chapter.26  »  all the things we do for love.

8:30 AM, the coffee in my mug was smoking silently, the white cream still evident in thin swirls on the brown surface.  There was a disturbing kind of silence that was roaming around the house, peeping out of each corner, preparing itself to barge in on me.  But I didn't need them to do that; I already had my own silence, and it was right inside of me.

It was like a parasite that was up every happy memory I had.  I didn't even have any idea if it was normal for a pet owner to feel so... depressed, but Prince was more than a pet to me.  He became my friend right from the moment I picked him up out of the garbage on that specific rainy night.

I stood up and walked back into my bedroom with the coffee still in my hands.  Sitting in my chair in front of the desk, I placed the mug on the desk and my laptop from its sleep mode.

The screen appeared no later than a second, and a photo of me looking down at and caressing Prince as he slept in my lap taken by Kyungsoon and set as my laptop wallpaper was on the screen.  The happiness etched on my face was glowing despite the lack of the reality of it that was slowly growing.

I slammed the laptop's cover down and wiped my cheek.  There was no good thing I could ever make out of moping like that.

The door was immediately opened by me and I stood face to face with Seungpyo.  My blank face's smile grew into an enormously creepy grin.  Seungpyo awkwardly pushed his glasses up his nose with his free hand, his other hand holding a bag.

I breathed.  “Awesome.”

Practically dragging Seungpyo out into the living room, I plopped down on the same couch I had sat in last night.  Seungpyo sat across from me and pulled out a book from the bag he was holding, placing it on the table that was in between us.  It was thick, the suede cover embroidered with four crests for the four kingdoms.  The book had no title on the cover and neither on the side.

“I checked the aisle I found it last but it wasn't there anymore, so I asked the librarian where it was,” Seungpyo quietly said.  “She kind of looked at me weird for a second.”

“Why would she look at you weird?  I bet other people have seen and read this book before,” I said, pulling the book towards me and opening it.  Dust spread everywhere, making me scrunch my nose up in disgust.

Seungpyo sighed.  “Well, the book wasn't really in the ‘History — Non-fiction’ section.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, then realized he had a point.  On Earth humans had no idea about our history so they would naturally place a book about it in the fiction section.  My confusion died down after a second when the title page of the book appeared after turning a third page.

“The Four Kingdoms of Under Earth and All There Is To Know About Them.”  I read the title, and looked below it only to find... nothing.  I looked up at Seungpyo.  “H- How come the author's name isn't here?”

“Honestly?”  Seungpyo looked surprise.  He took the book from me and looked at it himself.  “I never really saw the front page since I only read that part of the book when it was opened.”

He ran his hand over the title page slowly and over the part where the author's name should have been.  He turned back to the previous pages and skimmed through the rest of the book all the way to the end, but there wasn't anything that looked close to an author's name or signature.  He gave the book back to me.

“I mean it doesn't look like the name was erased or even covered with something...”  He said.  “What do you think?”

That question never left my mind up to when we started reading the book.  Seungpyo went to go get notepads and pens.  He came back with two of each and a much smaller, thicker pad of paper.  He said it was called sticky notes, and that it could be used for bookmarking and taking notes to put on the book so we really didn't have to write directly on library property.

After about three hours and so minutes of taking turns to read the book, my notes filled at least an entire sheet of the notepad I was using.  However, there were four things written in the book that caught my attention, so I wrote them down:

-  Contrary to what most On Earth people believe because of their version of the written historic legend, will-o'-the-wisps do not lead travellers away from safety.  Under Earth citizens have long used wisps to find their way out of a dead-end (mostly by Prerilothians who were experts in wizardry).  They also use the wisps to follow a different path that could change their life for the good.

-  Magic is the key to calling will-o'-the-wisps on Under Earth.  To able to call upon the wisps, one must master the magic of wisp-calling which involves unknown techniques that are only known to  the ones who have Arddunian blood running through their veins (which means they must be related to Preriloth's founder, Margus Arddun).

-  It was said Arddun befriended the first wisps that appeared on Under Earth.  Before he died, the wisps swore to him that they will lend help to his people whenever they asked for it.

-  The dark forest nearby the castle of Preriloth served as the first border between the aforementioned kingdom and the lost kingdom of Nydiralle.  After Nydiralle's fall and its annexation to the Kingdom of Jerilaf, the forest remained in its place—a mystery all its curious people failed to uncover.  Those who entered the forest never came back, and were never found up to this day.

Seungpyo and I stretched and waved our hands out in tiredness.  He placed a sticky note on the page we left on and closed the book.  We finished with about three-quarters of the book left.  We exchanged notepads and decided to take note of what we didn't have on each.  Seungpyo took a few good ones, covering about half of the page, a lot of the information he wrote I totally missed while reading.  His notes were composed of Under Earth history that paralleled with On Earth's.  I noticed he also put stars next to the ones he liked (I asked him what the stars were for), like how Under Earth people were better skilled at languages than On Earth (with a note next to it that said “So that's why Jinki can speak Korean”), the cuisines of the four kingdoms, etcetera.  After writing the last word of my notes on his notepad, he handed my notes back to me.

​“You really took a lot of notes, didn't you?”  Seungpyo said, amazement evident in his voice.  “Well, if I see myself at a dead-end I'll just look for you.  I might need the wisps one way or another.”

I chuckled a little.  “Yeah?  Well, let's just hope there won't be a time when either of us would need the wisps.  That's just desperation at its finest: to need wisps.  I mean, there are these things called maps.”

Seungpyo laughed for the first time that day.  I smiled a little, then turned my head to look at the peacefully lying witchess on the couch.  She was still not awake, or maybe she was just bidding her time.  Either way, I felt like this was the perfect time to talk to her.  There were a lot of things I needed to clarify, and I felt strongly that she had the brains to explain them to me.

“She's still not awake.”  Seungpyo's voice became serious.  Apparently he was also watching her.  “How long do you think she'll stay like that?  Lifeless, I mean.”

“I don't know, but I really hope she wakes up soon.”  I sighed.  “She'll be a great help if she does.”

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

long time, no update, heh.  so like i said, i would try to put a little bit of Soojin's POV somewhere so that it's not Jinki's POV twice in a row.  i'm trying to keep everything in order, see, and yeah.  how have you all been?  it's been quite a couple of days since i last updated.  well not exactly but yeah.  xD also, i've decided for this fic to have TWO ENDINGS: one will be a sad one (which is the original one i had planned if only my unnie hadn't made me feel guilty ;_;) and a happy one.  the sad one will be tragic, i promise, and the happy one will be happy.  however, things can change from this point, so this is just a plan for now.  it can change any time which could be either good or bad.

anyway, i hope you guys forgive me for not updating, and thank you for reading!  hello, new subbies~!  and guys, i really love it when you comment.  it makes me reaaaaally happy, and i think comments are part of the reason why i update.  thank you guys, and have an awesome day!  God bless! ^^

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