Paper Heart

§ 3 §

“I might rip so always make your words gentle and soft, OK?”

Ara didn’t know why she was so nervous. Perhaps it was the fact that Ri-ah was still at work and she had to cook for herself. Or maybe it was the fact that her ex-best friend would be arriving in less than three hours.

One thing she knew that had to happen during her weekly visits with Kai, (maybe even daily, considering this would be her biggest assignment at SMS and the deadline was Halloween) would be to keep Kim Jongin, or as he preferred to be called now, Kai, outside her walls at all time. He could read her like a book, and she hoped that years away from each other would make it more difficult than before.

She had even given the apartment a good cleaning, everything looked in place, more so than before. Ara’s Saturday’s were usually filled like this. She would watch TV, play music, eat, clean, finish homework assignments, go on Tumblr for hours on end, and be utterly bored until Ri-ah would come home at 8:00 in the evening (maybe even later, depending on what shift at the hospital she would take.)

Ara picked up her guitar, placing it in the living room along with her school bag and songwriting book. She had three hours to kill before Kai would get here.

Tapping her fingers against her cheek, Ara wondered into the small kitchen. Opening the fridge, Ara had realised it had been ages since she last cooked for herself.  Ri-ah and her had been living off of Ramen for too long. 

An hour later, Ara placed a small tray of cookies on the white table, all warm and gooey. However, as she looked down at her self, she moaned in disgust.  Her jeans were covered with flour, bits of eggshells were stuck in her caramel hair and some unidentifiable substance was smeared across her sweatshirt. She smelled weird too.

 Still have two hours before he’ll come, Ara thought, stripping her sweatshirt off and throwing it into the laundry basket as she rushed into the ensuite in her bedroom.

***

He was an hour early.

Yes, he realised how it may have looked. He had gotten up at the crack of dawn, walked Monggu around the park for a few hours before coming back home. Taemin had looked at him like he had become mental- or grown too heads.

“You never wake up early,”

“It’s not that early,”

“It’s nine in the morning, you’ve just come back from walking Monggu; you usually wake up at 2pm on a Saturday,”

He’d done some chores around the house, before he’d taken a long, relaxing shower, waiting for 12.00 to come ticking by. Time had never gone as slow as it had that day.

He’d even dressed better than usual, a washed-out denim shirt with the first few buttons open to reveal his tanned skin. He’d taken a taxi there, stopping by a bubble teashop and grabbing what used to be Ara’s favourite drink when they were younger.

Even after wondering if he should get her old favourite drink, or if it’d changed, he was still early.

So there he stood, wondering if he should knock on the door or not. He’d climbed the stairs to the rooftop apartment, wondering why there wasn’t a car in sight, and the neighbourhood looked… bad. This wasn’t where Ara lived, was it?

Biting his lip and holding the bag that contained the drinks he’d spent what seemed like hours buying, he knocked on the door heavily.

Silence.

He knocked again and this time, the door creaked open. Kai looked for either Ri-ah Noona or Ara, both who were nowhere to be seen.

Okay, Kai thought, not creepy at all.

He stepped inside, slipping his shoes off and closing the door behind him. It wouldn’t click properly, and it was then that Kai realised that the lock was broken. His heart started to thrash against his ribcage, as thoughts seemed to flash across his face. There didn’t seemed to be any sign of forced entry but it didn’t stop Kai from worrying. This neighbourhood was a bad place, and from the looks of it, Ara was on her own.

“Ara!” He called out hesitantly. The apartment was like an open space; on one side there was a small television, with a white sofa across from it. A guitar was propped against it, as well s