A Vow of Silence

Lion was early.

He looked around, invisible to the human eye, taking in the slick street and the heavy gray clouds that hung above it. The moisture in the air was palpable, condensing in the air and onto the exposed cafes and small, homely restaurants that lined the sides of a road smothered in pedestrian crossings. A food truck stood alone, billowing clouds of steam rising through the air from the mass of tteokbokki that an old woman, eyes furrowed in concentration, stood stirring. Behind her, Lion caught a glimpse of a digital clock. 2:50. He could feel his whole body tensing – a sign that it was nearly time for a transport.

As if it had read his thoughts, a bell rang in the distance. The old woman looked up towards the sound, a faint smile growing on her wrinkled face. From around the corner, a growing throng of navy and white came, descending on the foggy street. High school students, it seemed. Clad in similar navy skirts and pants, all paired with a simple white blouse embossed with some complex navy thread, they diffused out onto the street, littering it with giggles and chatter. Lion looked on with mild disinterest, letting his gaze drift. It landed on a pair of girls, arms linked as one showed the other a charm tied to her phone. It was an obnoxious off-white color, Lion thought, with no real shape to it. He realized that he was tapping his fingers and stopped immediately. The other girl seemed impressed, though, and she stopped to examine the charm closely.

"No way, Grace, you got a crane? This is so cute!"

"Yep! I got one for you, too, but it's in my room. I'll give it to you later when you come by." A grin grew on her friend's face as she looked at Grace, a delighted squeal coming from her throat.

Lion winced at the noise, checking the clock again. 2:55. Lion's foot began to tap.

"I got one for my sister too," Grace said, laying her head on her friend's shoulder, beginning to walk in the odd formation towards the tteokbokki stand. "In the shape of a duck. I heard somewhere that they represent happiness. Or reproduction. Or maybe it was both?"

"That's so weird that Hope used to be our age now, like, ten years ago. And now she's gonna be a mom! I still remember when she wore her super-thick glasses and had that big backpack. When is she expecting?"

"Any day now," Grace said, twisting the charm around a finger. "Who knows how many days of quiet in the house we have left. I hope the baby doesn't cry too much."

"No, no, dear," The old woman at the tteokbokki stand had overheard the last of their conversation as the two girls approached. She handed them two cups, brimming with glossy rice cakes coated with steaming, red sauce. "You know how Maria's mother – my daughter – is in the shaman business. She says that babies need to cry, you know. That's how they forget all that pain from their past life and live a clean, new one."

"Yeah," the girl next to Grace said through a mouthful of tteokbokki – this must've been Maria. "Mom said that it's to forget all of their past life. When we went to go visit my baby cousin, Mom was trying to get him to make as much noise as she could."

Lion raised his eyebrows in surprise. Maria's mother knew her stuff. 2:58, the clock read.

The roar of an engine sounded a few blocks away. Other than a few stragglers on the street, it was otherwise empty; all the students had disappeared into the cafes or had moved on, continuing on with their lives outside of school. The clouds looked a more menacing shade of gray than they had been when Lion first arrived.

"You girls should best go home now," Maria's grandmother said. "It's going to start raining at any minute. I wouldn't want you to get caught up in the rain and catch a cold."

Maria scarfed down the rest of her tteokbokki and bounded into the middle of the street, waiting for Grace to finish hers and catch up. Grace bid goodbye to Maria's grandmother and started towards Maria. .