The Secret Sonata || Ryeji

Chapter 4: You Can See Me?

The waterfall was Mediterranean-blue and magical, swishing over the rocks joyfully and thundering down into the pool like a gigantic water spout. Once it toppled into the ecstasy-pool, it foamed it at the bottom. The rest of the pool was as clear as cellophane, enabling anyone to see down into the rocky bottom. Fronds of forest-green plants waved gently in the depths. The waterfall looked like a sheet of blue velour as it swished down. Its edges were hemmed with whipped-white lines. The scenery would've been entrancing to the two girls kneeling by the cliff, with a gigantic crevasse in the middle as it let the mystifying, crystalline liquid to spiral down, if it wasn't for the younger one between them writhing and squirming agonizingly.

Rasping and retching in pain, Ryujin weakly crawled toward the brink as she felt a lump gradually starting to form up in her throat. As soon as she reached there, her gut lurched and she threw up, emptying the breakfast she'd eaten that morning. Lia quickly rushed over to the puking girl, and she rubbed her back carefully with one hand while the other slipped inside her jeans' pocket to tug her phone out. The moment she was dialing Chaeryeong's number, her palm that was caressing Ryujin's back was slapped away, and she snapped her head up, utterly bewildered. Turned out that the black-and-white creature next to them had slapped her hand with his muzzle, then he substituted for Lia's job by gently nudging the puking girl's back to help her vomit easily.

After throwing everything up, Ryujin curled into a ball on the rocky cliff, tasting the sourness of bile in her mouth, accompanied with the perpetual stabbing inside her skull; it felt as if someone was dissecting her brain into pieces with a scalpel. During the time Lia was talking on her phone and sharing the location of the place with GPS, Ddeong would constantly lick the side of Ryujin's face to keep her conscious, but the pain was too much for the girl to bear. Thus, the darkness gradually veiled her vision, dragging her away to a land of abyss.

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Ryujin woke up to a tender touch of cold hands on her face, icy fingertips grazed along her chin, resting at the spot on her neck where her pulse was weakly thumping against her warm skin; in contrast to the frosty presence she felt right beside her. Shivering with goosebumps flooding her skin, she snapped her eyes open to find another pair of orbs staring at her, flecks of silver danced around their convex surfaces as moonlight shimmered on the owner's pale yet beautiful face. For a moment, Ryujin was immersed in the captivating cat eyes, identical to that of Hwangs, and the pale girl sitting on the bed retrieved her cold hands from the whisker-dimpled girl's face in haste. Disbelief conquered her surreal visage as the mysterious girl in question glided backward (Keyword: glided), the edges of the white gown swooshed along with her across the floor, whilst her astonished feline eyes probed Ryujin's own almond ones that seemed to follow her every movement. Instead of Ryujin being shocked, —humans are supposed to be shocked at situations like this— the silver-haired entity let out a timid squeak on behalf of Ryujin and darted out of the room, giving no time for the latter to process what just happened.

And, Ryujin being the inquisitive girl she was, she launched herself out of bed and chased after the girl in white. From time to time, she would see the girl materializing and dematerializing around the corners of the corridor she was sprinting along, but she didn't give the paranormal action much a thought. All she knew was that, something inside her, precisely the palpitating object in her left chest, was drawing her toward that girl by an invisible string of fate. Shortly after, she promptly halted in her tracks, panting as she gasped for air, with her palms pressing against her bent knees, whilst her eyes frantically searched the pale girl. To her dismay, she was nowhere to be seen, and she was about give up on her search; not until a deafening click of a doorknob was heard, prickling through the previously stagnant atmosphere like sharp needles. Instantaneously as her head swiveled to the source of the noise, she saw strands of silver hair disappearing behind the door that led to the basement before it closed with a thud; insinuating that she had entered it. Candidly, anyone in Ryujin's place would have run for their life, but Ryujin wasn't just anyone— she was the one and only Shin Ryujin who wasn't afraid of taking risks to satisfy her curiosity, thereby resulting her to stride toward that particular room without a second thought.

The door of the basement opened inwards under Ryujin's hold, revealing the back of the oblivious silver-haired girl standing by the egress window while moonlight shone on her, thus eliciting nimbus clouds around her and outlining every curve of the girl's ethereal shape. Soon, Ryujin found herself descending the stairs as they produced inaudible creaks under her bare feet, then she held her hand forward to touch the glistening shoulder of the girl before. The instant her palm landed on the cat-eyed girl's shoulder, she felt a sharp sensation of icy prickles traveling up from her palm to her arms until a wave of chill ran down her spine.

For the silver-haired girl, she flinched shockingly at the sudden touch from her back and turned around, her hands trembling incessantly at her sides. If only she had a beating heart, she knew that it would be jumping around uncontrollably inside her chest. "You can see me?" She breathed with sheer incredulity.

Any sane person would have fled the scene at this question, but to Shin Ryujin, it sounded rhetorical, so she squinted her eyes at the girl before her and threw back a retorted question: "Am I not supposed to see you?"

They both blinked at each other as an awkward silence surrounded the basement.

"Hi, I'm Shin Ryujin," the blue-haired girl introduced herself with a charming smile that displayed whisker dimples to the receiving end, and she extended her hand to shake with the pale girl. Hesitantly, the latter's frosty palm took the warmer one of the other. On the spur of the moment, Ryujin's smiley visage transformed into a sinister one and she spoke through her gritted teeth. "Caught ya, you burglar!"

"Excuse me?" The feline girl tilted her head in puzzlement.