The prayer bell tolled.

Taehyung felt it in her sternum before her ears registered the sound—that deep bronze vibration rolling through the temple's wooden bones, calling the faithful to morning observance. She knelt in the third row of the prayer hall, her white robe scratchy against skin that still remembered. Her thighs still ached. The place between them still felt the ghost of fullness, a phantom pressure that made her shift on the reed mat and press her knees tighter together.