Jihoon's days now started before the sun rose. His new reality left no room for the laziness that had previously ruled his days. In an attempt to pay the rent in his grandmother and father's absence, he'd taken on part-time jobs while school was out. His first was delivering newspapers and milk cartons to people's front doors before dawn. He rode a secondhand bicycle, but sometimes the streets were so steep, it was easier to push the thing. The crooked roads he used to love became his enemy as he trudged up and down, up and down.
He worked meticulously to get each order of milk on the front stoops or in the mailboxes along with the daily paper. He'd taken on the day shift pumping gas for less than minimum wage. The owner claimed it was because he didn't yet have a high school diploma.
Jihoon's fingers froze in the late-January cold since he'd forgotten his gloves. When he raised his hands to blow on them, he smelled the bitter gasoline on his skin. He stared at the white scar in the center of his palm. A souvenir from someone when he wasn't even awake. And every time he saw the puckered scar, it reminded him of that night and all he'd lost.
Night fell before he finished work, bringing with it a starless sky lit only by the full moon. The owner of the gas station ran to catch Jihoon before he left for the day.
"Here." He shoved two triangle kimbap into Jihoon's hands. He was a portly man, stingy and balding. "You've been standing in the cold all day. These are barely expired. Take them."
As Jihoon walked, his eyes traveled to the sky. The sight of the full moon brought a dull ache that ran through his ribs. It was the first full moon since Shane had left.
He ate the triangle kimbap on his way to the convenience store, his third and final job of the day. The trek was tiring. His breath created clouds in the cold air that fogged his vision in teasing puffs.
His coworker, Kim Mingyu, stood behind the counter. "You're fourteen minutes late, Jihoon-ssi," he said. "That'll come out of your pay."
Mingyu was only twenty and had been working at the convenience store three months longer than Jihoon. He was also the manager's nephew and thought that made him Jihoon's boss. Jihoon didn't care enough to correct him.
"The delivery came in this morning." Mingyu gestured toward the storage room.
Jihoon rolled his eyes behind Mingyu's back at the implied command. When he'd first started, Mingyu had claimed the newest employee was responsible for unloading the deliveries. Jihoon had long since realized this was a lie.
Still, he didn't complain as he carried the crates to the front. The task made his arms, which already felt like wet noodles after five hours of pumping gas, ache. He had a low-grade headache that the fluorescent lights didn't help. Plus, it smelled like someone had dropped milk somewhere in the store that was quickly souring. He knew it would be his job to find it.
It took Jihoon a half hour to get all of the crates inside and he stumbled a bit as he set the last crate down. Glad to finally be done with the task as he spread his aching fingers.
"Ya, what are you thinking?" Mingyu asked.
"What?" Jihoon rubbed his sore shoulder.
"Why would we need ten crates of strawberry milk?" Mingyu tapped the pile. "So?"
"So?" Jihoon repeated.
"So move them back."
Jihoon's fists bunched. He sorely wanted to use them to punch Mingyu in his snarky mouth. Instead, he made a point of relaxing each finger until he'd regained his control. He needed this job. It was the only one he could keep hours for after school started again.
So he picked up two crates despite his protesting muscles and clenched his teeth as he heard Mingyu chuckle at something he read in his comic.
On the next trip, Jihoon stumbled under the heavy load and his elbow cracked against the door frame. Pain lanced through his arm and echoed in his head as a thin needle shoved into his skull.
His muscles quivered and the crates fell with a crash. Strawberry milk squirted over his pants and stained his shoes pink. Ringing reverberated through his ears a second before he started to seize.
He couldn't hear or think or breathe. He could only see—darkness and the moon. The full moon. Mocking him.
***
Shane woke up when his body hit the ground. he trembled so hard his teeth chattered.
Though he'd never felt such pain before, like ice crystals stabbing his veins, she knew why. Tonight was the full moon. The first since he had stopped taking souls. The first since he'd left Jihoon.
Something burned along his skin—the light of the moon shining through the window.
It beckoned him, telling him to come back to its embrace and punishing her because he had refused.
Shane's door opened with a crash. Feet pounding as they hurried to him.
"Pick up his feet." Shane recognized the anxiety in his sister's voice, an unknown emotion, layered under the stern command. Loralie scooped hands under her brother's shoulders while someone else cradled his legs.
Shane was submerged in ice-cold water, and his brain yelled at him to escape.
No, not water.
Struggling against the hands that held him down, Shane thrashed, surely soaking those who tried to help him.
"Open his mouth." The voice was deep and male. Fingers pried at his teeth. Shane tried not to fight, but his jaw clenched at the numbing chill of the ice water against his exposed skin, and he bit down until she tasted blood.
They tried again, undeterred by his gnashing teeth. And this time a bitter liquid poured down his throat.
Shane's body sagged, so exhausted he could barely hold his head up. If the water was going to claim his life, then so be it. But it seemed it was too shallow and instead his cheek rested against the cold porcelain side of the tub. As long as he kept his head above the water, he'd be fine. It was a lie, but one Shane repeated to himself over and over until his heart slowed.
"He is not taking any souls?" the male voice asked.
"Apparently not."
"It's only going to get worse."
"I don't pay you to tell me what I can see with my own eyes." Loralie's voice was laced with displeasure.
"The fact that his soul is tied to Jihoon is holding off the worst of it. If he doesn't feed, there's not much you can do."
"There's one thing," Loralie replied.
"The soul is in Seoul." that would have sounded funny had not the situation been so serious.
"Again, something I know."
A pause. "Perhaps it's time to go back. We've found nothing here and my contacts have run dry."
"Then get more contacts," Loralie said.
"That costs money."
A pause. "Take whatever you need from the safe."
"Yes, ma'am." There was the pad of retreating feet, then the soft click of the bathroom door closing.
Shane finally opened his eyes. The room was a blur of light and haze. White on white, but he picked out the shape of his sister's lips, her nose, and her eyes.
Another wave of nausea spiraled through Shane.
"It hurts." Shane didn't recognize his own voice, desperate mewls of sound.
"It'll pass soon. You are the future king of hell. And you will fight past this."
Shane shivered with the cold of the bath and the sharp pains that still radiated through his bones. "I'll be a better prince."
"Then will you take souls?" It wasn't said with anger. Instead a true question.
Shane nodded.
"Do you refuse to take souls because of that boy?"
"Yes," Shane whispered. "But not the way you think. Before I realized I could care for him, I was able to convince myself I didn't care about anyone. But I do. And if continue to kill others just so I can live, I'll become a monster that I don't want to be."
Loralie was silent. So quiet that Shane opened his eyes to see if his sister had left. She still sat beside the tub, her face pinched in thought.
"You think you've made a choice this last month, but you haven't." his sister's voice was hard and clipped. "You are waiting, hoping for a Solution to come that will give you everything you want."
"Is that so bad?" Shane asked. "I don't want anyone to be hurt because of me."
"I thought I'd taught you better, brother. I've survived a long time because I've made clear choices. Even if you think they were wrong."
Loralie stood. "You need to make a choice."
With that, she left. Shane shivered, torn for the first time in his life.