Sudongtober 2020

Bora isn’t really one to judge people. She never has been. It’s something about herself that she takes pride in. Where someone else might see a strange person that it’s best to steer clear of, Bora just sees another new person she can get to know. 

Case in point: sure, her neighbor, Handong, she does seem a bit… eccentric. What with her unusual taste in decor and strange knick-knacks all throughout her apartment (that when asked about she never gave more than a vague non-answer for what they were), Bora always thought of her as maybe a bit odd. 

And the cat. Don’t even get Bora started on the cat. At this point Bora thinks it’s safe to say they well and truly are rivals. She knows that while cats have that reputation for being smart and evil, they’re still just pets. But this one… Bora would swear in court it knows exactly how to get under her skin and actually enjoys messing with her.

It doesn’t help either that her neighbor will always defend the damn thing - insisting that Bora be nice to it even after hours of it tormenting her. And when Bora would argue her case? All she gets in return are admonishments for how she talks about it. Her neighbor ignoring Bora’s (very valid, thank you very much) concerns about the cat being a brat and instead just gently reminding her that it should always be referred to by its name, or as “her companion,” and never just “the cat” or “her pet.” 

So yeah. Bora's neighbor, she's different. And rather than making more sense once she got to know her, the woman's only gotten stranger the more time Bora spends with her. 

Sweet, though. Charming, in her own way. And always very kind to Bora, if a bit strict about what she can and can't touch around the apartment whenever she visits. Then the closer they got, the more sides Bora got to see. She learned Handong could have a sharp wit and even a bit of a savage side once she got comfortable with someone. Or how her dorky side could be so incredibly endearing once she let loose with it.

Honestly, Bora knew from her first meeting with her that she was doomed to start nursing a huge crush on the woman. Every moment they spent together from that point forward only proved her initial prediction more and more correct. 

(Seriously, all Bora had done was the most basic, cliche meet-your-neighbors thing she could. But the way Handong’s eyes had lit up at the little tray of baked goods Bora had brought her, the disgustingly cute smile, the tiny promise to return the favor when Bora had some time to come over… Yeah, that meeting alone had fueled Bora’s already growing crush for weeks.)

What Bora didn’t know was the bigger, underlying reason for some of Handong’s more eccentric and just… out there oddities. And she definitely didn’t know that the way she’d finally discover that underlying reason, would be due to her love of lemonade.

-----

"Ow! Damnit, I was drinking that you brat!" Bora glares at the cat before eyeing the fresh scratch on her hand. That pest actually left a decent sized cut.

She sends another dirty look towards the animal for good measure, only to laugh at the look on its face. If Bora had to choose a word for its expression, it'd be 'panic.'

(That's another thing to add to the strangeness of Handong. Bora's never seen such an expressive cat. It's a big part of why she swears up and down the thing knows exactly what it's doing to her.)

Even though it’s probably just Bora projecting human emotions onto the cat, it makes her feel a bit better. She hopes it’s panicking. She figures that’s what it deserves for all the times it’s messed with and taunted her. Maybe it’s not quite the emotion she’d most like to see from the animal since some remorse would be nice, but she’ll take it. 

Bora reaches for her glass, only to get hissed at. She recoils her hand, scowling. That lemonade actually tasted pretty good. Maybe not a whole lot like lemonade (okay, not at all like lemonade), but still good. Who does this cat think she is?

“Really? What, is this the ‘cat only’ lemonade now or something? Don’t you have better, cat things to do when I’m here, like go nap in the sunshine or something?” 

Naturally, the cat doesn’t respond. But it does move in front of the glass on the counter, standing between Bora and her drink like a bodyguard in front of their charge. Bora scoffs and crosses her arms. She’s not even that attached to the lemonade, but at this point it’s personal. She refuses to back down just because a cat got possessive over a beverage. 

Handong chooses that moment to join them in the kitchen, rounding the corner with a fond but exasperated, “alright… what’s going with you two this time?” 

“Yoohyeon won’t let me drink my own damn dr-”

A loud, urgent meow interrupts Bora’s rant before it can even get started. She’s heard a lot of different noises from that cat - plenty of them annoying as shit - but this one is new enough to make her pause. Handong freezes as well, and Bora watches as her gaze travels from the cat to the glass and back again, before landing on Bora.

“Please tell me you didn’t actually drink that.”

The serious tone makes Bora shrink in on herself a bit, but the absurdity of the situation keeps her indignant. How is she in the wrong on this one?

“Why, is it for a special occasion or something?” 

Handong ignores her defensive tone and steamrolls forward with that same seriousness. “Bora, you know better by now than to be touching things around here without asking. And especially eating or drinking anything.”

Her eyes roll before she can stop them. “Sorry, but I figured something as simple as lemonade could be considered safe.”

“I don’t have any lemonade.”

Suddenly Bora gets it. She’s been betrayed again. At this point Bora’s ready to consider Handong a co-conspirator in the cat’s schemes to mess with her. “Very funny, Dongie. But you’re not making me doubt that the lemonade colored liquid in a pitcher with the word ‘lemonade’ on it is in fact, lemonade. I don’t care how good an actress you are.”

Her neighbor’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean it says-...” Suddenly Handong turns to glare at the cat. “Yoohyeon, you did not.” 

Bora wants to roll her eyes again at how determined Handong seems to play this out, but instead she focuses on how nice it feels to see Yoohyeon recoil from the harsh tone. It’s about time she got scolded instead of Bora.

Still, she can’t just… let Handong get away with this little act. Blaming the cat for what, tricking Bora into drinking some lemonade that’s actually not lemonade? Bora’s starting to lose track of the plot already.

“Dongie, please. Now you’re trying to tell me Yoohyeon can write? To make a joke about something looking like lemonade? Just how dumb do you think I-” Bora stops suddenly, a strange and unpleasant feeling welling up in her stomach. “-am..?” She finishes her sentence, but her gaze loses focus and her hand flies to her abdomen. Her stomach lurches and she groans, falling back against the wall. “Oh… I don’t feel so good.”

Vaguely Bora notices the looks of panic on both the other human and the animal in the room, but her brain is quickly overwhelmed by a fuzziness that dims her senses. Hands grip her and guide her over to the couch but even that feels far away. 

“Dongie?” 

A hand moves some of her hair behind her ear. A welcome comforting gesture, even if the sensation is still oddly muted in her mind. Handong’s face slowly comes into focus, and Bora’s mind seizes onto it like a lifeline.

“It’s okay, sweetie. I’m here. Focus on me, okay?”

It takes a moment to catch up but Bora nods in response.

Handong smiles. It’s a tight, clearly worried smile. But a smile nonetheless and Bora always cherishes those from the younger woman. She finds herself smiling back, and even though she can feel how dopey it must look, it stays.

“Good, good.” Handong forges on. “I’ll need you to keep focusing on me, okay? This isn’t going to be a good time.”

Bora’s face scrunches with the effort of understanding what the younger woman means. “I mean… I feel… weird? But…” 

A finger on her lips shushes her. “This is only the beginning.” Handong must see the fear leaking onto Bora’s face, because she restores her tone to a more reassuring one. “But it’ll be okay, you’re in good hands. I promise. Just stay with me, okay?”

Stay with me. Why is Handong making it sound like she’s about to die? Her language there does not match up at all with her assurances that it’s gonna be okay. 

As if whatever Bora drank decided to further prove her point, a shiver runs down Bora’s spine and suddenly everything is spinning. Her senses seem to be working again, thankfully. But also not thankfully at all. It makes all the sensations more intense as her focus seems to dive in and out of reality. 

At times all she can feel is the way her body is shaking, her whole world spinning as a white noise builds up louder and louder in her ears. In between, she catches bits and pieces of what’s happening around her. 

Handong pointing to the kitchen. Spin. A soft pat on her cheek accompanied by a call of her name. Spin. Something about grabbing ingredients, but the words are directed to someone else. Spin. A loud meow. Spin. “I don’t care if she knows-” Spin. Did the cat just turn into a person? Spin. More gibberish about wards and potions and then it all falls into the spin and-

Wow, Bora feels like she’s gonna throw up.

At least she feels somewhat grounded again though. Before she wasn’t even in her body long enough to notice the nausea. Now she feels gross, and still quite disoriented, but she’ll take that over that terrible loss of perception she was having. 

“Dongie…” she groans, “what’s happening to me?”

Handong’s hand grips her own, and Bora focuses on the warm feeling it gives her. “That liquid you drank? It’s part of an unfinished potion. You just made it through the initial symptoms. From here you’re in for quite a bit more sensory overload, and likely a lot of hallucinations.”

Bora tightens her grip, panic flooding her with enough adrenaline to understand the severity of what Handong just told her. “What the fuck? Am I gonna die? Handong, I don’t wanna die!”

The younger woman gently shushes her, combing through Bora’s hair with her other hand. Her senses might be out of whack at the moment but her body still responds to the calming action.

“No, you’re not dying today, I can promise you that. That’s the easy part.” Handong says, way too nonchalantly in Bora’s opinion.

After all, if there’s an easy part, that implies there’s a hard part as well. Even in her inebriated state Bora catches that one. Obviously she’s relieved at the certainty she won’t be dying, but…

“Wha-... what’s the hard part?”

This time, it’s not Handong who answers, but a new voice as she arrives from the kitchen and makes Bora jump. “Keeping you sane.” A tall woman with striking silver hair stops in front of the couch and drops an armful of various containers in Handong’s lap. “That should be everything you need.”

Bora mind reels. Keep me sane? ...Wait, who-

“Thank you. Just stay close, I might need your help.” Handong responds.

The tall woman hums an affirmation and sits down next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder and watching Bora intently. Handong starts mixing things together and muttering words she can’t make out.

“Dongie, what-” Bora tries, but quickly loses her train of thought.

“It’s okay honey. Remember what I said? Focus on me. No matter what you see or hear, I’m real, okay? Focus on that.” Handong looks up as she says that, but as soon as she confirms Bora’s heard what she said she’s back to muttering and mixing.

Bora does as she’s told. Or at least, she tries. But everything’s swirling around her and the colors are so impressive she can’t help but look. She thinks she might see an elephant in the corner as well, but she tries her best to remind herself that can’t be right. 

And then there’s this silver haired chick - is she real? Bora stares as she tries to figure it out, before she remembers she’s supposed to be focused on handong. But when she turns back to where Handong is supposed to be, there’s nothing there. Her surroundings fade away until she finds herself in a void of sorts.

The fear really starts to set in now. 

Bora catches a few snippets of conversation from what she hopes is the real world - she hears Handong’s voice say something about her bedroom and wards against dreams. It doesn’t make sense to her, but she grasps at it. Handong said to focus on her. Her mind puts everything it has into holding onto that voice, but it’s like trying to pick water up with her bare hand. It drips away through her fingers and Bora’s left with nothing but a lingering feeling of what she tried so desperately to hold.

She’s being grabbed again and it still feels like Handong’s hands at first, but then there’s another pair and the noises all around her in the void swell and Bora can’t see anyone except imposing shadows and where is she someone please-

Terrified, Bora shouts out Handong’s name until she feels nothing at all.

-----

When Bora comes to… well, she feels like shit. 

But as gross and worn out as she feels, it’s herself that she’s feeling. And that’s more reassuring than any other physical comfort she could have at the moment. She can feel all her limbs, her hearing isn’t filled with an overload of sound, and the world blissfully still. After whatever that was that happened to her, Bora thinks she could go without any sort of spinning for quite a while.

There is this odd weight on her chest though. Groaning with the effort, she slowly cracks her eyes open. 

And finds herself face to face with that damn cat.

Bora takes in where she is. If memory serves… this must be Handong’s bedroom. She thinks she recognizes the painting on the wall across from her, even if she can’t quite make it out from here. And she’s definitely on a bed. 

Her gaze settles back on the other occupant of the room. Yoohyeon blinks at her.

“Great,” Bora says, letting her eyes fall back shut. “You again. Just great.”

The cat meows softly, as if in protest. Soft fur tickles under Bora’s chin as the cat butts her head against it. Yoohyeon nuzzles closer, and Bora can’t deny that it’s… nice.

She can already feel a smile cracking through her faux-annoyance, but Bora’s never been one to back down easily. “This better be an apology, you little menace.” Yoohyeon purrs in response, continuing to cuddle closer, and Bora gives in. Despite the ache in her arm when she does so, she raises her hand to pet the silver animal. 

Okay, maybe the little furball isn’t all bad. 

Their attention is stolen when Handong walks in 

“How are you feeling?” She asks, kneeling down next to the bed. She places her hand over the one Bora isn’t using to pet Yoohyeon.

Bora hums. “LIke I just went through a woodchipper and then got put back together again.”

“That’s great!”

Bora eyes her skeptically. Her neighbor at least has the decency to look a bit sheepish.

“I mean, maybe not great overall. But trust me, it could’ve been much worse.”

“Right.” Bora says. She takes a deep breath and flips her hand to intertwine her fingers with Handong’s. “And what was it, exactly?”

The hand she’s holding tenses, Handong’s grip tightening just a bit. “I told you, an unfinished potion.” 

Bora senses the younger woman doesn’t need much prodding at this point to finally let out the whole explanation. And really, Bora thinks she’s earned it too after everything she went through. She raises her eyebrows. 

Handong pauses, then sighs. “I guess what I’m trying to say, is that I’m a witch.” She pauses again, gauging Bora’s reaction. Which, fair enough. Before today, Bora probably would have had her doubts about that statement. But if any of the broken shards of memories she has from whatever that liquid did to her are real, she’s ready to believe. 

When Handong sees no signs of skepticism from the older woman, she continues. “Yeah. Magic and potions and all that good stuff. Potions are my specialty. Your, uh, ‘lemonade’ though… that one needed another few hours of work before being ready for my buyer. The effects are nice once it’s finished - deep sleep and pleasant dreams with enhanced senses to help you remember them. When it’s still in progress…” She rubs the back of her neck, apologetic. “Well, you’ve seen what that’s like.”

Bora hums in acknowledgement. She can’t say she enjoyed the experience, that’s for sure. But, not one to dwell, she decides to move forward with hopefully lighter conversation. “Yeah. I even saw your cat turn into a person. Crazy, right? She’s enough of a menace as it is, imagine her having opposable thumbs to work with.”

Handong’s smile at that is… unsettling. 

“What?” Bora asks.

“Yeah, about that…” Handong starts, “not everything was a hallucination.”

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding-”

Yoohyeon hops off Bora’s chest, and by the time Bora blinks again there’s that same tall silver haired woman from her ‘hallucination.’ 

She sticks her tongue out at Bora and then leaves the room.

No fucking way. 

Then the realization hits, and Bora starts yelling. “Hold on, I knew it! I knew you were messing with me on purpose!” She calls after her. Bora scowls at the muffled laughter she hears from the other room in response. Then she turns to Handong. “And you let me think all this time that I was being played by just a regular old cat? How could you?”

Handong laughs, but then switches over to a coo when Bora starts pouting. “Ah, I’m sorry sweetie. How can I make it up to you?”

Bora grins, sensing an opportunity. “How about… a kiss?”

If Handong’s startled by the request, she hides it well. She only hesitates a little before leaning over and planting a soft kiss on Bora’s forehead. Her heart flutters. Maybe… Bora’s not the only one who’s been thinking about this for a while?

“Mm. Good, but wrong spot. I’ll give you another chance.”

The next kiss landing on her cheek is nice, but still not enough. Bora eyes Handong’s expression, realizing it mirrors her own. 

“Almost there. One more chance if you want my forgiveness.”

Handong leans over her, hovering just out of reach. “Then I guess I better make it a good one.”

Her face draws closer, until only a hair’s breadth separates them. Bora’s stomach twists into knots but this time in the best way. Anticipation permeates the room, as if all of the heated moments, the near-confessions, all of the tension that’s happened between them since they first met, has all come back to fill this moment.

Unable to take the wait any longer, Bora uses what little strength she has at the moment to reach up that final distance to connect their lips properly. Handong follows her as she settles back against the pillow, easily taking the lead from there to let Bora simply… melt. Be consumed by the fire that is Handong.

When they separate, they’re all smiles and excitement about what the future holds. Even as Handong excuses herself to grab some more remedies for Bora’s leftover symptoms, the grin stays glued to her face. 

Sure, when Bora said her neighbor was odd, she had no idea this was the level of odd she was dealing with.

But now, as it all clicks into place, all the strange unique things about Handong finally making sense, all Bora can think of is how much she adores all of it. Every single thing that makes up Handong being something for Bora to fall in love with.

Because maybe there’s a lot she still doesn’t understand. And there’s still a ways for them to go together before Bora will feel ready to throw the ‘L’ word around for real. But what Bora does know, is that she’s ready to learn more about the beautiful mystery named Handong.

(And yes, she still means that even if it means more of dealing with that damn cat)