CHAPTER THIRTY

"i'll come running"

Something was different about her.

It had been there for over a week and yet no matter how hard Sehun looked, he simply could not decode what it was – whether it was merely a change of perspective or if Rei truly did change, if only a little.

He wondered if it was about that kiss, or whether it could be about something else.

The more he thought about it, the more he tried to examine her gaze that he had never seen, the more Sehun realized: he never really truly knew her at all. Who was she? Where did she come from? What was she up to that evening Sehun saw her walking downstairs in a fancy dress? She looked beautiful that day, and also uninterested.

Yet, whenever Sehun spoke, she would turn her golden eyes to him and smile.

Tonight, however, she did not smile at him.

‘I didn’t think you were the type to stand on the roof this late into the night.’ Rei appeared unprepared. Of course she was not, but she rarely ever showed it.

Sehun shoved his phone into the pocket of his pants. ‘And you are? There isn’t any flower for you to look at.’

‘Well there’s the city.’ She looked out over the edge.

‘Nothing you haven’t seen, I bet?’

‘No.’ she admitted.

‘Then what are you really here to look at?’

‘I don’t know.’

Sehun wondered if he should reveal what he knew. She did look less calm, or rather, occupied with something inside her head, but he as afraid he would trespass into a realm she wanted to keep shut from everyone.

‘Is something wrong? You look like you’re thinking about something.’

‘I suppose that’s it.’

‘What?’

‘I’m here to look at my thoughts.’ She raised her head, shutting her eyes for a brief moment as if cherishing the delight of the cold, night air.

‘What does it look like?’

‘Like the sky.’ She tilted her head. ‘So many wonders and stars but none we can see because of the light that’s blinding our vision from here.’

‘Why does your thought not look as wonderful?’

‘It’s not. It’s nowhere near wonderful.’ Rei turned her head and grinned. ‘Since you’re here, I suppose we might as well talk.’

‘I think I’ve been talking too much. Why don’t you talk this time? I’ll listen.’

She scoffed. ‘What do you want to hear about?’

He shrugged. ‘Anything. You can talk about yourself.’

‘Sounds like a very basic introduction to myself.’

‘Well, we’ve known each other for quite a while and I still don’t know where you’re from and how many siblings you have.’

‘I barely know much about you too.’

‘Then that makes us evenly odd.’

Rei etched a smile on her lips. ‘Ask away. Just for this night – I’ll answer you.’

‘Can I take your word for it? That you’ll answer instead of making me even more confused?’

‘You have my word.’

‘Give me five interesting facts that I don’t know about you.’

‘Well.’ She stretched her arms. ‘I have an English name.’ she folded her fingers. Sehun stared at her, waiting for an explanation. ‘My grandparents named me Kiara but I like to pretend they didn’t.

‘I told you I don’t know that much about you.’ He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you knew mine.’

‘They’re just names.’ She paced around, her eyes trailing the concrete ground. She knew many names, but none of it mattered to her.

‘What’s interesting fact number two?’

‘I don’t have any siblings.’

‘Hm, a lone child. I guess that makes two of us.’

‘It’s hard for me to get drunk.’ She counted with her fingers.

‘That I know.’

Rei smiled, biting her lip. ‘I was home-schooled before Solstis.’

‘Three. Four: what’s your family like?’

‘Big and rich,’ she said it as if she was not part of her family, like she was talking about people she had no association with. ‘They attend all these galas, talk to other rich people and pretend all night long while drinking expensive wines and cocktails.’

‘Sounds like you have your own opinions.’

‘Everybody does,’

‘Do you live in a castle? With big gardens and a room for every single thing?’

She nodded, but nothing about her made it look as grandly beautiful as Sehun imagined it would.

‘Does it have a swimming pool? I bet you never have to go out.’

‘I like it better at school,’ she smiled innocently. ‘It gives me privacy. There are less people who care about me at school, and I have more freedom to do whatever I like.’ She flashed her sunny smile. Sehun looked at her a little longer than he usually did. It scared him how he knew so little about this girl and yet he felt so much for her. He was concerned but blinded by the cloud of ignorance surrounding her.

‘What’s eating you?’ he asked at last. It was the first he ever asked her of the sort. ‘You looked detached the entire week, except when somebody’s talking to you.’

Rei looked slightly astonished, then returned to her careless eyes – the face that cared less about herself than everything else. ‘You already know.’ She correctly assumed, then smiled back at him as if everything was alright, and had Sehun not known, he would have believed her, believed that smile, that angelic smile.

‘I’m not going to lie to you.’ She exhaled. ‘My parents are divorcing and it stops me whenever I think about how things are not going to be the same.’

And I will never understand, Sehun could hear himself saying. They were so alike, Sehunand Rei and yet so different. They were both acutely aware of the changing seasons that time brought day after day, but while Sehun ran further, faster beyond the runner of time itself, urging it forward, Rei would stop and stare. She would turn around and look behind her.

Anyone who looked at her then could feel the hands on a clock slowing down and going backwards. That was the distance that stood between them.

A divorce meant a new life for Sehun, but for her, it meant a lost life.

He watched her long hair, darker than the sky itself fly so freely in the wind. Her eyes glistened in the dark and he was not sure whether they were repressed tears or merely the lights in all of Paris collected in that single stare.

‘Rei-‘ he picked up her hand, which was cold. Still, she smiled.

‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘That’s why I cried that night, but I suppose I cried too late. I’ve lost it all years ago. But now it’s materialized on a piece of paper-‘ she scoffed. ‘-it’s funny. Everything is…funny.’

Rei pulled her hand from him. ‘And what about you? You’ve been a little quiet this week too.’ She began pacing around. ‘What’s on your mind?’ the light returned to her eyes.

Sehun looked at her, without a smile or a frown. Question after question played inside his mind about her. ‘Nothing. It takes me a while to fully recover from a hangover. I’ve been getting headaches all week.’

She walked up to him fast. ‘Then why are you out here in the cold?’ she pressed her hand against his forehead. ‘Your race is in two days-time, you know?’ she cupped his cheek. Sehun could feel his heart speed increase and grow heavy at the same time.

Don’t do that. Don’t make me even more nervous than I already am.

‘I know.’ He murmured. ‘I’ll win. You’ll see.’

‘I know you will.’

‘I’m going to hit the sack. See you tomorrow night. I’ll call you.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Night, Rei.’ He smiled, heading towards the entrance back into the building. ‘Rei?’

‘Yes?’

‘If you ever feel sad, call me. I’ll come to you.’

She gave him a nod of promise. ‘I will.’

Then he left.

Rei released the breath she was holding. She had said a little too much, or maybe even far too much than she should have. It was foolish of her to attempt to get drunk that night, for it did not work at all except at creating a temporary chaos of her emotions. Still, Rei was glad out of all people, that he was the one who witnessed her. She trusted him in an odd way, in a silent way.

Yet, Rei could not close her eyes to her fool-proof senses.

His glances were different, his stares were longer, his thoughts no longer naturally rolled off his tongue. He would tighten his lips, then turn away and curse at himself for getting too carried away.

She knew he wanted to ask, hey I felt something when I kissed you and I still feel it. Do you? As much as the words were boiling on his tongue, Rei knew he could never say it. They were the same in that way – extremely hesitant to express feelings that were clearly there and demanded to be said. But Rei had better control over hers, and he did not.

Why did you kiss him back? We all know why, but it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter.

She inhaled the cold air. Tomorrow her concerns would vanish, every tiny bit of hesitance that lingered in her eyes would cease to exist. She would be the Rei everyone knew, the alert, ever-smiling, entertaining Rei.

Everyone who had ever stopped to look at her would forget she ever showed the slightest bit of darkness that existed within her. She would make them question themselves of their own judgement. She was good at that.

The next day came and they all went about their usual practice.

The suspicions regarding Rei’s wellbeing faded just as soon as everyone saw how normal she looked.

Sehun was as nervous as ever. ‘Am I supposed to dress up?’

‘You’re going to eat dinner with Rei, Sehun. How many times have you done that before? Oh wait, every day.’ Chanyeol grew more and more ready to throw teasing remarks at Sehun whenever he mentioned Rei.

He felt more nervous when she knocked on his hotel room door quite suddenly but kept reminding himself to be normal. After all, Sehun did not want anything to change. He wanted it to stay the same, so why was he acting all different?

Rei wore a tank top and shorts with sneakers, holding with her a bottle of plain water. Her hair was tied up in a high, messy ponytail and she had on her usual ready-for-anything smile.

‘You look cu-‘

‘I need to talk to you.’ She pulled his arm.

‘Uh, okay.’

‘Thanks, by the way. You too.’ She grinned. Caught off guard, Sehun was speechless. He whined over the meal, found it absurd that he had to watch his diet a whole week before his competition.

‘What does it make anyway? So what if I eat a hamburger? Is it really going to slow me down during the race? And is pizza really that unhealthy? What’s the difference between a pizza and a sandwich anyway?’ his questions were nothing more than just a serious inquiry. ‘But this is good.’ he heartily ate his plate of steamed cod and greens. ‘Is this what people here eat every day?’

Rei only laughed without answering. ‘Don’t pull off the same stunt you did last year.’ She reminded him.

‘I won’t.’ he turned embarrassed. ‘What was it you needed to talk about?’

‘Let’s pay and take a walk. Find a quiet place. There’s something I told Jongin the other day but I haven’t told you yet.’

Jongin took Rei’s words seriously, as he knew he should. ‘We need a plan.’ He told Kyungsoo. ‘How do we make Soojung talk about her problems without asking her directly?’ he had a hand stilting his head and was sitting at Kyungsoo’s desk.

‘You do realize we are both, terrible liars?’ he asked as he ran his pencil across a sketchpad.

‘What would Rei say?’ Jongin ignored him.

‘She doesn’t. People just come to her and talk.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s….Rei.’ Kyungsoo was at a loss for words. ‘You know, I have a suggestion. It’s actually pretty easy.’

‘What is that?’

‘Ask her directly.’

‘Don’t get smart with me, Kyungsoo.’ Jongin sneered at him. ‘This operation has to be discreet and confidential.’

Kyungsoo rolled his green eyes, then took Jongin’s phone. He dialled Soojung’s number, then tossed the phone at him.

‘No!’ Jongin fumbled his phone and Soojung was quick to pick up. Kyungsoo made a warning face to him and the other jeered back at him. ‘Hi, Soojung.’ He grinned. ‘What are you doing tonight? Really? Oh, that’s nice. Yeah, sure. Tomorrow is fine. Alright, I’ll see you then. Bye.’

‘That did not sound successful.’

‘She just got back from lunch with her brother.’

‘She has a brother?’

‘Yes, she does.’

‘Is this the first time she’s been down?’

‘Maybe?’

Kyungsoo glared at him.

‘What? I’m emotionally blind.’

‘She’s your best friend!’ he put down his sketchbook. ‘Okay, fine. Why don’t we organize our background knowledge of her? I’ll ask, you talk.’

‘Sounds fair to me.’ He shrugged.

‘Introduce her.’

‘Jung Soojung, born 7^th May the same year as me, was from Suwon but moved here after her father passed away.’

‘That’s sad.’

‘Yeah.’ Jongin pursed his lips. ‘She was close with her father before he left. And then it was just her, her mother and her older brother. The mother’s very occupied with work and trying to raise them both. Soojung got a scholarship so she’s fully funded here. She’s a smart girl, always cheerful and laughing.’

‘When did you get to know her.’

‘Freshman year. She gets a good allowance from the people funding her but she wants to be more financially secure to help her mum and all, so she sought out Chanyeol. We met in a nightclub. I was still hooking up with boys for money on the weekends and she was selling candy. I recognized her and thought I could join and they were looking for people to help out. So that’s how we met.’

‘And how did she come to know your sister?’

‘I don’t know how it started but they got along well I guess. I never have much to say with my sister but she does. Sometimes, she becomes the middle person. I don’t know how to surprise my sister and my sister’s concerned about me but doesn’t know how to say it so we both ask Soojung.’

‘So she’s the one who witnesses the emotional currents that occur in both you and your sister?’

‘You sound a bit too poetic.’

‘I’m an artist. Besides, you don’t “feel”, remember? Might as well make a big deal when you actually do.’

‘I can’t really say I noticed she felt that way about my sister though.’ He watched Kyungsoo’s tender hands materialize the details of his face on paper. ‘Say, do you draw what you feel?’

‘I draw based on my perceptions of my subjects. But I try to be as technical as possible.’

‘Do people write about themselves?’

‘Have you been living under a rock? You’re talking about a diary, or a journal, just in case diary sounds too “emotional” for you.’

‘Shut up before I make you.’ Jongin threatened him. ‘And I mean with my fists, not my lips.’ He pointed a sharp finger at him.

‘Go on.’ Kyungsoo curved a sly smile. ‘You’re saying Soojung might have a diary, I mean journal.’

Jongin raised his stone-cold gaze. ‘I say we find any written evidence that may or may not reveal to us more about Soojung.’

‘Or we could visit your home and look for your sister’s things and wait for Rei to come back so that she can look through Soojung’s things?’

‘Or that.’

‘So when do we start?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Jongin was determined. ‘If I wake up.’