by J D Astra
We channeled zo through our muscles, not to enhance them for strength or fighting, but to relax them, release pent up toxins and used munje, and channel different types of energy into them to promote healing. After an hour and a half of the restoration I didn’t feel good, but I could walk without looking like a duc-bah idiot.
Unfortunately, I shared the class with Shin-soo and had to endure additional daggers being glared at the back of my head. I wondered if his retribution would be swift or slow? Would it be well planned and deadly or sloppy and rushed? I didn’t know nearly enough about Shin-soo to make these assessments and didn’t have the energy to be worried about it.
Unlike most students at Bastion, I didn’t have a second chance. If I failed out of my first year, I would have to work the following year to support my family. But if I made it to second year, I could earn an apprenticeship somewhere in the kingdom. I couldn’t move my family on an apprenticeship, but I could send them enough money to survive while I attended school.
The next class was Li Harmony I with Cho and Yuri. I grimaced as we were instructed to select a pot and seeds that we would tend to over the course of the next several weeks. I wasn’t like Eun-bi and Suyi with their incomprehensible ability to nurture life with a single touch, sometimes just a glance. Plants came alive for my sisters and withered under my care.
Yuri and I stuck close to Cho, watching him carefully as he planted his seeds, applied the water, and inspired nutrient release from the soil. I mimicked his movements with less successful results. While Cho had raised a full stem and several budding leaves, I had a spec of green poking through my dirt. Still, that was better than I’d done on my assessment.
After lunch was Zo Calm I, which was a series of meditations designed to help us identify our mental states, our emotions, and how to control them. It was yet another class I shared with Shin-soo, and I was beginning to feel that the gods were against me. More than anything, I felt Zo Calm I would be an excellent course for Shin-soo, but he spent the bulk of the class staring me down instead of looking inward.
Through the last several classes I had gathered that his retribution would be swift and ill planned. Instead of worrying about what that may be, or when it would come, I chose to focus on my meditations until the last class of the day arrived.
Ry Detection I with just Hana and Yuri was the break I’d been yearning for. It was also apparent by the end of the day that Yuri was correct; everyone was talking about me. No one else had approached me to say anything, but they whispered about Shin-soo’s defeat in the halls and at meals. It must’ve been infuriating for him. No wonder he was always glaring me down; no one would give him a break.
Our first ry class was spent sparring with partners, attempting to infiltrate undetected. Yuri and I stood facing one another, trying to enter the other’s thoughts without being heard or felt. Yuri’s ry, unlike Sung-ki’s, was floral and silky smooth, slippery like a wet fish, and it splashed around as much as one, too. She was clumsy, but I wasn’t much better.
Ry infiltration was a delicate art that was far beyond my reach. I could use persuasion and light tricks, but when it came to bursting down the door of another’s mind, I was like a toddler who couldn’t reach the handle.
Neither Yuri nor I was skilled enough to evade the other’s detection, and near the end of class I sensed another presence. I could tell by the way my hairs stood on end and the subtle scent of lilacs in my mind that it was Hana. I looked at her across the room, and she smirked but didn’t glance my way.
At dinner I vowed I would pull out my personal project that night, but when evening came, I simply collapsed into bed. Morning came day after day without me touching my artifact until, finally, it was Sunday, the rest day.
We were permitted to leave the grounds and explore Busa-nan, and we fled the campus in throngs throughout the day. Yuri stuck by Cho’s and my side through the morning, waiting patiently until we were ready to leave with the promise that our first stop would be donuts.
That was the doughy thing covered in chocolate sauce that Cho and I had smelled on our way to school. When Yuri discovered we’d never had one—didn’t even know what they were called—she demanded we allow her to buy us one. I didn’t want to put her out, but she explained her parents had more money than they knew what to do with and it would be stupid for us to go another day without tasting a donut when their bank would never notice the difference.
I reluctantly agreed but was excited more than anything. On our way out we passed the avenue where I’d stashed Tuko, and I slowed down.
“I forgot something back at the lodge, I’ll catch up.” I said as I pulled away from the other two.
“We’ll come with you; it’s no trouble,” Cho said as he stopped and turned back with me.
“No!” I gasped at my volume and forcefulness, then started again quieter. “No, really. I’ll catch up before you get there.”
“What are you hiding from us, Jiyong?” Yuri asked. Straight to the point, as usual. But there was no judgement in her voice, not really any emotion on her face.
I sighed. I’d only known them a few days, but they’d been there for me this far. Bot fighting wasn’t illegal, and Tuko wasn’t on school property... but what if one of them told Shin-soo and in a vengeful rage he came to take Tuko, or destroy it?
Cho smiled kindly. “We’re your friends. We’re here for anything.”
I glanced around at the students walking away from school and allowed a group of girls to pass by. When they were out of earshot, I pushed ry down my arm and swirled it out once in a huge sweeping motion, covering our position. I pulled them both into the alley and walked toward the ledge over the door where I’d stored Tuko.
“I knew it,” Cho whispered as we walked.
“Knew what?” Yuri asked with a plucky curiosity.
Cho hammered his hand with a fist in triumph. “The first day of school Jiyong ran off down this alley, and when he came back, his pack was less lumpy.”
I pushed zo into my legs and arms, then leapt up to grab the ledge. I pulled myself over, and the others followed. The jacket was partially visible in the corner, a little less than half the glimmer faded, leaving it looking like a ghostly pile of laundry.
Yuri pointed it out. “That coat?”
I pulled back the cover to reveal my bot, and they both oohed with interest.
“Is it for fighting?” Cho asked as he picked at one of the spider-like legs.
I nodded.
“You win a lot?” Cho asked with a greedy gleam in his eyes.
I shrugged. “I’ve lost a few times.”
“Don’t be so modest, you’re probably a legend!” He laughed and play punched my shoulder. Suddenly, I was missing Se-hun.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” I said, my voice somber.
“We have a secret together. This makes us better friends.” Yuri slapped me on the back in an attempt to mimic Cho’s playfulness. It seemed to be a gesture she’d never used, with the way her hand lingered after each pat, but I appreciated her effort.
“Yeah,” Cho said with a grin.
I pulled the jacket up. “Help me cover it.”
Ruffling the jacket had dispelled the glimmer, but with the help of my new friends, we cloaked it better than before. Yuri even put a weather resistant umbrella of en munje around Tuko and the panel, just in case the jacket failed.
We returned to the quest at hand. Donuts.
Cho and I sat at a small, popup table beside the donut stall and watched the passing trollies as Yuri paid. Before long I had a hot, gooey circle in my hand and a smile on my face.
Yuri nudged my donut with hers, then nudged Cho’s. “Geonbae!” she said with a bright grin that morphed to a hungry yawn. She stuffed half the donut into her mouth in one bite, spreading chocolate up her cheeks that highlighted her dimples.
Cho and I bumped our donuts together before digging in. When the warm dough touched my tongue, I knew I could die happy. The powdered, crispy ed
ge crunched as I bit down, followed by a soft, airy fluff of insides, then a rush of sweet and bitter that came from the glaze, and a hint of buttery salt. It was the perfect food.
I paced myself, taking another small bite and savoring the flavor. I closed my eyes and sent ry munje to my mouth, allowing the donut to tell me its story through the tastes on my tongue. It was freshly kneaded that morning by old hands that had done it a thousand times. The chocolate glaze was crushed in a mortar and pestle, heated on a low, open flame, swirled with butter, salt, and a sugar crystal.
“What do you think?” Yuri asked, her mouth still full.
“I would give up munje for this,” Cho said with lust.
I hummed as I opened my eyes. “Maybe not all munje. Just li. I’m so bad at it anyway.”
Cho and Yuri laughed, then said at the same time, “Yeah.”
We laughed harder, and my brain began to buzz with excitement. I could feel the energy of the donut moving through my body. It was a fast energy, and I wanted to move just as fast.
“Here,” the old man from the shop stopped by our table with a paper bowl. There were three dough spheres inside, covered in a white powder and oozing red jelly. “On the house for outer-city kids.” The old man tapped his knuckles against his chest twice and shuffled back to his donut stall.
“Thank you,” Cho shouted with his mouth half-full, and I choked down my bite to give my hurried thanks as well.
“Here,” Yuri said as she placed a powdered sphere in Cho’s empty hand. “These are my favorite.”
“Mine too,” Cho said with flushed cheeks.
I grinned, and he stammered. “I mean I bet they’ll be mine, too. They look good.”
He stuffed the ball in his mouth and bit down, shooting red jelly across the table and onto Yuri’s dobok from his loosely pursed lips. Yuri looked down at her vest, and Cho’s face went pale. “I’m so so—”
Yuri laughed from her belly, throwing her head back as tears streamed down her face. I laughed too, shaking Cho’s arm until his cheeks flushed with color again. He chuckled nervously and wiped his lips. He looked at me with horror in his eyes, and I patted his back, then grabbed one of my handkerchiefs from my pocket; Mother always insisted I carry at least one.
I offered the cloth to Yuri, and she calmed down just enough to speak. “No need,” she said between high-pitched giggling fits. “I’ve got it.”
Blue hued en munje twisted from her fingers and lifted the jelly from her dobok, leaving no stain behind. She flicked her fingers, and the jam splatted on Cho’s lips. His head jerked back, and his eyes were wide with surprise, but he licked the jelly clean.
“Where did you learn to use en like that?” I asked as I took the last bite of my chocolate donut.
Yuri seesawed her head. “I apprenticed at my parent’s company for the summer before school. Anything to get away from the house, honestly.”
“What do they do?” Cho asked as he patted his face with the cloth I passed him.
She turned around in her seat, then pointed to a drinking fountain near the donut stall. “They run all the water to Busa-nan. Clean it, push it through the pipes, recover the wastewater, clean it, repeat.”
I cringed. “You were cleaning sewage all summer?”
Yuri shrugged. “Better than sitting alone in the house bored out of my skull.”
Cho shook his head in disbelief. “You and I have different definitions of better. Why didn’t you just hang out with your friends if you were bored?”
Yuri’s dimples disappeared, and her brow furrowed as she looked at the table. “Because I hadn’t met you yet.”
Cho gave me another panicked look, and I sighed. “Well, you won’t have to do that again.”
She looked up, and her dimples returned as her eyes shimmered. “Yeah.”
I popped the powdered sphere in my mouth, careful to hold my lips together tightly as I bit down. It was just as excellent as the chocolate donut, and I savored it for as long as possible. When an evening crowd gathered at the stall, we picked up and moved toward school.
After a quick dinner, we bid Yuri good night at her lodge and made our way back to ours. Somehow, Cho fell asleep the second he touched down on his bed. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling and watching the dough being kneaded in my mind’s eye, waiting until I heard the rhythmic breathing of all my roommates. Tonight was my night to work on the relic.
Chapter 14
A FEW HOURS PAST SUNSET and everyone in my room was snoring. I rolled to the side and opened the drawer with the bento box that hid my artifact. I untied the cloth wrapped around the box and dispelled the illusion on it, revealing my secret locked box where the bento had been.
Gold ma munje trickled from my fingertip and slipped through the lock, rotating the maze of cogs and gears until it clicked, allowing me entry. Another mess of cloths—hand-me-down shirts Daegon had destroyed—were stuffed to the brim in the box. I unraveled them carefully until the artifact lay exposed at the center. I pulled the disc free and held it up next to the device that had my schedule and map. They looked similar enough... their parts could be, too.
I crossed my legs on the bed and closed my eyes, holding each device in my open palms. Ma munje reached down my arm and into the hand with the school device. I poked through the connections and watched blue energy as it zipped from block to block. It was like a highway, but the streets didn’t just crisscross over the ground. They moved straight up, diagonally, took strange turns but never stopped. Everything was connected.
I held the image of the schedule device in my mind and reached out to my relic at the same time. It looked like a near lifeless wasteland in comparison to the schedule device. There were tiny flashes of light that I followed through the disorienting, three-directional avenues until I arrived at the source. The highway appeared intact, but the light shot through from the boundary of the space, then stopped abruptly and fizzled out at the spot in front of me.
The spot zoomed in at my command, and I circled it, hunting for whatever break I’d failed to notice in the years of owning it. Light crackled through, and I saw the error. I’d been clumsy in my repairs, not knowing that the highways couldn’t touch. The light zapped against the connecting pathway and dispersed again.
It took me several minutes, but I broke down the offending path and rebuilt it farther away. Light traveled through the highway, only to short out not far from where I was looking.
A heavy snore snapped me from my task, and I looked to my roommates. All still sleeping. It took me a moment to get back to where I’d been, but I hunted down the next spot and fixed it, too. Then the next. And another.
For the love of Mun-Jayu, how had I been so sloppy? Well, I hadn’t known.
After what felt like hours, I had the information highway in my relic alight with activity, but there was still something wrong. The projector, perhaps? I used the schedule as my guide as I worked out the kinks in the light projection adaptor. There was a small crystal at the top of my schedule that I noticed was absent from my relic. There were no remnants, so it was impossible to know if it was necessary.
With a bit of en munje, I broke down the crystal in the schedule and ferried it over to my relic. When the last piece was put in place, my closed eyelids lit up with neon blue light.
“No!” A woman’s voice spouted from the relic, and I slapped my hand over top of it, quieting the voice and dimming the light.
“Jiyong, you okay?” Cho said in a tired slur.
My heart hammered in my ears, and I swallowed hard. “Uh, yeah. I just had a bad dream. Need to pee.”
“Mkay,” Cho said before dropping into a droning snore.
I got up, my hand still clamped over the device, and shoved my keycard into my pocket. I power walked down the hall, tiptoed down the stairs, and turned the handle to the lodge.
It was cool out, and my bare feet tingled with the icy sensation of the freezing stone. Fall was here. I looked around furtively, then dashed off into the tree
s when I saw no watching eyes. The red-barked pines beside our building provided a quick and easy escape from the residents’ village and before long, I felt as though I was in the forest beside my house.
My heart pounded as I looked down at the blue light slipping through the cracks in my fingers. I’d actually done it. I’d fixed it! My sweaty hands trembled as I knelt. I pulled my covering hand away. With a flicker, the light projection returned in the shape of a woman, only about fifteen centimeters tall.
Her hair was pulled back in a long, braided ponytail and she wore a buttoned-down white coat with a tight skirt that ended just above her knees. She looked back and forth then up to me.
I laughed then took a breath for the first time in what felt like eons. “You’re a ghost!”
“I most certainly am not. I’m a hyper-intelligent, self-aware, inorganic being,” she said in a petite voice laden with offense.
“You’re amazing. Do you have a name?” I asked, unable to contain my grin.
She harrumphed, looking up and away. “Now you have manners? My name is Maeyoung. And what’s wrong with your accent?”
“I’m Jiyong. I can’t believe I actually fixed you.” My cheeks hurt from smiling, and my heart swelled with joy. I’d really done it.
“Well, Jiyong. I’m going to need you to return me to the South Korean National Institute of Technology, the science lab, where I belong. It’s a criminal offense to steal, you know.”
Criminal? I supposed I was known to be one from time to time when evading taxes, but I wasn’t a thief... technically. My father and I had recovered her from wreckage, not stolen her. “What’s a south koreanstitute?”
She crossed her arms and threw out a hip. “You’re telling me the biggest biotech school on the planet isn’t known to the person who stole from it? Please.”
A shout pulled my attention away from Maeyoung the Ghost, and I covered her with my hand. I heard her muffled protests as my eyes attempted to adjust to the dark around me. Another shout, strenuous and in combat. I rose to my feet and followed the noise. What if someone was in trouble?