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4

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The more Kris looked around the room, the more he noticed. There were pictures on the wall, the dressers were full. This room looked like it was used every day. “I’m… in her bed,” he said to himself, pushing himself up to a sitting position to look around.  Turning, he slightly pressed his nose against one of the pillows and took a deep breath. “It smells just like you,” he muttered.

“Aww, Kris! Look, Luhan was so nice. He packed you a bag and brought all your things over,” Yi Hyun said, Kris’s laptop case flung over her shoulder,  a full duffle bag on the other shoulder. “Packed you fresh underwear and everything; what a nice friend,” she said. That sentence made Kris flush a deep red.   She dropped the duffle bag by the desk, carefully handing him the case containing his laptop.  “Your dinner will be ready shortly,” she said, turning to exit the room.

Quickly, he dug through the bag. Laptop, cell phone, iPod, and chargers; the bag also contained a note on a little card the he quickly pulled out to read. “Be aware of her past, but don’t make her talk about it if she doesn’t want to. Suho.” Kris’s head tilted to the side in confusion.  Keeping it in the back of his head, he shoved the note back into the bag with everything else.

Yi Hyun smiled at him, two bowls of steaming soup in her hands. Setting them down on the desk, she retrieved a bed-table for him, setting it out before placing a bowl on it. “Be careful, it’s extremely hot,” she warned, proceeding to cup her bowl in her bare hand. Kris’s eyes watched her hand, watch her hold the bowl without falter and reached down to touch his, immediately pulling his hand back at the heat.  “I said be careful,” she laughed.

“How can you just hold that? It’s going to burn your hand,” he said.

She just smiled at him. “When you cook as much as I do, you get used to it,” she replied, looking down at her bowl before beginning to eat. “Eat up before it gets cold,” she said.

“It smells delicious,” he complemented, taking a deep whiff of the aromas. He took up his chopsticks in his hand and dug through the bowl, fishing out a piece of meat. “This is amazing,” he said, chewing his first bite thoroughly. “What is it?”

“It’s a Japanese winter dish, Sukiyaki. It’s one of my favorites,” she replied, quickly downing her meal even as Kris continued to eat slowly.  She was silent when she finished, having set the bowl down on the bedside table as she watched him.   “Kris,” she whispered, getting his attention, “You’re really shaky. Let me help you,” she said, snatching his chopsticks from his hand.

“Yi Hyun, that’s so embarrassing,” he said.

“If you need help, I’ll help you,” she replied, digging through his dish to find a steaming mushroom at the bottom. She lifted it to her lips to blow on it, cooling it down before poking it at his lips. Their gaze never broke as his lips parted, allowing her to feed him.

Kris hesitated with his next sentence, especially after reading Suho’s note. “Your parents must have been wonderful people to have raised a woman like you,” he said. Yi Hyun flinched almost unnoticeably before digging through his dish again.

“They didn’t,” she replied flatly, lifting a strip of beef to his lips. She watched his lips as they wrapped around the chopsticks, watched as he chewed, and watched as he swallowed, anything to avoid his gaze now.

“What do you mean they didn’t?” he asked. She shook her head quickly and without response, continued to feed him. But he shoved her hand away. “What do you mean they didn’t?” he asked again, this time with a little more force. He was completely disregarding exactly what Suho had said. But he wanted to know. Yi Hyun was the most wonderful woman… he wanted to know what kind of people her parents were.

“My parents died in a house fire when I was six months old. I moved to a foster home with people who weren’t all that great. By the time I was five, I was bartering on the streets, fending for myself, doing anything I had to, to survive,” she said firmly, gritting her teeth.

That was a little more than he wanted to know. But now he was really curious. “I’m staying in your house, and I don’t know anything about you. Can we start off with when your birthday is, and where you were born?” he asked, moving away from the subject now.

Her body relaxed a little, thankful that they had moved away from that. “January fourteenth, nineteen ninety one, Manitoba, Canada,” she replied simply.

“Hey, I was born in Canada, too,” he said, pointing out their similarities, almost cracking a smile. Almost.  She smiled, though, and began to feed him with more grace.

“Where in Canada?” she asked.

“Vancouver,” he replied. “So do you speak English?”

“Probably not as well as you,” she replied. He held down a chuckle, letting it reverberate in his chest, but never fully escaping.

“You know,” he started, “I love a woman who can cook.”

She flushed a dark red and looked away from him. She’d never been complemented like that before. It made her stomach go nuts. She almost hated the feeling. It was so overwhelming, something she never really felt.  “But you’re going to pretend like I never said that,” he demanded, looking away from her as well, a blush of his own tinting his cheeks.

“I’m glad you liked it,” she said, looking at the empty bowl that sat between the two of them. Kris watched her as she shifted off the bed, noticing something peculiar on her hip as her shirt rode up a little bit. She collected all of the dirty dishes and made her way to the kitchen to clean them.

She returned with a glass of water for him, sitting down next to him again in silence. “It’s late,” she said, “are you tired?”

“Only a little,” he replied. “But at least my stomach is happy now.”

She nodded, looking at her hands clasped in her lap. “About my parents, I’m sorry I tensed up the way I did,” she said.

Kris immediately shook his head, looking over to her. “No, I shouldn’t have pried into your life like that. I’m sorry,” he spoke.

“I’m going to change, close your eyes,” she commanded, getting back off the bed and headed over to her dresser. Kris blushed again and looked away. “Are you looking away?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, bringing his hand up to cover his eyes as well. She dug through her clothes, searching for a long grey tee. She dropped her sweats in the laundry basket after pulling them off her long slender legs. Her shirt went next, as well as her lingerie, dropping those in the basket as well. 

In the middle of her putting her shirt back on, Kris couldn’t help but peek, seeing something he almost wished he didn’t see. Parallel with her spine down the expanse of her back laid a sunken pink scar from neck to waist. Minor scars adorned the rest of her back and he gasped. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

Yi Hyun whipped her head around to look at Kris who was looking right at her.

“I told you not to look,” she growled warningly.

“Where did you get it?” he asked again.

She turned completely towards him, moving closer, crawling back on the bed in just her tee shirt and underwear.  She crawled to him and Kris could feel her warm breath on his cheek as he avoided her gaze. “You want to know where I got this?” she asked into his ear. “It’s their way of marking us. The long one signifies that I was a piece of property. The other ones are punishment for rebelling. They’ve faded a lot since then,” she said. “You want to know something about me? I’m not the princess lawyer you think I am.”

Yi Hyun pulled away from him to lift her shirt at her hip, revealing the peculiar patch of skin he saw earlier.  “Be aware that you’re the only one, besides Suho, who’s ever seen this. Do you know what it is?”

Kris’s throat felt dry and clogged. He knew exactly what it was. They had some of the same ones in China, some that migrated over to North America.  “It’s a gang trade tattoo,” he choked out. She let her shirt drop back down, covering much more of her skin.

“I had no choice. It was quite literally join or die. If I didn’t join, I wasn’t going to get fed, I had nowhere to live. At eleven years old, I knew how to kill. Suho, a young boy, found me and put me back on my feet. I’m not the most perfect human being. I may have more flaws than most people. I’m no angel, but I can only try my best to turn my life around,” she whispered. 

By now, her body was quivering. Talking about her past always made her this way. She shook violently, recalling every single terrible moment about it. She hated it. Every time she’d talk about it, she wanted to just end it. She pulled away from Kris slowly, backing up.

But she didn’t get far. Kris could practically feel the pain she harbored in her chest. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward, crushing her against his own chest and cradled her protectively. Her petite body straddled his waist as he held her, his eyes staring straight forward, trying to comprehend all of the things she just told him about her. She had to have had one of the roughest childhoods out there, but she turned it around and made something great out of herself.

She tried to pull away. “No, don’t let go,” he whispered shakily to her, burying his face into the crook of her neck.  “Stay with me tonight,” he added. Her entire body was shaking, causing him to shake, causing the bed to shake.

“Kris,” she called shakily. “I’m going to have nightmares tonight,” she whispered.

He didn’t know if it was instinct or not, but he cradled her tighter. “Stay with me. I can’t get up to come to you. I don’t want you to suffer it alone, if suffering it is inevitable.”

“Kris—”

“I’ll hold you through the night, I promise,” he whispered into her neck. “I won’t let you go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to push it. I didn’t mean to make you talk about it.” His deep voice soothed her slightly as his arms slid down, circling low on her waist, pulling her entire body tight on his.  He swore it was completely instinct.

It was in his male nature to comfort a distressed female.  

“Let’s get you changed,” she said. “What do you wear to bed?” she asked, turning to grab his bag after crawling off the bed.

“This,” he replied, pulling his shirt away from his body, dropping it to the floor at the side of the bed. She looked over, but immediately turned away. A moment of silence filled the room before Kris finally spoke. “Do you want to look? To be fair,” he stated.  “If it makes you feel better, I won’t look while you look.” 

Kris laid a hand over his eyes and kept them closed when she began to turn back around. But instead of looking, she moved to turn the light off, jumping under the covers, far on her respective side and buried herself under the covers.

Carefully, he to his side, snaking his hand out to grab around her waist, pulling her back to be spooned against his body before repeatedly apologizing to her about the previous event, about bringing up her past and forcing her to talk about it. He continued to whisper into her hair, pulling it away from her neck, prepping to comfort her when she would awake from her aforementioned nightmares.

He was sure she was traumatized. Who wouldn’t have nightmares about their childhood if it was anything like hers?  “Kris?” she asked.

“Hm?” he responded. “Tighter?” he asked, wrapping his arm tighter on her waist. She sighed contentedly, feeling his warm breath on her neck. Despite the fact that she hardly knew Kris, despite the fact that this was so wrong on so many levels, she felt the safest right now than she ever had.  “Do you feel safe?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied honestly.

“Do you want to face me?” he inquired, his fingers tugging at her shirt.

“Please,” she responded before feeling his grip loosen, allowing her space to turn over. His hand found the small of her back, pulling her in. Her face nestled into his shoulder, even as he rolled onto his back.

She hesitantly embraced him back and Kris couldn’t help but lay a comforting kiss on her forehead.

“Everything’s going to be fine.”