Chapter 4

Jongdae’s first thought when he got inside the cafe was that it was the girl from the subway station in Beijing, no doubt, because she looked terribly uncoordinated and that was what she’d been like back in Beijing. The chimes on the door rang out behind him, painfully loud for a couple seconds longer as all the heads in the cafe seemed to turn towards him.

A hush seemed to fall across the place for a moment too long, and Jongdae shifted uncomfortably, unused to being the center of attention. And then it was as if someone unpaused time—the man with the almond shaped eyes at the counter turned back to the computer he was typing on, and the couple sitting at the table turned back to each other and talked quietly, and other man behind the counter went back to making a coffee.

The only person that hadn’t seemed to have reacted properly was the girl holding the tray, who still looked exactly like Yujin and was staring at him with wide, somewhat horrified eyes. Jongdae gaped back at her, completely tongue tied and confused.

She looked the exact same. He’d never managed to save many pictures of Yujin—the one that he hadn’t lost was charred at the sides from the fire, and it had been forever since he last looked at it. He wasn’t even sure where it was anymore—most likely buried in a pile of belongings from the past that he managed to rescue but couldn’t quite bring himself to look at.

Finally, the girl snapped out of it first. She turned sharply in the other direction, then seemed to remember that she was supposed to bring the cake on the tray to the couple and spun back around again. Jongdae watched, still not quite over the confusion, as she handed the plate to the couple jerkily and all but ran back to behind the counter.

He might’ve stayed there and stared forever and never gotten over the shock, except there was one question that rose atop of everything else: was she the girl from the Beijing train station? Jongdae watched for a couple seconds more as she said something to the man at the counter before he unfroze too, all of a sudden aware of the fact that he had been standing in the doorway of the cafe for at least a minute.

Steps heavier than they should’ve been, he made his way towards the counter. The atmosphere felt exceptionally pressing, and he barely scanned the order list before he was standing in front of the cashier.

“Hi!” someone said from behind the man, and the girl poked her head from behind him (Kim Minseok, the name tag read). “Sorry, I just couldn’t help but wonder… did you happen to be in Beijing, like, two days ago?”

Jongdae did a double take at her. “Pardon?”

She shifted her weight, looking somewhat embarrassed before stepping out fully. He was close enough to read her name tag then too—Kang Yena. “I was in Beijing for a concert a couple days ago, and didn’t I, uh, crash into you? Xi… Xi something station, I don’t quite remember, or it could’ve been someone else—”

“It was me.” Jongdae didn’t quite trust himself to say anything else, which was a good thing, because he probably would’ve blurted something along the lines or why she wasn’t dead. Still, it was weird thinking back—he was completely certain that she’d grabbed his hand before stuffing the papers in them—he definitely had not been hallucinating for that part.

“Right.” Yena gave him a sheepish grin. “I thought I recognized you. I’m sorry for the other day, actually—I was in a huge rush to get to where we were performing and I didn’t have time to help you pick up the papers properly because the train was leaving and—” She winced. “But yeah, it’s such a coincidence seeing you here. I didn’t know you were Korean too.”

Jongdae had absolutely no idea how to respond. Through the confusion, there was a couple things he was clear of: firstly, the guilt dropping off his shoulders that he really hadn’t killed someone by accident, even though how he didn’t was still a mystery. Secondly, she was right—it was an uncanny, scary coincidence that didn’t seem so much of a coincidence after all when he thought about it. Thirdly, she did look almost the exact same as Yujin.

“Well,” she said, then paused. “I can take your order.”

She had somehow managed to shoo the man with the cat-like eyes from the counter, for some reason, and it took Jongdae a couple of moments to even understand what she was saying. Of course—he realized with a twinge of embarrassment. She would know nothing of his current situation (at least she acted like it—he couldn’t think of any possibilities of how she’d been unaffected and even knew about what had happened)—as far as she knew, there’d just been an unlikely coincidence and they stumbled across each other again.

“Excuse me?” she asked again, and Jongdae’s head snapped up. “Are you ready to order, or do you need a couple of moments…?”
 

With a lot of effort, he shook himself out of it. “I’m fine. Just a regular coffee. Medium, please.”

“Sugar or cream?”

“No thanks.”

She jotted it down, then gave a slight smile. “That’s four thousand won.”

There was extremely awkward silence blanketing the room as Jongdae finished up paying and stood at the side, waiting for his order. He had had no intentions in the beginning of even getting anything to drink—he didn’t even like coffee—but walking out of the cafe empty-handed really would’ve brought awkward to a new level after everything.

Exactly three minutes later, she was handing him the medium-sized coffee, leaving him with absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do with it. Jongdae thanked her numbly, fingers warming around the cup, and then headed out of the cafe completely robotically. He couldn’t quite remember whether or not he said goodbye to her, though his thoughts were an utter mess by the time he was a couple steps out of the cafe.

It wasn’t a dream—he didn’t really dream—and that much was obvious. Still, that didn’t do anything to explain why the same person he was positive should’ve died was right there, alive and perfectly fine, completely immune to his touch.

For a brief moment, he wondered if it were something the Sicari had done, then thought back and figured that it couldn’t have been. There was a good reason why everyone avoided him every time he reported back--they were afraid of his touch. If the Sicari had found a way around his touch…

Jongdae couldn’t quite imagine it. From what he knew and had been told, it was something past human comprehension, an ability that wasn’t explained by just science. Either way, though, he was pretty sure that the girl had nothing to do with the Sicari.

He glanced back one last time at the cafe. Part of him wanted to go back in because he was still holding the cup of coffee (without any intent to drink it) and he had no idea what to do with it (it felt rude not to drink it, though Jongdae didn’t like plain coffee and if he really had to choke it down, he wouldn’t do so unless there was sugar in it) and because he wanted to at least try to figure something else, but the more logical part of him drove him in the other direction, back to the apartment, returning more confused than ever but strangely relieved.

Kang Yena, he repeated to himself. It was a simple name, nothing that would’ve been memorable if he had just heard it. Jongdae l