“Daehyun! Daehyun?”

  Momo threaded through the black maze of curtains until she burst out into the heavenly light of the backstage, a wide dusty room littered with props, struggling stagehands, and disassembled furniture. She did a frenzied glance around, but her brother was nowhere in sight. But looking past the group of stagehands, Momo could see a wide open door at the opposite end of the room, wind buffeting in through it.

  “Hey! Can one of you close that?” one of the stagehands shouted. He was gesturing to the two barely old enough to vote ‘security guards’ at the edge of the room; the pair of them were currently preoccupied with seeing who could blow the bigger smoke ring. “Joon left it wide open when he left and it’s getting hot in here.”

  Momo’s jaw clenched. He’s already gone?!

  Not waiting around to find out, she padded quickly past them; luckily, her [Pitied] skill seemed to still be in effect, as they didn’t try and stop her. All they did was frown sadly.

  Daylight burned her eyes as she stumbled onto hot pavement. Bracketed on both sides by large touring trucks and catering company vehicles, Momo supposed this was the convention center’s vendor parking lot. It had several barricades surrounding it, and beyond those were even more barricades, offering what appeared to be a good degree of separation between the general public and several thousand dollars worth of inventory.

  Momo heard the sound of a heel driving into pavement. She looked to the right, and behind a cloud of billowing smoke was her goodfornothing brother. His foot was putting out a cigarette, and his hand was apathetically scrolling through his phone. His face looked tired and his hair disheveled, a complete one eighty from the oratory god she’d seen on stage.

  Adrenaline pumping, she took a rash step forward, but then she stopped herself. What was she even supposed to say to him? Was this even a good idea? Her brother was fully convinced she was dead. Or at the very least that she had been missing for thirteen years. Seeing her would probably be traumatizing in a whole new way. Not to mention she had no idea how she was going to explain her own disappearance.

  Her hands balled into fists. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she also doubted that he would believe her if she told him the truth. Why would he? Like… Hey. Long time no see. So, actually, I got food poisoning, died, was brought back to life by a necromancer… what’s a necromancer? Oh, well, so, there’s this woman named Valerica, and she has a whole collection of skeletons that do her chores for her and occasionally take over cities en masse…

  Also, it’s only been like two years for me, and thirteen for you.

  Yes, I know that’s deeply unsettling. No, I can’t do anything about it.

  It was a conversational dead end. Why? Because it sounded like complete fantasy. Understandably so. To him, to Earth, it was just that—fantasy. The Lore Department had done a good job keeping it that way. This place didn’t have a System; it was basically untouched by the gods. Morgana and Co were way too busy causing chaos in the worlds that they had actually bothered to initiate into their stupid little pastime of numbers and levels.

  And to think of it, it was actually really strange that Earth was so modern compared to Alois. It had progressed so much technologically and scientifically, while a place like Alois, which was full of people that could literally call a deity up to say hello, had barely gotten past the horse and wagon. Well, aside from Viktor and his chicken-ductor, but still.

  She wondered if there was some sort of correlation there.

  Like maybe the System was actually just a bandaid for underdeveloped planets; a sort of daycare for mortal populations until they’d entered the industrial age. Or maybe not. Maybe it really was just like the myth she heard a while back. That some farmer found an Oblivion Stone and begged the gods for a way to gain power. She didn’t really know why she was thinking of all this right now. Nothing could matter less than this. What mattered was—

  “Holy shit. You look just like my sister.”

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  Momo’s limbs went rigid in alarm as Daehyun shoved his phone in his pocket, his eyebrows furrowing as he began to strut towards her. She hugged herself instinctively, feeling less and less like a big sister the closer he got. He was so tall now. He’d always been tall, she supposed, but he’d never been big enough to justify it—like a kid in too-long socks. But now he filled out his suit without any awkward wrinkles or bunched up sleeves. He towered over her like a weathered street sign, arms crossed just the way their father always did.

  “Daehyun,” she breathed out. “Hey.”

  Whatever gears had been churning in his thick skull, hearing his own name—his real name—certainly threw a wrench in the machine. Momo could tell just by the shade of pale his face turned. The kind of white sickliness that makes people remark “oh, you’ve seen a ghost.” But it wasn’t funny. It wasn't a metaphor. He really was seeing a ghost.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” he scowled. “Look, I don’t know who let you back here, but you have to leave now. I— this is a costume competition for the TV character. Not my goddamn dead sister.” He gestured to her face in anger. “What is this, makeup? You think that’s funny? To dress up like dead people?”

  Momo’s imitation of a human heart rattled in her chest. She could feel just how fake it was at that moment. It’s uneven beats, echoing like a car engine. He was right. The real Momo would have been much older by now. Maybe she would have dyed her hair.

  But it was still her. Heart or heartless.

  “Daehyun, it’s me,” she said quietly, feeling herself regressing to a smaller version of herself.

  “No, it’s not,” he spat. He shoved past her. “I’m getting security.”

  “Just hear me out for one second!”

  He paused right at the doorway. She could see his shoulders tighten.

  But then they dropped. He was still facing away from her.

  “You sound like her,” he said.

  “That’s because I am her, idiot.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why?” Momo laughed mirthlessly. “That’s practically your legal name to me. It’s hard enough to hear people call you Joon. Even though it’s a better stage name than I was expecting, if I’m being honest. I had to live through Slim Lim, Lil Dae. Oh god, then there was that whole phase where you started calling yourself Big D…”

  Daehyun turned around. He looked a lot less angry. He looked something else—numb, perhaps. Frozen. His face was as empty as a cloud.

  “How do you know all that?” he asked.

  “Because I was there!” she exclaimed. She wasn’t sure why she was suddenly frustrated. It wasn’t his fault. She just didn’t like that feeling—like she was being erased from her own memories. “I was there every night. Silently eating noodles at dinner while mom screamed at you for spending our grocery money on fake gold chains from Albert’s.”

  He just blinked at her. She crossed her arms, shaking a bit.

  “Albert’s,” he said. “Run by that…”

  “Old guy with the drinking problem and the feral chihuahua,” Momo finished.

  “He came to play Mahjong with mom sometimes.”

  “Him and Old Man Liang.”

  “Those two. They were terrifying. Their laughs sounded like coal mines.”

  It was funny, but neither of them laughed. Eventually, Daehyun began to walk towards her again, slowly, carefully; apprehensive like a hurt dog. He was hugging himself just as Momo had done. They looked eerily alike then, if anyone had bothered to observe them.

  “They weren’t fake,” he said as he stopped a foot away. “The chains. They were real.”

  “Real gold chains don’t cost ten dollars.”

  “Maybe Albert’s did.”

  Momo brought her hands up to her brother’s chest and fixed his uneven collar.

  “What a mess,” she said. “Can’t let people see you like this.”

  “You sound like Mom.”

  “You look like Dad.”

  “Ouch.”

  They weren’t really arguing; they were talking to fill the space between the obvious. The obvious that had started to pour from Daehyun’s eyes. He wiped it away quickly, his hands clenching and unclenching. His breaths coming fast then slow.

  “Shit,” he said, voice cracking. “What the hell, Momo?”

  Before she could say another word, his arms came to surround her in a hug only siblings could really give—heavy enough to break you into a million pieces. He sobbed silently into her shoulder for several minutes, and she just held him harder.

  “It’s been so long,” he cried. “You suck, Noona.”

  Cursing her out into her shoulder, he didn’t seem so old anymore.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  She really hadn’t.

  He pulled away from her, finally; he cleaned his face with the sleeve of his expensive suit. After the initial shock had washed over him, he took her by the shoulders, examining her like she was an action figure—surveying for any defects.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he said. “Where have you been? We– God, Momo. We all thought you were dead. Mom and Dad…”

  “Stop.” Momo shook her head. “I don’t want to hear about them right now. I just… I want to hear about you. A movie star!”

  “Who cares about my movie! You’re alive!”

  Momo inhaled. “I… Yeah. Look, I promise to tell you everything.”

  He laughed indignantly. “You goddamn better!”

  “But I don’t want to do it here,” she said, gesturing to the parking lot.

  He nodded.

  “Fine. Okay,” he breathed out. “Where, then?”

  Momo smiled for the first time in a while.

  “Old habits die hard…” she whispered.

  He groaned. “Man, you’re still that obsessed with fast food?”

  “Yep,” she whistled, already heading for the road. “Wait until you hear how it killed me.”

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