Nine
Remnants Of The Heart
Dara felt like thousand of needles pricked her skin at the coldness of the water. She plummeted deeper and by instinct, she started swimming to the surface. She was just about to break the surface when there was a disturbance in the water. A hand grabbed hers and started pulling her down. She tried kicking the person but of course, he was stronger. At first she thought he was going to drown her but belatedly realized he was trying to guide her where to go.
With him leading the way and still holding her hand, she swam through the darkness. She was already planning to hit him as soon as she reaches a firm ground. How could he just push her like that?
Staying true to her words, as soon as she was out of the water and feet were standing on firm ground, she whacked his head. “Awww!” he grunted. “What’s with you now?” he demanded, facing her.
“How could you just push me like that you jerk! You’re the jerkiest jerk and the rudest rude I’ve ever met!”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, smirking at her. It annoyed her so she went whacking his head again.
“That’s it!” he growled, grabbing hold of her wrists. She should be scared then. But no, she actually found his growling voice surprisingly y and adorable. Although of course, no one could still beat Seunghyun’s deep and y voice but Jiyong’s was. . .
“Let’s go on our separate ways!” he said, his eyes almost bulging out from his eyes. for some weird reason, laughter started bubbling in until she could no longer hide it in. She let go and started clutching her tummy as she laughed.
Jiyong could only stare at the girl as she doubled over from laughing. What was funny? His patience was already tested but then, she’s laughing at him? Seriously? Isn’t he supposed to be the bully here?
With a shake of his head, he started moving away from her. The girl is crazy, he thought. She must have bumped her head on something hard.
“Wait up!”
He ignored her.
“Hey you!”
He rolled his eyes but went on walking.
“Hey, Jiyong the jerk! Wait up!”
His fists balled in annoyance. He whirled around so suddenly that the girl almost staggered backwards. “Call me that again and you’ll get what you’re asking for!” he hissed ferociously. “Now, can you just run along on your own and leave me alone?”
“I told you, I’ll leave you alone as soon as we’re –”
“See that direction?” he cut off, pointing a direction somewhere in his right. “Go that way and find yourself a fancy cab to take you to your knight in shining armor. NOW.LEAVE.ME.ALONE.”
He sharply turned to the opposite direction. “But where are you going?” she asked.
He didn’t answer and just kept on walking. He walked as fast as he could and he could just hear her running footsteps behind him as well as her pants. He had the urge to just scream at her and hurl her to the other direction. What was wrong with her in the first place, anyways? First, she ran off from him and went to Seunghyun’s arms and now, she’s following him like she’s some sort of a pet dog.
He could hear her grunting and growling behind him as he went through the thick bushes with low hanging trees as well. He could only smirk as in his mind; he could imagine her being caught with thorns or branches of some sort. She was a princess after all. He was having a hard time controlling his laughter. There was an easy way of course but then, since she’s set up in pestering him, he could see no harm in doing the same.
A wide smile spread across his face as he could hear her now grumbling to herself. He could not exactly hear the words but based on her tone, he knew exactly what she’s on about. He was tempted to turn around and look at what she exactly looked like but then, he firmly went on.
“Stupid. . . following him. . . jerk. . .”
He was not able to hear her full sentence but those words just ended up his control. He burst out laughing, sending some night creatures scuttling away.
“Jerk. . .” she grumbled. She frowned a little when he bent down. She tried looking past him to see what he was doing but it was dark and he blocking the way was not helping. To her surprise, he started descending down. When she stepped forward, she then realized that there was some sort of a hidden passageway with stairs leading down to a tunnel or some sort of an underground passageway. Feeling her way down, she followed him.
It took some time for her eyes to adjust. There were different man-made tunnels leading to different directions. She stared in awe at her surroundings but when she realized that Jiyong was nowhere to be found, she started panicking.
“Jiyong?” she called out. Her voice echoed through the dark tunnels. “Jiyong?” she called out again and waited but the only response she received was her echoing voice. She was starting to get real scared. She hugged herself and looked around, tears starting to form at the corners of her eyes. But if you fall behind, I’m not going back for you. His words played in her mind that it seemed to taunt her, mock her. Her imagination started playing with her and she could swear she could almost feel like someone’s watching her.
She jumped upon hearing a sound of what seemed to be a door being closed. “Who are you?” a hoarse voice sounded from behind her, making her scream out loud and ran away to a corner. She screamed and screamed. She started hearing heavy footsteps and she could feel her hair standing up. She hunched over a corner, covering her head with her arms protectively. She could feel herself trembling. Seunghyun, help me!
When her echoing voice stopped, she waited for something to happen. She waited for any sounds but nothing came but silence. She counted from one to one hundred first before slowly opening her eyes with her head still bowed. She slowly removed her arms away from her head and looked up. Her eyes widened in genuine fear as an ear-splitting scream escaped upon seeing what seem to be a floating head being lit up smiling at her.
She bowed her head again and covered her head with her arms protectively when the image of the floating head flashed in her mind. She stilled as she started hearing laughter. The sound was so familiar. Fear was then replaced with annoyance, no anger upon realizing what was going on. She looked up and saw Kwon Jiyong clutching a flashlight while rolling on the ground from too much laughter.
Fear and anger made her eyes moist. She tried to hold them back but she was not able to stop them from falling. She was being a baby, she knew that but she really got scared. She wanted to lash out at him and she was just about to do that when the sight of him laughing relentlessly made her stop. Anger was then replaced with amusement. She watched him laugh like a kid and it amused her. It was hard for her to decipher that the person who first wanted to kill her and shot Seunghyun was the same person she’s watching laughing like a kid right in front of her right now.
He called himself a cold-hearted murderer but how can someone with no heart laugh this way? It was hard to imagine someone without a heart laughing like there’s no tomorrow and as if they’re really happy about something, well in her own expense that is.
At the thought that the person was laughing so hard because of her made her then frown. I’m taking back what I said, she thought. He is cold-hearted for scaring me like that.
She remained on her spot and glared at him. As his laughter started to fade, she took that as a cue for her to take her revenge. She stood up and lifted her foot, planning to step on his junior but then, his reflexes were able to stop her from doing further damage to his future. He grabbed her ankle and suddenly flipped it up, making her land on her on the ground.
“Awwwww!” she groaned. It felt like her hip bone was broken. She grimaced and shut her eyes tightly. She was just so annoyed that she started kicking his side using her other foot. But then, he grabbed hold of it as well in a tight grip. The next thing she knew, he was already on top of her, pinning her down with his weight. She expected annoyance or maybe anger in his face but he was grinning down at her.
“Aww, did little bad Kwon Jiyong succeed in bullying the crybaby Sandara again?”
“I hate you!” she gritted.
He winked down at her. “Ah, so I did succeed again, eh?”
“Get off!”
With a chuckle, he pushed himself off of her and dusted his pants. “Ah, my clothes are soiled!” she whined.
“Of course it would be,” he said. “Our clothes are wet and the dust would naturally stick.”
“You are such. . . such a jerk!”
“I know right?” he said, winking.
“Argh!” she huffed in annoyance. “Why did I ever follow you?!?”
“You tell me,” he said and started whistling. With the flashlight on one hand, he started making way to the middle tunnel at the far right end corner. Despite of what happened, she followed.
As they went deeper into the tunnel, she suddenly felt so cold again and her imagination started playing tricks on her that she ended up running and clutching his arm. “A-are there a-any ghosts here?”
“Pfft,” he snorted. “Ghosts are for kids. Don’t tell me up until now you believe ghosts are real?”
“They are real!”
No, they’re not.”
“Yes, they are.”
“No,” he insisted. “Besides, what’s to be afraid of a ghost? They’re just ghost.”
“But they’re ghost,” she said, as if it made all the point of the argument.
He shook her head. “Will you take your hands off of me?” he then said, pulling his arms away from her grip. “We’re not exactly close friends, are we?”
Her grip on his arm tightened. “When. . . when I was a in the orphanage, I saw them. . . my parents. . . they were covered with blood. They were waving at me.”
He stilled and looked down at her. She had her head bowed down but he could tell that she was trembling. She’s really scared, isn’t she?
He cleared his throat. “Well, that’s no longer my problem, is it?” he said but he stopped pulling his arm off from her and just let her hold onto him. He let him do so as he also saw her parents’ ghosts as well as his parents’. Every night in the orphanage, he kept on dreaming of that violent night that changed his life. He was probably the only living witness for the violence that night. Everyone was slaughtered except for him and that was thanks to his and Dara’s parents. He wondered if Seunghyun or Dara or the other kids were able to witness what happened that night. Would they turn out to be like him? He wondered how they would feel seeing everyone you knew being killed right in front of your eyes.
He tried to remember what kept him whole that night. Now that he thinks of it, it was quite traumatizing and he could have gone insane but that did not happen. He could no longer remember as well how he was able to go through that night without bawling out loud. All he could remember was clutching the doll that he took from Dara.
“I swear, there are ghosts in here!”
Her voice brought him back to earth. He smirked and shook his head upon seeing her looking her and there with her eyes wide. He was fighting off a smile everytime she jumps when there’s a slight disturbance in the silence.
“There are ghosts in here,” he said and he started telling some ghost stories about the place that he made up.
“STOP!” she loudly said. “I don’t want to listen! No, no, no. . .”
“There’s an old ghost here that is not that fond of noises. They say that people who cause noise are visited in their sleep by the old ghost, haunting them. But those people could not even scream for help because it’s as if they lose their voices. And then, they just die from too much fear.”
“Jiyong. . .” she whimpered, scooting closer to him.
“Jeez, you’re so flat-chested aren’t you?”
“Huh?” she blinked up at him.
His eyes went down to his arm that she was clutching. She followed his gaze and her eyes widened upon seeing that her s were rubbing his arm in a very. . . embarrassing way.
“How disappointing,” he murmured, his voice dripping with mock-sadness and mock-disappointment.
“erted jerk!”
“Yep, that’s me!”
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!” she breathed out in frustration. “Why did I ever follow you?!”
Jiyong only laughed in return. When she thought that it’ll be an endless walk, the turned left and a door was there. Jiyong tried to pull his arm off of her but she won’t let go. “I need to get the key in my dripping wet bag,” he said.
“Oh,” she mumbled. She let go of his arm and clutched the hem of his wet shirt instead.
Jiyong shook his head and rolled his eyes at this. He then took the key from his backpack and inserted it in the hole. Upon hearing the click, he pushed it open, stepped inside and used his flashlight to light an oil lamp. It was a room – with one bed, one table and a chair, a small sink at the far end corner of the room and another door opposite the sink which probably was the bathroom. The walls were not painted, just simply cemented.
He dropped his bag on the chair and started pulling off his shirt when Dara’s clutch on it didn’t let him. He looked down at her and raised a brow. “Would you prefer to take my shirt off of me?”
“Of course not!” she said, letting go of his shirt. He then took his shirt off, dropped it to the floor and went to his pants. “What are you doing?!” she aghastly asked.
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“You can’t strip in front of me!”
“And why not?”
“Because I’m not interested!”
“Yeah, right!” he chuckled.
“Why don’t go you go change in the bathroom?”
“There’s no bathroom here,” he said. “It’s still further down the tunnel. They said there are ghosts in that area.”
She shuddered. “B-but. . . what about t-that door?”
“That’s not a bathroom,” he said. “It’s a storage room.”
“Storage room for what?”
“Storage room of things found from people who died in here.”
“Y-you’re. . . joking, are you?”
“No,” he said, pulling his pants down. Dara was just too distracted and scared of the thought of what’s stored in that closed door that she didn’t notice Jiyong was only his boxers and was also in the act of pulling it down. She swore she’ll never get near the scary closed door!
“YAAAAAAAA!” she suddenly exclaimed and turned around upon seeing his behind. “WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE YOU DOING?!” she asked, scandalized.
“Changing into dry clothes,” he said with emphasis. “I don’t want to get sick, do I?”
“But you could have at least informed me before stripping down and showing your. . .your. . .”
“My what?” he asked softly in her ear that she squeaked and jumped from surprise.
“A-a-re you d-dressed now?”
“Not yet. . .”
She took a step away from him. “Can you please get dressed first?”
“Okay,” he said. There was silence for a while. She then heard scraping noise, like something was being pulled against a rough surface. He was whistling. After a while, he stopped whistling. “I’m dressed.”
She sighed and turned to face me, about to argue when her eyes widened again. He was still ! Like, ! She turned quickly away again upon seeing everything.
Oh my God!
Jiyong started laughing like there’s no tomorrow again. Still laughing hard, he started pulling out a dry shirt, a short and a brief from the chest under the bed. The chest contains his clothes – shirts, jackets, shorts, pants, briefs and boxers. After putting them on, he started heading towards the girl’s direction who was still grumbling rude words to him. He saw her stiffened as he went closer and he can’t help but smile. “I’m dressed now, you can turn around.”
“No,” she vehemently refused that it made him laugh again.
“I’m serious,” he said. “You should get dressed as well.”
“I don’t have clothes with me.”
“You can borrow mine.”
She was silent for a while and he wondered what she was thinking about. “If I didn’t know better, I would have say thank you,” she said. “But I know there’s a reason for you offering me to change into your clothes.”
“And that is?”
“Well, I don’t really have a choice but to change in front of you, do I?”
“Well, you can always turn the lamp out,” he said. “Besides, what’s there to see? You’re all planes and angles. You’re so flat-chested that I would think I’m looking into another man’s chest.”
“Why you jerkiest jerk of all - !” she started, facing him but stopped again upon seeing him fully-clothed.
“What?” he asked, chuckling. “Disappointed in seeing me fully-clothed?”
“If I have to spell jerk, that would J I Y O N G!”
“Thank you, madam,” he said, curtsying. “Now, if you don’t want to change, that’s up to you. I’ll go to sleep now and you can go ahead and find a comfortable spot for you to lie in anywhere you want.”
Without sparing her another look, he went towards the bed, dropping himself there and stretched out his arms and legs.
“Ya!”
Jiyong folded his arms behind his head smiled. Dara walked to him and slammed her hand on his stomach, making him curl. “Aww!”
“I can’t sleep on the floor!”
“Well, you can’t sleep here with your wet clothes!”
“Why don’t you sleep on the floor instead?” she asked.
“Well, this is my place – so my rules apply. That’s just how it works, darling.”
“Fine!” she grumbled. “Lend me a shirt and a short!”
“Not hearing anything,” he said.
“Jerk.”
“Thanks.”
Stomping her foot, she went to the chest and started to rummage through his things. She chose a large blue tee and a short. “I don’t have undies!”
“Not my problem, is it?” he said. “Besides, your won’t be obvious at all so it does not really matter if you wear a bra or not. But for your . . . well, you can borrow my brief, if you want.”
“No way!”
“Then, you have to just wear the short without your .”
She didn’t really have a choice, did she? With a frown, she straightened up and looked at him. “Face the wall,” she ordered.
“FYI, I’m just so tired that I’m not really in the mood for your seduction.”
When he was facing the wall, Dara started taking off her clothes and put the dry ones as fast as she can. “I would never dream of seducing you,” she said.
“Good,” he answered. “I don’t really want to hurt your ego as well if I won’t be aroused or be moved at all.”
She balled her fists. The guy was just a bully, a jerk! She went to hang her clothes by the table. She nibbled on her lower lip as she stared down at her undies. She can still use her bra of course so she placed it beside her shirt. She balled her and looked around to find a place to hide it until she can have it thrown away. After much deliberation, she decided to place it under the bed.
Jiyong was lying on the edge of the bed, leaving the space near the wall empty. She climbed to bed and took the place, facing the wall. She closed her eyes and silently prayed for Seunghyun’s safety. There was a phone in the room, surely, he could have called for help already. She would have felt it if something drastic happened to him. He was still alive, that she knew.
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*a/n:
*facepalm* aigoo, Jiyong. wae show your behind? LOL
anyways, sorry guys, no action in this chappie. . . just DaraGon interaction, hehe..
taking a time out from the action, LOL
- hagocimit
Sandara Park Is My Muse
#ForeverGrateful
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