Part 1: Call me crazy but…
Year of the tiger, Mare age of 24, Ji-Hae is 20.
The beginning of a new friendship…
Mare was in a state of irritation. South Korea itself wasn’t a big country, and the spots for witches were even fewer, so at this point it wouldn’t have been a problem. Yet it was, and now she had even pulled along another dilemma, the news.
She thought, she had thought for a split second that she had found the lost witch from the Sae-Boek tribe, but no, it was only an ordinary cat. Trying to speak with it didn’t work either. It was too frightened after almost getting hit by a bus and having the random girl with half pink hair save its life.
That reminded Mare, she had to touch up her pink hair. But living in a place without hairdressers for almost a year was how you ended up with shoulder long hair and her natural brown hair was more than visible. In her mind she looked unkempt. But one thing was for sure; colouring your hair was best done without magic.
Back to the task at hand; she had escaped the crime scene and was sitting in one of the many corner shops in Seoul, glancing up at the small TV that was rolling over at the counter.
“A bus near the National Museum of Korea has crashed into a park, destroying metres of greenery and fence. It is unclear what made the bus crash, but it seems like the driver had to steer off to not hit a person on the road…”
Shit. This is what mother had warned her about.
It took Ji-Hae a second to understand what had happened, before he was the first one out from the bus. It was lying on its side, giving away light smoke. With a trembling step he straightened his back, looking down on its side he was standing on. Except from the pain that came from his forehead, (hand up, touching it. Yeah, that’s blood) he felt fine. No… he felt calm. This sort of situation would freak him out but he felt rather calm. Standing on top of the bus, he slowly turned around to see the chaos that had unfolded. His eyes landed on the road beside them, looking over at the spot where the bus had just been. He could have sworn he had seen a girl, with pink hair and… Oh gosh, his mothers would find out and there would be no peace when he got home.
“여기요!” (Over here!)
Ji-Hae looked down, seeing a younger girl waving her hand from the opening of the bus. He placed down his bag and he helped her out.
The ambulance rolled in faster than Ji-Hae expected. He just wanted to get to meet his study group, finish school and go home. This had been a traumatic experience in itself, but he had no valid reason to skip the study group and go home… well, asking his mothers he would have to be dying in the hospital to have a valid reason.
The ambulance staff had to check his eyes and make sure he was ok before they could let him go. And if he felt unwell in any way he would make sure to get himself to the hospital. The usual jazz, he knew about it.
Now that his transportation was on the ground, he had to walk, which would take him even longer. Irritation was building up.
Chat:
Si Bo-Ra (시 부라): An accident? Go home and rest Ji-Hae, you don’t have to come, we understand.
Nan U-Jin (난 우진): That sounds wild! What happened?
Sol Soo-Ah (술 수아): Seriously U-Jin, it’s not wild at all.
Ji-Hae: My bus crashed into a park. And I’m fine, I only got a small bleeding. I will be late, so start without me.
Si Bo-Ra (시 부라): Alright…
Sol Soo-Ah (술 수아): Gosh, you are always so stubborn.
But first, food. Ji-Hae was starving and he wouldn’t make it to the cafe to meet his study group if he didn’t grab a snack with him. He turned and there it was, a corner shop. What a blessing.
He stepped inside, not giving much attention to his surroundings. He made short eye contact with the person at the counter, who raised an eyebrow towards him and the band-aid he had on his forehead. He tried to comb his hair over it as he moved into the store with his head low. He turned at one of the selves and got a look at the girl sitting by the window. He hadn’t noticed her before when he entered. He squinted his eyes. That pink hair…
Flashbacks came back. It was that girl in front of the bus… pink hair… The cat.
“저기요!” (“You over there!” or “Hey you over there!”)
This was unusual behaviour from his side, but he just had to make sure, he wanted to know. His senses told him that it was not a dream.
Mare turned in a fright look, looking at the younger boy who was coming towards her. She glanced over towards the person at the counter, who had disappeared from their spot. Mare looked back at the boy, who was now standing in front of her. He said something to her in Korean, so she flicked her wrist discreetly and casted a language spell.
“You are the girl who ran in front of the bus, right?” Ji-Hae asked her.
Mare was confused over how he knew that it was her who caused the accident. Was he one of the passengers in the bus? She was a bit out of words, not sure what to answer.
“I…” she started, as the spell translated her italian.
“You are the girl right?” Ji-Hae repeated, placing his hands into his pockets.
“What girl and what bus?” Mare asked back.
Ji-Hae pointed up at the TV, as he then looked down at her.
“That bus.”
Mare knew that she was out of luck. Instead she snorted,
“Hey, you can’t just accuse me of that. Besides, you don’t know if it was me.”
“You are a foreigner, you all look the same.”
Mare knew he was right and Ji-Hae could not believe that had just left his mouth.
“So what if I am?” Mare said back, not quite sure where she wanted this conversation to go.
“Ok…” Ji-Hae scratched his chin, before he said, “I’m… first of all, very brave of you to rescue that cat. Second… you caused an accident!”
Mare’s cheeks flushed up, as she looked over at the TV. “It was not my intention, I promise.” She said back, getting up from her chair.
“Doesn’t matter, people got hurt.” He pulled up his phone, as he dialled in 119, showing her.
“I could call the police right now and tell them that you are the one who caused the accident.”
Mare looked at him, as she waited for the counterpart of that ‘could’.
“Or you tell me what happened over there.”
“What do you mean?” Mare asked, having an uneasy feeling in her stomach.
“The pink light,” Ji-Hae stated, “The light that pushed the bus to the side and made it crash into the park.”
No no no no no…
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Mare answered back, trying to have a stone face.
“No?” Ji-Hae asked, tilting his head slightly to the side.
“No,” Mare said, as she got up, “Now stop harassing me, I have other things to do.”
She walked away from the boy, hoping he would drop it. But as soon as she turned around she heard the familiar dial tone.
She turned around, meeting the confident face of Ji-Hae, who was looking coldly at her. To add, Ji-Hae was not confident at all. His face was rather a compressed expression of nervousness. But he could hear his mothers shout at him in the back of his head.
In one motion Mare swooped over and grabbed his phone, before rushing off with it in her hand. The language spell broke, as she could hear him shout in Korean behind her.
“야!” (Hey!)
Mare pushed the door open, stopped for a second, looking left, then right, before rushing off down the alley the corner shop was in. Ji-hae was after, following her down the alley. It became more and more narrow, and the phone kept calling, until it reached the receptor. Mare looked down, totally forgetting why she was running, making her end the call quickly. No one could find out, she had to get rid of the phone and the boy.
They turned and followed the alley down, as it now declined towards a small crossroad behind the nearby houses. The leaves under Mare’s feet dampened the sounds of her flat shoes echoing between the houses as she took a cramp grip around the stolen phone. The crossroad came closer. She listened to her gut and took a hard right, almost falling on the leaves. The alley she entered was just as narrow as the last one, having houses standing tall on each side. She could hear a female voice shout above them, as she looked up, seeing a lady hanging out her laundry from one of the windows, and a house further down, a young man smoking on the small balcony. She turned her head, seeing how Ji-Hae was slowly catching up on her. She thought that he would have given up on her, but he had long legs, and was slightly taller than her, and she wasn’t good at this running thing either. In desperate matters she pulled out her wand, holding it close to her as she did an unexpected left, ending up in a quiet and very narrow alley, one leading between two houses. She stopped abruptly, and pointed her wand towards the other side of the alley. In a square motion, she painted up a door, a teleport to the only place she could picture in her mind, the Seoul Tower. The edge of the square shimmered in a mix of reds and pinks as it appeared out of thin air.
Ji-Hae entered the alley, stopping as he saw Mare. He was too mad to even shout, so he just took off towards her. Mare saw and rushed towards the door, feeling how her movements became slow, and the alley increased a bit. She felt how her feet slipped on the autumn leaves under her shoes as she ran through the magic door. Ji-Hae had not even taken a second look at his surroundings, only focusing on the foreigner girl. He reached out, managing to grab the back of her coat as he too flew through the door. The sudden lack of movement made Mare fall on the other side, on the frozen ground outside the Seoul Tower. Ji-Hae followed, as he realised that this was not the end of the alley. He landed on Mare, looking confused down on the grass, before turning, looking up at the red-pink square that now closed into nothing behind him. He got up on his hands, holding himself up above Mare, who was lying under him, on her side. He looked amazed, but scared, as he turned down and looked at her, who looked back at him with big eyes and stiff jaw. There was a moment of realisation, before Mare kicked him in the side, making him turn and roll over while she crawled herself out from under him, still holding her wand and the phone in her other hand. She discreetly pointed her wand towards him as she rested herself on her elbows.
“What is your problem?” she asked loudly in English, as she looked around at their surroundings. They were only a stones throw from the Seoul Tower, and had landed on a plot of green, besides some trees. A couple had just passed them, as they had stopped and were looking concerned at the two human beings who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Mare pulled out a smile and waved towards them.
“It’s alright! We are alright,” she said in her broken English. She hoped that they understood her when they started, with an uncomfortable body language, walk again, turning their attention somewhere else. Mare sighed, looking at Ji-Hae, who was lying by her feet. He had recovered and was getting up on his knees.
“야...” (“Hey…” or “Look…”) he started, and Mare quickly casted a language spell again.
“What was that?” he asked in Korean, looking with curious eyes on her, as he then glanced up at the gigantic radio tower. “Why are we at the Seoul Tower?”
Mare rolled her eyes as she leaned back, falling to the frozen ground. This was a big disaster, the boy was faster than she had anticipated and now he was asking questions too. Better to just wipe his memory before anything else occurred that would place her in a difficult situation. When Ji-Hae didn’t get an answer from the girl, he got up and placed himself beside her, leaning over her.
“Can I at least have my phone back?”
She had lost that fight, so Mare handed him his phone in an untroubled way from her spot on the ground. Ji-Hae gave it a thorough look before he opened it and…
He was gonna call the police, but something suddenly stopped him.
“Go ahead and call them, at this point I can’t care less,” Mare said. She really didn’t. If she ended up at the police, she could in one way or another get herself out of there. The only thing that scared her was if the other witches would punish her in any way for accidentally causing an accident and exposing her powers to a simple local boy. But she had to wipe his memory, or alternate it.
Ji-Hae hesitated for a moment, before he dialled the number.
“I’m gonna call the police, and then I want an explanation as to why we are at the Seoul Tower and not in the alley.”
He turned himself a bit from Mare, who glanced up at him. As Mare heard him talk on the phone, she quickly got up and pulled out her wand, holding it up to the back of his brain. She flickered her hand and Ji-Hae’s memories were pulled out in a cloud of shimmers of pinks and reds. Using her hand, she fabricated new memories, changing the storyline from when they met in the corner shop. Mare’s imagination was not at its peak, but she did her best to make the storyline believable, how they had ended up at the Seoul Tower from the corner shop, the phone…
She had just passed the teleportation when–
“Hey, what are you doing?”
A voice from the other side of the plot of green made Mare distracted and she lost the memories of the boy. Two police officers looked their way as Mare quickly hid her wand, getting big eyes. Ji-Hae looked confused around, seeing the police officers as well. It felt like he had lost his track of thought for a moment, but when he saw the police officers, he remembered.
“Officers!” he said loudly, as he grabbed Mare’s arm, pulling her over. Mare tried to pull back, but it was no use. Panic rose in her.
I didn’t finish. I didn’t finish.
She squeezed her eyes together, praying to any higher witch that whatever she had put in that boy’s head would have done the job.
© Written by Sparkle
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