When I walked out the front door in the morning, my truck was there in the driveway. I'd forgotten about its absence completely, but I was glad Jisung brought it back — by way of magic, apparently, since I didn't give him my keys. I was growing to expect that of him.
The kids at school had a lot of fun with the fainting incident. I didn't want to know how ruthless they would become when they'd have me cornered in a mini van on Saturday (the accursed beach day). Mike kept his mouth shut about Jisung's involvement. I was relieved. I had the feeling the students would find Jisung stealing me from Mike and princess-carrying me to the nurse to be a new level of hilarity.
Jessica was among the people who found the whole thing funny, but she was more interested with Jisung wanting to sit with me at lunch.
"So what did Jisung Han want yesterday?" she said in Trig.
"I don't know." Which was kind of true.
"He never got to the point?"
"Nope."
"So you just talked?"
"Yup."
"What did you talk about?"
"Stuff."
"I've never seen him sit with anyone except his family."
"Huh. Weird."
My non-answers pissed her off, and she disengaged from the conversation.
When I followed Jessica into the cafeteria, I immediately zeroed in on the table Jisung and I had sat at the day earlier. Empty. My eyes switched to his family's table, on the other side of the room. Two of his siblings were there — the intense-looking one and the one with freckles — but he was not. I looked over the crowd, searching for black hair and chubby cheeks...
Nothing. I realized — with an audible gasp — that I didn't know when he was coming back from Mount Goat or whatever. My shoulders slumped to the floor.
Mike was full of details for the beach trip. I was right in assuming we'd be riding in a mini van. Mike said it would be sunny, but I was skeptical of the local weather man. Anyone with a rug that ill-fitting wasn't trustworthy.
When I got home, I dropped my backpack and stared into the distance. The stillness didn't last long; I just had to start thinking, and then everything got overwhelming. I flopped onto the couch and groaned into the cushion.
My brain was so loud that I decided to make an entire goddamn pizza for dinner. From scratch. I was up to my forearms in sauce. I found a pepperoni sitting on my shoulder like a conscience. I had to change my clothes completely before I sat down at the table with Charlie.
"Do you know anything about a place called Mount Goat?" I asked casually. "It has something to do with, um, Rainier?"
"Goat Rocks, yeah. Why?"
I shrugged. "Some kids were planning on hiking there."
He looked alarmed. "It's not a very good place for hiking. Too many bears. Folks go there to hunt when it's the right time of year."
"Oh." I was suddenly anxious. An image of a bear lunging at Jisung flashed through my mind, and the slice of pizza in my hand started trembling. "I must have gotten the name wrong."
~ * ~
After a night of dreaming about Jisung, the light streaming in my window woke me. I couldn't believe it. I hauled myself out of bed and stared out the window for a while. The sun was there — too low, too far away, shining pathetically over the trees, but I was still grateful for it.
I got dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans. That's what Rough 'N' Tumble people wore, right? I made my way downstairs and fixed myself a bowl of cereal. I was displeased with having to spend the sunny day with humans, but it felt like one of those things a person has to do to remain a productive member of society. I sat down at the table and shovelled soggy Cheerios into my mouth.
Charlie sidled up to me as I was washing my bowl and spoon in the sink.
"Good morning," he said.
"Good morning," I replied.
"What are you up to today?"
I'd assumed he'd heard about the beach trip through the parental grapevine. I was about to speak when he kept talking.
"Because I thought we could go hiking."
My eyebrows jumped. "Oh."
"Yeah, it'll be fun. You talking about Goat Rocks gave me the idea — but I promise there won't be bears."
I blinked.
"It's just — I feel like I haven't spent any quality time with you. It's like you're living in my house, not living with me. I'm your dad. I want to, you know, hang out with you."
How was I going to say this to him? He seemed excited. "I kind of already made plans."
His eyebrows tilted sideways in a pout. "Oh. Um, that's okay, Minho."
"But I'll cancel," I tacked on. I honestly had no idea what to expect from the day now, but it was sweet Charlie was asking. "I want to hang out with you, too."
He smiled, his spirits (and moustache) lifting. "Great. I'm ready whenever you are."
I smiled back, but it disappeared as I realized I'd have to cancel on Mike. Conversing with people was miserable — telling them I was ducking out of plans last minute was even worse. I had zero practice (surprise, surprise, I didn't have many friends back in Phoenix) and talking on the phone was so awkward. It felt like I was talking to myself, but someone else was listening.
I slinked toward the landline. After a good five minutes of searching for the right Newton in the yellow pages, I reluctantly pressed Mike's number into the keypad.
He answered. "Hello?"
"Hey, Mike." I twirled the cord around my finger. "It's Minho."
"Hi, Minho," he replied. "What's up?"
"I can't go to La Push."
The line was quiet. "Oh."
"My dad and I are going hiking. It was unexpected. I'm sorry."
"It's fine. See you on Monday, I guess."
"Yeah. Sorry. Bye."
I hung up. Poor clingy Mike just couldn't catch a break.
Charlie and I ambled into the forest behind the house. It was blindingly green and really pretty. The brown earth crunched and squished under my feet...
I couldn't help but think about Jisung. The scenery was quiet and mysterious and beautiful — like him. I wondered what it would be like to go on a hike with him. I wondered what he and his brother were doing at Goat Rocks right now. I wondered why they were hiking in a hunting range riddled with bears and if I should be worried...
I wondered a lot of things. When a break appeared in the tree canopy above me, I wondered if he was looking at the same sky, thinking the same thoughts, as I was.
Charlie made me kneel in the dirt so he could illustrate just how marvellous a specific kind of moss was. I forgot everything he said as soon as he said it. He used a lot of big words, but I thought he was faking it. He was poking at a squishy green thing, telling me about the phenomenal tea it made, and then realized mid-sentence that it was a slug.
When we returned home, we were covered in mud and muck. Charlie had literally nosedived into a creek and I'd had to save him. I went upstairs and got changed. With the hiking today and the pizza yesterday, I decided to do laundry, too.
After lunch, I hung out in my room, reading, procrastinating, occasionally (just occasionally) thinking about Jisung, and if he was being mauled by a bear right now. I wanted to do something — just make sure he was okay — but every time I considered taking action, the logical voice in my head pointed out that he was not normal. A bear couldn't kill him. He had stopped a van without trying. He had carried me across campus without breaking a sweat.
I still couldn't help but worry, so I tried to read — humming to distract myself from the nervous chatter in my head.
I gave up immediately. I lifted up my bedside lamp, yanking the sock out from underneath it. I shook my keys and wallet out, and then the lollipop Jisung had given me the day earlier. I held it, peered at it, remembered what it felt like when I realized he was giving me this weird, small, amazing gift.
I lay down on my bed, picking up where I'd left off in Order of the Phoenix, and balanced the sucker on my nose. So I could keep an eye on it.
I was reading the same paragraph over and over again when Charlie knocked on my door.
"Yeah?" I called.
He peeked into the room. "Do you want to watch a movie tonight, son? I could run to the video store."
"Sure. Just get whatever you want — I'm good with anything."
He nodded and closed the door behind him. I could feel today become one of those parent-child bonding days a person never forgot. I hadn't had one of those with Charlie before.
Charlie was back in half an hour. It was almost dinnertime already, so I slapped my book shut and stowed the lollipop away in my Important Things Sock. I hopped downstairs.
I didn't feel like being creative, so I just threw some leftover pizza in the oven. Charlie said today was special, and we could eat dinner in front of the television. I knew it was juvenile, but I was ecstatic. Charlie never let me eat anywhere but the dining room or the kitchen, and my mom didn't even have a TV.
"What did you get?" I asked, sitting crosslegged on the sofa, resting my plate on my lap and enjoying every second of it.
Charlie held up a VHS case entitled "Maiden Stealer" with a screaming woman on the cover. She wore a revealing white dress, hair up in a blonde beehive. There was blood leaking from two small wounds on her neck, running down her chest and ruining the dress. The shadow of a man was cast on the wall behind her.
"It was my favourite when I was growing up." Charlie pressed the 'play' button, and took a seat next to me. "It's a classic horror film."
I wrinkled my nose behind my pizza. I used to go to musicals with my mom, and I was always up for anything Hayao Miyazaki, but I'd never been intrigued by the horror genre. Fear was scary, and I tried to avoid it, but I supposed Charlie would take pity on me and turn it off if I started screaming loud enough.
The opening credits began, and I quickly realized it would not scare me. The dialogue was campy, the audio was scratchy, it was filmed in black and white. How old was this movie? How old was Charlie? I couldn't ponder the answers to these questions for long, because Charlie started blabbing about the lighting and camera angles. Charlie wasn't a talkative person, but he suddenly couldn't shut up as soon as a movie was playing. It was one of his less endearing quirks.
By the time we'd finished dinner, and the movie was halfway through, I heard Charlie chuckle. I realized I was leaning toward the screen.
"She's pretty, right?" he said.
I looked back to the TV, and the female lead was there, draped over a chaise lounge. I hadn't noticed. I was paying attention to the scientist character — he was describing the grotesque antagonist of the film in a monologue.
"Yeah, she's pretty," I said. She was pretty — gorgeous, actually, in that gaudy 1900s fashion — but Charlie said it in the way where it meant Something. It didn't mean something to me. My something was an idiot and went hiking in a hunting range, and was probably dead already.
"He's a villain," the scientist said loudly, attracting my attention again. He was pacing back and forth in his office, biting on a fountain pen in his reverie. "He has no interest in anything except his bloodlust. He's looking for a mate to carry his spawn, and then he'll drain the poor dame and leave her for dead. He's a monster, and there's no stopping him."
He took a puff of his cigar, blowing a cloud of smoke right into the snout of a stuffed moose on the wall.
"He's smart, he's dangerous, he's invincible — but most importantly, sir — he is beautiful. Nobody can resist him. His face is perfect, his voice is attractive, everything about him pulls one in. Plus, he is unbelievably strong; he can lift a tugboat over his head! And his skin is cold, cold like a December night. He is our ultimate foe. He is a dangerous" — he paused — "deadly" — he puffed — "scary" — he looked into the camera, right into my eyes — "vampire."
The word hung in the air. I stopped breathing. Not that it was any logical or sane leap for a mind to make, but something snapped and sparked and a thought popped into my head.
Jisung Han was a—
"I'm tired," I said, forcing myself to yawn. "I'm going to bed."
"Oh," Charlie said, examining my face. I'm sure it was doing something weird. "Sure. Goodnight, pal. It's been fun."
"Yeah, it was." I gave him a smile before I sprang to my feet. I marched upstairs, opened and closed my bedroom door. My legs stalled. I was taking this way too far. Jisung wasn't a made-up movie villain. How did I even come to that?
Because he was fast enough to race across the parking lot in a second... and cold to the touch... and beautiful to an inhuman degree... and strong enough to stop a gigantic, careening van before it could kill me...
I ignored my unbrushed teeth and climbed under my covers, staring into the darkness until I fell into an uneasy sleep.