Chimes [6]
Cause It's You (BPConverts)
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When the first ray of sunlight hit Jisoo's body, I
started screaming.
“CHU! YOUR HEAD!" I was jarring her vigorously to consciousness while checking if she was breathing. There was blood at the back of her head but it hasn't seep through the covers. She was startled and sat up instantly. She hugged
me like she wasn't in pain.
"Calm down, I'm okay. It will go away."
"WHAT?! NO! WE NEED TO GO TO THE
HOSPITAL!"
"I've been there. They couldn't do anything. I'm
alright. Believe me-”
"NO! HOW COULD-"
"Jennie! Jennie! My ears... Stop screaming. I'm okay.”I love you. Sshhhh”
“Chu! No-”
"Sshhh…”
----**---
"Why did we go here?" I whispered. It was weird, that after that steamy encounter last night, that Jisoo seemed to have caught some investigative
vibe.
"I wanted to show you something." She didn't care
to lower her voice in spite the countless white stickers plastered on the walls that had that red
triangle reminding us to 'Keep quiet, please. I guess because it was Saturday. But more than her disregard of the rules in that building, there was something disquieting with’how the words fell out of her tongue. There was subtle fear but at the same time, she was earnest to let me know
"What is it?"
She didn't answer my question but she continued talking as we slowly treaded the endless rows of old, rusty metal racks that housed volumes and
volumes of periodicals. Something felt wrong. I
was confused seeing 2018 and 2019 labels on the
racks. I couldn't understand how the racks were
loaded with tons of newsprints when those vears
haven't come yet.
"Two years ago, I met you for the first time." She
said quietly as we reached the 2017 newspaper issues. "You sat on the corner table of the restaurant. In that same corner that was always reserved for me. The staff wanted to get you another table but I asked them to not bother you
anymore. I sat on the table next to yours."
"Wow. Really? I don't recall that we've met."
"Because we didnt. We never had the chance.
"We sure did after two years. l said forcing a smile. Saying it was two years didn't seem right.
I've frequented the restaurant more than any
other place in Seoul and I doubted the odds of not
seeing Jisoo throughout that time.
"I remembered everything that happened that
day... Unfortunately. No matter how hard I tried to
forget, it kept coming back." She met my eyes, and I saw the fear that I have been praying wasn't true.
"But why would you want to forget? Did I do
something to you?"
"No. If there was anything, it was that you unknowingly made me fall for you by doing nothing. I watched everything you did that day,
“from the way you slumped on the chair, to the
playful way you cut your cake, to the cute giggling
you made when you tasted it. Jennie, you were the most beautiful person I have ever seen.”
"And you are too, Chu. But why are you telling me
these things only now?" I wanted to believe that she was going to ask me to be her girlfriend, that's
why she started all that dramatic oration. But then
I remembered that she already asked me, and I've
given her my 'yes' together with my everything
She cleared as she pulled a large plastic binder of periodicals dated October 2017.
That day, I think you were too excited to finish
your cake that you coughed when the chocolate got stuck on your throat. I ran to you and offered you a bottle of water. You had a drink in front of you but you grabbed the Perrier bottle from my hand and drank all of it."
"I did that? I didn't know I was that shameless even then." l jested but not even a fake smile could emerge from our faces.
"That's why I always brought a Perrier bottle with
me, hoping you would be reminded of that day."
"I guess I still wasn't...?" I answered still thinking
how I could not recall something as out of the ordinary as that.
"You thanked me and you stood up to go to the
washroom. I waited for you so I could ask how you were and maybe get your name. But you were looking at your watch when you stepped into the
corridor. You didn't return to your table. You headed to the door."
"But I've always come back to the resto. Why didn't I see you? Maybe I would have remembered”
"Because after that day, I didn't return to the restaurant for more than a year."
"Did something happen?"
"Yes..." She laid the binder on one of the reading
tables that waited at the ends of the racks. She
scanned carefully the pages of the newspaper that
were delicately enclosed in acetate plastic sheets.
"What happened to you?'"
"Something happened that day... but not to me."
My heart dropped when she stopped ilipping the
pages. I couldn't mistake what I saw but I couldn't. I can't understand a single word from the article, not even from the large-print headline. I couldn't
speak. I felt dizzy and nauseated, like my gut swathed around my heart and my chest and I was suffocating. I stumbled toward Jisoo and she
readily hugged me and kissed my forehead. I was
trembling and felt my body slowly dissipating to
nothingness.
"This is not true..."
"I've always wanted to tell you but I was afraid of
seeing you like this and I won't be able to do anything." She said in between the light kisses she left on my forehead.
There were no words for fifteen minutes and she
just held me firmly and prevented my soul from
crumbling to the ground. Thoughts fled in and out
of my head. My heart broke in a hundred different
ways. Questions were countless but I didn't have the energy to
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