Part Two
;Insomnia
**Note: mention of the Twilight Saga. Not because I like that series all that much, but because I don't read enough to know any others...
Part Two:
JongHyun looked at the time, stuffed the remaining of his toast in his mouth and took a long sip out of his coffee before throwing on his jacket, his watch, and his shoes, running out the door. He wasn’t late for anything, but for someone who preferred to always be at least 10 minutes early of his self-schedule, JongHyun was later than expected. Normally, he would’ve strolled down the stairs as part of his healthy living lifestyle which he tried to maintain despite his abnormal sleep patterns.
Today was different. Today, he felt like the elevators were appealing to him.
He pressed the down arrow button and the button naturally lit up. Since JongHyun had bought this house from his parents who were leaving the country, this was actually one of the few times he rode the elevator--one being the day he moved in, another being one of the nights when he came home drunk, and another being when the lights in the staircases were being update to “green” electricity efficient bulbs.
The door slid open and JongHyun stepped in. He pressed the close button and then the button for the ground floor. He leaned against the metal railing in the elevator and waited for the elevator to begin moving downwards. The elevator finally began to move, only to stop again, on floor six, the floor below his. JongHyun looked up from his phone, just in time for the elevator door to slide open as it had for him earlier. From the corner of his eye, he saw a girl, roughly his age, step into the elevator and stood opposite from him, on the other side of the elevator.
JongHyun couldn’t help but steal glances at her and every time he looked, she was so immersed in reading the book she had, she didn’t see JongHyun stealing glances at her. He couldn’t see much of her face, but from what JongHyun saw, the girl had light brown hair and sunglasses covered most of her small face along with a figure that looked like she needed to eat more.
By then, the elevator had already reached the third floor, with stops in between on each floor. Even though it was only the third floor, JongHyun left the elevator. The girl looked up when JongHyun left.
“ How strange. Why would he press the button for the ground floor only to leave at the third floor? ” Jessica thought.
“ So that’s the girl who unknowingly keeps me a bit amused at night.” JongHyun thought as he dashed down the remaining stair cases.
___
Ding.
The elevator door slid open again, the third time this morning for JongHyun. Arriving just a bit before the elevator did, JongHyun pretended to have been waiting, to surprise a certain someone whom he really just met today, but felt like he has known a while back.
Jessica stepped out of the elevator and walked straight to her mailbox, which was the hallway to the right of the elevators. She pushed up her glasses and slipped her book into her purse.
JongHyun smirked a bit to himself before trying to cooly present himself to the girl whom he didn’t even know the name of yet. He thought for a bit before the elevator arrived about how to approach her, but before JongHyun came up with anything, the elevator door slipped open.
“ The weather’s nice today.” Too bland.
“ You look pretty today.” Too stalkerish.
“ I like the color of your hair.” Too awkward.
JongHyun tried to rehearse several conversation starters and ice breakers in his mind, but none seemed fitting. Just when he was two steps away from her mailbox, she was beginning to lock up the mailbox, unknowing that the man living above her floor had a strange interest in her.
Catching just the last few second the girl hesitated at her mailbox, JongHyun blurted out whatever came to mind, “ Hey, that door of yours.”
The girl turned around to a man of roughly her age, orange-tinted, blonde-tipped hair, cladded in black jeans, a gray jacket and a white v-neck tucked inside.
“ …the thumping is really loud.” JongHyun finished off with a kind, but awkward smile, “ What the heck was that? ” He thought to himself, quite regretting what he had said.
“ The door’s quite old.” the girl simply answered, “ But it’s safe because it’s heavy. You know, theft prevention basics.”
“ Ahh…” JongHyun nodded, pretending to be actually interested in the history of the door of hers.
It became quite awkward and quite fast between the two strangers. JongHyun tried to think of ways to loosen the atmosphere, even if at worst, to end the conversation normally. He couldn’t really pull off his normal tricks. The girl had something icy and intimidating about her, which was beautiful, but it made him lose the words already in his mouth.
“ Just out of curiosity” She began, after a small pause of silence, “ Do you live in this building?”
She smiled a bit, which made her much more approachable than before, “ I’ve never seen you around.”
“ I live on the 7th floor.” JongHyun smiled back, but before she answered anything, he continued, “ Hey, um, are you suppose to be anywhere right now? ”
“ I’m still a bit early for work.”
JongHyun knew he had to take chance of the little time he had left. He thought about talking about more polite irrelevance, but from experience, that would just cause more awkwardness in the future, “ I saw you reading earlier.” He ended up blurting out whatever came to mind again.
“ Oh, that book?” Jessica seemed interested.
“ Yeah, Breaking Dawn was it?” Luckily, JongHyun had read the book title while he was stealing glances at her in the elevator.
“ It’s a good book, do you know it? ” Her eyes seemed to brighten up at the talk about this book. It seemed like she was really interested in this book.
“ I read it a while back, so I don’t remember much.” JongHyun pretended take interest in this book as well, “ But I remember that I liked it when I read it.”
“ It’s a shame that when I went to purchase the book, only the English version was available.” Jessica admitted and took a glance at her watch, “ I should get going now. By the way, my name is Jessica. Nice to meet you.”
“ Jessica…” JongHyun repeated softly, “ What a pretty name.” he thought.
Jessica turned her heels and began to walk the other way as JongHyun savored the feeling of talking to this girl before he sighed, “ Bookstore it is then.”
A few minutes after Jessica had left the lobby, JongHyun began walking to the bookstore, one to pick up a copy of Breaking Dawn, of course, and all the other prequels in this series…in English, two, to pick up a English-Korean dictionary.
“ What the heck was I doing back there.”
JongHyun had absolutely no idea why.
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