[~Posted 7/6/21]
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The room is finally silent.
As Kai and Lukas stand face to face.
Quiet ambient music wafts forth from behind the closed bedroom door. That's Lilly—giving them privacy.
"So," Kai sighed. "I'd offer you a place to sit, but—our Ikea sofa's gonna need a deep clean.
She adds, "But, I see you've become best friends with our bean-bag chair. You can continue that friendship."
Lukas laughs. A laugh that resonates through his body.
"Really, the whole room needs a deep clean," Kai frowns. "And a good airing." She goes back over to the bay window, to crack it open wider. Their window is actually an alcove reading nook—a broad ledge where you can sit, read, and look out at the courtyard below.
Before Kai got her mini-greenhouse set up, the whole ledge was crowded up with plants. (Bless Lilly, for putting up with it all!)
But now Kai's plants have migrated to the rooftop. So, just last weekend, Kai and Lilly tossed a few homemade cushions across the alcove ledge.
And then curled up there to read, their backs resting on opposite sides of the window.
It was bliss
Now, with Lukas standing next to her, Kai sits down on the alcove seating. She gives the creaky window frame a heave.
"Here, let me help," Lukas says. He bends forward, over her, forcing the frame upward.
Peering outside, he stays motionless. He's bent over her, surprisingly close. She can almost feel his body, moving, expanding in and out, as he breathes.
Storm clouds are already moving in beyond the courtyard, graying out the church steeples downtown.
And he bends down further, studying the distant storm like it has all the answers, until the underside of his jaw is barely, lightly touching the top of her head. He holds his breath. His stare is fixed out the window.
"I'll definitely need my umbrella tomorrow," he says, looking outside.
"Yeah."
Silently, Kai thinks, If it rains tomorrow, I can head up to the roof. I'll open up the greenhouse roof at its hinge. And give all my plants some natural rain water. Even with pollution and acid rain, Kai's convinced that plants do better when they get some natural rain now and then. There's something that tap water just can't replace in natural rainwat—
Suddenly, Lukas voice breaks into her thoughts. "Hey. Where'd you go?" he asks, stepping back.
She looks up, and his body's still inches away. He's towering over her, with one arm resting on the white window frame flaked with old paint.
"Huh?
"Just now. Where'd you go?"
"Where'd I go?"
"In your mind, just now. You were far away."
Blinking, Kai says, "Oh. I was just thinking about, ah, a gardening thing."
"Tell me."
"Oh—it's silly."
"It's not silly. Tell me."
"I was thinking about why rainwater seems to make plants grow better. It makes no sense, with all that pollution and acid rain."
Lukas seems to understand something. He smiles to himself. Then he considers her comment.
"Well, what's missing in tap water?" he ponders. "Maybe that's the question. It probably gets purified at the water treatment plant. And chlorinated. Too much chlorine?" He's just thinking out loud.
He sits down on the alcove. Opposite Kai. Bringing his knees up.
"Thank you for listening to my plant stuff," she says, smiling.
No one ever did that. No one took her gardening seriously. She suddenly felt very happy.
Then she added: "But you wanted to talk about that Intro Psych homework assignment?"
"Yeah." There's a look of concern on his face. "Did you do OK? On the assignment?" He searches her reaction. "I worried about you. Since we never finished the experiment."
Looking down—looking out at the courtyard, illuminated with street lamps—Kai smiles.
"You didn't have to worry," she says. "The thing I turned in—it was fine. How about you?" She feels weird asking him about his grades.
"Mine was fine too," he says. "But I probably took it too seriously."
"Oh?" she says. "What do you mean?"
"I'll show you. You can read what I wrote."
For a second, Kai wonders, Is he going to pull a stapled essay out of his back pocket and unfold it?
But then she realizes he's talking in general terms. Like, in the future, you can read what I wrote.
In the window alcove across from her, Lukas brings his knees up, and rests his sinewy forearms around them. His feet are covered in thick woolen socks. His shoes are by the door.
Then he asks: "What'd you write about?"
Screwing up her face, she thinks back. "I—I wrote about the power of the experiment to heal trauma."
He's watching her. Intently. "Did you find the experiment powerful?" His voice, careful.
Kai nods, looking back at him steadily.
He presses her: "Like, in how it made you react? It had a powerful effect on how you felt?"
His persistent curiosity is odd, she thinks.
"Well, yeah. I mean, it was powerful to talk about like—well, the worst moment of my life—with a complete stranger."
He flinches. Like something she said upsets him. But he just says, "Oh."
"So for the assignment, I researched current theories on trauma. Tried to tie them to my own hunch that maybe it's healing to talk about your trauma with someone who doesn't know you at all. Like maybe the listener, by being a clean slate, actually helps the speaker with PTSD, who can describe and therefore re-process it without unhelpful context."
This woman's so smart, he thinks. But I knew that. He's holding his breath, to the point that his chest aches.
Kai clasps her hands together. "How about you?" she asks him. "What'd you end up writing about?"
He shifts his folded, lanky frame a bit. Leaning his head back, he says, "Ethics. Whether the experiment could be abused. Or mis-applied."
Kai nods, slowly. "I remember you seemed concerned about that. Like you didn't want your partner to think their feelings were manipulated."
"Did you? Think your feelings were manipulated?" He asks.
"You mean, did I fall for you—against my will?" Kai starts laughing. Her delicate shoulders, under the well-fitting cream dress, shake lightly as she laughs.
Lukas frowns. "I don't see why that's funny." His voice is terse, but there seems to be a smile in his eyes too.
She teases him: "Well how about you?" she adds. "You seem, um, immune to psychology experiments. You didn't fall for me that day, did you?"
There's a long silence. "No," he says, intently. Biting his lip, he spoke like a lawyer, reflecting. "I did not fall for you that day."
Then Lukas says, "Want to read what I wrote? If you're game."
"Sure." Kai tilts her head. The way her hair falls to the side of her face, right over her eye—he wants to reach for her, brush it out of her face.
There's a low ache in his chest.
He wants to take her face in his hands and—
—lean forward, and—
He interrupts his own thoughts:
"How about we meet at Sterling—the library—tomorrow?" he asks. "I can give you a copy of my assignment."
"Ok."
"6PM?"
She nods.
It's a date, he thinks to himself. Even though he doesn't use that word with her.
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To be honest, right up until he was alone with Kai, Lukas found the whole night deeply annoying. With those other men around, the evening really grated on his nerves.
With Tom there—who everyone assumed was Kai's date.
And with Arjun who—Lukas assumed—was trying to ask Kai on a date.
With Taeyong. Who was insanely good looking. Something Lukas never even noticed, until earlier that evening when he saw Taeyong near Kai.
Luckily, Taeyong mostly only seemed to talk to Kai's roommate Lilly when he wasn't tending to Tom.
Lukas had a hunch that those two guys had an unspoken deal. Tom had "staked out" Kai, so Taeyong wasn't going to touch her. Lukas could imagine those two clinking whiskey glasses. Yelling "bros before hoes," like a pair of gorillas.
And now—soon Kai would be in the campus tabloid, if they managed to find a picture of her. She was on the brink of becoming a campus celebrity herself. Little did she know. The number of guys who'd throw themselves at her feet. Guys, girls, everyone. Was she prepared?
Was he?
Things had to move faster.
But not too fast that they'd implode.
Because he could see her open up sometimes. And close up other times. Like an orchid cactus flower. He could see her fill with misery. Or reach for big handfuls of happiness, in her gardening.
Sometimes he could see retreat into her own thoughts—launch her mind into deep space. "Kai has left the conversation"—written across her forehead.
From the beginning, he'd had a clear hunch: Any guy who just walked up and asked her out—that poor guy was just going to be doomed to fail.
After the psych experiment, he began to understand why.
He imagined how it must feel for Kai—being on a date with a complete stranger. Plowing through insufferable questions.
Questions like "So how many siblings do you have?"
And "What are you majoring in?"
How annoying it'd be. To try to bridge that awkward distance. When in the back of her mind, the very people who'd been closest to her were impossibly gone. Her parents, whose favorite songs she knew, and favorite foods, favorite scarves, favorite armchairs, favorite sleeping positions, favorite memories. Gone.
Moving from that—to a hundred "fun facts" about a stone-cold stranger....? Ugh.
So Lukas guessed: if he wanted to get closer, he'd have to find a way. A way where Kai would look up one day, and realize: she'd been leaning on him the whole time.
He watched her.
The glow of the room's pendant lamp highlighted the soft arc of Kai's jawline. Her beauty was so electrifying that Lukas was suddenly concerned the water kettle and iron nearby might combust.
And she also looked ready for bed.
"You should get some sleep," he said.
"Yeah, probably." She smiled. "You too."
The thought came into Lukas's head: I need to put her to bed. Tuck her in.
But that wouldn't be appropriate. Yet.
Then he thought of making her a mug of tea. But that wouldn't do, either. It was her dorm room; he couldn't trundle around in it, grabbing things to give her.
And he then remembered: Working with Taeyong earlier that night, Kai hauled a drunk, grown man up three flights of stairs! Actually, six— counting the half-landings.
No wonder she looked ready to curl up and hibernate!
"See you tomorrow," he said. "No need to stand up. I'll let myself out."
At the doorway, he threw on his gray wool coat. Then she watched as he ducked slightly and disappeared down the stairs.
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🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱
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