Chapter Text
Han Sooyoung doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Hate at first sight, on the other hand, is a different story.
She knows precious little about Yoo Sangah aside from the basics: the woman had recently started working at the publishing house after quitting her previous job, some game developing company, when the pile of sexual harassment complaints finally tipped over. It seemed a waste of her computer science degree, but apparently Yoo Sangah ‘loves the job’ or whatever corporate drivel she came up with for the interview, because she’d been hired on the spot. And to be fair, she is a competent worker, if not the most competent worker among the rest of those losers in the publishing house. She’s a damn good editor who knows what she’s talking about, and her critique is definitely constructive, if not also mercilessly brutal.
…All of which, of course, Han Sooyoung discovered secondhand. At the time she had been riding the high of her latest novel and had been slacking on working on a new one, so she hadn’t really needed to drop by the publishing house that much except for the occasional meeting with her agent.
It was during one such meeting that they first met. Han Sooyoung’s agent had just informed her about a reassignment and that someone else would be managing her for the time being. Who was the ‘someone else?’ Well, she would be here any minute now, and then Han Sooyoung’s (now former) agent could help with the introductions. It seemed like a bother to Han Sooyoung, and she hated sitting still, so she decided she could just find out whoever this mysterious new editor of hers would be some other time and stood up to go.
Han Sooyoung had been about to leave, and Yoo Sangah had just come in. They passed by one another by the front entrance, Han Sooyoung wrinkled her nose at the vaguely flowery perfume, and then a voice she’d never heard before called, “Han Sooyoung-ssi? Is that you?”
She paused by the doorway, turned around, took in the woman standing behind her: long wavy hair, big brown eyes, sweet high voice. Han Sooyoung loathed her on sight. “Yeah?”
Yoo Sangah—it said so on her ID, and also, Han Sooyoung couldn’t imagine this woman could possibly be anyone but Yoo Sangah—smiled at her. She was unfairly, unbelievably beautiful. “Where are you going? I was looking forward to introducing ourselves.”
On the surface, Yoo Sangah was everything Han Sooyoung hated in a person. She was Kind, she was Compassionate, and she was Understanding, or at least that was Han Sooyoung’s former agent’s testimony, verbatim. He wouldn’t shut up for the better half of ten minutes as he waxed poetic about all of Yoo Sangah’s good points and why she was one of their best new hires yet. After the meeting on Yoo Sangah Our Shining Star had concluded and Han Sooyoung thought she could go back home to grumble on social media about how she already hated her new editor, Yoo Sangah said, “But you haven’t told me much about yourself.”
“Urgh,” Han Sooyoung groaned. “I write webnovels. What else do you need to know?”
“Hmm… Is there anything specific you’d like me to look at when going over your work?”
Han Sooyoung gave that question some thought. She knew Yoo Sangah was apparently some sort of beast when it came to editing, but surely she wouldn’t find much to tear into when it came to Han Sooyoung’s books. And if she did, Han Sooyoung could handle it. “Just let me know of anything I get wrong,” she said, grinning. What would someone like Yoo Sangah do? At worst Han Sooyoung was sure she would point out a few typos and leave it at that; she seemed too polite for anything else.
Han Sooyoung had never been so humiliatingly wrong.
Okay, fine. Yoo Sangah had done more than correct her grammar; Yoo Sangah had torn her first draft to shreds, all while stirring her cup of pitch-black coffee as if there was anything in there to mix. Han Sooyoung will admit she had snapped a little… okay, fine, she had thrown a tantrum in the meeting room and stormed home and sulked for three hours before getting up and pulling an all-nighter to write an entirely new draft following Yoo Sangah’s advice. The woman had given Han Sooyoung a pleased smile over it the next day, then proceeded to point out every new mistake that caught her attention.
“Oh? Yoo Sangah-ssi is great at the job, isn’t she?” someone Han Sooyoung had briefly worked with before commented, when they saw her stalking out of the room shortly after Yoo Sangah had left together with her manuscript, saying she would bring it home to leave more in-depth comments on it. “She really doesn’t hesitate when she wants to correct you about something. It’s real humbling.”
Humbling sure was a word for it. Han Sooyoung just shrugged. She meant to leave right afterwards, because she had an appointment with a regular client to catch, but then a different writer standing nearby scoffed. “It’s ridiculous! Who does she think she is?”
That brought her to a pause. “What do you mean?”
“We’re the writers, so we know our story better than anyone,” they huffed, crossing their arms. They were vaguely familiar, like Han Sooyoung had only seen them once or twice lately, so they must have just started here. “I couldn’t stand her after one meeting. If she thinks she’s so much better than me, why doesn’t she go and write her own book? It’s a whole lot harder than just insulting me to my face!”
“Hmm,” Han Sooyoung said, more to give herself time to think than anything. There were few people in the office right now, since it was the start of the lunch break—just her, the writer, and the other employee, who had already escaped outside the room when he sensed the change in atmosphere. Other than them there was someone standing just outside the door, but they didn’t seem to be paying attention.
No one here knew her natural magic, she thought. No one would notice. Besides, one look, one probe with her magic, and Han Sooyoung knew the agency would suffer far more if they lost her over whoever this amateur was.
The motions were familiar, the spells muscle memory: camouflage, blind, deafen, numb, all the necessary magic to obscure her signature and leave no trace behind. “Yeah, I just started working with her, but she’s definitely a pain,” Han Sooyoung said, just to fill the waiting silence. It wasn’t even a lie, but the smugness on the other writer’s face irked her to no end. “Well, I’m gonna get going. It’s lunchtime, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna head down for…” The writer frowned, patted their pockets. They hurried over to one of the many desks in the office, groping around dozing laptops, tangled wires, scattered papers. “What the hell? Where’s my…?”
No matter how many times she did it, it never got old. The magic twisted between Han Sooyoung’s fingertips as if giggling in delight. “Something wrong?”
“Oh, no! Uh, just… looking for… you go have a good lunch,” the writer stammered, then swept some poor employee’s belongings off their office desk. Under their breath: “Fuck! Where’d I leave my damn wallet?”
Han Sooyoung feigned concern. It was difficult when it was taking everything in her not to burst into truly evil laughter. “You need some money? It’s no biggie,” she added, when the writer gave her a horrified look. “I got some spare change and all. Hard starting out in a field like this, huh?”
Their face went a furious, embarrassed red. “N-No, of course not! Uh… I’ll get going. Must be somewhere in this damn building…”
They rushed out of the office and hurried down the corridor without another glance Han Sooyoung’s way. She waited for their footsteps to fade, then began leisurely taking down her set-up, peeling the illusion away to reveal the writer’s wallet sitting on the floor, beneath a desk and just beside a trash bin. It was hidden away well enough that they likely wouldn’t notice until much later, long after lunchtime had gone and when they must be starving but too proud to ask for charity.
It wasn’t much. She had done it mostly to put them in their place and remind them who this agency’s cash cow was, not to defend Yoo Sangah’s honor or anything. It wasn’t a permanent fix either, since the author would likely learn nothing from this, their only hardship going one day without lunch.
But, well, Han Sooyoung felt damn good doing it. She strolled out of the now-empty office, feeling quite pleased with her troublemaking ways, and almost jumped a foot in the air when she ran smack-dab into Yoo Sangah’s disgustingly beautiful mug. “What the hell? You—” were here all along? “Y-You’re here?”
Yoo Sangah inclined her head. Her expression was perfectly neutral, giving no indication she had seen or heard anything, but that hardly provided any comfort; over the past few days Han Sooyoung had come to learn just how good a poker face Yoo Sangah could keep up. “Am I not allowed to be?”
Something about her was strange, right then, Han Sooyoung noticed. It was subtle, but her voice, usually so honeyed it was sickening, sounded like it had suddenly gone a pitch lower, and it was the first time Han Sooyoung noticed the lack of light in her eyes. And yet, this was oddly less weird than whenever Yoo Sangah greeted her with a sweet smile, because—she wasn’t acting, Han Sooyoung realized. This coldness was who Yoo Sangah was, stripped of her own illusions.
She shook her head of the thoughts—maybe she was just thinking too much into it. “Ugh, not like that. Uh… just…” Han Sooyoung groaned. Faced with the woman herself again, Han Sooyoung wondered why she had been on her side, even if only for a moment and indirectly at that. “Never mind. I’ll get going.”
“Alright. Have a good lunch.”
She didn’t move. Han Sooyoung tried not to show how creeped out she was and muttered something similar back, then stalked away from the door. The back of her neck burned, like those dull, empty brown eyes were drilling holes into her skin.
The rest of the week passed without event—Han Sooyoung tried not to think about how many comments she might find in the manuscript, since Yoo Sangah seemed to be taking her time with the damn thing. Mostly she kept up with fortune-telling. She also busied herself studying the webnovel market, because the offhand remark Yoo Sangah had made about how Han Sooyoung couldn’t keep doing the same storylines and characters if she wanted her sales to improve had gotten to her. She thought up new plots, added some ideas to a short-story anthology she wanted to make someday, came up with smart comebacks for any critique Yoo Sangah might decide to sling her way the next time they met. Altogether a very productive use of her time.
One evening, a week after the incident, Yoo Sangah sent Han Sooyoung an email saying she would bring the manuscript over tomorrow morning. She hadn’t bothered asking if Han Sooyoung was available then, but Han Sooyoung only felt token irritation; she hated getting up earlier than noon, but she was free in the morning, since she only ever allowed appointments later in the day. She responded with an affirmative, set an alarm, and fell back to sleep, already dreading the subway ride to the publishing house.
The next morning, Han Sooyoung awoke to a pounding headache and another email from Yoo Sangah, saying she had arrived. “Is she stupid?” Han Sooyoung muttered, lifting her phone over her face with one hand and trying to shove the sleeping Yeomryeong off her chest with the other. “It’s still way too early in the day, what a weirdo—damn it, Yeomryeong, get off, I can’t breathe—”
“You named your dragon… ‘dragon?’”
Han Sooyoung dropped her phone on her face. That hardly helped her horrible headache, which only then did she place as the sort of headache that came around from having her barrier spells broken down.
She sprang out of bed, shoved past Yoo Sangah standing by her room doorway, and raced down the stairs all the way to the front door of her apartment to recast her barrier spells, more awake at 8am than she’d ever been in her damn life. When Han Sooyoung made perfectly sure they were once more fully functional, she stomped back inside her own house and yelled up at the second floor landing, “What the fuck is wrong with you!”
Yoo Sangah seemed more amused than anything. “I’ve never seen anyone move so fast without using magic before.”
“What are you doing here? How did you—Why are you—When—” This was all too much for her poor, just-woke-up brain, and Han Sooyoung slid down onto her own couch with an exhausted groan. “Isn’t this considered breaking and entering? Couldn’t I have you sued for this?”
“You confirmed my email, though.”
“Because I figured we’d be meeting at the office? Like normal people?”
Yoo Sangah shook her head, descending the stairs and standing by the arm of the couch, a familiar manuscript in her hands. “Why trouble Han Sooyoung-ssi to go to the office when I could just find you here? Anyway, I’ve left all my comments, but if you’d like to review them later I can take my leave now.”
Han Sooyoung scowled. “Leave? You think you can just tear down all my barrier spells, waltz in here, and then leave? You have a lot of explaining to do, Yoo Sangah.”
It was the first time she had said Yoo Sangah’s name—most of the time she used ‘that woman’ or ‘my editor’ or (in her head) ‘that bitch’—and she felt the magic in it as acutely as if she had uttered an incantation for a complex, old-fashioned spell: a chill ran down her spine, her tongue went numb for one long, halting second, and she could feel every barrier she had just set up around her apartment tremble, as if in fear of the woman who had so cleanly, effortlessly destroyed them mere minutes earlier.
“Is there that much to explain?” Yoo Sangah asked, innocently. She was back to that faux-polite persona she wore around the other office workers, the facade that always made Han Sooyoung want to throw up. She felt all the more ill now that she knew the oddity that lay hidden underneath that saccharine smile. “I tracked your magic here, felt a barrier, and brought it down. That’s all.”
“No way was it that simple.”
“It really was. Truly.”
Han Sooyoung pursed her lips and did something she still somewhat regrets to this day: she tried to look inside Yoo Sangah’s mind. It was something she did so often and so frequently when it came to her clients in fortune-telling, not to scam them but to make sure they wouldn’t go running off to tell authorities about her, that when she did it to Yoo Sangah it was little more than habit, reflex, instinct.
She would be the first to admit it was no proper, refined spell: she did it carelessly, and far too obviously. But Han Sooyoung hadn’t expected how much the mirror magic would retaliate.
Han Sooyoung reared back with a yelp, her ears ringing, her vision swimming. Her head felt like it was being pounded with a mallet, and then thrown into oncoming traffic to be run over. “What the fuck—?”
“Mind-reading without consent is rude, Han Sooyoung-ssi,” Yoo Sangah said. She still sounded calm, composed, as if this situation was far above her concern.
“Fuck—and tracking me down to break into my goddamn house is the peak of good manners!?”
Yoo Sangah sighed. “I’ll apologize for that. But I’m here because I was curious about what you did last time, at the office. You hid a poor man’s wallet and let them go without lunch for the day?”
“Seriously? You’re on my case about that? See if I ever defend your honor again.”
“I appreciate it. I didn’t really need it, but I appreciate it,” Yoo Sangah said, and for the first time since they met Han Sooyoung saw her smile—not those fake, plastic smiles she flashed all her colleagues at the publishing house as if on command, but a genuine one. It was barely even a smile, just a small, upward curl at the corners of her lips, but something glimmered in her eyes, and that tiny bit of light made her feel more human than anything else she had done so far. “I’ve never seen magic like yours before. I’ve certainly never seen anyone cast so many spells like those so skillfully, and in such quick succession.”
Han Sooyoung scowled. “Don’t think you can butter me up or something.” When Yoo Sangah said something like that, it felt less like a compliment and more like the sort of thing a mad scientist would mumble to themselves while scribbling on a clipboard. Not good, all in all. Yoo Sangah’s smile was the slightest bit reassuring, but her intense, focused gaze was beyond unnerving.
“No, no, I mean it. Illusion magic is fascinating, and you use it so well.” Yoo Sangah tilted her head. Han Sooyoung decided not to ask how the other woman had sensed her magic in the first place, considering it was magic deliberately designed to not be detected. Hadn’t Yoo Sangah been standing outside the room when it happened? Hadn’t her back been turned to the door, too? Something about this was almost frightening. “And do you use it together with your fortune-telling business here?”
At least she cut to the chase. “Just where are you going with this? Are you gonna get the police to throw me into jail or something? Sheesh, I didn’t know my writing was that bad.”
“Nothing like that. I won’t tell anyone about this.” Yoo Sangah smiled. This one was fake, for sure, but it didn’t seem dangerous just yet. “In fact, I didn’t come here to threaten you or anything. Really, I just wanted to return this—” She set the manuscript on the coffee table; Han Sooyoung didn’t so much as glance at it—“and thank you. Still, you shouldn’t get into fights for my sake. You’ll find that it’s not very rewarding.”
Han Sooyoung groaned. “Can you not make it sound like I was white-knighting for you back then? They were just pissing me off, okay? I didn’t do it for you!”
“Sure.”
“And you better not tell anyone about this, or else!”
“Of course.”
“Don’t fucking touch my barrier spells again either. If you’re coming over, just tell me instead of walking into my damn house like you own it.”
“I’ll make sure to let you know at least three business days early.” Yoo Sangah was clearly having fun with this. Han Sooyoung opened her mouth to say something snippy, then realized her earlier words had basically promised Yoo Sangah could come over anytime she liked. “I’ll be out of your hair now. It was good to see you, Sooyoung-ssi.”
The worst part was that she sounded like she meant it. “Whatever,” Han Sooyoung grumbled, watching Yoo Sangah bend down to pet Yeomryeong between the horns before heading to the entryway, slipping her shoes back on, and finally leaving the apartment with a small wave goodbye.
Han Sooyoung leaned back on her couch with an exhausted sigh, her head still smarting from the rebound of that mirror spell. What kind of person was Yoo Sangah to be so wary, so cautious, that she had magical walls surrounding her at all sides, always ready to strike back at any would-be intruders? There were no chinks in her armor, no holes in her defense. The answers to every mystery about her were encased in an impenetrable fortress of magical protection, one Han Sooyoung could only dream of breaking open. She couldn’t force her way in through brute force, nor could she sneak past through careful stealth.
But… if Han Sooyoung, of all people, couldn’t get past such defenses, then there was no way anyone else could climb up those walls either, and that meant no one would be finding out about Han Sooyoung’s little illegal activities through Yoo Sangah. It was small, cold comfort, but it was something. And she didn’t particularly want to spend more time than strictly necessary with the other woman, but everything about her screamed intriguing. Just looking at her made Han Sooyoung itch, and not just because she had legs for days.
Han Sooyoung wanted to put her under a microscope and study everything wrong with her. It didn’t help that she had a feeling Yoo Sangah wanted to do the same to her.
“Why,” Han Sooyoung bemoans, “can’t you do your damn work in the office, like a normal person?”
“I have to keep an eye on you, of course,” Yoo Sangah calmly explains. She’s already settled down by the coffee table, paperwork spread out around her laptop. To drive the nail home, Yeomryeong is curled up on her lap and dozing away. “Just as I did yesterday. Is it really so bad?”
Han Sooyoung gnashes her teeth in a wordless scream. “You… You… Do whatever you want.”
“I will do just that,” Yoo Sangah says, gratefully.
Han Sooyoung groans and slumps down behind her own desk, massaging her temple so hard she briefly worries the skin there will peel right off. Maybe she could have argued more with Yoo Sangah, because having someone there to watch while she does her fortune-telling is beyond unnerving, but… well, she supposes it wasn’t that bad yesterday. Besides, Han Sooyoung highly doubts there’s actually anything she can do to persuade Yoo Sangah to get out of here.
Yoo Sangah looks away from her laptop to give Han Sooyoung a vapid smile. “Yes? What is it?”
“Ugh.” Han Sooyoung looks away; she hadn’t even realized she’d been staring. “You win this time. But don’t think I’m gonna let you keep getting away with this!”
“Of course, Sooyoung-ssi,” Yoo Sangah says, tone detached as ever, already scrawling some tiny note in the margin of one of her many sheets of paper. Han Sooyoung shoots her a dirty look she’s sure Yoo Sangah feels more than sees, then reluctantly returns to her own laptop. Normally she stows this out of sight when clients come for their appointment, because having something so obviously modern kind of detracts from the sense of Mystery & Mystique she’s trying to keep up here, but she’s running too close for comfort to her next deadline.
To Han Sooyoung’s chagrin, today’s clients—regulars and irregulars alike—are surprised to see Yoo Sangah, but for all the wrong reasons. “She’s still here?” another of Han Sooyoung’s younger clients, a student who keeps asking her for the answer keys to their exams, exclaims incredulously. “I mean… should I start calling her ‘Assistant-nim?’”
Part of Han Sooyoung wants to say, Yeah, can you believe she stuck around? Then the implication behind their words catches up to her and she huffs, “Did you expect an assistant to leave after spending one day in my employment?”
Yoo Sangah has the gall to giggle. The student goes pink in the cheeks. “I-Is she really an assistant? What’s your real relationship with her, Director-nim?”
“I said she’s my assistant! What do you think we are!?”
After supplying the student with their requested answer key (and some tips on how to avoid being caught by their teacher), Han Sooyoung pulls up her draft again, trying and failing to focus on the document. Having someone watch while Han Sooyoung does her work really is strange. It’s fine if it’s a client, obviously, but she’s never done it in front of more than just one other person. Well, at least Yoo Sangah doesn’t bother her…
“Why do you do fortune-telling anyway?”
…and she spoke too soon. “Because it’s profitable,” Han Sooyoung says, glaring over her laptop screen at Yoo Sangah, sitting prim and proper on her couch. “What other reason do I need?”
“Well, out of all the profitable professions you could have taken up,” Yoo Sangah amends indulgently, like she knows she’s doing Han Sooyoung a huge favor by not asking about her ‘promo’ from the other day, “why fortune-telling? It’s not your natural magic.”
Trying to shut the topic down isn’t going to work, is it? Han Sooyoung sighs and relents; it’s not like she’ll be telling Yoo Sangah any worse secrets. “I learned a lot of magic over the years,” she says, for once not meaning her words as a boast; it’s just a fact, one Han Sooyoung is only proud of when she needs to be. “My parents didn’t like my natural magic, so they made me take up a whole lot of other stuff. Fortune-telling was what I ended up best at.”
It wasn’t like Han Sooyoung could decide her natural magic, after all. Illusions were the specialty she was born with, and with those came other related magic: disguises, glamour, even some limited shapeshifting. Fortune-telling (among many others), on the other hand, is her learned magic—magic she had studied and practiced until she had it down to an art. Honestly, it wasn’t as if her parents approved of it either, but by the time Han Sooyoung got it in her head to start fortune-telling as a career, she was old enough that she no longer needed nor wanted their approval. It wasn’t as if they cared enough to give her any, either.
Thankfully, Yoo Sangah doesn’t question her mention of her parents, just tilts her head. “You must have known it was illegal, though.”
“But profitable,” Han Sooyoung reminds her, grinning despite herself. “And I figured I wouldn’t have that much competition—the black market near my old place had, like, no fortune-telling services at all. So I used my illusions to hide myself from people who’d arrest me and started earning bank.” She had just started university at the time, and though her (parents’) credit card was basically bottomless, she much preferred having and using money she had earned with her own two hands. Well, own magic, as it were. She had been excited, reckless, nearly gotten herself caught a few times, definitely gotten in a bunch of fights with some big-shots who ran the branch of the black market she did her business in… but, hey, it all worked out, and she’s all the more experienced for it.
She had taken up writing as a profession rather than as a hobby when her webnovel got popular enough to be monetized and physically published. If she’s being honest, Han Sooyoung doesn’t really need to keep telling fortunes like this anymore, and she could just devote all her time to writing… but stopping now would feel strange, and, well, she’s been doing pretty well, hasn’t she? No need to retire just yet if her magic’s still at its peak.
Han Sooyoung draws herself out of her own thoughts, realizing Yoo Sangah is just… sitting there and staring at her, her expression unreadable but something close to contemplative. “Uh—well, what about you?” Han Sooyoung says, awkwardly.
Yoo Sangah blinks. “Hmm?”
“What’s your natural magic?” Han Sooyoung asks. Though this is mostly to deflect attention off herself, she’s also genuinely curious; the topic had never really come up in conversation before.
“I…” Yoo Sangah pauses, turns away. She looks uncharacteristically nervous that it makes Han Sooyoung nervous too, even if it isn’t like she committed a felony by asking that question. “It’s nothing special,” Yoo Sangah eventually says.
“O-kay,” Han Sooyoung says. “That was so convincing. Come on, if we’re contractually obliged to work on this museum mystery of yours together, you might as well tell me.”
“Really, it…” Yoo Sangah waves a hand in the air. “I can tell you about it some other time. In any case, I’ve been meaning to ask—what’s that you’re working on between clients?”
“Uh…” Han Sooyoung says, not sure where to take this conversation now. Is Yoo Sangah’s natural magic a touchy subject? She hadn’t been expecting that, but she also hadn’t been expecting a promise to talk about it ‘some other time.’ It could just be a deflection… but it’s better than a bland, empty smile Han Sooyoung’s sure Yoo Sangah would have given her if they were strangers. “Fine,” she mutters. “It’s the draft for my next book. That you’re eventually going to rip into pieces, I know.”
“Oh!” Yoo Sangah claps her hands together. “I look forward to reading it.”
She sounds genuinely excited. Han Sooyoung shakes her head and returns to her laptop.
By the time her last client has left the office, it’s early in the evening—Han Sooyoung waits for the welcome chimes to stop ringing and her client’s footsteps to fade before stretching her arms over her head with a long sigh, then shuffling the papers on her desk into a pile to fix later. Fortune-telling isn’t a bad gig, but when she has back-to-back appointments and has to use her magic in quick succession, it gives her a pretty bad headache. No matter how much you master learned magic, after all, it’s never the same as your own natural one…
“Oh, is it time to leave now?”
Han Sooyoung blinks. “Huh?”
Yoo Sangah is still on the couch, her own paperwork clipped neatly together and inserted into a file folder; her laptop must be in the, well, laptop bag at her side. She looks so put-together that Han Sooyoung, despite how she’d cleaned up her office this morning of all of last night’s experiments, feels like a total slob. “You didn’t stretch earlier after previous customers,” Yoo Sangah says, glancing briefly at Han Sooyoung and then away again, “so that one must have been the last for today, right? The market should be open by now. It says so on your calendar.”
She’s practically vibrating with excitement. Han Sooyoung sighs. “Has anyone told you you’re insane?”
Han Sooyoung doesn’t think she’s ever been to the black market two days in a row—after all, sometimes it’s not even open two days in a week—but, well, here she is. At six in the evening it’s a different crowd with a different lineup of merchants and wares, but the stall Yoo Sangah had tracked down last night is, rather predictably enough, gone. Yoo Sangah blinks at the empty spot it had occupied just under 24 hours ago and says, “But… why?”
“Maybe they’re only around on Mondays,” Han Sooyoung suggests, uneasy. She doesn’t really care about this whole detective-mystery thing Yoo Sangah is doing, but she does care about what extreme measures Yoo Sangah might take when desperate… and if this is just a trap the thief set up. “Just check again some other time.”
Yoo Sangah worries on her lower lip. “Are you sure? What if they’ve already packed up and left?”
“That…”
“Ah, I suppose that would be too abrupt?”
“That’s actually pretty probable,” Han Sooyoung says. Yoo Sangah stares at her. “You said it yourself, so why are you surprised?” Han Sooyoung snorts. “Illegal merchants usually have to move around a lot, both for their own safety and those around them.” There are some businesses that are too dangerous, even for black markets, and they have to work independently; most of the time those professions are in the lines of hitmen, red rooms, human trafficking… Among all those, Han Sooyoung’s only ever encountered one of the less extreme ones, the buying and selling of rare monsters and creatures, which is where she got (read: rescued) Yeomryeong. While some authorities may occasionally turn a blind eye on small-time fortune-tellers, torture and murder is a lot harder to ignore.
Still… it doesn’t quite add up with what Han Sooyoung knows of whoever this person might be. As far as she knows, all they did was steal some museum artifacts and possibly sell them off to high-paying clients. It’s not exactly morally good, but it’s also pretty standard fare for illegal business. Either they steal and sell more than just museum artifacts, or…
“Plus,” Han Sooyoung adds, when Yoo Sangah still looks hopelessly lost, “they might have noticed you noticing them, and left before you could get any more hints about their identity.”
“Well, now what?” Yoo Sangah sounds just a touch frustrated. “There’s no trace of their magic left, so there’s no way to track them down either. Assuming they haven’t moved countries entirely…”
“Why don’t we just do this. Hey, you,” Han Sooyoung calls.
The merchant sitting in the stall beside the empty space jolts and jumps to attention, hands politely clasped in front of them. “D-Director-nim. To what do we owe the honor?”
Han Sooyoung gives herself a second to preen—getting some manners and respect after spending all day with Yoo Sangah is a breath of fresh air—then asks, “Someone used to be here, right? What happened to them?”
“Oh, that person.” The merchant looks even more uneasy. “Well… from what I know, they set up shop irregularly, so there’s no predicting when they’ll be there unless you schedule an appointment. Do you have business with them?”
“We want to do business with them,” Yoo Sangah says. “Is there any way to contact this person?”
They give her a wary look. Right, word travels faster than light around here; even if they hadn’t been present yesterday, they still definitely heard of what happened. “Um… probably…”
Han Sooyoung crosses her arms. “Probably?”
“B-But I wouldn’t know any of them,” they stammer. “Your best bet is to just keep coming back here until you get lucky enough to catch them. S-Sorry… Please don’t evict me…”
Yoo Sangah gives Han Sooyoung a puzzled look. Han Sooyoung just shrugs. She plays a big damn part in their security system, but she doesn’t have that much authority to just kick whoever she wants out unless they threaten either the market’s privacy or other people’s safety.
“Well… thank you anyway,” Yoo Sangah says, to the still-nervous merchant. “You can go. Thank you.”
They give her an odd look before retreating to the backroom of their stall. Han Sooyoung shakes her head. “Don’t get familiar with any of these people. You won’t like what you might find, y’know.”
“Hm? But I’m familiar with you.”
Han Sooyoung feels her ears burn. “Oh, shut up. Do you really plan on coming here every single day it’s open until you find this person?”
“No, that’s excessive,” Yoo Sangah says, to Han Sooyoung’s short-lived relief. “How often can you come here with me, Sooyoung-ssi?”
“Hah?”
“Of course, I have to consider your time and schedule too. It would be unfair to drag you here all the time.” Yoo Sangah sighs and taps her chin in thought. Her fingers are long and slender and Han Sooyoung really should not be looking at them right now, but somehow Yoo Sangah holds her hand up just so in order for the market lights to catch on a thin golden band around her left middle finger. “You’ve already helped me out a lot. I don’t want to keep asking so much from you…”
“God,” Han Sooyoung says, a little speechless, “you’re insufferable. Do you do this every time you want something to go your way?”
Yoo Sangah tilts her head at the exact angle for her hair to fall like a curtain down her shoulder. “Do what?”
Han Sooyoung is at an honest loss for words. Is ‘calculating every single necessary movement so I look as humanly perfect and beautiful as possible’ Yoo Sangah’s natural magic? But there’s definitely no way she’s not doing this unintentionally? “Fine, fine, we’ll go whenever you want,” she groans, already regretting the words as soon as she speaks them. Yoo Sangah looks delighted, her eyes all alight, which really just makes Han Sooyoung regret them more. “But only when I don’t have any work.”
“Of course.”
“And this is way beyond what we agreed on, so can’t I get something out of this too!?”
“What can I give you that you don’t already have?” Yoo Sangah looks thoughtful. “Let me think… you haven’t eaten dinner yet, have you? Let’s go out somewhere, my treat.”
Han Sooyoung startles back. “Are you trying to buy me with food right now? That’s not going to work, Yoo Sangah. I’m not some simple-minded idiot man.”
“So Sooyoung-ssi doesn’t want dinner? It’s a nice restaurant.”
Han Sooyoung pauses and mulls this over. A nice restaurant… well… even if it’s with Yoo Sangah, surely it can’t be so bad. The food will make up for the company. “Fine. It’s on you.”
Maybe she is a little simple-minded, Han Sooyoung internally admits, when Yoo Sangah smiles again.
Han Sooyoung rarely has to go to the publishing house in person. Most of the time she and her editor communicate through text or email, sending files back and forth there, though Yoo Sangah insists on hardcopies of first drafts for easier commenting or whatever. Anyway, the only times she has to go to the office is for important meetings or for emergencies when for some reason she can’t contact someone she needs to speak with.
This situation is neither of those, Han Sooyoung thinks, staring down at the papers in her hands. She could have just sent Yoo Sangah a text telling her she’d forgotten some paperwork at her place. Or she could have just waited for the next time Yoo Sangah would come visit, because—while she hasn’t been staying in Han Sooyoung’s office all day like the first two times—she still drops by and makes herself a cup of coffee whenever she wants to check the black market. Half the time those brief inspections turn into a little trip around the place, though; for all of Han Sooyoung’s warnings, she can’t help but want to show Yoo Sangah some of the less dangerous, more interesting stuff they have on sale in the place. She’s never had someone to give a black-market tour before, after all.
…So, well, why did Han Sooyoung up and leave her place to head for the publishing house as soon as she saw the papers on her coffee table, right where Yoo Sangah must have left them the day before? That, she doesn’t have a clear answer to, so she’s hoping Yoo Sangah doesn’t ask about it, because then Han Sooyoung will have to scramble to change the subject, and that would just be embarrassing.
Finally the door of the conference room opens, and Yoo Sangah comes walking out—after a bunch of other employees Han Sooyoung barely recognizes, anyway. “There you are,” Han Sooyoung sighs, standing up from the truly uncomfortable chair she’d been waiting on, scratching the back of her head and checking her watch and generally trying to look as troubled as possible. “You took forever in there. That meeting better have been about the life and death of this place or else.”
Yoo Sangah blinks, stopping in her tracks. A few other employees glance their way but soon move on, settling down by their usual desks and office cubicles. “Sooyoung-ssi. A pleasure seeing you here. Is something the matter?”
“You don’t have to sound so shocked. Is me being here a crime?”
“No, it’s just… unusual.”
“Well.” Han Sooyoung can’t deny that. She lifts the papers up instead and hands them over to Yoo Sangah, who stares down at the things like she can’t imagine what their purpose might serve. “You left these at my place last night.”
A man passing by them pauses, turns to look their way. Han Sooyoung can understand: it’s not often an editor and author visit each other at their respective places of residence rather than just meeting up at the office. Yoo Sangah, for her part, only looks pleasantly surprised. “Oh, is that where I left them? Thank you, Sooyoung-ssi. I’ll try not to be so careless next time.”
“Um, sure. Whatever.” Now that the deed has been done and the errand has been run, Han Sooyoung has no idea what to do next. Why did she even come here, she asks herself, possibly for the millionth time since she’s walked into the office. Why didn’t she just text Yoo Sangah or…
Yoo Sangah takes the papers and tucks them away in her bookbag. “Well, since you’re here, would you like to go have lunch with me? It’s just about that time.”
The office had been quiet before; now it’s silent enough to hear a pen drop. Or, as it is, silent enough to practically hear the little whooshes in the air as several heads all swivel to face their direction at once.
“Uh… huh?” Han Sooyoung says, stupidly, blinking at the perfect smile before her. Why has the atmosphere changed so suddenly? Surely it’s not so strange for Yoo Sangah to invite her out for lunch? It’s far easier to talk about character development and future plotlines over some good food, right? So what’s with all the jealous looks being shot Han Sooyoung’s way right now? She’s never had this much envious attention, not even when she won first place in that one spelling competition back in third grade…
“Uh-huh?” Yoo Sangah beams. Han Sooyoung realizes her mistake far too late. “Great. Just let me put these away and we can go down together.”
She turns away, heading out the office and down the corridor, leaving Han Sooyoung at the mercy of a dozen murderous glares. Just as she means to edge towards the doorway and wait for Yoo Sangah somewhere marginally safer, one of the men—the one who’d looked at them earlier—coughs, clears his throat. He’s not wearing an employee ID, she realizes, so he must be a fellow writer rather than one of the staff. “Han Sooyoung-nim… oh, right, of Infinite Regressor!”
“Yeah,” she mumbles, not sure where he’s going with this. Han Sooyoung steers clear of both romantic subplots and real romance. Do jealous guys actually try to kidnap their ex-girlfriend’s current love interest and throw them into the lake or something? Not that this guy is Yoo Sangah’s ex-boyfriend, nor is Han Sooyoung her love interest…
“Um.” He gives her a long, considering look. Wait. Does he think she’s not good enough to be on Yoo Sangah’s level or something!? She’s going to give him a piece of her mind. Han Sooyoung already has the spell ready on her fingertips when the man says, shyly, “Could you… Would you maybe… introduce me?”
The spell dies on her hand. “…What?”
“Y-Yoo Sangah-ssi just seems so competent!” the man stammers. “I’ve heard from my colleagues who worked with her that their books turned out far better than they could have done with any of their previous editors!”
“I think you should take that up with their previous editors, not her…”
“But really,” an employee chimes in, “Yoo Sangah-ssi is one of our best workers. Han Sooyoung-nim is so lucky to have been assigned to her. Since you’re, um, even visiting each other at home, you must be working well together!”
“Actually, we don’t do that much work when she comes visit…”
“Still, she must really like you,” a different writer mutters, sullenly. “Yoo Sangah-ssi never invites me out for a meal. Or any of the other writers she works with, for that matter.”
“Yeah. She comes to team dinners, but she rarely drinks and always heads home first.”
“She never smiles at me like that either!”
“She’s never come over to my place to personally deliver a manuscript!”
“Wait,” someone says, “if you don’t do that much work when she comes visit, then what do you and Yoo Sangah-ssi do at your place, Han Soo… eh? Where’d she go?”
Han Sooyoung waits until no one is looking at the door before slipping soundlessly out the room, sighing in relief when she nudges it closed behind her and their voices abruptly disappear. What, are they jealous Yoo Sangah asked her out to dinner or something? Psh, they don’t know the half of it. Han Sooyoung bets they’d be even more jealous if they knew this isn’t a one-time thing, and that they actually share breakfast and lunch together sometimes too, and that Yoo Sangah takes genuine interest in her fortune-telling and other, more tame businesses in the black market, and that Yoo Sangah once said her novels aren’t the worst among the other writers she handles…
…Maybe that last one hadn’t been much of a compliment. Still, it’s not bad coming from Yoo Sangah, so Han Sooyoung will take it.
But, anyway—now that Han Sooyoung laid it all out in her head, haven’t she and Yoo Sangah been getting a little too buddy-buddy recently!? This was meant to be a short, purely-professional relationship, where Han Sooyoung helps Yoo Sangah look for her museum thief and Yoo Sangah… uh… ‘doesn’t tell anyone about Han Sooyoung’s illegal part-time job’ had originally been her end of the deal, but these days it’s closer to ‘treats Han Sooyoung to good food and sometimes even cooks in her largely-neglected kitchen.’
It’s… kind of weird. Back in her old place, the three-bedroom house was so big that even if Han Sooyoung had a housekeeper, they could spend all day in that place together and not once see nor hear any hint of one another. Now, in her home office, Han Sooyoung basically has no choice but to perceive Yoo Sangah, whether she’s doing paperwork on somebody else’s table, making herself coffee in somebody else’s kitchen, or dozing off on somebody else’s couch.
At this rate, Yoo Sangah is going to end up staying the night soon. Han Sooyoung wants to laugh at the thought, but when she tries, only a pained wheeze escapes her. Everything Yoo Sangah is doing… Everything Han Sooyoung is letting Yoo Sangah do… are things work colleagues definitely don’t normally do, right…?
“What’s with the red face?”
“Ack!” Han Sooyoung jolts back, a spell rising to her fingers before she realizes who it is. “Oh, it’s you. Uh, er.” She coughs, looks away, folds her arms and tries to meet Yoo Sangah’s eyes without wavering. “I was just thinking. Anyway, let’s not go back in there, or your coworkers may lynch me and then you’ll have to pay for the funeral.”
Yoo Sangah looks unperturbed. “Is that related to why you’re still wearing an illusion?”
“Ah.” Han Sooyoung pulls the illusion off herself and dispels it. By this point she’s not even surprised Yoo Sangah can see right through any disguise, but it’s still unnerving, although for an entirely different reason now. How many stories has she read of married couples or lifetime best friends learning the ins and outs of each other’s magic…? No, don’t think about that. “Let’s just go,” she insists, when Yoo Sangah gives the room door a considering look. “Seriously. Or do you want some rando to demand why you don’t invite them to go for lunch with you?”
That gives Yoo Sangah pause, and for a moment she wears a truly disgusted expression on her face, possibly the most emotion Han Sooyoung has ever seen on her, before she clears her throat and turns away. “Right. Let’s go. Do you like seafood, Sooyoung-ssi? I’m in the mood for it today.”
Yoo Sangah has never repeated a ‘mood’ twice. It’s almost scary. “Sure.” Han Sooyoung falls in step beside her as they head down the building stairs, then says, speaking as quickly and casually as possible, “By the way, not that I care, but are you sure all these lunches and dinners aren’t, like, chewing through your wallet? You’re not secretly super-rich or anything, are you?”
“Oh, it’s fine. It’s for you,” Yoo Sangah says. Han Sooyoung almost falls down the stairs. “Besides, it’s not that often,” she adds, seemingly unaware of whatever the hell she just said. “It’s only once or twice a week. Is that a lot to you?”
Put that way, it doesn’t sound all that frequent, but for Han Sooyoung, who has rarely shared a meal or spent time with others for anything other than work… “No, ‘course not,” she mumbles. “Well, fine. If it’s no biggie to you, I’ll order more, then.”
Is this real? she doesn’t ask. Is this real, or are you just doing this so I’ll help you out later? Are we just coworkers right now, or…?
Yoo Sangah regards her for a moment, as if having heard her thoughts, but she only smiles. “Of course.”