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Minho’s POV :

I heard a soft and sweet tinkle in my sleep. I stirred a bit and opened my eyes groggily.

The morning light seemed to be penetrating through the closed fusuma* from across the room. But, I didn’t feel like getting up yet. I turned to my side and saw Jonghyun hyung’s futon** empty and Taemin still sleeping soundly on his one, a little further away. This room was nothing like the rooms we were used to before. They were right. Staying in a Ryōkan*** is a completely new kind of experience, with its flat partitioned walls that were called shōji. The furniture in the room all seemed light and portable. The room itself, complete with its fusuma, seemed to have come out of a Japanese History book. It feels so close to nature. Time seemed to have come to a standstill.

I looked at Taemin blankly for sometime. Just studying his sleeping face silently. So pure, I thought. Yet, he doesn’t seem weak somehow. The vulnerability that asks to be protected, which usually accompanies purity. I never saw that in him.

I don’t know for how long I was studying him blankly and letting my thoughts wander like that. I came back to my senses when I heard that soft tinkling again, as I felt a soft breeze hit my back. I my other side and saw something that caught my attention.

I slowly sat up on my futon and looked at it. It was a wind chime, that was hanging in front of a window to my left. The little wind chime, with a background of lush green leaves that could be seen through the window. The chime sounded so magical as it swayed lightly whenever a breeze hit it. It was not at all showy or stylish, which made me wonder exactly WHY I felt so attracted to it even more. Right, why WAS it so attractive? Maybe it was the silence that enhanced its mysteriousness when one listened to the chime. It was a tiny half orb, which seemed to be made of glass, but I haven’t heard glass sound so sweet before. There was a flat rectangular weight attached to it with a string. Presently, the weight caught the breeze again and made the small clapper hit the mouth of the tiny orb with small decorative patterns on it and the glass gave forth that amazing soft sound. The sound that pleased one’s senses. It made me feel happy somehow. Whenever I heard that sound.