And Miyoung felt like she was yanked back. She tried to reach out again, scrambled to find the connection. But it broke with a snap and a flash. And she felt the sting of the severed bond as she opened her eyes to see Jihoon kneeling over her.
“Oh, thank God, I thought you were going to hurt yourself.” Worry was etched over his features. Worry for her. It caused a warm glow to settle in her.
“Hurt myself?” Miyoung asked, realizing she was sprawled on the ground. She sat up and rubbed the back of her head. She must have hit it when she fell.
“Yeah, you were jerking around and I couldn’t stop you.” His hand rubbed at his cheek and she saw the beginnings of a bruise.
“Are you okay?” She touched the purpling skin, and he pulled back, the worry gone and replaced with a stony mask.
“So? Did it work?” His eyes went to his halmeoni’s still form, but she thought she felt his disappointment.
She heard Halmeoni’s voice in her head still and wondered if that had been real or if she’d just imagined it all.
“No, I don’t think it worked.” Miyoung decided it best not to tell him what she’d heard in case it had all been her imagination.
“So you can’t do it.”
“I’ll keep trying.” She gathered her things.
Jihoon didn’t reply; he only sat in the chair she’d vacated and took his halmeoni’s hand in his.
You only need to love him, halmeoni had said.
But how could she when she only brought him pain?
* * *
• • •
Two weeks passed with no progress. Halmeoni had been right. If Miyoung took the gi of the sick and the dying in the hospital, then she might accidentally drain them, killing them in the process. Then she’d be the monster she claimed she didn’t want to be anymore.
So Miyoung scoured the city, finding relics and objects rumored to hold some spark of energy. At one point she spent a whole afternoon trying to see if she could pull energy from an old Joseon vase rumored to have once been a dokkaebi. She’d achieved nothing other than shattering the vase.
And with her energy waning, she couldn’t handle the physical demands of searching the whole city for an answer.
Miyoung leaned over the bathroom sink and let the water flow into her cupped hands. She was grateful there weren’t many visitors in this wing of the hospital so she could be sick in private. Her mouth still tasted like bile, and her stomach still rocked like she was standing on a boat in the middle of the sea.
Leaning against the counter, she studied her sallow face in the mirror. It was getting worse.
The closer she got to the hundred-day mark, the worse she felt. Sometimes she was so hazy, she felt like she was walking through a dream, one she couldn’t wake from. But during moments when the pain was at its peak, she yearned for the fugue-like state.
“Keep it together, Gu Miyoung,” she said to her reflection. “You don’t need to last much longer.” The pep talk didn’t really work, but a part of her figured if she was talking, at least she wasn’t throwing up.
She made her way up the hall toward Halmeoni’s room. She took a minute outside to straighten her shirt. She rubbed at a small stain, hoping it wasn’t vomit, but not completely discounting that possibility.
Finally, she slid the door open and gave a small sigh of relief when she saw Jihoon wasn’t there yet. Just Halmeoni and her new roommate, who was fast asleep, with only the sound of the monitors.
Miyoung sat and rested her head against Halmeoni’s cool arm. It worried her that the woman’s skin was cold to the touch, but the sensors measured out her slow heartbeats, assuring Miyoung that Halmeoni was still alive. For now.
She almost jumped at the buzz of her phone.
Yena’s name flashed across the screen and she wanted to ignore it, but remembered her mother’s warning not to miss her calls.
“Hello?” The word was hardly out when Yena’s shouting voice came through the line.
“You’re in Seoul? Why would you go back there without my permission?”
“Because—”
“And to get Junu to lie to me with my own money, as if I wouldn’t notice the withdrawals in such huge sums?”
Miyoung scowled. “So he told you. Traitor.”
“Don’t blame this on him. This is all on you and your continuously horrible judgment. Are you with him?” Miyoung knew that