currently recovering
from a hiatus.
He was aware of her, she noticed. But she knew also he had been a King – everyone in the meeting would speak behind his back about his life, back in the Homelands – and if there was one thing she had learned with her Father, was that Kings like to be pleased and it doesn’t mind how good and fair they are, they know they are better than the others around them. And she was pretty sure that wouldn’t exclude him, the one she couldn’t remember the name yet.
So she waited, as he waited for her, until he finally replied her and then again, with a nod, when he told her about finishing the cigarette. It was comprehensible, and she took two steps back so this way she wouldn’t be hit by the disgusting smoke.
Her eyes followed the burned tip until it met the snow grass beneath them, and then they went to focus on the store’s owner again. He acted just like a normal human, as he had never been a Fable, and he was so good at that. Soojung got somehow jealous at this ability of his – and a little content he was like everyone had described him, so that way he’d be able to help her as she thought. Hopefully.
The King entered the store and exited many times, and the mermaid only looked, not daring to do anything – until she realized she was being slow again. As he stepped inside the library, she followed him, kicking the snow off her boots as she did so. She remembered glancing at him once or twice, before her eyes started to fall on the few vestiges of white on the black of her shoes – and then he spoke, and she had to face him again, and she wasn’t sure if that face of his had been always that harsh.
His soft tone combined with such direct sentence caught her off guard. The red-haired woman took a strand of hair, combing it with her fingertips before placing them behind the shell of her ear. “I think you’re good at catching up stuff.” She replied simply – or hoped it would seem like so, at least.
Clearing her throat once was the best she could do to keep speaking formally and in a way he would understand, not forcing anything. And introducing herself would be the best way to not stumble over herself and call him by a name he didn’t had. And so she did. “But it’s not completely true. I still need something about the World War II. But if you’d prefer discuss something else—I’m Soojung, or Ariel, as you may know me.”
“I think you’re good at catching up stuff.”
He watched as her eyes turned back to his, though he assumed her attention had been on him this whole while regardless. The fable chuckled slightly, yet with a bitter undertone before she spoke. “I have to be, or else I do not survive.”, the truth tinged quite heavy on the small sentence but reality was harsh.
As she introduced herself, her scarlet hear suddenly made sense to the male. “The little mermaid.” A tale from the country of Hesse, a neighbouring country to his own homeland. “My name is Won Bin, although I’m sure by the amount of whispers whenever I appear you would know my other name.” He wasn’t a fool, and like she had herself mentioned; he picked up on things very well. And there was no hiding he wasn’t a lot of fables favourite King that had escaped into the Mundane world, not by far.
“Well, ” he began and folded his hands together on the wooden surface of his counter. “first of all, what do you need help with Soojung?” For now he would put his discomfort to the side and actually do what he had offered to do for the good. To provide guidance and information about the Mundane world and it’s history. A history he had personally experienced and seen through to the very second they were now standing in.
“If it’s about the second world war I have several books on that, both non-fiction and fiction.” The topic was vast and the entire world had their own way of writing the outcome. Such a great war, almost much like the one they were in the midst of themselves, had taken it’s toll on the Mundanes. Even though the fighting generation were soon to die out. But he remembers those day, even if it was calm in the US compared to the European continent, you clearly saw the events even here.
A seemingly doomed war.
It wasn’t new for her. Being up all night, it is. At first, she never had trouble sleeping.
You see, sleeping on the Sea is just like you think. You just sleep; there isn’t much to think over it. Her first sleepless night only happened when she first met her Prince - and she couldn’t sleep, eat, and swim around, sing or anything else she was used to do. Many happened after that first time - and this one night, the night she was no longer the Little Mermaid, and instead she was Soojung, was just like the first one.
It seemed someone just pressed the repeat and made her suffer for the night. Gladly, though, he wasn’t related to her thoughts - for a change - and she didn’t think like a mermaid in love with a human at all. What was bothering her was something else, something so common a Fable shouldn’t be worried about, but she was about to rip off all of her precious hair.
What time was it? She couldn’t know since she had been walking around Fabletown for a while. She had really lost the time notion since the reason that kept her up made her throw the sheets, night-light, notebooks and all the homework away, and finally get up from the bed, giving up from that thing that was almost giving her a headache (And she still didn’t know how to take care of headaches, so they were a no-no.)
The red-haired woman sighed, slipping her hands inside her coat. Nothing seemed to take out of her head she wasn’t able to finish a simple homework about interpretation of some stupid human war - and worse, all she had done on the class was embarrass herself and all because of that stupid loud and walking piece of metal. Had she been that stupid? It wasn’t like it was her fault she didn’t know what a Battle Tank was, but no one knew that, of course.
She was already getting close to have no place to wander around when she reached an old-like store. Was vintage the new world to describe it? Soojung didn’t remember. And it didn’t mind when she read the place’s name, narrowing her eyes a little at the writing. “West of the Moon…Oh. His bookstore.” She recalled, furrowing her eyebrows a little at the vague memory of the shop’s owner. However, before she could think on anything else, her eyes started to burn and she blinked, turning her head to the direction of a familiar smell.
The smoke was closer than she thought and she met the right person she was thinking about, the man who owned the store. What was his name? Woobin? She didn’t remember. And how could she, if he stared at her with that intensity only male humans could produce. Soojung’s cheeks tinted with a red less intense than her hair, one that didn’t fit her at all, as she pursed her lips and curled her fingers inside her pockets. “E-excuse me.” C’mon, you can do better than this, her mind pleaded, and the mermaid wetted her dry lips before lifting a hand to slightly point at the door he was leaning on. “Is it…open yet?”
He watched as she finally fell out of her thoughts, realizing his presence besides her. Turning slightly away from her, he blew out the grey smoke between his lips and out into the air. Mixing with the air he placed the white stick between his lips once again and breathed in a drag.
“E-excuse me.”
He turned his head towards her at her call. He watched her hand lift to point at the ‘closed’ sign hanging on the inside of his shop. Returning his gaze back to hers he motioned towards his cigarette. “After this.” he replied and dangled it between two fingers, flicking off some ash from the tip of it. He couldn’t help but glance at the female once again. Scarlett red hair, now a face almost matching her hair, young and fable. 'But which fable?’, frankly he had no idea. He was never the one who recognized fables by face only. Not anymore.
Taking a last drag of the cigarette he flicked it into the snow, stepping on it once. Blowing out the final smoke he brushed passed the red haired, fishing out his keys. With a click, he pushed the door open, flipping the closed sign to 'open’. Coffee in hand, he let out a yawn and walking up to the counter. He set down the coffee, not uttering a word the whole while. Won Bin shrugged off his jacket, tossing it over his chair.
Won Bin wasn’t a man for many words, something that the other fable probably could feel by now. Stepping away from his counter he walked past her again and towards the door. Opening it slightly, he stuck out a hand into the cold air and taking a hold of the newspaper on the side of the door.
Turning back he flicked off the snow that had managed to get on the print, scanning the headline. The bell sounded as the door closed behind him, yet so accustomed to the sound he paid it no mind. Looking up from the paper he noticed the red haired looking around, appearing lost to the book store’s owner.
He paused, looking at her before speaking up. “I’m sure you didn’t only come here for the books.” he folded his arms across his chest, waiting for her to speak up. Fables usually sought out his store while seeking his advice on Mundane issues. He was slowly getting used to it, or so he supposed, though the truth was different. The exiled king was not good with other fables in the slightest.
It had been a particularly sleep-less night for the male fable. Then again, so was every night for him alike Sighing he sipped the nearly scorning hot, and newly bought, coffee from it’s container. Sleep, or rather the lack of it, was still hanging tightly on to his eyelids as he sluggishly made his way out of the coffee shop. A shiver shot through his spine as he was faced with the cold december air hanging around Seoul. Spending so many decades in the mundane world had led his tolerance towards the cold to fall tremendously since the time of the Homelands.
Yawning he trudged through the thin layer of snow on the sidewalks, not feeling the so -called need to open the shop yet. Maybe in an hour or two, or five he reasoned to himself. Pausing in his steps he fished out his pack of smokes, lighting it up between his lips.
Taking a long drag of the white stick he resumed his walking. Why Won Bin actually smoked was a mystery to himself. He never smoked back in the Homelands. But then again he didn’t drink much back then either. Leaving the cigarette hanging between two fingers he blew out the smoke at once, allowing the nicotine to enter his system fully. It wasn’t that the shop was far away from his customary coffee shop, in fact it was fairly close. He just liked to take his time and manage to smoke a cigarette before going in.
Nor was it common for people to stand outside his shop, waiting for him to get there and open. Neither was it just any one it seemed. Focusing his eyes on the figure standing in front of the door he quickly noticed her scarlet like hair, eyes fixtated on the shop’s door. But that wasn’t all that he noticed. “Fable.” He muttered inaudible as let out a long sigh. Getting a look at the side of her face he could faintly remember having seen her face. ‘But where?’ His nose scrunched up ever so slightly before he dismissed the thought. 'This is going to be a long morning.’, was all he managed to think as he walked up to the door and leaned against the door frame. With his smoke dangling from between his lips he arched an eyebrow and awaited for her to notice his presence.
