20. Stubborn And Vengeful

H er head was throbbing dully, and Min-ji felt more than thirsty as she sat there on the floor with her back against the side of the bed. Scarlett was curled up in her arms, her head against her chest. The zombie, who was sniffling every so often, had her face hidden.

“Min-ji?”

“Mm?”

“Please…give us…another chance…”

Smiling, despite feeling absolutely exhausted after almost drowning, and then bawling for the first time in many hundreds of years, she kissed the top of her head. “Always.”

“Thank you…” Scarlett murmured softly, before slowly peeking up from where she’d buried her face in Min-ji’s chest. With her red nose and eyes, her smeared mascara, and blotchy cheeks, the zombie looked…adorable.

“Need something?” she asked, when the woman continued to stare silently.

“I think…we should…go to…” Scarlett’s nose wrinkled. “ Couples therapy .”

Min-ji choked out a laugh at how absolutely disgusted Scarlett had sounded just saying the words. “That sounds…horrible.”

“Ugh, it does,” the zombie groaned.

Chuckling, she pressed a kiss to the woman’s forehead. “But…I’ll do it, if that’s what you want.”

“Well, we need to do something! Or, I need to do something…”

Scarlett sighed as she sat up and scooted over a bit. Sitting in front of her now, the woman grabbed one of her hands, holding it between both of hers.

“I can’t keep doing this…to you, or…myself. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t mean to hurt you. Please know that I do care. I just… I’ve never been good at—” Scarlett huffed, “—feelings.”

“I knew that before I started pursuing you, Scarlett.” She leaned forward and gave her a peck on the lips. “I still love you… I will love you, even if you can’t ever manage to say the words back. But I do have…doubts, about the reasons why you can’t… Perhaps even about what you do feel for me…because of what I am.”

“It’s not because of that! And…” Scarlett gasped. “I’ve…never been able to say those words easily, not even when I was human… And you’re right…I do need to accept what you are. I was ignoring it. The bond won’t let me now. But I will get past it… I have to… Therapy maybe…could…ugh…help?” She sighed. “I’ve been unfair to you, in more ways than one. You’re more than right in your assessment of how I’ve changed. At times…I have looked at you like I don’t even know you, like you are my…enemy.”

Min-ji grimaced, hearing the words from Scarlett hurt worse than just thinking them to herself.

“I’m sorry… I know it’s not right, what I’ve been doing. And I don’t mean to do it. I honestly feel…awful when I realize it. But when the bond rises up…my mind sometimes panics…and it’s like the world shifts, and I don’t see you anymore. I just…I feel the bond, and I see a…”

“A witch,” she finished for her, sadly.

“Yes,” Scarlett rasped softly. “No, you’ve never done anything to make me doubt you. Or to even suggest that you want me for what I, as a zombie, can do for you. But that’s not…how…” The zombie sagged a bit, leaving her words unfinished.

Min-ji filled in the gaps. “It’s not how the mind works. And anytime the bond gets a little too loud, your mind dredges up everything bad about my kind.”

“Yes…blocking out what I know to be true…with all of my doubts… ‘Why does she want to dig deeper?’, ‘What is she really after?’, ‘How much do you really know about her?’. Every time, my mind draws too many blanks about you…about what you could want… And I can’t help but think about all of the people who lied…before…”

“You’ve mentioned before how…Audrey…wasn’t the only witch who tried to use you.”

Scarlett sighed. “Not the only one, just the only one to succeed.”

Min-ji grimaced. “Well, I can answer all of those questions. And it is my fault that you know so little about me.”

“I do know you… I just…”

“You just don’t know about me, or my past. Well…let’s fix that. First question, I don’t want to dig. I only want to get past your walls because I love you, and want the chance to comfort and protect you when you are hurting.

“Second question, the only thing I’m after is your heart. It’s all I’ve ever been after.

“Third… The answer to that is a bit longer than the others. My name is Kim Min-ji, but as many older paranormals are forced to do, I adopted the name Kim once having a surname became necessary. My given name…it is not exactly my original name, but basically, it's what it translated to after more than a few centuries and the adoption of Hanja… It’s complicated. Just know, I…”

She paused and shrugged. “I'm going to be honest, I’ve forgotten the original…along with much of the language I first spoke. As well as my family members’ names…which I changed to more ‘modern’ ones in my effort to blend in with the constant changes in the Korean peninsula. But the original meaning was maintained, translating well enough to Min-ji—Min meaning strong, Ji meaning hold. Not the most feminine of meanings, I know, but I was the first child that survived.”

“So a fitting name.” Scarlett smirked.

“Yes. That being said, I was the eldest child of eight, born to Ha-neul and Sang-wook, in…well, to the best of my calculations, I was born—and don’t quote me on the year, as I could be wrong—October 31st, 1613 BCE.”

Scarlett shuddered. “Oh, God… Whatever you do, do not tell Octavius your birthday.”

Min-ji laughed. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“So…you have siblings?”

Now it came to the whole reason why she didn’t like bringing up her past. “Six out of seven of my siblings perished with my parents, all of them falling during a massive attack on my village by Knights. Though they were called something else back then.”

Scarlett pulled her into a hug, murmuring, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

When the woman pulled back, Min-ji smiled. “That pain has long passed. It happened before I reached thirty.”

“What about the remaining sibling? Do you see them?”

“The one who survived the attack…my youngest brother...” She frowned, thinking about the last time she saw him. “I have not seen or talked to Min-gi for ages, beyond the various clashes we’ve had throughout the years, when we, by some miracle, ended up in the same room. He blames me for their deaths. For not being there.”

“Were all of the members of your family witches?” Scarlett asked, her voice giving nothing away.

“Yes.”

“If your parents were no match for them, what made him think you would be?”

Min-ji had asked herself that many times in the past, and the conclusion she had always come to was… “I believe he is mad that I was not there to die with them. I ran away from my family when I was nineteen.”

“From marriage, perhaps?” Scarlett asked with a knowing smile.

She sighed. “Pretty much. I ran away from an arranged marriage that was finally to be fulfilled on my betrothed’s return from his long crusade of helping those ‘above us’ to expand their territory. Men displeased me in general. But I had already realized, by that point, where my attractions lay. It probably didn’t help my case, in their minds, as I ran away ‘with’ the man who was teaching me rune magic.

“There was no love between us, as he himself was a lover of men, but I believed he saw my desperation and despair about what was to come…so he helped me leave. To be clear, our village was…secretly all witches. But even back then, rune magic was dying out.

“I’m not sure if you know this but, rune magic has no relation to the Germanic runic alphabet. It is, in fact, a much older language that is long past forgotten. So, Myung-yong knowing it, and being proficient enough to have an apprentice…it was proof to everyone that he was not someone they had a chance in hell of stopping. So, they didn’t.

“Min-gi was young when I left. Only eight. He was eighteen when invading forces, which…had had been infiltrated by Knights, attacked. We…tried to get there. My teacher had gotten word of their movements…but…”

“You were too late…”

“He saw the first as an abandonment, and the second as betrayal. So, after we managed to save his life…he lashed out and left. He has been…lashing out ever since.”

“It's nearing four thousand years, and he’s still holding a grudge. You’d think he’d let it go by now.”

Min-ji tossed her head back and laughed. “Yeah, my family has always been a bunch of vengeful, stubborn bastards. But then, I can’t judge, as I’m just the same. I used my rage to fuel my vengeance against the Knights for years, and it took me thousands of years to finally let go of it. And it only happened after I finished hunting down every single Knight in that army, who dared to lay a hand on my family.”

Scarlett smirked. “Well then, I guess it’s good that being stubborn and vengeful are my two favorite hobbies.”

Min-ji slowly smiled and cupped the woman’s face. “Are they?”

The zombie’s smirk widened. “Mm.”

“Then it’s a shame that the only enemy left to slay is probably our upcoming therapist.” She pressed a hard kiss to her lips before laughing, as Scarlett groaned and plopped forward, out of her hold, to bury her face into her chest.

“There, there.” She giggled as she wrapped her arms around her, patting Scarlett’s back when the woman kept groaning.