#w: youngnam

[lupusxdei-a]

A SELF PARA FOR THE MUSE: YOONA

Featuring: yours grumpily, Jo Youngnam

There was not enough time.

She knew, even before she had heard the throaty growl of the hound, even before its snow-white, razor blade-sharp teeth flashed, jaws snapping in open air...She knew there was not enough time.“Youngnam-ssi!” She heard herself breathe out, though her voice was not her own. With something lodged in the middle of her throat, her voice was raspy and desperate, her vocal chords cramping, unable to produce any decibel high enough for the terror she felt inside to be conveyed.

Somehow, however, he heard her. Despite her despair at not being able to shout and at the fact she could not move, chained to the spot with invisible restraints, Youngnam heard her and turned his head around, just for a second. Yet that second - that brief moment stolen from time - was enough for her to understand. Unlike her, Youngnam was not afraid. There was no fear in his eyes nor terror on his face. Where there used to be resolution, now there was resignation and the anticipation of what was to come - and somewhere in the midst of all that, there was relief. Relief that it had all been over, acceptance that things could not be any different, and contentment that she was there. That he was not alone, in his final moments.

And just like that - the ravenous jaws of the hounds snapped open once more, grabbed the hunter and dragged him away. No pain. No terror. All before her eyes and her frozen, incapacitated body. In a matter of seconds, he was gone. She had lost him, to the hounds of the corners of the pit she would never be able to reach. 

Yoona woke up from the nightmare covered in sticky, cold sweat. With each laboured breath she drew, new droplets broke from her skin, oozing down the curves of her body, catching against the pores of skin and the ribs which stuck out. For the longest moment, as her heart pounded away and her hands trembled, she could not shake off the feeling of grief and desolation at the prospect of Youngnam dying right before her eyes and she had to convince herself that it was truly nothing but a fantasy made-up by her petulant brain. It isn’t real, she told herself. Get a hold of herself. Breathe. Breathe properly. She could not, not immediately. Her lungs wheezed and her chest ached with a persistent, dull pain, exacerbated by the mad rhythm of her muscle. She laid a hand over her chest in an attempt to calm the frantic muscle, but the sheer power of it scared her hand away, forcing her to do what, she presumed, mortals did when in a state of panic - deep breaths through the nose, hold the air in for a calculated time, then breathe out through the mouth. Repeat.

When she looked at the digital clock on the nightstand, she saw that it was three oh three in the morning and had she had the energy she would have heaved an exasperated sigh at the irony. Devil’s Hour.  “What a horrible dream,” she finally spoke, to herself and her large, lonely bedroom. Youngnam’s relieved expression flashed before her eyes, causing Yoona’s entire body to break into goosebumps. Was he alright? Was it a dream, for real? Or was it her brother’s grotesque sense of giving her a heads up? Merciful Death giving someone a possible bail-out card if said card was read correctly?

No, that could not be. You need to sleep, she told herself. Just...Sleep. Rest. But, she could not. There was no possible way she could try to sleep again, not after what she had seen in her nightmare. Instead, Yoona decided to drag herself out of bed and go get a glass of water, or perhaps fix herself a cup of tea should she have the energy for it. It took a solid minute or two to put her feet down on the floor, then another one watching her toes wriggle, and then half of another minute to put her weight onto her feet and then move, one in front of the other, out of the bedroom, down the hall and then down the stairway. All the while, she could not stop thinking about Youngnam.

Youngnam-ssi, she tried to call out. Her raspy, broken voice replayed perfectly in her head. He turned around and his chocolate eyes met the icy blues of hers. A sense of relief in him. A wave of dread all over her. She shuddered. Somewhere midway on the steps, she stopped, squeezing her hand around the railing. It was late. By now, it was likely a quarter past three. Not much difference from the time when she’d awoken, but it was late. Or early, depending on one’s body rhythm. In any case, it was an inappropriate time to go see anyone, however...She had to. She had to go find Youngnam and see that he was safe. Otherwise, Yoona knew, she would not be able to shake off this sense of dread that crawled under her skin and found a hundred, miniature nests in every crevice of her being.

She spun around and returned to her bedroom, changed her clothes from her light, silk night gown to a simple pair of white linen pants and a baby blue blouse, and then rushed back, descending from the top floor with much more energy and urgency than before. 

“Where are you going?” On her way down, she heard Mister Wong’s stern voice calling out to her from the living room. She paused when she reached the ground floor and cast a glance his way - he was seated on the sofa, legs on the table, an old black-and-white movie playing on the flat screen television. “Do you need a ride?”

“No. I’m faster. I’m just heading out to the city for a bit. I’ll see you later,” she replied after a second’s hesitation and then made haste to leave the house before the phoenix could question her further or even try to stop her.

The hunter’s 1969 Pontiac Tempest was parked on a large parking lot behind a small shopping mall, in a worn down residential area of the city, a place Yoona felt ironically suited the almost rugged energy he tended to exude. The talisman she had given him a few months back - a cloth bag the size of half a palm and packed with plants and herbs grown by her gardeners in her Purgatory realm - dangled from the rear-view mirror, already aged but just as aromatic as when she had asked him to leave it in his car. It’s a good luck charm from home, she had told him. Everyone wants a bit more luck than they already have, isn’t it true? Besides, she had chuckled when she spoke, we both know you of all people need it for what we’re doing. She had nearly cooed as she lied to him.

Lied? No, it was not a total lie - the cloth bag was a talisman and it would be lucky, in a sense that if she ever thought he was in danger, she would be able to find him, or rather find his car. If he ever called for her help, the little talisman would work better than the finest GPS human technology could produce. Besides, it did contain a herb or two that was considered fortunate in her world. So, it had been half a lie, said with nothing but good intentions. 

The talisman, thus, was still there, but Youngnam was not. Seated in the back of his car, having teleported herself from her suburban neighbourhood to the Pontiac Tempest, she found the car in the same condition as she had always seen it in - a little run down, a small, barely noticeable speck of blood, the smell of whiskey and leather and cigarettes and him. His smell was all over, the aroma she craved to breathe in but it was...Old. He had not been there for at least a few hours and considering the time of day - or rather night - it was worrisome. Was he on a hunt? Was he safe? Her heart trembled again as she sunk into the seat and closed her eyes. It was rude, she thought, to invade his...home when he was not there, and so she moved again - leaving the vehicle and appearing right next to it in the blink of an eye. At this time of the night, she worried little that someone might witness such preternatural events. 

Yoona stood there for a while, leaned against the hunter’s most precious possession, looking up at the sky. It was already four am, and the dawn was soon to break. The dark veil which had been cast across the sky hours ago was fading and giving way to the most pleasant palette of blue to look at - from darks to lighter shades towards the horizon, Yoona could recognise at least a dozen different hues as her eyes wandered the vast expanse above her, all until she heard a familiar voice call out to her.

“Miss Yoona? What are you doing here?”  Her heart leaped. Her eyes immediately darted at Youngnam and when she saw him - with two arms, two legs, an uninjured body and the most precious, puzzled expression that he could ever have pulled - she felt lighter than the wind that, conveniently, at that very moment, blew bringing forth his scent - the aromas of cigarettes and alcohol. How...Typical. Smiling wide, an obvious relief on her face, Yoona felt her body break into pins and needles and she wanted, if it was oh so possible, to run into him and wrap her arms around his stubbornly tense frame but...She couldn’t. She knew that she couldn’t. She shouldn’t.  So, she swallowed thickly and pushed herself away from the car, before working on her composure. Smile less. Don’t look so obviously excited, she lectured herself. Don’t be an oddball.

“I, uh...I was in the neighbourhood,” she said after clearing her throat. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went out and, uh...I decided to check if you’re awake. I was nearby, so I figured why not see what you’re up to.”

Youngnam’s puzzled expression dwindled once he gave her an eye-over. Top to toe, then back to the top and by the time his eyes met hers again, she could see a strange spark in them - there was humour there, some odd light that was followed by a lopsided lip. “Really? You were in the neighbourhood? For no reason?” He walked toward. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to his car, twirling them around his finger as the distance between them grew shorter.

“Yes,” she nodded. Now that he was a mere metre away, she could truly see that he was alright. No hounds had been hunting him, he was not dead and she, certainly, was not chained to the ground unable to help him. It was just a dream. “Say, you weren’t on a hunt, were you?”

“No. I was out having a drink. Miss Yoona? What are you really doing here?” The tone of his voice changed slightly, Yoona thought. He was not annoyed, not in the slightest - in fact, his voice was flat and calm if one ignored a clear tone of...mockery. However, even if he was mocking her, Yoona felt that his patience was being tried. Had she become such a terrible liar all of a sudden?

“I already told you, I was in the-”

“In the neighbourhood, you couldn’t sleep, yeah yeah, I get it. Just, save those stories for someone else,” he unlocked the car, but then sighed and looked at her again. “Or for someone who is...For example, blind.”

“What do you mean?” Now it was her time to give him a puzzled look - a genuinely confused expression, all with a blink of her eyes and a half-open mouth.

“Miss Yoona, you’re wearing slippers. And your eye mask is still there, on top of your head,” he pointed to the top of his own head, then folded his arms over his chest and arched an eyebrow. 

Stunned, Yoona closed her mouth and then looked down at her feet. Indeed, her fluffy slippers were there. She then touched the top of her head and pulled off the black eye mask. With this evidence in her hands, she felt a wave of embarrassment heat up her body and soul. Heat her up enough for her cheeks to become entirely flushed with red as she looked back at him and then shied away, mumbling “If I told you, you’d laugh.”

“What is it?”

“I had a bad dream,” she sighed. “You died in the dream, and it felt a bit too real. So I decided to check up on you...That’s all...” She continued to mumble, squeezing the eye mask nervously, refusing to look up at him.

“Miss Yoona. Look at me.” When she refused to lift her head up, he repeated his words a few more times, each time more stern than the next, until she finally did it - and that was when she was met with her punishment, a flick over her forehead.

“Ouch!” She pressed a hand over the forehead, giving him a scornful look. “That was unnecessary.”

“It was. Something will happen to me, eventually, Miss Yoona. Not in your dreams. Out here, in the real world,” he said. “I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t. Until then, try to put on some proper shoes when you go out, you’ll catch a-” He stopped, and then thinned her mouth, watching her expression change from displeased to an “aha! victory”

“You know I can’t get sick, right?” Her usual cooing teasing came, as expected, forcing something to turn in his chest. Or in his stomach? Somewhere. He huffed. “Want a lift home?”

“Only if I pick the music.”

“Over my dead body.”

“That would be funny at any other time, Youngnam-ssi. Not tonight,” she huffed but accepted to get in when he opened the door for her. His smell washed over her again, only this time as vibrant as ever, causing a pleased smile to stretch her lips. He was fine. He will be fine. As long as she had a say in it, Youngnam was going to live.