Chapter 2.                            

Chanyeol.

“Here you go.”

Yu An served us a glass of iced tea and a plate of broccoli with beef. It’s a Friday and we grew accustomed that we spend dinner at the Nam family’s restaurant. Well, I was not into this. Baekhyun draw me in so I have no choice. He whined for a week asking me to join their “TGIF” though I really am not that informed what that’s supposed to be.

“Thank you for the meal!” We all said in unison and dig in.

“Yu An, your father said you should focus on your studying today so I’ll go instead.” Mrs. Nam says grabbing the umbrella on the rack. “Enjoy your meal everyone. You can just leave the dishes on the sink after.”

Yu An’s eyes followed her as she disappeared from the rain. Last month, Yu An started going somewhere after school and none of us knows where that is. But today’s different. It rained hard when we are all heading back home so she was forced to go with us instead.

“Yu An, you alright?” Baekhyun asks.

“Huh?” She asks with a blank face. She’s in deep thought. I think. “Oh yes, I am. It’s nothing really.”

She answers but I can tell that Baekhyun’s not satisfied by that. He always worries about her even though she doesn’t tell us anything. For three months that I (have been forcefully) have been with Yu An, I made an impression that she’s very mysterious. There’s so much about her the more that you get to know her and all of the questions in my head about who she really is still hasn’t been answered, up until now. I guess it’s the same for Baekhyun and Yeon Hee too but none of us bothers to bring up the subject.

Oh, don’t ask me. I have clearly no intentions of clarifying the questions in my head. One of my mottos in life is Don’t know, don’t care.

When we’re done eating our dinner, Yu An said that she’ll wash the dishes because the staff will only be bothered because her Mom is at the hospital. As expected, Baekhyun presented to clean the tables and Yeon Hee said she’ll clean the rest of the restaurant to help. Me? I’m left to help with the dishes because I am left with no other options than to go home. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a little bit of conscience left in my body.

When I arrived the kitchen, the water’s running. Yu An was staring blankly and left the faucet open. I sigh and turned it off. I am a huge water conserver because I know how problematic it will be when it comes to bills. She flinches in surprise and looked at me. Welcome to reality Yu An.

“Oh! Oh my did I leave it open?”

“You’re kind of spacing out.” I replied.

“Oh.” She puts a laugh and started washing the dishes.

“Is something up?” Did my mouth acted on its own or did I just develop some concern on another person other than Baekhyun?

“N…Nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like that to me.”

Park Chanyeol is prying on other people’s business. What the hell?

“I…” she hesitates before she continues and sighs in defeat. “Please don’t tell this to other people. I don’t want to burden others.”

I don’t know what is more burdensome. Her telling me a secret or me being burdened.

“Lips are sealed.”

“I want to visit my brother today. I always do every week but I can’t see him this week because of the heavy rain. My father just allow me to visit him once a week because I have to focus on my studies. I’m worried sick. He says that he’s taking rehab but when I went to the hospital last week, it wasn’t like that. I don’t think Mom knows it either. ”

“Did your brother got into an accident or something?”

I notice her freeze at my question, then she nods. “Yes. My brother was actually a swimmer but he can’t swim for a while because of that.”

I think I pried in a very sensitive topic because she’s getting emotional and I don’t like it. I don’t know how to handle situations like this for goodness’ sake.

“He injured his arm so he can’t swim for a while. He said that he’s fine but I know he’s not. I know it. Every athlete loves his or her sport and I know my brother’s depressed about it.” She looks at me and I flinch in surprise. I grab the bowl that I am holding just close enough that I didn’t break it. “Imagine if it happened to you. When you injured your feet and you can’t run- I’m sorry. I got too carried away.”

She continues washing the dishes and I kind of get where’s she’s coming from. I am also positive that her brother’s depressed from what happened to him. He might’ve hated himself for it because that’s what I would feel. I love running and if I injured my feet, I would blame myself for it. I’m the carrier of my body and it’s my responsibility not anyone else’s.

“Let’s visit your brother tomorrow. Is it okay if we go after our practice?” I get that I just pry into another person’s business but what the hell? What am I doing?

“Chanyeol.”

“You don’t want to? We can keep it as a secret and sneak out. You’ll have time to work on your studies if you say you’ll work on it at the school library. I’ll be done at noon so we can go afterwards.”

I can see that her face brightened up with what I just said. I’m quite surprised at myself too. I am initiating something. Maybe it’s because I felt bad for a fellow athlete.

“Thank you Chanyeol! That means a lot to me! Tomorrow it is then!”

“Okay.”

When I get back to the table to rest, Baekhyun is staring at me. I look at him confusion and asked why but he smiles and shakes his head saying it’s nothing.

“Nice! A new record for today Chanyeol!” I chase after my breath and took the bottle of water from coach. “Keep that up and you’ll make it to the preliminaries!”

“Okay.” I replied. Baekhyun finishes and jogs towards my direction.  “You’ve set your record too?”

“Yeah.” He says panting. “14.3. You?”

“12.7.” He laughs and shakes his head.

“I’m still slow huh?”

“No you’re not. That’s a good record. We might both go to the preliminaries.”

“You’re right. It’s good that we’re running together for the relay huh?” I nod. We hear coach’s whistle and he wrapped up today’s practice. We all headed  to the shower room to freshen up. I open the shower and let the water flow on my skin. It’s always refreshing to take a shower every run.

“So what’s with you and Yu An?”

“Oh,” I was about to tell him when I remembered Yu An wants to keep what we talked about as a secret. This is too damn hard especially that I’m keeping it from Baekhyun. “She just wants me to accompany her somewhere.”

“Oh, just… the two of you?”

I know where this is going. He’s jealous. “I have no interest with her. You know that. My interest is running not romance.”

He chuckles as we both finished rinsing ourselves. “Sorry. You know how I feel towards her. I forgot that you’re you. My best friend.”

“You’re still a worrywart.”

We wrap ourselves and headed to the locker room to dress up. “Watch over her for me Chan.”

I laugh. “I don’t care about other people.”

“Yeah but this is me asking you a favor.”

“Fine. I will just because you asked.”

He smiles and waves me goodbye. I walk to the tree at the center of the school where I say to meet with Yu An and sat on the bench. I bring my phone up and texted her.

Here.

I hit send and bring my phone back to my pocket. I lean on the tree and close my eyes. I open my eyes. She’s taking too long.

I grab my phone again and checked for a reply but there’s none so I tried calling but still no answer.

Damn.

I sigh in defeat and decided to go to the library even though it requires too much energy. I find her there. She’s there alright. One thing, she’s asleep. I walk towards her and saw a lot of books stacked in front of her. I grab the list that she’s holding. Physics, Biology and Math are checked. Did she finish these in just four hours? She’s amazing. Our midterms are not until next week though.

“Yu An.”

I tap her shoulder but she remained asleep. I guess she fell asleep because she got tired. I will too if I’m on her place. I always fall asleep even if I haven’t finished one subject. I sat in front of her. I guess I’ll wait until she wakes up.