Chapter Text
Any story, if told conventionally, is told at the beginning.
But where does the beginning actually begin?
This is a point of contention for creationists and scientists, pro-choicers and pro-lifers, and quarreling siblings in the backseats of minivans ("But Mom, she started it!” “No, you started it!” “No—you!” “NO—YOU!”)
Storytellers prone to cliches might open with "once upon a times" and "dark and stormy nights."
The existentialists will overthink the question and the burnouts could not give half a collective damn.
Here’s the answer if you are so inclined to know: beginnings begin whenever the hell you want them to—that’s one of the few luxuries of being human.
My diet starts tomorrow.
I’ll talk to her tonight.
I’m going to tell her how I feel—right now.
Immortals, on the other hand, don’t have any beginnings, nor are they able to witness any ends.
This shall not, however, detract us from telling their stories. After all, they have millions upon millions of fascinating experiences to behold, enriching tales to uncover.
We will begin this one particular tale—the tale of the Archer General and Archer Supreme—in the midst of things, or, as they say in Latin, in medias res.
Department of Sapphic Affairs
Office of Records
East Eden, The Great Beyond
1998 A.D.
Vivi’s legs are reaching speeds she previously thought to be impossible.
Currently she’s clocking in at 9 miles per hour—which, by Olympian sprinter standards, is laughable—but considering she’s never ran a day in her eternal life, she’s quite deserving of a medal in her own right.
Vivi is a Cupid, you see, and cupids are not known for spending much time with their feet on the ground.
“General!” Wonyoung, Vivi’s understudy, calls out, falling several paces behind.
“We’re nearly there, Lieutenant! I can see the exit! It is but a mile away!”
“Another mile?!” Wonyoung exclaims in disbelief.
The Office of Records in the Department of Sapphic Affairs amasses 22 square miles, roughly the size of the New York City borough of Manhattan.
Its endlessness—aisles upon aisles of file cabinets reaching mountainous heights—deters most from breaking into it and its severe anti-flight measures, including a dark enchantment that is rumored to clip the wings of any angel so brazen to trespass and tamper with centuries of classified information, drive away almost all the rest.
“I still- don’t- understand- what- we’re- doing here- General,” Wonyoung gasps for air between pauses. “What- would- ne-cess-it-ate us stealing from the-“
“We’re not stealing, Lieutenant!” Vivi zips past Aisle 752, widening the gap between them by another three aisles. “We’re merely borrowing!” Vivi triumphantly holds up the performance review file of her sworn enemy, the one Cupid in the entire Great Beyond who outranks her: the Archer Supreme.
Vivi has been plotting the pompous despot’s downfall for quite some time—since before the invention of the wheel, if memory serves her right.
“This is no different than checking out a book from the library! We’ll bring it straight back when I’m through with her!”
“It!” Wonyoung corrects her mentor’s Freudian slip. “When you’re through with it.”
“Right. The file, of course!”
Wonyoung bares her teeth and pushes through, ignoring her limbs’ pleas for rest and her wings’ cries for motion.
“Can’t we fly? Just this last stretch? Please?!”
“As I told you twice before, if you fly here now, you shall never fly again!”
“Wait, General!”
“WHAT?!” Vivi outbursts, wishing she had kept this a solo mission as originally planned.
“WATCH OUT-“
Infirmary for Winged Deities
Central Eden, The Great Beyond
1999 A.D.
Vivi awakens from her coma with a myriad of questions.
“Welcome back, General. Come to join us back here in the land of the everliving, eh?”
Vivi winces at the pen light being flashed at her pupils but relaxes slightly at the familiar voice.
“Handong,” Vivi recognizes the high-ranking Healer and old friend. Handong has tended to every scrape, cut, and bruise Vivi has sustained since the latter’s recruit days. “How long have I been out?”
Handong procures calipers from her pocket and measures the thickness of the halo floating above Vivi’s head.
“About a year,” Handong answers casually, more preoccupied with collecting information for Vivi’s patient chart.
“No, it can’t be!” Vivi raises both hands to her cheeks, distraught. “What have I missed?”
“Not much,” Handong pokes at various areas on Vivi’s wings, presumably testing her reflexes. “Denim on denim, boy bands and frosted tips, something something Y2K, the McRib is back, I think…”
“No, it’s gone again,” interjects another Healer by the name of Dami, who tends to a confused and concussed Pegasus in the other bed.
“Oh well, looks like you’re out of luck,” Handong laments to Vivi as if Vivi had any interest in flying down to Earth to consume a genetically modified pork patty smothered in high fructose corn syrup and preservatives.
(Vivi once heard of a guardian angel who, out of politeness, accepted a Cheeto puff offered to him by his human and consequently fell so ill that he was out of commission for seven years. Left without a proper positive influence, that human decided to grow a mullet and buy a timeshare in who-knows-the-fuck-where, Nebraska. ‘Nuff said.)
“Oh, for Gods’ sake! Not on Earth! I’m asking about- Hey! What are you-“
“Sorry,” Handong withdraws her needle from Vivi’s Angel joint (AKA where scapula meets wing). “Had to make sure everything works.”
“Why would everything not work?” Vivi frustratedly sits up in her bed, now noticing a glittery gold serum infusing through IVs in each forearm.
“Well, to put it quite bluntly, you ran directly into a force field that would have liquified your organs and popped your eyeballs out of their sockets if you were human.”
“Colorful images,” Vivi smiles uncomfortably. “But I’m not human so…”
“You’ll fly away unscathed… as usual.”
There’s palpable frustration in Handong’s tone and there’s no question as to why.
Handong knows it’s only a matter of time before Vivi does something equally, if not more dangerous and gets herself into yet another coma.
Vivi is a Cupid, what else is there to expect of her kind?
Cupids are overgrown children entrusted with bows and arrows. They are reckless, fearless, mischievous little shits who somehow always manage to get the job done. (Believe it or not, Cupids were ranked “#1 most efficient angel subspecies” three centuries in a row.)
Their love for humanity—apart from their obvious love for love—is perhaps most inspiring, especially considering that not even humanity loves humanity.
“I’m sure you’ll hear this a thousand times over, but I must ask: What were you doing in the Office of Records? All that effort for a file? What was it all for?”
Steely-eyed, the Archer looks out the infirmary’s magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows that let in rays of heavenly light in the most literal sense.
“I was searching for a flaw. A missed target, a love connection turned into hate, a wrongdoing that might have been swept under the rug, any imperfection, any piece of blackmail that I could use against her.” Vivi detaches herself from her double dose of Cupid strengthening serum and rips out her IV lines, Healer’s orders be damned. “May the gods have mercy on my soul for saying this, but I very well intended to find the right information to weaponize and destroy her once and for all.”
Handong can’t contain her scoff.
These Cupids… always such a flair for the dramatic.
“My dear friend, how devoutly I prayed to the gods for you to let this bloodlust go.”
Vivi raises a skeptical brow as if to say, “Come on, did you really believe I was capable of such a thing?”
Handong tends to Vivi’s forearms, dabbing her former IV sites with dry gauze; Vivi thanks her with a shy smile.
“So, I’m assuming, once you’ve cleared me, I’m to report to the High Court immediately?”
“That you are, but not for reasons you might believe. They’re not going to suspend you.”
Vivi feels relief wash over her from head to wing to toe. “Then what are they going to do?”
“Those fools over at the Governing Body of Cupids have deemed your act of thievery an act of bravery. They’ve seen just how badly you want the position that they’re willing to overlook your crimes."
Of all the news that one could wake up to after a year-long coma, this is by far the best.
Vivi had thought for sure that she was a goner. She figured Venus herself would banish her to the Underworld.
But this…
In her heart of hearts, Vivi could never want for anything more than to assume this sacred duty.
“You’re saying,” Vivi pauses, in blissful disbelief of the next words that are about to leave her mouth, “I stand a chance at becoming the next Prime Matchmaker?”
Handong humors her friend with a subtle but telling wink.
At this, Vivi feels every muscle fiber in her arms come back to life after a year of rest. She could fire an arrow from here straight through to Pluto.
“It would be premature of me to extend my congratulations, but all the angels and saints know deep down that that job is yours. Of course, the Archer Supreme is still in consideration, but this is merely common courtesy.”
“The Archer Supreme? You’re kidding right?”
“You Cupids really are the dumb jocks of the Great Beyond—all brawn, no brains,” Handong mutters quickly under her breath. “No? What did you think was going to happen? The chancellors would overlook the highest ranked Archer?”
“Yes! She’s a hack! A fraud! A menace to the Cupid race! If we let her within spitting distance of the throne, we’re all but doomed. She’ll be the downfall of Love as we know it.”
To the eyes of the experienced Healer, Vivi’s aura is a fiery, inextinguishable red. One can't help but question: How can a servant of love be capable of such visceral hate?
“Gods, Vivi,” Handong sighs, profoundly exasperated. “What did Haseul ever do to you?”
Palace of the Archer Supreme
Garden of Eden, The Great Beyond
Every morning for the past year, Haseul flies out of her 120,000 square foot home, hovers over her endless garden, descends and kneels beside a field of the sweetest red roses, and prays for the well being of the Archer General.
Before Vivi’s near career-ending accident, Haseul would follow the same routine almost to a T only she’d pray for the exact opposite: the Archer General’s impossible demise.
Why the change of heart?
Well, when Jinsol, the executive assistant to the Prime Matchmaker, arrived at her mountainous front gates a year to this day and informed her of Vivi’s theft and subsequent comeuppance, Haseul felt not a twinge of joy nor satisfaction.
Haseul spent those first few days in a catatonic state; she did not bathe, sleep, eat, or indulge in the special wine that only she—by virtue of being the highest ranked Archer—was allowed to drink.
Carrier doves continued to deliver Haseul her assignments, including those that otherwise would have gone to a conscious Vivi, but Haseul had no interest in picking up a single envelope.
Haseul had no one to spar with, no one to belittle, no one to ruin. The other Archers were low hanging fruit; on their greatest days, they could never compare to Vivi’s raw talent and insatiable hunger for success.
Haseul eventually came to the realization, whether she liked it or not, that in some sick, twisted, Batman and Joker-esque way, Vivi completed her.
So Haseul prayed, as humble servants do, for the return of both her enemy and her purpose.
Until finally, one day, her patience and piousness was rewarded.
The Archer General has awoken
The Prime Matchmaker is in need of a successor
Report to the High Court in three days time
Pray Venus deems you worthy
For the first time in 365 days, Haseul cracks a smile.
She beckons the dove to her arm, flies out her window, and lands gently in the middle of her rose garden.
The flowers here are not meant to be picked, for they are meant to live in the enchanted soil forever, to be admired but never acquired.
Haseul forgoes this rule and plucks a single rose, the most stunning of them all and relishes at how quickly the petals shrivel and blacken.
Ah yes. This will do.
A perfect “get well soon” gift for one’s immortal enemy.
Haseul places the rotten rose in the dove’s mouth and names its intended recipient.
“Send my love to the Archer General.”
Newtopia Bar and Grill
San Francisco, California, Earth
The Same Day
Here we arrive in the midst of a seemingly separate story where the stakes are nowhere near as high and our heroes are nowhere near as powerful.
Now introducing... Human Protagonist #1.
Hyeju Son has a 1981 Gibson Victory bass guitar, a Beavis and Butthead tattoo on her right bicep, an estimated $15,000 in student loan debt, a 1959 Chevy Apache that’s flunked every smog test since she bought it off a gun-tootin’ Texan cowboy on Christmas Day 1994, a cashier job at a combination KFC/Taco Bell, and a dream.
This dream is one every human has had, currently has, or will have at some point in their lifetime.
Hyeju wants to be famous.
Of course, there are different levels to fame.
There are A-list actors and B-list actors.
There are people who can’t take out their trash without getting papped and there are people who can get away with all their errands uninterrupted.
There are faces on billboards and there are faces on park benches.
There is reasonable fame and there is a kind of unreasonable, absurd fame that Hyeju lies awake at night wishing for.
What sets Hyeju apart from the millions of spotlight seekers out there is that she doesn’t actually want the spotlight for herself—what she truly desires is the opportunity and the ability to provide it to another: Chaewon Park.
Now presenting... Human Protagonist #2.
Chaewon Park has a 1998 Fender Toronado electric guitar, a Powerpuff Girls tattoo on her left bicep, an estimated $17,000 in student loan debt, an expired driver's permit, an ice cream scooper job at the local Dairy Queen, and a dream girlfriend.
It took all of three dates (or three macchiatos) for Chaewon to understand Hyeju’s character and the depths of her love.
Hyeju didn’t come from money, wasn’t the best conversationalist, never knew how or when to turn on the charm, and gave a general air of aloofness.
But when it came time to pay, Hyeju always pulled exactly $3.15 from her duct-taped wallet.
And she never actually ordered coffee—she’d only get ice water.
Chaewon’s intrigue had gotten the better of her at the end of the third date.
“What's with the water? Can’t hold your caffeine?”
“Ok... This is going to sound so pathetic but the day before our first date, I memorized the prices of all the drinks on the menu. I’m a bit short on cash these days, so I planned on ordering the cheapest thing on the menu—a small black coffee for 95 cents. In the event that you decided to order the most expensive drink on the menu—a large mocha for $2.20—I’d have just enough money, $3.15, to scrape by. But I was wrong. The mocha wasn’t the most expensive drink—it was the macchiato that you ordered. And water… water was free.”
“Oh Hyeju, you should have said something! I shouldn’t have let you pay for my fancy drink!”
“But I wanted to—all those times before. And I want to—all the times after. You’re a girl who deserves everything, Chaewon. More than this world or I could ever give you.”
“How do I know you’re not saying all this just to get a fourth date with me?”
“Because I don’t want just a fourth date with you.”
Three years and countless dates later, Chaewon stands beside her girlfriend, loyal as they come as Hyeju swallows her pride, begging and groveling to the manager of Newtopia Bar and Grill.
“Please Jieun, please give us our slot back. I’ve written five new songs, all of them are great,” Hyeju pulls her songbook out of her tattered backpack. “See? Got ‘em right here. Please let us play them.”
Jieun keeps her gaze steady on the cash register, thumbing through tonight’s stack of twenties that, up until a month ago, was much thicker.
“I’m sorry, Hyeju. The restaurant is struggling. We’re barely making rent as it is. We wouldn’t be able to pay you.”
“That’s fine! We’ll put on a killer show and bring in all the customers you lost as well as some new ones! And if you really can’t pay us, then we’re willing to perform for free! It shouldn’t be a problem.” Hyeju looks to Chaewon for support. “Right, babe?”
Hyeju and Chaewon’s weekly Friday night sets at Newtopia have been their only steady sources of income apart from their respective minimum wage jobs (that Hyeju and Chaewon have gradually begun to abandon in favor of band practice).
Chaewon wishes she could say yes—yes, it would be a problem—because Jieun isn’t the only one with bills to pay.
The mechanic is still holding Hyeju’s truck hostage, the ER hasn’t forgotten about the tonsillectomy Chaewon had two years ago, and Chaewon’s brother and his wife aren’t going to let her crash on the couch of their one bedroom apartment forever.
Hyeju’s parents just sold their wedding rings to pay for Hyeju’s father’s chemo and Chaewon’s parents… well, they’re as good as gone.
Chaewon officially shut her parents out of her life after they called the police on Hyeju, claiming this “dangerous girl” had corrupted their daughter, introduced her to drugs and “punk rocker music,” and attempted to kidnap her.
Chaewon would rather die than ask for their help.
Sure, her parents were right about some things.
Dropping out of accounting school to start a band with her “miscreant” girlfriend wasn’t the best financial decision. Hardships would come and have continued to come—one after another.
But everyday since Chaewon’s been free of her actual captors, she’s been able to do what she loves with the woman she loves. The bass guitarist of “Burn the Moon” is the only person whom Chaewon’s life revolves around.
And what a life it has been with Hyeju: stretching dollars, pinching pennies, and strumming strings till their fingers bleed.
“Right,” Chaewon confirms, squeezing Hyeju’s hand. “Just let us perform, Jieun. That’s all we’re asking.”
Jieun seems to drag out the process of reloading and locking the cash register—something she’s done for the past thousand or so nights—just to avoid looking Hyeju and Chaewon in the eyes.
Beyond those twin dark circles lie hope: beautiful, bountiful hope blooming in their retinas. Even after 36 rejections from various radio stations and record labels, Hyeju and Chaewon’s faith in the band and in each other endures.
Jieun has left Chaewon with no choice but to snap her fingers in front of her face to claim her coveted attention.
“HEY! C’mon, you’re killing us! Give us an answer here!”
Jieun reluctantly delivers Hyeju and Chaewon’s 37th rejection; this one is sure to hurt the most.
“I can’t let you play again… not without Heejin.”
Heejin.
As far as Hyeju is concerned, there has never been a worse name, a more despicable combination of letters.
“Fucking Heejin,” Chaewon grumbles, not the biggest fan of BTM’s former lead singer either.
“So that’s it? She’s the dealbreaker?” An irate Hyeju asks Jieun.
“Look, you guys are good guitarists and Jungeun’s a good drummer! But there was just something about Heejin that drew people in. Our customers didn’t come here for the food or the band. They came here-” Jieun sighs, “-they came here for her.”
Hyeju and Chaewon can’t deny it—Heejin was their greatest asset.
She buttered up the crowd and made more than a few girls blush; her charisma was unmatched. When people saw her step up to the microphone, they just knew they were about to have the night of their lives.
But there’s no getting her back now.
“But there’s no getting her back now,” Hyeju admits, more to herself than anyone else. “She’s pretty serious about med school and being a pediatrician.”
“She abandoned her bandmates to go take care of some sick kids… selfish bitch!”
Whether the “selfish bitch” part was really necessary is debatable, but one thing’s for sure: Heejin is a traitor in Chaewon’s eyes.
When your girlfriend worships the ground you walk on, you show her that same devotion. You learn to love what she loves. You learn electric guitar even if you don’t have the best musical ear because that’s where she says you’ll shine.
And her enemies become yours.
Except they’re not actually enemies. They just caught up with Heejin the other week at her university. She swiped them into the cafeteria. They ate pizza and reminisced about the band’s early days. She seemed nostalgic, but not regretful of the life she left behind.
“Everyone will end up exactly where they need to be,” Heejin said, in a moment of quiet reflection. “And my place is here.”
“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you guys,” Jieun settles it. “I really am sorry.”
Chaewon gives Jieun a final look that’s half “You’ll regret this” and half “I respect your decision.”
Hyeju slings her guitar on her back and takes Chaewon’s hand, leading her out the door.
Onto the next one.
Dreams and sorries won’t pay the bills.
Chaewon’s Brother’s Living Room Floor
San Francisco, California, Earth
Later that night, Chaewon helps her girlfriend write an apology letter to her boss. (Hyeju called in sick the last three shifts in a row in favor of practicing for some neighbor kid's bat mitzvah.)
Her absences might seem excessive, but in Hyeju's defense, she really believed this performance would be Burn The Moon's big break. (It wasn't.)
“Is it too desperate to put ‘Please don’t fire me’ at the end?” Hyeju asks the head laying on her lap.
“Mm… if it’s not a ‘pretty please,’ then it’s not that desperate.”
Hyeju smiles and combs Chaewon’s hair with her fingers.
“Can we take a break for a second?” Chaewon requests after only about three minutes of letter-writing.
“To do what?”
Chaewon sits up and bats her eyelashes at Hyeju. Chaewon leans forward, brushes past the Hyeju’s nape and reaches for… the acoustic guitar behind her.
“Tease,” Hyeju says, shaking her head.
Chaewon places the guitar in Hyeju’s hands and orders her to play; Hyeju knows exactly what Chaewon wants to hear.
“These nights go by, they’re falling fast. Here in a moment, gone in a flash. I’d stop the world to know everything is okay.”
“Cause we’re running and running, it makes me nervous…” Chaewon duets.
“We’re almost for sure, barely scratched the surface…”
“So close to perfect, it hurts to throw it away,” Chaewon finishes the lyrics that Hyeju wrote for her a few months into the relationship—when Hyeju was actively falling and pleading for Chaewon to catch her. (And catch her, Chaewon did.)
All of BTM’s songs start off on acoustic guitar. In the later stages of production, they are adapted to electric guitar and “punkified” by Hyeju. Only “Star,” the first song Hyeju wrote for Chaewon, has remained pure, unchanged and unaltered.
“You can throw it all away, you know,” Hyeju reminds her girlfriend. “If you want to go back to school like Heejin and make a decent living with a decent job, then you can. I won’t hold you back.”
“You’re really gonna let that traitor get in your head?”
“Babe…” Hyeju sighs, putting the guitar away.
“Heejin was wrong. Everyone ends up where they choose to be, not where they need to be. I’d like to think I have more freedom in the matter—and I choose to be here,” Chaewon takes Hyeju’s sappy, puppy-eyed face in her hands. “With you, always.”
“That’s not very punk rock of you,” Hyeju teases.
“Here, with you, fighting the patriarchy?”
“That’s more like it.”
Chaewon smiles from ear to ear, stealing a kiss that, like many things, she knows Hyeju reserves just for her.
“I do think we should start the search for Heejin’s replacement, though,” Chaewon suggests, after a while. “I don’t see any harm in putting up a few flyers around the community and holding auditions.”
“Fine. But this new girl can’t have dyed hair—that’s way too cliché.”
Chaewon rolls her eyes at her girlfriend’s demand.
“You’re being picky! How are we supposed to find the one when you’re acting like this?”
Hyeju recalls what Chaewon said earlier about her brother and sister in law working late tonight before she goes in for another kiss or two… or three… or… well, forgive her if she’s losing count. It’s awfully hard to keep track when Chaewon has her lips on all the right places.
“Pretty sure I’ve already found her,” is the last thing that Hyeju says before they fall back, wholly and completely lost in each other.
The High Court
The Capitol, The Great Beyond
3 days later
The roles and responsibilities of the Prime Matchmaker don’t stray far from those of their human counterparts.
Like many prime ministers, presidents, kings, queens, and emperors, the Prime Matchmaker rules over a small group of bumbling fools who help to rule over a much larger group of bumbling fools.
And like many of those in power, Yeojin does not like to be kept waiting.
“Jinsol!”
The Prime Matchmaker’s executive assistant jumps at the sound of her name.
“Y-yes, Prime Matchmaker?”
“Find out where the Archer Supreme is… and why she’s late.”
“Right away, Prime Matchmaker,” Jinsol says in a hurry as she steps off the stand.
“Your excellency?” Vivi, fully healed from her injuries and dressed in her finest velvet robes, calls for Yeojin’s attention. “If you could be so kind as to let the record show that I arrived here promptly—a full hour early, if I may add.”
Yeojin disinterestedly picks up her gavel and plays with it, not even a fraction of a percent amused by what Vivi has said.
“Perhaps the record ought to reflect that the Archer General is a shameless brown-noser who dares to suck up to me after breaking and entering into a government office…”
Vivi bows her head in shame and embarrassment.
She got her good.
“A thousand apologies, Prime Matchmaker.”
Yeojin strokes the applewood grain of the gavel’s handle. Carved from the Tree of Good and Evil (the tree that produced Eve’s forbidden fruit), this treasured relic has been passed down from Prime Matchmaker to Prime Matchmaker.
Yeojin shudders at the thought of it falling into the hands of either candidate: one, a truant, the other, a bandit.
Choosing between Vivi and Haseul is like choosing between a shotgun to the head or a knife to the back—both unpleasant, but there must be one that hurts less. (The shotgun maybe? It’s practically instantaneous.)
“Make it a million,” Yeojin says facetiously.
Naturally, Vivi responds with “Yes, Prime Matchmaker. Of course, Prime Matchmaker. A million apologies.”
“You could count to a million and by the time you’d finish, the Archer Supreme still wouldn’t be here,” Yeojin drones on, turning to another member of her staff. “Eunbi!”
Yeojin’s Chief Informant steps forward and bows.
“Find me the location of the Archer Supreme.”
“Already done, your excellency. My angels have spotted her on Airway 3, en route to the Capitol.”
“Unbelievable, she’s taken the slowest route imaginable!” Yeojin rubs her temples as if she’s able to experience headaches. “ETA?”
Eunbi winces. “Twenty minutes, my liege.”
“Oh, for the love of Venus… Lily?”
Yet another member of Yeojin’s staff scurries to the judge bench.
“Procure me a palm frond. I’m overheating. I suspect it’s the stress.”
Lily, having served as Yeojin’s Chief Human Behaviorist for the past 999 years, is well acquainted with the quirks of mortals and one particular immortal and therefore knows to carry a palm frond with her at all times.
While Lily fans Yeojin, Vivi gets to thinking about what this all means for her.
Haseul being tardy makes Haseul look a lot worse and Vivi... well, about the same—but still, the enemy’s weakness is the benefactor’s strength.
Able to relax a bit, Vivi takes a good look around the courtroom and is greeted by many friendly faces.
Members of her platoon occupy the first row of what most traditional courtrooms would call the “jury box.”
Major Soojin, Sergeants Soyeon and Yuqi, and the newest recruit, Second Lieutenant Wonyoung—whose injuries were limited to a mild concussion and wing sprain—all play vital roles in locating and securing the targets whom Vivi has vetted for her assigned humans.
The final shot, however, is always reserved for the General.
Seated in the second row are members of Vivi’s generation: the Fifth Generation of Cupids.
Vivi trained alongside Chungha, Alexa, Sorn, Yujin, and Somin. All of them earned their bows and arrows, but only three made General, and of those three, Vivi remains the standout.
(There was a seventh member, Jennie, who was stripped of her bow and arrows and dishonorably discharged from the Cupid service for reasons unknown to all but a select few.)
Scattered in the general audience are miscellaneous friends and acquaintances of Vivi’s; seated at the far right corner, at the very back row is Handong. She’s probably got a hundred things to say about Vivi deliberately ignoring her flight restrictions.
Come to think of it, Vivi’s got almost everything anyone could ask for: supportive and caring friends, an impressive resume, a fulfilling career, and of course, there’s that whole eternal life thing.
All she’s missing is the title of Prime Matchmaker and the Archer Supreme’s head on a stick-
“Sorry I’m late!”
Ah, speak of the devil.
Haseul flies upside-down through the courtroom’s open window, flapping and rotating her giant wings in a series of revolutions; not a single angel is impressed by this showboat behavior, least of all Vivi.
“Haseul,” Yeojin acknowledges the obnoxious figure circling above her head, “Punctual as ever.”
“Oh my dear, beloved Prime Matchmaker,” Haseul pouts, “How long must we play up this whole charade? We are wasting our time, congregating here today. Were you not in my exact position, one millennium ago? Did you not hold my title then? The reigning Archer Supreme has relieved the Prime Matchmaker of her duties for the past seven millennia. This is our tradition.”
“Aye, Haseul, it is tradition-”
Haseul crosses her arms over her chest in pompous satisfaction.
“-but it is not law,” Yeojin finishes.
“What?!” Haseul demands, uncrossing her arms immediately. “Preposterous! The highest ranking Cupid is entitled to the throne! It is common sense! It is what is right and just!”
“Haseul, Archer General Vivi-”
“The Archer General,” Haseul interjects, determined to police the conversation, “Is not a legitimate contender. Her little stunt in the Office of Records was treachery of the vilest form. If not for those misguided chancellors who took pity on her soul, she would be burning in the Underworld as we speak.”
“It was I who made the call, Archer Supreme,” Yeojin reveals, draining the color from Haseul’s face. “Still care to question my decision?”
Haseul steps down from Yeojin’s bench and clears her throat.
“No, of course not, Madam Prime Matchmaker.”
Vivi watches in quiet fascination as Yeojin gestures for Haseul to take her seat and for Jinsol to return to her post in the center of the courtroom.
The command that Yeojin has over every angel in the room, every particle in the air, is a phenomenon never to be experienced by any human—even the most brutal of dictators.
She is power incarnate, she is strength personified and immortalized; she is everything Vivi wishes to be.
“Cupids of the Great Beyond,” Yeojin addresses the crowd, “Surely you know why I have summoned you all here. The end of my term is quickly approaching and may I say, these past 999 years have been a blur.”
Yeojin’s constituents murmur and nod in agreement.
“We were inspired by the works of the playwright William Shakespeare, we were transfixed by the compositions of Bach and Beethoven, and now, with the rise of instant messaging, we are at the dawn of a new era—one consisting of emoticons and winky faces and flirtatious ellipsis.”
The murmurs grow louder, with some of the nods transforming into disapproving head shakes.
Yeojin raises both hands, immediately silencing the voices.
“I understand there are some of you—particularly the traditionalists—who have your reservations about digital dating. You might find it unnatural and inauthentic. You might mourn the days of proper courtship and letter writing. I’m sorry to tell you that those days are long gone. Love, much like the human civilization that it belongs to, is constantly adapting. I believe we ought to do the same. We must move forward. Jinsol?”
Yeojin signals her assistant to deliver Vivi and Haseul’s performance review files to the judge’s bench. Yeojin then picks them up and flips through them disinterestedly.
“These pages… they’re full of meaningless statistics. It matters not the number of first kisses Archer General Vivi was responsible for or the number of marriages Archer Supreme Haseul has facilitated.” Yeojin snaps her fingers and points at the hefty twin stacks. “Dispose of this, Jinsol. I do not wish to subject my eyes to this nonsense anymore.”
Vivi swallows the wail in the back of her throat; she nearly lost her wings for those papers!
She glances briefly—not more than a quarter of a second—at Haseul’s table and catches the son of a bitch smirking.
It’s just a smirk, Vivi tells herself.
Nothing more than a curl of a lip, a rise of a cheekbone. It means nothing. She means nothing.
Ignore her.
“Psst, General!” Haseul shout-whispers, five feet across from Vivi’s table. “Did you receive my rose? I do hope it found you well. Thorns and all.”
Vivi ignores her.
Because nothing good ever comes from engaging with vermin. Ask the 20 or so million humans who died from the Black Plague.
This is not to say that Haseul is as bad as the horrific disease that claimed a third of the human population—in fact, she’s far, far worse.
“I am searching for honor, integrity, adaptability, and strength of character,” Yeojin goes on. “And so far, truthfully, I am not impressed.”
“Your excellency, I can prove to you that I-“
“It seems you have repeatedly failed to learn the simple lesson of speaking when spoken to, General,” Yeojin deduces, shutting Vivi up once more. “I do not intend to speak to you at this moment, nor to your adversary. Instead, I call upon your various friends and colleagues to vouch for you and speak of your rather… inconspicuous wonders.”
Witness testimonies.
Ok, Vivi can work with that.
She’s respected, well-liked, and knows every Cupid, even the recruits, by name.
Haseul, on the other hand, has never so much as looked at a Cupid with a rank below Major.
Vivi has got this in the bag, as the mortals say.
Vivi thought wrong.
While Vivi may have more Cupids on her side who like her, Haseul has triple the number of Cupids who fear her.
And fear, sad as it is to say, is often the most powerful motivator.
The first to be called to the stand is Exy, Chief of Staff to the Archer Supreme.
Vivi can tell just from looking at Haseul—a rule she can’t seem to stop breaking—that Haseul has no idea who Exy is.
Vivi doubts the two have ever even held a conversation.
Still, Exy speaks of Haseul as if she’s the best boss ever, as if she hosts company retreats in the Hamptons and rewards her employees with quarterly raises and unlimited vacation hours.
The second to be called is Seola, Munitions Specialist for the Archer Supreme.
Seola famously designs arrows that are sharp enough to pierce the sun’s core. Vivi has attempted to recruit her on a number of occasions but to no avail.
Haseul is an ungrateful and inconsiderate boss, but her likability, or rather, lack thereof, fails to deter the employees whom she either viciously mistreats or flat out ignores.
After centuries of abuse, angels like Seola and Exy continue to pledge their allegiance to Haseul—albeit through gritted teeth—in the hopes that at the end of their 1000 year long contracts, their loyalty will be recognized and rewarded in the form of guaranteed admission to The Free.
The Free is a mystifying place, far more puzzling and bewildering than anything seen in The Great Beyond.
Think of it as a heaven amongst heavens, Heaven Deluxe, Heaven Plus, Heaven Exclusive.
It is where gods, goddesses, and only a select few angels reside in a paradise so inconceivably beautiful that no artist could put into a picture, no poet could put into words.
On New Years Eve of this year, Yeojin and her staff will ascend to The Free, thus leaving their posts empty for the Prime Matchmaker Elect and her cabinet to fill.
Therefore, if Haseul wins, Seola does too, by extension.
So if Seola’s gotta bullshit, best believe she’s going to bullshit and if she’s gotta kiss some ass, she’s going to do so with the fakest smile known to man and angelkind.
“Specialist Seola,” Yeojin addresses her witness.
“Yes, Your excellency?”
“Are you able to describe the characteristics of your professional relationship with the Archer Supreme?”
“Yes, of course. I have served the Archer Supreme for the past four and a half centuries-”
“Ah, ah,” Yeojin holds up a finger, stopping Seola in her verbal tracks. “I only asked if you were able to—I did not give you the invitation to do so.”
“Oh. Pardon me, Prime-”
“Would you say your relationship is mutually beneficial?” Yeojin asks tiredly, as if each word requires a thousand watts of effort.
“Well…” Seola meanders.
“A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would suffice, Specialist.”
“Yes!”
Yeojin sighs heavily, as if each molecule of air weighs a thousand tons.
“If, let’s say, a better opportunity would arise, with another Archer, would you take it?”
Seola nervously chews on the inside of her cheek. “Could you please define ‘better opportunity’?”
“I’m not sure what they taught you in munitions school, but we do not answer questions with other questions, Specialist.”
“Yes, of course, I-”
Seola gets cut off for the nth time.
“Our records show that you’ve received a grand total of 295 offers from various Archers. The majority of these, 78% or 230, to be exact, came from none other than the Archer General. She seems to have taken a great deal of interest in you—arguably more than your current boss. What are your reasons for rejecting Vivi repeatedly? Please enlighten me. And for this question, I’ll require more than a one-word answer.”
“The Archer General…” Seola looks past her interrogator into Vivi’s eyes. Seola’s throat feels like sandpaper and her voice is so frail and unfamiliar. “Is an angel whom I have tremendous respect for. Every couple that she’s brought together has fallen deeply and hopelessly in love. She cares for humans tenderly, so tenderly, like a mama bird with her baby birds-“
“Need I remind you, Specialist, you were called to represent the Archer Supreme.”
“Yes, I am aware of that, Prime Matchmaker. Ultimately, my loyalty lies with her.”
If Vivi is the archetypal mama bird, then Haseul is the predatory vulture, staring Seola down like she’s her next meal.
Haseul owns Seola.
Haseul owns practically everyone in this room apart from Yeojin.
What Haseul says goes. What Haseul wants, she gets. Period. Full stop. End of discussion.
“Archer Supreme Haseul is the greatest to ever hold her current title. And I can say with absolute certainty, that she will be one of the greatest to hold the hallowed title of ‘Prime Matchmaker.’”
The fire in Haseul’s eyes begins to self-extinguish as she gives Seola a terse nod of approval.
Though she is physically incapable of perspiration, Vivi swears she feels beads of sweat forming in nonexistent pores.
How dare she.
How dare all of them!
They call themselves angels, they claim to uphold the standards of goodness and honor, yet they lie, cheat, and deceive just as much as humans.
And they do it all for her.
Pathetic.
“Thank you, Specialist Seola,” Yeojin concludes, finally satisfied. “You may return to your seat. No further questions.”
By the time Vivi’s witnesses are called to the stand, it’s already over.
Vivi reads Yeojin’s face and it’s quite obvious—the Prime Matchmaker has made up her mind and will stick to the status quo.
But does Vivi seem like the type to hang her head and accept defeat? Not a chance in hell… or heaven.
Yeojin, feeling “exceedingly generous” today, allows for both Haseul and Vivi to give their own final statements.
Surprisingly, Haseul yields to Vivi though Vivi soon realizes that this was not an act of goodwill, but a strategic move. The Archer Supreme would get the final word.
Nevertheless, Vivi recites the speech that has lay dormant, weaved into the fibers of her soul for the past 24 centuries.
Every word of it is pure of heart, every sentence outpouring with devotion.
Vivi's impassioned delivery causes her body to shake as loose feathers fall from her wings.
She kneels before Yeojin and begs for a chance. She’s pretty sure begging doesn’t work on a hardass like her but Vivi does it anyway.
“Merciful Prime Matchmaker, please grant me the honor of the Throne. Deem me worthy, Your Grace.”
Yeojin lets Vivi stay on the ground for a minute too long before ordering her to stand and redirecting Vivi’s prayers to the appropriate deity.
“Remember only Venus can determine your worth, General. Surely you know I am merely her proxy. Now Haseul, you may go ahead and make it short for the love of Neptune.”
Here is where the tides turn. Something snaps.
A volcano of wrath erupts within Vivi as she recalls a hushed conversation she once overheard, 17 centuries ago, between a mother and her daughter.
Vivi had just made Sergeant—six full decades earlier than the members in her cohort—and was deep in the woods, doing close-range target practice in the Forest of Truth. There was not an angel for two light years… or so she thought.
Vivi withdrew her bow when, to her shock, Venus, the Goddess of Love herself, appeared out of thin air, grasping Vivi's then-equal, Sergeant Haseul, by the wrists.
To give you an idea of this event's inconceivability, consider that Venus was the very first Prime Matchmaker. She had not been spotted in the Great Beyond since her ascension to the Free eons ago.
Not centuries, not millenia, but eons.
Whatever visit she had to pay, had to have been a monumental one.
The whitest of lights shined from the goddess’s hands and enveloped Haseul’s entire figure.
“When the time comes,” Venus said in a voice so kind and trusting that you wouldn’t flinch even if she murdered everyone you ever loved, “You will assume the position. I have prophesied this. No one else is destined for it. Only you, Haseul. It has to be you, my child.”
Shortly after that exchange, Haseul was promoted to Major. And then General. And then Supreme. And now, soon-to-be, and all but guaranteed, Prime Matchmaker.
It’s not fair.
It’s the furthest thing from fair.
The mortals have a name for this explicit bias: nepotism.
“SHE’S HER DAUGHTER!”
Vivi breaks one of Yeojin’s countless etiquette standards when she raises her voice in the holy courtroom.
“HASEUL IS VENUS’S DAUGHTER! SHE’S A DEMIGODDESS!” Vivi elaborates in double the volume and triple the audacity, causing some audience members to faint in dismay.
“OH, DON’T ACT SO SURPRISED! THIS HAS BEEN AN OPEN SECRET FOR CENTURIES! WHY ELSE WOULD WE ALLOW SUCH MEDIOCRITY TO RISE UP THE RANKS?”
Prime Matchmaker Yeojin finds herself at a rare loss for words.
Accusations such as these, baseless as they may seem coming from the highly embittered Archer General, are not to be ignored.
The citizens of the Great Beyond shall never lose faith in the credibility of their High Council and anyone who dares instill even a sprinkle of doubt in angels’ minds, is punishable by banishment.
But before Yeojin can get to this, before she can point her almighty finger at Vivi and reduce her to a cloud of pink mist, Haseul manages to commit a crime that is infinitely more heinous.
In three swift motions, Haseul pulls out her bow, points it at Vivi, and loads no ordinary ammunition.
These are dark arrows—wielded by the goddesses of vengeance and forged from the fires of the Underworld; they are the only tools capable of piercing an angel’s skin, of eliciting pain, of maiming.
Vivi flies two paces back, never more terrified in her immortal life.
Is this how humans feel when they stare down the barrel of a gun?
“Haseul,” Yeojin’s powerful voice trembles, “Lower your weapon. This is not the way of the Cupid.”
“Then what is the way, Your excellency? The General’s? Built on rumors and falsehoods?” Haseul pulls back on her bow. “Let her pay for her treasonous crimes in her own, treasonous blood-”
What happens next will become a defining moment of Yeojin’s legacy.
The visual of the Prime Matchmaker leaping off her judge stand, flying and positioning herself midair between the top two ranked Archers in the Great Beyond, will be recounted from angel to angel for the following ten administrations.
Yeojin catches Haseul’s prohibited arrow and snaps it in half, as if it were a child’s plaything.
Vivi is partially relieved by Yeojin’s actions—she hasn’t ever had to think about what pain might feel like, lacking the receptors for it and all—and partially amused.
Did the Asshole Supreme really expect that to work?
Vivi’s broken many rules herself but even she knows assaulting a fellow Cupid in a court of law is an absolute no-go; the fool who dares to do so is essentially inviting one and all to their humiliation party.
Yeojin takes a final, seething glance between the sources of her metaphorical headache.
“No decision will be made today. This meeting is adjourned until further notice. I will choose my successor on my own, without any interference—if, that is to say, I shall even have a successor.”
Yeojin flaps her wings, causing hurricane-force gusts to sweep through the courtroom, engulfing everyone in their wake.
And then she is gone.
And Vivi, who is left with an unobstructed view of her sworn rival, the careless Archer who might very well have fucked up this once-in-a-millenium opportunity for the both of them, can’t help but think: Damn, that was cool.
Forest of Truth
Outskirts of the Great Beyond
One week later
Ready, aim, fire, whoosh.
Ready, aim, fire, whoosh.
Ready, aim, fire, whoosh.
This is the ritual that has been ingrained in the minds and muscles of Cupids from the moment they are “born.”
Ready: grip your bow tight.
Aim: point your bow to your desired target.
Fire: pull back on your bow string and release, letting the arrow slip gracefully through your fingers.
Whoosh: listen for that oh so satisfying sound of the arrow flying through the air, en route to claiming another one of Love's victims. (Those chumps never see it coming.)
“Not bad. Your form could use some work. Too much tension in your shoulders. Something bothering you?”
Haseul emerges from behind a tree, ruining Vivi’s peaceful shooting session.
“Yes, you,” Vivi scowls, hooking her bow on her shoulder as if it were a common accessory, like a human purse. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t I pay my old friend a visit?”
Vivi scoffs. “We aren’t friends.”
Haseul places her hand on her chest, in faux offense. “Always so hostile!”
“Says the Archer who had every intention of attacking me with a dark arrow. How did you get your vile hands on one of those, pray tell? What bribery did you subject Seola to?”
“I abhor bribery of any kind, General. I did not get my dark arrows—I earned them, off the backs of the furies I defeated in the Fury-Cupid Crusades.”
If there’s any comment that truly ages Haseul, it’s this one.
The Fury-Cupid Crusades took place several thousand millennia before Vivi’s generation of Cupids sprouted into existence.
Vivi had to hear and write about it time and time again in her classes; her report on combat strategies of third generation Cupids (i.e. Haseul and company) took up seven rolls of parchment.
Vivi might be old, but Haseul’s ancient.
“Did you cheat your way through that too? Mommy enchant your armor?”
Haseul hangs her head lifelessly, like a rag doll. She’s too bored and unimpressed to be upset at Vivi’s childish comebacks.
“You don’t know what you saw that night, in this forest. Even if you did know, your puny brain would implode at the attempt to process it. Venus is not my mother, I’ll tell you that.”
“Riiiiight,” Vivi responds sarcastically, “You’re not a privileged demigoddess and I’m a giraffe!”
Haseul throws her hands up, nonplussed. “Hey, be whatever earthly creature you desire so long as you don’t get in the way of my rightful throne.”
Rightful.
This entitlement is one of the driving factors of Vivi’s hatred for her senior.
Right to the throne, right to step and squash those below her, right to pop up at an esteemed Archer’s target practice as if she owns her and every single tree in this endless forest.
Whatever happened to the right to shut the fuck up?
“Ah, so that’s the real reason why you’ve come to see me. You feel…” Vivi lingers, a smile forming on her lips. “Threatened?”
“Please. How could I feel threatened by a lower ranked Archer with a penchant to eavesdrop on conversations that she isn’t a part of and take things that don’t belong to her? If you managed to read my file, you wouldn’t find a shred of damning evidence.”
“Oh, you’re sure about that?” The skeptical General questions the shady Supreme.
“Yes, General. I’d show it to you myself, if I had access to it.” Haseul doubles down on her conviction. “Not. A. Thing.”
Office of the Prime Matchmaker
The Capitol, The Great Beyond
Jinsol has found a thing.
A very bad thing.
A thing so bad that it might make a gruff, money-hungry plumber come out from under a kitchen sink, rub his grimy hands on his jeans, sigh, and say, “You’re shit out of luck, pal.”
Jinsol wishes this very bad thing was that simple. If only this were a big ball of hair and food debris, then all she’d have to do is stick her hand down a drain.
It’d be gross, but she’d stomach it (the task, of course—not the ball, if there’s any need for clarification).
But very bad things are complicated and messy and they often cannot be managed on one’s own.
Jinsol has no choice; she has to tell her boss.
Yikes.
If you must know, Jinsol was not always this squirrelly. She had a backbone, once upon a time. Hell, she even had wings.
But she did a very bad thing—which, clearly, she is no stranger to—and she was punished, by Yeojin herself.
There is no worse fate for an angel in the Great Beyond than to be left flightless. At least with banishment, most keep their wings.
Now, were Jinsol's actions worse than what Haseul originally did to Vivi (which we will get to) or what Jennie did to the entirety of angelkind (which we will also get to, should time permit)?
Arguably not, but at least the others owned their mistakes with pride.
Jinsol cowered, Jinsol hid, Jinsol was ashamed, and now Jinsol raises a shaky fist to the Prime Matchmaker’s door, susceptible to whatever verbal abuse might come her way.
“Come in, Jinsol!”
Yeojin’s tone is calm, welcoming even. It sounds too good to be true.
“H-how did you know it was me?”
Yeojin chuckles, with only a slight bit of condescension. “Your knocks are always so gentle and hesitant.”
Jinsol lets herself in, treading carefully, as if one misstep could set the place ablaze.
The Office of the Prime Matchmaker makes the Oval Office look like a trash heap. It’s also much larger than it appears.
One is first taken through a hallway larger than life in every sense: marble sculptures of the twelve Roman Gods, tall as buildings, make even the most self-assured angels feel as small and insignificant as humans.
Jinsol stops to kneel before each of them.
Venus, patron goddess of the Cupids, beauty beyond belief, is the last deity represented and in turn marks the entrance to the next section: the string orchestra.
Five rows of twenty harpists donning pearl white togas and dreamy white rose flower crowns cease their playing upon Jinsol’s arrival; she thinks she hears one whisper “good luck” before entering the final section.
Jinsol climbs up three flights of cloud stairs—again, this would have been easier with wings—to the actual “office” portion, which, considering the journey it took to get here, is rather quaint.
Yeojin’s all quartz desk table is impossibly shiny, but modestly sized and her chair is straight from the 1999 Ikea catalog (she says it helps her connect with the humans whom she serves, “take a walk in someone else’s shoes,” “plant your angel buttocks on a mortal’s Grönfjäll” or something like that).
“Good afternoon, Your Excellency. The harpists were lovely as usual.”
“Really?” Yeojin summons herself a glass of cucumber water. “I actually thought they were a little pitchy. Care for a refreshment?”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly- I mean, it is my duty to serve You…”
“Please, I insist. What is all this tremendous power if I cannot share it?”
“Well… alright, if Your Excellency insists…”
Jinsol reluctantly accepts the second glass Yeojin procures with her gifted hands. The Prime Matchmaker is being uncharacteristically nice today; it’s quite unsettling.
How is she not stressed? The fate of the Cupid race rests in her decision and she’s drinking spa water?
“Jinsol, my loyal attendant, my trusted confidant, my fallen Cupid…”
(Jinsol looks down at her water in shame. Yeojin will forgive, but never forget.)
“...I’ve come to a conclusion.”
“You’ve chosen a successor, Prime Matchmaker?”
“Hah,” Yeojin chews on a soggy cucumber. “Yeah, I wish. I wish these seven days of deliberation led me somewhere worthwhile. Instead I am more lost than a human child at the bottom of a McDonald’s Play Place ball pit… or perhaps a human student in a university level organic chemistry class.”
Jinsol never quite understands Yeojin’s references to human eccentricities, but there’s nothing a good-natured smile and nod won’t fix (which is ironically pretty human-coded in and of itself).
“Then, may I ask why You appear so relaxed?”
“Because I’ve given up, old chap!” Yeojin gleefully raises her empty glass and refills it immediately. “What does it matter anyway? Look at my options! The arrogant tyrant or the mouthy thief!”
“But Your Excellency, You must choose.”
“I’ll take another page out of the mortals’ book: I’ll eenie-meenie-miney-moe it,” Yeojin replies, as if eenie-meenie-miney-moe is the most logical solution to both earthly and unearthly problems. “I’m sure our loving mother Venus will understand. She probably already knows how screwed we are… unless…” Yeojin stares down an anxious Jinsol. “Unless you happen to know of something—perhaps a crucial piece of information that might sway my decision toward a certain Archer?”
“Your Excellency…”
Yeojin claps excitedly. “You do know! What is it?”
“Well, I know you ordered me to dispose of the Archers’ files- and I will follow through with this task but… I figured I’d reread them one last time.”
Yeojin attempts to put her frustration with Jinsol’s disobedience aside. “Oh-kaaay… and what did you find?”
Jinsol sucks in a breath.
“You are not going to like this, Madam.”
Yeojin doesn’t move for a whole hour.
Doesn’t blink.
Doesn’t speak.
Only after Jinsol finishes explaining the massive, colossal, mindnumbingly stupid fuck up by the Office of Cupid Assignments, does Yeojin set her glass down, turn her back to her assistant, and utter four words.
“Call a Code Triangle.”
On March 23, 1996, the Office of Cupid Assignments sent, via carrier dove, the name of Archer General Vivi’s next love recipient: Ms. Hyeju Son, a future college dropout from San Francisco, California.
Vivi was given the standard alloted time of one week to observe Ms. Son’s behavior, obtain a general understanding of her client’s preferences and desires in a romantic relationship, and select the most compatible partner.
After exactly a week, on March 30, 1996 at precisely 12:12:12 PM, Vivi fired her arrow with the name “Hyeju Son” etched on it, toward her thoroughly vetted candidate, Ms. Chaewon Park.
The following day, Vivi received a postcard. It was a picture of Hyeju and Chaewon having coffee together—or rather, Hyeju having water and Chaewon having a macchiato.
The success of this pairing came as no surprise to the Archer General.
After all, Vivi’s arrow always finds its target.
On March 31, 1996, the Archer Supreme stood outside her Palace awaiting a postcard that never came.
Haseul was perplexed.
She did her research, carved the right name, and fired a perfect shot at who she believed to be Hyeju’s perfect match.
After waiting outside the entire day, the Archer Supreme shrugged and returned to her not-so-humble abode.
Whether Haseul missed her shot on March 30, 1996 at precisely 12:12:12 PM—not a millisecond before or after—was out of the question.
If someone made a mistake, it surely wasn’t her. Haseul never misses.
Jungeun’s Parent’s Garage
San Francisco, California, Earth
1999
Hyeju doesn’t want to be here.
Well, Hyeju doesn’t want to be in most places but especially not here, holding crummy auditions in Jungeun’s parent’s moldy ass garage.
“Was that the last one?” Hyeju exasperatedly asks following the worst (and ninth) performance of “Blitzkrieg Bop” that she’s heard today.
“Negative,” Jungeun, whose stage name is “Kim Lip,” flips to the next page on her clipboard. “We still have four to go, and then another seven after our lunch break.”
Hyeju groans and lets her head fall on Chaewon’s shoulder; Chaewon fine tunes her guitar.
“Why can’t you just be lead guitarist and singer, babe? So we can be done with these stupid auditions! None of these losers have half your talent!”
Chaewon holds her ear up to her guitar strings and strums a G minor. She frowns and makes further adjustments.
“Um… because juggling lead roles is super fucking hard and I’m too cute for that stress? But thank you anyway, babe.”
Hyeju whines and buries her head deeper in her girlfriend’s shoulder. “Who’s next, Jungeun?”
Jungeun peeks at her paper and scoffs. “No one you’d like.”
“Why?”
“Well for starters, her previous experience was in a Janet Jackson cover band.”
“3… 2… 1…” Chaewon and Jungeun mentally count down to Hyeju’s tantrum.
“Awwwwwww man! What about our-“
“Punk rock image?” Chaewon and Jungeun ask in unison.
“Yes! I’d take an Alanis Morisette cover band or a Patti Smith, hell, even a Stevie Nicks but Janet Jackson?!”
“In her defense, it looks like she’s at least trying to be punk. Here, she mailed us a Polaroid of herself.”
Jungeun reaches over Chaewon to hand Hyeju the picture; Hyeju’s reaction is predictably over the top.
“Oh come on! Purple hair?! How are people supposed to take us seriously?”
“How does anyone take you seriously?” Jungeun stands to answer the doorbell. “Oh, that’s probably her. Hey, Chaewon?”
Chaewon looks up from her Fender, which somehow sounds even worse than it did when she first started tuning.
“Can you please teach your girlfriend how not to act like an imbecile?”
Chaewon shoots Jungeun a thumbs up; Jungeun exits.
“How does one not act like an imbecile, Ms. Park?” Hyeju inquires with the proper raise of a hand.
Chaewon shrugs. “Beats me. Anyway, I heard this hella funny fart joke the other day…”
The couple bursts into childish laughter at this.
Easy, effortless laughter. How laughter is meant to be.
“See, babe? This is what I’m talking about. You and me. That’s all we need. No new blood. No third parties.” Hyeju says, after a beat. “Who else could make me laugh like this?”
“Babe, we’re not searching for another person to make you laugh! Just a singer!”
“I know, but you know what I mean: our dynamic.”
“What about Lip?”
“Lip doesn’t count. She’s like our mom… nah…” Hyeju shakes her head, giving this a great deal of thought. “She’s more like a chaperone who takes her job way too seriously.”
The couple breaks into another fit of laughter that abruptly stops when they hear Jungeun leading Janet Jackson purple hair girl through the house and into the garage.
“Oh my godfhhh, these are sooooomppff good!” Jungeun cries, her mouth full from… something.
“Oh my gosh, thank you!” The singer responds, touched. “I’m so glad you like them! I just recently picked up baking."
She bakes? So not punk rock.
“Yesss they’re amaaaafzinghh!” Jungeun accidentally spits crumbs at the singer/baker who does not seem to mind at all. “What are they?!”
Hyeju whispers in Chaewon’s ear. “Did this bitch just accept food from a stranger and not even know what it was?”
The baker answers eagerly. “Cherry scones!”
“Cherry scones!” Jungeun echoes, eyes rolling to the back of her head. “You guys, cherry scones!”
Jungeun runs up to the couch where Hyeju and Chaewon are seated, picnic basket full of said scones swinging in her hand.
“We’re not starting the audition until we try these delicious scones made by erm…” Jungeun gestures toward the girl whose name she’s already forgotten.
The girl starts making her way toward Chaewon, arm outstretched, presumably for a hand shake.
“Yerim.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Chaewon,” Chaewon politely introduces herself. “I can’t bake for shit.”
Yerim laughs and it’s…
Easy. Effortless. How it’s meant to be.
“That’s ok. I’m sure your other skills make up for it!”
Yerim turns to face Hyeju.
Ready.
She’s pretty.
Hyeju doesn’t know if she’s allowed to think that or even notice that, but good god is this girl pretty.
She’s got the kindest eyes Hyeju’s ever seen on a person; Hyeju wishes she could say the same for Chaewon, but perhaps Hyeju's bitchiness has rubbed off on her through the years.
“Hi, I’m Yerim! You must be Hyeju! I swear I’m not a stalker, I just saw your guys’s live show at the mall last month and was blown away by your bass riff on ‘Mobius Strip’! You crushed it!”
Hyeju and Chaewon spent five hours working on that riff together. That was their project!
What gives this chick, this wannabe Julia Child, this Yerim, the right to waltz right in here with her pretty eyes, her tasty scones, her bouncy, wavy purple hair that she is totally pulling off…
Wait.
What is happening?
What the fuck is happening?
Aim.
And now she’s reaching for Hyeju’s hand.
She’s reaching for Hyeju’s fucking hand.
And because she’s a singer, not a guitarist, her hand is uncalloused, soft, smooth.
Not that Chaewon’s hand isn’t nice to hold—it is.
It’s just, this one, this one is different.
And Hyeju’s holding on for a little longer than is socially acceptable for a stranger and she… just… can’t… explain it.
Fire.
Thankfully, Chaewon doesn’t seem notice as she’s halfway into her second scone, flipping the fuck out with Jungeun.
“You’re right, Jungeun, I get it now! These scones are making me hear colors!”
“You didn’t uh… you didn’t put weed in those scones, did you?” Hyeju has every right to question Yerim now.
“Of course not!” Yerim gasps. “I would never! I don’t even drink!”
SO NOT punk rock.
Hyeju frowns at this and looks down, noticing their still conjoined hands.
“Oh… um… sorry,” Hyeju separates them. “You probably uh… want to get started with your song.”
“Yeah… I uh…” Yerim appears to be as shaken up and confused as Hyeju. “I usually like to do some vocal warmups first. Is there somewhere I can practice? Just for a minute?”
Jungeun, four scones deep now, points in the direction of the bathroom.
“First door on the left! Make yourself comfortable!”
Yerim rushes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her as if there’s a tornado outside.
It’s hard to breathe.
Ever since she locked eyes with that bass player and shook her hand, she can’t seem to catch her breath.
She can’t perform any of her vocal exercises in this state.
This is it. She’s going to blow her audition.
And now there’s a pain in her chest. An unspeakable pain in her chest. Lovely.
What is happening?
What the heck is happening?
She’s 23, she’s not yet due for these random aches and pains! Give her another two decades at least!
The pain is sharp and throbbing and won’t go away. It feels impossible, unsurvivable, fatal—like an arrow to the heart.
It feels like both the end and beginning of something.
And it sounds like…
Whoosh.