🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
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I tucked my hands inside the pockets of my trousers, keeping my eyes on the people bustling around us. Beside me, Revery pursed her lips, clutching the straps of her satchel tighter. Right. Sometimes I forget there were people who didn't have an inventory like I did.
"Why did you pull me all the way out here?" Revery asked, looking back at the direction we took as we split off the main group. "I could have helped Heather pick out the right ingredients. I swear that woman had no sense of what's edible or not."
I continued walking until Revery had to double her speed to catch up to me. "We won't be long," I said. "I just...want to take you up on your offer."
Revery knitted her eyebrows. "Which is?"
"Ask for your help," I managed to cough out despite the growing tightness in my gut. The hours I spent last night mentally preparing myself to blurt out those exact words finally sank in on me with the strain on my shoulders doubling. "I admit I haven't been very good at that."
Recognition dawned on her face. Then, she smiled. "You don't need to be an expert to receive some," she said. "What can I help you with?"
I scratched the back of my neck even though there wasn't a single itch. Force of habit, I guess. "Do you happen to remember which stall Seline was attempting to buy that hairpin yesterday?"
"Huh? Oh, yesterday," she pushed past me and took the lead, stringing me along now. She pointed to the next alley. "I think it's there? It's hard to say. These street sellers don't have a permanent place, especially if they're travelers."
I blinked. "There are traveling merchants and non-traveling ones?"
Revery whirled to me like she couldn't believe she was having this conversation with a grown man, an adventurer, even more. "Well...yes," she tapped a finger against the side of her face. "The one Seline was consulting yesterday looked to be from the traveling kind. They had that look."
And then there's me who couldn't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday.
"Why are you looking for the hairpin anyway?" came Revery's question.
My head snapped up to find her back to me. She didn't see the heat painting my cheeks and the way I wiped my hands on my trousers to get rid of the excess sweat. "It's...um," I blew a breath and pushed my hair off my forehead, not that it did me any favors. "I just want to make it up to Seline but, for the life of me, don't know where to start."
I shrugged even though Revery was a few steps ahead, shouldering past the thickening crowd around us. "So I thought I'd start with the hairpin she's looking at," I said. "Might open up an avenue for a conversation."
Revery hummed. "I'm guessing this wasn't just about the fight yesterday."
Spot on. We're not exactly that subtle, weren't we? "Is it bad that there's so much history of mistakes between us that I don't even know how to go through them at all?" I asked. "It's just...so much more complicated. Now more than ever."
