Chapter 6: Pulsing

Haerin

            I was walking out of the lecture hall when someone emerged from nowhere, grabbing my wrist and pulling me around the corner.

            The person moved far too fast for me to get a good hit on them, but I kicked nonetheless, twisting my arm back so whoever was holding my wrist had to let go or risk dislocating their arm. It wasn’t a tactic I used often – I’d dislocated my ankle once, and it was the most painful thing I’d ever gone through – but there was no other way for me to ensure that I wouldn’t get hurt.

I opened my mouth to scream, but a hand closed swiftly around my mouth. Dark, brooding eyes filled my vision, our noses almost touching in a far too uncomfortable proximity.

“You seem rather accustomed to getting dragged around corners.” The voice was amused, and familiar. I let the tension in my shoulders dissipate and stepped back, slipping my wrist from his grasp.

“I’m a city girl, I have to know things like this,” I said blankly, rubbing my wrist. “And damn, your grip is strong.”

Sehun chuckled, rubbing the outer side of his thigh. “Sorry. But to be fair, you kneed me in the thigh.”

I gave him an apologetic smile before another thought floated to the front of my mind. “So do you need to talk to me?”

His face darkened frighteningly fast. “Something weird happened last night.”

“What?” Dread, curiosity and anticipation bubbled in my stomach, and I leaned closer out of interest before realizing how uncomfortable it was and taking a step back. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately – leaning into his personal space, completely unaware of how awkward it was. The thought that I was letting my walls down scared me, and I resolved to watch what I did around him. “Another one of your flares?”

He shook his head, and explained in a hushed, frantic tone what had happened. I ignored the curious stares of the students walking past us and listened intently, soaking in the information. I felt bad for him – the experience sounded terrifying – and realized how much pressure was on me, as the only other person in on his secret, on something he had no idea about.

“So what did you do with the pendant?” I asked, once he’d made it clear that he’d told me everything that had happened. I began walking – I had no other classes for the day, but if I didn’t start making my way to the bus stop I would most likely miss the next bus. He sighed, long and tired, hinting at an entire night awake, and reached into his pocket.

My eyes widened. “You brought it here?”

He shrugged, pulling out what looked like a gold chain and letting it dangle from his pocket. “I didn’t notice it was in my pocket until I got on the bus this morning. I feel like… this sounds kind of weird,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

I stared at him. “You do realize that everything about this whole ordeal is weird, right? Tell me.”

He looked off into the distance. It was approaching winter, and the sky was a blinding white, only dappled light gray in some areas. The smell of snow hung in the brisk air, and I exhaled, watching as my breath formed a cloud before me. “I feel like it’s, I don’t know, attached to me or something,” he said slowly. “I’m fairly certain I left it on my desk when I left my apartment this morning.”

My first instinct was to accuse him of overreacting, but I looked at the shadows ringing his eyes and the tired way he dragged his feet across the sidewalk and concluded that he looked far too exhausted to come to conclusions too quickly. “Show it to me,” I said.

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Haerin

            It was only when we were safely alone in my apartment – the first time I’d ever let someone I’d known for a mere month into my home, but it seemed urgent and my curiosity and eagerness to see this pendant was overwhelming – that he pulled the pendant from his pocket, slowly and uncertainly, holding the gold chain by his fingertips.

            My breath left me the instant the gem came into sight.

            It was huge – about the size of a palm, far too large of a gem for anyone who wasn’t a multi-billionaire to buy. It was cut into a perfect circle, and looked like a diamond, but it had a certain air of other – like it didn’t belong in this world. It seemed to be a magnet for light, and it was almost as if the sunlight streaming in through the window above our heads shifted its angle so that it hit the gem