Flutter//Jaehyun

Chapter 3

I hear Jaehyun before he even speaks.

"I need your help, remember?" He states, pushing his sunglasses over his eyes. I slowly turn my head and face him.

"Déjà vu." I say sarcastically. I'm not sure if I whisper this because it is quickly followed by a bellowing shout from Kiana.

"COME ON!" She gestures aggressively towards the traffic ahead, but alas, this does nothing. 

"I didn't really plan to do anything today. And Johnny--my roommate, he's working today. So I thought this might be better than lying in bed all day." He explains, ignoring Ki's potent anger. 

I try to picture Jaehyun doing nothing all day but any scenario seems out of place. From what I can see, he's able to entertain himself with anything--a retrospective thought flashed in my head of him so intensely picking at the hem of his t-shirt and smiling widely when he had finally removed a hanging string.

"Plus, there is this very-" he stops to think of the right word. "specific type of energy around you, and...I want to know why." 

His thick-rimmed sunglasses hide his eyes but I can feel his stare boring through my own sunglasses and studying my thoughts.

"Energy." I repeat. 

He simply nods and retreats his attention back to his phone.

"I'm trying to figure you out, Deka, so we might be spending a lot of time with each other this week." He directs this towards me. Deka. Why does my name sound so foreign in his voice. It seems enhanced, like when you stare through a simple tin without anticipation of it errupting into a kaleidoscope. 

I'm trying to figure you out, Deka. 

This rings in my head long after the conversation dies. 

"Fuck this! Okay kids, we're taking the back roads. Peace out, assholes." Kiana directs this last sentence to the irritated drivers as she moves to exit the freeway. 

Trying....to figure....you out, Deka. 

*

After unloading the last box of things onto Kiana's spacious, living room floor, we all decide its best to lie on the floor with fans blowing at us from every direction. The cold air definitely soothes hours of sticky heat burdening our skin--evidence showing how comfortably Ki is sleeping on her single, king-sized mattress; cool and comfortable--, but it doesn't do anything for the question burning and ripping at my brain.  What is he trying to figure out?

From what I can see after spending a total of 36 hours with Jaehyun is that despite his every effort of deflecting the conversation from himself and throwing bold statements in my direction, he is most definitely hiding something. I can't necessarily tell if it is big or potentially dangerous--I initially thought it had to do with the scary men he was with the first night I met him, but his thoughts tug a slight deeply melancholic frown on his face which I can already tell is an out of place and obscure feature on him. I've noticed that it happens when there are lulls in conversation and he begins to get lost in thought. When he sets down his phone and stares at his hands like he's foreign to himself. 

He's even doing it right now.  

I call out his name to get his attention but it feels as though it was pulled out of me in a quiet breath. He hears me, though, and turns his head in my direction--his eyes, fresh out of deep thought, are different from the ones I was looking at earlier today. They now carry a cold, inauspicious feeling to them; they are venturing an ominous path.