FLASHBACK
Eun Ha, then a girl of 16 years old, rushed out of the house, running towards her bike while putting on a backpack in a hurry. She was in a complete state of excitement and knew that she had to share this discovery with her best friend, Ye Rim, or she thought she would stop breathing. If that thing really worked, then it would be ... heaven!
Hurriedly biking across the streets of the small town, she arrives at Mr. Nam's garage, crosses the workshop where Ye Rim's father and his assistants work, greeting everyone:
"Is Ye Rim at home, Mr. Nam?"
"She must be in the backyard, Eun Ha, she was training for the school parade," the man replied without even taking his eyes off what he was doing. The two girls were so close that Mr. Nam many times wondered why they did not know exactly where the other was at all times. She thanked him bowing hastily, while Mr. Nam's assistants teased him: "Did your other daughter come in, Mr. Nam?"
"Seems so…"
The teenager came across the house as if it were her own, reaching the messy backyard with all sorts of things stacked up everywhere.
"Ye Rim! I'm here, where are you?"
"On here!"
As soon as she spotted Ye Rim in a corner of the wide yard, spinning a baton and training short routines in the hopes of parading as twirler in the next Spring Parade, she ran into her.
Ye Rim was sweaty and did not seem to be in a good mood.
"What could this girl want from me now, when I have to train hard if I want to be the band's twirler?"
Eun ha knew that Ye Rim was doing her best but was not making much progress on being a twirler. Although very popular and well-liked, she had not managed to secure this position, and Ye Rim didn't want to be once again next to Eun Ha and the rest of the band playing xylophone.
"I want to show you something!"
"Uhn ... What can be so great to make you come in such a hurry? You didn't show this enthusiasm for the past days... "
Ye Rim was being spiteful, and Eun Ha knew her friend was right to be so. But she wasn't ready to talk about it now, about her secret. She still had to think of a way to tell this with a lot of caution and thought. But for today Eun Ha desperately wanted to show what she discovered to her best friend, and she was sure she knew how to make it look like a normal thing. Or almost it.
"Yes, Ye Rim. I think you've been pretty pushy and boring with this "twirler obsession". Alright, I decided to let it go, if you don't want to carry the xylophone anymore, I don't have to carry one either. But I have something really nice to show you up," as she spoke, Eun Ha went to the pyeong sang, and began taking objects from her backpack.
"Oh, your little one ..." the younger one pretended to be angry at Eun Ha, but she was missing her friend. Eun Ha had been stranged in the last few days, moody without apparent reason and just wanting to stay home. In fact, in the last month, even Eun Ha herself knew that she had been distant and thoughtful, lost in her own discoveries, and not knowing what to do with them.
"Right. What do you have there? What is this?" Ye Rim asked without even giving a good look at the objects now scattered neatly in front of them, after pushing her friend away with her body and gaining space to see what Eun Ha had brought.
They were all old and mysterious things: a little bag of powder that smelled a little of gunpowder, a pink stick, a dark, grimy pot with a viscous, disgusting kind of content, and old handwritten paper, all looking like they came out of a tube lined with a once glossy, now musty fabric.
"Yuck! Where did you get that, and what is it, unnie?"
Eun Ha, who seconds earlier had an anxious and fascinated expression, seemed embarrassed:
"I ... That, well, this is a Wand of Destiny and Love," she added, quickly, pointing her finger at the paper: "At least that's what is written there."
Ye Rim took the grimy paper with pinched fingers, disgusted:
"Oh, my Gosh, unnie, you've really been weird!" Then she whispered, shielding a supposed secret from unwanted listeners: "Did you get it at your real mother's house?" Ye Rim mentioned the old ranch Eun Ha inherited recently.
"NO!!!" Eun Ha shook her head vehemently. "No ... I ... I found this gypsy-type, you know, a psychic, on the street, she needed help and ... I loaded some things from the grocery for her... She let me have it."
"Oh my Gosh, Eun Ha, you're so innocent! What is it? It looks like this psychic-whatever took it out from a trash bin."
"Na, na, na! It says that you can see your love future by lighting that wand and holding it, so let's just prepare it and light it."
"I don't know who is the dumbest of us: you for believing that this bullshit will work, or I for being here listening to you!" Ye Rim grunted, rolling her eyes, "You really came here for this?"
Eun Ha could see in her friend's expression that Ye Rim sensed that she was lying about the origin of those objects, but wouldn't confront her to know the truth. Eun Ha knew she was being dismissive and acting suspiciously since about two weeks ago. But talking about it, and to Ye Rim out from everyone, was so uncomfortable that she simply didn't want to risk it.
Then Eun Ha pretended not to have noticed Ye Rim's suspicious stare and started reading the dirty paper again, looking absorbed. Ye Rim relented after a while:
"Okay, unnie. Let's just assume this thing works, how do we get the... candle?" she laughed, mockingly teasing her best friend: "The Wand of Love's Destiny! Fantastic! If it works, we'll know who we're going to marry... Wait: is there only one?"
"Yes, just that one." Eun Ha explained, "Look, I think it ends up looking like a sparkling stick, you know? Burning fast and sparkling all over."
Ye Rim looked more closely at the elements on the pyeong sang. "Yes, it looks like this, but this kind of stick burns very fast, will it even give us time to see something? Is it something to see or to feel? It's so subjective! Tell me the truth, you didn't pay for it, did you?"
Eun Ha blushed because lying to her best friend wasn't comfortable, to begin with, "I don't know how it works. I just figure that, based on the instructions, one has a glimpse of their romantic future while holding the stick. And yes, you have to light it and hold it to make it work. I'm going to prepare everything, it'll take just a moment."
Ye Rim looked surprised at her friend, who just started to make the paste with the gooey goo and the strange powder mixed together:
"Hey, wait! Are you going to let me use the only stick we have, unnie?!"
"Why not? Don't you want to find out how the man of your life is?"
"But, how about you?"
"Here, here," Eun Ha ignored Ye Rim's question, overdoing how focused she was on the process of making the overrated sparkling stick, "It's you who thinks you're going to marry a rich and famous Oppa! 'Who will it be?' Jin Yung Oppa? David Oppa? Geun Hee Oppa?"
"Aish, don't be like that, unnie...You also need to know how the man who will fall in love with you is like!"
"Meh…" said the busy Eun Ha, concentrating on the craft. Ye Rim gave her a deadly and suspicious glance, definitely feeling that something was not right with Eun Ha, but patiently waiting for her to have the seer stick ready.
"O-kay! Here it is, Ye Rim!" Eun Ha displayed the artifact with pride. For the first time, she noticed Ye Rim coveting the item, her friend's eyes examining the object with a new sort of curiosity and avidity.
"Okay, if you say it can be this way, let's do it soon!"