Chapter Twenty-One #4
“Okay,” I said. “Yes, please do whatever you have to do to save him.”
“What about him?” Hyebin said, gesturing at Hong Gildong, who was still curled up in the corner.
The dragon huffed out a breath, and Otohime laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, Hyebin-nim,” she said. “We have plans for him as well.”
A hand gripped my sleeve, and I looked down at Yejun, whose eyes were now barely open.
“Hey,” I said, taking his hand. “It’s okay. Otohime is going to help you.”
He made a wordless sound of acknowledgment. I squeezed his hand a bit too hard until his eyes opened wider.
“If you can hold on for another minute, you might want to do this first,” Hyebin said, kneeling in front of us. She passed me a notebook and two pens.
“What’s this for?” I said.
“I figured there are some things you might want to remember,” Hyebin said with a shrug. “If you want to write yourselves notes, I can drop them off at the restaurant for you to pick up later.”
I glanced over Hyebin’s shoulder at Otohime. “Is that okay?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened,” she said with a soft smile.
I turned back to Hyebin. “Thank you,” I said. “Not just for this but … everything. And I’m sorry.”
Hyebin crinkled her nose and waved her hands as if wiping my words out of the air. “It’s in the past,” she said. “And for what it’s worth, you weren’t wrong about me, even if you were pretty rude about it.”
I shook my head quickly. “I was wrong,” I said. “When I said no one cared about you, that wasn’t true. I’ve always cared about you, Sunbae.”
Hyebin’s face scrunched up like she’d eaten something sour. “Don’t get sappy on me,” she said. “And don’t expect me to say that back. I literally went behind my boss’s back for you, so read between the lines.”
“Got it,” I said with a smile.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I tore off a piece of paper for Yejun and helped him hold a pen, then hurried to jot down my own note.
Yejun only scrawled a quick note before folding it in half and setting the pen down with a shaking hand.
“That’s all you’re going to write?” I said.
Yejun nodded. “I’m not worried,” he said, smiling palely.
“How can you not be worried?” I said. “So much has happened.”
He coughed, clearing his throat. “I don’t need a note to remember how I feel about you,” he said. “It’s inevitable.”
My face was suddenly on fire, even before my mom let out a happy squeal behind me. “Are you two officially dating now?” she said, tugging my dad’s arm in excitement. “Mina, he’s so handsome!”
“Mom!” I groaned.
“Actually, this is perfect,” my dad said. “They’re both descendants, so their children won’t have diluted powers, but their ancestors are different, so they can skip all the genetic testing.”
“Dad!” I said. Even Yejun flushed red at this comment. This was one part of the day I wouldn’t mind forgetting.
“Are we all ready?” Otohime said, smiling.
I hurried to finish my note, then handed it to Hyebin. I laced my fingers with Yejun’s, turned to Otohime, and nodded.
The scales along the dragon’s body began to glow. I winced at the sudden light that swallowed the room, so much like the paradox, but this time full of warmth instead of emptiness. Otohime set her hand on the dragon’s head, and the whole world was swallowed by brilliant, blazing gold.
I spotted Yejun in the crowd at the political rally right away.
It was hard not to—he was wearing a raincoat in a glaring shade of blue and waving at me so enthusiastically that he nearly elbowed someone else in the eye. No one had the right to look that carefree with a loaded gun under their jacket, but then of course, this was Kim Yejun.
I made my way toward him through the dense crowd, but it took long enough that his arm started getting tired and his waving looked more like a tree swaying in the breeze.
“Stop before you dislocate your shoulder,” I said when I finally reached him, poking him in the side.
“Just wanted to make sure you saw me,” he said with a smile.
I rolled my eyes. “Try to look a little less joyful,” I said. “You’re supposed to be on a mission.”
“Right, right,” he said, smoothing out his expression. “How’s this?” He scowled at me, and I choked back a laugh.
The last time I’d seen Yejun, we’d gone back in time to feed peanut butter to pigeons in order to set the stage for this final mission.
We were supposed to meet again in the morning before the rally so I could take his Kevlar vest, but I’d had an unexpected visitor at my apartment before I could step out the door.
“Did you know that the restaurant between dimensions serves brunch?” I said.
Yejun raised an eyebrow. “What, like American brunch?”
“Yeah, pancakes and everything, but only before one o’clock. I’d never been there that early before, but Hyebin dragged me there this morning.”
Yejun looked up sharply. “Did she?” he said, his voice oddly light. “That’s funny, she made me grab a coffee with her there right before I got here. She’s not even my mentor, so she basically just kidnapped me.”
“That sounds like her,” I said.
Yejun jammed his hands in his pockets, suddenly fascinated with his shoelaces. “How … how were the pancakes?” he said after a moment.
“They were awful,” I said, “but is that really what you want to ask me?”
Yejun swallowed, then met my gaze for a brief moment before looking back down. For the first time since I’d met him, he looked like he wanted to hide his head in the sand. What had happened to the cool, confident Yejun I knew?
“Did you happen to find anything unusual there?” he said at last.
I reached out and took his hand.
His gaze snapped toward me, his hand tensing around mine. “Mina—”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” I said, leaning against him. “I found a letter. A pretty long one, actually. But the gist of it is that we don’t have to worry about this mission anymore. Oh, and that there definitely isn’t going to be a war, so I shouldn’t shoot anyone.”
That hadn’t been all of it, of course. There was a lot about how I should trust Yejun and not doubt my parents’ love and how Hana was always with me even though I was never going to find her.
But none of it mattered, because I hadn’t needed the letter at all.
As the dragon’s golden light had devoured Hong Gildong’s office and carried all of us into a gilded sea, a hand had shielded my eyes from the apex of brightness.
Thank you, Mina, a woman’s voice had whispered in my ear, though it might have been nothing more than the song of wind across a vast blue sea.
When I’d opened my eyes, I remembered.
I remembered the endless eyes of a dragon, and a princess of the sea, and stars in the shape of a clock and pendulum.
I remembered the heat of Yejun’s blood on my hands, the sting of my fangs in my lip, the sound of Hong Gildong’s cry as I seized his yeouiju.
I remembered Hyebin, and Seulgi, and my parents, and Yejun, and the warmth of a hand on my shoulder that no one else could see.
Yejun laughed, the sound bright as starlight. “Yeah, definitely don’t shoot anyone today,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I didn’t even bring a gun.”
“Me neither,” Yejun said, pulling back his jacket to show that he wasn’t wearing a holster.
“Did you get a note?” I asked, when it seemed like he wasn’t going to volunteer the information himself.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” he said, looking over his shoulder as if something incredibly interesting was happening to the trash can five feet away.
“And what did it say?”
He let out a sharp laugh. “Not much, actually,” he said. “Just that I should stop being an idiot and do it already.”
I frowned. “Do what?”
He took a deep breath, then met my gaze.
“This,” he said.
Then he put a hand on my waist, pulled me close, and kissed me.
Cheers rose up around us as Min Sungho stepped out of the car and onto the walkway, but my whole world was Yejun, his hands on my face, his heartbeat so loud against mine, and the glimmer of our magic tangled together.