[09] The night we met
Santa Quaranta
Jongin finds no peace when sleeping. Constantly, his sleep is plagued by nightmares, new or recurring, meaningful or vain. He wakes up in the middle of the night, just when his visiting hours in Santa Quaranta are over. Whatever he experiences there, the awakening is the same: cold sweat running all over his body and heavy breathing as if he’s run away from someone chasing him. He used to write down what would happen to him and who he’d meet in the first few times he had visited the town. Then the notes became rarer and rarer, until he had one day forgotten about the journal. His visits to Santa Quaranta were kept in secret from family and friends. That’s how he had wanted it to be.
There is one old nightmare that kept replaying more often than the others. The car accident. It always unfolds in the same way: he’s suddenly in a car that he’s come to identify as a white Jaguar XK-E, his dream car, when a black Cobra 427 replica crashes into it. Not only that, but because of the frequency in which this dream repeats itself, Jongin thinks he’s able to identify the person who crashed him. A girl with long, brown hair. He doesn’t know if his mind has planted that image based on something he’s witnessed or if the girl is just a figment of his imagination, when it could be anyone in her place. Coincidentally, that dream from years ago is one of the reasons why Jongin decided to keep a journal, which turned into a dream log with time.
It’s a habit he’s thankful he hasn’t let go, because it is what helps him solve the riddle that is Shin Haneul. I met Shen Tian again today, but I don’t think that’s her real name.
The night at the XX club had put an end to his doubts. The red wig could fool anyone else but not him. In his eyes, it did little to conceal her identity. He couldn’t catch up with her after her performance, but Jongin knew he had to confront her as soon as possible, to finally learn the truth about her. About them.
Haneul, however, was doing her best to avoid Jongin. It was something he figured out she would do, but that didn’t discourage him. It was certain they would see each-other again.
Haneul refuses to go out of her house for days. She doesn’t respond to Kibum’s calls about meeting up and at some point, doesn’t read his messages anymore. That is until Kibum decides that enough is enough and threatens to throw down the door to her house.
Confronting her angry best friend is the last thing she wants to do, but Haneul reasons it’s even worse than not talking to him. She opens the door and is met by a furious Kibum.
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” is the first thing he tells her.
Haneul allows him to come in and brace
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