Chapter 60: Temple Invitation
Camphor and dried orange peel drift from the apothecary shelves, mingling with the low whir of a ceiling fan that chops the afternoon heat into manageable slices. Yujin lifts her head as the doorbell tings.
"Perfect timing," she calls, waving me past the rows of tincture bottles. "Hand, please."
I offer the freshly bandaged palm. Beneath the gauze the cut throbs in time with my pulse—a reminder of mirror teeth and old panic. Yujin peels away the stained wrap, tsks at the tenderness, and swabs iodine across the skin.
"Needs antiseptic, not self-blame," she says, voice as brisk as her cool fingertips. A new strip of gauze settles across the wound like snow on red clay.
When she finishes, she pours two paper cups of barley tea. "Chungseok-sa is folding lotus lanterns this evening—starts at five. Good practice for that breathing rule you mentioned." Her eyes study mine over the rim of the cup. "Come help?"
The suggestion lands softly, yet my chest tightens at the thought of chanting halls and strangers' eyes. Still, I hear myself answer, "I'd like that," and feel a coil of curiosity loosen the knot of dread.
Back at the café locker room the fryer crackles with leftover oil, and Min-ji is elbow-deep in dishwater. She cocks an eyebrow when I mention the temple.
"Temple air beats dish-soap fumes," she says, slapping a borrowed parka onto my arms. "But wash first—you smell like a walking mandu."
She taps her phone to mine, loading a transit pass. "Local bus leaves at half-past four. Don't ghost us, city bean sprout."
The 4 : 30 bus wheezes up the hill road like an asthmatic dragon. Rust-flecked seats tremble with every gear shift; a cracked window lets in gusts of pine and diesel. I claim a seat near the back, parka tucked over my knees.
Three taps on my thigh. Ready?
Always, Ha-eun answers, her voice a silver thread weaving through engine growls. Together we follow Yujin's 4-7-8 pattern: inhale through the nose for four beats, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Each breath synchronises with the bus's rattling frame until the anxiety hum recedes to background static. When a jolt pitches the cabin, I touch gauze to reassure myself—the signal-before-surge pact is holding.
A bronze gong still vibrating from a recent strike greets us at Chungseok-sa's outer gate, its note hovering in the crisp mountain air. Statues of the Four Heavenly Kings flank the staircase, stone eyes stern yet somehow welcoming. Sunset light slants between cypress trunks, gilding every worn step.
Old earth knows us, Ha-eun murmurs, resonance deepening inside my sternum as though the gong has awakened her bones.
I climb without stopping. Incense smoke follows the staircase like a silk ribbon, tinting the air with pine resin and faint pepper. At the top Yujin waits beside a wooden lintel painted with lotus blooms. She bows; I mirror the motion, surprised by how naturally my spine folds into the gesture.
In the guest hall Ven. Dae-ho, a monk with laugh-lines carved like riverbeds around his eyes, pours barley tea into clay cups. Heat seeps through the vessel into my bandaged hand.
"Thank you for lending your hands," he says. His gaze lingers on my face—not unsettling, merely observant, as though he sees more than skin. "I notice two flames learning one wick. Tend them kindly."
My breath snags. The monk's eyes flick toward empty space at my shoulder; Ha-eun answers with a hum that vibrates against my ribs. Recognition flickers in his smile, and he turns to Yujin to discuss paper supplies, leaving me blinking steam and wonder.
The storage chamber smells of rice paste and old cedar. Wire lotus frames lie stacked like skeletal bowls, while rolls of pastel hanji lean against the wall—rose, jade, moon-white. Yujin demonstrates: fold the square twice, twist the base, tuck into a petal slot. Her movements are economical, almost musical. My first attempt is lopsided, but the second holds its shape, and satisfaction glows warm beneath my ribs.
"Tomorrow we add candles," she says. "Tonight is just practice."
Paper crackles pleasantly; colours bloom in soft lantern light as if the room itself exhales hope.
A wooden fish drum pulses from the main hall, calling monks and visitors to brief evening chanting. We join the small line of laypeople shuffling inside. Statues of Amita Buddha glint in dusk's subtle gold, and a hush like fresh snow settles over my shoulders.
Kneeling on a straw mat, I follow Yujin's lead: palms together, forehead to floor, rise—three bows marking respect to past, present, future. Each bow aligns breath with movement; each exhale shakes loose a dusting of fear. Monks begin their chant:
"NAMO AMITABUL… NAMO AMITABUL…"
The syllables reverberate through the cavernous hall, chorus folding over chorus until I can no longer separate my heartbeat from the chant's low tide. Ha-eun's presence threads the sound, not dominating, simply harmonising. For five minutes I taste quiet that is not absence but space—wide enough for two souls.
Work will begin in earnest next chapter—bins of frames already wait in the workshop—but Ven. Dae-ho dismisses us early so Yujin can walk me through the courtyard. Roof tiles catch the last flare of sun, turning them persimmon and brass. Swallows carve black commas across the sky.
I step onto the balcony overlooking the valley; evening fog gathers like silk around distant fields. Phone vibrates—Min-ji: Kitchen survived. You alive?
Made it, I text back. Lanterns look easier than dishes. A laughing emoji fires back, and for once it doesn't feel trivial.
Something hard nudges my thigh: the mirror shard, still hitching a ride in my coin pocket. I hold it up; sunset ignites its broken face into a fleeting star. My grip is steady now—no tremor, only awareness. I tuck it safely away.
Proud, little crane, Ha-eun whispers, voice clear, unwavering. Warmth—like a silver thread pulled gently through muscle—spreads across my chest.
Temple bells toll the hour. Tomorrow the real folding begins, and lanterns will bloom under these eaves. I breathe deep—pine, incense, cooling clay—then follow Yujin toward the supply room, ready to learn how paper, wire, and steady hands can coax light from the dark.
Chapter 61: Paper-Lotus Folding
Wheat-paste and pine resin perfume the workshop hall, a scent both homely and herbal like a grandmother's hug left to dry in sunlight. Warmth seeps up from the ondol floor into my knees as I kneel beside a low lacquered table piled high with wire frames. Ven. Dae-ho squats at the head of the group, palms moving with the unhurried grace of falling petals.
"Two folds," he says, creasing a square of pale-pink hanji down the spine of his thumb. "Half-twist, then tuck." His fingers slide the paper point into a scalloped pocket on the lotus frame, and a perfect petal blooms. He does it once more, slower, then places the frame in front of me.
I try to imitate him: fold, fold—too sharp; twist—too loose. The paper wilts, trembling in sympathy with my own hands. I glance around. On my left sits a stooped halmeoni with silver hair bound in a kerchief the color of persimmons; her gnarled fingers glide through the motions as if the petal were made of water. On my right another grandmother hums a hushed verse of "Jeongseon Arirang." The melody rides her breath like silk on wind, and soon the second voice joins, weaving harmony.
Steady now, Ha-eun murmurs from the quiet alcove behind my ribs. Let their rhythm hold you.
I match the humming cadence—fold on the first phrase, twist on the second, tuck on the gentle sigh that ends each line. To my surprise the paper obeys, unfurling into a soft curve. One petal. Then another. Tremor eases, not gone but tamed, like a skittish foal soothed by song.
Yujin pads over in temple slippers, places a small dish of antiseptic wipes beside me, and checks my bandaged palm with a quick nurse's glance. Satisfied, she slides a fresh stack of hanji into the empty space between the two grandmothers and me—delicate pastels of jade and butter-cream.
"Petals love company," she says. "So do people."
The halmeoni to my left chuckles, eyes disappearing in pleats. "City hands learn fast." She nudges my elbow. "Keep folding. Lantern parade needs three thousand blossoms."
Under their watchful kindness I lose track of time. The rasp of paper, the swish of cloth sleeves, the gentle thrum of the moktak drum outside fuse into a meditative heartbeat. Petal after petal clicks into place; frames accumulate in tidy rows like sleeping swans.
The sun is a blood-orange smear on the western ridge when a novice monk announces recess. My shoulders groan as I stand. We shuffle onto a side veranda where a kettle of steaming yuzu tea waits on a brazier. I cradle the clay cup, inhale sweet citrus, and massage the acupoint three finger-widths above my wrist.
Ha-eun retreats—no words, only a warm pulse of approval—and the world settles into a clearer focus. Ten minutes pass with idle chatter about weather and the price of cabbages. I realise in a flutter of pride that I am upright, unassisted, and my heartbeat is a calm eighty-eight.
We regroup at a courtyard hearth where cauldrons of molten beeswax simmer, scenting the night with honey and smoke. Each wick is a slender thread on a bamboo skewer. I lower mine into the golden pool; wax clings, cooling into a translucent coat. Second dip, third—layer after patient layer—soon the thread becomes a candle slim as a quill.
As the wick emerges a filament of silver light spirals through the wax, vanishing before I can blink. Wind snakes between the eaves, carrying a faint, throaty rumble—half breeze, half growl. I stiffen.
Not yet, Ha-eun whispers, voice a feather against my ear. A promise, not a threat. The wind dies. Wax stills into amber glass. I exhale, dip again.
We spill into the stone courtyard for fresh air. Lantern frames, now sheathed in blossoms, tower behind us in neat crates. Yujin presses a warm packet into my hands—roasted chestnuts peeled and glistening.
"Lantern procession gathers at sunset tomorrow," she says, watching me crack a shell. "Walk beside me?"
The invitation glows brighter than the brazier embers. "If my hands still work," I laugh.
"They will," she answers. "They're learning."
My phone buzzes—a voice note from Min-ji. I tap play:
"Origami retreat, huh? Don't come back enlightened—Madam still needs dish-pit warriors. Fighting, sprout-ah!"
I grin, send a thumbs-up selfie with paper petals haloing my head like lop-sided blossoms.
Oil lamps sputter, painting long shadows across tatami as we tackle the last pile of petals. My wrists ache, muscles twitch, but the rhythm is muscle memory now: fold-fold, half-twist, tuck. A jade sheet nicks my index finger. Blood beads scarlet against green. Instinct says call Yujin; a steadier instinct remembers autonomy. I fetch an antiseptic wipe, disinfect, bandage. Simple, sufficient. Proof.
Petal number one hundred eight slides into the final frame at 23 : 57. A quiet cheer flutters through the hall. Frames stand stacked like lotus lakes frozen mid-bloom—108 lanterns, cleansing number of the sutras.
Ven. Dae-ho leads us through sliding doors into a small wooden shrine lit by a single butter lamp. We set the crates at the altar's foot. He rings a hand bell, its tone clear as mountain ice, and chants a brief dedication:
"Petals wait for flame; so does spirit."
The words vibrate through my sternum, echoing lines of a story still being written. Ha-eun hums in resonance, then falls silent—content.
Yujin and I descend the stone staircase toward the sleeping village. Moonlight pours across the path, silvering pine needles and roof tiles. My steps are sure, the tremor a distant echo. Crickets trade gossip in the grass, and somewhere beyond the ridge a ceremonial drum booms—one slow beat, then another—summoning tomorrow's celebration.
I tighten the parka around my shoulders, mirror shard cool in my pocket. The road bends toward the bus stop, and each breath tastes of honey-wax, pine smoke, and the sweet promise of lantern light. Behind us, in the temple courtyard, 108 paper lotuses wait—petals poised, wicks quietly dreaming of fire.
Tomorrow, I think, and Ha-eun echoes, Tomorrow.
Chapter 62: Lantern Procession
Dusk stains the temple courtyard a deep persimmon when the first wick catches. Beeswax flares, petals blush from within, and the lotus lantern in my hands seems to inhale—alive for one trembling heartbeat before it settles into a steady glow. All around me volunteers nudge flames into being, their faces gilded by the newborn light. Incense coils burn overhead, exhaling sandalwood that drifts and curls through the rafters like sleepy dragons.
Yujin appears at my elbow, cheeks rosy from the brazier's heat. She tightens the indigo sash across my jacket and tucks a flat silver packet into the sleeve. "Electrolytes," she whispers. "Drink if the crowd squeezes your lungs."
I flex my fingers. They are dry tonight, free of paste and blood, though the faint slice from yesterday's folding stings under its strip. "I'll manage," I answer, hoping it is true.
Ven. Dae-ho strikes the temple drum—one resonant boom that rolls across the courtyard and into the cedar hills. Lanterns sway as though bowing to the sound. The abbot's voice is calm thunder: "May each light remind us of the breath we share." Monks file toward the south gate; behind them fall the town's café crew, market vendors, and half the elementary school in mismatched hanbok. I slot into their wake, lantern pole braced at my hip.
The procession narrows through the gateway, and bodies press close—wool sleeves against cotton, murmurs against throat. My pulse flutters. Three taps, I remind myself, thumb drumming my wrist; then I catch the four-count breath Yujin taught me: in two three four, hold, out two three four. The tremor answering the surge of adrenaline ebbs before it crests.
Well done, Ha-eun murmurs, a silver thread behind my breastbone, but she does not reach for the reins. I tighten both hands on the bamboo pole and step forward.
The temple road spills into the village's main street, now cleared of scooters and lined with paper moons. Their pale faces glow like watchful spirits above doorways. Drums settle into a walking cadence—doom-doom, ta-ta, doom-doom—and our feet adopt the rhythm on the cracked asphalt.
Min-ji darts through the column, her phone held overhead. "Seoul eonni looks like a glowing dumpling!" she laughs, sweeping the camera toward me. I roll my eyes, but she beams, satisfied, before vanishing among the schoolchildren swirling behind her.
Children's voices rise in a playful chant—ARIRANG, ARIRANG—verses bending beneath giggles. Lanterns ripple in the dusk, casting fish-scale reflections across shuttered shop windows. For the first time in months I feel weightless, anchored not by numbers or shame but by the collective warmth of strangers walking the same direction.
We reach the low bridge where river reeds hiss in the onshore breeze. A sudden gust licks down the line, puffing out half a dozen lanterns like candles on birthday cake. Shadows swallow us; only the monks' torches survive, points of amber weaving in the dark.
Someone fumbles with flint. In the breathless pause, a filament of silver light coils above the procession, winding into shape—a feline spine, broad paws, ears pricked against the twilight. Flame gathers, bone-white at the core, ember-orange at its edges, until a full-grown tiger made of fire prowls atop the unlit lanterns.
My throat locks. The world narrows to heartbeat and hush.
I see it, Ha-eun breathes, voice threaded with astonishment.
The lanterns reignite in a small roar of returning light, yet the apparition does not fade. It paces, tail lashing sparks that tumble but never burn. No one else looks up; the crowd's chatter resumes as if the beast were stitched into a private dimension.
The tiger turns. Eyes molten-amber pin me where I stand. I forget to breathe. Somewhere distant, a drumbeat falters.
The creature lowers its head in what might be a bow—then leaps, silent, over rooftops toward the pine-dark ridge, scattering comet-trails that wink out before they touch stone. In three breaths it is gone, leaving only the ordinary lantern sea and the echo of heat along my skin.
"Seo-yeon!" Yujin's hand clamps my shoulder; my lantern pole has tilted, fringe nearly brushing the asphalt. "You stopped breathing."
I blink, drag air down a throat tasting of metal and pine sap. "Just—dizzy breeze." I straighten the lantern, join the chant's next stanza without missing a syllable. NAMO AMITABUL, NAMO AMITABUL—words emerge steady, though my heart sprints.
External, Ha-eun whispers, wonder lacing every syllable. A spirit beyond us.
I file the certainty away, where fear can't yet reach it.
Lanterns climb the courtyard eaves one by one, turning the tiled roof into a floating galaxy. Ven. Dae-ho's final triple-drum flourish booms against the mountainside, then silence settles like silk. Volunteers exhale in unison. I set my lantern into its cradle; the light flickers, alive and safe.
My fingers are still. No tremor. No shards of panic. Only an afterglow humming beneath my ribs.
Yujin herds me toward a stone bench beneath blooming jasmine. Night air carries the blossoms' sweet, faintly medicinal scent.
"What actually happened on the bridge?" she asks, pushing damp hair from her brow. "Your lips were grey."
I roll the electrolyte packet between my palms. How to explain a tiger of living fire? "I spaced out," I say. "Sound dropped and…I'll tell you, just not here." The honesty is partial, but true enough not to taste like a lie.
She studies me, then nods. "Dae-ho wants dawn tea. Omens, he said." Her smile is thin-edged curiosity. "Maybe you should accept."
"I will." I tuck the packet into my pocket beside the mirror shard, its edges cool through cloth.
Somewhere beyond the hedge the abbot's gong strikes a final note—soft, contemplative—as if agreeing.
I follow the stone path past the last lantern post, stopping where the earth drops toward terraced fields pummeled silver by moonlight. Far across the valley, the ridge where the tiger vanished stands in charcoal silhouette against indigo sky.
The mountain answers calls of both skin and spirit, Ha-eun says, her voice low as wind in the cedars.
I wrap my arms around my lantern pole, still warm. "Then we climb when we're ready."
A single bell tolls from the temple pagoda behind us—an exclamation mark stitched to night's hem. Ahead, stars glitter like embers the tiger scattered across the heavens. I breathe their cold fire into my lungs and step off the lantern-lit gravel, heading downward toward whatever waits between this moment and the mountain's shadow.
Chapter 63: Eun-rang Whispers
The festival glow dwindles behind us, each footstep carrying the lantern's warmth a little farther into the pine-scented dark. Only a thin braid of moonlight guides Park Yujin and me along the ridge path; above, cicadas rattle their last song of the season, crisp as lacquer chips. Gravel crunches beneath our shoes—a quiet metronome that steadies my lingering rush of wonder.
"I need you to believe me," I begin, voice hushed so it won't startle the night. "It wasn't a trick of the lanterns. I saw a tiger—made of fire—walking the air."
Yujin's profile turns, milk-pale in the starlight. "A flame the size of a bus and no-one screamed? That sounds like hypoxia, Seo-yeon." Yet she slips a hand into her pocket, feeling for the electrolyte sachet she insisted I keep. Half care, half proof.
A breeze sighs through the pines, lifting the edge of her jacket and carrying away the incense still woven into our clothes. Ha-eun stirs inside my ribcage—alert, wary, but silent. Even guardians can hesitate, I think, surprised by the insight.
The path forks beside a crumbling stone shrine, its roof tiles lost to moss and years. Here the air thins; the hum of insects falters as though some invisible curtain muffles them. A faint jingling rises—tiny bronze bells chiming in a rhythm too slow for wind.
Yujin's hand closes around my sleeve. "Do you hear—"
A woman steps from the tree-line.
She is slight, fox-lean, wrapped in a teal-dyed hanbok that catches the moon like water silk. A narrow fox-fur stole drapes her shoulders, and a palm-sized janggu drum hangs from her wrist. With every step the drumskin answers the bells in a hushed tuk-tuk, as if marking a heartbeat older than the path beneath us.
I recognise her from whispered market gossip: Kim Moon-hee, the mountain shaman. Eyes the colour of smouldered ash settle on me—no, through me—and a slow smile sharpens the wrinkles at their corners.
"Silver thread rides with the crane," she says, dialect lilting like river stones. "Two wings, one heart—yet still learning to beat together."
Ha-eun stiffens. Warmth pulses in my sternum, the same inner glow that answered the tiger's gaze. My breath fogs between us.
Yujin forces a polite bow. "Evening, respected mudang. We were just leaving for town—"
Moon-hee lifts one finger; the bells hush. "Leave? When the ridge calls?" She circles us lightly, janggu tapping her hip. From a pouch she produces a sage bundle smouldering at its tip; white smoke curls into spirals that refuse the breeze. She places a bowl carved from black mountain ash on a flat stone, scatters slender bamboo sticks into it, and, with a flick of her wrist, tosses them skyward. The sticks clatter down in a starburst pattern—two crossing, one split.
"Tiger jaw," she announces, interpreting the tangle, "and crane feather. Guardian of thresholds walks beside wanderer of ledgers." Her gaze returns to mine. "The flame you followed is Eun-rang—tiger that keeps the gate between breaths and riverbeds."
A shiver ripples through me. "You saw it, too?"
"Eyes are not only in the skull." She leans close enough that sage smoke curls into my nostrils. "Some glow behind the eyes, where silver thread knots." Her focus shifts, sharp as a scalpel, to the unseen space Ha-eun occupies. I feel the guardian recoil—but no takeover follows.
Moon-hee dips two fingers into a clay pot at her belt and lifts out a pinch of herb-green powder that smells of earth after rain. She folds it into a tiny mulberry-paper pouch and presses it into my palm. The contact is electric—cold, tingling, as though ink seeps through skin. When I open my hand, a charcoal sigil glistens wet across my lifelines: a stylised tiger crouched beneath a crescent moon.
"Next dark moon," she instructs, voice suddenly solemn, "carry one river stone and a breath of this ash to the ridge altar. Place them together; speak neither doubt nor bargain. Then the two may choose one path."
Behind me Yujin bristles. "She's in recovery, ma'am. Strange powders aren't—"
"Powder is mugwort and mountain salt," Moon-hee replies, not bothering to face her. "For clear dreams, not delirium." She taps my knuckles. "Keep it sealed until the night chooses its own lantern."
Wind rushes through the trees; bells flare, then drop into silence. When I blink, the shaman is already at the edge of the pines, teal fabric blending with shadow. One last tuk from the janggu shivers the air, and she is gone—the forest swallowing bells, drum, and fox-fur tails alike.
Yujin rounds on me. "Seo-yeon, you cannot inhale or ingest anything strangers give you—especially mystics who speak in riddles."
"I won't." I slip the pouch into the inside pocket of my jacket, the sigil on my palm cooling from ink to memory. "But she knew about the tiger. About…us." I do not say Ha-eun's name; the guardian hums approval nonetheless.
"That only proves she overheard your excitement on the path." Yujin sighs, softer now. "Promise you'll let me test that powder at the clinic before you do anything."
"I promise," I answer, though both of us hear the unspoken for now.
We reach the footbridge at town's edge just as Min-ji skids around the corner, still in her café apron, phone raised like a banner.
"There you are! My livestream went nuts—look!" She thrusts the screen between us. Grainy video shows lanterns gliding down the street—but in one frame a blurred streak of amber arcs above the glow. Not proof, not yet, but enough to set my pulse galloping.
"Tomorrow," Yujin warns, ushering Min-ji on, "everyone sleeps."
Outside the back door of Mount Valley Café the scent of cooling fry oil mingles with night jasmine. We part beneath the single security lamp: Min-ji bouncing on her toes, Yujin still frowning, me clutching the inked palm against my chest.
"I'll keep the mugwort until we talk with the abbot," Yujin says, tugging the pouch from my pocket with surgeon precision.
"Fine," I concede, fingers lingering on the charcoal sigil instead. It tingles like a distant bird beating its wings. Ha-eun matches its rhythm inside me, curious but calm.
The café door clicks shut. Across the valley the temple bell tolls one soft note, silver as starlight. I lift my marked hand to the sky.
"Tiger, crane," I whisper into the dark, "we're listening."
Far above, clouds drift from the mountain's crown, exposing the hunter's moon—and for an instant I imagine a strip of flame tiptoeing along the ridge, waiting for the breath of ash and the weight of a river stone.
Chapter 64: Firefly Descent
The festival's din has barely settled, yet the café rooftop already feels like the breath that follows a held note—warm asphalt exhaling steam, lantern shards glinting like confetti beneath a cobalt sky. I am stacking plastic cups beside the extractor fan when the service-door bangs open and Kang Min-ji charges through, her phone held aloft like a missionary's relic.
"Unnie, emergency!" Her words come out on a single breath. She thrusts the screen between the string lights still trembling in the wind.
Blue light splashes across Park Yujin's white coat as she emerges behind her, quieter but no less curious. "If this is another meme—"
"Just watch." Min-ji's thumb scrubs the timeline to a frozen frame. In the shaky lantern-parade footage an arc of orange fire—undeniably feline—leaps across a river of red paper lights. Each muscle of its spectral body flickers, tail trailing sparks. When she slow-motions the clip, a softer glow appears—silver, translucent—wrapped around my own silhouette like a second skin.
My mouth dries. Proof, Ha-eun murmurs, a warm swell under my ribs.
Yujin magnifies the still and inhales through her teeth. "That double aura… and the flame? We need the raw file, lab software, everything." Her rational voice wobbles, teetering between disbelief and awe.
"I felt something then," I whisper, remembering the lanterns' heat against my cheeks, the invisible paw-print thudding through my sternum. Min-ji's grin widens; the phone trembles with her excitement.
"Slow down," Yujin warns, pocketing the device. "We'll analyze it properly in the morning. For tonight, we promised the temple we'd return their mugs."
A temple drum thumps somewhere downslope, its echo already losing energy against the river breeze. I close my eyes, steadying myself on that fading frequency before we descend the stairs into a night suddenly too alive to be ordinary.
Stone lanterns gutter in shallow pools of rain as we reach the courtyard, arms loaded with bamboo poles and empty tea cups. Abbot Hyun-mok waits beneath a towering gingko, his brown robes catching what light remains.
He bows. "The mountain answers when the river asks," he says, accepting the bundle of sticks from Yujin. His gaze lifts—not to my face but an inch behind it—acknowledging someone only he and I can see.
My spine tingles. Min-ji shifts nervously, but the abbot's smile is prismatic, reflecting more curiosity than fear. "If your feet can bear more steps, join me by the river pavilion before dawn. Chrysanthemum tea tastes best beneath a thinning veil."
We agree; refusing seems impossible. When he glides back toward the pagoda, the air smells suddenly of wet pine needles and distant incense, as if the temple inhaled with him.
The town has folded itself into after-hours silence: shop shutters tight, neon signs switching to half-power murmurs. We walk three abreast past puddles gilded with shredded lantern paper.
Min-ji's theories explode like firecrackers: "Could be CGI—someone hacked the livestream. Or a drone with a tiger hologram?" She waves her arms, scattering raindrops.
Yujin listens, the confiscated mugwort pouch buried in her pocket like contraband. "I'll test the herb tomorrow," she promises. "If it's laced with… well, anything, we'll know."
I lag a step behind, letting Ha-eun's calm pulse through me. You are lighter tonight, she notes. I touch the charcoal sigil hidden under my sleeve and surprise myself with a soft laugh. "Maybe wonder weighs less than fear," I whisper.
Utility poles buzz overhead. Cicadas saw at the darkness while puddles reflect the shredded remains of celebration—tiny scarlet moons under our shoes.
The town's wooden footbridge hovers above a ribbon-narrow river. Mist eddies around the pylons, teasing the planks with ghost-cold fingers. I rest my palms on the damp railing.
One gold mote drifts into view, blinking lazily. Yujin tilts her phone; the sensor registers no temperature change. A second mote arrives, then five, then a slow storm of lights swirling above the current.
"Fireflies in September?" she mutters. "Too early in the season—too cold, too many."
Not insects; watch their rhythm, Ha-eun warns. Indeed, the lights pulse in pairs like a heartbeat—left, right, pause—guiding us downstream. The river gurgles, eager.
We scramble down a slippery embankment. Sand squelches under my sneakers, chill seeping through cotton. The golden motes pivot, swarming my left hand. I peel back the gauze protecting the sigil and light flares brighter, as though attracted to the ink.
They settle on my fingers—weightless heat—before lifting in a delicate spiral and scattering across the river's skin. Seen from above, their reflections resemble floating candles, a quiet funeral or perhaps a birth.
Yujin's spectrometer app flat-lines. "Zero heat, zero lifeform signature," she whispers, voice cracking on zero.
For the first time Min-ji is mute, her camera lens blinking instead of her mouth.
In the hush, Ha-eun bows within me. I fold my burning hand over my heart.
The river pavilion creaks like a cedar cradle above the water. Abbot Hyun-mok waits with a kettle steaming under moonlight. He pours pale-gold tea into three cups etched with plum blossoms.
"Dalbit-bul," he says, nodding toward the drifting lights. "Moon-lit embers. They appear to those who walk two paths at once." His eyes warm, resting on me—and the space I share.
"Do we chase them?" Min-ji asks, half-awed, half-hungry.
The abbot chuckles. "Bridges are for crossing, not collecting. Offer gratitude; questions make them shy."
I lift the cup. Steam curls like dragon breath, smelling of chrysanthemum and distant lightning. Thank you, Ha-eun and I say in one voice—mine aloud, hers vibrating beneath. The abbot's answering nod tells me he heard both.
We sip. The tea is bitter and strangely sweet, like dandelion honey over bruised petals. Somewhere an owl calls once, twice—then the river reclaims the quiet.
Fatigue wallops me the moment we leave the pavilion. My knees loosen; a soft tremor shivers down my forearms. Yujin loops my arm over her shoulder. "Glucose and a bed, that's an order."
Min-ji palms her phone. "After we sleep, this video will break the internet. Our café will need velvet ropes."
Thunder flickers far to the south, illuminating cloud-bellies bruised purple. Paper lantern scraps skitter along the gutter like startled crabs. Storm scent—ozone and wet earth—thickens the air.
I swallow. The pavement tilts until Ha-eun's steady count catches me: Four in… six out. Still breathing. I manage a wavering grin.
We part at the café's back door. A single sand-coated firefly husk clings to the top stair, still glowing with weak phosphorescence. I tuck it into my notebook—the one where I tally heartbeats when insomnia wins.
If light can float, maybe I can, I think, climbing the final narrow steps.
Breath is lighter than light, Ha-eun replies, her voice a feather settling on water.
Inside the attic room, I collapse onto the futon without removing my shoes. Tin roof above me echoes with a solitary raindrop, then another—slow, deliberate percussion heralding the monsoon's march. My eyes hover open long enough to see the firefly ember fade to black.
Sleep slides in, thick and treacherous, carrying wonder, exhaustion, and the low distant rumble of rain that will test us come morning.