fly me to the moon | mark lee

ZERO.

HOW SOMETHING SO rotten could be equal parts exquisite, should have been the sixth greatest mystery of human history. Yet as humans do, they covet beautiful things and just as jealously guard them.

Bae Haru thought the world had done enough guarding.

They were never difficult to spot, but they were all the more difficult to tear your eyes from - tall, slender, inhuman. That day, she had the rather unfortunate privilege of being where she was, alone on the way home from school.

It wasn't a day she'd so easily forget. The Fair Folk were a scourge on mankind - she thought she knew that, and that everyone else did, but few could see through the Glamour they impishly puffed into unsuspecting faces, masquerading their new pets down the street.

Or in the case of Haru's brother, off the building.

They had never quite been as hunted as they were worshipped, and she regarded the nearest cluster of Fae with burning distaste. Junoesque. Skin tinted pale green, a mellow contrast to long, tumbling dark hair that clung to their narrow hips. A couple had horns curling shyly from their skulls, but they were likely accustomed enough to mundane society that they kept them trimmed.

She didn't see what happened before; it was but a flash of motion at the corner of her eye. But everyone on that street heard the consequences.

A thin, drawn-out scream. A hideous ripping. Haru whirled - and there was a Fae boy on the ground, gasping, his wing a patchwork of tatters.

There was an uproar- but she didn't hear it, couldn't hear it, fixated on the Fae woman with her long, pointy fingers drawn, then delicately flicked her wrist, sending what looked like blood splattering on the pavement.

Something within her snapped. Perhaps it was the sight of the boy crumpled on the ground. Perhaps it was the memory that nudged at her brain just then, because it was horribly familiar and she felt like she'd seen it before. With Hajun's face.

White-hot rage flashed across her vision, and before she could stop herself, her feet were marching her over, as frantic onlookers surrounded the boy in a protective circle. The Fae are a destructive species. They even hurt their own kind. She loosened her bag from around her shoulders. They maim and they kill and they find pleasure doing it. She swung it back and flung the heavy side right at the woman's head.

The resulting thud invited another flurry of gasps. As the Fae screeched and stumbled, Haru stared down at the mimicry of a human face - all carved edges and a prim, tiny mouth. Her lips parted, but no words rose to her rescue.

Evil evil evil-

"Haru!" A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders, wrenching her away. "Haru!" But the voice was just one in many, drowning in the sea of other voices. "Haru, let's go." A face came into view. She blinked.

Mark Lee.

Her classmate seemed delirious with anxiety, his grip two vices of pain. "Let's go." She didn't ask how he showed up. He didn't ask why she had done it. For that, she was grateful.

"Get your bag- come on-" And they were leaving the scene, but as Haru glanced back over her shoulder, she thought she saw the Fae woman make a sign with her hands towards her. A curse.

Just like so many other things, she curled her fingers into a white-knuckled fist and prayed that if she pretended not to see it, it wouldn't come true.