[CONTENTID1]002[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]Ghosts of Love[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

1981

 The red cup that sat before her became less and less appealing. Her appetite ran away like a sheep being chased by a wolf. In the eighteen years of her existence, Misun had lost count of the times she had been forced to watch such a scenery while her food grew cold. She hoped there would not be a bloody finger sitting on a plate before her by the end of this episode. Her fingers itched, she found herself dying to stop the hysterical outbursts of her uncle over the slightest mention of constitutional government. Yet she calmed herself down, not interested in having one of her beautiful fingers chopped off. 

 Her family remained quiet. The servants shook with fear, their knees rattling with each other, eyes digging the dish they carried. There was the lonely sound of whips, the occasional gasps from her cousin and the spluttering of his blood on the walls of this thousand-year old dining hall. 

 "When will you ever learn?" He spoke and the six sharp tails of the whip landed on his . When the man raised it to whip him again, Misun noticed the pieces of his flesh stuck to the end, the wound on his back indicated that he was likely to lose more than one finger today. "Taste your words before you spit them out, son," The slender man continued, lowering his voice to the point it sounded like the most threatening whisper. "Those democrat bastards will not put blood in your cup."

 This fear was overused. Misun stared at her cousin's face, watching the dead pupils showcase the cold anger burning his insides. On his two hands, he only had six fingers. If she could, Misun would help him preserve those six. But there was no way he would not throw bombs at Communist parades, no way he would stop planning his own father's impossible death, no way his desire to overthrow the government would ever cease to exist. Suho would never learn.

 "Take him," the foot that pressed Suho down was adorned by a jeweled shoe. His father pressed on his raw skin with the coarse surface as if he was putting a cigarette off. Suho did not scream. His remaining fingers pushed on to the floor. The stubborn cousin of hers stayed mum, not bending under his father's shoe. While he was being dragged away, the trail of his blood colored the carpets. And his father said, "I want two."

 No one dared to draw a breath even. Her other cousins included Sunghoon and Sewool who have each lost a finger and stopped right there with their recklessness. Before Misun sat Rachel who was horrified by the family practices, having arrived from Norway only a week ago to a house buzzing with election spirits and...a lot of blood. Misun caught the quivering of her 7-year-old sister's fingers, immediately wrapping her hand around hers under the table.  Sunmi's hold tightened as the soon-to-be minister walked back to his place at the head of the table. Misun's father sat on his right, boring holes into his plate just like everyone else at the silent table.

 "I must win tomorrow," the voice of Jung Sung-il boomed in the hall. "Let us become the supreme example of a prestigious Communist family in our precious motherland." He raised the red cup in the air. In a surprising synchronization, his family followed suit. Misun reluctantly mouthed the two lines of the song Jung Sung-il made them memorize before swallowing the content. It soothed her nerves, traveling down and calming her heart. 

 The knock on the door startled her. The servant who walked in carried with him the infamous dish covered with a silver lid. Between the two candle stands, he placed the dish as ordered. When he opened the lid, there they were, the reminder to never betray Jung Sung-il's Communism, to avoid democracy like a plague, to stay true and loyal and forever captive.

 Two bloody fingers. Just as Misun had expected. 

  "He has a chauffeur. He must be filthy rich," Liling was examining someone through the gap in the bookshelf that she had created by taking a book out, a book she will never read. Misun took the next book out to make the gap wider. She found herself staring at the guy who she had been noticing in almost every of her classes now. His name was Sehun and it stuck with her because the name didn't sound Chinese at all. Of course, there existed other reasons too for which she remembered his name. For one, he was quite good to look at.

 His coats were expensive, his hair was short and prim, a black frame rested on the bridge of his nose, continuously traveling downwards due to the smooth slope of his nose. It was almost funny to watch him struggle with it during class. Otherwise, he was calm and collected, minding his own business yet somehow having twenty plus friends in the campus already. While Misun was having to do with Liling, that one girl who finally found a friend and didn't have any other.

 "So what? He looks quite dumb to me," Misun murmured, snatching the book from Liling's hand and blocking the gap with the two books. "Tame guys are not my style," she added, turning to another shelf to search for the book she wanted. 

 However, as they now navigated an island together without a freaking compass, Misun would love to take her words back. She was dying to go back in time and tape her own mouth before she pronounced that Sehun looked dumb. The sound of the stream gave rise to the hair on her skin. The trees swayed in the bitter cold wind that blew from their right. The infamous guy stood on the boulder path that connected the two banks of the dangerous stream and tried to match what he saw before himself with the map he held which was half drenched in rain, half torn. 

 Sehun was not keen to keep her company. She was way too loud that day in the library. When Misun lost her group in the middle of the forest due to immersing herself into how two flies were making baby on a leaf nearby, the sudden rain brought her back to her senses. By then, her study group had long left without her. Terrified and with a wet map in her possession, she was crying like a baby, sitting under a tree. 

 It was then when Sehun appeared out of nowhere, having lost a piece of his own map and detached from his group. "I heard someone crying..." those were the first words he ever spoke to her. "It's you...how disappointing," Sehun sighed so dramatically that Misun couldn't help but let out a big sob that made him jump away from her. Her wet clothes did a poor job at covering her from the shivering cold. Sehun disappeared for two seconds before coming back with a huge leaf he had torn from a nearby tree.

"Wrap this around. Cry louder so that someone comes to your rescue. I hope it isn't someone carnivorous," he remarked cheekily. Misun was not surprised that he was jabbing at her situation in this way. 

 As cruel as it sounded, Sehun left her there with a leaf to escape the cold. But eventually, the guy had to return and a shocked Misun heard him say, "Do you...um...have a map. Mine's torn so..."

 And just like that, they were now looking for a way back to their warm camp, to the bonfires and marshmallows. Together. Misun had attached half of his map to half of her soggy one and the two of them collected enough tiny twigs to hold the two parts of the same map together. After spending several hours with the supposedly stupid guy, Misun was regretting her judgement. It was clear as day that only Sehun could get the two of them out safely now. However, the sun didn't wait for anyone to find their camp, did it? As the regret of joining this study tour ate Misun from head to toe, her stomach ached for some food. The unfavorable weather had prevented her clothes from drying properly. They were beginning to smell. The awful stench was too much for someone who bathed twice a day. Misun felt like breaking down in another puddle of tears. 

 Sehun racked his brain, wondering just how deep within the forest he had led himself into. The trouble was that he wasn't alone. He was carrying a headache, the price he had to pay for half a piece of the map. If it weren't for the difficulty he was facing in returning safely to his friends, Sehun would have breathed in the fresh air, relatively free of technology and let his mouth open in the awe of nature, the branches twisting above his head and building a canopy of such intricate designs, the crystal clear water traveling through the gaps of stones untouched by humans. Maybe, just maybe, he was the first person to ever crush them under his shoes. Sehun focused on the map. There wasn't any such indicator that pointed towards their camp. He wasn't as familiar with Chinese as he had expected himself to be by now. 

 He looked over his shoulder to find the girl shivering in the cold. The sun was now shining from behind the taller trees. Sehun clicked his tongue. Being lost in a forest filled with carnivorous friends was probably better than having her around him while being lost. Sehun couldn't put his finger on it but there was something about this girl that pulled him towards her. Involuntarily, he found himself coming back to her and being an expert at lying, he convinced her that he was only there for the map...in the back of his head, he just wanted to help her.

 But the trouble was that she seemed so ready to break down into tears even if a branch scratched her skin. They didn't talk for the majority of their way here, mainly because Sehun kept ignoring her questions until she stopped talking. He disliked the fact that for a second there, he wavered and now he was having to carry her around on his shoulders. 

 "Do you really know how to get us out of here?"

 "I think I'm doing a better job than you are anyway," he replied. And well, it was perhaps a relief he was lost in a forest with someone who spoke his language. But he would rather she didn't talk at all. Misun snorted. Sehun heard a thud and looked over his shoulder to see that she had dropped her backpack and crouched low. Her gray shorts only came down to her knees, white t-shirt now all brown from the rain and dirt she had walked through. She jutted her pointer out and dipped it into the water of the running stream, as if testing how hot or cold it was. "Stay away from the water, whoever you are!"

 Misun instantly raised her head to shoot him a murderous glare. It wasn't fair that she knew his name and he didn't know hers. Sehun shrugged, "Unless you have a death wish, I don't know."

 "My name is Misun!" 

 "Oh, look at how many s I give to that," Sehun went back to his map. He could feel her glare on his. They were only some feet away. If she threw a rock at him, she would probably hit him even if she was crappy at scoring targets. So Sehun moved two stones away from her. 

 What came at him was a cold splash of water to his dry body. Sehun froze, blood rushing towards his head at the annoyance she generated out of him. "What is your problem," he murmured under his breath. He was ready to throw up at the fact that for a split second he had found her pretty. 

 Misun made a face at him when he looked at her. "Why are you so hurt that I don't know your name?" He asked. "You're not a celebrity. You're just a stupid girl who gets lost while staring at insects while they have --"

 Misun splashed more water on his face and the freezing temperature made him silent for a moment. It was as if the coldness was biting at his brain. "I'm trying to get us out of here, Misun," saying her name feels weird, like chanting a magic spell that will turn the world black. Misun stared at him with glassy eyes, as if challenging him to bring up the story of how she got lost again. But Sehun sighed, giving in. "There, I said it. Misun."

 "Never say it again!" She screamed at him. Splashing more and more water at him like a crazy woman. Sehun understood that she was way too sensitive about her story of watching insects in action. "It sounds so ugly when coming from your mouth. And you think you're saving the day?! I can get myself out her just fine--"

 "Says the one who was crying right under a bee hive because she couldn't find her friends," he jutted in. "Shut up and let me work over here." 

 Her eyes widened at the beehive he had mentioned. "What..." Sehun kept his gaze on her for two more seconds, watching her process what danger she had been under. "Does...does not make any difference! You were dumb enough to lose the other half of the map! And now you have been staring at it for three hours too!"

 Sehun raised his brows, watching her stand up, make her way towards him. Misun snatched the map out of his hand. Her eyes traveled from one end of the map to the other as if she was seeing it for the first time ever. Sehun snickered at her attempt when three seconds passed and not a word came out of . 

 "There...is a mountain," she pointed towards the pinnacle that shone under the setting sun in the far east. "Here is a mountain," and she pointed at the large triangle on the map. "We should go to the mountain."

 Sehun chuckled at the random suggestion. "Why?"

 "We can...see our camp from up there," he noticed how small her voice grew. It washed down all the frustration in his body. It was weird how satisfied he was while watching her stutter in front of him. "Stop laughing. I made good progress in just thirty seconds, okay?"

 "First of all," Sehun began. "That is not a mountain."

 "It is! This red triangle! I know!"

 "No, that is an indicator," Sehun corrected her with much satisfaction, watching her pale cheek gain color. "The mountain you're talking about is this one," he touched her hand and removed it from the spot she was hiding underneath it. "Here," he said, forgetting that he was still holding her hand. Misun blinked at the picture before her lips pursed into a pout, wishing she hadn't made this dumb move. But when she realized her cold hand was gripped in something so warm and sweaty, her cheeks grew redder. Misun blinked again, eyes on the map, wondering if she should raise her head. He was too close to her body now. It was her fault for placing herself there in the first place. It was her instincts, asking her, tempting he