In terms of striking a relationship convenient enough for a guy to take some girl into his home directly after their first meeting, they were the worst choice possible. When he introduced himself as Kim Seokjin, offering his right hand to her, she looked at it like he was offering her a bag of living worms. She gulped as she moved her hand in ridiculously slow motion, shaking as she could barely feel her own body part. They were basically the modern version of caveman and woman.
When their skin brushed, there was a pinch of electricity bursting inside her chest. Everything was happening a little too quick like it was moving in a speed of sound. In one moment she became his third eye, next she saw none of him, and then he was standing right in front of her eyes with no barrier between them except an understandable amount of personal space between acquaintances.
Yongguk had done a terrible job being the one that knew them both. He had nudged Seokjin’s arm before raising his eyebrows at him, paired with a suggestive type of grin. He had told them he believed that a pair of innocent man and woman were more beloved to devils. Before bidding his farewell to his two friends, he had told them he would wait for their ‘good news’ first thing in the morning. Seokjin thought he meant Jisoo would have a good night’s dream, while her cheeks grew a subtle shade of red; for she knew exactly what he was talking about.
She was trailing behind Seokjin as her eyes shifted between his back and his surroundings. She had to keep an eye out for possible dangers threatening him, which was practically almost everything. When she saw a small destruction on the ground where his foot would step on in a few seconds, she dashed to his front. Her movement was unruly that one of her shopping bags, ironically, hit his right arm. He had offered to bring her bags but she insisted it was her responsibility. She blocked his way like he was about to find out her worst secrets.
“Is something wrong?” he asked her.
“Yeah. There’s a small glitch on the road,” she answered. “Better safe than sorry.”
He peeked at the road in front of them from behind her shoulder. “Ah, I see.”
“I think we should walk like this instead.”
It took a while for him to say something. “Uh, I would love to. But I have to lead you to my house,” he told her. “It’s getting late. I don’t want to waste your time.”
She blinked. It was true, then, when mortals said that feelings could ruin the way someone was thinking. “Oh, right. Sorry,” she stepped aside. “We should walk together, side by side.”
He nodded at her with a smile. So they walked together in silence. They would arrive soon, but his house seemed like it was on the other side of the town. Unspeakable awkwardness was the worst, indeed. Her heart had been thumping ever since she saw him on the flower shop’s door and it had not calmed itself down a bit.
She wondered if talking to him would do the trick, but as soon as she opened her mouth, he beat her to it. “Forgive me for asking, but where are you from?”
“O-Oh. I’m… I’m from Gangnam.”
He glanced at her shopping bags. “My house will probably make you uncomfortable. You can tell me if there’s anything bothering you there.”
“There’s no need to,” she replied instantly. “Anywhere is better than my house. I’m the one bothering you, so thank you and I’m sorry.”
They arrived at the gate of his house. It was painted in black and had small spaces in between with the same size each. He opened the gate and walked towards the front door. She followed him closely behind. He knocked at his door three times. A few moments later, it was opened and his mother’s face came to view. Looking at her was like looking at the older, female version of Seokjin. She was wearing a lavender apron with indigo flowery pattern. Her eyes widened at the sight of Jisoo.
“He-hello…” Jisoo greeted her as she lowered her head.
Seokjin’s mother imitated her gesture. Then she looked at her son. “You didn’t tell me you’ll bring a female guest.”
He scratched the back of his head. “It’s kind of an emergency,” he explained, to which his mother’s eyes opened at, “Please, Mom. Let her stay. Only until tomorrow.”
His mother stared at Jisoo from her head to her toe, and examined her shopping bags. Jisoo tried to put them behind her legs, although she did a poor job at it. “Come in.”
Seokjin and Jisoo stepped inside and they were welcomed by a table of half prepared dinner course. There were bowls of rice, three plastic glasses, a plate of kimchi, and a plate of lettuce. Seokjin’s father was watching a baseball match in the family room next to the dinner table. When he saw the two youngsters, he rose up immediately from his seat to greet his unexpected guest.
“Welcome! Welcome! You’re coming at the right time! We’re just about to have our dinner,” he announced while ushering them to the dinner table. “Come sit with us and make yourself at home.”
“Thank you very much, Mister Kim. You’re very kind,” Jisoo said, returning his smile. She placed her shopping bags under the dinner table, taking a seat after Seokjin’s father took his. “I’m sorry for coming here at this hour. I… I just need a place to stay for the night, I’ll be going first thing tomorrow.”
The father laughed. “Why, there’s no need to rush,” he told her as he shrugged. “You can stay here as long as you want, it’s not like you’re a fugitive or something.”
He laughed again, this time along with Seokjin and Jisoo. But when she caught a glimpse of the mother, she went to the kitchen saying nothing. “Excuse me.” Jisoo stated, standing up from her seat which she took only several seconds ago. Before the father could protest, she already made her way to the kitchen.
Seokjin’s mother was frying an egg. Her expressions had been as blank as an untouched canvas, much to Jisoo’s concern. Around the frying pan there were a large bowl stuffed with minced meat, a bottle of soy sauce, cooking oil, and some range of vegetables like spinach and bean sprouts. The sugary smell sprinkled with salt was filling her nostrils and made her mouth water as the heat caressed her skin.
Jisoo cleared her throat. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Can I ask you something?” Seokjin’s mother shot her, tone slightly raised.
“O-of course.” It had been quite a thrilling day for her, indeed. Now she knew what it must have felt like whenever Seokjin was working on his oral exams.
“What do you want from him?”
Jisoo blinked. “I… I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Don’t take it personally. I will ask the same question to any girl he brought,” the mother said, flipping her egg. “As a mother, he is my most precious. I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“I don’t want anything from him,” Jisoo declared. “If I’m aware enough to bring my shopping bags myself, don’t ask me what I think about my own heartbreak—if that’s what you mean.”
Again, she flipped her egg. Tiny holes appeared at the edges of its yolk. “You surprise me there,” she commented, smiling at Jisoo for the first time even though it was small, without looking at her. “With that kind of face and wallet, why him?”
Jisoo smiled. This question was easy. “I’m sure you know the answers better than I do.”
The egg was lifted from the pan and it graced the surface of a glass plate. “How well do you know him?”
Her smile widened. Spectrum of colors were flying inside her head. “When he was seven years old, a blue butterfly flew on top of his nose. Then he sneezed, he thought he was allergic to butterflies,” she reminisced while staring at an old photo of Seokjin’s—in which he had been in his mother’s embrace—that was glued to a small part of the fridge. “No one’s allergic to butterflies. All that beautiful creature did to him was making his fingers curl without his permission, and that’s just another thing about him. He doesn’t know when his fingers curl.”
The mother took a tablespoon of soy sauce and poured it in a ceramic bowl. Seconds passed, and the only thing hissing was the frying pan. Jisoo stared at the unseasoned spinach like it begged her to do something about it. And when she did, the mother said nothing.
***
Jisoo frowned as the bitter flavor of oolong tea merged with the back of her tongue. Seokjin’s backyard was like a mini garden, with flowers and plants had grown around a giant tree on top of an area of grass. They were sitting under the moonlight, with the help of a small lamp hanging above their heads. It had been his habit, to sit down and contemplate about life at night. A cup of hot drink would be his loyal companion as he breathed into the night breeze, the lovechild of cold air and damp grass. Never in a million years would he dare to imagine spending his time in his backyard with a companion more like himself, until this night.
After the treat that had been their dinner, his father had wasted no time in giving the twentysomethings a much needed space. He had dragged his wife along so far as to turn himself into an overnight manual dishwasher, which had happened less than the total amount of his fingers during his current span of fifty one years. He had told the juvenile pair to “take things easy” and “take things slow”, otherwise there would only be “regrets in the end”. He had closed the door to his room together with his wife, who had made various futile attempts at hiding her concerns.
Seokjin, who was blowing on his steaming tea, had more than one question in his head while looking at the peculiar woman sitting beside him, staring lifelessly at the floorboard. “I was wondering… have we ever met before?”
She looked at him. “Of course not. What makes you say that?”
It was nearly impossible for him not to notice her beauty when his house had been built on the asphalts of an empty street. “I don’t know. I just feel like… like you’re familiar, somehow. And it’s not because you’re friends with Yongguk, but… yourself.” He stared deeper at her, trying to find a piece of her memory he might have forgotten. “Can I… can I ask you something?”
She nodded as she smiled.
“Actually, I want to ask you a lot of things. Forgive me for saying this, I know we just met and all, but since you’re leaving tomorrow and the chance of us meeting again is probably slimmer than slim, I think I need to get my feelings off my chest,” he blurted as quick as a marathon contestant. His eyes went blank as if he was programmed. “How do you know my bibimbap habits? Just how much has Yongguk told you about me?”
She chuckled. “He told me enough for me to want to know you better in person,” she answered, taking another sip of bitterness. “Now let me ask you. How can you say that it’s very unlikely for us to meet again after tomorrow? Like, you know, Yongguk’s still around.”
He blinked a few times. There was so much going on in his head and his heart that they were starting to beat each other instead of working together. He had never been fond of the word ‘coordination’ anyway. “I… I don’t know, it came out just like that. Ever since I met you, I’ve been feeling something I can’t describe,” he told her before drinking his tea. “It’s like… I’ve known you for long, but at the same time I don’t know you at all. It’s… weird.”
“It’s just a feeling, no need to think about it that much,” she claimed as her gaze was pulled to the night sky. Stars were dispersed all over it like a small child had poured a handful of silver glitter on top of a black carton. “Do you believe in guardian angels, Seokjin?” she asked without looking at him.
“No, not really. I’ve heard about them every so often, though,” he answered, shrugging, “And even if they do exist, my guardian must have hated their job.”
“That’s not true!” she snarled all of a sudden. There was a moment of complete, tense silence before she realized what she had done. “I-I mean… all angels, guardians or not, are nice beings. There has got to be a reason in everything they do.”
He put on a thin smile, looking at the floorboard while sipping his tea. “I hope you’re right because I really want to believe that,” he uttered. His voice fell flat and turned low. “I don’t mind getting hurt everyday as long as no one else is affected. I can’t see the look on my parents’ face every time I trip. I’m the biggest reason behind their anxiety and stress, I can’t take it anymore.”
There was a pain in her chest, like someone had just punched her heart until it dropped to her gut. All this time, he had hardly said anything. “It’s… never your fault,” she said softly, grabbing the border of his plaid shirt and moved it backwards, revealing a little part of his skin below his right wrist. There used to be a streak of faint scar made by excruciatingly tiny pieces of glass shard. “You’ve been hurt enough. If there’s one thing you should save, it would be your heart. A heart like yours… not many people have it because they don’t deserve that.”
His hand was numb and buzzing, as if there was an army of electric bugs crawling in his bloodstream. That scar had been one of his earliest, and it had been carrying one of his most painful memories in which he had intended to save his mother from quitting the Earth. Things had fallen out of her favor and she had been too exhausted to search for another light. In the brink of desperation, to leave everything behind seemed like the only way.
Seokjin had caught his mother moments before a piece of large glass shard made contact with her vein. He had tried robbing the sharp thing away from his mother, only to have it break into smaller bits. His seven years old hands had been trembling as he had attempted to carelessly swipe the whole thing clean. Those little shards belong to the trashcan since they must have been the sole reason behind his mother’s action, he had thought. And if he could do so the sooner, the better.
Shortly after, he had ended up bleeding himself and his mother had him rushed to the nearest hospital. Until now, no matter how hard he tried to erase that day as if it never happened, it still remained as fresh as raw fish. The scar itself had vanished since a couple of years ago, but his memory didn’t. There was more than enough reason for him not to say anything about the matter.
“Who… who are you?” he asked, his voice was as shuddering as that day when he had asked his mother why.
She let go of his shirt. “Let’s just say I’m someone who knows your worth,” she replied, drifting her eyes away from him to the giant tree in the middle of his backyard, “Does it really matter? What difference will it make? Who I really am… is not what’s important.” She took a sip of her tea, which had turned rather cold. “Seokjin, please listen to me, do everything as I say and remember what I’m about to tell you.”
He blinked, noticing several strands of her straight hair falling to the front of her left ear. A part of him wanted to flee, as his sense of protection and security had been telling him that she was a meteor planning the world’s destruction disguised as an undeniably attractive woman. But the rest of him, the more boring, duller, tedious side of him had warned him that there was not much he could do with a person whose knowledge had reached his deepest wound by uncanny means.
“Everything that has happened to you by no means is your fault, regardless of how hard your brain forces you to think it is. I don’t want you to give up being you, or even unhappy about who you are,” she stared at him. “Don’t ever think yourself as a burden. You don’t know how many people are grateful for your existence, and how many hearts you have touched.”
As much as he didn’t want to believe her, his chest became lighter. Like there was a box of emotional steel that had been attached to his heart for so long and she had just kicked it off of him with a snap. There had never been suspicions toward her anyway, only confusion.
“You might think it’s easy for me to say that since I’ve never been in your shoes and all, but there’s something you should know about,” she sighed as if her pain for million years had evaporated into warm mist. “To stand still seeing somebody gets hurt when you have everything it takes to stop it from happening but for some reason you can’t… that feeling is one of the worst.”
His empathy got the better of him, as he found himself half consciously reaching his hand out to her shoulder. “It’s… okay. I’m sure you have your own reasons.” He started patting her.
She moved her head to the side, distancing herself away from him. “How can I look into your eyes again and talk to you as if nothing happens, even asking you a favor… that, I will not understand.”
“What?”
“Seokjin,” she stared at him again. There was firmness and assurance in her voice. The distance between them was almost extinct. “Promise me you’ll take care of your heart and you’ll never give up being yourself. Even after tomorrow, even if…” She gulped. Her saliva tasted like the tea. “Even if we won’t meet again.”
He blinked. His feelings must have been playing tricks on his mind, since he could have sworn he saw a part of himself in her. “O-okay, if you say so, I’ll… do my best,” he nodded. “I take it as your parents grounding you for running away? That must be the case, right?”
It took her some moments to digest his question. “Yes. You’re right,” she smiled, the kind of smile that people put when they found something they were looking for. “Which reminds me… I haven’t told you about my family, have I? Well, it’s time to let you know. My parents have always been protective of me even to ridiculous degrees since I’m their little, one and only girl child. I only have two best friends as result."
“They can’t help it, though, and I understand their feelings as I grow older,” he added, shrugging. “I’m sure we’ll be just like them if we were to have kids of our own.”
“They treat me as if I was a princess. They give me everything I want, buy me things I myself don’t need, provide me with something before I ask them. But it all comes with dire cost, my freedom,” she told him as the fluffiness of the cotton candy ground brushed against the bottom of her feet, “So yesterday, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I told them if they still want me as their child, they should let me be with anyone I like instead of pushing me into someone I barely care about. I bought myself things with the money I earned from my own sweat, I want them to know I’m perfectly capable of living my own life now that I’m an adult.”
“You’re going back to Gangnam tomorrow or are you planning to go somewhere else?” he asked.
She looked up to the sky. “I’m going back to my parents, to where I belong. Whatever happens, I hope they take some sort of hint,” she noticed the stars were sparkling as if they were excited to see her, “The worst punishment they can give me is that I’ll never be allowed to go outside anymore. I’m going to say this now; it is nice meeting you although our time is short lived.”
He smiled. “Nice to meet you too. I’m glad I can help you in your runaway,” he held out his hand. “As much as it is unlikely, let’s hope we can meet again after tomorrow and be friends. Anything’s possible.”
She shook his hand and threw him an equally joyful smile. That spark of electricity still remained when there was no border between them. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
They laughed together as the darkness of the night was cascading upon their newly pronounced pact. What they didn’t know was that everyone, and everything, had something to share underneath their tight-knitted veils. The secrets of tomorrow were lying dormant between the stars and the moon.