Dinner was a disaster, only for me of course. If it was not obvious until now, then let me put it out to you explicitly that fate takes pleasure in testing his failed experiments on me.

Kai was sitting on father’s right while Jieun was seated on his left and I was sitting at mother’s place because mother found it a ridiculous notion to eat while her children were eating. My original seat was at father’s right. Father always sat on the head chair, the eldest sat on the right, the younger one on the left and mother at the opposite head chair. These were prescribed power positions in the family, which had come down since generations, but since Kai had decided to help himself to food before the others were even seated, sitting on my chair, a tradition of centuries was quietly thrown in the waste bin.

What infuriated me more was mother’s fawning over him. is this how she would have treated her son, if she had any?! She normally sat at the chair I was sitting on, which symbolised the least power and thanks to Kai, she was shoved out of the dinner table. Not to mention, he did not pass me a single food item so either mother had to pass it to me or I had to go and help myself to it. Father, didn’t pay attention to anything but whenever Kai urged him to participate in civil chitchat, father would willingly participate! It was one thing having the women fawn over a male alien; it was a whole different thing when the entire family fawned.

Tonight was also the first night when Jieun didn’t come to my room to rant, rave or just simply to talk. I tossed on my bed impatiently wondering whether my refusal of her request had hurt her to such an extent as to stop talking with me. Not knowing what to do, I decided to help myself to a glass of water. The water would not help me clear my thoughts or my increasing guilt but at least it would be a better physical activity than fighting with one’s bed sheets.

Trudging along the stairs, my cold feet soaking in the chill the carpeted stairs emanated, I cautiously went down. My ears were more sensitized than ever, my eyes flitted from one dark corner to the other and my heart raced at any little sound. Yes, apart from heights, I was also terrifyingly afraid of ghosts. Usually, when Jieun came to my room she would get a jug of water and a glass so I never had had to reveal it to her that I was afraid of the paranormal. But today was my night of suffering.

I heard a voice speaking from the kitchen but the sound was hollow and a little distorted. My breath hitched and my blood turned cold. I could have sworn it was the young guy, Sehun was talking about last year, who had jumped off a building in our locality because he couldn’t cope with his girlfriend’s death. Of course, when Sehun had narrated the story I had called the guy a coward and brushed off the ghost thing as childish adrenaline rushes but reality was that I was so freaked out by his story that I didn’t want him to talk any more on it.

Finding my scientific self within my fogged brain, I took another painfully slow step towards the kitchen. Everything was just a result of my overactive imagination! Ghosts? They were just creations of the mind! I couldn’t be scared of these!

Only twenty steps away from the kitchen, I heard a soft tinkling sound of a female’s laugh and peeing in my pants seemed like the best possible option for me. It had to be the girlfriend! The dead girlfriend! The ghost of the girlfriend! Hold on if the two of them were here, then . . .

I just crouched near some furniture I could not make out in the dark and went “aww” excitedly. The two lovers had finally met! Who cared if they were ghosts, at least they had found each other in death. I knew that when I would reminisce about my actions the next morning I would feel like burying myself in a grave, nearby but for now, I had no audience to my stupidity so I could might as well indulge in it completely.

My fear was overtaken by an itching curiosity to see the two lovers. Who cared if they were translucent beings (I assumed spirits to be body less) and dead! They were still a remarkable sight. The slow steps became rapid, eager footfalls as I raced towards my kitchen and stopped only when I saw that the light was on. So excited was I by the silly love story I had concocted that I did not pay attention to the voices while running and such a grave mistake it was. Standing at the door, I saw Kai and Jieun laughing mischievously at some hidden joke, their bodies uncomfortably close, and their aura uncomfortably sweet.

Gone was my fear, my silly excitement, my stupidity and back was my original self- cold, calculating and cantankerous. “What is better than some midnight gossip?” I asked sarcastically as I confidently walked towards the fridge. Jieun jumped away from Kai when she saw me and nervously fiddled with a spoon.

“Unnie,” she stuttered, “I-I just came down for some water and Kai was her and . . .”

“I withheld her,” quipped Kai as he went and took the spoon from Jieun’s hand and nudged her to leave, “If you have any issues, then I am the one you should clear it out with.”

Taking Kai’s cue, Jieun rushed out of the kitchen and with her out of sight, I banged the door of the fridge shut. “I have,” I said, trying to keep my anger from not seeping into my voice, “several issues with you and I will enunciate them for you.”

Kai propped himself on the one of the kitchen slabs and looked at me expectantly.

“I don’t know what your ultimate motive is,” I began, “because you seem intent on only humiliating me and personally, I have no issues with that. If anything, I am grateful to you for sparing my family. However, do not take my gratefulness as a lottery ticket to getting close to my sister. My sister is my own. I do not decide whom she talks with but I do decide whom she doesn’t talk with. Guys like you are nothing but players who believe in the misogynistic theory of ‘use and throw’. It may have worked on some girls but I will not allow it to work with my sister! I don’t want you hovering around her from now on! Do you understand?”

Kai had been patiently listening to my rant. What had started out as a polite but stern admonition somewhere turned into a desperate rant. At a certain point, I completely forgot the main agenda of my argument. Actually, I never had an agenda. Why would I be angry if my sister was just talking to some guy who had been nice to her throughout?! How I hated unanswered questions!

“If you are done with your rant,” Kai said coolly, getting down from the slab and covering the distance between us in two or three strides, “then let me drill something in your narrow minded, over possessive and jealous viewpoints.”

 Jerking me by my shoulders, he said menacingly, “I have no freaking idea why do you always have a problem with me or is it because being nice is no tin your genes. You act horribly towards me, I act horribly towards you. Fair deal! And as for your sister, she has been kind to me so I don’t find the reason to not return her gesture. You and your set of pre conceived notions cannot achieve whatever you wish to achieve! As for your sister, yes, I do have more in mind for her than just friendship but I do not feel the need to justify my actions towards someone as stereotypical as you are.”

He did not push me away as I had expected him to but instead just held on to my shoulders more fiercely. Sighing he said, “I can feel your shoulders shaking so cry if you want to.”

And cry I did. I was not this disgustingly temperamental before my periods as I was every time Kai said something hurtful. Neither was I as shameless in my normal routine as I was now, once again seeking comfort in Kai’s hug. He held me close and caressed my back, occasionally blurting “So weird”.  

“I am sorry,” he whispered as I clutched on to his t-shirt possessively and cried my eyes out, “but will you please explain your bipolar disorder?”

I never did answer his question but I did ramble crap in response to his question.

“I came here to get some water,” I sniffed,”An-And I thought there was a ghost here. I am not afraid of ghosts though let me make that clear” Kai chuckled, “And I heard your voice but I didn’t know it was your voice but I thought it was the voice of the guy Sehun was talking about. He died, you know, jumped off a building. So, then I got more scared. And then I heard Jieun’s voice, I didn’t know it was Jieun okay? So . . . yes, I . . .” I lost track and continued my hiccups which was the result of my sobs. My tears had dried up though.

“So, you didn’t know it was Jieun and?” Kai urged a hint of a laughter lurking in his voice.

“So I thought it was the lover of the guy who had killed herself, then if elt really excited that the two had met, so I came running to see them and . . . saw you two. I complained and then you shouted at me,” I completed finally realising how utterly stupid my crap sounded. “I am sorry,” I whispered, embarrassed.

I felt his body shaking and I knew what was coming next.

Releasing me from his hug, Kai laughed his heart out at my embarrassing rendition. Unknowingly, I had clutched on to the end of his t-shirt as a dismal effort to not lose his warmth. “How do you manage to hide this side of yours from people at school?” he emitted while laughing, “In fact, why do you manage to hide it at all?”

I just stared at the floor confused about a completely different thing than the topic at hand. On one side, I wanted to be out of his purview asap because I felt terribly shy and conscious and on the other side, I liked listening to him laugh, even if he was laughing at me.

“Why do you hide it?” he asked, this time seriously.

I looked up to see a very calm but determined Kai, determined to get his answer. Stupidly, I simply shook my head but weirdly, it was actually the answer to his question. I did not know why I acted so coldly at school. Being powerful does not imply being cold, it does not imply being grumpy. My power was not the loosely based so as to fall apart if I acted silly once in a while. Then why did I do it?

“That’s not me,” I mumbled, confused, “Being chirpy is not me.”

Kai furrowed his eyebrows as if studying me, decoding and deconstructing me to the single most atom and then with a slow smile said, “Go to sleep, you have an early morning tomorrow.” It seemed so easy to follow what he said that without questioning I walked out of the kitchen and towards my bedroom. However, my parched and neglected throat made me stop mid way. I went all the way down to the kitchen, opened and banged the fridge shut but I had forgotten to drink my water! I turned around lethargically thinking the distance to the kitchen to be as long as river Nile and was greeted by a bottle.

“You are just intelligent not smart,” Kai murmured as he squashed my face with the bottle until I grabbed it off his hand and then, without another word went to his bedroom. It was funny. I did feel conscious about crying in front of him and I did feel flushed at his touch but it was not as much as I would have felt if Sehun had did the same.

Sleep came to me as easily as my exam marks and I dozed off smiling, thinking about how both of us were bipolar but still could not understand each other.