look small.

“Are you here to see Soobin?” I finally asked.

Sunghoon shook his head.

“Are you here because you need help?”

He shook his head again.

“Listen, I can’t do anything unless you speak.”

“He should leave!” Sunghoon blurted out, finally lifting his head to look at me.

I wondered whether I’d made a mistake letting him in. “Why?”

“It’s not safe here.”

“Why?” The question cracked out with suspicion. “Because you’ll hurt him again?”

Another head shake. “My halmeoni. She won’t stop until she gets her revenge.”

“And she sent you here to do her dirty work?”

“Before, I was doing what I’d thought was right. I was raised to believe that Ara was a monster. That her son must be equally evil.” Sunghoon held out his hands, like he was trying to offer these words to me as penance.

“And now you’ve magically changed your mind?” I asked, my words harsher than I intended.

Sunghoon shrugged and I sighed. “So what is it that you want now?”

“This time I want to warn him before it’s too late.”

“So tell him yourself.” My eyes shifted to the door, wondering how things were going downstairs between Soobin and Detective Hae.

“I already tried. He won’t listen to me.” Sunghoon’s voice cracked with desperation. “But he’ll listen to you if you tell him to leave.”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to believe Sunghoon. But I’d learned that it was unwise not to heed such warnings. The last time I didn’t listen was when Soobin told me to run and my halmeoni had paid the price.

“What if he doesn’t leave?” I asked.

“Then he’ll die.”

I stiffened. “There isn’t a way to stop your halmeoni?”

“She’s too powerful. I couldn’t stop her even if I tried,” Sunghoon said. “Plus, she’s keeping things from me now. I think she’s found someone else to help her. I heard her the other night on the phone. She has something she’s been looking for. She said this is how it should have always been, that the punishment will be ten times worse now. Soobin needs to leave.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

I spun around as Soobin entered the apartment.

“If your halmeoni won’t give up her grudge, then maybe I’ll need to get rid of the threat.” Soobin’s voice could freeze a fire.

“Please,” Sunghoon stuttered, “I’ve come to you in good faith. Please don’t hurt my halmeoni.”

After a second of frozen indecision, Soobin replied, “I won’t kill her. I don’t do that anymore.”

“Thank you,” Sunghoon breathed out.

“So you came to warn me and you did. Are we done?” Soobin’s face was set in a blank mask. But I saw the turmoil he hid. Like a storm brewing behind his steady irises.

Sunghoon hesitated, his eyes darting between me and Soobin.

“Is there more?” I asked gently, because I felt like I was standing next to two pressure points that were ready to burst.

“The bead,” Nara said. “It’s the center of this all. My halmeoni still wants it. She thinks if she can control you, she can hurt Ara.”

“Does this mean she’s coming after me?” I asked.

“I think I can do it,” Sunghoon said instead of answering me. “The ceremony I did before to take out the bead.”

“You said you didn’t have enough power,” Soobin replied.

I didn’t need to see his face to know he was worried. I felt it like electricity traveling through the air. Or maybe it was the connection from the bead inside me.

“Not alone.” Sunghoon bit his lip. “But I realized this full moon means something.”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s not the winter solstice or the summer. It’s not even a harvest moon.”

“But it is the last full moon before your hundred days. The third since you stopped feeding. Those numbers have significance,” Sunghoon said. “It’s important to you. And that might be more powerful.”

“So you’re saying you can take out the bead, and Yeonjun will be fine?”

Sunghoon’s silence answered for me.

“No,” Soobin said, hard and final.

“I can’t say for sure it’ll work. But I can say it’s your best option, the only one where you can have a hope you’ll both survive.”

“If I make it to the hundred days without feeding, then maybe the bead will be weak enough to come out on its own.”

“And if you die while the bead is still in him? How can you know he won’t die, too?”

“He’s right,” I said. “The bead is making me sick. The migraines, the seizures. The way I see it, things can’t stay the way they are now. If we do nothing, the odds are pretty high one or both of us aren’t going to make it. I’d rather do something and fail than give up.”

Soobin gave in. “What do we need to do?”

Sunghoon started to speak when my phone rang.

I glanced at Soobin, unsure if the moment could handle such a disruption.

“Answer it,” he said. “I need some fresh air to think.”

I picked up with an impatient, “Hello?”

I listened to the formal voice on the other line as my eyes followed Soobin to the front door. It opened with a blast of cold air.

“What?” I asked sharply. Soobin glanced at me curiously.

“I’m sorry,” the person on the other line said. “I hate to tell you this kind of news over the phone. It’s your halmeoni.”