05 - UNWARRANTED
U N W A R R A N T E D
. C H A P T E R F I V E .
At 9 in the morning Chansung wakes up at the sound of Fei snoring. It isn’t one of those disturbing snores, really. In fact it doesn't really sound like a snore. It's more of heavy breathing, and Chansung laughs at the sight of the girl so peaceful in her sleep. He always had this weird for staring at sleeping girls. He believes that a girl is at her most beautiful state when she’s asleep. It’s cause their face looks more relaxed, less tensed, away from the worries life brought them. It is in their sleep that they are able to flash the perfect of the most perfect features.
He suddenly tries to recall his dream from earlier, surprised at how he so vaguely remembers everything in it. He normally remembers his dreams in detail when he wakes up in the morning. Somehow, it is different this time.
His phone rings and he breaks off from his trance. He reaches the coffee table beside the bed for it, and accepts the call.
“Hello?”
“Heeeeeeeyyy!” The guy in the other line whoops loudly, and Chansung flinches away from his phone as if in disgust.
“Geez, will you speak low? You’re ruining my ears Jay!” He hisses.
“Hey what’s with all this negativity so early in the morning!” He speaks even louder, and Chansung shakes his head in disbelief. “So… how as it? Was she good? Was she good?”
Chansung sighs at the phone, obviously annoyed by his friend’s eagerness with things like these. He never understood how he ended up being friends with Jay. They were the total opposite of each other. Perhaps that’s why he likes to think of Jay as his stabilizer, whenever he runs out of reason for their friendship. Someone that kept him and his ways stable, someone at the other end of the rope, tugging so he doesn’t lose balance.
“You’re killing me here.” Jay interrupts Chansung’s thoughts. “So tell me already. Was she good?”
He glances at Fei, who is still looking so peaceful in her sleep. “Yes she was good okay? She is good. Now can I get off the phone so I could continue with my day?”
“Hoooly mother of- So you really did it huh? You did it, did you? Wait are you still doing it? Are you? Are you still-” Before Jay can even start off another question that might just ruin his day, Chansung puts down the call without hesitation, tossing the phone on the bed as he reaches for his coat on the dresser chair. He puts it on, and rips off a piece of paper from the Hotel pad on the coffee table. He feels his coat for a pen, and uses this to write a note.
He puts on his leather shoes, and slips his phone in his pocket. He takes a last look at the girl so peaceful in her sleep, and leaves the note just beside her with a smile.
Hey Fei,Wow that rhymed. Thank you for last night. I had fun. Sorry I couldn’t interrupt you while you were snoring. I have to go work on my research. Then again, I might consider… doing you. If you know what I mean. Call me when you need me.Chansung
When Fei wakes up to this, her lips curl at both ends, for the umpteenth time since she had been with Chansung. Just the mere thought of this man remembering her name and leaving a note to her sends a sudden chill through her body.
o0o0o0o
Sunye and Sunmi returns home at dusk, still completely dumbfounded about what just happened. Sunye opens their front door sighing, as if in utter frustration.
She’s failed. Yet she knows she is never giving up on Yeeun, at least not yet.
“I swear I’m never going in that house again.” Sunmi declares, shrugging off her coat. “I mean, did you see the look on her face? That was just-”
“Look, I’m tired. Can we not talk about this now?” Sunye mutters, sinking in their couch discharged. She is obviously not in the mood for this. She rests his head on her palms, slightly rubbing them against her temples.
They sit there in silence, Sunmi examining the look on her sister’s face. “Sun, can I ask you a question?” She finally starts, directing the conversation into a more serious mood. Sunye looks up at her unmindfully. “What?”
She hesitates for a moment, but continues. “Why do you care so much? About getting to know her?”
Sunye sighs, burying her face into her palms once more.
Silence.
“I mean, why does it bother you so much that you might not be able to know her or talk to her?”
“I don’t know…” She lies. And she knows her sister is lying too. About not knowing why. They both know very well why. “It’s just... I want to paint her…” She mutters, trying to rid of the thoughts lingering in her mind. “It’s really just that, I guess.” Another lie.
It isn’t just that. It is something they both know so well in the back of their minds. Something that’s been lingering in their thoughts eversince they heard of the woman moving in town – the mad woman everybody refused to talk to. Something that had made Sunmi want to know things about her. Even something that had made Sunye want her to be the subject of her paintings, the life of her canvases.
She is special. And they both know very well why.
“Okay then.” Sunmi surrenders with a sigh. “I’m starving... I’ll cook dinner okay?” She suggests, rising from the couch. “You stay here and... rest for a while.”
Sunye idly nods, obviously too tired to argue. She watches her sister walk towards the kitchen. She moves so keenly, as if knowing what to do exactly, her lean body behind the kitchen counter. She’s grown so much over the years. Sunye looks at her as she rummages over the refrigerator for food and collects the spices she needed.
She can’t take her eyes off her busy sister. She reminds her so much of their mother. Her feeble but clear eyes, her nose so high at the bridge, her queer ways of doing things, her bizarre attitude. Sometimes she wonders what part of her own face or her whole being she’d gotten from their mother. She remembers her being beautiful, her skin looking as if never aging even over countless years.
She was gentle, warm, welcoming. No wonder she’d gotten two men fall in love with her enough to marry her. And she had loved them both too – equally. Or at least that’s what their mother used to tell them, whenever they asked who she loved more among their fathers – back when Sunmi and herself were both too young to understand anything about love, and marriage, and divorce, and having to deal with a half-sister, and everything else in between.
Sunye sighs at her thoughts, a bittersweet smile escaping her faint lips. She was wonderful – their mother. The one and only thing she’d never been able to accept about her is that she is a was. A was that had happened. A was that used to stand beside them in church, in shopping malls, even in school gatherings. A was that’s never coming back. And what saddens her more is the fact that she’d made herself a was.
She took her own life one day, a spilled bottle of sedative pills on her hand, leaving her and Sunmi nothing – not even a letter explaining why. And even after six years of silent grief, of longing, of trying to figure out what she could have possibly thought upon deciding to kill herself… they were never able to understand why.
And what terrified her more than anything else is that perhaps if only they’d tried to understand why earlier, they could’ve been able to stop her. To make her feel better. To tell her how much they loved her no matter what. But they couldn’t.
Cause they never saw it coming. Not until the sight of her feeble body on her bed, arms hanging at the side with a bottle of sedative pills on one hand, newly bought but nearly empty.
. A U T H O R N O T E S .
I have a feeling you guys are getting bored with all my uneventful pre-plotting. I couldn't think so much these days because of school and other stuff. Don't worry though, the next chapter will be a more eventful and significant one. We're nearing the part where they meet.
Also, I kind of read the whole thing over again a couple of times, and noticed some grammatical errors indeed, with my tenses. So I kind of edited them. I want to thank the people who cared enough to let me know. And to Starlight Review Shop (@awesomeGEE) for being so honest with the story's glitches.
I hope you don't get bored so much that you abandon this. LOL. I love you guys.
Chapter seven is finally up! Though I'm telling you guys to not put your hopes too high up there. It's such a short update, but things are happening! - UNWRNTD
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