fly me to the moon | mark lee

FOUR.

AUTHOR'S NOTE! there's tons of information on the fae on the internet and what (few) books on them i've read follow them to varying degrees, so at some point in time i decided to screw it and make my own patchwork of fae lore ssjshdj please don't sue me

also i know this chapter with nabi might seem random (i totally didn't just fart out whatever came into my head) but you'll see later!!

i had an idea that if fae and human worlds had already collided, then maybe some changes would have to be made to their living spaces. i'm sorry if it's all so confusing to you because your lazy and busy author cannot sit herself down to make a map or detailed lore description :'')) as usual i have a degree in creating unnecessarily complicated worlds that the story could have worked just fine without

━━━━━━━━━━
on jupiter
and mars
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"It's nothing special," he seemed to trip over himself in his haste to squeeze the words out, walking backwards with a mastery only someone like Mark Lee could achieve (because only Mark Lee could evade an approaching lamp post with a split-second to spare). "I mean like- like, it's nothing huge or anything. I just thought you'd like to see because you like them, and like, uh, maybe you wouldn't be intereste-"

"Mark," she ended his monologue. "It'll be fine. I'll love it."

He pulled a face. "You said that the last time I bought you ice cream and you hated it."

"Only because you wouldn't stop worrying!" She skipped ahead of him, braid whipping her face. "Plus, it was durian flavoured — how could you possibly expect anyone to like it?"

If only they were several years younger, she would have taken his hand without question and all but dragged him to his doorstep. He'd have come a couple inches short of the top of her head. But he had a cheesy grin large enough for the both of them, for any room.

Watching him put himself through self-inflicted torture wasn't her brand of healthy to spend the afternoon, but as it was, they needed to start from somewhere. 

"I'm bound to like it as long as it's nothing durian flavoured," Haru declared, then. 

"I don't think this is something you can eat," he muttered beneath his breath, turning into his apartment block — a grey, 18-storey building of concrete and metal framework that stood identical next to so many others. But that was where its similarities with Seoul's cookie-cutter residences came to an end. An entire forest invasion — honeysuckle twined up its walls, tendrils curling like fingers from windows. Moss inched up pillars like a luxurious vertical carpet. 

When they pressed the doorbell (a wind-chime that tinkled four times), a dark, elfin face like the night sky flickered onto the screen.

"Odile," they exclaimed in unison.

Mark's Fae neighbour broke into a smile. "Come in, the two of you. She's getting bored."

"Who's getting bored?" Haru found herself asking, but Mark merely lifted a shoulder mysteriously and entered the lift.

In the end, it turned out to be-

"A cat." She belted a short, incredulous laugh. "A cat."

His answering grin was effused with genuine warmth, like Lee Donghyuck had never happened.  

The furry black menace was fastened to his neck, vibrating with low, throaty purrs. Mark's eyes were tender. He caught her curious gaze and shrugged, as if he spent all his after-school hours attached to a cat. "She was my Aunt Jung's. But, uh, she moved away, so she's mine now."

"Does she have a name?" Haru asked.

Both human and animal turned their heads towards her in one matching movement. In that instance, the resemblance was nearly uncanny. "Nabi." 

Nabi batted at his hands appreciatively.

She giggled. "The two of you look the same."

Mark rubbed the cat's head. "Funny. That's what my dad said too." He hefted her weight into his arms and held her out. "Want to hold her?"

She stared, not wanting to seem too eager. But at the same time, the glint in his eye was too knowing to have been coincidental. 

As if frustrated by her indecision, Nabi coiled her hind legs and leapt into her lap. Haru scratched her behind the ears. The wide, luminous orbs were long, regal and... smug, as if retaining some sort of secret. She sifted her fingers through lustrous fur, the precise hue of absolute night. 

Mark's aunt's cat was, a cat, all right.

"You can take care of her," he said suddenly, "whenever you like."

It should have been ever so simple to nod, to savour his apparent confidence in her. But years by Mark Lee's side had brought out more of the chronic worrier in her than she'd have liked. And she found herself stalling instead.

He eyed her carefully.

"... Do you know how to keep a cat?"

"I'll figure it out," Haru said quickly, wishing she had been a beat faster and more convincing nearly immediately — the familiar mask of panic began to slide over Mark's ethereal features. "No, really, I-"

"No, it's my fault." He held out his fingers, nails worn and chipped, and Nabi took a long, almost accusatory sniff. "Why did I think someone else could do the job when I can't?" His voice was pitching higher now. "Hold on, would it be too much to give her to Odile while my aunt and uncle are out?"

She huffed. This mood of Mark's was a long-ongoing and insufferable battle with herself. "Because you know I can figure a way, and," she widened her eyes at him, still rather arch despite his palpable reluctance, "and we are the bestest, bestest of friends and you couldn't possibly ask anyone else."

His jaw worked, in the Manner it would when he was seeking a hole in her argument. And found it. "Okayy, but we aren't the 'bestest, bestest' of friends."

Perhaps she appeared deflated at the refute (she certainly felt a little deflated, that murderous, traitorous side of her). Perhaps Nabi had fixed him with a cat-glare worthy to curdle the blood of the gods. For whatever reason, Mark bit his lip, faintly tinting pink, then patted her knee. "Fine, fine. Okay. I trust you." And it sounded a suspicious lot more like a question than a stamp of approval.

She scowled. "When will you trust me to do something right?"

"When you do something right."

"Yah, Lee Mark, you are-"

But whatever Lee Mark was, as ornamented by a fanciful string of choice words at the tip of her tongue, they never got to hear it.

For at that moment, something large and heavy struck the window with a sound like a cannon shot, and both humans and cat jumped three feet into the air.