"Fine." He smiled down at her while she kept staring in front of her. "But don't think that I am happy to go there.
-
Ophely regretted her answer the moment she had uttered it, then when they had gone back to the apartment and Jeonghan told them the plan, and that night when she tried to sleep and it kept coming back up, the next morning when she was tired to the bones and not gotten one ounce of sleep (managing to doodle a few ideas while she was sleep deprived), but also during breakfast when she knew she was soon going to leave, followed by when she was ready and walking out of the door with the other person who was dragged into the mess. But she regretted it the most when she sat in front of the old lady in the little cabanon with jewels that screamed 'fake' from kilometres away.
The elderly woman was nice, she couldn't deny that, but the stare she kept receiving was off-putting. Jeonghan had managed to drag her out to the seer. And she didn't like it, forcing him to stay out of his body for the time being as she refused to touch him.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." She had started saying, slowly removing her rings from her fingers, smiling up to her ears and voice aggravatingly happy. She creeped Ophely out very much. "I can only presume that there is something going on between you two and you would like me to find the answer to."
"That's what it is." Jeonghan said, nodding at the old lady and making Ophely's hair fall from its badly made bun. The old lady smiled at him before continuing to remove her ring, placing them deliberately on her short table, which sat in between her and the couple. Ophely couldn't like the woman much more than she did previously.
Turning towards Ophely, she raked her eyes up and down her body before looking straight into her eyes. "And I suppose your girlfriend dragged you here after forcing an answer out of you." Maybe Ophely had expected too much from the old woman, she couldn't know what had happened and wouldn't even be able to comprehend it. Though she had half of the story right. Ophely, in Jeonghan's body, clearly didn't want to be where she was right now.
"We are not together." Jeonghan quickly butt it.
"And I am the girl here."
A silent blank followed as the seer looked between the two in surprise. Then confusion. Before it stopped in bewilderment. She gaped at them happily, clapping her hand together, as if she had just hit the lotto.
"My grandmother had told me about people like you!" She clasped her hands together and shook her head. To Ophely, the woman was definitely bonkers. Afraid, she held onto Jeonghan's hand, going back to her own body immediately, and calmly stared out at the woman, not changing her somewhat neutral facial expression. Jeonghan could sense that the younger girl just wanted to stand up and leave the place, but he said nothing and just looked at the seer. "She had had a few couples like you in her life before she died, you are the first ones for me. Ooh!" She definitely was crazy and a screwball. Ophely couldn't stop her disgust showing as the woman lunged for her free hand, palming it up, down and sideways before letting it go onto the table and doing the same with Jeonghan. "She was right, you people do exist. Destined by the stars and tangled by the strings of fate to meet. However, they had to force the inevitable to happen. You have exchanged bodies because you need each other more than you could believe -" Ophely had had enough.
"I prefer getting my high school diploma than being stuck in a man's body."
"That is completely understandable. However there are a few things that can get you back in your body, but only for a short amount of time, I can not tell you how to stay in your original body forever, it is for the both of you to find out on your own." Ophely sighed out angrily. The batty lady knew, yet she preferred to make both of their lives complicated. Why had she even agreed to Jeonghan's idea?
"Can we know about those techniques?" He inquired.
The woman laughed before taking out some cards, none that Ophely had even heard about, not playing cards nor tarot cards. She took some out in some sort of order and gently threw them on the table. She didn't reply to Jeonghan and only hummed to herself, agreeing with what she had seen in the cards. Ophely wasn't sure. But she decided that she had had enough.
"Don't bother." She stood up, "We're leaving."
Or at least, she was. She let go of Jeonghan and left to go outside, fishing out of her pocket a candy she had put there a long time ago. She unwrapped it and sucked on it as she stood out in the street, watching the crowd moving and humming as if it was one entity and not a group of individuals.
She waited for a few seconds, but when Jeonghan didn't follow her out, she started to wonder about on her own, still keeping an eye on the little dingy home with clean curtains closing the little room off to onlookers.
She didn't understand why Jeonghan had even thought about going to some place like that, no good answer could come from there.
-
"Have you realised that you are still in your own body?" She asked Jeonghan, who was still seated in front of her. He hadn't, but when she made him see it, he did. Ophely was out in the street as herself, in her own body. "That's what I thought. But that is the first way to get your body back, for a certain amount of time of course." The woman hummed to herself as she gathered the cards back into a pile. "When you touch, you are back in your body, and when you let go, at first, you immediately go back to your own body. But if you stay connected for a certain amount of time, then you can touch and be separated for that long without being connected all the while." However, when she saw a perplexed Jeonghan in front of her, she went to explain the fact in a different manner.
"Imagine a cup of tea in front of you. It is warm. And when you drink it, there is less. And if you don't, it will still cool down. Either your cup is empty after some time, or the tea is cold.
Let's start with the cup cooling down. The time the cup is warm is the time you get back in your own body. So if you start with no tea in it, then you are never in your own body. But if you start with a cup full, then you have a long time before you go back to her body. And when you touch, it grows the size of your cup. You started with no cup, then had a bead, a shot glass, a tea cup, a mug, a bowl, a teapot ... It keeps on growing." Jeonghan understood where she was growing.
However, the furthest away you are from the other, the more the cup empties. That's the second way you get pulled back from your body. Visualise that the tea becomes a string the furthest you are from the other, connecting you two still together. But the string takes the tea from your cup, so it slowly empties and has more surface to cool down. So the time you have back in your own body is reduced." She asked with her eyes if Jeonghan was following her, he seemed to be, so she went on. "Here comes the way you can grow the reserve of tea you have, just be close to her.
So, the more you touch, the more you can be back in your body. And the more you are together, the more you can be separated."
-
Without realising so, Ophely was facing, once again, the old woman, seer, star-reader, whatever that batty woman was. She sighed when didn't feel the sweet lemony taste of the candy anymore. She sighed and watched the woman uninterestedly without realising so. She was too preoccupied by the thought that she had been in her own body, away from Jeonghan and not touching him either for some time. How had she not realised that? She didn't know, nor did she care, but she kind of wanted answers. And the only person who could give her some was the nutty as a fruitcake lady in front of her.
"Can I believe that the boy is an idol?" She asked the younger girl, but before she had time to answer, the woman was blabbering again. "I know he is, I have seen his face before. On posters and all, I can understand the problems this situation has been, and will cause, the both of you. A high schooler and a public figure, really not the best mix I ever thought of." Ophely didn't try to talk again, she left all of the talking to the chatty woman.
"I will just repeat what I told the young man a few minutes ago for you. I can definitely tell that you don't want to be here with me. Are there no people like me in your country? Or are they not well seen?"
"You're just barmy."
"Great answer. I knew you weren't from here, but you are very pretty. I simply believe that if you give the boy a chance, you would get along very well. He dragged you here, I can see that, but I am not a crook, nor a swindler."
"Just saying that it is hard to believe."
"Whatever." The elder was used to comments like those, the younger generations were less and less inclined to have faith in the not-scientific sayings, such as star-reading and legendary occurrences. "With that boy - the more you touch, the more you can be back in your body. And the more you are together, the more you can be separated. Is that clear?"
"Yes."
"So bugger off!" She told her swiftly, standing up and ushering the girl out of her little shrine, only leaving her enough time to adjust the hat hiding her hair and eyes and put a mask on. "I don't want you to see me anytime soon, that would mean I failed at my task!"
"How much do we owe you?" Even though Ophely didn't give any regard to the things the woman blabbered on about, they had taken some of her time and this was her job.
"Nothing!" The once calm and composed batty woman was now forcefully pushing the girl out of the hut.
"I can't just leave like that!" She said back.
"You can, and you will! It was then that the two women realised that they had already left the compromise of the curtained room and that Jeonghan was watching the two bicker out in the open, his tall frame being pushed by the pudgy little woman as Ophely tried to take a note out of his wallet and force it into her palm.
"Let me pay you!"
"The only way you can pay me is by living happily with your situation!" And no other word could be said as she gave one last push to Ophely, who fell on Jeonghan, as she closed her curtains behind her.
---
This will be the only ever Author's Note
But - over 1k reads ... I am in shock and I really thank you all for the support you have given me for over a year. Every single form of the support has been a motivational point for me, and I truly makes me happy that people still read my stories, so I must be doing something right ...
(Votes and comments as well, views are the easiest to give)