closed door
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sayeon twisted around in her blanket, bleary eyes opening to the pitch-black darkness of her apartment. What the fuck? She squinted at her clock. 3:25 AM, it said in neon red.
Taptap. Tap.
Strange. The sound was coming from the door. She felt around blindly for her glasses, and- huh? They were always on the floor next to her futon; why couldn’t she–
BAM BAM BAM.
“I’m coming!” Sayeon yelled, suddenly wide awake in her annoyance. Finally, her fingers poked something metallic on the floor- her glasses- and she mashed them onto her face with enough force to sting her nose. Trainee Sayeon would’ve been terrified of a potential home intruder, but Level 7 Officer Sayeon Lee was merely disgruntled at best, and as she rose from her futon, her eyes were crackling with teal essence.
It was a harsh December, and the world outside her futon was cold.
Sayeon was very, very annoyed.
She stomped over to the door, mumbling half-formed complaints to herself, ready to skewer whoever was making this ruckus… was it Iseul, who had an awful habit of dropping in on her without notice? But in the middle of the night like this..? Min had his own place now, a clean, tidy hole in the wall that he rarely left, so it couldn’t be him. With a twist of the knob, Sayeon cracked the door open… and all the anger was suddenly sucked out of her in one giant gust.
Because there, slightly hunched over in a greasy leather jacket, stood Ryujin Kang.
The hallway was almost as dark as inside Sayeon’s apartment. A fluorescent light flickered to Ryujin’s left, lighting up her face a sickly shade of green. Sayeon opened her mouth, but it stuck open and wouldn’t close, her whole body paralyzed.
She hadn’t seen Ryujin in over two years.
“Hey, glasses,” Ryujin rasped.
Sayeon flinched at the sound of her voice. Ryujin’s violet locks had grown longer since the last time Sayeon had seen her, and now they reached her shoulders, framing a face much paler and thinner than Sayeon remembered. Paler, and dotted with blood. With her right hand, she was awkwardly holding onto her side.
Her eyes were, just as Sayeon remembered, a delicate shade of blue-gray. Like dried heathers.
“Oh, no,” sputtered Sayeon in sudden realization. “No no no no no no -”
Ryujin winced. “Look-”
Sayeon slammed the door in her face.
She was breathing a lot faster now. Too fast. She tried to steady her heart as she leaned all her weight against the door. Was there a point to locking it? No, Ryujin could easily break down the door if she wanted to. In her normal condition, of course. If Ryujin wasn’t…
She looked hurt.
From the other side of the door, there was a wheezy sigh.
“...I know,” went Ryujin’s voice. It sounded rough, exhausted, like the voice of someone who’d gone a million years without sleep. “I know I-”
“I’m an officer, Ryujin,” Sayeon cut in. God, it was dark in her room. So dark and so cold. “What the hell are you doing here? You - You know where I live?”
“...I was in the area. S - shit.” There was a scrape of leather on leather, and then a strained breath sucked in a little too quickly. “Fuck, this is fucked. I… you’re right. I know this is…”
Sayeon’s blood began to heat up again.
“You left the Corps,” she said against the door, a scowl forming on her face that Ryujin couldn’t see.
A muffled scoff. “Can’t leave something I was n-never really a part of.”
“You left us.”
Silence.
The door was cool against Sayeon’s cheek, and she closed her eyes, surrendering herself to her racing thoughts. All the old resentment she used to hold towards the former fourth member of Cell 4 - all the anger, frustration, all the horrible fear that she’d done something wrong, that she was the one to drive Ryujin away - was beginning to rekindle in her heart.
It stung.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sayeon whispered.
The harsh noise from the outside of the door might have been a cough, or a hacking laugh.
“What would you have done? Follow me? No f-fucking way. Sayeon, I don’t have time for this-”
“Two years wasn’t enough time for you?”
“I’m not asking you to… to let me in,” Ryujin said hoarsely. The volume of her voice was beginning to shrink away. “Would never ask that of you. I just wanted to ask if you have some emergency Rapture, s’all. If not, that’s… that’s fine. I’ll go. I’ll leave you alone.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Sayeon snapped coldly.
She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth. There was no answer from the other side of the door. In the silence, Sayeon could count the beat of her own heart in her ears- one, two, three, four, five. Then she heard Ryujin’s footsteps, loud and clear at first, but growing quieter, down the hallway, and then she was gone.
Good riddance. Sayeon lay back down on her futon, blankets shoved in a pile to one side.
It was still freezing in her cold, empty apartment, but her face felt like it was on fire, and her heart refused to settle in her chest. Why? It had been two years since Bald- since Ryujin had abandoned them. Sayeon was a grown woman now… people like that meant nothing to her anymore. She didn’t linger on the people of her past. That was what Ryujin had become. Another lost face, far away, fading from memory…
Are you okay with that? whispered the god living deep inside Sayeon’s brain, a voice half-submerged in Sayeon’s consciousness. In her mind’s eye, Ryujin’s wan face was reflected, shimmering, in the black water filling the well.
Are you finally going to let her go?
Sayeon sprinted out in front of her building, bare feet slapping against cold asphalt, pebbles and bits of trash tearing them open. She could barely feel if. The night sky outside was a dark, thick blue, but the streets were bright from the hundreds of lights littering Seoul’s skyline, and as she rounded the corner, Sayeon saw Ryujin illuminated as clear as day.
She was lying crumpled by the fence, fingers from one hand still knotted in the chain links, as if she’d tried to brace herself before she fell. Sayeon kicked aside an empty plastic bottle as she waded into the grass by Ryujin’s still form. “Ryujin,” she heard herself say distantly, as if she was watching someone else take control of her body.
Ryujin didn’t respond. Sayeon’s heart stuttered to a halt in her chest.
No.
She yanked back Ryujin’s shoulder, and the girl’s head lolled against the fence, blood dotting her cheek like drops of ink. Sayeon’s eyes immediately went down to her side, where her shirt was completely soaked through with a deep, deep red.
No no no no no-