Encounter

“Are you sure you still want to do this?” spoke a voice echoing from the headset.

Yixing laughed. “Han, I’m almost there. I can’t back out now, can I?”

The man on the receiver sighed. “I know, but I can’t help being worried. It’s the first time you’ll take care of someone who tried to, you know, and what if-”

“Don’t say it. I’ll be fine. Promise,” Yixing said.

“Okay…just remember to call me every now and then. Good luck.”

“Thanks, and bye Han.”

Once the call with his brother ended, Yixing could finally see the house from afar. He had driven to the deeps of a deciduous forest, almost three kilometers away from the small town. While driving, he had gone through a canopy of trees: oaks, abedules, elms, and ashes. As Yixing approached the end of the road, a clearing surrounded the white two-story house and a blue lake gleamed behind the house. The scenery was tremendously peaceful and enchanting.

Yixing parked the car in the parking area. And when he got off his vehicle he could feel the enchantment. The humid air and the refreshing summer breeze felt soothing against his skin. The scent of the grass and trees smelled wonderful. Instead of hearing the maddening afternoon traffic, it was the trees moving in the wind and the chirping of birds that perceived through his ears. Detaching himself from his trance Yixing went to take out his suitcase. He had just closed the trunk when a woman voice talked.

“Hello, Mr. Lu! Welcome,” she greeted him.

Yixing turned around and held out his hand. “Hi, Mrs. Kim! And please just call me Yixing.”

“Oh, you are so young,” Ms. Kim said once she shook hands with Yixing and saw his frame clearly.

“Yes, but don’t worry. It’s my fourth year working as a substitute caregiver.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help but worry about my son and the upcoming months.”

“I can assure I am very well prepared Mrs. Kim. I have taken notes on exactly everything you said, ranging from which temperature he likes his bath water to which candy bars I should buy in the grocery store.” Yixing reassured the concerned woman and smiled.

She looked at him a bit relieved by his word. Subsequently, they proceeded to walk inside the large house.

From the moment Yixing walked inside his temporary home, he noted that a clean and pristine interior design reigned the entire place. His shoes were stored in one of the large shoe storage cabinets. Next to the front door laid a closet Mrs. Kim said was used to putting in coats, jackets, umbrellas, etc. The same minimalism and lack of clutter could be seen in the kitchen, in the dinner area, the living room, the bathrooms. There were scarcely any pictures hanged on the walls. There were no unnecessary decors on the furniture. No rugs covered the dark wooden or tiled floors. It was the same upstairs, where his room was located. Yixing left his suitcase next to his bed and proceed to walk down with Mrs. Kim to meet Junmyeon, the person he would be accompanying for the next months.

They strolled past the living room to the porch. The porch faced the lake and where the wooden floor ended a stone tile path lead to the dock in the water. Two men were sitting on patio recliners next to each other barely talking.

As the woman was about to speak, they heard car honks. One of the men, Mrs. Kim husband, got up. “And that’s our cue to go,” he said. The man hugged and said goodbye to his son, then walked towards the two standing beside the glass doors.

Yixing introduced himself and wished the man to have a nice trip.

The woman approached her son and said that Yixing, the caregiver, had arrived and was acquainted with everything he needed to know. She hugged Junmyeon and told him goodbye. Before following her husband, Mrs. Kim held Yixing’s hands and whispered to him, “Please take good care of Junmyeon.”

Yixing nodded and reassured the mother one more time that it was going to be alright.

After the couple left Yixing finally strode to face the young man.

Junmyeon had chestnut hair, short bangs that fell down his forehead, soft facial features, a slim body structure, a scar on each of his wrists and he was wearing dark shades that concealed his eyes.

“Hi, Junmyeon! I’m Lu Yixing. It’s so nice to meet you! Don’t worry about anything. We’ll have a great time together,” Yixing chirpily rambled as he stood in front of Junmyeon and held out his hand. “I’m holding out my hand towards you,” he said.

Junmyeon didn’t react to that. Instead, he sighed and scoffed, “Please refrain from calling me that and cut the act. You are being paid to help me and do the house chores, not to pretend to be my friend. I don't want your forced friendliness, Mr. Lu.”

“I think the polite thing to do is not to let anyone hang in the air when they greet you, Mr. Kim,” Yixing replied as he grabbed Junmyeon's hand and shook it. “And, it’s rude to accuse someone you barely know of lying. At least get to know me before judging my character.”

“Still, I don’t need your pity.”

“The only ones I feel pity for are the defenseless children and animals in this gruesome world, and if I see correctly, you’re neither one of them.”

Junmyeon didn’t say anything.

“I’ll start unpacking then. Please shout if you need anything,” Yixing informed and then walked to his room.

While storing his clothes and personal belongings, Yixing thought about Junmyeon’s apprehensive behavior. Even if he had just uttered a few sentences, it was clear that the man was going to be quite difficult to deal with. Yet he hoped naively that one day Junmyeon would drop his defensive attitude and they could get acquainted, maybe not become best friends, but enough to be on a first-name basis. Junmyeon was undoubtedly different from everyone he had helped before.

Hours later, night had fallen, and Yixing had just finished preparing their dinner. He walked over to Junmyeon’s room on the first floor and asked him to come to eat. They sat in front of each other. Yixing served himself and then began eating.

“Aren't you going to serve my food?” Junmyeon asked impatiently after waiting for quite some time.

“Why should I? You have two perfectly working arms, Mr. Kim.”

“My mother always serves my plate.”

“Well, I’m not your mother. And I believe you can do it yourself. Just grab a serving utensil, and I'll tell you what it is you’re pouring and where.”

Besides cutting the food into smaller pieces, one of Mrs. Kim requests had been to serve Junmyeon a regular portion. However, Yixing was of the belief that this kind of trivial doing was necessary for the detachment of the dependence on the caregiver. He was here to help Junmyeon with essential activities the man couldn’t perform – cooking for example- serving food he could still do (unless it was something dangerous such as warm liquids).

“I might spill,” Junmyeon said.

“Then I'll clean it up later.”

In the end, Junmyeon sighed but served himself nonetheless. He spilled some rice while he was serving. Whether Junmyeon did it on purpose or not, Yixing didn’t care as long as he actually did the task.

A few days passed since Yixing’s arrival. And the most he had gotten out of Junmyeon were trivial comments such as ‘charge my phone,’ ‘you put too much salt on the stew,’ ‘don’t sweeten my tea too much.’ Besides those interactions, they barely spoke. Well, Yixing had asked questions occasionally, but Junmyeon never answered.

Yixing had also noted how Junmyeon spent his days, and that the lack of clutter around the house was mainly so Junmyeon could roam freely since he didn’t use a walking stick. But to put it simply Junmyeon’s routine consisted of doing almost nothing. Sometimes he sat in front of the porch and listened to the water movements, or he asked Yixing to search after his favorite music or audiobooks. Sometimes Junmyeon laid in bed, and it was unknown if he was napping or just lying there lifelessly. On rare occasions, he sat with Yixing in the living room and listened to the TV. He also didn’t leave the house, not even when Yixing asked him to accompany him to the grocery store or to a walk around town. Junmyeon wore the same kind of outfit every day: a white t-shirt with khaki shorts. And he never once took off his dark shades. Indeed, Junmyeon had reduced his own existence to nothing. It hurt Yixing to see him like that. Someone had once taught him that despite being blind, there were still so many things one could do. Yixing wished he could help Junmyeon realize that. On the bright side, ever since the first day, Junmyeon continued to serve his own food (the ones he could).

However, something interesting happened today. Apparently being away from Yixing had made his dog, the playful labrador retriever Trost, miserably. Eventually, the whines and barks, were too much for Han to bear in the peace of his home. Yixing had expected it, but because Han had insisted he could take care of him, he let it. Still, five days had been more than what Yixing had bet with himself.

Yixing was greeted with happy cries and from Trost. He thanked his brother for driving Trost here along with the dog’s stuff. And then he waved Han goodbye, reassuring once again that everything was going fine.

When Han had left, Yixing and Trost walked towards the porch. Luckily, Trost was well trained and he didn’t worry much about the dog making a mess. Yixing hoped that the presence of the playful dog would brighten even a tiny bit of Junmyeon’s dark demeanor. Nobody could resist the charms of dogs (unless they hated them of course).

“Let's see if you can break Junmyeon's barriers, Trost,” Yixing said to the dog.

When they arrived, Yixing stayed quiet and let Trost walk to Junmyeon, who as usual was sitting in the recliner. The dog placed his head on Junmyeon’s lap and barked happily. Junmyeon got startled but didn’t say anything to the dog.

“What is that animal doing here?” Junmyeon asked.

“He's my dog, Mr. Kim. He missed me, so my brother brought him here.”

“Take it away from me,” Junmyeon ordered.

Yixing sighed and called after the dog. He squatted down and patted the Labrador on the head, mumbling, “Good try Trost.”

Seeing that the dog hadn’t made Junmyeon the slightest happy, Yixing thought that it was time for his plan B. He was going to take a different approach than asking questions and waiting for answers. He took a seat next to Junmyeon and spoke.

“My name is Yixing. I was born in South Korea, but my parents are from China. I do know how to speak Chinese though.”

No reaction.

“I'm twenty-two years old, but not for long because I’ll be turning twenty-three on October seventh.”

“I have a brother. His name is Han, and he is such a prankster.”

“I used to be afraid of the darkness. For a long time, I couldn’t sleep unless my lights were on.”

Yixing had a self-dialogue.

“My hair is jet black. I have dark brown eyes, and I'm taller than you by a slight difference.”

“I love eating braised pork rice. In case you haven’t tried it yet, you totally should!”

“My first kiss happened when I was twenty. Can you believe it?”

Yet Yixing didn’t give up.

“Sometimes when I wake up in the morning my hair is super curly. It looks kinda funny. Haha.”

“One of my biggest fears is to see the people I love suffering what I have suffered.”

“You should listen to SHINee. They have good songs. ‘Tell me what to do’ has been on repeat for me since it came out.”

Silence.

“Next semester I'm studying to get my bachelor’s degree in Psychology.”

“This place is so tranquil. I wonder if that’s why your parents chose to live here.”

“I also like listening to English pop music.”

Still nothing.

“My favorite color is purple.”

“I’m a lightweight drinker. So, if you ever see me drunk, I’ll probably be doing something idiotic or embarrassing.”

“I like to dance but-”

“Will you shut your mouth if I speak?” Junmyeon asked irritated.

Yixing smiled in victory.

Author's note: December 11, 2016

Well hello there! Welcome to my second Sulay chaptered fic "Light in the Darkness"! This time I'm trying to write the slice of life genre. So, this story won't have a very complex nor dramatic plot, it will mostly focus on character interaction and their daily life (with some angsty parts). 

Thanks for reading ♥~

Author's note: July 29, 2019

Okay, so this summer was my goal to edit all my chaptered stories currently in draft. Sadly, I could only manage this one :/ But after some revision, this story is finally edited and it's the first story I've decided to put back for public view (no longer invite-only).

Lux in Obscuro, this was the third story ever that I wrote, so it has flaws (although compared with the other two, it's not that horrible). While reading and editing I felt that if I were to write it again now, it may have been an entirely different story. But for the sake of nostalgia, I haven't added or changed anything drastically, mostly typos and weird or repetitive sentences. The few new details I've added/changed don't affect the story if you've read the story previously.

I should warn you that there are some trigger warnings, but I won't spoil what they are. Just be mindful of that when reading those chapters. 

Anyway, I hope ya'll enjoy reading this if you choose to check it out. It's possible I've missed editing some stuff, so If you want to point that out, just go ahead!