Treasure tales

Short 5: Kim Doyoung

I wanted to stay back and talk a little more with the others, but the boy who called himself 'Doyoung' insisted on taking me out alone. Left without a choice, I reluctantly followed him. To be very honest, I had no idea why I even agreed to any of this till now.

Given the way he had been acting I half expected him to keep up with his flirtatious charade, but he surprisingly did nothing like that.

"You must be surprised," He said. "After all one day you're just living your life, and the next twelve boys you've never met before suddenly wants to meet you."

Speaking about my life, I suddenly remembered that my belongings were still at the bungee jump area, and my classmates were probably worrying about me. Left with no other choices, I asked Doyoung to lend me his phone to send a quick message.

"Sure, give me your phone number while you're at it," Doyoung said pleasantly. I agreed. At this point I already did not think that there was a way to unentangle myself from them anymore. And for some reason I did not want to extract myself away from their lives either. Something about them, the faction itself, was strangely alluring, curious and mysterious.

"Pass my number to the rest, if they want it," I said as I returned Doyoung his phone. Doyoung chuckled.

"You're so strange. We kind of expected any normal human being to be wary of us, but you seem to have accepted us already," Doyoung said.

"I don't know why either. Everything is insane," I admitted. "I half want to get out but I'm unwilling to leave."

"It's all right if you want to leave," Doyoung murmured quietly. He abruptly paused in his steps, looking downwards. I saw that there was sadness in his eyes. It tore at my heart. "We have no right to force you to stay."

What was he thinking, saying that? It only made it even harder to leave. I did not tell Doyoung that, though. I had a feeling he would just repeat his words. 

"Do you want to know my power?" Doyoung continued. I said nothing, although I listened to him carefully with great interest. He stretched out his hand, pulling back the bright pink hoodie sleeve in the meantime. He twisted his hand a little bit, as if he was testing the air pressure to check if his power could function.

He turned to me, and gave me a small smile. "This is my power," he announced.

Nothing happened. I raised my eyebrows at him, feeling confused. Was he lying to me? Was everything just an illusion after all? Or a dream?

"Where do you think my power is supposed to come from? Perhaps fiery flames raging about, or something else that's cool and flashy?" Doyoung prompted, wearing a sly smile on his face. "Or perhaps some fighting ability?"

"Punching? You did stretch out your hand after all," I said stupidly.

"That's what I want you to think," Doyoung smirked. "You can never figure out my power, not if I don't want you to, even if I'm using it on you."

"You're kidding me."

Doyoung shrugged. "Right. Also, did we buy ice cream five minutes ago?"

"N--" I paused. I looked down at my hands, which held a mango flavoured ice cream cone. Mango was my favorite ice cream flavour. Doyoung couldn't have known that.

"How?" I exclaimed. "This...this is preposterous!"

Doyoung laughed. "Not if you know what my power is. Then it'll all make sense," he said. He looked away, and his face darkened. I saw that it was coloured with a trace of poignance. "All I really did was fiddle a little bit with your memories. I'm a mind controller, you see. That means I can mess up memories as well, and dreams, and of course, bend anyone to my will. To answer your question, yes we did buy ice cream, but I fiddled with your memories to make you think we didn't."

"You don't want to have such a power," I pointed out thoughtfully. "You hate it."

Doyoung nodded. "You catch on fast, you're pretty smart eh?" he said, chuckling just a little. "None of us twelve do, actually, for each of our various reasons. For me, specifically, do you know why, though?" He raised an eyebrow, as if he were testing my boundaries, and pushing me as far as he could go.

I thought for a brief moment. "Be careful what you wish for, for they always come with drawbacks you would never want," I recounted from a book I read many years ago. "Is there some sort of side effect of this power? Like, everytime you use your power you lose your memories or something?"

"Close, but not quite," Doyoung nodded, seemingly satisfied with my answer. "You see, when you're able to tamper with others' realities, you begin to question reality yourself. It makes me a little confused. That being said, there is another reason that I'm sure affects the other 11 members as well. But that is a story for another day. For now, let's go back, shall we?"

He turned to go, but I did not follow. A strange feeling was building up inside my chest, unable to be expressed, yet making my head spin like crazy. I could not follow. Doyoung walked a few steps, and turned back to look at me.

"You're not coming?" he asked.

"What kind of faction are you?" I blurted out. "You and Hyunsuk all make me feel so weird, like there's some insurmountable barrier of problems each of you are forced to deal with privately, that you are unable to climb yourself. And how there's some sort of secret, big secret that the both of you hold deep inside your heart. What is going on? It makes me so frustrated!"

A look of surprise passed Doyoung's face. Then he giggled. "I'm honoured to have such a lovely maiden worry about me," He said cheerfully. I was half-relieved to see his flirtatious side back, ironically. He walked closer to me, and took my right hand in his left. I did nothing, although I was stunned.

"But you know, you're no different. What do you hold inside your heart?" He whispered in my ear. 

"The more I find out about you and Hyunsuk, the less willing I am to leave, and the more I want to stay. What about the other 10 members?" I said quietly.

"All of us each have our own stories to tell," Doyoung said, letting go of my hand. "I'm sure they will each take their time to reach out to you. Have patience. We're all curious, actually. How an outsider will react to our secrets. All right, let's go back."

This time, subdued, I walked beside him, not saying a word.