CHAPTER 23

in the arms of Home

When Rei arrived in class the next morning, there was an attractive package sitting on her desk. A bouquet of red roses wrapped in shining gold paper with black ribbons seemed far too large for the desk. Next to it was a small velvet box and an envelope.

‘Someone got his Valentine’s date wrong.’ He heard one of her classmates snicker.

What a bother, Rei thought. Given enough time, she would have looked for a vase and water to keep the flowers in, but the bell rang before she had the chance. Sehun, who arrived merely seconds after the ring, gave a sly nod in her direction and an inquiring look, to which Rei did not respond.

The teacher made a humorous comment about Valentine’s being in February, not April before beginning the class. Less than amused, Rei put it on her lap and tossed the letter and velvet box in her bag.

She slipped out of the classroom during lunch to read the letter, knowing well it was no message of romance as her classmates had assumed.

Princess,

I know you don’t want to talk to me. You don’t answer my calls or messages, but I will keep trying to find out what happened between us. I want to meet you tonight. I’ll be waiting at the corridor on the ground floor of the South Wing at 7. Please, I miss you and I still care.

Rei cocked her head, then folded the letter back neatly before re-inserting into the envelope.

‘Who’s the over-the-top admirer?’ Sehun had asked when she returned to class at last with a vase half-filled with water. She hated to see these flowers die, and it would be the least she could do to plant them properly.

‘Didn’t leave a name.’ she said merely. She was not wrong, but the options were limited to one. It was obvious who the sender was.

‘Is this the start to a thriller disguised as a romance story?’

‘I’d spare myself the tire.’

‘Or you already know.’

Rei lifted a corner of her lips. ‘Maybe if you do something for me I’ll let you in on a secret.’ She whispered, then sat down on her seat.

‘A classified secret of Rei. Sounds more fascinating than the Illuminati conspiracy. So what’s your price?’

‘What are you doing tonight?’

‘Running, I guess.’

‘Come swim with me. After dinner.’

‘What if I drown?’ Sehun leaned over to her. ‘You’ll save me right?’

‘How about I drown with you?’ she gave a cheeky glance.

‘I prefer being rescued.’

Rei merely smiled. In the midst of her daily jokes and laughs, someone watched from a decent distance with a dark eye. It was unnoticeable, but Rei could feel a cold breath blowing on the back of her neck.

‘Does your back still hurt?’ Kyungsoo’s hands grazed against Jongin’s feather-like black hair. They had missed each other and had somehow found their way into each other’s arms that night. Jongin shook his head, his eyes as if drowsy from drugs from looking into Kyungsoo’s eyes. Jongin had cooled down and recovered emotionally after the abusive treatment his client had given him. He was ready to lie with someone with gentler hands and a more sincere heart. 

‘It does but I don’t care.’ His voice sounded as if he wanted this moment with Kyungsoo to last forever. They were lying next to each other, Jongin with his front face down while facing Kyungsoo on the inadequate comfort of a dormitory bed. ‘You look cuter shirtless.’ He traced his fingers on Kyungsoo’s arms.

‘That’s a first.’

‘Never had a girlfriend before?’

‘When I was 11, yeah.’

’11-year olds don’t each other?’ Jongin raised his head.

‘I’d like to believe that they don’t.’ Kyungsoo felt rather disturbed by the idea. ‘You’ve never dated before?’

‘I don’t see the point. I like one guy and move on to another. Then I just, decided I was better off doing casual make outs every now and then.’ He shrugged. ‘Hang about the corridor at night, taking a puff or two, trying to catch one of jock’s attention until we’re-‘

‘Sounds like a good life.’

‘I guess.’ He sighed. ‘Does your family know?’

Kyungsoo shook his head.

‘Kyungsoo, do you like me?’

‘More than you like me, maybe.’

Jongin chuckled to himself. ‘You make me sound mean.’

A grin formed on Kyungsoo’s lips. ‘I like you mean.’

‘Is that how heteroual boys flirt?’ he got up, sitting down on the bed.

‘What are you going to do after you graduate?’

Jongin shrugged. ‘Work, move out to the city. Maybe if I learned how to make serious decisions, I’d go to college and then get a better job.’ He picked up his phone. ‘It didn’t go well between Baekhyun and Chanyeol.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Looks like you have to go, lover boy.’

‘Too bad.’ Kyungsoo spread his arms and rose from bed.

‘Relationships are weird.’

‘They sure are.’

Kyungsoo understood finally where Jongin had come from. The complexities of emotions and the tire of decoding what they meant was not suited for a mind who cared for simplicities; money, lust, then money again. Jongin hated thinking about problems and the struggles his subconscious mind would make about decisions. If it was not in front of him, it was not worth his time. Kyungsoo thought Jongin would present some sort of awkwardness with him upon their last meeting, but Jongin showed extreme normalcy and Kyungsoo knew it was a cue that it was unnecessary to ask.

‘Come by tomorrow night.’

Kyungsoo hid an obvious smile. ‘You’re starting to like me too?’

‘Maybe.’ Jongin seemed as if he cared more than he showed. He knew there was something boiling inside the cauldron of the soul he never wanted to acknowledge. There was always something his emotions were cooking up and Jongin preferred to imagine that he did not swallow them.

Somehow, Jongin found himself at an outdoor foyer of the South Wing, sitting on a marble step next to Soojung. ‘Will you finally admit that you’re in love?’ her grey eyes gleamed as fondly as the moon.

‘That word’s too strong.’ Jongin looked away. ‘It’s not that serious anyway.’

‘I wish I kept a record of how many times you say that.’

‘Do you really think I should stop?’ he gazed out into the peculiar cool emptiness of the night. Something about the lack of noise and people looked odd yet calming. ‘Maybe I should just live normally.’

‘Go to school play soccer kind of normal?’

‘Go to college and get drunk every Friday kind of normal.’

‘Is that what you want to do?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘Do what you want, Jongin. As long as it makes you happy, does being normal really matter?’

‘You’re getting pretty philosophical lately.’

‘Jongyeon used to say you were philosophical.’

‘She’s an idiot.’

‘And you’re in denial.’ They both shared a fleeting grin. ‘It says a lot about you.’

Jongin sighed, brushing his hair with his fingers. ‘Maybe that’s what older brothers and sisters do. Give advice people won’t listen to.’ He looked adoringly up to the sky. He felt safe underneath the dark clouds and moon that shone upon them. ‘Heck I think I started sneaking out of school because she told me to. She makes you feel stupid sometimes.’

‘She’s more aggressive than you are.’

‘I guess she was.’ He agreed. ‘Gosh, she went away so young.’

‘She did.’ Soojung frowned. ‘I bet she’s talking bad about you with God right now.’

‘If I end up in Hell, I’ll know why then.’ A humorous smile curved Jongin’s full lips. Soojung slipped her fingers in between Jongin’s. For a moment she looked at her and he looked at home, and yet their gazes spoke no words. She had nothing to say, and neither did he, but they kept their hands in each other’s in the loud silence.

The world was one person empty, and in this cold, fleeting night they would make through by holding on to the person next to them.

There was however, two curious pair who cherished the cold.

‘Why is it so empty today?’ Sehun looked aimlessly at the swimming pool, its water in constant unrest.

‘Everyone else is out drinking.’ Rei said. They were both panting. They had forgotten there existed a world outside the deepened water-filled container and had gotten caught in the rush of adrenaline of it all. The waves swung them around like babies, never ceasing to stop.

Now they were soaking wet, water still dripping from the ends of their hair and youthful face. ‘Have you ever tried drowning?’ he asked, his voice low.

‘Suffocating makes it hard.’

‘You probably love beaches the most.’

‘Hm.’ She agreed. ‘Especially when it’s warm out and at night, and nobody else is there.’ She smiled as if remembering a fond memory.

‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘As long as I keep my head above the water. What about you? Where do you like to go?’

‘Libraries. They give me privacy and I get to just sit alone, even if I’m not reading. I used to go to this one city library near my house. I’d go to the top floor and sit by the window. When I got tired of reading I’d stare out and watch the people below.’

He let out a heavy sigh.

‘You sound homesick.’

‘Mother-sick.’ He said. ‘I haven’t seen her in a while.’

‘What’s she like?’ Rei turned to him.

‘Quiet, not the fighting type. My dad’s not the greatest man out there but she rarely complains. It’s why I’m all the way here.’

‘To escape?’

‘Because she kicked me out.’  He bent his head back to the wall where they sat. ‘She didn’t want me to get caught up in whatever my dad was doing.’

‘You must miss her.’

He nodded. ‘It’s why I joined Chanyeol and his mini drug cartel. I know it doesn’t get me much, but when I come back, I want to take her away from my dad. Give her what she deserves. I’m going to end up being a lifeless working adult, and I’ll be fine with that. I want to spend it all on her.’

‘You’ll run away for real then.’

‘And far away.’ He smiled a hopeful smile. ‘What about you? You don’t talk about your parents.’

‘I have nothing to tell.’

‘As always.’

Rei stood up, then entered the water again. ‘Well, I owe you a secret, don’t I?’ she said without looking at him. Sehun followed suit, standing several feet behind her.

‘Are you going to finally reveal the identity of our mysterious Romeo?’

‘It’s not worth telling.’ She shook her head. ‘Do you know how everyone is here to run away?’ She cupped her hands and lifted the water slowly above its surface. ‘I came here because I wanted to be close to home again.’ She pulled herself through the water, then swam an entire lap before she stopped.

‘Home.’ Sehun echoed. ‘Your childhood?’

‘Sometimes you doubt its existence. You wonder whether all the carefree time you spent as a kid really did happen, or whether we never really did notice it fading away. Our human instinct is to move forward. We do one thing, and then another, and the next thing after that. Something happens and we have to move along.’

‘And then when you stop it comes back, doesn’t it?’ Sehun knew what she was saying. He, like any child who had outgrown himself knew too. ‘Sometimes you stop and wonder where you’re at. How did you get there and why does everything from the past feel so different and foreign?’ he walked through the water, carrying its weight on his legs as if he was imitating the path of growing up.

Now his face was the one Rei could not see.

‘Why does it feel so different?’ he turned to her. ‘What is that we lost when we grew up?’

‘Nothing.’ She answered. ‘Nobody loses anything growing up. They just start learning.’ She laid her back on the water and began floating. ‘Ignorance is bliss. The first time people hear it they think it’s stupid, but being oblivious to everything around you limits the capacity of your surroundings to trespass into the private happy space you’ve made for yourself.’

‘And when you grow up?’

‘You start pulling the blinds around your little globe. You step out. You see what it’s like, you feel, you live. You expand your globe, expand the number of feelings you could have, good or bad. Sometimes you return to that globe, but you can’t unsee what’s going on around you. Even if you close the blinds you’ve seen it. It stays with you even when you close your eyes.’

Rei stood again, and upon seeing the hopeless look on Sehun’s face, she said, ‘But there are good things you can only experience by getting out of your globe.’

‘Like fighting for something?’ he raised his eyes. Rei nodded her head.

‘Do you have something you’re fighting for, Rei?’

‘It’d be unfair to say I didn’t.’

‘It’s just that you look so unfazed with everything.’

‘And you smile too often.’

‘I-I suppose I do.’

‘You’re doing fine, Sehun. And you’ll be fine even if you talk or do something about it. That’s you growing up. It’s fighting for something, crying about it on some days, and laughing on others. It doesn’t make you less of who you are.’

‘Really?’

Rei gave an assuring nod.

‘Then is it alright if I want a hug?’ he asked. The look in his eye wavered. Something solid had shattered inside the brown irises of his and Rei knew he was unable to piece together his composure.

Rei took him in his arms and held him tight. He was a giant child and she could hear his lips trembling. Everyone was fighting something and fighting for something. Sehun’s choice of weapon had always been his attempt to make everyone laugh every single day.