r o s e d u s t, chp 3
· c h a p t e r 3 ·
The days passed, and Hara kept coming.
She came usually during the night the first few times, at around 2:00AM as Key took note of, and she would come wearing her pyjamas and bare-footed, clearly after she had gotten ready for bed. Key had a hunch that with her bandmates awake and alert during the day, they kept watch of her and stopped her from coming, so she decided to go out when they were asleep.
However, it changed after the fourth day, and Hara started coming in warmer clothes and comfortable slippers. Key was positive that Nicole and the others picked up quickly on her routine and prepared her. It made him wonder why they didn’t prevent her from coming altogether like when day came.
But the day was filled with much more dangerous things than just the cold of the night. The media were lurking around, and this strange behavior would then leak into another scandal everyone was sure Hara would not be able to handle.
So, she came during the night, like a ghost, entering simply to go sit in Minho’s room, go through the books where left his touch, wear the warm sweaters that still had his scent, lie in his bed that still had his presence.
The other Shinee members couldn’t help but find the way she was acting very disturbing, so ultimately the manager decided to change the locks. All the members except Key, who didn’t say anything for or against the matter, voiced their opinions on this idea, hoping Hara would simply leave and go home when she discovered she wouldn’t be able to come in.
But Key knew it wouldn’t be simple like that. Not from the way Hara’s eyes burned as they did that night he confronted her. She wouldn’t give up like that, even if her mind had more strength than her body.
A week after Hara’s first unexpected visit, the locks were changed and the members were given a new key, all of them instructed to not reveal this to anyone else.
Strangely, Hara didn’t come that night, when Key purposely stayed awake waiting for her, anticipating what she would do when she came.
Would she bang on the door until someone let her in, or just get bored and go home?
Key didn’t know why he even cared. He didn’t know why he was making himself look like he was worried about what she would do. He was just curious, that’s all.
The morning after came and Key found himself waking peacefully. He thought of it as a good thing, which meant the plan to keep Hara away had worked, only to his shock when Taemin found her asleep outside next to the door, curled up in a ball to protect herself from the cold night, having fallen asleep against the doorframe and slid down when her knees gave way.
While Onew frantically ran to his room to get a blanket and Jonghyun hurried off to call the manager, Key was left with Taemin to get the petite, semi-conscious girl inside. Setting her down gently on the sofa, Key felt a lump in his throat when he saw her shivering, all huddled up in a heap, puffing clouds of breath from her blue lips, Minho’s useless spare key still clutched tight in her small pale hands.
How long was she standing there, trying to turn that key in the lock?
The day passed and the night came, Hara didn’t come. Key waited for her this time, staring at the door intently, but she still didn’t come.
The night after and the night after passed, and she still didn’t come.
He was pretty sure it wasn’t because she learned her lesson, since a girl found half-conscious after being left in the cold all night would need so long to regain her strength.
And he was right.
She did come back again, at the strike of 2, as always. Rather than the jiggle of keys and the slight squeak of the door opening, Key heard a rustle as the key was carefully inserted into the lock, then a brief clatter when it refused to move, followed by a scratching noise of fingernails on the wooden surface of the door. Key watched for five minutes, he counted, but it didn’t stop, so he got up and reached for the handle, keeping his arm at length and turned it. It sprang open straight away and Key removed his hand just in time for Hara to walk in without seeing him.
At least… if she even bothered to notice him standing there instead of heading straight to Minho’s door right across the room.
Key guarded the door the next couple of nights, knowing she would be back, scratching on the wood like a puppy that had been punished to sleep outside. He observed her steps in opening the door, entering the apartment, going to Minho’s room and flicking on the light, sitting down on his bed and flicking through his comic books while hugging his pillow to her chest… all of it becoming a routine he could predict down to the exact amount of seconds it took her.
It was so pitiful.
She was fond of the porcelain knight and horse, always picking it up and holding it the entire time she stayed, and Key watched with disdain as she would smile at it as if it were a child, clean off the non-existent dust, and then set it back again the next morning when she was picked up by either her manager or one of her bandmates.
The cycle repeated itself.
After a few nights Key took away her useless spare key and replaced it with the new one, so that she could let herself in rather than him having to wait on her to open the door. He still waited though, sitting at a distance on the sofa and watching her with a line etched across his smooth forehead, his presence never acknowledged as she slipped away into her own little world.
Key watched her pine, watched her long, watched her wear her heart at her sleeve, and he waited. He waited for her to break, for her to cup her hands over her heart and feel it beat faster and faster and faster and faster until it shattered into pieces with a silvery sting. He waited for her to snap in two like the beautiful, delicate flower she was.
But she didn’t.
One night, Hara’s routine changed very abruptly, taking Key by surprise. He leaned against the door frame with crossed arms as Hara kneeled over a pile of clothes, folding them up neatly before jumbling them back into a heap again. she seemed to be having fun, laughing in ways he hadn’t heard since long, long ago, or maybe it was just her being crazy and him not being able to remember her real laugh correctly.
She suddenly stood up and abandoned the messy pile of clothes, her happy expression fading out into a solemn one, like it always would when she stopped to take a breath and realize she’s too tired, too old and too embarrassed for this. Lowering her head, she marched out of the room, brushing past Key who was still staring at the spot she was standing a few seconds ago.
She had never left by herself before, and Key’s eyes caught the window next to the tall shelf, and the sun had yet to peek up to chase away the inky blackness of the night. He heard the door snap shut and spun around to find Hara gone.
Good, she was probably going to head home now. Finally going home to where she was supposed to be instead of dwelling around in a place where she didn’t belong. Anymore.
As much as Key repeated in his head that Hara was simply going home, he still inched to the coat stand and pulled on his jacket before stepping outside, following her invisible footsteps out of the dorm, into the streets of Seoul nightlife.
At this time, in this area where idols were safe from their fans and photographers, everything was quiet and peaceful. There were so many bright street lamps that everything glowed a dull orange colour instead of just the natural light of the moon. It was cold too and Key huffed as he looked up and down every correlating street for signs of movement.
He saw a distant figure walking, or skipping apparently, down the alleyway towards the highway near the Han River, and from the way her long hair swayed, he knew it was Hara. Key sighed and rolled his eyes; that wasn’t where Kara’s dorm was.
What was she doing now?
He quietly caught up to her when she stopped by the side of the river, daringly walking along the edge with her arms stretched out like it was a tightrope.
She was smiling again, beaming in fact, and she glanced up at him with a bright, wonderfully bright smile and waved, seeing him, seeing everything as it was through her still dreamy eyes, in a fantasy world where it had everything she loved when the real world actually didn’t.
A sudden gust of wind hit them without warning, and right before Key’s eyes, she fell, disappearing off the edge like a leaf caught in the wind.
The world went silent and Key could only stare with unblinking eyes.
It wasn’t because he was worried for Hara’s well-being when he started moving quickly, when he was hastily pulling off his jacket and throwing it onto the ground and his heart racing like he was in a marathon. No, he really could care less, but he convinced himself there’d be too much of a fuss over this. His manager would scold him with curse words in Korean, Chinese, Japanese and English all at once, his members would lecture him for hours about why he didn’t do this or that, and Nicole would cry again.
So he ran. He ran and ran and ran until he felt his chest would explode, not because he cared, but to simply save him time to make sure she wasn’t dead.
He leapt over the edge and immediately found himself sliding dangerously down the sloped wall, and he tried to grab onto anything, anything, before he splashed down in the chilling water. It came over his head once, twice, three times, the water moving in and out aggressively and slamming him into the wall of the dock before Key was able to take a breath, still frantically searching for something to grab hold of.
The waves pulled him under one more time before his reflexes shot out and found a floating piece of wood. He took it in two hands and drove it deep into the gap in the wall, making sure it was firm enough to hold onto and keep his head above the water. Key searched around at the gushing waves for a sign of life, and he saw in an instant a body floating underwater, the girl who looked like a mermaid surfacing up as the wave pulled out, only to be dragged under again when it slammed down onto the back of her head, forcing her to swallow a mouthful of water. Hara laughed at him childishly as the water lapped at her big eyes before her head was pushed under again, sinking lower this time.
She was supposed to be a good swimmer, but Key wasn’t even sure if she was using her arms and legs at all to stay afloat.
He reached out and grabbed her hoodie and jerked her towards him before he wrapped his one free arm protectively around her waist. A buzzing sound filled their ears along with the soft splashes as Key paused along with the world to catch his breath and shiver from the coldness of the water and the air mixed together. He pressed Hara’s head onto his chest, where he could feel her breathing even though she was so motionless and still. He heard her emit a shaken breath, her body like a rag doll floating in the water, held up by nothing except Key’s arm.
“I wonder what it’s like to drown,” she muttered, her voice so eerie and haunting that Key found himself taking a moment to wonder as well. She exhaled and her head sunk lower into the water before Key tightened his arm, bringing her limp, lifeless body closer up into him. She was trembling uncontrollably, but refused to return his embrace. She let out a harsh cough as the tide gushed in and out, threatening to drag her down forcefully under the surface again.
“I think I’m going to die,” she whimpered as her lips parted against Key’s chest. She weakly wrapped her arms around his back and felt the stinging sensation of the icy wind on her wet, exposed skin as Key held her tight and waded towards the shore. “I’ll die alone. Without him.”
Her voice lowered to a whisper, saddening again in that way that annoyed Key more than anything else. His feet finally found the ground and he halted at the edge of the shore, scooping Hara’s small body into his arms and lifting her up out of the water.
Hara’s head rested on his shoulder and she smiled faintly at him.
“Someday... you’ll die too.”
She then started mumbling about how it hurt to breathe, how her insides ached every morning and how it made her hate the world, the sky, and everything she used to think was wonderful... pretty much just her usual rambling again. Key was sick of it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said wearily before he could stop himself, and she went quiet. “Everyone dies.”
He panted and finally reached the top of the bank where they first arrived, and he placed down the fragile girl onto the hard stone ground, who had transcended back into a trance-like state that she barely noticed. They were farther away from the edge than before, to make sure she wouldn’t have any ideas of going back without him having plenty of time to stop her.
Key ruffled his wet hair with his hand and jogged over to the jacket he had taken off before getting into the water, the jacket that was still dry and warm compared to everything else that was sticking to his body, and he placed it around Hara’s bony shoulders. He bent down in front of her and wiped away the droplets of water, not tears, that ran down the side of her face. It wasn’t a gesture of affection, Key displayed this far too often for this time to count as such; he merely thought it didn’t suit her.
Hara just sat there and didn’t say a word, staring at him wistfully with those eyes again, those huge shimmering eyes that spoke that same god-forsaken question to him again.
Do you think he’s coming back, do you think he’s coming back? they asked him again and again and again. It hit a nerve, this pathetic stare of hers. Key stood back up and his face was stony, not even a spark of sympathy for this young woman who was shivering like crazy under his jacket and looking so hopeless and sad, wavering halfway between life and death in a way that didn’t suit her.
Key turned at his heel to the direction of Shinee’s dorms in the far distance and started walking away from her.
“Do you remember your dreams when you wake up?” he heard her say behind him, and it was another one of her random questions. However, he still stopped and spared her a glance over his shoulder, just to see if she had broken yet or not.
Hara was hunched under the weight of his jacket that seemed too big for her, smiling dazedly as she stared up at the place in the sky where the moon should be. She turned her head and looked at the Shinee member, and he could see a distant memory pass through her glassy eyes.
“I had a dream I was driving a car,” she said weakly in a reminiscing tone of voice. She smiled faintly. “Someone was sitting beside me, and we were talking about something. I can’t remember what it was, except they said something about the river and pointed at it.” She pointed stupidly at the river, as if she needed to show him for herself. “I saw that we were driving next to the river. It was pretty.” She lowered her arm with an unexplainable expression on her pretty face.
“And then, something exploded.”
Key turned his whole body around to face her.
“Everything went white and I heard someone call my name, and I woke up in bed.” Hara gazed out at the river again, sighing to herself. “It seemed a lot like this river, so when I’m close to it, I get the same feeling as in my dream.” She paused, and Key almost thought she was going to faint at the way her eyes bulged out for a moment or two, trying to remember this dream of hers. “I keep thinking of him whenever I look at the river.”
That’s because this is the river in your dream, Key so wishfully wanted to say out loud. That’s because it isn’t just a dream. It was a memory, a memory of that very night. It was here, right here that Minho’s soul was ripped off the face of the Earth and was sent by the angels into heaven, where he was most likely staring down right now and watching with as much dismay as Key begrudgingly was.
Enough. Key had enough.
He marched over to Hara and pulled her up onto his back, tucking her legs under his arms. The jacket cascaded to one side and exposed Hara’s right arm to the harsh wind, but she knowingly wrapped it around Key’s neck as he heaved her up once. She let out a girlish giggle that contradicted her lucid actions.
Key still wasn’t sure why he piggybacked her all the way back to the dorm instead of leaving her there like an abandoned puppy, or why he dried her heavily-soaked hair with a towel when he got home, or why he removed as much of her wet clothes as he was allowed to and tucked her warmly into Minho’s bed, or why he only called her manager after he watched her fall into a deep sleep against Minho’s pillow.
Hara slept the whole day and didn’t come back the following night, and Key was again positive that it wasn’t because she had learned her lesson.
--------------------------------------------
“Manager oppa locks her in her room when she goes to bed.”
“Is that why she doesn’t come over every night like she used to?”
“Yes. I think it’s too harsh.”
“Too harsh?”
“Because she doesn’t yell out anymore. She doesn’t scream or bang on the door, she just stands there, trying to turn the handle even though it doesn’t move, and she’d stand there all night until she falls asleep on her feet. I hear her scratching on the door when I go past her room at night.”
“You should do what your manager says.”
“Why?”
“Why? You’re the reason she’s been getting out, aren’t you? Because you feel sorry for her and you unlock her door after the manager leaves?”
“I have to, Kibum. I can’t just leave her like that.”
“She wanders around the streets at night. Why would you let her out to do that? You even dress her up and everything, yet you let her go alone.”
“It’s the only way, you have to understand. When she’s trapped in that room, she’s like a shell. She doesn’t talk and she doesn’t eat. The only sign of life she shows is when she comes back home. His memories are what keeping her going. She has something to look forward to.”
“Cole, listen to what you’re saying. Hara almost died. What if no one was around to see her that time?”
“...”
“She’ll keep coming, you know. Going to his room or any other place that reminds her of him and try to collect every last fibre of his essences she can find.”
“She misses him. Is it a crime that she misses him? If we prevent her to even do that, she’ll wither up and die.”
“Is it better than letting her wither up and die in a fantasy where she thinks he’s still here?”
“It isn’t. We’ve told her. Again and again.”
“...”
“What do you expect us to do when we can’t even get through to her? She won’t listen to me, she doesn’t say a word!”
“...”
“What do you want us to do? Lock her up? Send her away to an institution?”
“Do it.”
“...what?”
“Send her away.”
“How can you say something like that?! She isn’t an insane person, she’s grieving!”
“Right, so you should send her away after she breaks down completely!”
“It isn’t like that!”
“Do you know what she does when she’s alone in his room? SHE TALKS TO HIM. She talks to him as if he’s there! She pretends he’s there!!”
“When she’s in his room, she’s moving and talking! When she’s at home, she’s a ghost, she sits there and stares at nothing all day long! She won’t even take a sip of water, Kibum! Do you know how much it hurts to see her this way?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT SCARES ME?!”
At the sound of Nicole’s voice cracking accompanied by the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes, Key just shook his head in disbelief and walked away.
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>>4
The days passed, and Hara kept coming.
She came usually during the night the first few times, at around 2:00AM as Key took note of, and she would come wearing her pyjamas and bare-footed, clearly after she had gotten ready for bed. Key had a hunch that with her bandmates awake and alert during the day, they kept watch of her and stopped her from coming, so she decided to go out when they were asleep.
However, it changed after the fourth day, and Hara started coming in warmer clothes and comfortable slippers. Key was positive that Nicole and the others picked up quickly on her routine and prepared her. It made him wonder why they didn’t prevent her from coming altogether like when day came.
But the day was filled with much more dangerous things than just the cold of the night. The media were lurking around, and this strange behavior would then leak into another scandal everyone was sure Hara would not be able to handle.
So, she came during the night, like a ghost, entering simply to go sit in Minho’s room, go through the books where left his touch, wear the warm sweaters that still had his scent, lie in his bed that still had his presence.
The other Shinee members couldn’t help but find the way she was acting very disturbing, so ultimately the manager decided to change the locks. All the members except Key, who didn’t say anything for or against the matter, voiced their opinions on this idea, hoping Hara would simply leave and go home when she discovered she wouldn’t be able to come in.
But Key knew it wouldn’t be simple like that. Not from the way Hara’s eyes burned as they did that night he confronted her. She wouldn’t give up like that, even if her mind had more strength than her body.
A week after Hara’s first unexpected visit, the locks were changed and the members were given a new key, all of them instructed to not reveal this to anyone else.
Strangely, Hara didn’t come that night, when Key purposely stayed awake waiting for her, anticipating what she would do when she came.
Would she bang on the door until someone let her in, or just get bored and go home?
Key didn’t know why he even cared. He didn’t know why he was making himself look like he was worried about what she would do. He was just curious, that’s all.
The morning after came and Key found himself waking peacefully. He thought of it as a good thing, which meant the plan to keep Hara away had worked, only to his shock when Taemin found her asleep outside next to the door, curled up in a ball to protect herself from the cold night, having fallen asleep against the doorframe and slid down when her knees gave way.
While Onew frantically ran to his room to get a blanket and Jonghyun hurried off to call the manager, Key was left with Taemin to get the petite, semi-conscious girl inside. Setting her down gently on the sofa, Key felt a lump in his throat when he saw her shivering, all huddled up in a heap, puffing clouds of breath from her blue lips, Minho’s useless spare key still clutched tight in her small pale hands.
How long was she standing there, trying to turn that key in the lock?
The day passed and the night came, Hara didn’t come. Key waited for her this time, staring at the door intently, but she still didn’t come.
The night after and the night after passed, and she still didn’t come.
He was pretty sure it wasn’t because she learned her lesson, since a girl found half-conscious after being left in the cold all night would need so long to regain her strength.
And he was right.
She did come back again, at the strike of 2, as always. Rather than the jiggle of keys and the slight squeak of the door opening, Key heard a rustle as the key was carefully inserted into the lock, then a brief clatter when it refused to move, followed by a scratching noise of fingernails on the wooden surface of the door. Key watched for five minutes, he counted, but it didn’t stop, so he got up and reached for the handle, keeping his arm at length and turned it. It sprang open straight away and Key removed his hand just in time for Hara to walk in without seeing him.
At least… if she even bothered to notice him standing there instead of heading straight to Minho’s door right across the room.
Key guarded the door the next couple of nights, knowing she would be back, scratching on the wood like a puppy that had been punished to sleep outside. He observed her steps in opening the door, entering the apartment, going to Minho’s room and flicking on the light, sitting down on his bed and flicking through his comic books while hugging his pillow to her chest… all of it becoming a routine he could predict down to the exact amount of seconds it took her.
It was so pitiful.
She was fond of the porcelain knight and horse, always picking it up and holding it the entire time she stayed, and Key watched with disdain as she would smile at it as if it were a child, clean off the non-existent dust, and then set it back again the next morning when she was picked up by either her manager or one of her bandmates.
The cycle repeated itself.
After a few nights Key took away her useless spare key and replaced it with the new one, so that she could let herself in rather than him having to wait on her to open the door. He still waited though, sitting at a distance on the sofa and watching her with a line etched across his smooth forehead, his presence never acknowledged as she slipped away into her own little world.
Key watched her pine, watched her long, watched her wear her heart at her sleeve, and he waited. He waited for her to break, for her to cup her hands over her heart and feel it beat faster and faster and faster and faster until it shattered into pieces with a silvery sting. He waited for her to snap in two like the beautiful, delicate flower she was.
But she didn’t.
One night, Hara’s routine changed very abruptly, taking Key by surprise. He leaned against the door frame with crossed arms as Hara kneeled over a pile of clothes, folding them up neatly before jumbling them back into a heap again. she seemed to be having fun, laughing in ways he hadn’t heard since long, long ago, or maybe it was just her being crazy and him not being able to remember her real laugh correctly.
She suddenly stood up and abandoned the messy pile of clothes, her happy expression fading out into a solemn one, like it always would when she stopped to take a breath and realize she’s too tired, too old and too embarrassed for this. Lowering her head, she marched out of the room, brushing past Key who was still staring at the spot she was standing a few seconds ago.
She had never left by herself before, and Key’s eyes caught the window next to the tall shelf, and the sun had yet to peek up to chase away the inky blackness of the night. He heard the door snap shut and spun around to find Hara gone.
Good, she was probably going to head home now. Finally going home to where she was supposed to be instead of dwelling around in a place where she didn’t belong. Anymore.
As much as Key repeated in his head that Hara was simply going home, he still inched to the coat stand and pulled on his jacket before stepping outside, following her invisible footsteps out of the dorm, into the streets of Seoul nightlife.
At this time, in this area where idols were safe from their fans and photographers, everything was quiet and peaceful. There were so many bright street lamps that everything glowed a dull orange colour instead of just the natural light of the moon. It was cold too and Key huffed as he looked up and down every correlating street for signs of movement.
He saw a distant figure walking, or skipping apparently, down the alleyway towards the highway near the Han River, and from the way her long hair swayed, he knew it was Hara. Key sighed and rolled his eyes; that wasn’t where Kara’s dorm was.
What was she doing now?
He quietly caught up to her when she stopped by the side of the river, daringly walking along the edge with her arms stretched out like it was a tightrope.
She was smiling again, beaming in fact, and she glanced up at him with a bright, wonderfully bright smile and waved, seeing him, seeing everything as it was through her still dreamy eyes, in a fantasy world where it had everything she loved when the real world actually didn’t.
A sudden gust of wind hit them without warning, and right before Key’s eyes, she fell, disappearing off the edge like a leaf caught in the wind.
The world went silent and Key could only stare with unblinking eyes.
It wasn’t because he was worried for Hara’s well-being when he started moving quickly, when he was hastily pulling off his jacket and throwing it onto the ground and his heart racing like he was in a marathon. No, he really could care less, but he convinced himself there’d be too much of a fuss over this. His manager would scold him with curse words in Korean, Chinese, Japanese and English all at once, his members would lecture him for hours about why he didn’t do this or that, and Nicole would cry again.
So he ran. He ran and ran and ran until he felt his chest would explode, not because he cared, but to simply save him time to make sure she wasn’t dead.
He leapt over the edge and immediately found himself sliding dangerously down the sloped wall, and he tried to grab onto anything, anything, before he splashed down in the chilling water. It came over his head once, twice, three times, the water moving in and out aggressively and slamming him into the wall of the dock before Key was able to take a breath, still frantically searching for something to grab hold of.
The waves pulled him under one more time before his reflexes shot out and found a floating piece of wood. He took it in two hands and drove it deep into the gap in the wall, making sure it was firm enough to hold onto and keep his head above the water. Key searched around at the gushing waves for a sign of life, and he saw in an instant a body floating underwater, the girl who looked like a mermaid surfacing up as the wave pulled out, only to be dragged under again when it slammed down onto the back of her head, forcing her to swallow a mouthful of water. Hara laughed at him childishly as the water lapped at her big eyes before her head was pushed under again, sinking lower this time.
She was supposed to be a good swimmer, but Key wasn’t even sure if she was using her arms and legs at all to stay afloat.
He reached out and grabbed her hoodie and jerked her towards him before he wrapped his one free arm protectively around her waist. A buzzing sound filled their ears along with the soft splashes as Key paused along with the world to catch his breath and shiver from the coldness of the water and the air mixed together. He pressed Hara’s head onto his chest, where he could feel her breathing even though she was so motionless and still. He heard her emit a shaken breath, her body like a rag doll floating in the water, held up by nothing except Key’s arm.
“I wonder what it’s like to drown,” she muttered, her voice so eerie and haunting that Key found himself taking a moment to wonder as well. She exhaled and her head sunk lower into the water before Key tightened his arm, bringing her limp, lifeless body closer up into him. She was trembling uncontrollably, but refused to return his embrace. She let out a harsh cough as the tide gushed in and out, threatening to drag her down forcefully under the surface again.
“I think I’m going to die,” she whimpered as her lips parted against Key’s chest. She weakly wrapped her arms around his back and felt the stinging sensation of the icy wind on her wet, exposed skin as Key held her tight and waded towards the shore. “I’ll die alone. Without him.”
Her voice lowered to a whisper, saddening again in that way that annoyed Key more than anything else. His feet finally found the ground and he halted at the edge of the shore, scooping Hara’s small body into his arms and lifting her up out of the water.
Hara’s head rested on his shoulder and she smiled faintly at him.
“Someday... you’ll die too.”
She then started mumbling about how it hurt to breathe, how her insides ached every morning and how it made her hate the world, the sky, and everything she used to think was wonderful... pretty much just her usual rambling again. Key was sick of it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said wearily before he could stop himself, and she went quiet. “Everyone dies.”
He panted and finally reached the top of the bank where they first arrived, and he placed down the fragile girl onto the hard stone ground, who had transcended back into a trance-like state that she barely noticed. They were farther away from the edge than before, to make sure she wouldn’t have any ideas of going back without him having plenty of time to stop her.
Key ruffled his wet hair with his hand and jogged over to the jacket he had taken off before getting into the water, the jacket that was still dry and warm compared to everything else that was sticking to his body, and he placed it around Hara’s bony shoulders. He bent down in front of her and wiped away the droplets of water, not tears, that ran down the side of her face. It wasn’t a gesture of affection, Key displayed this far too often for this time to count as such; he merely thought it didn’t suit her.
Hara just sat there and didn’t say a word, staring at him wistfully with those eyes again, those huge shimmering eyes that spoke that same god-forsaken question to him again.
Do you think he’s coming back, do you think he’s coming back? they asked him again and again and again. It hit a nerve, this pathetic stare of hers. Key stood back up and his face was stony, not even a spark of sympathy for this young woman who was shivering like crazy under his jacket and looking so hopeless and sad, wavering halfway between life and death in a way that didn’t suit her.
Key turned at his heel to the direction of Shinee’s dorms in the far distance and started walking away from her.
“Do you remember your dreams when you wake up?” he heard her say behind him, and it was another one of her random questions. However, he still stopped and spared her a glance over his shoulder, just to see if she had broken yet or not.
Hara was hunched under the weight of his jacket that seemed too big for her, smiling dazedly as she stared up at the place in the sky where the moon should be. She turned her head and looked at the Shinee member, and he could see a distant memory pass through her glassy eyes.
“I had a dream I was driving a car,” she said weakly in a reminiscing tone of voice. She smiled faintly. “Someone was sitting beside me, and we were talking about something. I can’t remember what it was, except they said something about the river and pointed at it.” She pointed stupidly at the river, as if she needed to show him for herself. “I saw that we were driving next to the river. It was pretty.” She lowered her arm with an unexplainable expression on her pretty face.
“And then, something exploded.”
Key turned his whole body around to face her.
“Everything went white and I heard someone call my name, and I woke up in bed.” Hara gazed out at the river again, sighing to herself. “It seemed a lot like this river, so when I’m close to it, I get the same feeling as in my dream.” She paused, and Key almost thought she was going to faint at the way her eyes bulged out for a moment or two, trying to remember this dream of hers. “I keep thinking of him whenever I look at the river.”
That’s because this is the river in your dream, Key so wishfully wanted to say out loud. That’s because it isn’t just a dream. It was a memory, a memory of that very night. It was here, right here that Minho’s soul was ripped off the face of the Earth and was sent by the angels into heaven, where he was most likely staring down right now and watching with as much dismay as Key begrudgingly was.
Enough. Key had enough.
He marched over to Hara and pulled her up onto his back, tucking her legs under his arms. The jacket cascaded to one side and exposed Hara’s right arm to the harsh wind, but she knowingly wrapped it around Key’s neck as he heaved her up once. She let out a girlish giggle that contradicted her lucid actions.
Key still wasn’t sure why he piggybacked her all the way back to the dorm instead of leaving her there like an abandoned puppy, or why he dried her heavily-soaked hair with a towel when he got home, or why he removed as much of her wet clothes as he was allowed to and tucked her warmly into Minho’s bed, or why he only called her manager after he watched her fall into a deep sleep against Minho’s pillow.
Hara slept the whole day and didn’t come back the following night, and Key was again positive that it wasn’t because she had learned her lesson.
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“Manager oppa locks her in her room when she goes to bed.”
“Is that why she doesn’t come over every night like she used to?”
“Yes. I think it’s too harsh.”
“Too harsh?”
“Because she doesn’t yell out anymore. She doesn’t scream or bang on the door, she just stands there, trying to turn the handle even though it doesn’t move, and she’d stand there all night until she falls asleep on her feet. I hear her scratching on the door when I go past her room at night.”
“You should do what your manager says.”
“Why?”
“Why? You’re the reason she’s been getting out, aren’t you? Because you feel sorry for her and you unlock her door after the manager leaves?”
“I have to, Kibum. I can’t just leave her like that.”
“She wanders around the streets at night. Why would you let her out to do that? You even dress her up and everything, yet you let her go alone.”
“It’s the only way, you have to understand. When she’s trapped in that room, she’s like a shell. She doesn’t talk and she doesn’t eat. The only sign of life she shows is when she comes back home. His memories are what keeping her going. She has something to look forward to.”
“Cole, listen to what you’re saying. Hara almost died. What if no one was around to see her that time?”
“...”
“She’ll keep coming, you know. Going to his room or any other place that reminds her of him and try to collect every last fibre of his essences she can find.”
“She misses him. Is it a crime that she misses him? If we prevent her to even do that, she’ll wither up and die.”
“Is it better than letting her wither up and die in a fantasy where she thinks he’s still here?”
“It isn’t. We’ve told her. Again and again.”
“...”
“What do you expect us to do when we can’t even get through to her? She won’t listen to me, she doesn’t say a word!”
“...”
“What do you want us to do? Lock her up? Send her away to an institution?”
“Do it.”
“...what?”
“Send her away.”
“How can you say something like that?! She isn’t an insane person, she’s grieving!”
“Right, so you should send her away after she breaks down completely!”
“It isn’t like that!”
“Do you know what she does when she’s alone in his room? SHE TALKS TO HIM. She talks to him as if he’s there! She pretends he’s there!!”
“When she’s in his room, she’s moving and talking! When she’s at home, she’s a ghost, she sits there and stares at nothing all day long! She won’t even take a sip of water, Kibum! Do you know how much it hurts to see her this way?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT SCARES ME?!”
At the sound of Nicole’s voice cracking accompanied by the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes, Key just shook his head in disbelief and walked away.
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>>4