"You're doing it wrong," Yeju said on the third night, rewarding her head with a cushion being thrown by Do Yuna.
The rooftop above the fire-track annex was warm from the kilns below, which was why Yuna practiced there, and which was why Yeju had found her there at eleven at night for three nights running. The plan had been simple. Return the scroll. Mention, casually, that Kim Do-hyun was known to tutor. Leave.
The plan had lost the plot.
"I'm not doing it wrong, I'm doing it slow," Yuna said. "There's a difference. Doksu says there's a difference."
"Doksu says that to make people feel better, which means he's lying. Doksu has never made anyone feel better in his life." Yeju caught the second cushion. "Draw it again."
Yuna drew it again. The ignition glyph came up off her fingers in orange. It wobbled at the release and guttered out, same as the last forty times. She said a word that would have gotten her a complaint from a certain quarter.
"See, there," Yeju said. "You rush the third stroke."
"I know I rush the third stroke, everyone knows I rush the third stroke, my mother knows and she's four hundred miles away." Yuna dropped onto her back on the warm tiles. "It's not the stroke. It's that when I get to the third stroke I start thinking about the exam, and then I think about going home, and then my hands go... You can't fix that with a stroke."
The kilns ticked below them. Somewhere down in the city a bell rang the hour.
"What happens if you go home?" she asked.
Yuna was quiet for a second longer than she'd been quiet all night. Then, to the sky: "My aunt sold the good cart. To get me here. She's got the bad cart now" She lifted a hand and made a small useless gesture at the stars. "It's fine. It's not a whole tragic thing. I'd just really rather not."
"Draw it again," Yeju said.
"Oh my god."
"Draw it again, but don't finish it. Stop at the second stroke."
Yuna sat up. "That's not the form."
"I know it's not the form. Do it."
She did it. The glyph came up, two strokes, and hung there half-made, burning quietly. Yuna stared at it like it had said her name.
"It's not falling apart," she said.
"Because you're not thinking about the exam. You're thinking about the second stroke, which is the only thing you have to think about" Yeju leaned back on her hands. "Your hands know the form. They've known it for a month. It's the rest of you that keeps voting."
Yuna held the half-glyph another second. Then she let it go and turned to look at Yeju with an expression she hadn't had for three nights. Yeju's stomach did something inconvenient.
"Where did you learn that," Yuna said.
"I read a lot."
"That's not." Yuna made a face. "That's not an answer, that's plain lying, you've done it four times now" She scooted closer on the warm tiles, which put her much closer, specifically just it put the fire-track uniform's open collar and the freckles across her nose and the whole cheerful sunburnt fact of her about eight inches from Yeju's face. "You're an F-core who can't cast past first circle and you just fixed a month of my life with one sentence. So where."
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Yeju's mouth had gone dry. Down in the yard someone was dragging a bin.
"Practice," she said.
"Liar," said Yuna, delighted, she reached up to ruffle Yeju's hair.
It was not a gentle ruffle. It was a firm two-handed disaster, an act of violence against a hairstyle that was already an act of violence, and it lasted about four seconds. Yeju sat absolutely still through all of it with her ears going hot.
"Sorry," Yuna said, not letting go. "Sorry, I do that. I do that when I like people. I've been told it's a problem."
[ +800. ]
Yeju closed her eyes.
[ Would you like the itemization, or shall I just say the word 'headpat' and let you sit with it. ]
"Go away."
"What?" said Yuna.
"Nothing. I said. Nothing." Yeju got her hair back, or what was left of it. "Same time tomorrow. Don't be late."
"I'm always late."
"Don't be late once."
She was late. But she came.
On the fourth night Yeju took her to the east practice hall instead, because a note about roofs was still a note, and also because that place was cold, Yuna had started shivering through the drills without mentioning it.
The east hall was empty after tenth bell, exactly as advertised. It was also warm, having proper casting circles cut into the floor, even a rack of target boards nobody was using.
Yuna stopped in the doorway. "This is the good hall."
"It's empty."
"It's empty because they lock it at ten." Yuna was already inside, running a hand along the rack, delighted and suspicious in equal parts. "It's not locked. Why isn't it locked."
Yeju had wondered that herself. She had walked here fully expecting to be turned around at the door. The door had been open. The lamps had been lit, and one target board had been set out at the fire-track's regulation distance. Just one. In an empty hall.
"Somebody forgot?" she theorized.
"Nobody forgets in this school. Doksu grades in four colors and thats considered bland for the professors.." Yuna hopped up onto the rack rail. "Whatever. Don't care. Warm." She swung her legs. "Hey. Yeju. Why are you doing this."
The question landed too sudden, which was Yuna's whole method.
"You dropped a scroll," Yeju said.
"That's the thing you say instead of an answer. That's four for four." Yuna's grin faded a notch into something more careful, which on her face was almost worse than the grin. "I'm serious, though. Nobody's ever. People are nice to me. People have been nice to me my whole life, my aunt's nice, the fire track's nice, everyone's nice, and it doesn't. Nice doesn't do anything, you know? It's a thing people put on and go home in." She looked at the target board. "You've been mean to me for four nights straight and yet..."
Yeju could not find one single thing to say.
"Draw it," she said eventually.
"Ugh. Fine." Yuna hopped down. "But I'm patting your head after, and you can't stop me, because I've worked out that when you go quiet it means I got you."
"That's not what it means."
"That's exactly what it means," said Do Yuna as she drew the glyph, and held it to four strokes for the first time in her life.
By the eighth night Yuna could hold three strokes. By the tenth she could hold four and drop the fifth, which was progress, ofcourse she celebrated that by trying to headpat Yeju off the roof. On the eleventh night, the night before the exam, she was quiet for a full ten minutes, which for Do Yuna was a coma.
"Okay," she said finally. "Say the thing."
"What thing."
"The Doksu thing. The thing where you tell me the truth even though it's mean" She had her arms around her knees. "Can I pass? Actually. Tell me actually."
Yeju looked at her.
"You'll pass the written," she said. "You'll pass the practical if your hands go first and your head goes second, which they will if you stop trying to want it. Wanting it is the thing that's breaking your third stroke. You can have the thing or you can want the thing. Tomorrow, pick the first one."
Yuna absorbed that. "That's the meanest nice thing anyone's ever said to me."
"You're welcome."
"I didn't say thank you."
"You were going to."
"I was going to," Yuna admitted, and headpatted her again. Yeju was ready this time. It didn't help.
She got back to the dorm at one in the morning with her hair destroyed and a paper folded on her pillow. Bori was asleep. The paper had the academy crest at the top.
[ DISCIPLINARY COMPLAINT. Filed by: Baek Seorin. Regarding: Han Yeju. Offense: violation of curfew, third instance this week. Recommended action: formal warning. ]
And under the ruled section, in that engraved hand:
[ Additional note: the subject is on the fire-track roof past bells with another student. The roof is not rated for casting. If the subject intends to continue tutoring in violation of the curfew, the subject should use the east practice hall, which is empty after tenth bell. This is not permission. It is a note about better decisions ]
Yeju read it twice.
Then she opened the drawer beside her bed, where Complaint #1 was already folded flat, and put Complaint #2 on top of it. She lay down in the dark with her ruined hair. She did not sleep for a while.