kiss my stained mouth until it is its own sun
She wakes up in chaos. Hunger lines her bones, sings under her silly blood—a new tang to accompany the bitterness of her recent betrayal.
(no, not recent, not at all)
Her skin is her own but it's been many, many moons, ages, and she is weak. She's a whisper, a ghost, an echo. She's the dream she was dreaming.
The thing that wakes her has a smile, sharp like a promise. He's not a dragon, not a king. He's no demon, no spirit. He might have been a god, once, once. But that must have been ages ago. He's hungry now, and a little lost.
"Sam Jang." He calls her a name she has never heard before, and yet it feels so frighteningly familiar.
She reaches for the sharp, bloody tip at the edge of his smile. Fingertips under teeth, almost, almost a kiss. Almost a greeting.
.
Her blood sings a new song this time. It was lilies in a different lifetime, roses yesterday. Now…now…
"Delicious," that not god, chaos child tells her. There are demons behind him, swarming, swaying, but too afraid to advance. Once upon a forever ago they would have been scared of her. But now...?
The Great Sage…equal to Heaven. His hand that rests on the stone dragon of her prison lifts to reach for her. Her fingers feel so cold against his, she's sure she was dead under there, but she rises to her feet anyway.
Her wedding silk whispers sinister things against the floor as she walks past hungry eyes and bony winter grass while her skin has already begun to memorize the hand on hers.
.
He brings her to the demon king, twirls her around an ivory-faced Elder. His laughter is so bitter, it's infectious. It tastes so much like anger she could swim in the familiarity of it.
"What do you plan to do?" They ask him.
He tilts his head to the side all knife sharp, a sshing weighing against the tension. Testing, cutting. "What do you think?" he asks the sky.
.
She doesn't sleep for two days straight.
The demon king's guest room is enormous. It's nothing like her sarcophagus but she can't sleep. The ceiling could cave in if she closes her eyes, the walls could swallow her whole, the floor could suck her inside a bottomless ocean.
She drags her numb feet down the staircase towards the meaningless sounds coming from the sitting room. The Great Sage lounges on the sofa as he watches 3am nonsense television. The screen makes her eyes water, never mind that the whole concept of the television itself makes her whole head swim.
"Son Oh Gong." She swears she only thinks of his name but he looks at her as if she had called him out loud. Shouted for him. The empty chocolate wrappers around him rustle at the twitch of her restless fingers.
"O?"
She's so, so tried, and not just because she hasn't slept for two days, but mostly because she's been forced to sleep for so long. She would have liked to hold the weight of his hand against hers as she asks him this, but he's twelve steps away from her and her feet cannot carry her that far.
"Why did you wake me?"
.
He keeps telling her he intends to eat her. There is a sauce bubbling at the stove which he lets her taste (More salt? Okay). She looks at him, and she's so dizzy, still so weak, the soft, blurry wings behind him almost seem like an illusion.
She runs a fingertip down his cheek because that seems to catch him in a surprise. "Good luck," she says.
.
She struggles. With her lack of strength, with the buttons on her shirt, with the light switches. She breaks two bulbs trying to figure out the smartphone Sa Oh Jeong has given her. Everything, everything is different. People, houses, languages, currency.
Ma Wang shows her how a few numbers on a card can get her things.
"Anything?" she asks, wide-eyed.
He shrugs. "Almost anything."
.
Ma Wang's energy beads are too sour for her brittle teeth. She eats half of one and vomits it out while the Great Sage holds her hair and makes noises of dissatisfaction..
His sauce is burning. He can't eat her now when she's so skinny. What a waste.
He has many complaints even as he pats her back, wipes the corner of her mouth, brings her a glass of water. He won't be able to eat her when she gets her strength back, she informs him. He leans in so close the tip of his nose could kiss her.
It feels like a secret he's whispering to her. "Good luck."
.
She wakes up with hauntings on her eyelashes. Sleep is the enemy.
Yet, her body seems ready to collapse without it. The blankets bind her down and it is a battle itself to break free into the cold comfort of the floor. It has been a week but she can't even raise herself to her feet let alone be able to raise a king again.
(but what good are kings anymore, what good were they back then)
Her blood sings of a new power now but she has no idea what to do with it. She misses her roses, misses their softness, their songs, their mumblings and secrets. There is a hole somewhere inside her that still waits for what was stolen from her.
But the king is long dead now. And so are her roses with him.
She drags her empty body to the kitchen and opens the fridge. Sa Oh Jeong had said he left some soup for her. She likes soup. The eight bottles of finished sauce rattle against each other like a chorus of giggles. If she wanted, she could break them, but she only wants to cry.
Like as a shadow, he's there behind her. She knows before he reaches to close the fridge door, taking away the sight of her impending death like it's a bluff. He says nothing; just takes her hand in his as if he's walking her away from her grave again and on to the sofa. He warps them both in a sea of blankets, turns up the tv volume.
She falls asleep to nonsensical crooning; wondering how lonely could feel so warm.
.
When her feet finally catch a steadiness to them, she steps out of the house alone for the first time. It does not matter that she jumps at every movement, startles at ever car horn, breaks about five street lamps and one cctv.
She finds herself in General Winter's kind little ice cream truck and with shaky fingers takes a double scoop of a strawberry cone with a sheepish smile and grateful breath. The noise she makes when she takes her first bite makes the stoic general laugh aloud but she isn't embarrassed, she's happy. Content, almost.
She walks back a little steadier than before. She doesn't expect it—the vision that comes when she crosses the woman with the baby carriage: the slip of hand, the car, the cras—
(sssh)
It takes her into a near dizzy fall, down that hole inside her. She breathes in, out, in out, in. And she turns around and runs after the woman, catches the carriage just in time, juuust…
Relieved arms wrap around hers, shaky thanks are repeated again and again and again but the rush in her head takes over. Everything is spinning and she wants to scream, she wants to vomit, she wants to jump until her feet collapse like that first time she tried to stand.
From the corner of her eyes she catches the colour of a fur coat on the other side of the street, watching her in amusement. She had thought all of her old magic was gone, taken, sliced from her bones by the king and buried with him. She wants to tell someone she's not all gone, not completely. She's not just Sam Jang, she's still Jin Sun Mi—priestess, would-have-been queen, even if she can't summon any dragons, nor does she want to anymore.
But she has no one to shout her revelation at. Her handmaidens are dust, her king was a monster. The traffic light turns green and she runs towards the only person she has now.
Arms and fur and lips ghosting around the soft corner of his cheek. She sobs because she has forgotten her words halfway on her way to him. Her edges are still confused and her feelings all mixed. She could be Sa Oh Jeong's soup right now.
No wonder he wants to eat her.
.
Ma Wang convinces her to sign a contract with him. Her deeds, his points. Maybe it's naïve of her, rushed, reckless, idealistic. The demon king is playing games of his own, she's aware, and yet. She wants to help. She feels purposeless in this age, even with her new role as Sam Jang. It just doesn't feel right in her skin yet, but this does—her old magic, and it would be so easy to slip back into her old role.
Heaven, what a fool her soul is.
.
A daydream reminiscent of happiness settles like a crease at the corner of her tongue—a secret pocket of sweet to taste between the hours she spends day after day in aimless wandering down crowded streets, collecting points for a demon king and contentment for herself.
Son Oh Gong follows her, step beside step, hands bumping, heart in hiccups. If she lets herself be foolish for a moment, she could pretend he isn't a predator guarding his prey, but a friend. Or family. Or perhaps a lover.
Or a daydream.
.
When her blood wakes something dead, it comes crawling to her doorstep looking for her, covered in mud and murder, a once upon a fairy tale of a girl.
She gathers the broken limbs between herself and the Great Sage and kisses temporary life into its lungs. The soft, near feather act takes more from her than she anticipates but it doesn't matter to her that she collapses like luck at a gambler's hands.
The once upon a girl comes to call on her when she opens her eyes again, wrapped in blankets and mists of affection. It calls her sister—family—in a hoarse voice, hugs her like she has never been. Maybe she cries because she's so weak, so confused, so dizzy, still so, so drowsy.
Maybe.
.
After a hundred points, she discovers that a lot of 'work' can be found in old houses, and corrupted sites; hauntings have made more than half of her points so far. A loose idea nudges itself into a seedling at the back of her mind. She leaves it to be watered with more information and research for later.
Under poor lighting and clinking glasses of water and wine she discusses her 'After' with the Great Sage. Her contract with Lucifer Entertainment isn't forever, and neither is her role as Sam Jang. She will need a future to lean against, a source of income, a place to live, a frien—
"How about a fortune teller?"
She shakes her head.
"A nun?"
"An exorcist?"
She unglues her tongue from her pickling secret sapling of an idea and in the hushest of whispers asks him, "What about a...house seller?"
He tilts his head this way and that as if testing the weight of her plans, their effectiveness from the resounding rattle they make against his head. "A realtor? Hmm."
He narrows his eyes, looks her up and down, purses his lips. "Not bad." He leans forward with a crease of concern on his forehead. "But…"
"But?" She leans towards him like a moth to his madness.
"But," he says with the most charming grin, "you're going to be Yeongeun Jorim by then and Yeongeun Jorim can't sell houses."
.
She learns to balance her roses and lotus like a college student juggling majors. Son Oh Gong tells her exhaustion will sweep her back into her sarcophagus if she keeps this up. But he'd like that, wouldn't he? Can't let all those seasonings go to waste.
He runs a careless fingertip down her cheek, tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear in wicked imitation of a lover's caress.
"You'd taste better if you're well rested."
She pushes him so hard, the wind slams him against the wall.
.
In the end she does get sick.
"You seem to have caught the Great Sage's cold," Ma Wang informs her in unwelcome amusement. He gives her an energy bead for speedy recovery but she only keeps it to warm her palms.
Son Oh Gong doesn't come to offer her any apologies, or even to gloat. He doesn't come to see her at all.
It shouldn't matter to her because she doesn't care for him, and because he's probably resting himself anyway. The last she saw of him, he looked terrible, covered in layers and layers of as many coats as he could fit in. She must have caught one of his sneezes between her teeth then.
She wishes now that she hadn't refused to heal him out of spite.
At twelve past midnight he comes shuffling into her room and wordlessly sits down beside her, tucks his feet beneath her blanket without permission. He has a cup cradled between his fingertips which he whiffs in longing before he exchanges it for the energy bead in her hands.
He looks her up and down, wrinkles his nose, and motions for her to drink. He says nothing the whole time. Nothing. But it's a loud nothing. And as casual as a cat, he closes his eyes and goes to sleep right there on her bed.
She looks at him until a teacup warmth nudges against her ribs in warning.
She closes her eyes but she can't sleep for a long, long time.
.
Dreams are restless, wistful things—snow gathering at the tip of her nose.
Her king bows to her as the ceremony requires. She tips her chin and cuts her palm, already tasting dust inside her lungs. Before her blood kisses the stone, she finds herself in front of her wedding silks.
Her handmaidens smile at her, beckoning. They dress her under the glare of mirrors, under tears and protests and thorns biting her cheek. This was the happiest day of her life.
She crawls into her grave all by herself this time.
.
A dokchi tells her terrible things she already knows.
"You will die by his hand," it croons to her. "He will tear you flesh and drink your blood."
Son Oh Gong makes an impatient noise and catches it by its throat, disintegrates it between his fist. She expected him to correct the dokchi and tell it that no, he'll most likely stir fry her and dip her in sauce. He has three different flavours hibernating inside Ma Wang's fridge.
Instead, he touches the cool of his palm to her dizzying forehead; such an ordinary, unfamiliar gesture that it tips her backwards into an imaginary fall. His concern tastes different than that of Ma Wang or Bu Ja. It is wildfire fear winding gold and honey around her lungs, a cotton candy melting drip sticking at the roof of her mouth.
She seems to already have forgotten the prayer of self preservation.
.
Skinny laughter in yellow lights. A room full of almost friends and food and drinks and heavenly chaos sitting beside her. A celebration of the end of the year, the birth of another.
She clinks her glass with the rest of them, cheers repeated again and again, tapping good-naturedly against one another. The enveloping comfort loosens up her stitches, melts inside her in soft twirls.
The tv is white noise until someone—perhaps Secretary Ma, perhaps Jeo Pal Gye calls attention to the bell striking ceremony. She leans forward in lethargic interest and just like that, just like that, swirling in silly merriment and in the middle of another celebration, her whole world tips into the floor along with seven glasses and the spoon from her fingers.
—her king bows to her as the ceremony requires
His hair is short, his clothes common. He smiles at the camera like he did at her at their never-wedding.
When he leans to ring the bell, the hole inside her yawns open as if to swallow him whole. No wonder her magic has been crawling back to her oh so slowly. She has been such a fool.
Someone pulls at her hand, someone else catches her shoulder. Several voices call her non-name. Sam Jang, Sam Jang, Sam Jang. She wants to scream, she wants to run, she wants to crawl back into her bed and lock the door before her handmaidens come back from dust to drag her back into her stone grave.
Son Oh Gong pushes all the voices and hands and prying fingers away. He catches her by her arms and pulls her up to her feet. "Stop it!" he says, but she can't tell if he's asking her or the others. She can't tell anything anymore. The sky from the grass, her friends from the pretenders, the dead from the living, safety from danger, love from hope.
"Jin Sun Mi," he says her name like a summoning.
The hundred bottles on the Summer Fairy's shelves stop rattling. She gasps, breathing again, in and out in and out in and out and
For a moment she had forgotten she wasn't sleeping any more.
"What's wrong?"
He lifts a hand to her forehead again, but she jumps back as if he has already burned her. She can't do this, she can't. She can taste the earth, can feel old roots beginning to encase her already. Love is an illusion, a fool's daydream.
She will not be a fool again.
.
She can't bring herself to tell anyone the truth.
She runs back to her home not home and collapses on the living room floor, heaving dry air and her hope of a new life. She can't believe she made plans for the future, can't believe she signed a contact with Ma Wang that was meant to last a whole year, can't believe she asked Jeo Pal Gye to show her how to navigate the internet so she could learn about the real estate business, can't believe she told Bu Ja she would help her find her name, can't believe she promised to buy Son Oh Gong alcohol when his ban is lifted, can't—
She can't have anything but a tragedy.
She has nothing, no one to protect her. Soon, her king will find her. If her magic can crawl back, so will he when he knows she's free. He will take this new blood from her this time, and she may not be as naïve as she once was, but she isn't as powerful either.
Sam Jang is only a fairy tale she's playing at. She's still relying on her small trickle of roses that's nothing more than a single petal which she was only too happy to have just an hour ago.
Once a fool, always, always.
Gasping, shaking, sobbing, she tries to gather her pieces back to her feet again. She needs to go, she has to run. There isn't anything here for here anyway. Ma Wang is no real friend to her, and Son Oh Gong…Son Oh Gong wants to eat her. She doesn't know why she stayed this long anyway. She needs to run now, now. Before they come back from the party, before she can be stopped, before she can change her mind.
She runs, stumbling and slipping, up the stairs, to her room first, to pack whatever essentials she can find. If she had let Jeo Pal Gye teach her how to drive a car when he had offered to, she would have taken Son Oh Gong's for a hasty escape, and just to spite him.
(and maybe, maybe so he comes looking for it, if not for her)
She doesn't notice the painting leaning against the cupboard at first, or the note attached to it in Ma Wang's wispy handwriting. A bride and a groom just to mock her.
When she's dragged in, she almost doesn't complain.
.
She is back to her beginning, back to her end, a never ending cycle, a forever prison. Her wedding silks rustle against the painting in a mockery of her yester life. Green against gold, red kissing her cheek.
Once again, her groom is a monster. She bows with her sisters as the ceremony requires. She can feel the pressure of a spell against her eyelashes but she's too sleepy to bother shaking it.
When chaos comes looking for her, she almost doesn't recognize him.
"Jin Sun Mi," he calls her a name she thought she had dreamt up, and yet it feels so hauntingly familiar. She reaches for the soft edges of his lips, an innocent imitation of a kiss, of a greeting.
"Son Oh Gong."
The spell under her eyelashes flutters away in blinks.
A fool is a fool is a fool.
.
Under grassy wind and singing reeds she offers her secrets away like a sacrifice.
Great Sage eats them from her palm, licking the tragedy, biting the names in twos and threes. He leans forward, face to face, his breath against hers, almost touching, almost kissing.
"Jin Sun Mi," he says. "Sam Jang." He steps closer and she takes a step back. His hand reaches to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, slow, deliberate, aching, and oh, oh, gentle.
"If you can make kings, you can unmake them."
.
He offers her his hand, palm up—an invitation, a contract, a promise.
She needs someone to protect her, and he needs someone who can break the heavens. Her hand twitches, hovering in indecision, warming under the evening sun and his closeness.
She looks at him, looking at her. Expectant, arrogant. She tilts her head, weighing the decision, his sincerity, her aching bones.
"No," she tells him.
"No?" he laughs.
"This isn't…how—"
Palm against palm, one swipe and that's it? It's impersonal, god-like, bitter. No. No.
She takes a step to him, lets him watch her in indulgent amusement. Tip-toes and fingertips and wool against skin and buttons and a smile that she presses to her lips. A wing-tip kiss, a drizzle drop kiss, a dreaming sleeping sleepy kiss.
—this is how
"Deal." She whispers against his tongue.
He smiles that smile between their promise—a knife's edge, a wicked song. The reeds dance and she's in a wedding dress. Her groom is a monster. But he's her monster now.
She used to be able to call a dragon and make a king. Now she'll call on a beast and unmake her mistake.
If she can make kings, she can make gods.
The title is from Caitlyn Siehl's lovely poem In the Kitchen.