“Mihn?!” Chan cried, fighting gravity to keep her from tumbling onto the sea of sharp horns as her body jerked and shuddered. Naked horror climbed up his throat as their carpet slowly sank. The tips of Mihn’s whipping purple hair tangled with the longest horns.  

Chan had to raise them higher, but he couldn’t direct the carpet with his arms busy keeping Mihn alive.

Hot, mindless terror filled Chan’s stomach like hellfire, and he ducked his head to bite the edge of the carpet. Years of dirt, sweat and who-knows-what else made the carpet taste rancid, and his tongue begged him to spit it out.

He didn’t, but clamped down harder with his teeth and wrenched up the edge. The carpet shot sideways.The unicorns thundered after them. Purple strands wrapped around one’s horn.

Mihn slipped a centimeter in his hold, the abrupt movement of her black pants against the tender skin of his inner arms sending a jolt through him.

Chan released the carpet from his teeth with a gasp. He had to get Mihn up here with him now. His arms were already aching, but terror gave him a burst of strength, and his desperate fingers dug into her thighs, her hip, her waist, her shoulders. 

He dragged her up inch by inch, until he wrapped his arms around her middle and heaved her onto the carpet with his entire body. If he didn’t have every single one of his muscles engaged and working overtime, he would have had the breath knocked out of him as he landed on his back, and Mihn’s writhing body smashed into his chest. 

Whispers of cool relief fought against the acidic terror in Chan’s belly. Mihn was in his arms, safe from falling to her death. But she still held the explosive lure, and was still wracked by seizures. She thrashed atop Chan, elbows and butt and shoulder blades crashing down on him with bruising force. Chan didn’t register his own pain. He had only one focus.

“Drop it! Just drop it!” he screamed. He’d welcome the burden of a hundred unicorn deaths if it meant Mihn would stop convulsing.

Mihn didn’t drop it. Her spasms seemed to lock her fingers around the lure. They sent her heels crashing into Chan’s shins, a dull ache, and he wrapped his arms tighter around her middle. She was convulsing so violently, he was terrified she would slip away from him if he loosened his grip even the tiniest bit.

“Let go of it, Mihn. Please, sweetheart.” His voice shook as he tried not to sob. He cinched his left arm around Mihn’s waist while his right hand stroked hastily down her arm to her hand. Mihn’s fingers were hard as rock, clutched around the neck of the lure.

“C-C-C.” Mihn’s gurgled attempt at speech kicked Chan’s heart into even higher gear. He tore at Mihn’s unyielding fingers even as she continued to convulse. Her legs skittered off the carpet, and Chan used his own legs to gather them up, clenching them between his thighs. His left arm ached with the effort of keeping her contained.

Her head whipped back onto his shoulder for a moment, and he glanced at her. Rolling eyes on an otherwise frozen face. She couldn’t even express her emotions on her face; the lure had robbed her of that. 

How incredibly cruel.

Suddenly, her body curled up, only for the seizure to slam the back of her head into Chan’s mouth. Blood welled, coppery and sharp on Chan’s tongue, but he ignored it, trying to work his fingers beneath Mihn’s to pry the lure from her grip. 

It wasn’t working. Chan had failed. He was entirely wrapped around Mihn, and yet he couldn’t protect her. They were going to die.

They were about to die, and he had never told her how he felt.

Suddenly, Hanji and Injae were beside them, hovering on their large, joined carpet.  “Move your hand, Chan,” Injae instructed urgently, eyes flashing red.

Tears pricked Chan’s eyes. Injae was here. Injae could fix anything. 

Chan complied, snapping both arms around Mihn as Injae transformed into her fox form. She nosed Mihn’s hand and licked the underside of her wrist. Mihn’s fingers loosened slightly, whether from gumiho magic or surprise, Chan didn’t know. Hanji–wearing bright yellow gloves–gripped the lure with one hand while the other hit the shiny fox-licked patch of skin with an engraved stick.

Mihn’s fingers spasmed open, and Hanji snatched the lure away. 

Instantly, Mihn flopped, heavy as a corpse, on top of Chan. 

Injae shouted, “Take care of her!” as she zoomed the double-wide carpet back up into the sky, Hanji doing frantic witchy things to the lure.

“M-Mihn?” 

Mihn’s breath was ragged on his ear, while her head rested on the carpet beside him, her neck bared to the sky. All of Chan’s muscles were locked in place, afraid that if he loosened his arms or legs the tiniest bit, she would go sliding or thrashing to the ground.

But she was a motionless, hot weight all along his front, save where her heaving lungs pushed against the bands of his arms. “Get… that thing… away… from me.”

Chan’s heart soared, then clenched. She was talking! She was coherent. She had control of herself again.

But thank the Gods Mihn couldn’t see the pity on his face. Because while it was clear she was trying for her usual snappy growl, it came out weak. It tore at his heart, because Mihn was a force of nature, a pillar of stubborn strength. 

“It’s gone, already,” Chan soothed. Or, tried to. His voice came out wobbly. 

Mihn twitched, and Chan panicked, tightening his hold on her. Was the seizure back? Please, Gods, no.

“L-let go, Channie,” she croaked.

Chan twisted his aching neck to look at her. Her face was bloodlessly pale, sweat shining on her clammy skin. He was just grateful he saw something besides the whites of her eyes, even if her gaze on him seemed a little feral.

“I can’t,” he whispered, and he knew all his fear was shining through his eyes. “I can’t let you go.”

She tensed, the muscles on her neck standing out. Chan felt how she was trying to curl up, but couldn’t quite manage it.

“I’m not going to–I’m too exposed, idiot.”

Oh. Right. Mihn was laid out on her back, arched a little, belly to the sky. Feeling exposed made sense.

Chan couldn’t bring himself to give up his hold on her, though. So he simply flipped her around, rolling her in place until she was laying on him chest-to-chest. He caught a glimpse of her wonderfully annoyed face before she buried it in his neck.

Ah, there she was. “Better?” he asked, the cramping fear in his stomach finally loosening.

“Better,” she grumbled, dragging her arms inward to tuck them beneath Chan’s back. “Put your legs around me again,” she ordered.

Chan happily obliged, trapping her legs between his thighs. He laced his fingers together atop the small of her back, basking in this closeness. Mihn never cuddled with him. Never sought him out for comfort.

He bit his tongue, holding in the thousands of words on the tip of his tongue. If he said something sweet and sincere, she’d hate it and leave. If he said something cheeky and joking, she might hate it and leave. 

He didn’t want to do anything that might make her take her sweet warmth away from him.

The unicorns still screamed below them, too close for comfort. The lure was on the small rectangle high above them. He hoped Hanji figured out how to nullify it in time. He hoped they wouldn’t find out how big the blast radius was.

But they might. Any second, the lure might explode, taking out Injae and Hanji. It might reach all the way down here to Chan and Mihn and the unicorns. It could be weak enough to injure them, or maybe have a sort of magical radiation effect. Or it could kill them. 

Heart aching, Chan slid a gentle palm up Mihn’s spine and felt her shiver. If these were his last moments, he wanted to make them count. He couldn’t leave this world without letting Mihn know.

His voice shook a little, coming out soft. “Mihn, can you hear me?”

“Your mouth is less than a foot from my ear. Obviously I can hear you,” snapped Mihn, and Chan’s aching heart both hurt more, and felt as light as a feather at the strength in her voice.

“Good, because I’ve got to tell you something.”

Mihn huffed against the damp skin of his neck. Her sharp nose was a cold pinprick there. “I like my pillows a lot less chatty, Chan. Be quiet.”

Chan looked up. The rectangle of the witch’s and gumiho’s carpet hadn’t moved. That meant nothing. And the longer nothing happened, the closer the end might be. Time was speeding by, and not knowing how much longer he had left made the words come barrelling out.

“Mihn, I’m in lo–”

A deafening boom shook the air, and the carpet above blasted towards them.