The Next Life (?? ?? ???)

"Have you discovered anything new?"

Jisoo looked up from the book she was reading as she addressed me, a hint of annoyance at being interrupted in her tone. She closed the book, an aged copy of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', and placed it onto the wood and glass table in the middle of the mansion's foyer. The one I'd just burst into.

"Not yet, but–"

"Then why have you come to bother me?" she cut me off, beginning to pick her book back up.

I struggled to form a sentence convincing enough. It didn't help that she didn't seem to be in a particularly good mood. Not that she ever did, but there was something a tad more edgy about the way she reacted to me. Almost like that book she was reopening was merely a shield from whatever was bothering her.

"So, there's this hotel..."

Jisoo raised an eyebrow, not even bothering to look up at me. "And? Do you wish to spend the night with me?"

"No!? I mean, I was gonna... it's a hotel that... I just think that..."

With a sigh, she raised her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose. "Do not waste my time, Jang."

"Hotel Del Luna." That seemed to get her attention.

Jisoo's intense gaze finally pierced me, her book laid atop the table once more. "What of that dismal place?"

"I think that place could help you."

The scoff that came from Jisoo was dripping with scorn. "That woman could not help me back then, and, without a shadow of a doubt, she will not be able to now."

"The hotel could be a solution for your grudge once and for all. They have the proper facilities to help you. To help all four of you, in fact."

"Oh?" Jisoo scowled. "And what, pray tell, are these facilities?"

"I... err." I chewed on my tongue in defeat.

"The one time I went to Manwol Inn, or as you call it, Hotel Del Luna," she took special care to utter the name with disgust, "They had been of no help to me at all. None of their facilities could give me what I desired."

"Manwol Inn?" I was still caught up in that part of her sentence.

"Jang Y/N, you are dealing with things far older than your mortal soul. Things that were around long before your birth, and that will remain long after your departure."

"If you have enough willpower to come up with a mini-speech like that, could you spare some to at least give the hotel a try?" I stared her right in the eyes. I almost gulped as Jisoo inched closer to me, and the suffocating sensation poked into my awareness ever so slightly.

"What makes you so adamant that I go?" Her face was now a good few inches away from mine.

Not backing down, I pushed whatever anxiety she made me feel deep down with a gulp. "I'm just trying to find every way possible to help you solve your grudge and be at peace."

Jisoo's reaction is one I couldn't have predicted. I was able to breathe without any perceivable obstruction again. I expected to see her regarding me with a menacing look. Instead, her intense, piercing gaze softened ever so slightly. It reminded me vaguely of Jang Manwol's expression back at the hotel. She looked like someone overworked who had finally gotten home. Like she'd been caught off guard, letting her facade drop.

"Why?" her voice came, in a soft tone I'd only heard from her once before. "Why do you care?"

My heart wrenched at the sound of her question. "I just, err..." With the air no longer smothering me, another opposing yet equally familiar sensation assaulted my mind. That bittersweet longing. It was making it hard to even respond coherently. "I just think the sooner everything's settled, the sooner I can go back to my normal life, is all."