Songs:

¬ Segue

¬ A Stillness

¬ The Ash Is in Our Clothes

“Excuse me?” Bora questioned as she put down her belongings and closed the door.

    Siyeon put the mug on the coffee table. “How did you get out of The House? I saw you. You disappeared before I started existing. Is this where we end up after disappearing?”

    Bora’s eyes widened and her eyebrows shot up, making her forehead crease while formed a flat line. She inhaled perceptibly and nodded before turning her whole body to her roommate, who was standing beside the kitchen island with a melting ice cube in hand. “Explain?”

    “Siyeon, what are you talking about? Are you okay?” Minji threw away the ice and sat down next to her.

    “Well no, I still need to go back for my friend Gahyeon. Now you,” Siyeon addressed Bora, “are here, after I saw your photo in one of the files we were investigating, which could only mean that you disappeared before I appeared ‘cause I don’t remember seeing you. I would surely remember your face.”

    Bora choked on air. “Uh, I mean, of course you would remember. I make an impression…” She regained her composure and sat beside the other two. “Where did you see my photo and why do they have it?”

    “I just told you? You don’t remember anything at all?”

    “As much as I believe how there cannot be another me walking on this Earth, I think you are mistaking me for someone else.”

    “No, it’s you, Kim Bora.”

    Minji shook her head to try to make space in her mind and understand what was unfolding in front of her. “Okay, I still don’t understand anything that you’re talking about but I just want to mention that I’ve lived with Bora for about four years, plus we studied highschool together. She hasn’t been anywhere else. Now, let’s talk about this house thing. Should I call the police?”

“What’s the police?”

“Security, I guess that’s what you call it.”

“No! Don’t call them, they’re the ones responsible for my leg…”

“Are you a criminal?” Bora leaned forward quizzical.

“Bora don’t be rude.” Minji shook her head, accompanying it with an exhale. “Okay we may be talking about different ‘securities’. Look, Siyeon, you should rest. You can take my bed, my shift starts in a couple of hours and I won’t come back until tomorrow morning... ah, and before I forget, here’s your phone. Someone sent you a message earlier today.” She stood up and walked towards the kitchen island, where the phone was. When Siyeon turned it on, the first thing she saw made one corner of raise.

“I found a way out.” She read out loud, and her smile was palpable in the tone of her voice. Both of the roommates’ faces remained in questioning while Siyeon responded to the text with a ‘Where are you??’. “She’s another friend. She helped me get out and she’s probably out here too.”

“Minji I’m gonna call the police.” Bora stood up from the sofa and simultaneously got her phone out to start dialing. Her roommate dashed close to her and snatched her phone away, earning a sour look from her. “You don’t even know who you brought into our home Kim Minji. She could be a serial killer for all we know!”

“Could you stop? I’m right here. I may be clueless of what all of this is, but I’m not stupid. All I’m asking is for help and an explanation of why you’re here after I saw your photo in that file room. It’s a new world for me. And now I feel bad because I never believed my friend about the existence of it…” The other two stopped their banter to pay attention to Siyeon’s squirmish face expression and vexed voice tone. In that instant, she became too aware of the wound in her leg, too aware of the sudden ringing in her head, and too aware of her loneliness and unnamed fear. The left side of her head was in burning pain without forewarning; her hands covered the scar as she shut her eyes and exposed ground teeth.

    “Hey, hey! What’s wrong?” Minji gave Bora her phone back to aid Siyeon. She removed her hands from her head and combed her hair back with her fingers. “Should I take you back to the hospital?” The other shook her head and lowered her gaze to her thighs. “Did you have brain surgery recently? This could explain a lot of things.”

    “Not that I remember… it’s the first time my head has hurt like this. All of us back at the house had this scar.” Just as she finished talking, her phone emitted a notification sound; she received a message that read ‘I’m in the city. Send me your address. We have to talk.’ She showed her phone to Minji.

    “Alright I brought you to my house because of the emergency but I don’t know who this person is. Tell them to meet you at the nearest park or something.”

    “Could you take me?” She asked as she typed Minji’s suggestion and sent it.

    “I was thinking of getting some sleep in the hours I have left before going to the hospital… Bora can you take her?” Minji diverted her attention to the small woman, who was lost in thought but snapped conscious as soon as she heard her name. “Can you take her to the park in the next block?”

    Bora’s hesitation wasn’t difficult to detect by the other two. “I was going to go through some routines…” She really was. She actually had an audition the next day, one that was scheduled several weeks away from this moment. This one was important; she had caught the eye of several upper tier types of guilds who were interested in funding her future dance studies. Her career was set, though dependent on fundings like this, and she had already established a brand as a choreographer in the city; she was basically an ace with stability as her middle name. Her hesitation may have been an exaggeration of the situation, as seen with the lense of her perfectionist core. Still, focusing on the stranger’s mildly tilted eyes and eyebrows that reversed their upward arch nature made her want to forget practice altogether, and it was uncomfortable. She was always comfortable, her lively nature was comfortable, her sudden outbursts of energy were ordinary, her loudness and divergence were familiar, but this wasn’t any of those. Her neural overdose went on for a few seconds before she mindlessly agreed to the request, aiming to calm the emotional loudness she didn’t intend; “it’s just for less than an hour anyway… I can practice when we get back… Minji if I get killed today I’m gonna haunt your dreams forever.”

🝰🝰🝰

“Put this on, it’s cold.” Bora said with an accidental demanding tone as she gave Siyeon a thick coat. The latter held onto Bora and gave her the crutches to put it on. When she did, she snuggled inside with closed eyes and a small smile, as if she had never felt something as soft in her life. It didn’t go unnoticed by the dancer, who seemed amused by the occurrence.

“We’re not using the car this time?” Siyeon asked when she noticed they weren’t going to the parking lot.

“It’s just a block away. We can walk.” But then she made sense of the crutches. “Oh I’m sorry, should we get the car? I totally forgot.”

Siyeon dismissed the statement by waving her hand. She took this opportunity to immerse herself in the particularities of this newfound landscape. The breeze came from behind them, carrying a mix of chilling coldness and the smell of artisanal cinnamon waffles and manually brewed black coffee from a nearby cafe. It felt cold, but it didn’t smell cold; it smelled like being in front of a bonfire, warmth in the midst of winter’s gelidity. She adored this sensation. It was a sensorial wild card, but all the color was the thing making her the most excited, though. Too excited, apparently, since the left side of her head was in pain again and it was making her dizzy. She stopped walking abruptly to grasp the scar, and that caught Bora’s attention.

“The same pain again?”

“This one’s not as bad as the first one… but now I feel weird. Generally. I feel in and out of place at the same time.” Both tried to make sense of it but failed. They continued walking in silence until they reached their destination. The park wasn’t full, neither empty; you could count and identify people. Siyeon’s eyes wandered around the premises in search of a glimpse of silver hair, but it was in vain. “We could sit and wait…” She went to a bench and Bora followed. “She will come.” She said with a nod. They waited. Half an hour passed and Bora found herself checking the time on her phone for the tenth time. “Maybe she was far away from this park.” Siyeon’s voice was getting lower and lower with each comment. A notification sound contrasted with the dense atmosphere, and Siyeon unlocked her phone to reveal a message from Yoohyeon; ‘I can’t go. Something happened. Next time for sure.’ She let her hand fall on her thigh with a sigh.

    Bora was unsure of what to do, but what she was sure of was that she hated feeling the stranger’s grey vibe. “Maybe something important came up…”

    “She literally disappeared days ago and I thought I’d never see her again, now she’s here and she can’t come to see me after I escaped following her own directions?”

    The smaller girl hesitated to continue talking, not knowing if her next words could make the matter worse. After some thought, she decided on a diversion; “Let’s just wait for an explanation. Now, I bet Minji doesn’t have enough clothes that aren’t EMS uniforms so you might run out in a few days. How about… we go look for clothes that you like?”

    “Didn’t you have to go practice your routines or something like that?”

    That caught Bora off guard. She had totally forgotten about that. “Uh… yes but I can practice a little later.” Siyeon finally focused on her as her eyes narrowed. “...And I feel bad that I was an to you when you met me.”

    “So this is your way of asking for forgiveness?”

    “Yeah kinda.” They both laughed. “Okay let’s go then. I know just the right place.” She stood up and helped Siyeon get on her feet. They walked until they exited the park, but, before they crossed the road, Bora stopped. “I also feel bad for making you walk so much with those crutches so…” She bent her knees and lowered her body.

    “What are you doing?” Siyeon’s face was a mix of confusion and amusement.

    Bora pointed at her back but the other didn’t move. “Get on.” Siyeon, still dubious, looked around, but still opted for letting the other girl carry her considering she was quite tired. After Bora stood up, they both laughed at an initial imbalance. “Tell me if I hurt your leg.” She said, worried at how her arms were locked with Siyeon’s legs, somewhat close to the distal calf wound. She felt the other shaking her head against the side of hers, making the corners of raise and breathe out an inaudible chuckle. Her legs took off towards the store she had in mind ignoring the weight they carried. With both crutches in one hand, Siyeon closed her eyes, tightening her other arm’s grip around Bora and being submerged in unfamiliar tranquility.

🝰🝰🝰

“Are you seriously asking me to give you a discount on my collection pieces... for a person who blood stained my one thousand dollar moroccan white rug?” The chinese woman smiled satirically. Bora smiled back with mocking innocence as Siyeon looked at Handong from behind her, as if she was shielding herself.

“Sorry for that…”

“Oh come on Handong it’s not like you don’t get new pieces all the time… have some compassion, she doesn’t have anything to wear but Minji’s decade old clothes.”

Handong couldn’t hold back a snicker. “For your information, two of my partner designers suddenly stopped sending me stuff weeks ago and no one has heard of them since. I’m not getting the usual flow.”

“Okay give me simple clothes then, not from collection.” She turned back to Siyeon and whispered; “I tried.”

Handong’s face remained blank as she stared at the small woman for a second, but then disappeared into the back of the store. After some minutes, she came back with a bunch of clothes and dumped them into Bora’s arms. “Here. There you have three interchangeable casual outfits and one semi-formal cause I’m not letting you commit the crime of noticeable underdressing.”

“How much?” Bora asked getting out her wallet.

“...just get out of here.” Handong waved her hand vertically and walked away.

“Thank you, you’re my favorite out of you and Yubin!” The dancer talked a little too loud and gained a glare from the chinese woman, but before she could respond they were already heading out the main entrance. “I swear she isn’t that cold all the time. She must be in a bad mood.”

The walk back to the apartment wasn’t long and special. When they were reaching the lobby’s door Minji was getting out of the parking lot in her car; she noticed them, and the mountain of clothes her roommate carried, and grinned.

Already inside the apartment, Bora placed the clothes on the single sofa. Siyeon was tired, so she went into Minji’s room and changed into another set of clothes to lie down in the bed. Before closing the door, she peeked her head out.

“Thank you for taking me to the park and for the clothes, Kim Bora.”

Bora was taken aback and stopped walking to reply with a side smile; “Thank you for not killing me, stranger Siyeon.” The other chuckled and closed the door, leaving her standing in the middle of the living room alone, smiling.

The dancer took the opportunity of solitude and silence to finally go over the routine she wanted to practice. She pushed to the walls all the things that would obstaculize, like the coffee table, and turned the living room into a miniature dance studio. Her feet started to trace big circles on the floor despite not having any music playing. She stopped to search for a small speaker, and, as soon as she put on the music and heard the first piano notes, her heart started pulsing in excitement. She closed her eyes and turned into a feather, into a flame, into dust, into leaves, all being blown away by the ocean’s breeze. Making turns, step, another step, slide, and then she was on the floor. She was aware of every minuscule movement her body made, and they were all in synch with the fluctuating pace of the piano. It was inevitable for her not to smile; she moved and created with ease, it felt ecstatic, it felt right. Her somatosenses turned the room into outer space, and it seemed like some kind of unaware catharsis. Like magic, her mind cleared all her worries in the middle of kinesthesia; she forgot that she had a presentation the next day, she forgot about anyone that had wronged her, she forgot about the spoiled meal in the fridge, and she forgot about the stranger. The stranger that made her a stranger of herself. The uncomfortable stranger, that was still a stranger, who’s making her feel strange. In her head, it wasn’t right.

Her flow was interrupted by a dull loud sound of an object clashing against wooden floor, and it came from Minji’s room. Bora stopped moving abruptly and rushed to the room. Inside, she found Siyeon on her knees and crouching forward next to the bed with one of her hands over the scar.

“Lee.”

“What?”

“Lee Siyeon. That’s my name. I’m Lee Siyeon.” She said with distinctly palpable bewilderment in her voice and looked up, wide eyed, fixating her eyes on Bora’s. The other mimicked her facial expression.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“So you really aren’t faking Memento here…” Bora tried to joke but Siyeon didn’t understand. “Okay, too soon, but now I know you’re actually not lying.”

“You thought I was lying?”

Hesitation took Bora over. “...I met you today!” She tried to mask it by talking fast.

Siyeon didn’t know what to say. She tried to get up and get back in bed. When she did, she laid down with her back facing Bora. The latter felt bad, but decided not to pry, so she went back to try to continue her practicing. Her dancing wasn’t as entrancing as last time, though. Her head wasn’t clear at all.

🝰🝰🝰

The peeking morning sun was creeping through the blinds and Siyeon was looking straight at the bright parallel lines that contrasted with the darkness. She had slept, but as soon as her covered pupils registered minimum light in the room her whole system reactivated. It was the first time she had awakened by the light of dawn; it was a first, since her room back at The House didn’t have windows, and it was already midday when she woke up at the hospital. 

With a few minutes until sunrise, she decided she wanted to see what the transition looked like; she was accustomed to experiencing day and night like a lightswitch. She crawled down from the bed and close to the light source. Her arms were placed horizontally on the bottom of the window and she rested her chin on them while looking out to the aegean blue blanket that covered the city. The blue was slowly but noticeably morphing into a mix of mustard yellow and pink and Siyeon was delighted with what was unraveling in front of her. She smiled, and it seemed to have called the sun out because then she was met with yellow light against her face. The parallel lines seemed to have shot out from the blinds, as they were illuminating the room and engraving the lined pattern in every surface. She noticed the particles of dust that were dancing in the spotlight and, out of pure intrigue, she passed her hand through the light to see if she would feel anything. She didn’t, but the sharp movement of the dust was interesting to her anyway. A simple sunrise had her looking out the window for quite some time, without moving, deep in the mystification of the goodbye to the night.

    She was still looking out when the room’s door was opened and revealed an exhausted Minji, who got surprised by her. “Are you alright?”

    “Yeah. The sky’s working its magic and I’m watching.”

    Minji tilted her head with a slight smile. “Yes it is.” She sat down next to Siyeon and looked out too. Even though she was exhausted, the moment made her slow down and pay attention to something she missed every morning because either she headed straight to bed, or she was busy with her worries.

    “I never knew the blue sky could look like this.”

    Minji nodded before a notification sound interrupted their concentration. It was from Siyeon’s phone, but she got up so the other didn’t need to. “Should I read the message?”

    “Yes.”

    “If a man with a briefcase comes close to you, hide.” She frowned. “Huh?”

    “Is it Yoohyeon?”

    “I think so?”

    Siyeon tried to stand up and ended up supporting herself on Minji’s shoulder. “This must be about yesterday…”

    They didn’t give it importance. The two went out to the kitchen and ate breakfast as they talked about anything that came to their minds. In between bites, a stern knock on the door made them shift their attention. Minji went to open the door only to reveal an unknown man dressed in black and white, and with a briefcase. As soon as she noticed, she waved her hand in her back, gesturing Siyeon to go into the room. The latter struggled a little without the crutches, so she ended up entering the room closest to the kitchen, and it was Bora’s.

    “Hey!” Bora ruffled below the bed sheets before sitting up.

    “Shh!” Siyeon put her ear against the door.

    “Does Kim Bora live here?” The man asked monotonously. Siyeon widened her eyes and looked at the dancer.

    “Uh, why?” Minji asked, confused.

    “I have a warrant to search for her and I was informed she’s here.” He showed her some papers and an identification before entering without invitation.

    Siyeon panicked when she heard the steps inside the apartment and headed towards the closet. When she opened the closet doors, she got inside and called Bora in.

    “What’s going on? I’m not getting in there.”

    However, Siyeon got out and went to pull Bora in while silencing her protests. The closet was definitely not done for fitting two people inside, considering they were centimeters apart.

    “Lee Siyeon, right? What the hell are you doing?! Huh-” She was cut off by Siyeon’s hand over . She kept protesting until the room’s door was opened and the man entered with Minji trailing behind, who was laughing nervously.

    “Ah, see! She’s not here. I came back from work and she wasn’t here.”

    “So she does live here?”

    “What I mean is that she comes here often…”

    The man looked around the room, not believing Minji. His narrowed eyes studied every detail of the room and finally landed on the closet doors.