𝐔𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃

65 | reenact

"Wow," I draw her close to me to kiss her forehead. "I'm proud of you." I say and mean it. In that moment, I see it again that smile that drives me insane.

"Thank you." She says softly. "Let's go inside to measure how blind you are."

"Sure," I chuckle and with that she drags me inside the store. As soon as we enter the large space, it feels as though we're in a completely different country with the smooth wooden overlay flooring, the neutral colors on the walls and the traditional Asian lanterns adding a touch of a contemporary expression. My mother has a similar lantern back home and I smile at the thought. There's quite a line at the cashiers and the assistants are all busy with customers.

"Nox?" says a male voice that causes Nox to turn around in a flash. She runs straight into his arms and gives him a tight hug that makes my stomach clench, so I remind myself to stop being stupid.

They're just friends.

"Hey! Been a while since you've stopped by." The guy says and when I see how much taller he is than me the pang in my stomach hits me harder. "How's work? Your brother? All cool?"

"Everything is perfect." She flashes him a smile and I get even more envious, because I didn't think she offered that luminous grin to others so easily. But then she takes my hand in hers and includes me into their little reunion. "Work is great, got lots of appointments piling up and Axel is going to graduate this year."

"That's good to hear." He says in a kind manner. "So, who's your friend?"

Okay, let me get this straight.

There's nothing this guy is saying that makes me think that he's being flirtatious or anything because if anything he's a fucking delight and seems to be a really cool guy to hang around with. Nox seems to be very comfortable around him, so that makes me happy too.

Except the fact that it makes it worse somehow.

"This is Jimin," she answers him. "He lives on the building across the street."

That's it?

"Is that so?" He mutters. "I don't remember ever meeting him; wait, are you Park Jimin? You emailed me for the apartment when I was on a business trip."

"Yes, it's nice to finally meet you in person,"

"Jin." He flashes me a perfect smile and extends his hand and I take it. "You must be in apartment 7."

"Yup, that's my Seven." Nox grins still holding my hand in hers swinging it playfully back and forth. "And he needs to get a prescription because he can't see shit."

"Alright, then follow me." Jin says swiftly then leads us towards the elevator where he presses the button to go to the second floor. We wait in silence until the elevator chimes and the doors glide open. Wherever you look there are glasses and samples of lenses on display along with an aisle of brochures related to contact lenses from different companies and I recognize one of the companies of which I wrote an article about. It was good money.

"Do you wear glasses at all Jimin?" Jin asks me.

"No, I never had any trouble with my sight before."

Jin opens the door to what I assume to be his office where there's all the optometry equipment, he needs along with a compound microscope and a bunch of other things I have no idea what their called. There's a poster of the eye structure on one of the walls and a few picture frames that I can't quite see because they're far away.

"Please take a seat and we will begin." Jin says in a professional tone.

Meanwhile Nox plops down on Jin's desk chair like it's her own and Jin flicks off the lights. I can feel Nox's eyes on me as Jin directs me during the eye exam. He tells me when to open or close my eyes and which direction to look until it's finally over. He then takes me to the other bigger machine where he instructs me to keep looking at the wall in front of me through some sort of lens while he keeps changing them to test how well I can see and how much my eyes can focus on images and the numbers on display. He then asks me to tell him what I see first as he shows me a red and green light in a different order, and I tell him what I see first each time until the lights finally come back on.