Quit Your Waning (Over the Moon #3)

JIHAE

“Don’t go that way, babo,” I murmured to the holoscreen, hugging my knees with a beer hanging from my hand. I sloshed my drink as the lovable friend who was definitely destined to die opened a custodial closet in the hospital hallway. Sucking the beer off my fingers, I set it on the coffee table next to the project I’d been working on for the past couple of days. Cute little charms for me and Soyeon. I’d been failing to finish though, getting caught up in the exorcism genre.

Something tapped on the back of the door and the doomed character froze, staring at the handle. I gasped and pressed my back into the sofa, tapping my toes on the hard floor in anticipation.

Tappity tappity tappity.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry.”

A blackened corpse lurched out of the shadows on the opposite side of the holoscreen from where I’d been anxiously searching, and I shrieked, falling sideways on the pillow beneath my butt. My heart raced as I scrambled back up, now hugging the pillow.

“Run, asshole!”

“Miss Jihae?”

“Oh, uh…” I blinked, fumbling to pause the movie right in the middle of some grizzled crunching. “Soyeon, sorry! I got a little involved. Did I wake you up?”

She scowled at the open balcony and the still night air. I glanced at my holotab. It wasn’t too late—just a couple hours after dinner—but the way she fanned herself made me feel guilty. Ever since we’d decorated the school pod, little decorations had been popping up around the home towers and on unit doors, and I’d felt nostalgic for the dead of summer and ghost stories.

“It’s really hot.”

“Sorry!” I jumped to my feet and poured her an ice water. “Here, drink this. Let’s get the aircon going in your room first, hmm? That way you can cool down.”

“Actually,” Soyeon started. I paused, already tapping in her favorite flavor of universal ice cream. “Could I stay over with Ciara and her mum?”

“Ciara an—” I blinked, shocked to speechlessness. Was my skin overheating from the beer or the news that Ciara called Siobhan her mom now?

“Her mum said it was alright. I can show you the messages.”

Soyeon pulled up her own holotab and I waved it back down.

“If her—if she said it was alright, then of course you can,” I said in a small voice. At least it wasn’t a rasp. I cleared my throat and brushed my damp palms on my pants, turning back to the food bay. “Go pack, and I’ll print some food for you to take.”

“Thank you, Miss Jihae!”

As soon as she was back in her room, I pressed my shaky hands onto the counter with a huff of tremulous breath. If Soyeon didn’t think it was weird for Ciara to call Siobhan her mom, then it wasn’t weird. New. But not weird. We’d both agreed to take in the girls rather than room together, so it was inevitable that they’d start feeling like family, right?

Soyeon and I got a long really well and had a lot of fun, but she still called me by my teacher title. She didn’t even call me auntie, which was really common outside of family members…

Was I losing her?

Was she even mine to lose?

Whether she was mine or not, the loss felt greater than it should have. Who else would I speak to in Korean? Who else would want to eat spicy food with me? Watch K-dramas and learn K-pop dances?

I sniffed back the tears gathering on the rims of my eyes and printed up the ice cream.

This was a me problem, and I knew it.

Soyeon had been eight when she was taken. She didn’t remember Seoul in detail the way I did. She remembered her family and friends, her classwork and favorite shows. But her mind was plastic and ready to bounce straight into the next chapter of her life. It was me that was stuck.

Despite my best efforts, my lip trembled. I crouched on my heels and hugged myself behind the safety of the counter and opened the cabinet beneath the sink. A sealed bag sat right by the hinges, and I pulled it out, opening one little corner with my shaky fingers. I pressed my nose to it and breathed in the scent of my old shoes and shirt. Like a baby’s blanket, I felt calmer as I rubbed the old jersey fabric between my fingers and rolled the asphalt smell through my lungs.

“Packed!” Soyeon said, hopping around the counter with a big grin and her school bag overflowing with pajamas. I jumped up and slammed the cabinet closed, wrapped up the ice cream, and handed it to her as we shuffled out the door.

“Thanks for letting me go,” she said as I pet her hair, thick and straight just like mine.

I put on my big girl smile and gave her shoulders a gentle sway. “Mm, of course! Have fun, and I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

Soyeon skipped into the lift and waved goodbye with a respectful bob of her head. I watched her go, then slumped back into my empty unit and plopped down on the couch. My eyes glazed over, staring at the holoscreen where that lovable friend was frozen in place, the vengeful corpse munching on his neck.

With a depressed sigh, I opened my holotab to message Siobhan.

Jihae, 22:17: Soyeon’s on her way up with ice cream.

Siobhan, 22:17: Craic. I’ll print some chocolate syrup.

Jihae, 22:17: Can we grab a drink sometime soon?

Siobhan, 22:18: Definitely. We should catch up proper.

I blew the hair from my eyes and reduced my holotab with a groan. My horror movie was no longer enticing, so I put on a mindless celebrity singer show and threw back my beer to take my mind off things. Bored, I eventually scrolled through the colony announcements, thinking morosely of how the font all blurred together when it was all the same. Mrs Fareshi’s call for Halloween volunteers popped up big and bold part way down the scrolling post.

There was a lot to do: printing, hanging decorations, building stuff, activity planning… And the work was starting in two days. It put the pep back in my mood, reading off the list of materials they needed to gather. I put my name down for volunteering full time. Though my fingers shook more than ever, I could still use the design app better than most, and with school closed to prepare, it would be the perfect distraction. If I was lucky, maybe I could work with another artist on making wall stencils.

Because, yes. Maybe Soyeon was drifting away. Maybe I was alone, still, even all the way across the universe, or wherever our moon Yaspur was in comparison to Earth. But I could still make this my holiday. My time of year. It could be my slice of happiness for now. A sense of purpose that didn’t have to do with teaching English as a second language, but my own hobbies and interests.

I smiled to myself. That counted for a lot.