“Go home,” she said.
“Sunbaenim, I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked over her shoulder, the sun lighting up her silhouette in gold, but wouldn’t turn all the way around, wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Go,” she said again, stuffing her hands in her pockets and walking away.
I stood alone on the sidewalk, wishing I could send an Echo back to throttle my past self into unconsciousness before I could hurt Hyebin. I wanted so badly for her to yell at me, to tell me how worthless I was and how dare I speak to her like that, anything but calmly accept my insults and walk away.
I turned my face toward the white sun, which offered no warmth at all, then pressed my hand over my pocket, where Hana’s note was tucked into my wallet.
Show me what to do, Hana, I thought.I can’t do it on my own.
Yejun didn’t bring me cheesecake that afternoon, which was how I knew he was still angry. The way he carefully avoided looking me in the eye and stood a calculated distance from me as we walked down the street were also good clues.
I glanced at him as we walked in silence, remembering his claws pressed against my cheek, his hands on either side of my face. As if he sensed me looking, he turned and locked eyes with me for a moment before I quickly looked away.
I wanted to scream. Nothing about Yejun made any sense to me. He acted like he liked me, but then he snuck around with other girls. He knew that my mission with Jihoon was part of my job, but acted like me finally completing it was a personal attack. It wasn’t as if I’d married Jihoon. And even if I had, what right did Yejun have to be mad about it? We weren’t together.
“This way,” Yejun said, turning a corner so sharply that I nearly tripped off the curb when I tried to follow him. He pointed at a secondhand clothing store at the end of the block.
“We can travel in a changing stall here,” he said stiffly. “We’re not going back that far, so the stalls will still be here.”
“What do you mean ‘not that far’?” I said, frowning. “Didn’t theSewolferry sink like ten years ago? How are we going to stop it from sinking after it’s already sunk?”
Yejun sighed impatiently. “We’re not the first people to try to stop it from sinking,” he said after a moment. “Other rogues have tried, and other descendants have stopped them. We’re going to stop a descendant from going back and interfering with a different rogue’splans. He’ll show up late to work and miss his traveling window, then the rogue will report the ferry’s owner for making illegal modifications that let him cram too many passengers on board.”
“Wow,” I said. “You take the butterfly principle seriously. That’s so indirect.”
“Why do work ourselves when we could let someone else do it for us?” Yejun said with a shrug. “It’s less risky.”
I said nothing out of fear that I’d accidentally compliment him again. Hong Gildong had truly messed up by losing Yejun as a timeline architect. I envied how easily he seemed to choreograph his plans across the whole timeline while my greatest skill seemed to be lying.
As we drew closer to the store, I walked faster so I could enter first and not wait to see whether he would hold the door for me or decide not to—I wasn’t sure which was worse. I walked inside, then grabbed a random men’s shirt off the rack and headed straight for the changing rooms. Luckily, this was a small store with only a tiny section of curtained stalls, which was easier than sneaking Yejun into the woman’s changing rooms.
I pulled back the curtain to the closest stall, waving for Yejun to walk faster before someone caught us. He followed me inside and yanked the curtain shut around us as I hung up the shirt on a hook.
I had to stand uncomfortably close to Yejun in the tiny stall. He held his hand out, as far away from me as he could manage in the small space. I gritted my teeth and took his hand.
“Let’s get this over with,” Yejun said.
This time, his magicburned.
The blue and purple strands knotted together too tightly, my muscles tensing at the blaring surge of magic that forced its way through my bones. My mouth tasted like it was full of ashes, and each wisp of blue light stung my eyes as it lashed around my face.
The moment we landed in the past, I yanked my hand away from his.
“What’s your problem?” I said.
“Shh!Mina, not here!” he said, trying to cover my mouth.
I shoved his hand away. “Why are you angry with me?”
“I’m not—”
“I can see it in your magic!” I said.
Yejun’s expression darkened. “If you can tell what I’m feeling through my magic, thenstop pretending you have no idea why I’m mad!”
I froze, remembering the thousand images of myself I’d seen in his soul. But I couldn’t be the one to say it out loud, to be wrong.
