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[thestarsarebrighterinthistown]

just dropping a little wip sneak peek here ~

A strained whimper slipped between Younghwi’s teeth as Foster suddenly reached out, grabbing his jaw and yanking it firmly upward so that their eyes met. The force of it was so tangible I felt my own neck twinge in pain just watching. Still, Younghwi only stared at him, his eyelashes fluttering in what could have either been rage or terror.

            “You used to ask me why I kept you,” Foster said. He wore that excruciatingly easy smile, though there was an unmistakable hunger in his eyes as they darted over Younghwi’s face. “Do you remember?”

            Younghwi didn’t reply. His face was screwed in hatred, his lip twitching as he visibly bit back whatever it is was on the tip of his tongue. I begged him silently not to speak, to do anything at all.

            “You asked me why I hadn’t killed you like the others, after I had ‘made you useless.’ That’s what you said.” Foster chuckled and shook Younghwi’s head around a little by his chin almost playfully, making my pulse spiked with rage. “Look at you. Do you think I would really do something like that to you?”

            “I remember,” Younghwi said. His voice was thick and subdued, like he was speaking past a lump in his throat.

            “And do you remember what I said to you?” Foster prodded.

            “You said that, that you enjoyed my company,” Younghwi replied. His breaths had become audible in his words now, trembling on the edge of a whisper. His eyes were wide but distant, darting across the floor as if searching for a lifeline.

            Foster let his hand fall, crouching down slowly so that their faces were level. “You were my favorite, Younghwi. Don’t forget that.”

            A labored exhale escaped Younghwi’s nose as he shook his head, like a laugh but suffocated. “Y-You…”

“How many times do I have to tell you to speak up?”

“You tortured me.”

Foster laughed, his grip tightening slowly aroung Younghwi's jaw, until the skin was white under his fingernails.

"You're so funny," he cooed. "I forgot how funny you can be. Talking as if you're like me, like you're worth anything more than a well-used, broken toy."

[thestarsarebrighterinthistown]

chapter 2

Word count: 3439

tws: none

summary: after barely escaping with their lives, soojin takes her new companion back to try and find some answers.

----

              A group of children scampered from the subway doors, their matching black leather shoes clopping in tandem on the worn tile platform as they ran for the stairs. The people around them barely looked up as they flew past, a flurry of blue uniforms and quiet, secret laughter amongst each other.

              Though they laughed together, they didn’t share a single word as they headed up the stairs toward their destination. The girl in lead, several paces in front of the rest with her dark hair tied up with a ribbon, leapt through the turnstile and stopped to catch her breath. After a moment she tugged up her starched sleeve to inspect the face of her watch.

              5:23pm. Seven minutes early.

              “Soojin,” beckoned another child, the first to catch up to her just as the next wave of passengers was exiting the platform behind them. Their footfalls approached like an army, heralding a flurry of clothes and limbs and chaos. Soojin had been caught in it once before, only once. It was the only time she had ever ridden the subway by herself. She had insisted that she could do it, as soon as she learned the street names. Even the memory summoned panic to her chest—so many people, no way to ask for directions, the newly learned names deserting her mind completely in the flurry of color and chaos.

              She looked to her friends, who were waiting impatiently at the elevator. Seven minutes, before they had to be back. She had never been early before, even after months of trying. It felt like a luxury, but each second was ticking by as they stood there.

              They were all anxious to get back and receive praises for their punctuality. She could still be punctual, she reasoned. Seven minutes was a long time.

              Her eyes darted to the opposite exit, to the shapes on the wall she knew were names. She could find her way back, couldn’t she?

              Her friends looked to her. No, not friends. Classmates. Company, so she could brave the subway again.

              Six minutes now.

Soojin darted off for the opposite exit, fast enough to barely hear them shouting after her—she didn’t understand them anyway--before she emerged into the quiet, stark sunlight.

              The room was the same as Soojin had left it: powder blue paint on the walls, the overwhelming scent of untouched dresser drawers and Pine Sol, and her small pile of belongings already packed to leave at the end of the bed. Trash had begun to accumulate on the nightstand, an assortment of vending machine snacks and a couple cans of beer from the liquor store a few blocks away. The place was small, thick with the must of being well lived in, but tight like two arms wrapped around her chest. Not a home, by any means.

              Soojin dropped her backpack on the floor, grimacing as she peeled off her left shoe with her other heel. The sores that mottled her numb skin screamed in protest.

              “Sorry it’s probably not as cushy as your last place,” she said. “Whenever that was.”

The shuffling of her new companion behind her paused in waiting, though there was no response. Instead, he hovered motionless in the threshold, watching her movements with wordless calculation. He took up the entire frame of the door, and the sight of it might have been imposing if not for the way he was leaning is full weight on the frame to support himself, trembling like a wet dog.

In the warm, stark light, he looked terrible. The gore had begun to congeal and crust in places on his face and the front of his jacket, already smeared with weeks of grime and dirt. He wasn’t wearing any shoes at all—instead, his bare feet were caked in mud and no doubt in far worse shape than hers. His shoulders quivered with effort and suppressed pain, his jaw tight and breathing heavily controlled. The intensity of his gaze never faded, but now Soojin could see it was darkened with exhausted and a strange, unplaceable fear. He watched her movements like a prey animal, eyes darting to every microscopic change with furrowed brows.

“Or you can wait outside,” Soojin suggested. “For whoever figures out where we went first. If you want.”

He stepped fully inside, closing the door behind him and flipping both deadlocks as he did. She doubted they would do much against those men from the woods.

The silent moments that followed were heavy and expectant, excruciatingly so. Soojin didn’t mind the quiet, but she had no patience to wait for him to explain himself. Instead, she walked to the bed, easing herself down onto the firm mattress peeling her jacket from her throbbing shoulder.

“Clean yourself up,” Soojin told him, without so much as a glance in his direction. It didn’t matter, she could still feel his sharp, wary gaze digging a hole through her like a bullet. “The bathroom’s through that brown door.”

              Wordlessly he shuffled across the veneer, his labored breaths hitching heavily in the silence before he disappeared behind the door and left her alone in the room. The door he had left slightly ajar, Soojin noticed with curious confusion. Her gaze flitted up to the crack now illuminated with a yellowish glow as he flipped the light switch, though the only evidence of his presence was the sliver of shifting shadows beyond.

              Soojin waited until she heard the sound of the shower running, a dull ambiance in the unchanging stillness of her living quarters. It would have been comforting, the presence of someone else after weeks of traveling alone, if not for the rather unavoidable suspicion that he was already trying to plan an escape.

              The soft constant static of the shower water became broken and disrupted after a few more moments. He was actually cleaning himself, at least. Time enough for her to fix her shoulder.

              The wound wasn’t as bad as Soojin had suspected. The gashes were broad but rather shallow, the blood beginning to congeal and crack around the edges of the torn skin. She braced herself with a deep breath before pressing her palm into the tender flesh, eyes fluttering closed as she used the sharp sting of pain to center her focus.

              It wasn’t much different from what she had done in the woods, using this kind of power. She had been patching herself up since she was a kid, so it came naturally. The sensation was like a sickening tug to her stomach, something unknowable and massive closing its fist tight around her lungs and squeezing. The vertigo only lasted long enough to cause a soft ringing in her ears, about ten minutes. Then it passed as quickly as it had started.

              Soojin pulled her hand away, inspecting her work. The once-ugly gashes were now soft pink scars of new, tender skin, tracing crookedly over her shoulder and down her arm. The pain was different now, just a dull tingle skittering across her nerves as she flexed her repaired muscles in discomfort.

              With the throbbing in her shoulder gone, the image of that feline familiar in the woods only conjured a feeling of sharp annoyance. Despite the brutality of her attack, Soojin doubted she had actually killed it. Everything had happened so fast; she hadn’t even thought to confirm it was actually dead and not just wounded, able to report back to its patron. What a stupid mistake.

              The shower water stopped, plunging the room into a new silence. She couldn’t help it; she watched the crack in the door with a growing intrigue. Why had he left it open? To listen for her? Keep tabs on her? Or was it simply indifference, unawareness? Habit, even?

              For some reason, all she could think about was the image of him being hauled from the back of that truck, suffocating in a tarp. Cargo.

              The door opened and he stepped out, head low as he dried the back of his dark mop with a towel. There was no effort made to clean his heavy jacket before putting it back on. He seemed completely unaware of her gaze following him as he walked across the room, turning his back from her as he dried his face.

              “Did your last patron never teach you to shut doors?” Soojin asked wryly.

              At this his head lifted suddenly, eyes widening behind the unbrushed curls that fell across his features. Soojin nodded slowly, pushing up from the bed and tossing her jacket to the floor.

              “So you are a familiar.” She said with a wry shrug. “I was starting to wonder.”

              He turned his back to her again without so much as a huff in response, continuing to scrub his scalp with the towel.

              Does he even know how to talk? Soojin wondered with a flash of frustration.

She had never been known to have a generous temper. As a child she had been well acquainted with the back wall of any given room, ostracizing stares, long afternoons cleaning classrooms when the sun was shining outside. Somewhere along the way she had learned that she liked when she made a good first impression. Something in her had really wanted to make a good impression with him, too.

A sigh trickled from her nose as she closed the space between them with a few steps, reaching into her shirt with her thumb to pull the pendant out from under the fabric. With her other hand, she reached up to grab his shoulder and yank him to face her.

Immediately he lurched away from her touch like he had been struck, his body tensing as he whipped around with a gasp through his teeth. His eyes were wide, lips parting is if maybe to finally say something, but the pendant caught his attention in an instant and he froze.

Something snapped tight in the air like a rubber band. His body remained tense under her grip, confusion crossing over his features in a heavy shadow.

              “What’s your name?” Soojin asked. The words lingered in the air like static electricity, and the pendant under her thumb hummed in response.

              “Younghwi,” he replied, and his nose scrunched a little. “D-Don’t do that.”

              So that’s what he sounded like. Quiet, warm, defensive. Soojin wasn’t sure what else she had expected.

              “Younghwi,” Soojin continued, turning the name in her mouth a little. The familiarity of the pronunciation was comforting, intriguing almost. “Are you a familiar?”

              “Yes,” he said, immediately. His eyelashes fluttered in frustration as his mouth betrayed him, and his arm twitched as if to grab the necklace from her neck in a reflex. “Where did you get that?”

              “It’s mine.” Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”

“I…”

“I was starting to think this was just a chunk of wood. How did you manage to get separated from your own totem for twenty-three years?”

              “You don’t need to use it on me,” he urged, his voice barely above a whisper.

              “Then answer me when I talk to you, and I won’t have to.”

               A hesitation. Her fingers tightened around his shoulder. He seemed much smaller now, that fire igniting his gaze suddenly dying, turning cold.

              “So if you’re a familiar, why did you let those people almost kill you in a ritual?” she pressed, though her fingers had released the pendant at her neck. Curiosity had overcome her frustration as she narrowed her eyes at him. “Can you even do magic?”

              “Yes.” Younghwi eyes were fixed on the pendant with a palpable desperation, like a dog anxiously watching a piece of meat. “I… I didn’t leave, I couldn’t.”

              “Why not? They can’t command you without a totem,” Soojin asked. “Clearly they haven’t had it.”

              At this his demeanor hardened, turning even more frigid as he finally yanked his shoulder out of her grasp.

“I couldn’t,” he said, and his voice had become very quiet. Sharp, guarded, but quiet. Evidence of neglect were clear in the way his words broke as he whispered, as if he hadn’t spoken for years. Soojin wondered if he hadn’t.

              “Is there anything else?” he asked.

              Soojin snorted. “Sorry, do you have somewhere to be?”

              He just stared at her, no doubt some kind of scathing remark itching at the tip of his tongue. Whatever anger he had, grabbing his shoulder had shattered it all in a moment. He swayed where he stood as pain licked at the edge of his frozen expression, and Soojin could’ve sworn he was shaking.

              Her brows gathered. “Are you okay?”

              “Yes.”

              She looked over him skeptically. He had barely been able to walk leaving that ritual. He had so much blood on him, she couldn’t even tell if he was still bleeding. Maybe finally seeing his totem again had been the final straw.

“What did they do to you, anyway?” she pressed. “I thought familiars healed quickly.”

 She moved to push his jacket away from his chest and he lurched back again, this time reaching up to block her hand.

“W-What… What do you want with me?”

              There it was. The first real show of fear since she had dragged him from that campsite. That burning hatred behind his eyes was so fragile now, like she could crush it in her hands in an instant. He was afraid, it was plain in everything about him. The shaking of his shoulders was that of a wounded creature caught in a trap, waiting for the death blow.

              His question was soft, broken with effort. Whether it was a challenge or an offering of honesty, Soojin couldn’t say.

              “What do you mean?” she replied.

              “What is it you want?” he repeated, a little louder. “You have my totem, you can…” a momentary falter, as if he had finally realized how still the bedroom had gotten. Empty, holding just the two of them. “What are you going to do with me?”

              It occurred to Soojin to console him, like calming down a wild animal whipped up in fear and confusion. Soft voice, slow careful movements. Yet the irony of it all was too much, standing in the looming shadow of this stranger that was already collapsing underneath his own weight, practically eating from the palm of her hand.

               “That’s not your business,” she finally told him. “Would you rather me send you back to those people? They were going to kill you to open that rift.”

              “They couldn’t have done it.”

              “Oh, I know that.” Soojin chuckled grimly. The image of that man’s head being torn from his shoulders was a permanent reminder of that. “I don’t think that was going to stop them much from trying.”

               Younghwi pulled his jacket tighter around him, his nose scrunching in another grimace of pain. “So, you want to use me for the ritual yourself.”

              “I don’t care about that. I barely even know what they were trying to accomplish.” Soojin’s gaze narrowed. “Do you really think that’s why I took you?”

              “I don’t know why you took me.”

              “Because you’re my familiar.” Soojin’s voice sharpened a little around that word, the annoyance drenched in it pricking the air. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done that already.”

              He didn’t believe her. She studied him, but he gave up nothing in his eyes, the gently shaking shoulders, the pain that drew every muscle in his body tense and tight. His hand still covered his chest, marred with more evidence of his past captors in the still-healing abrasions and scar tissue that decorated the rough, tan skin.

              Soojin sighed heavily. “Let me see it,” she said, reaching out again to move his hand--slower this time, her fingers resting gently on his before she pried them away.

He didn’t resist, watching her as she moved his jacket to inspect his shirt underneath. A dark patch of blood was gathering on the front of his shirt, though there was enough dirt staining the fabric to hide it at first glance.

More apparent than the blood was the hum of energy as her fingers ghosted above the pattern of red, stinging her skin like electricity. It made that familiar feeling of dread lurch a little in her stomach, and she frowned.

“It’s fine,” Younghwi murmured, pulling his jacket back over his chest. “It’ll heal.”

“It better. We don’t have much time before we have to keep moving,” Soojin told him grimly. She shook her head, walking back to the bed and giving the mattress a few test bounces with her palms. “We’ll get a few hours and then try to get some distance from here before they figure out where we are. God, it’s hot in here…”

She was only thinking out loud to herself, but at the mention of sleep Younghwi pricked up a little.

“I don’t need to rest,” he offered, and the weakness of his voice alone made Soojin laugh a little.

“Oh yeah, I can tell.” She gestured vaguely to him, peeling off her wet socks as she did with a grimace. “If you want to poof into a bird or something and sleep outside in the rain, that’s fine with me. Either way, you’re getting some rest.”

 “I’m not a bird.”

“Christ,” Soojin breathed, tossing her sock in a tight ball across the room back toward her soaked shoes. “Do you want me to command you again?”

The threat of his totem was enough to make him move silently toward the other side of the bed, but she snapped her fingers at him.

“Ah. Without the jacket.”

He froze, and Soojin pursed her lips as the flush deepened in his cheeks.

“Calm down,” she snapped. “You’re not wearing that disgusting thing around me until you can wash it.”

She watched him tug off the sleeves of his jacket with a tight inhale, the movements notably careful as he shrugged the thick outer layer off of his shoulders. As it fell, her stomach dove a little as she realized how fit he actually was—the heavy fabric had covered most of his silhouette, but now the dim light of the bedside lamp was casting deep, angular shadows in the contours of his tan arms as he smoothed down his white shirt.

Soojin ran her tongue across the roof of her mouth, which had suddenly gone very dry.

She only allowed herself a few moments to follow his slow, careful movements around the bed, one hand still over his chest as he sat down on the other side—determined not to look at her or make any noise, she noticed. Like a prey animal, trying to turn invisible under the prowling gaze of its hunter.

              His back rose and fell in irregular, labored breaths, every muscle still drawn to tension as silence began to settle between them. Soojin bounced on the balls of her feet restlessly as she thought, aware of new hum of energy that arced over her skin from the totem on her chest. She considered it for just a few moments before pulling that resonance to focus, channeling it into her words.

              “Lay down till I get back,” she told him. “Rest. Don’t leave this room, don’t try to escape. And keep the lamp on,” she added.

              Younghwi’s fingers twitched restlessly where they lay on his lap, but otherwise he was unmoving. “Where are you going?” he asked quietly.

              “I have to make sure those people don’t kill us while we’re sleeping, or else all of this will be for nothing.” Her words were sharp with exhaustion and patience long grown thin, and she turned away to pick up her bag again and throw it over her shoulder. “You at least need to make it through tonight.”

              Younghwi looked at her now, his soulful eyes still dark and wary, but almost curious as they followed her toward the door. She caught his gaze before he could turn away and stopped.

              He looked so simple, sitting there with his shoulders shaking softly with each exhale, his scarred hands twisted together on his lap. Once upon a time, Soojin had thought familiars were some evasive, mystical forces of the universe itself, larger than life legends in books. Looking at him now, he was just… someone.

              A flash of sudden, aimless anger squeezed tight around her stomach just like her fist around the strap of her bag.

              “You have a staring problem,” she said to him, and that was the note their first conversation ended on as she opened the door and left him alone.

[thestarsarebrighterinthistown]

hc that once younghwi gets his familiar animal form back, he wears a service dog vest to get into places incognito

[thestarsarebrighterinthistown]

i have so much content for these guys i have literally no idea hwere to start with posting it all. i have the main story and then the spin off too and im just like,,, how do i make this all make sense

[thestarsarebrighterinthistown]

Soojin has a nightmare (first person perspective)

CW: child abuse

Soojin has always been haunted by the After since the day that her entire coven was obliterated as a child. Sometimes it visits her in hallucinations, sometimes in vivid nightmares that weaponize the memories of her childhood against her--memories that are the only thing left she treasures, as complicated as they are.

In the beginning, she didn't tell Younghwi at all, and he didn't care to ask. But after weeks of fruitless searching for answers, and countless nights spent together in what felt like some unspoken limbo, the weight of it all becomes too much.

---

There was something familiar about the darkness now. The thick, stuffy air that suffocated me. The feeling of scratchy carpet under my hands, gripping for familiarity in the emptiness that reached out to grab me. I was small, smaller than everyone else, and the world around me towered to close me in.

I wasn’t in my body, but I was crying, and I wanted to get up and rattle the door knob but I knew it wouldn’t open. The person leaning on the other side was too big.

            “Stop that, Soojin,” said the door. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

            I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to get out.

            “The other kids have already gone home. Don’t you want to see your eomma today?”

            There was no way to see, but I watched my hands raise in front of me with trembling fingers. I could feel the vibration of power around me, but it was taunting me. Slipping in between my grasp before I could even grab onto it, laughing in my ears. My sobs faltered in my throat, choking me.

            There were a few moments where I tried to breathe past the terror squeezing my lungs. Stop crying. Focus. I tried again, until my head began to spin with suffocating heat, and still my hands were empty. Groans of pain pushed past the tears, ripping any air that was left from my lungs.

I can’t do it. I’ll never leave. I’ll die here.

“Stop crying or you’ll be in there forever,” said the door again.

            The fear that twisted inside me was palpable, only swelling with the screams of laughter I could hear pounding in my ears coming from somewhere. It was so silent in here, silent for hours, hours of darkness and crying. I’m going to die here.

            “You know the rules, Soojin. You can’t come out until I see light under the door.”

            I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’ll do well. I’ll do anything. I hate when you put me in here. I hate you. My hands reached out again, trying to grasp the power around me to concentrate it into something, anything at all.

            Then the door handle rattled violently, shattering the suffocating silence. I screamed, shuffling backward in the closet until I felt the thick fabric of coats cover me.

            The door spoke again, now the voice was different, familiar. It was everywhere, sinking like claws into the back of my neck. “You can’t do it, can you?”

Something big and heavy was slamming against the door, and the voice of my mother suddenly multiplied into thousands with the laughter around me, like a million insects buzzing in my ear. “WHAT ARE YOU EVEN GOOD FOR, YOU PARASITIC LITTLE BITCH?”

            I want to get out. I’m sorry.

            “YOU COULDN’T DO SHIT WHEN I WAS ALIVE, EITHER. DO YOU THINK I’LL BE HAPPY TO SEE YOU, SOOJIN?”

            The darkness became liquid around me, the screams of laughter swallowing me as my lungs filled with sludge. There was nothing to grab onto, no power to summon to my hands. I screamed but I was no longer me, I was being torn apart. This was how it always ended.

            A quiet sob was choking me as I was torn awake, my body curled into a shivering heap.

Whatever that thing was, that thing that pretended to be my mom, I could feel the memory of it all around me like spiderwebs on my skin. It’s followed me, was always my thought when I woke up, my only thought. It’s going to take me like it took them.

I opened my eyes, but the darkness still swallowed me whole as I realized the bedside lamp was no longer on like I had left it. Still barely lucid, panic sunk into my chest and burrowed there, tearing my chest open.

 The sheets were damp with my sweat as I buried my face in them to shut out the darkness, the sound of that laughter, to suppress my tears in the fabric. Terror still crawled on my skin, stealing my wispy breaths from my nose before I could even catch them.

I was barely aware of Younghwi’s hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me. At first my body shrunk from the contact, but then the pressure was all around me and felt warm fabric press against my cheek. The sudden shift of the mattress under me pulled me further from sleep and I realized Younghwi had moved to reach over me to my bedstand.

“Soojin-nim,” he murmured, his voice soft and slurred with sleep but still laced in a familiar urgency. “What’s wrong?”             He began to lean away from me again, and as his presence receded, I burrowed my face deeper into the sheets. “Tu… turn on the light,” I forced out, and my voice was dissonant and pathetic in my ears. I couldn’t stop trembling, my words barely coherent and connected.

“It’s on.”

I opened my eyes, feeling tears crackle on my eyelids as I turned my head. Younghwi was next to me, sitting up on his elbow. His hair was unruly over his face, his eyes glazed with sleep as he squinted against the new, soft light that flooded the room. I focused on his features in front of me, the soft constant sound of his breaths, trying to peace them together as lucidity slowly returned to me. He looked more and more familiar, and I was aware now of the way I was gripping the sheets, and the tears that covered my cheeks.

I sat up quickly, sniffing back more tears as I wiped my sleeve quickly over my eyes. I must look pathetic to him. I hadn’t cried in front of anyone in years. It wasn’t as if I had anyone to cry in front of. Even sharing a bed with someone in this motel room still felt odd, and surreal, and wrong. All of this felt wrong.

“What happened?” Younghwi asked again, quiet. His chocolate eyes were fixed on me, soft and attentive with gut-wrenching empathy.

As usual, a million scathing remarks were already at the tip of my tongue. I told you I sleep with the light on, did I tell you to turn it off? Why are you worrying about me like I’m a child? Why are you still here?

I didn’t want to think those things. I didn’t want to say any of that to him at all.

            Just like that, the tears came again before I could stop them. I heard a pathetic, soft whine escape my nose, a lump building in my throat and suffocating me before I could stop it. I heaved one breath to control myself, but I was crying all over again.

Stop it, Soojin. Stop crying, damn it.

It was almost comical, the way it all kept coming when I thought there couldn’t be any more. Younghwi watched me choke back the tears as long as I could, and then I was sobbing into my hands like a child.

“Soojin-nim,” he said again, and in that moment his warm, cautious voice saying my name sounded like a lullaby. I don’t know why it made me cry even harder.

Why was he speaking to me this way? Why couldn’t he raise his voice at me, just once?

I heard the rustle of sheets, and then the soft heat of his presence right before he wrapped his big arms around me. He didn’t have to pull me at all; my body fell into his like a rag doll, my face burying in the crook of his neck and the warm thick fabric of his shirt. His grip on me was strong and secure, completely encompassing me. I felt his chin rest on the top of my head as he patted my hair in a slow, even rhythm, like the beat of his heart against my ear.

I cried for a while. I hadn’t thought I was much good at it anymore, and maybe I still wasn’t. The tears came on faint, squeaky breaths and whimpers, barely audible as they were all absorbed into his shirt. I could barely manage anything more than that. Then eventually exhaustion took over again, and my tears were lulled down to dull sniffles as I focused on the gentle pulse of his heartbeat.

After I had controlled myself Younghwi gently let go of me, steadying me by my shoulders as he inspected my face. I looked down at my lap, feeling another wave of humiliation. Whatever he was thinking of me now, I didn’t want to know. Then he reached up, wiping the tears from under my eye with his thumb.

“I don’t know what happened,” he murmured. He sounded like he was grasping for the right words, but the timbre of his voice was steady and sure. “But no one is going to hurt you. I’m here to protect you all night.”

            Those words ripped the hole in my chest bigger, almost enough to summon another wave of tears. Logically I knew he was speaking out of obligation, saying words he knew I wanted to hear. Still, there was a selfish conceited part of me that hung onto the tremor in his voice, the furrow of his eyebrows, the possibility that he could really care about what happened to me at all.

Why would you do that for me? I wanted to ask, but nothing could make it past the lump in my throat. I wasn’t sure what I was asking about specifically, anyway. Comforting me, protecting me, using his power to solve my problems, not killing me in my sleep…

And what about that night, when he would have rather tried his luck on his own than stay with me? Maybe he had the right idea.

            Despite the deluge of thoughts overwhelming me I just nodded, letting him help me lay back down onto my pillow. The sheets were cold, still damp from my tears, and even when he pulled the sheets over me again I felt a frigid hollowness creeping back up inside of me.

I watched him adjust his own blankets in the dim lamplight and turn to lay back down himself, and the words left me faster than I could stop them.

            “I’m sorry,” I whispered. My voice was thick and broken with emotion, barely cutting through the silence. I took everything in me to say those two words, but I meant them.

            Younghwi paused, turning back to look at me. His sad eyes flickered over my face, as if he wasn’t sure I had spoken there at all.

            “I know that I… I haven’t…” I continued, and my eyes began to sting. I didn’t know what I was asking anymore, or where these new tears were coming from. It did feel wrong, sharing a motel room with someone after so long, but the thought of going back to before was worse than ten of those nightmares.

            “Whatever it is, you should tell me tomorrow,” he suggested gently. I knew I wasn’t making any sense. Maybe he thought I was still drunk from before.

            “No, I just… I know how things have b-been,” I persisted past the lump in my throat. I was determined to make some sense tonight, to regain some of my dignity. “I told you that, that I’m… I’m just like this.”

            I said it easily enough before, but now I could barely make my tongue form the words. I’m a bad person.

            It didn’t matter. I could see in Younghwi’s eyes that he knew.

            “Soojin…” he said.

“Can we just… can we just stay like before, j-just now?”

            Those words hung between us, so frail and desperate I could hardly believe they were my own. Younghwi didn’t say anything at all.

He just looked at me for a moment, and then he lifted the covers and shuffled over to lay next to me again. His arm came around me, pulling my face into his chest as his hand rested on my shoulder. I felt the pressure of his chin on my head, a shaky sigh escaping me as all the tension in my body evaporated.

My mind was quiet. The only thing that existed was the feeling the hum of his occasional sigh against my hair, but then I was asleep in an instant.

[thestarsarebrighterinthistown]

dappermouth has always felt like the perfect artist to capture the nature of these characters, i feel like their art would suit a book cover for the main story so well

[thestarsarebrighterinthistown]

Younghwi's time in the Crescent coven was purely survival. With his curse repressing most of his magic, he fell to the mercy of the Crescent leader Foster, a heretic who enjoyed collecting familiars as trophies. During his time there, Younghwi learned the pecking order quickly and detached himself from anyone and everyone, his only goal to survive and somehow escape. It was there he met Sofia, a fellow familiar and one of Foster's favorites. He would also meet Rose, a coven member he'd end up murdering--and he'd pay the price for that dearly.

cw: implied abuse, sw + coercion into sexual favors, degradation (mild), dubious consent

--- “Ah! A-ah! Fuck, wait! I’m, I-I’m--!"

Her muffled pants against the pillow turned to a loud gasp of ecstasy as she went limp underneath him. His hand, wrapped firmly around the back of her neck, slid up to tangle into her hair as he planted rough kisses around her jaw.

She chuckled breathlessly, her eyes fluttering closed as his fingers tightened around her dark, damp locks.

“You need to go easy on me,” she joked, but her words faltered a little in another gasp as he pulled her head back up from the pillow by her hair.

“You deserved that,” he growled against her ear, husky and dripping with a sultry contempt. “Why should I go easy on you?”

She nodded quickly, turning enough to meet his shadowed heavy eyes with her doe ones. “I’ll be good,” she breathed. “I promise.”

“Mhm,” he purred, his hand sliding to her shoulder to yank her over onto her back and grab her chin firmly in his broad fingers. “You know promises won’t stop me from punishing you, you little whore.”

Her cheeks bloomed with warmth as her eyes widened, hands twisting at her sides in the sheets. “Then punish me,” she whined. “Show me how bad I’ve been.”

“Rose!”

The door to the bedroom was suddenly thrown open, stark light flooding into the dim candlelit interior and making both their heads snap up. A figure, almost large enough to take up the entirety of the door, stepped in and flipped the light switch.

In the new light, he barely afforded Younghwi a passing disgusted glance before his attention fell on the frail women still trapped underneath him.

“There you are. Stop rolling around with the familiars at 2pm and come help pack the cars,” he barked. “Foster already has people keeping tabs on you, do you want to give him another reason to make trouble?”

She huffed in annoyance, pushing Younghwi off her firmly with one shove and pulling the covers over her. She looked even worse in the light than the dark. There was a bulgy sort of curve to her nose that reminded Younghwi of a bird, like a vulture.

“You’re a pervert,” she muttered.

“God, you think I give a shit?” The man gave a scathing look to Younghwi as he turned to leave. “He’s going to kick your ass if he finds out you’re playing with his toys, Rose.”

“Then don’t tell him,” she snapped, and her voice had gone up a breathy octave in a way that made Younghwi’s skin crawl. “Please?”

“Jesus.” The man grabbed the door handle, his nose wrinkling as he gave them both one more once-over. “Just bring the familiar back to him, he was looking for it too. You know, if you think he hasn’t started to put two and two together already, you’re an idiot.”

“Just get out. I’ll be there in five,” Rose grumbled.

The door closed with another muttered complaint and Rose began to spit out a string of curses under her breath as she threw the sheets aside, sliding out of the bed and grabbing her shirt from the floor. Her limbs were like twigs, her skin so pale it was almost blue, like she had never seen the sun.

Like a hairless cat, was all Younghwi could think. He watched her dress silently, waiting for her to acknowledge his presence again. His chest was aching, each movement like needles of ice into his skin, and his hand went reflexively over the scabbing wounds that decorated his torso.

Her influence with the handlers was something he had only learned of recently, after a particularly nasty reprobation. She had arrived with the newcomers and taken a liking to him just like she did most of the men in the coven, but he hadn’t thought anything of it. A lot of women seemed to give him attention, he had grown accustomed to it.

He hadn’t dared to believe her at first when she said she could get his reprobation days erased, but after the first time the feeling of going to bed somewhere other than the infirmary had made this arrangement more and more regular. And it was good, as long as he didn’t think about anything else, the slick of her sweat on his skin, the smell of her shampoo that seemed to stick with him a little too long.

He felt his stomach lurch with the throb of his scars and just swallowed hard.

“I’m going to kill everyone in this stupid fucking coven,” Rose was cursing, pulling her shirt over her head as she glanced up in Younghwi’s direction. That bird face twisted in rage in a moment and she jerked her chin toward him. “What the fuck are you staring at?”

What did I do? Younghwi wondered irritably, but he knew better than to say anything. He just turned away, sliding off of the damp sheets and searching for where his own clothes had landed.

 “Tell Foster that you’re going to ride with me,” she said as she finished dressing and began to look for her phone. “If he asks why, just remind him that he was supposed to give me a familiar last month and conveniently forgot.”

He knew that all too well. The familiars had all been murmuring to each other about who would get "picked" for Foster's new favorite. Younghwi had figured it would be him. Foster liked to keep all the females to himself, and aside from him there were only a few other choices. But after this arrangement, Rose wouldn't let it be any other way.

“I don’t think he’ll like that,” Younghwi said. That statement would have earned him ten days of reprobation at least, which would have defeated the whole point of this afternoon. But they both knew it was true. She only laughed drily.

“Yeah, I bet he won’t.” Of course she didn’t give a second thought what would happen to him. Her irrational rage had melted away as fast as it had come, and as Younghwi gathered up his clothes from the floor he could feel her eyes burrowing into his back. “And what about you, will you like it?”

He had just put his pants on when he looked up at the question, eyes darting cluelessly. “Does it matter what I like?” he asked.

She smiled coyly, shrugging a little as she slipped her phone into her back pocket and walked over to him. “I’d like to know that you like it,” she purred. “I want you to look at me and only think about tearing me apart.”

Well, that’ll be true at least. “Would you like that?” he asked her. His voice dropped an octave, his eyes raking over her features in an dark expression that was, at this point, almost muscle memory. “Do you want men to look at you like the piece of meat you are?”

Her eyelids flared in exhilaration at that line, and she just smiled sweetly. “Just you, baby.”

It really was that easy. All that manic anger, dissolved in an instant. He could still see it, sizzling just below the surface, but it didn’t matter if he held the off switch in his hands.

“We’ll see how you behave,” he told her, and she hummed in satisfaction.

She reached out to grab his neck, pulling him down to a long kiss before turning away and gathering up the rest of her things. "Wait ten minutes, and then follow me out. If you tell anyone, I'll kill you," she chirped over her shoulder, and he watched her go out the door faster than he could reply.

Fear turned his stomach despite himself as he waited. Ten minutes. That was a long time, and they were already late. What if Foster thought he had been up to something? The idea of getting turned back over to the handlers...

Younghwi moved to blow out the candles and sucked in a sharp breath as the shift sent a burst of friction through his body. He was still rather hard, and Rose hardly cared whether he finished or not. Most days the very idea of that was repulsing enough to make him as limp as a rag doll.

A strained whine of frustration trickled from his nose--of course there was no bathroom in Rose's room, either. He sat down on the side of the bed, trying to ignore the thoughts that snaked into his mind unbidden with each heartbeat pulse through his body. Warmth he could melt into. Features and soft angles. A delicate, small frame to hold and not abuse. An ear to whisper sweet and gentle things into...

Dwelling on it was useless, and he pushed those thoughts out of his mind with another soft groan. He wasn't allowed to touch himself, and certainly not anyone else.

Finally ten minutes passed, though there was little relief as the knot of burning frustration in Younghwi's chest only twisted tighter. There was nothing else he could do but rejoin with the others, and at the very least he'd be leaving this room. Maybe he could stall for time on the way over, change his clothes from yesterday's so no one would ask any questions--

As soon as he stepped out of Rose's dorm, a small figure collided into his chest and he instictively reached out to steady them. His broad hands closed firmly around small, pale shoulders, and mortification dropped to his toes as their eyes met.

"Oh! Everyone's looking for you," she said, her voice bright but soft, and far too knowing. Her eyes darted to the door he had come from, but she said nothing else--her snow-white hand rose to adjust the straps of her shirt, and Younghwi could see the red angry corners of her curse for just a moment before the fabric covered it. Indulgently heavy-handed, no doubt carved by Foster himself.

Embarrassment was closing its fist around his chest, but even more so a pang of anxiety that made him scan the hallway, one hand pulling her closer to the wall. Surprise flitted over her features, her eyebrows raising as she felt into the firm movement.

"Sofia," he murmured. The throbbing deep in his abdomen surging even lower as he felt her soft doe eyes bore into his. "Where's your handler?"

"He sent me to find you. They want us to load the truck." She paused. "Well, you. And Akira, apparently his foot is healed enough."

Sofia. Always the worrier. It got her into too much trouble.

Younghwi's tongue ran over his mouth, which had gone very dry. He willed his attention anywhere but her eyes, his fingers releasing her narrow shoulders and dropping to his sides. He already felt bad enough for grabbing her--she hated being touched by anyone, all the familiars knew that.

Sofia waited another moment before she finally ventured, "are you okay? I saw Rose leaving."

Younghwi felt something like anger toward Rose flush in his cheeks pink, though it was hard to distinguish from the rest of the unbearable warmth in his chest. Hopefully it wasn't apparent.

"Of course I'm okay," he assured her. His voice was still a little hoarse, and it made his cheeks flush darker.

From the way Sofia's gaze darted to the floor, she could certainly tell too. She wasn't one to get flustered about those things, but the idea of her feeling shy at the thought of him... He swallowed hard, a pang of guilt tamping down the thought before he could indulge it.

"I haven't seen you around as much, Younghwi," she murmured. "I heard you've been spending more days in the main dorms. Is it just her?"

"Don't worry about me," he urged softly. She was a smart girl, as young a familiar as she was. And one of the newest. "Just get back to the handlers and tell them I'm coming."

She obviously wanted to press him more, but she only gave a short nod and turned to scamper back down the hallway. Younghwi allowed himself to watch her leave, pushing any other thoughts from his mind. Watching over her was second nature. It was his job.

Still, he was happy to see her. He wasn't sure how often he felt that way about anyone anymore.

[thestarsarebrighterinthistown]

character profiles

(updated 7/23)

---main characters

-> mun soojin

-> baek younghwi