Chapter 3
The Blue of the Sky on Rainy Days
- "Really, he talked?" Kaehyun asked while sending him off as usual. "I've never heard him say anything other than numbers."
- "So can I come tomorrow, that won’t tire him too much?" Eunhyuk asked while pressing the button.
- "No on the contrary, I’m even glad you come, seeing his progresses. I don’t really know how you do it, but your method is very effective."
Eunhyuk was feeling happy lately of not feeling like a helpless duffer and actually be useful to someone. He even smiled at his mother when he got home despite her remarks concerning how late he came back.
- "I was doing some math", he explained her, "I didn’t see time go."
My god, my god, how I’m softening, he though when he was in his room, I even justify myself with mom now! Heechul also got quite surprised when Eunhyuk refused to go hang out in town with him after class on Thursday evening.
- "But we’re going to see the same girls as the other night", he insisted, " Even Yoo Ra will be there, the one you liked the other day. Her friend told me she liked you too."
- "Maybe another night Chulie, but now, I really can’t. See you dude", he said as he walked away.
He crossed the sports complex that separated the high school from the hospital Donghae lived in. This time, the boy looked up at him when he entered the playroom
- "Hello", Eunhyuk exclaimed from afar while making big waves with his arm.
A shadow of panic appeared in the young patient’s eyes and he began to tremble, his shoulders shaking convulsively.
- "What’s going on?" Eunhyuk asked while following Kangin who was running towards the boy to calm him down.
- "You should never make big gestures in front of him, it distresses him completely. Whenever there are too many people, too much noise, or too much movement, he panics, he loses control."
- "I didn’t know ..." Eunhyuk apologized.
The boy, seeing Kangin come rapidly toward him, lost control a bit more and abruptly stood up as to protect himself, while releasing distorted sounds. Eunhyuk walked past the nurse and walked with firm steps towards him. With one fluid motion, he waved his hand again.
- "Hello Donghae, I'm glad to see you. How are you?"
He continued to shake his hand, taking care not to make his action look threatening, while talking to the young man with his usual tone.
- "I brought new exercises today and ink for your pen too. I'll try to follow your explanation correctly, but don’t go too fast okay."
Gradually, to the sound of his voice, the boy had calmed down in order to understand what he was saying. In the end, Eunhyuk grabbed him by the sleeve of his horrible rust colored sweater, and led him to the small table where they both sat down.
- "Look, I brought some blue ink, black ink, green ink, and red ink. Which one do you want me to put in your pen?"
Eunhyuk had deliberately chosen very dark inks containers so that Donghae would not distinguish colors very well and would therefore not be able to point at the one his wanted. He patiently waited for his answer.
- "The... blue one", the young man ended up saying with a supremely shy look.
- "Here it goes, done", Eunhyuk said while handing him the pen, "we can work now!"
And work they did indeed, side by side, for two whole hours without the young patient’s patience seemed to run off. He took an obvious pleasure into solving the equations Eunhyuk offered him while getting someone's attention at the same time. Eunhyuk noticed he often sniffed at the toughest exercises’ and that he always drew larger numbers to write the answers.
- "When I‘ll be done with my test, I’ll bring funnier stuff for us to play with, you’ll see", Eunhyuk promised him while standing up at the end of their session. After a short hesitation, he asked: "Say Donghae, is that okay if I come back tomorrow evening?"
- "Yes", Donghae replied without needing too much persuasion this time.
- "Great! I owe you, man", Eunhyuk exclaimed, placing his hand on his shoulder.
The young man slightly moved back, frightened, but Eunhyuk pretended liked he had not seen anything and let his hand on his shoulder for a few more seconds as he bid him goodbye in a playful tone.
The following Monday, Eunhyuk arrived for the test knowing for the first time this year what kind of exercises he would have to deal with. He sat in front of his subject with a warrior feeling, cracked his knuckles and grabbed his pen. He started his exercises remembering all the reasoning the hospital’s little genius had shown him; and when he seemed to be in an impasse, he though think like Donghae, and forced himself to erase everything and start all over again. Finally, the test ended as he had been able to answer every single question, and he slid the zipper of his pencil bag with a smirk. Through the window, he threw a small dedicatory look over the sports fields, towards the hospital.
When the teacher gave the tests back a few days later, he personally walked to Eunhyuk’s table.
When the teacher gave the tests back a few days later, he personally walked to Eunhyuk’s table.
- "You’ve got 15 out of 20", he said while handing him his test, "or 12 points higher than your last mark. That’s such a phenomenal improvement that you’ll have to come and see me at the end of class, mister."
This remark set off laughter from his comrades, especially from smart people in math who were jealous of his results and who hardly tolerated that one could get good marks by suych means as filthy as cheating.
- "Well, I’m listening to you, how did you do young man?" His math teacher asked him once class was over.
- "I worked."
- "Huh, huh. If that's the case, do this exercise on in the blackboard for me while explaining your reasoning step by step."
Eunhyuk sketched a smile. It was a type of especially hard exercise but that he had understood well, Donghae having detailed him all the steps in response to his interrogating red lines. He grabbed the chalk with confidence and explained his doings in a clear voice under the surprised gaze of his teacher.
- "Yes, that's right. That’s not quite the way we do it in class but you got the right result. The 15 I gave you earlier is a real 15 then? How the hell did you manage to progress so quickly? I can believe you finally started to work, but hey, you had a lot to catch up on..."
- "It’s a friend of mine who’s very strong in mathematics who explained everything to me. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go and eat before there’s nothing left in the canteen."
Eunhyuk, while absently eating his kimchi, was wondering if Donghae actually was his friend. He did not really look like the other friends he had in high school; he hardly talked, was afraid when you greeted him, went crazy when you made him listen to music and only had fun by doing math. Eunhyuk was however happy to go and see him now, and he was almost looking forward to Wednesday afternoon, which seemed to be a chore and a waste of time three weeks ago.
- "That’s fantastic", Kaehyun said as she welcomed him this Wednesday, "Donghae voluntarily talked me this week! And it was not even a necessary reply; he asked me when you would come, I told him it was every Wednesday. And now he looks at the calendar every day; it’s as if he had just realized the concept of time itself", she explained with an enthusiastic air.
It was while smiling that Eunhyuk entered the game room which was familiar to him now, and he noticed with delight that Donghae was waiting for him, standing, and was even trying a kind of wave with his hand to greet him.
- "Hello Donghae. I’ve brought a movie today so that we can watch it together."
The choice of the said movie had troubled Eunhyuk a lot because he absolutely did not want it to contain any violent scenes that might scare Donghae. He had asked Kaehyun’s opinion, and she had told him, to his greatest relief, that he had made a good choice. He had rent, under his buddies’ mockery, Cinderella’s DVD, because there was no scene that could scare him as in The Sleeping Beauty with the dragon at the end, or as Snow White with the transformation of the witch. As he explained the reasons of his choice to the nurse, the latter benevolently smiled at him.
He set his laptop on the small table they usually did math on and played the movie, only watching it with an eye and rather focusing more on the reactions that played on Donghae’s face. The latter occasionally twisted his mouth but remained mostly impassive, sometimes looking completely taken in the movie and others looking totally lost in his thoughts. As the experience had turned out rather concluding since Donghae forgot his usual shyness more easily to ask him questions about the images that scrolled in front of his eyes, Eunhyuk decided to sometimes bring movies that had passed his selection and were a bit more interesting than Disney. One day, as they were watching a kissing scene in a movie, which was nothing special and had not even remained in Eunhyuk’s memory, Donghae asked him with his strange voice he did not use a lot:
- "What are they doing?"
- "Well, they kiss."
- "What's the point?"
- "Uh ... how to say that... to simplify, when two people love each other a lot, when they care about each other, they need to touch each other, to feel that they are close. That's why they kiss."
Eunhyuk was not sure Donghae had understood everything because he did not ask anything more and went back to his zombie mode. He still thought, while going home, that it was strange Donghae never had the chance to see a kiss before, considering his advanced age.
Has he always lived in that hospital? He wondered, Has he never seen his parents kissing? In any case, he lives completely cut off from the world, completely withdrawn on himself ... Thinking about it, he felt the urge to help him grow inside of him.
______________________
Sorry wanted to post earlier but got busy voting for Suju on MTV Italy~ (Hopte you guys are voting too ><)
Comments