A/N: Hey everyone! The feedback I got made me feel very happy. I'm starting unravel things now. I'm sorry if I caused more confusion with the last update, but I'm glad you liked it. I hope you like this one just as much! OH AND VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: THE TATTOO REFERRED TO IN THIS CHAPTER IS THE COVER IMAGE OF THIS STORY. Check it out again if you like ^^ 

Chapter III

Intersecting Legacies at the Center of Vague History

‘What do you call that again?’

Soojung slightly turns to her bestfriend, eyes albeit steady on the girl devouring just about her fifth bowl of food.

‘Call what?’

Amber, looking the same direction as Soojung and with the same level of awe, blinks a couple of times before finally acknowledging her bestfriend’s response.

‘That thing your dad’s lawyer called you for.’

The two natives of Sol Invictus have yet to touch their own serving of the soup Amber managed to whip up after the foreigner’s stomach made a reverbing growl. Nearly half an hour ago, which was coincidentally also a few minutes through their impromptu meal, they wordlessly agreed to put their spoons down in sight of the girl who put the word hunger to shame.

‘Oh. That—‘ Soojung, who was very mentally suspended between pushing her bowl towards the foreigner and taking one sip, absentmindedly tapped her fingers on the table surface ‘—journal. Lawyer says it was probably a journal.’

‘Of?’

‘Research?’ Soojung blankly responds.

The foreigner sets the bowl down from her lips and shyly pushes it beside her ignored spoon. She looks tentatively at the two other people seated at the table with her, and, for a second, at Soojung’s untouched bowl just across from her.

Soojung, upon noticing that little gesture, purses her lips together to keep herself from smiling before pushing the bowl towards the foreigner.

‘Yours.’

Amber clears and pushes her bowl to the foreigner’s side of the table as well. She gestures for the other girl to eat her previous share.

She doesn’t smile, but the foreigner’s eyes noticeably brighten as she took Soojung’s bowl first and ate spoonlessly yet again.

‘My questions are longer than the two of us put together now,’ Amber says in awe.

‘Trust me, mine is probably longer than the three of us put together.’

‘Do you want to start by asking her name?’

Soojung looked taken aback upon hearing Amber’s question. She never really had the opportunity to ask her savior’s name. Everything was just too surprising and unreal for her to even think about basic courtesy.

Amber clears , leans an arm on the table and waits for the girl to look at her.

Soojung narrows an eye at this, folds her arms and taps a finger mindlessly at her elbow. At the back of her mind was the suddenly louder ticking of Amber’s wall clock.

The foreigner notices Amber’s gesture to get her attention between switching bowls and pauses.

Amber points at herself and made sure to maintain eye contact as she spoke up, ‘Amber.’

The other girl bows her head low enough to be noticed at this.

Both natives of Sol Invictus slightly tense up in anticipation of any word that may come out of the stranger’s mouth. Amber shifts in her seat, while Soojung’s finger stopped tapping at her elbow.

‘Jinri.’

Amber smiles in relief and Soojung relaxes in her seat.

Jinri, on the other hand, looked as if she had just remembered something. Her gaze moved from the floor to Soojung.

‘U—um—‘ the latter almost turns to see if there was anyone behind her.

Jinri cuts Soojung off with a lifted hand and moves to pull the watch out of her shirt.

‘J—Jung? S—Soojung?’

Soojung’s brows shoot up.

Amber, mouth agape, looks at Soojung.

.

.

.

Asking for space for her to get cleaned up was harder to explain without words than it was to make them understand that she was very hungry. She knew deep down that language was not the problem; she had not spoken to another living person for so long. Nonetheless, Jinri found herself in Amber’s tub, staring at her almost unfamiliar reflection.

She dips her hands in the water, breaking the image of the girl she had not seen in years.

In her head, Jinri was counting the promises she made for her loved ones. They were easier to picture in her head than it was to actually do them, especially when she was suddenly thrown into putting each and every one in action.

She brings a handful of the cold water to her face, relishing the cool it brought to her eyes.

‘If for any reason that he cannot fulfill his promise, Jung Soojung might just be the one to save you.’

Jinri keeps her hands pressed to her eyes and for the first time in a very long while, she lets the dam break and lets her sobs burst the painful bubble in her chest. Her father’s voice will always be the same no matter how many times she invokes his memory.

Indeed, she was now free, but she did not feel saved.

.

.

.

Soojung scoured Amber’s cabinet for dressing and bandages, all the while thinking that Jinri was becoming more mysterious by the minute. The girl had yet to clarify how she knew her name and the relation of the watch that looked very much like her father’s to everything that was happening.

She shakes her head in disapproval at her failure to find anything accurately helpful. At this point she will just have to settle with the small bucket of hot water she brought with her and any sterile cloth to sanitize Jinri’s cuts. She pulls out a small towel out of the cabinet and a fresh set of clothes that should fit Jinri’s taller figure.

She walks out to the hallway with the intention of leaving the clothes at the foot of the bathroom door, when she hears the sound of Jinri’s muffled sobs from the other side.

Her hand went for the door knob in alarm, but stopped halfway.

Slowly, she curls her hand into a fist and knocks tentatively on the door.

The sobs stopped abruptly.

‘J—Jinri?’

Soojung’s call was answered with silence, alarming her even more.

‘I’m—I’m going in.’

She was tentative even as she was pushing the door open. The prominent argument in the debate in her head being Jinri’s safety.

‘F—Fyed.’

It was spoken through a muffled breath, and Soojung might not have understood what the word itself meant, but it was enough for her to understand a part of Jinri. suddenly felt constricted. Right now, she had to stand at the opposite side of a barrier that was literally halfway open.

Soojung pondered on giving in to that little bridge of emotion that painfully tightened her chest and walk over to Jinri but stopped nonetheless. She puts Jinri’s change of clothes and the bucket on the floor and decided to leave the other girl to her personal space.

The hinges lightly creaked as Soojung began to pull on the door knob.

‘Fyed,’Jinri repeated, sounding less shaky this time.

Soojung stops just as she was an inch to fully shutting the wooden door close. It was the same word. In her head it meant that she had to stop even if she knew it could have meant that Jinri did not want her anywhere near, but not hear Jinri say anything else but the same word for the second time made Soojung feel more confident about staying.

She keeps her gaze low and on the floor as she pushes the door open again, feeling her footsteps growing lighter this time around.

‘I’m going to clean your wounds, okay?’ Soojung says, eyes still on the floor.

She could hear Jinri move. The slow wading of the water suggested tentativeness and right then Soojung knew she had to be more careful than she initially thought she already was. She hesitantly looks up and finds herself looking at a tattoo spread intricately on Jinri’s back.

Soojung gasps at the sight.

Overlapping circles and unknown text labelling each representing shape.

The bucket fell forgotten on the bathroom floor as Soojung motionlessly gaped at the symbols delicately engraved on the other girl’s pale skin. They were awfully familiar and in every part of the tattoo and every second that she took the image in, she remembered.

She had seen this symbol several times before – in her house, in her father’s study, on several sketches scattered in her parents’ room.

Soojung could feel her heart speed up as bits and pieces of her father’s research became more and more vivid—

And on the night of the day she refused the memory of her father, Soojung will be forced right into chasing after it. It was almost unfair that even his memory was just as persistent.

.

.

.

‘What do you mean you went in the bathroom while she was there?’ Amber asks with tone that all but accused Soojung of something other than what her words actually meant.

‘Can you cut that out please?’ Soojung hisses as she tries to focus on cleaning the cuts in Jinri’s arm. ‘We are losing the focus of the discussion!’

Jinri, as silent as ever, looks from Amber to Soojung and Soojung to Amber as the two continued to bicker, her eyes occasionally squinting at the exchange.

‘Which is you invading that poor girl’s privacy?’

‘For the last time! I was making sure she was okay!’

Amber narrows her eyes at Soojung like a hawk observing another potential predator.

Soojung looks up from sanitizing Jinri’s cuts, lifts an eyebrow and challenges Amber’s judging look.

‘You know that looking at me like that will not make me pay attention to your petty accusations.’

Silence.

‘So that journal, you say?’ Amber asks flatly, expression every inch the same as it was seconds ago.

‘The journal,’ Soojung answers, eyes still not dropping out of the challenge.

‘Alright,’ Amber scoffs as she folds her arms.

‘Alright,’ Soojung scoffed right back, brow still raised.

‘Okay.’

‘Okay.’

Soojung returns to cleaning Jinri’s cuts, which were either confusingly smaller than they were seconds ago or she was really just very annoyed. Amber, on the other hand, huffs at her bangs.

‘Al—r—right. Alright.’

Soojung hands immediately stop. Her eyes move from the cut she was just busy with to Jinri who moved her jaw at the unfamiliarity of the words she just spoke.

‘I’m—‘ Jinri furrows her brow a little ‘—alright.’

Soojung throws Amber a quizzical look.

‘Amazing,’ Amber says breathlessly.

Jinri gently pulls her arm out of Soojung’s grip and holds it up for both Amber and Soojung to see her cuts very, very slowly but visibly closing up on their own.

‘I’m alright,’ Jinri repeats, clearer and more certain this time. She shakes her head as she points at her arm, gesturing a negative. ‘Hu byeh. Alright.’

Amber’s apartment had become very thick with silence and sharp with confusion very quickly.

‘Great Sol Invictus, what was that?’ Amber said, looking as if the slightest movement she will make will completely break her ability to comprehend anything else.

Soojung brings a hand to Jinri’s chin and gently moves her head to turn the other side. She was sure there was a cut there she had intended to sanitize last.

It was no longer there.

She brings a hand to her forehead and sighs, ‘who are you, Jinri?’

‘H—who?’

‘Do you know my father?’

‘Father?’ Jinri points at her eye as she repeated the word she had just caught and then at Soojung. ‘Jung.’

‘Yes, Jung,’ Soojung answers, breath thickened with frustration.

The foreigner squints for a second as she looks from Amber to Soojung, then points at one girl to the other.

‘Vneaht.’

‘Friend,’ Amber cuts in, mood lightening up. ‘That meant friend.’

Jinri looks at Amber with a glint of hopefulness as she visibly straightened.

‘Oac—‘ Jinri nods ‘—vneaht. Friend. Jung. Friend.’

She then turns to Soojung and moves to take the other girl’s hand in hers. She pauses halfway and brings her gaze at Soojung’s burdened ones.

‘Syo e?’

It seemed like a question. A request for permission, Soojung thought. She nods.

Jinri turns Soojung’s hand palm up and taps her wrist.

Amber watches the exchange very intently, taking in as much information as she could.

‘Pinh—‘ Jinri lifts one hand up and stretches and flexes her fingers repeatedly, gesturing rain ‘—Drihtan. Soojung pinh. Jinri rana.’

‘Wait—‘ Amber shifts in her seat, moving closer to the two other girls ‘—again. Um—I mean. Yk—ykyeh.’

Jinri nods and moves her hands the same way she did earlier.

‘Drihtan. Soojung pinh. Jinri rana.’

Amber repeats the words to herself over and over, brows furrowed.

‘Drihtan—thunder?’

Soojung felt her stomach tighten at the mention of the word.

‘I do recall thunder earlier. Really loud thunder before any of this happened.’

‘Soojung pinh. Pinh is—burn?’

Amber looked both burdened and unconvinced by her own translations, but Soojung could feel the bubbling unease over every word her bestfriend uncovered.

‘Soojung burn. Jinri—‘ Amber’s eyes widen and her brow suddenly relax ‘—here. Soojung burn. Jinri here.’

She looks at her bestfriend, baffled.

‘Soojung, I don’t know how—‘

Soojung looks from Amber to her wrist, patching up the image of Jinri grazing her wrist with a thumb earlier and pointing at it just minutes ago. She remembered why she was even unconscious in an alleyway just this afternoon. Her wrists did burn.

‘—but I think you brought her to you.’