COINCIDENCE - Chapter 18
Chapter 18
The trip to the airport was spent in silence on Adelle’s part. As much as she told herself that it did not matter her parents were not going to show up, a small part of her who had been deprived of parental love still wished that they would.
Everyone came to send the two girls off. All the brothers took their time off of work, or girlfriend, to come to the airport. They used the family van in order to fit all 7 of them, 8 if including the driver. The brothers joked with Aveline, teasing her about boys and wishing her luck at school while the latter looked annoyed at the amount of teasing she was getting. Adelle smiled. Despite the frown, she knew that Aveline enjoyed these little banters she has with her brothers. It was how they showed their love for each other. And it only came about twice a year, summer and Christmas.
Adelle resorted to looking out the window and joined in every so often. She wanted to give Aveline as much privacy with her family as possible.
At the airport, no goodbyes were necessary. Instead, they simply hugged and smiled. As they were about to board the plane, Aveline’s brothers shouted out Adelle’s name, causing everyone at the whole gate to turn around. Adelle looked toward Aveline’s family and saw, next to them, her parents. They both were looking at her, waving through their apologetic smiles. Too struck to do anything, Adelle could only look at her parents in the eyes and nodded awkwardly. Then, both girls boarded the planes, smiling.
Twenty hours later, the two arrived at the LAX airport. As they stepped out of the immigration and customs, they were greeted by piercing screams. They looked around to find their apartment-mates and very good friends rushing toward them with flowers. Hugging and more screaming ensued as all three girls tried to ask Adelle and Aveline about their summer.
It took about ten minutes to calm the three down, dragging them to the parking lot in order to start their long drive to San Diego, where they went to school. Once the long drive started, so did the long interrogation.
“So Adelle, how was the concert? Did you get to see Joongie live?” Irene, the oldest of the five and consequently always the designated driver, asked. Adelle and Irene used to gush over the perfectly-complexioned boy together. They would stay up nights just ogling over new pictures of Jaejoong. Their obsession drove the others crazy.
In truth, while all five of the girls enjoyed listening to DBSK songs and thought that the guys were all talented, it was Adelle and Irene who were really obsessed with them. They both joined various DBSK forums to either download songs and videos as well as to find out about news and recent pictures of the boys. The other three simply leeched off of the two oldest.
Alas, Irene did not go to the concert with Adelle over the summer due to work. She worked in a law firm and could not manage to get her boss to let her take a week leave. It was only after about a week’s worth of moping and pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream later that she accepted the fact that Adelle would have to be her eyes and ears.
“I did, but that’s not only what we got to do with the boys,” stated Adelle nonchalantly, causing the other girls to scream.
“So did you get to meet Changmin then?” Deborah, the youngest, prodded. Ever since Adelle introduced her to DBSK, she had been quite smitten to the youngest of the group. She wanted to go, but was unable convince her parents to buy her the plane ticket to go all the way to Malaysia just for a concert.
“Uh huh, we did. Actually, we met all of them,” added Aveline. More screams pierced the compacted space of the car. All the screeching was starting to irritate her ears and Adelle slapped the girls in the arm, all except Irene, who was exempt from the pain simply because everyone’s lives rested in her hands.
“Stop screaming. People from the other cars are starting to stare.” And indeed they were. The five girls looked around them and saw the scared and disgusted expressions of an old graying couple. The girls laughed once again. “I’ll tell you guys more once we get to the apartment okay? I’m kinda tired. I didn’t get to sleep on the plane.” Hearing this, Aveline scoffed.
“Hah! You didn’t sleep because you were watching movies the whole time. I slept just fine in business class. I don’t understand why you didn’t utilize the wonderful seat to sleep.”
“You guys went on business class?” The last of the five asked. Her name was Jacqueline, but everyone calls her Jackie or sometimes just J. She was Deborah’s roommate, both sharing a similar passion for art and graphics.
“Yup. Adelle used the platinum credit card her parents gave her for her birthday to upgrade the two of us to business.” J hung her mouth in shock. Being the newest addition to the group, she still had not gotten used to the fact that one of her friends was literally the daughter of a millionaire.
“J, dear… your mouth…” blurted Irene while staring at the younger girl from the rearview mirror. Jackie complied while smiling sheepishly. “Anyways, so girls, did you get any souvenirs for us?”
“Mayyyyyybe…” Adelle teased. And so it went for the remainder of the drive. The girls related their summer vacation to each other, Aveline and Adelle conveniently omitting their stay with the Dong Bang boys. It was soon decided that none of them had as good of a summer as the cousins. About an hour and fifteen minutes later, the car pulled up into the campus. The two hour ride was shortened by forty five minutes thanks to Irene’s marvelous driving and the empty highway. Irene drove the car straight to the apartment to drop off the luggage and resorted to parking the car in the parking structure.
The three girls then helped Aveline and Adelle unpack. The two shared a double like Jacqueline and Deborah while Irene, boasting the fact that she was the oldest, took the single. After that, they all claimed to be hungry and turned to Aveline with pleading eyes.
“Fine, I’ll cook. So what if Aveline just got back after a twenty hour journey. So what if she’s tired as long as she feeds everybody.” Grumbling sarcastically, Aveline walked toward the kitchen to open the refrigerator and the pantry. Not surprisingly, all that was contained in the fridge was milk and eggs while the pantry was adorned with various kinds of cereal boxes, ramen, and a can of spam. “You guys have been living off of cereal the whole three months?”
“Oh don’t be silly, we always go out to eat. If you haven’t noticed, the cereal was the only thing that still remained in the pantry. We ate everything else and had just started to eat the cereal,” Deborah chimed in as she sat in the living room adjoining the kitchen to watch TV. Aveline looked at them in amazement.
“You didn’t buy anything?” Just then, Jackie walked into the kitchen to open the fridge and pointed at the eggs and milk. Aveline scoffed and started on their meal, which would be ramen with eggs and spam. She was not sure if it would taste good, but with the limited ingredients presented before her and the hungry vultures demanding something more sophisticated than just plain ramen, this was all she could think off.
Amazingly, no one died or complained eating the food. They gathered in the living room, slouching lazily against the soft couch.
“So… school’s starting in two days.” The comfortable silence was quickly broken by various pitches of groans.
“You just had to ruin the moment, didn’t you Aveline. I had JUST gotten my break from work and now I have to think of school? Gee, thanks…thanks a lot.” Unfortunately, Irene only had a week to relax for summer and the week was quickly ending. Out of all of them, Aveline was the only one excited about the upcoming quarter. “Why are you such in a good mood anyway?”
“I am not. It just occurred to me, that’s all.” The other four looked at their odd friend suspiciously.
“You know, ever since you guys came back, both you and Adelle have been spacing out and randomly smiling. But you… you’ve been especially… happy lately.” Deborah then grabbed Aveline’s shirt, inching her face dangerously toward the older girl. “What happened during the summer?”
Unfortunately, the threat did not work as the latter simply shrugged it off, walking dreamily into her room. Deborah whipped her head toward Adelle, who lifted both hands in defense, went around the coffee table to avoid coming face to face to Deborah, and sprinted quickly to join her cousin.
“You know, they HAVE been acting differently lately… AHHH!!! What is it? It’s driving me crazy!” Irene began to claw at the cushion of the couch, causing Jackie to scoot away, terrified. Suddenly, the youngest snapped her fingers.
“AH! I think I know.” It got the attention of her two companions. Deborah motioned the two to come closer and they huddled over the coffee table like football players about to discuss their game plan. “You know how they said that they actually hung out with the guys?” Jackie and Irene nodded enthusiastically. “Do you think something more happened? Something beyond Adelle meeting them backstage and their meeting at the amusement park? I mean, Aveline has always been weird and creepily happy like that. But Adelle, did you notice how she smiles more often now? It’s like she’s a completely different person.” Irene moved back and tilted her head, shaking her finger at nothing in particular.
“You know… I think you got something there, Deb. The old Adelle would not have joined us screaming at a public place. She giggled so freely too. There’s definitely something wrong.”
“This requires some investigating,” proposed Jackie followed by two nodding heads. “But how?” Silence ensued.
“I say we just ask them,” stated Deborah innocently. Two pairs of eyes widen in shock and offense.
“ASK them? Deborah, it’s like you don’t know us!” The two older girls continued to chide the helpless girl until the latter gave up and admitted her “mistake.”
“Fine! So what do you propose we do?” Jackie stroked her non-existent beard in contemplation.
“Well, I say we spy on them. They never lock their doors anyway. When they have class, I say we sneak into the room and raid their computer.” Irene smacked her. “WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!?!”
“They do have passwords, you know? And it’s like… part of them, you can’t do that. Deb, say if I hacked into your Mac, how would you react?” Deborah gasped at the comment.
“You’re right. No one messes with my Mac. That was a little too much, J.”
“On the other hand, they don’t really use their phone that much. We can look at that. They don’t bring it to class.” Deborah and Jackie perked up, their eyes twinkling excitedly. Nothing like sabotage to bring people together.
In their room, Aveline and Adelle both sat by their computer, browsing their e-mails and sites they visited regularly. Soon enough, Adelle’s phone rang. She absent-mindedly picked it up, not looking at the caller ID as her eyes continued to be glued on the computer screen.
“Hello?” No one replied. “Hello?” She was just about to turn the phone off when she heard the most comforting sound ever.
“Adelle?” Adelle’s heartbeat quickened.
“Junsu?” She heard a sigh from the other line. Next to her, Aveline was already pressing her ears against the phone. The older girl pushed her lightly while motioning her to be quiet. “Hi!” Aveline grinned to herself as she slowly moved away. Adelle’s cheeks were starting to redden and Aveline could tell her cousin was trying hard not to sound too excited. She decided to leave the room while Adelle softly whispered into the device she was cradling so affectionately.
Aveline rejoined her suspicious-looking friends when her own phone rang. Reading the “anonymous” ID call, she picked it up enthusiastically. Most people would not pick up anonymous calls, but to Aveline, it was one of her most favorite words that can appear on her phone screen.
“HI MOM!” She heard silence on the other side of the line. “Hello?”
“Umm…Is this Aveline’s phone?” The voice on the other line sounded familiar, but as soon as she pinpointed the source, she disregarded it.
“Yes, it is. May I ask who this is?” The male voice chuckled.
“Aveline, it’s me. What? It’s only been less than a month and you’ve forgotten about me already? I’m hurt.” Aveline gasped. She looked at the three pairs of eyes looking intently at her. “Um… can you hold on please?” She heard a grunt from the other side. Taking that as a yes, she covered the mouthpiece of her cell phone, glared at her friends, stuck out her tongue, and went outside to the patio to resume her conversation.
“Joongie?” Again, there was no response. Little did she know, Jaejoong was blushing on the other line. She soon heard him clear his throat.
“So you do remember me after all. By the way, why did you think that I was your mom?” This time, it was Aveline’s turn to be embarrassed. Finding no suitable place to sit, she settled on the grass area surrounding the patio, leaning against the wall of the apartment. Sighing contently with the late afternoon sun kissing her bare arms and legs, she made herself comfortable against the slightly damp grass.
“Well, usually anonymous calls are from my mom, that’s why. Sorry about that.” Jaejoong chuckled. It was music to her ears. “Oh, by the way, Adelle’s phone also rang at the same time. Is it Junsu?” Then, Aveline heard soft gasps. She turned around and found no one. Slightly perplexed, she ignored it and turned back to her conversation.
The trip to the airport was spent in silence on Adelle’s part. As much as she told herself that it did not matter her parents were not going to show up, a small part of her who had been deprived of parental love still wished that they would.
Everyone came to send the two girls off. All the brothers took their time off of work, or girlfriend, to come to the airport. They used the family van in order to fit all 7 of them, 8 if including the driver. The brothers joked with Aveline, teasing her about boys and wishing her luck at school while the latter looked annoyed at the amount of teasing she was getting. Adelle smiled. Despite the frown, she knew that Aveline enjoyed these little banters she has with her brothers. It was how they showed their love for each other. And it only came about twice a year, summer and Christmas.
Adelle resorted to looking out the window and joined in every so often. She wanted to give Aveline as much privacy with her family as possible.
At the airport, no goodbyes were necessary. Instead, they simply hugged and smiled. As they were about to board the plane, Aveline’s brothers shouted out Adelle’s name, causing everyone at the whole gate to turn around. Adelle looked toward Aveline’s family and saw, next to them, her parents. They both were looking at her, waving through their apologetic smiles. Too struck to do anything, Adelle could only look at her parents in the eyes and nodded awkwardly. Then, both girls boarded the planes, smiling.
Twenty hours later, the two arrived at the LAX airport. As they stepped out of the immigration and customs, they were greeted by piercing screams. They looked around to find their apartment-mates and very good friends rushing toward them with flowers. Hugging and more screaming ensued as all three girls tried to ask Adelle and Aveline about their summer.
It took about ten minutes to calm the three down, dragging them to the parking lot in order to start their long drive to San Diego, where they went to school. Once the long drive started, so did the long interrogation.
“So Adelle, how was the concert? Did you get to see Joongie live?” Irene, the oldest of the five and consequently always the designated driver, asked. Adelle and Irene used to gush over the perfectly-complexioned boy together. They would stay up nights just ogling over new pictures of Jaejoong. Their obsession drove the others crazy.
In truth, while all five of the girls enjoyed listening to DBSK songs and thought that the guys were all talented, it was Adelle and Irene who were really obsessed with them. They both joined various DBSK forums to either download songs and videos as well as to find out about news and recent pictures of the boys. The other three simply leeched off of the two oldest.
Alas, Irene did not go to the concert with Adelle over the summer due to work. She worked in a law firm and could not manage to get her boss to let her take a week leave. It was only after about a week’s worth of moping and pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream later that she accepted the fact that Adelle would have to be her eyes and ears.
“I did, but that’s not only what we got to do with the boys,” stated Adelle nonchalantly, causing the other girls to scream.
“So did you get to meet Changmin then?” Deborah, the youngest, prodded. Ever since Adelle introduced her to DBSK, she had been quite smitten to the youngest of the group. She wanted to go, but was unable convince her parents to buy her the plane ticket to go all the way to Malaysia just for a concert.
“Uh huh, we did. Actually, we met all of them,” added Aveline. More screams pierced the compacted space of the car. All the screeching was starting to irritate her ears and Adelle slapped the girls in the arm, all except Irene, who was exempt from the pain simply because everyone’s lives rested in her hands.
“Stop screaming. People from the other cars are starting to stare.” And indeed they were. The five girls looked around them and saw the scared and disgusted expressions of an old graying couple. The girls laughed once again. “I’ll tell you guys more once we get to the apartment okay? I’m kinda tired. I didn’t get to sleep on the plane.” Hearing this, Aveline scoffed.
“Hah! You didn’t sleep because you were watching movies the whole time. I slept just fine in business class. I don’t understand why you didn’t utilize the wonderful seat to sleep.”
“You guys went on business class?” The last of the five asked. Her name was Jacqueline, but everyone calls her Jackie or sometimes just J. She was Deborah’s roommate, both sharing a similar passion for art and graphics.
“Yup. Adelle used the platinum credit card her parents gave her for her birthday to upgrade the two of us to business.” J hung her mouth in shock. Being the newest addition to the group, she still had not gotten used to the fact that one of her friends was literally the daughter of a millionaire.
“J, dear… your mouth…” blurted Irene while staring at the younger girl from the rearview mirror. Jackie complied while smiling sheepishly. “Anyways, so girls, did you get any souvenirs for us?”
“Mayyyyyybe…” Adelle teased. And so it went for the remainder of the drive. The girls related their summer vacation to each other, Aveline and Adelle conveniently omitting their stay with the Dong Bang boys. It was soon decided that none of them had as good of a summer as the cousins. About an hour and fifteen minutes later, the car pulled up into the campus. The two hour ride was shortened by forty five minutes thanks to Irene’s marvelous driving and the empty highway. Irene drove the car straight to the apartment to drop off the luggage and resorted to parking the car in the parking structure.
The three girls then helped Aveline and Adelle unpack. The two shared a double like Jacqueline and Deborah while Irene, boasting the fact that she was the oldest, took the single. After that, they all claimed to be hungry and turned to Aveline with pleading eyes.
“Fine, I’ll cook. So what if Aveline just got back after a twenty hour journey. So what if she’s tired as long as she feeds everybody.” Grumbling sarcastically, Aveline walked toward the kitchen to open the refrigerator and the pantry. Not surprisingly, all that was contained in the fridge was milk and eggs while the pantry was adorned with various kinds of cereal boxes, ramen, and a can of spam. “You guys have been living off of cereal the whole three months?”
“Oh don’t be silly, we always go out to eat. If you haven’t noticed, the cereal was the only thing that still remained in the pantry. We ate everything else and had just started to eat the cereal,” Deborah chimed in as she sat in the living room adjoining the kitchen to watch TV. Aveline looked at them in amazement.
“You didn’t buy anything?” Just then, Jackie walked into the kitchen to open the fridge and pointed at the eggs and milk. Aveline scoffed and started on their meal, which would be ramen with eggs and spam. She was not sure if it would taste good, but with the limited ingredients presented before her and the hungry vultures demanding something more sophisticated than just plain ramen, this was all she could think off.
Amazingly, no one died or complained eating the food. They gathered in the living room, slouching lazily against the soft couch.
“So… school’s starting in two days.” The comfortable silence was quickly broken by various pitches of groans.
“You just had to ruin the moment, didn’t you Aveline. I had JUST gotten my break from work and now I have to think of school? Gee, thanks…thanks a lot.” Unfortunately, Irene only had a week to relax for summer and the week was quickly ending. Out of all of them, Aveline was the only one excited about the upcoming quarter. “Why are you such in a good mood anyway?”
“I am not. It just occurred to me, that’s all.” The other four looked at their odd friend suspiciously.
“You know, ever since you guys came back, both you and Adelle have been spacing out and randomly smiling. But you… you’ve been especially… happy lately.” Deborah then grabbed Aveline’s shirt, inching her face dangerously toward the older girl. “What happened during the summer?”
Unfortunately, the threat did not work as the latter simply shrugged it off, walking dreamily into her room. Deborah whipped her head toward Adelle, who lifted both hands in defense, went around the coffee table to avoid coming face to face to Deborah, and sprinted quickly to join her cousin.
“You know, they HAVE been acting differently lately… AHHH!!! What is it? It’s driving me crazy!” Irene began to claw at the cushion of the couch, causing Jackie to scoot away, terrified. Suddenly, the youngest snapped her fingers.
“AH! I think I know.” It got the attention of her two companions. Deborah motioned the two to come closer and they huddled over the coffee table like football players about to discuss their game plan. “You know how they said that they actually hung out with the guys?” Jackie and Irene nodded enthusiastically. “Do you think something more happened? Something beyond Adelle meeting them backstage and their meeting at the amusement park? I mean, Aveline has always been weird and creepily happy like that. But Adelle, did you notice how she smiles more often now? It’s like she’s a completely different person.” Irene moved back and tilted her head, shaking her finger at nothing in particular.
“You know… I think you got something there, Deb. The old Adelle would not have joined us screaming at a public place. She giggled so freely too. There’s definitely something wrong.”
“This requires some investigating,” proposed Jackie followed by two nodding heads. “But how?” Silence ensued.
“I say we just ask them,” stated Deborah innocently. Two pairs of eyes widen in shock and offense.
“ASK them? Deborah, it’s like you don’t know us!” The two older girls continued to chide the helpless girl until the latter gave up and admitted her “mistake.”
“Fine! So what do you propose we do?” Jackie stroked her non-existent beard in contemplation.
“Well, I say we spy on them. They never lock their doors anyway. When they have class, I say we sneak into the room and raid their computer.” Irene smacked her. “WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!?!”
“They do have passwords, you know? And it’s like… part of them, you can’t do that. Deb, say if I hacked into your Mac, how would you react?” Deborah gasped at the comment.
“You’re right. No one messes with my Mac. That was a little too much, J.”
“On the other hand, they don’t really use their phone that much. We can look at that. They don’t bring it to class.” Deborah and Jackie perked up, their eyes twinkling excitedly. Nothing like sabotage to bring people together.
In their room, Aveline and Adelle both sat by their computer, browsing their e-mails and sites they visited regularly. Soon enough, Adelle’s phone rang. She absent-mindedly picked it up, not looking at the caller ID as her eyes continued to be glued on the computer screen.
“Hello?” No one replied. “Hello?” She was just about to turn the phone off when she heard the most comforting sound ever.
“Adelle?” Adelle’s heartbeat quickened.
“Junsu?” She heard a sigh from the other line. Next to her, Aveline was already pressing her ears against the phone. The older girl pushed her lightly while motioning her to be quiet. “Hi!” Aveline grinned to herself as she slowly moved away. Adelle’s cheeks were starting to redden and Aveline could tell her cousin was trying hard not to sound too excited. She decided to leave the room while Adelle softly whispered into the device she was cradling so affectionately.
Aveline rejoined her suspicious-looking friends when her own phone rang. Reading the “anonymous” ID call, she picked it up enthusiastically. Most people would not pick up anonymous calls, but to Aveline, it was one of her most favorite words that can appear on her phone screen.
“HI MOM!” She heard silence on the other side of the line. “Hello?”
“Umm…Is this Aveline’s phone?” The voice on the other line sounded familiar, but as soon as she pinpointed the source, she disregarded it.
“Yes, it is. May I ask who this is?” The male voice chuckled.
“Aveline, it’s me. What? It’s only been less than a month and you’ve forgotten about me already? I’m hurt.” Aveline gasped. She looked at the three pairs of eyes looking intently at her. “Um… can you hold on please?” She heard a grunt from the other side. Taking that as a yes, she covered the mouthpiece of her cell phone, glared at her friends, stuck out her tongue, and went outside to the patio to resume her conversation.
“Joongie?” Again, there was no response. Little did she know, Jaejoong was blushing on the other line. She soon heard him clear his throat.
“So you do remember me after all. By the way, why did you think that I was your mom?” This time, it was Aveline’s turn to be embarrassed. Finding no suitable place to sit, she settled on the grass area surrounding the patio, leaning against the wall of the apartment. Sighing contently with the late afternoon sun kissing her bare arms and legs, she made herself comfortable against the slightly damp grass.
“Well, usually anonymous calls are from my mom, that’s why. Sorry about that.” Jaejoong chuckled. It was music to her ears. “Oh, by the way, Adelle’s phone also rang at the same time. Is it Junsu?” Then, Aveline heard soft gasps. She turned around and found no one. Slightly perplexed, she ignored it and turned back to her conversation.