It Meets You Where You Wait • Yeonbin

EIGHTEEN

He tosses the postcard down on the coffee table.

"I think there's more about my family here than I know."

Yeonjun looks at the card, still chewing through his plate of hash browns. "Huh?"

"I found this in a photo album full of pictures of me," Soobin replies. "It's got to mean something."

Yeonjun reaches for it, picking it up and looking it over. His eyebrows raise when he sees the back, recognizing the image immediately. He runs a thumb across it.

"This is..." Yeonjun says, eyebrows drawn, "... relatively old. There's old magic on it. Not strong magic, but very faint, old magic. I would guess this belonged to a fae at least twenty, thirty, years ago, if not more."

"It had to have belonged to my grandmother. There's no way it ended up there by accident."

Yeonjun's eyes are wide now, attention fixed on Soobin.

"But you don't..." Yeonjun hums. "I don't feel any magic in you. If she was— I would— hm. Just let me..."

He reaches his hands forward, and cradles Soobin's face delicately between his fingers. His eyes flutter shut, and one hand passes through Soobin's hair, coming to cradle the back of his skull. Soobin feels the little buzzes of his skin that appear when Yeonjun's magic touches him.

And then Yeonjun's eyes open, and there's a slight tint of blue to them. It fades quickly, but Soobin tries to remember how it looked.

"None," Yeonjun says. "I can't find any. I don't understand."

"Didn't think so. I thought... it's possible it just belonged to a fae. Maybe one close to my grandmother."

Yeonjun reaches forward and picks the card up again. He flips it over and studies the inscription again. His mouth opens, slightly agape.

"Soobin," he says. "Read the card again. The bottom."

Soobin takes it back.

Huh, he says, finally focusing on the small red print on the back.

Copyright, Hallmark 1998 Holiday Collection.

"Well," Soobin says, in disbelief, "I think you found something."

"Okay, okay, but...But what could she have to do with fae?" Yeonjun asks. "She didn't live in Mare. Your mom was from the same city as you."

"She was," Soobin says quietly. "But my dad— he was from Mare. She was his mother, paternally. Not my own's."

Yeonjun's eyebrows raise.

Soobin continues, "It's very possible that she interacted with one. If you can't sense magic in my blood, it wasn't in either of theirs, or it would've passed down to me. Doesn't mean that she wasn't given that card by one, though."

Yeonjun hms. "It's just too specific. I know it could be just by chance, but 1998– and the fact that the trace of magic seems about the same age— it's just... it's too much of a coincidence."

"I know. But, god, there's just so much we don't know about this," he sighs, running an exasperated hand through his hair. "That's exactly what I mean. we don't even know how this connects. Like— the card is from 98, the same year you died and turned. We don't know why you turned, either, however that connects."

Yeonjun's eyebrows pinch together. "I wish I did. Believe me, Taehyun and I spent a decade searching for answers to that question until we gave up."

"And nothing?"

He leans back in his chair. "And nothing."

"It's just— there's got to be something," Soobin sighs, almost frustrated. "Something that links this all together."