Doojoon had waited forever in his lifetime to be given a chance to do his own research.  He had waited forever to have his own lab where he can test many kind of things.  He had waited forever to finally fulfil his dream (or maybe his father’s dream actually) to achieve the highest state in his academic life, publishing his own research in an academic thesis.

So here he was, looking at the woman before him, assessing her physical.  She’s one simple woman – dressed in a free running event T-shirt and a black jacket from the university’s bookstore and a pair of jeans.  Her hair was stick together in bun by a pen.  Clearly, appearance was not considered a priority by her but Doojoon still thought she was pretty otherwise.

But, none of those were important for the research he participated in.  The important information here was that Gina was fit, albeit a bit skinny.  Doojoon looked at her details in the folder given to him by his professor.  There’s no significant medical history to be concerned for and she even exercised as regularly as twice a week.  Those descriptions were essential to ensure the success of his research and Doojoon was really determined to succeed in it.

“Why are you here?” he asked, sounded a bit rude for his first meeting with her but Doojoon did not care one bit about courtesy.

Gina gave him an ugly face (still was pretty to him), showing how she thought his question was silly that he shouldn’t be asking at all.  Doojoon decided to maintain his stony façade and eventually she gave in.

“I volunteer.  Duh…” she rolled her eyes.

“Thanks, Gina,” he said, sounded oh-so-sincere, “The professor said that you are one of the top ten percent undergrad students in the engineering department,” that was more a question than a statement.  Her lips were pressed in a thin line.

“I don’t know,” her tone implied she was slightly annoyed by Doojoon’s statement.  Doojoon thought that she must have had a bad day.

“How is my academic reputation significant to your research?  I thought we’re doing a pain research here,” she asked, clearly setting the boundary between a researcher and a test subject.  Business meant business.

She really must have had a rough day.

“Just want to get to know my test subject better,” he shrugged, but that actually was not the real reason.  Doojoon did not care one bit about any people.  He did his stuff and others did their stuffs.  That’s how life was to Doojoon.

What he did not know was that his statement hurt her a little bit, although not much.  She knew she was a test subject.  Oh, yes.  She volunteered for it.  But, he didn’t need to emphasize it so directly in her face.

“I still think that we should just get on with your experiment,” Gina replied very impatiently.

“You are aware that this experiment is about pain?” Doojoon asked again.

“I know,” she replied.

“You are aware that the test subject will be inflicted with some kind of pain so that it could be measured for the purpose of the research?” he asked another question quite similar to what he asked before, but in details.

“Well, I did sign the agreement,” she sighed, “The professor said you are smart.  You should know that I read all those stuff before I sign the agreement.  I am not an illiterate,” she replied sarcastically.

He turned his ears deaf, because he refused to deal with people’s emotion in his life, especially the negative one.  So, he assessed more of her profile and then looked at her again.  She stared at him blankly.  So, Doojoon turned away and started to prepare for the test.

“I’ll apply pressure, heat or electrical simulation to see how you react to it.  The dolorimeter should be able to calculate your pain threshold,” Doojoon explained.

“Yeah, I know.  Then you’ll record my pain endurance because this research is supposed to determine some kind of derivation and constants for people with different conditions in order to generalize the calculation of pain.  I think I studied the rules and regulation enough because I am not a person who simply volunteer to be a test subject,” Gina stated.

Doojoon felt like they were both in a tennis game, passing ball at the speed of a few miles per hour.  It was so tense, the way they talked to each other.

“Good to know that you are aware of everything,” Doojoon didn’t intend to sound very mean, but he did want to give back the sarcasm back to her.

“So, when do we start?  I don’t have all the time in the world for this,” she made sure her tone left an impression to him.  But, he looked unaffected by it.

“We can start right now, unless you have more things to talk about,” Doojoon replied quite mockingly and she shook her head.

Gina cursed silently in her mind.  She had a bad week and she thought that volunteering for this kind of experiment would help to create some kind of diversion for her.  She could never be more wrong in her life.  The researcher was not that nice as described by the professor.  She should know better.

But, if there’s one thing that she knew better than the others now, she knew the guy in front of her was a stone.  He should probably stand together with the Stonehenge and actually looked not any different.

+++++

It was her fourth time volunteering to be a test subject and Gina found that she was getting addicted to it.  No, it was not because of the handsome-but-stone researcher named Doojoon.  It was because she found satisfaction in it.  Painting was not enough to express herself nowadays and she needed something else to deal with the on-going pain she was experiencing.

“This is a research on pain and I was wrong when I thought nobody’s going to volunteer for it.  Someone is clearly having fun doing this,” Doojoon started, as he began the experiment.

“You don’t care about me having fun.  I don’t care about it.  Why bother?” Gina asked, her tone implying that she didn’t like to be made fun of.

“You’re damaging yourself, you know that.”

“You act like you care.”

“I do care.”

“Oh, please.  Don’t lie,” she snorted.

Doojoon wondered what had that woman so annoyed today.  On every meeting they had so far, there’s not a time he could see that woman smile.  Not that he smiles often too but Doojoon really thought that that woman must be dealing with something really stressful every day.  But, then again, she’s an undergrad student in engineering and engineering students were under pressure all the time.  She should get used to the stress by now.

Doojoon really got some creative ideas ranging from homework problem to hormones problem but judging on how unpredictable her emotion was – alternating between sweet-sarcastic and beastly-vindictive – today, it might be a relationship problem.  Either that or she’s having a painful period.

“Having some problem with relationship?” there, he said it.  She looked angry, as though he just invaded her personal space.  Well, he did, didn’t he?

“That’s personal.  Plus, I bet you don’t know what a relationship is,” Gina went again.  But, Doojoon was not going to let her get the wrong impression of him.

“Oh, try me,” he challenged.

Gina was angry.  Doojoon knew it.  She didn’t show it though.  But, Doojoon had just applied quite a huge amount of heat on her skin and she didn’t even react to it.  Only her eyes boring into his, emotion so wild and fiery could be seen from them. He moved the dolorimeter from her and carefully took a step back.

“We’re done for today,” Doojoon said.

Gina didn’t waste a moment.  She took her backpack and shouldered it.  She was satisfied.  She felt how it burnt.  She felt the pain in her hand.  She thought that was enough to satisfy her need of diversion.  She can deal with the rest of the pain when she painted later.

But before she stepped out of the lab, she turned to Doojoon and pouring all the curbed emotion to him, “You know what?  I personally think that you will never succeed in your research.  You can never measure pain,” she paused, “At least not true pain.”

And she left.

Doojoon hated it when she left because he did not get to reply her.  He hated it when people said he won’t succeed because he will succeed.  He had to.  But, Doojoon refused to feel angry.  He let it resided deep in his heart though, but he didn’t feel it.

Also, he might not realize it, but Doojoon hated that Gina left because he had gotten so used to her company in his lab.

+++++

On their fifth meeting, Doojoon was late.  He had to report to his professor before his lab session that day but his professor was busy helping a colleague who was having a problem booking a meeting room.  Doojoon was not all that happy with it.  He had to get to lab and he had to get there early.  Of course, it was because of his experiment, not because of a particular woman named Gina was waiting for him.

Right?

Gina decided to listen to her playlist while waiting.  It was a long wait, so long that she didn’t realise she was singing to those songs after a while.  She was too absorbed, too drowned in her escapism.  The world was not so bad after all.  Nobody expected anything from her.  She was free to express herself.  She was happy, so happy.

“You sing,” that, was his voice.  Gina was back to the reality of the harsh world, where the burden was so heavy on her shoulders that she wondered when they will break.

“I’m sorry?”

“You have a good voice,” Doojoon praised but his face was not showing any real enthusiasm when he said it.

“Oh.  I don’t know that Doojoon can praise.  I am so touched,” Gina said, confusing herself between being sarcastic or sincere.

“There’s more to me than what you see,” he replied.  Gina shrugged.

Soon, they were back to the usual routine.  Doojoon tested Gina and Gina endured the pain.  It hurt and sometimes it really hurt.  But, nothing hurt more than the pain that people couldn’t see or touch.  Nothing hurt more than the pain that has no cure.  When the session ended, Gina had more bruises added to her collection.  She had more burnt mark added to her collection.

“You have high pain endurance,” Doojoon stated.

Gina looked at Doojoon and Doojoon stared back.  Eyes met eyes, but both failed to read each other’s.  Gina’s lips thinned.  Doojoon was clueless.  He didn’t know how she actually could not handle her own pain.  He didn’t know that he had somehow played an important part in controlling that pain she was experiencing.

“No.  I don’t,” she answered his statement, “But, I am very good in creating diversions,” and she left.

+++++

Gina volunteered for the sixth times when it was too hard for her to distract herself from her own miserable feelings.  She started to worry on how eager she was to get hurt again and again but she would rather bear the physical pain.  So, there she was, the only one crazy student in the university who would sit on the lab stool, volunteering for more than once on a pain research.

“I saw you at the gym yesterday,” Doojoon started a conversation.

“Oh, yeah?  You went to the gym?  I actually started to think that you eat, sleep and practically live in this lab,” Gina started a joke, a cynical kind of joke.  But, Doojoon didn’t display hurt or anger.

“And I started to think that your face is made of stone.  It cannot show any emotion since it is so hard and brittle,” she continued joking.

“What kind of emotion do you want me to show you?” Doojoon asked.

“I don’t know.  Maybe I want to see you smile at least once,” she suggested.

“Women usually hate it when I smile,” Doojoon stated.  Gina snorted.

“Why?”

“They cannot handle my handsomeness,” Doojoon replied.  Gina snorted even louder.

“Oh, right.  I am talking to a narcissist,” she rolled her eyes.  Doojoon didn’t say anything for a while.

“You dance until you hurt your leg yesterday and it is still bandaged today.  And you come here to ask for more pain,” Doojoon stated.

Gina was rendered speechless.  So, he did noticed that she asked to be hurt.  Gina did not like it.  She felt like her personal space was invaded, although it was not at all his fault.  She kind of made it obvious, she admitted it.  Honestly, who volunteered to be hurt for six times?  But, she decided not to answer his statement.

“And you care about that why?”

It was Doojoon’s turn to lose his words.  A few weeks ago, that woman was just his test subject and still was his test subject at that moment.  Why did it agitate him so much to hurt her?  He had no answer to that.  But, there’s something about her that made the empathetic part of him resurface after it was buried and deformed centuries ago.

“I care about how you are hurting yourself.”

“Why do you care?  Aren’t you happy that someone is helping you with your research?”

“I am more than happy that things go well for me,” Doojoon paused, searching for the right words, “But, at the same time it feels not right to have you hurt all the time.”

Gina was taken aback by his statement.  She did not like it at all.  She did not know whether it was because she was so wrong about how heartless he was, or simply because she agreed with him.  He felt it was not right about how she was hurt all the time.  But why fate didn’t think the same?

But, again, what do you know about pain, Doojoon?

“No.  Don’t, really.  I wish I got hit by a car!  But, it was either I was too careful or even cars in this world just find me unattractive.  But, I really need this kind of diversion.  Other things didn’t work to take the pain away.  I can’t hurt myself because I don’t have the courage.  Having people doing this to me would be much easier than to think of nine different ways to get hurt physically without having to be brave.  You need a test subject and I need someone to hurt me to take the pain away.  It works both ways.  So, why do you care so suddenly?” Gina burst.  Her long curbed emotion shot to the surface like a geyser.

Doojoon was surprised by her answer.  But, his face was that emotionless that Gina didn’t notice the flicker of sympathy in it.

“You are not taking the pain away.  You are only hurting yourself even more by volunteering for this,” Doojoon said.  Gina knew that Doojoon knew what kind of pain she was referring to.  But, Doojoon was Doojoon.  He didn’t talk non-scientific things and that drove Gina crazy.

“No!  No.  You see?  You don’t understand, do you?” Gina ran her fingers through her already tangled hair, “This is what I mean when I told you that you can never succeed in this.  You can never measure true pain.  The pain I am talking about is this kind of pain,” Gina pointed to her heart, “You are so heartless.  You don’t feel that pain and that pain hurt the most.  Maybe your life is good all along.  Yeah, you are handsome, smart, rich, you have every-”

“No!