Angel’s Diary Five, Aera

Friday, August 23, 2013

Dear Diary,

It had been well past midnight when Mrs Oh and I reached Se Hun’s home. I felt her shaking as she watched me unlock the gate and the heavy wood door with the key I’d taken from Se Hun. Water swirled in her eyes as she stepped into the spick and span house, taking her own sweet time to absorb everything in again. I have no idea how much had changed since she left, but probably not too much as I observed Mrs Oh’s glazed eyes. She was back in time, eleven years ago. I’m surprised that she had remained with that malicious pig for that long of a time and never actually got married. In fact, she was still considered ‘Mrs Oh’ legally. Which made this whole problem so much easier. I let her roam as I hid her suitcase in the dark storeroom in the house, as gently as possible.

I keep a lookout for Se Hun anxiously as I wait in the apartment lobby with his mum, who is wringing her hands in obvious worry. Her brows knitting, she stares down at her lap as if it is the best thing in the world. Se Hun should be arriving soon. How will he react to seeing his long-lost mum? I am so damn curious.

I hear the quiet chatter before I see them emerge from behind the pillars. Se Hun and Kai laughing about something, and Cheyenne lingering behind them, seemingly bored to death. “Se Hun!” I call. Se Hun raises his head to meet my eyes, and his eyes fall on the woman behind me, whom I can sense is approaching. I keep my eyes on my ward as I step aside to reveal my ‘surprise’. I watch Se Hun’s face blanch to ghost-white, and his wall seems to crumble at that very moment.

“Se….Hun…” Mrs Oh’s is barely audible as she takes tiny, tentative steps towards her son.

“You…” Se Hun’s eyes widen to impossible sizes. His head begins to shake, first in slow motion, and then it seems to swing from side to side more violently, his golden-brown hair flying, like as if he is trying to shake something off himself. “No, no…It cannot be her-”

“Se Hun! It’s mum. I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Mrs Oh forsakes her slow steps and throws herself at her tall son, wrapping her arms tightly around a shocked-still Se Hun. His mouth parts and he makes no move to return the hug. Sensing it, Mrs Oh heartbreakingly starts unwinding her arms. My subconscious tells me to leave, to give them some space. They need their privacy with this sort of complicated . I glance at Kai and Cheyenne, who are staring hard at the scene before them, trying to understand what is happening. I grab hold of them by the sleeves and haul them all the way to the park.

“Whoa, wait. Was that…Who I believe her to be?” Kai wrenches his sleeve free from my grasp and points behind us with his thumb. I release Cheyenne at the same time and sit on the edge of the stone fountain. I hold his gaze for a while, and nod.

“If you’re thinking it’s his mother. Then, yes, you’re right. They need space to talk things over,” I mutter. Kai shakes his head in disbelief, mimicking my ward’s previous actions. “I cannot believe it. She’s been gone like…Forever. Hunnie didn’t even know if she was alive. And you…you found her…” Kai glances down at me with amazement. I shrug.

“Aera, spit it out. How did you do it?” Cheyenne finally decides to speak. I sigh as I stare at the falling water droplets from the fountain, reluctant to retell the awful story. But I do so, anyway.

They listen in almost complete silence as I tell the story, gasping softly when I go through the sneaky process of getting Mrs Oh’s number. “So, you’re done with your task? It’s just completed, like…that?” Cheyenne’s already big eyes increase further in size. I raise both my shoulders again. I don’t know. It all seemed too…easy. Too surreal. “You’re probably a record breaker now. I don’t think anyone completes his or her task within…” my BFF ticks off her fingers, “within a week?” I bite my lip.

“I don’t know, I feel it’s kinda incomplete, too, somehow.”

Cheyenne exchanges a look with her ward, which I am growing closer to, and squeezes her temples in puzzlement.

I avoid history replaying itself by darting into Se Hun’s dark and quiet room and staring dazedly up at the ceiling as bits of the conversation of the trio in the living room floats through the door and into my ears. It is faint, but I can make out words like ‘believe’. Apparently, Mr Oh nearly fainted when he rested his eyes on his still-legal wife after ages. They then decided to chat late into the night and try to catch thing up. I did tell Se Hun’s guilty mum that she would be forgiven sooner or later, didn’t I? My words have now come true.

I haven’t the slightest idea what time it is when I hear the door to the room click softly open. I am about three-quarters asleep, my eyelids barely up. It had been a tiring day for me, anyway, after all the excitement.

“Aera?” I groan something incoherent when Se Hun creeps over to my sofa and bends down over me, his hand trying to determine if I was asleep. I swat at the blurring hand with long fingers, annoyed. Se Hun stops when I make contact with his hand, and squats down beside me. “Hey, I just wanna…well, thank you for letting one of my biggest dreams to come true…y’know.” He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly as I fully open an eye to stare at him. He returns the look, and I sit up.

“I promised, didn’t I? I told you it was possible.” I lift the corner of my mouth briefly. “Did you forgive her?” Se Hun sits down, leaning against my ‘bed’ as his eyes focus on the darkness in front of him.

“I-I couldn’t really, yet. The wound still hurts. But maybe tomorrow, or a few days later, maybe even weeks, I will. Unless this turns out to be a dream and she disappears.” His deep voice resonates in the air.

“It’s no dream, that I can assure you.” I nod solemnly. Forgiveness isn’t an attribute that can be easily given away, I understand. We remain in the exact same position in silence for a minute or two, before he opens his mouth first. His words seem to slice through the quiet room like a knife.

“She talked to me about you. What you did, your contribution to my reunited family.”

I breathe in sharply. Dang! I forgot to tell Mrs Oh my secret isn’t supposed to be spilled! Does Mr Oh know now? Se Hun turns, and seems to read my panicking mind. “My father doesn’t know. She somehow guessed it was rather private. I told her about your true objective to staying here, though.” Se Hun blinks up at me through his thick lashes. I slump back into my sofa. I guess it doesn’t matter much. What can be done, now that she knew, anyway? Nothing much, it’s not like I can just simply wipe her memory of me off. I don’t possess that power.

“It’s okay. What’s done is done,” I mumble. Se Hun regards me with a weird expression.

“So, does that mean you’re going back up for the judgment soon? Now that you’ve completed what you’re meant to do?” he asks, his voice somewhat strained. My brows meet as I frown at him, and sigh.

“Truth is, I don’t know. It’s been like, only a week. I believe it’s way too short for a task to be completed, and I feel like something’s still not right, anyway,” I say. My ward merely inclines his head a little curtly and stands to return to his comfy bed. He stops while lifting back his covers, and shoots me a look in the dark again.

“Thanks, anyway,” he utters and slips into bed, pulling the duvet over his body. At the mention of those words, somehow, my heart seems to flutter and warm in my chest before I succumb to the beckoning of Sleep.

Feeling really tired,

AeRa~ Zzz