Nope, she didn’t go home that night, at least not when I was still awake tossing and turning trying to induce amnesia of the times I made a total moron out of myself.

I couldn’t explain how or why I became too nervous around her. I thought maybe my brain was jarred by the shockwaves from the fiasco at the firing range the other day. Or was it her tears and how she looked so shattered that day? Nah, that’s just way too dramatic.

Just when I was about to accept my stutter-filled fate, I received a message from Uncle JD reminding me of the week's training schedule and the first trial mission. Training was my idea, but the trial missions were Uncle JD’s. Before we proceed with the first phase of the true purpose for regrouping Sowon’s team, he wanted us to go through a series of trial missions to ensure our readiness. But I know that not only was he testing the group’s disposition and preparedness, he was also, if not mainly, trying to test me.

Many times, he discouraged me from taking this path. And many times, I’ve actually considered just forgetting the mission altogether- my father, destroying The Academy he built, the retribution for the pain from a ruined family, the abandonment and the lives he derailed. But then I was reminded of my mother’s death. The death she herself plotted. The death that caused my hiding. The death that rooted from my father’s greed.

After a brief conversation with Uncle JD, there was a renewed sense of urgency to finish what I’ve started. I realized how distracted I’ve become. I realized that I didn’t need to please or be at peace with anyone. I didn’t need to apologize for anything. Besides, they worked for me. I was the very reason for their decent living condition. I practically saved them and I didn’t deserve the ungrateful treatment, not from Yerin, not from anyone.

I saved you, it’s time you show respect and gratitude. Tomorrow, I will be back in control.

* * *

In the morning, I was awoken by Yuju’s knocking. “SinB-yah, are you alright??”

I hastily swept my bed for my phone and discovered it was already 9:15am; and I've snoozed through all the alarms, missed the morning jog, skipped breakfast, and I’m late for the day’s training. Wow, what a phenomenal way to start taking control…

I almost jumped out of the bed and scampered to change clothes and fix my uncooperative hair to a ponytail.

“Yeah! I’ll be out in a few!” I yelled trying to hide my I-just-literally-woke-up voice.

“Oh, okay. There’s still food downstairs.”

I took a deep breath and hastily got out of the room. But as I hurried toward the stairs, my eyes caught the unmistakable silhouette propped in the veranda. There she was, with her book, her silence and her eternal condescending aura. It didn’t help that she was wearing white clothes, because her skin luminesced a mesmerizing glow.

I was relieved that she was back and I felt an urge to slid myself through the window to talk to her. But my mind was blank and all I could do was look at her, notice her every move, watch her hair quiver to the wind, and be overwhelmed by her surreptitious character.

So, there I was at 9:25 in the morning already dispirited by Yerin’s mere existence, with my frozen mind and an unconsciously walking body, I missed a step on my way down the stairs.

The next few seconds of my unconventional descend to the first floor was a total blur. All I heard was my internal panic and a loud thud. The thud was actually my forehead hitting a metal panel before my body managed to ensnare itself among the railings three steps from the bottom.

“SINB-YAH!!!!!”

. Guys, you don’t need to amplify the embarrassment by calling my name.

“Present!” I raised my hand like reflex trying to conceal the humiliation by playing it cool. “I’m alright…! I’m alright…!” Dammit, I’m not alright but I have to it in and pretend I’m superhuman.

“Well, that was an unorthodox way of climbing down.” Even from an upside-down view, I knew that was undoubtedly Umji.

“Someone’s drunk early in the morning...” No, Eunha, I’m not drunk! But I might as well be after what happened.

“Oh my god… Are you alright?” Yuju immediately ran up and carefully pulled my legs from the gaps of the railing.

“Don’t tell me that’s an addition to your morning exercise?... I’ll support her head. Pull her arms… careful. Let’s sit her up first. Can you stand up? Is there pain anywhere?”

“Eonnie, I’m fine. Really. I just missed a step.” I smiled and walked casually to the kitchen counter silently checking if I broke a bone or dislocated something.

“You meant nine steps.” Umji clarified.

“Yeah, I meant I missed one… and the succeeding. Hehe…”

I thought I was convincing being fine until Yuju blurted, “SinB-yah, your arm! It’s bleeding!”

“Oh yeah?” I twisted my right arm to see its back where an awful-looking abrasion about 5 inches-long was. “Oh, I’ll clean it later.” I acted nonchalant and proceeded to eating.

After 10 seconds into my breakfast, I could feel the throbbing on my forehead and the searing pain over the scrape on my arm. But I had to project an unwavering composure especially that I could hear Yerin’s heavy steps as she approached us in the kitchen.

I did not acknowledge her presence and just continued painfully eating, literally. She passed by us and went straight to the refrigerator. I tried to ignore her and the memory of the voicemail I left her last night hoping she did not listen to it at all. Everyone just gathered around the counter and watched my soon-to-be-tragic acting.

I didn’t realize that Yerin was already standing next to me. She laid a carrot on the table and a toolbox I didn’t notice she carried earlier before she held my left hand. Boy, her hand was icy cold but it was heavenly soft. She laid a cold bag on my hand and lifted it to press hard on my already aching forehead.

“AAAAHHHHHHWWWK.” I screamed my guts out to the pain when the bag hit the bump on my head. It happened so fast that before I could properly come to my senses, I was already biting the carrot’s stout end.

“Just bite into it.” Yerin commanded and before I could agree, she was already pouring some liquid onto my wound.

“HUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHGGGGGK!” I thought I was going to faint. I might have seen some stars and heard a few birds chirping already, but I held on to my consciousness and pride.

“A few more seconds, SinB-yah, eonnie is really fast with these things.”

I could feel the sweat dripping from my head and back as I nodded to Yuju’s effort to console me. True enough, she was done after the longest one minute that existed in that apartment.

“Thirty minutes.” Yerin pointed to the ice bag I held over my head. "Have you had a tetanus shot within the past 10 years?"

I nodded and saw the carrot bob with my head. Then she took her toolbox and walked away without even removing the vegetable she shoved into my mouth.

“Savage, isn’t it?” Umji pulled the carrot out.

“Could she be any more barbaric?” I said impinging my tone as I looked at the bandage carefully wrapped over my arm. It was barbaric and I wanted to hate her for that, but all I could remember was how gentle she was when she was cleaning my wound and how delicately she touched me while positioning the pieces of gauze.

“Not at all. That was by far the best vegetable she ever used as scream-stopper. She had me bite on a big onion before. Onion, SinB-yah, onion!”

“I had an unwashed potato. The taste of soil wasn’t so bad. But you’re lucky she even washed and peeled your carrot!”

“I’ve never been injured, so I haven’t had my fair share of vegetable-associated torment. But I think Sowon-eonnie had the worst.”

“Don’t even remind me, Umji-yah. I had to bite on a bitter melon. I suffered more when I bit it.”

“A bitter melon?!” All of a sudden, I felt very fortunate.

“Yeah, that was all we had in the fridge that time. Umji-yah, remind me to always have carrots in stock.”

“Here, let me hold the ice bag for you so you can finish eating.” Yuju volunteered. I probably know why she has been very caring of me, and all I could do was appreciate her.

I just went on eating, ruminating about the surprising fact that I had the best vegetable scream-stopper in the history of Yerin’s unlicensed and partly undomesticated medical practice. But with every spoonful, I tried to forget that a few minutes ago was the closest she’s ever been around me. With every spoonful, I tried to forget the gentleness of Yerin’s touch.

But by the end of breakfast, I just found myself yearning for it.

* * *

“We both know you’re screwed.” Eunseo reiterated while inspecting the purplish bump on the right side of my forehead, which if not for the ice pack would have been bigger.

It was a good thing that the schedule was a shooting day at the café and I could just totally excuse myself from the practice without the fear of looking like a whiny toddler to Yerin since she will absolutely not show up.

“It’s all because of her.”

“Well, if your purpose was to impress her by your innovative way of walking down the stairs, boy, you didn’t just nail it, you even made her come near you!”

“I mean it’s all her fault. Eunseo-yah, you’re not helping.”

“No one told me you needed help. And as I can see, you already got the help you needed.” She smiled mischievously. “And a carrot, huh?”

“I’m starting to regret talking to you.”

“Liar. I know you’ve been dying to tell me everything. But you know, I have a theory about why you suddenly don’t know how act around her.”

“And what’s that?” I replied as I repositioned the improvised ice pack one of the baristas made for me.

“Because you are not used to being around other people in general. Imagine, for thirteen years it was only me and my father, and just recently our café crew.”

“Ahhh, that reminds me, yeah, putting up with you for thirteen years might have really scarred my being.”

“YAH! Do you want to grow another bump on the left side to make that head symmetrical??”

“Yah… Just kidding. Can you just give me a cake?”

And there was her hieroglyphic hand signal up in the air while I took out my phone and did something stupid.

SB: Eonnie, thank you for cleaning my wound earlier. And I’m sorry again. I’m happy to see you home. Please don’t run away again...

“Wow. You’re growing balls.”

“I just thanked her.” But more than balls, I felt something else growing inside me that was for Yerin and it was becoming hard to dismiss.

“Happy to see you home? Please don’t run away again? Really, SinB-yah?” Eunseo was rolling her eyes at me through the whole sentence. “I miss you was all that’s missing in your text.”

“Eunseo-yah, I don’t know why, but I feel the need to be there for her. I mean after the shooting.”

“Probably because you got to know her more?”

“Not really… All I know is that it was her first time to join a shooting practice and cry in front of the group.”

“And that she is susceptible to being weak?”

“Yeah, that, and that she’s an ambidextrous shooter…”

“And that she is capable of taking care of herself?”

“Yeah, that too, and that she spends so much time in the library…”

“And that there’s a library guy who has a crush on her?”

“Yeah, that, and… Wait, what?”

“Yah, don’t lie about not having that on your mind.”

“Excuse me, I don’t!”

“Liar. When you told me about going to the library, your first line was ‘I went to the library and there was some creep who’s been checking out Yerin. He even told me where she was.’”

“So? That doesn’t mean I’m affected by it!”

“And it also doesn’t mean you’re not.”

“Whate-” I saw my phone light up to a notification. I didn’t even notice that I never finished my sentence. Yerin texted back.

YR: K

Feeling a little audacious, I in all the courage I could gather and replied.

SB: Eonnie, we’ll be home soon. What are you doing?

YR: Sorting voicemails

OH .

* * *

Several days after the carrot-biting incident and calling her peculiar, I was certain that I was already too far deep into Yerin. Many times, I've dreamt of her; and it was too frequent that reality became hardly distinguishable.

Every day I spent waking up to her absence in the house caused a dull aching to know if she was safe. All the times she was at the library caused an unconceivable amount of worry that pierced through me. And every time I saw her in the veranda aversive of human warmth, the desire to calm the storm in her heart intensified. But the most bothersome part of the infatuation I have for Yerin was the depth of the special friendship with her that I was terribly failing to establish.

Countless times, I’ve tried to approach her to talk but there was never an instance that she wasn’t busy with a book. That was why I was caught off guard one morning when the unexpected happened.

After breakfast, most of the members coincidentally had to run somewhere and before I became conscious of the resulting setup in the kitchen, I was already nervous of the chilling silence that lingered when Yerin and I were left sitting on the counter. She, with her book, and I, with just the words trapped inside my head.

Suddenly my eyes were glued to her slender hands and her always trimmed nails. With how lovely they were, no one would say that those hands were capable of taking life. I, for one, would assume from their gentle features that she could only use them to save lives, or touch lives. Or touch me? I almost giggled to my imagination.

“Who would think these hands could kill?” She uttered after raising them up for a brief inspection.

I was surprised to her sudden remark that I thought she heard my thoughts. My jaw hung open but not a sound came out. Is it my face or has my brain grown its own mouth that people are starting to hear me?

“What’s up with your face…”

Oh ! She can hear me. Can you hear me, eonnie? Hello??

“Uhm… Hello?” She waved her pen to my face and that was by far the kindest gesture she has ever made since I met her.

HOLY !

“Historically, being morose and taciturn is Yerin-eonnie’s personality, not yours.” Umji walked by us, she came out of nowhere.

“UH! Y-Yerin-eonnie, c-can you hear me?” I finally snapped out.

She only raised an eyebrow, closed her book and marched up the stairs.

All I could do was frown and sigh. I blew it again.

“Congratulations for blowing it for the Nth time. Coffee?” She raised her cup.

“Umji-yah! Can you hear my thoughts?? I think Yerin-eonnie can hear them too!”

“Have you been taking prescription drugs?”

“Ha?! What? No!”

“Were you ever diagnosed of Schizophrenia?”

“No!”

“Bipolar disorder?”

“What?? No!”

“Schizoid personality disorder?”

“NO! What’s that even?! Stop it. I’m not crazy.”

“Then stop it with the crazy questions.”

“But… Fine.”

“You just need to either sleep more or totally wake up. Here’s coffee, if you choose the latter.”

“Aish…”

“First, you call her peculiar. And now you’re acting weird around her. You’re gonna scare her.”

“But Umji-yah...”

“Yeah, I know.” Umji almost whispered.

“You know what?”

“You’re falling.”