Title: Soulmates: K'Ae
Characters: Big Bang
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 6/6
Summary: Kim Ae Cha wakes up in a room that is not her own, with no recollection of how she got there. Soon she starts discovering things that change her perception on the world forever.
A/N: The end.. Ottoke? It's the last part already.. I hope you enjoyed reading. ♥
- - - - -
It was dark. She was in the same room as the last time she had visited him. She immediately snuck out of the room. When she was in the hallway, a hand was put on her shoulder. To her own surprise, she didn’t make a sound, but calmly turned around. A smile appeared on her face when she saw Kevin smiling at her. They hugged each other in a friendly way, walking downstairs after that. Well, Kevin walked, she floated. It took him a few minutes to realize that.
“You’re floating!” he exclaimed, trying not to be too loud still, because that might wake up someone in the house. She smiled and nodded.
“I figured out how a few months ago.” She sat down in the same couch as last time, crossing her legs. Kevin went to sit across from her in another couch, looking at her expectantly.
“I’m pleasantly surprised by your visit, but I think you came with a reason. What is it you need?” he said when she remained silent. Her smile disappeared.
“Answers.”
“I told you I cannot give you..” he started, but she interrupted him.
“Bullshit, Kevin. Who forbade you to tell me anything?”
“Well..”
“It is information about me, things that might determine my choices if I would know them. Things that might have kept recent events from happening.” she interrupted him again, giving him an ice-cold look.
“What happened?” Kevin asked worried.
“Oh, now you care, huh?” she replied sarcastically, but then she did go on explaining. “I almost cut all strings binding me to Top, luckily I noticed it in time. I want to know what you know. I want to know what has happened in my previous life that made me, or both Top and me, return. I have the right to know this and if you don’t tell me, I’ll find someone who will.”
“You cut all strings..?” Kevin stuttered, before regaining himself and giving her a thoughtful look. “Are things alright between you and Top?”
“More or less.”
“You say you almost cut all strings, do you know what strings you’re talking about?”
“I’m not sure, but I think these strings keep the two halves of a soul tied to each other. When the first few strings broke, I stopped glowing and it became even more easy for me to be away from him. What happens when all strings break?”
“This has only happened once before. I’ll tell you everything I know, because I think it doesn’t matter anymore if I do or don’t. To answer your question. The person who forbade me to tell you anything was another ghost and he had gotten the order from you.” Kevin replied. His surprise and worrying had left and he was now completely calm, knowing exactly what he was going to say and do now.
“Tell me.” she said, taking a deep breath to strengthen herself for what was coming.
“You are a very old soul. You have been in this world at least four or five times before, together with Top.” he started. She couldn’t help but making a shocked sound. Four or five times at least? What the hell did she do wrong? Kevin only smiled lightly as he went on. “The first time, you met each other while you were both still alive. Yet, during the course of your lives, Top, back then his name was James, fell in love with someone else and left you.
You were heartbroken, so you both parted in a big fight. That’s why when he died, he was unable to move on, because he broke all ties to you so you both couldn’t reunite. Your memory of the connection, however, was still very strong. You died only a day after he did. Because you were unable to reunite, you were reborn into a new life. The ties between your souls were restored and you had a new start.
In that life, he died before you both met. He became your ghost and you got along very well. Yet, subconsciously you did not forget his betrayal from your previous life. So this time, you sort of left him behind, thereby unknowingly taking revenge for what he had done to you. You married a wealthy man, allowing Top to be around you, but treating him as nothing more than a friend. Top’s soul slowly faltered and eventually he disappeared. Only days after that, you died as well.
You came back one or two more times in which very alike things happened. It was always the living one turning his back on the dead one, in revenge for what the other one had done in an earlier life. You both never did it on purpose, because you had no idea of what had happened in previous lives, but nevertheless it always happened exactly the same way. In the life before this one, however, something extraordinary happened.
You were both born somewhere in Europe. During your life, you fell in love with Top’s best friend and married him. When you and Top met, there was a great attraction between you and him, but you stayed loyal to your husband. You died at an age of about forty years old, returning as a ghost at Top’s side. When another ghost told you about the ghost life and the story of torn souls and soul mates, you refused to believe in it.
Top convinced your husband of your ghostly life and when he was able to see you, you cut all strings that bound you to Top by being together with your husband again. Now you might think that’s what happened all times before, but it was the first time a ghost cut the ties with its other half. Normally, a ghost would vanish when that happens, but you cut the ties and immediately reconnected them to your husband.
Top completely understood your actions, yet of course they hurt him. It is very painful when the strings are cut, for both souls involved. Because the ties between your souls had already been broken lots of times before, however, it was easier for him to bear. He died about twenty years later. You had tied yourself to your husband’s soul, so you didn’t fade away like you had done before. Instead, you lived on until your husband died, a year later.
Yet, before you faded, you were able to see all your previous lives, see the tragedy that kept repeating itself over and over. In a slightly different way every time, but still causing the same thing to happen. You told everything you found out to another ghost before you died, telling him to watch out for you or your soul mate. If he met Top, he had to tell him all this and make him see the good in trying to stay together with you.
If he met you, however, so you instructed him, he was not to tell you a word of your history. You felt your soul longing to finally move on, and you thought that maybe you would work it out yourself. Knowing your own stubbornness, you also knew that when you were told to stay with Top only for the sake of moving on, you might just do the exact opposite to bug the system. That’s why you forbade him to tell you anything about it.
The ghost you told these things to was an old one already, so he spread your story and your instructions among other ghosts he met. One of them was me, only weeks after I had become one. At first I thought this all very strange and unbelievable, but thinking about things, I realized that this whole soul mates and ghost world stuff was quite unbelievable in total. Also, when I met you it suddenly proved to all be so very true.”
Kevin let a silence take over the room, thereby giving her the time to think his words through and realizing the huge proportions of everything. She immediately understood why ghost stuff was so easy for her; she had already done it numerous times before. It also explained the development of her feelings for Top during the past year, just as she now completely understood the sudden distance he showed towards her.
“What about my husband.. Did he move on?” she asked after a long silence. Kevin shrugged.
“I’m not sure..” he started. “But what I think is.. You were tied to him back then and because you couldn’t move on, he probably couldn’t either. To be honest, I think it might be, or possibly even really is G-Dr.. Ji Yong.”
She stared at the ground, realizing that what he said could be very true. That would explain why she felt so at ease around him and why she had felt the urge to kiss him. Luckily she had stopped herself in time, unable to break the last string tying her to Top. But maybe that was a bad thing, seeing that he still kept a great distance between them, making it obvious that he didn’t love her anymore. She sighed, shaking her head as she ran a hand through her hair.
“Can I ask you something?” Kevin’s question broke the silence. She looked up at him in surprise, slowly nodding. “What happened between you and Top? How did you break the strings?” He seemed very curious about it all. Seeing he had just told her a lot of things that had been very useful to her, she decided she could tell him the story.
“Remember when I came to visit you last time?” she asked, trying to figure out meanwhile how to bring all the news to him. He nodded. “I wasn’t a true ghost yet at first. My body had been alive still, but for my mother and such I had been in a coma. At a certain moment I was pulled back to the real life. For a few months I tried to pull myself through it, but living was the hardest thing I had ever done. Then one day when I woke up, I was a ghost again.
I talked to my aunt about it, who is the other half of my mother’s soul, and she told me to visit you because she didn’t know anything about it. So I did, but you only gave me more questions. I then went back to the boys, but after being gone for months, Top’s feelings for me had disappeared. He made this very clear to me back then. I was devastated, but tried not to show it too much. I spend lots of time together with Ji Yong.
That first night, the first string already broke because I spent that night in Ji Yong’s room instead of Top’s. The more time I spent with Ji Yong, the less I spent with Top. Every time I did something that brought me closer to Ji Yong, another string was cut. This went on until my birthday in August. The two of them gave me their presents together. I could ask one of them to grant me a wish and the other one would go somewhere with me.
I didn’t immediately use those gifts, so to speak. Instead I let time pass as I thought about that wish. My relation with Top got a little better and we spent some time together again, but I was still around Ji Yong the most. Then earlier today, I finally decided to ask Ji Yong to kiss me. So he did, but I pulled away right before, feeling the last string was about to break. It seemed like he had known that would happen and he told me to go ask you about it all. So that’s why I’m here.”
It was Kevin’s turn to incorporate everything he had just heard. Meanwhile, she was sorting her own thoughts, wondering what was the next thing to do. Top still was like a stranger and maybe she now knew he was everything to her, that wasn’t just going to change his feelings. She would have to be happy with the little amount of time she would be able to spend with him and with every little touch they would share.
“So are you going to tell all this to Top?” Kevin suddenly asked, his voice pulling her out of her deep thoughts. She sighed again, slowly shaking her head.
“I don’t think so. What would it change anyway? Top doesn’t love me anymore, so I’ll just be for him whatever he needs me to be. If that is just a friend or even a stranger.” she smiled a sad smile and shrugged.
“What do you mean, Top doesn’t love you anymore?” Kevin’s surprise, shock even, sounded through in the tone of his voice. When she looked up at him, the fierce, almost accusing look in his eyes made her want to shrink to the size of a mouse or even completely disappear.
“He made that clear to me. He said he hadn’t missed me and after that, he was very distant in the next months. He hardly ever speaks to me and hardly looks at me.” As she said it, she felt how much those things had actually hurt her and she had to hold back her sobs. Kevin was staring at her in disbelief, shaking his head before getting up and walking towards her.
“Did you ever consider he might have been too busy to miss you?” he then said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “And that, after knowing you spent the night with Ji Yong and became closer to him, he might think you didn’t want him anymore. Did it ever occur to you that maybe he is trying to let you be free and not feel too dependent on him?” She was dumbfounded.
“But.. How.. What.. Then why didn’t he just say something?” she stuttered.
“Well.. Why didn’t you say something?” Kevin simply replied. She sat there, staring at him without actually seeing anything. Could it really be that..? “For crying out loud, girl, he even wrote you a song!” Her head jerked up hearing those words and her eyes found Kevin’s immediately.
“A song? For me? When?” she demanded.
“Did you not watch the Stand Up tour? Did you not spend all your time with them? It’s on their newest album. Don’t tell me you never heard it before!?” Kevin was talking louder and louder, obviously very upset or shocked by her ignorance.
“I have not listened to the songs of the album yet and I wasn’t present at the concerts.” she softly said, hoping that she didn’t upset him more with those words.
“Unbelievable.” Kevin exclaimed, before walking away. She watched him leave the room, not knowing if she should follow him or not. A little later he came back with an opened laptop, putting it on his lap as he sat down. He typed a few things, clicked here and there and finally got up again to put the thing on her lap. “Listen to this.” She saw he was on a page with lyrics to one of the Big Bang songs. There was also a video that had started playing.
She listened to the song, meanwhile reading the lyrics. The music pierced straight through her soul. That feeling was even worse when Top started singing. His voice seemed to want to pull her into the computer just to be able to be with him. The lyrics were representing a feeling that she knew oh so very well. A feeling of loving someone without being able to express that. A feeling of wanting to be with someone more than anything without being able to do that.
When the song ended, the silence seemed heavy. In the end, it was interrupted by the sound of her painful sobbing. Before Kevin could do anything, she let the video play again, listening to it a second time, just to be able to verify what she had heard. Her heart ached and sadness filled her. She cried for the pain she knew Top had been going through the last months, without her ever knowing a thing of it. The lyrics cut in her like knives.
“I wouldn’t be like this if I were a good man
But I’m not a bad man, right?
Please don’t say it was a misunderstanding
With this wrinkled, sentimental heart,
the last of my pride is thrown away
After a long, long wait I met you
This must be heaven’s play
Rain comes down, but I need to hide when lightning strikes
In a dream I wander around without you every day, 24 hours
I am anxious to know if you are doing well
and if you fell asleep already
Oh please one more time dance with me tonight
I’ll once again have a sweet time with you in my dreams
Stories we shared as we easily matched our steps
The toxic reality, time is flowing through a maze to find the key
Are the tears of my outstanding love a misunderstanding
A bouquet that I put my last hope in
My wounded heart is haunting me
Okay, I’m sorry girl, I’ll think in a different way
I wouldn’t be like this if I were a good man
But I’m not a bad man, right?
Please don’t say it was a misunderstanding
With this wrinkled, sentimental heart,
the last of my pride is thrown away
With a lost appetite, I take a picture out of my wallet again
Like an idiot, I’m checking an empty inbox for texts
Because of my longing for you, I will erase everything without evidence
The romantic pureness of one man is a shout from deep inside his heart
But it will be fixed in time by a stinging pain called ‘separation’
- Please don’t have too much caffeine and alcohol
Even my reflection in the mirror ignores me
I wouldn’t be like this if I were a good man
But I’m not a bad man, right?
Please don’t say it was a misunderstanding
With this wrinkled, sentimental heart,
the last of my pride is thrown away
My persisting rage and pride become tears in my unmoving eyes
Rain drops lightly and she can’t forget me
My persisting rage and pride become tears in my unmoving eyes
The fine rain comes and she can’t forget me yet..”
As the chorus was repeated one more time, she felt her hands lose their strength and the laptop started its way to the ground. Luckily it was caught in time by Kevin, who put the thing aside, to be able to give her a hug. She didn’t even feel his touch, didn’t notice his worry. There was nothing but her and the sudden awareness of the one string still binding her to the person she had neglected for so long.
“He still loves you, K’Ae.” The whispered words echoed in her head, making her feel even worse, yet better at the same time. She felt like something was trying to keep her from talking, but she still managed to choke out a few words.
“I have to go.. Go to him.. I have to.. Pain.. Crying.. I will..” There was nothing coming from her that made any sense whatsoever, but Kevin completely understood. He nodded and softly squeezed her shoulder.
“Go talk to him, K’Ae. Please make things right again.” he said.
She didn’t even respond anymore, nor did she give any sign of sanity. All she could think of was Top and that she wanted to be with him, or see him at least. She moved without really consciously deciding to. She ended up sitting on the edge of his bed. When she realized that, she immediately turned to look at him. He was soundly asleep, a little frown on his face. There was no sign of him being aware of her presence.
She softly touched his face with her fingertips, immediately feeling the familiar jolt of energy rush through her. A little smile appeared on her face as she stroked his cheek with her fingers. From his cheek, she moved her fingers to his forehead, finishing the movement by stroking through his hair. He didn’t wake up like he used to do whenever she touched him and she painfully realized it was yet another effect of the broken ties.
Unable to hold herself back, she let herself lean towards him and rested her forehead on his chest. She could hear the soft thumps of his beating heart and felt the warmth from his body. Somewhere far away she remembered not being able to feel other people’s body warmth, while she had always been able to feel Top’s. A sigh escaped her lips and she closed her eyes. It felt almost like heaven to be so close to him.
She didn’t know how much time passed, but suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. She sat up straight in shock, only to look right into Top’s fierce eyes. His worried look made her feel even worse than she had done before, so she was unable to stop herself from sobbing again. Without saying a word, he sat up as well and pulled her closer to him, stroking her hair in a comforting way while mumbling some calming words.
“What’s wrong, K’Ae?” he asked, when she had seemingly calmed down a bit.
“Is it true.. Have you.. Did you really write that song about me?” she managed to get out, choking on the words as she tried to get them all out at the same time. There was a long silence following her words. She lifted her head a bit to be able to look at him. He was staring at her in a way that made her feel slightly uncomfortable, yet because it was Top, she didn’t mind. Finally, he seemed to have decided what to answer her.
“Yes, I did. Unless you aren’t talking about A good man, then I didn’t.” A little smile appeared on his face, but it was crystal clear that he didn’t feel very comfortable either. That’s why he started to jabber away. “I’m sorry, I should not have done that. You have your own feelings and I respect that. I just want you to be happy and if you can accomplish that with Ji Yong, then I will let you be and be happy for you. Don’t feel guilty because of that song, I just..”
She cut off the rest of his explanation by kissing him, leaving no questions anymore about her feelings. Immediately after the kiss, she let her arms slip around his neck and cuddled up against him as close as she could.
“Saranghae.” she whispered, closing her eyes as she inhaled his scent. “I should have told you so much sooner, mianheyo.” She took a deep breath as she relaxed in his arms. “Saranghae.” she then repeated, her voice sounding much clearer than before. “Really, really much. I don’t want to be happy with Ji Yong, I want to be happy with you and have you write songs about imaginary girlfriends that brighten your days. Not those that make you depressive.”
She heard Top chuckle, giggling softly herself because of the sound. His arms pulled her closer to him if that was even possible and he gave her a kiss on her temple. There was a short silence that immediately made her feel insecure. Was this really a good thing to do? Did he really feel that way about her as well? Was it right to suddenly surprise him with such words? Hadn’t she gone a little overboard with all her assumptions?
“Saranghae, K’Ae.” his answer cut off all her worries, lighting a fire in her that made her glow. Literally made her glow, since she saw his arms become more visible because of the light. The heat inside her started to rush through her at high speed, before suddenly bursting outwards, towards Top. The light that had surrounded her, now also surrounded the renewed strings tying her to him, glowing brighter than it had ever done.
She eyed the strings in awe, feeling a smile appear on her face. There was no doubt in her mind about what she was seeing. Obviously, they had just restored their ties, something that felt so much better than destroying them. She couldn't help but laugh softly, because it felt so good to be close to Top again. She put her head to rest against his chest again, closing her eyes as she listened to his heart.
It was beating at a calm pace and she soon found herself making her imagined breathing follow the steady rhythm. His arms were surrounding her, giving her a feeling of safety and security. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the glowing lessen, soon disappearing again and thereby making the strings become invisible once more. Even though she herself did no longer glow either, she knew it wasn’t negative.
When she looked up, Top was watching her with an almost unbelieving look in his eyes. She touched his cheek with her fingers, to which he let his head rest in her hand. When he closed his eyes, she leaned closer to him and kissed him again, immediately turning her stomach into a pool of fluttering butterflies. The feeling was annoying, yet nice at the same time and she smiled against his lips, letting herself be carried away by the feeling.
Their kiss became more intense, which after a while made Top stop to breathe. She chuckled, realizing that not having to breathe was a great advantage. Her chuckle made Top smile and his smile made her stare at it in awe. In the end, she ended up stroking his lips with her fingertips, feeling his breath on her fingers as she did so. It was a rather intimate feeling that made her replace her fingertips with her own lips again.
As they kissed, she softly pushed Top down on the bed, making sure his head didn’t hit the wooden frame. Once they were lying down, she ended the kiss and nestled herself in his arms, her back resting against his chest. He tightened his grip, but not too much so that it didn’t get uncomfortable for her. Without any more exchanging of words, they both closed their eyes and let their thoughts drift away. They had a whole life left to talk. With a smile on her face, she let herself sink away into an imaginary sleep.
Showing posts with label fic: K'Ae. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fic: K'Ae. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 August 2011
[FIC] Soulmates: K'Ae
Title: Soulmates: K'Ae
Characters: Big Bang
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 5/6
Summary: Kim Ae Cha wakes up in a room that is not her own, with no recollection of how she got there. Soon she starts discovering things that change her perception on the world forever.
A/N: Chapter five is actually very short compared to the others, but at least it fits in one post then. Heh. It's the second to last chapter already. K'Ae is only 77 pages long in word, really.. But I loved writing this story. ^.^
- - - - -
As had happened so many times before, time seemed to fly by now that she was back with the boys. Weeks followed each other like there was barely any time passing. She blended back into this style of life without difficulties. About a month after leaving, she went to visit her parents again. They were happy to see her, holding almost no sadness over her leaving anymore. To them, they said, it was like she had simply moved out.
She had left her parents after a visit of a few hours, not promising them anything about when she would be back. She simply had no idea. The reason she had visited them had been boredom to begin with, but she had wisely kept that from them. How did you tell your parents that they had become boring and dull to you? She couldn’t do that. Her mother had given her other half as the reason she didn’t visit earlier and she had not opposed. It was better to have them believe that.
In the weeks she spent with the boys, she became even more close with all of them, hugging them very often or just sitting close together or whatever. The only person she hardly even spent a single moment alone with was Top. Whenever they happened to be together in the same room, they would smile at each other and then she would leave as soon as possible. It was awkward to be with him, because often she just wanted to hug him as well, but she had to hold back.
The more she and Top grew apart so to speak, the more she and Ji Yong became close. It was not like Ji Yong was replacing Top, because of course no one could be the second part of her soul, but he proved to be a very good friend for her. Someone she could rely on, someone she could find comfort with, someone she could hug at any possible moment without being looked at weirdly,.. Basically he became someone she would do anything for.
Not that she immediately forgot all about Top. In her heart he still had a solid place and being so close to Ji Yong still felt like betrayal sometimes. When she spoke to the latter about it, however, he had simply told her to ignore him and go spend time with Top again. Of course she couldn’t do that, seeing that Top was the one who had wished for the distance and she was unable to go against his wishes, but seeing Ji Yong’s genuine love and care for his friend had touched her.
So she still spent almost every night in his arms, surrounded by his smell. She would pass through the otherwise lonely times by listening to his heartbeat or his breathing while thinking over the events of the day. Not only did it keep her calm, it also helped him by keeping away the nightmares that had used to haunt him almost every night. She couldn’t help thinking how less close she had been with Top, but then always remembered they never got a chance to be close.
Even though she had thought it impossible, as weeks passed and she spent lots of time with Ji Yong, she felt him slowly taking over the place Top had in her heart. Not fully, of course, but the more she hugged him and the more he came to her when he had had a rough day, the more she felt her love grow. The first time he had cried in her arms, she had comforted him with all her heart, but as she had done so, she had felt another string keeping her to Top break.
Getting that feeling yet another time did make her slightly worried about it. She wasn’t as convinced anymore that it was just her imagination. The idea of the strings keeping her bound to Top felt very real, as if she would have been able to grasp the thin threads if she could have seen them, yet she did not talk to anyone about it. She simply decided to wait and see what would happen eventually.
In July, the boys brought out another mini album called Stand Up that featured another one of their hits called Haru Haru and a very catchy song called Oh My Friend for which they had cooperated with No Brain. The Stand Up-tour again was lots of hectic travelling, but she didn’t mind. Even though she didn’t watch the concerts anymore, she still was around. She often just walked around outside the concert halls or stayed at the hotel.
July passed as well, bringing August and thereby her birthday on the fifth. Even though she hadn’t really thought about it, a visit of her aunt one day earlier made her realize it again. That also brought it to the attention of the boys, who all asked surprised questions and told her they would of course secretly celebrate her birthday. In the end, she also found out that Ji Yong’s birthday was in August as well, the eighteenth to be more exact.
So the next day, they celebrated her birthday. All the boys gave her a small present, nothing material because she couldn’t do anything with that being a ghost, but they all did something for her. Yong Bae, for example, danced for her. At first she had thought it quite strange, but when the dance evolved, he pulled her into it and she ended up slowing with him. Even though she had known him the least, she couldn’t help being touched by his present.
Daesung, however, had used the night to fully rewrite the song Ji Yong had written for him not very long ago. He made a ‘Look at me, Kiki’ version out of ‘Look at me, Gwisun’ complete with the first verse and two times the chorus. He even parodied Yong Bae’s sort of break-dance moves with some of his own dance moves blended into it. He made sure that she laughed from beginning to end. In fact they all did.
“Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki, Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki
Nalbwa nalbwa jigeum dangjang nalbwayo
Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki, Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki
Nalbwa nalbwa nalbwayo
Mother, sister, baby, what should I call you?
Are you sitting on my hyung’s lap again?
I thought you loved me, but you only look at him
Oh darling please give me some attention too
My tears are flowing, flowing, flowing
My heart is pounding, pounding, pounding
I am here for you, but you don’t want me
I guess I have no choice but to go and hug Seungri
Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki, Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki
Nalbwa nalbwa jigeum dangjang nalbwayo
Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki, Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki
Nalbwa nalbwa nalbwayo.”
To even make it more real, he ended by pointing right at her with a serious face and shouting ‘Kiki nuna!’ She hid her face in her hands, blushing because he had actually put an effort into rewriting one of his songs just for her. She clapped, trying to say something but unable because of the smile on her face. Daesung bowed a few times, taking the praise. Without caring about a thing, she jumped up and ran to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she crashed into him.
She lifted herself off the ground, wrapping her legs around him as well, but meanwhile floating so he wouldn’t have to carry all her weight. He wrapped his arms around her middle, pulling her close before swirling around in circles. She shrieked happily, which in the end became happy laughter. When he put her back on her feet, she kissed him on his cheek, only to hug him yet again after that.
“Oh I loved it, Daedae, I really loved it. Thank you so much.” she exclaimed as she let go of him. She was unable to stop smiling or even to try smiling a little less brightly. When she turned around, she saw Top stepping forward, making her realize that he would also give her a present. She had no idea what he was going to give her, as they had hardly talked over the past months. Before he could approach her, however, Seungri ran up to her first.
“Now my present!” he said, almost bouncing up and down like an excited little kid. She laughed and hugged him before he could give her anything.
“Oh Riri, seeing you like this is a great present already.” she said, ruffling through his hair and pinching his cheek. “You should not get any cuter or I might eat you up.” As she said that, he got out his cutest face and made a peace-sign to accompany it. Without noticing, she made a soft, adoring sound and tilted her head a little to the left. “Cute.” she then blurted out.
“Nuna is being too kind.” Seungri seemed to get a little shy, but of course he had to ruin it again only seconds later. “I am kind of cute, though, yes.” She laughed, gave him a soft hit on the shoulder and then took a step back. As she eyed him expectantly, he smiled and shrugged a little, immediately losing the self-confidence again.
“I don’t really have a present that you can use, because I don’t want to copy my hyungs and sing or dance for you, but I hope you will like it anyway.” he said, mumbling a little at the end as he started getting something out of his sleeve. She watched it, seeing it had a nice colour, but unable to make anything out of it. As he pulled, he almost had to spread his arms to get it out fully. She then noticed it was a scarf.
As he handed it over to her, he smiled a little shyly. She took the blue fabric from him, feeling its softness. Letting her eyes wander over the texture of the obviously well made piece of clothing, she noticed it was flawlessly made. She could find no irregularities in the pattern, deciding that it was probably made with use of a machine. Right at that moment, Seungri spoke again, contradicting her theory.
“I made it myself.” He smiled when she looked up at him in amazement.
“You made it yourself?” she repeated his words astonished, making a question out of it. He nodded and snickered because of her obvious disbelief.
“One of our nuna’s helped me at first, because I had no idea how to knit, but once I got the hang of it, I finished it myself.” he then said. He was doing his best to hide his own pride about it, but she found it only normal to be proud of something like that.
“You made this in one night?” It was almost unbelievable that he had, seeing that knitting took an incredible amount of time if you wanted to do it good.
“No. Of course not. I started a very long time ago, to have something to do when I was bored, but I hadn’t worked on it in a long time. I had about three fourth of it. So yesterday, I finished the last part.” he explained. “I was surprised how easy it was to remember how to do it.” She finally tore her eyes away from the scarf to look at him.
“It’s wonderful, Riri. Thank you so much. You did a great job.” she said, immediately wrapping the thing around her neck before reaching out to hug him. He answered the hug, smiling proudly because of her compliment. “It’s too bad I can’t wear it all the time, but I will keep it in a place where I can always find it.” As she said that, she imagined wearing the scarf, making it appear around her neck while she was still holding it in her hand as well.
Seungri eyed it and his face seemed to brighten up. She smiled upon seeing that, meanwhile folding the scarf and holding it close to her. When Seungri backed away again to let the next person give her his gift, her attention was drawn to Ji Yong, who walked to Top’s side and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. They approached her together. Before she even had the time to be surprised about that, all five of them started singing the happy birthday song.
She immediately hid her face behind the scarf, outrageously blushing and unable to stop herself from giggling. She felt a hand softly touch her shoulder and two arms hugging her. The embrace was a very familiar one and she could feel it was Ji Yong. As she wrapped her arms around him as well, he stroked her back and gave her a kiss on her cheek. She smiled, but wasn’t ready to let go of him just yet. He held on a little longer than needed as well.
“Happy birthday, Kiki.” he whispered, before taking a step back. Because she followed him with her eyes, the next touch came unexpected. It felt like a strong electric current jolted through her, almost knocking her senseless. Her legs slightly trembled and felt very unstable, as if they would lose their ability to carry her weight any moment. Luckily the touch was not just a touch. She was pulled into a hug, instinctively knowing this person was Top.
With her arms caught in between their two bodies, and her head resting against his shoulder, she felt her whole body relax, almost going limp. Luckily his hug was quite tight, so he was basically holding her upright. She breathed in his smell and closed her eyes, cherishing the immediate familiarity of hugging him after such a long time of not being able to. It felt like suddenly being able to breathe freely after having had trouble to do so.
“Happy birthday, K’Ae.” he mumbled to her. She felt his grip on her loosen, which almost made her panic. Without consciously thinking it over, she buried her fingers in the fabric of his T-shirt, pulling him closer to her so he wouldn’t step away. She was unable to say anything, so she just hoped he got the hint. There was a short moment in which nothing happened, before he softly stroked her hair with one hand, tightening his grip again with his other arm.
“Ji Yong and I both have a present you can decide about.” he then said, his voice rising to a normal level again. She decided she had to look up at Ji Yong, because he seemed to be involved as well now, so she did. When she noticed she wasn’t glowing, she felt a strange fear take hold of her. The broken strings came to her mind and she immediately rushed through the possibilities of what they could mean after all. When she saw Ji Yong’s smile, however, her worries disappeared.
“That’s right.” he said. “We will both do one thing for you. One of us will grant you a wish, the other one will go visit a place with you where you always wanted to be. Sadly this place cannot be too far away, because we have to be able to get there in one day due to our busy schedule. You can choose yourself which of us will do which thing.”
She let the words sink into her mind for a while, realizing what exactly these gifts meant. They would grant her any wish she would make and go to any place she wanted to go to with her. A thing that was hard to accomplish seeing they indeed had a very, very busy schedule for the next months. Her eyes were still pointed at Ji Yong, but it was only when he moved that she became aware of her surroundings again.
“This..” she started, stopping again to formulate a normal sentence. “This is too much. I can’t pull one of you away to go somewhere with me now that your schedule is so busy. It would be a major risk for you as well because fans might see you or whatever. I can’t do that. That’s too much you want to give me.” She shook her head, letting go of Top as she did so. She took a step away from him, her thoughts confusing her even more.
Somehow what bothered her most was that the moment Ji Yong had said one of them would grant her a wish, she had immediately known which wish she wanted to be granted and by who. And that wish of hers had shocked her, yet on the other hand she knew it was what she had been wanting for a while. Her eyes wandered from Ji Yong to Top and back, while she still shook her head, to show her disagreement.
“Don’t worry, Kiki. We have thought about all that as well. We’ll just make sure fans don’t recognise us and we’ll do it on a free day. It doesn’t have to happen right this month or whatever. You don’t have to freak out, we’ve thought this over a countless number of times.” Ji Yong said, calming her down by putting a hand on her back. She looked at him and his smile reassured her it was all fine. She smiled back a little.
“Are you sure?” she then asked. He nodded.
“I’m absolutely positive. We’ll make it the least risky as possible and we’ll do it at a time when we’re free, so that it will bother no one.” She smiled wider now, hugging him shortly again.
“Thank you all so much for these gifts. You’ve all accepted me and my weird story so calmly and you’ve all been so nice to me..” she said as she let go again. She pressed the scarf she was still holding to her face and smiled. “It’s hard to imagine it hasn’t even been a year yet since that first day. It feels like I’ve known you all for years now, like I’ve never not known you.” She saw them all smiling as well and felt truly happy.
“Let’s celebrate with some cake!” she suddenly exclaimed after about a minute of simply standing there. She walked to the kitchen, followed by the surprised five guys.
“Cake? Which cake?” Daesung asked.
“My birthday cake of course, Daedae.” she replied, chuckling. When she entered the kitchen, she immediately went to open the fridge and got out a nice chocolate cake with birthday decorations and everything on it. When she put it on the table, the five boys eyed it with an astonished look on their faces. She chuckled.
“How did you get it here?” Yong Bae asked surprised.
“I made it. I did have to buy the ingredients, but I just called the store and had them deliver the things here. Then I went to pick them up downstairs without anyone noticing. I’m rather proud of myself, really.” she explained. “I wasn’t able to taste, though, but I hope I did it right. I used to be very good at making cake.” She smiled a little and looked up at them. Their astonished looks were still present on their faces.
“You.. Made a cake?” Ji Yong said, staring at the chocolate cake in disbelief.
“That’s what I said, yes. Let’s not waste a good cake and eat it.”
“Can you eat?”
“Of course not, but you can, and quite a lot for what I’ve seen. I think you’ll manage to finish this cake, right?”
She took a knife and started cutting the cake into pieces in such a way that she had ten in the end. Then she got out some plates and forks, putting one piece of cake on every plate and handing them all one. It was only when she gave the first person a plate, that they seemed to wake up from their shock. Daesung was the first to taste, his expression immediately brightening when he did so.
“It tastes great!” he exclaimed, taking another bite. “You really did a great job.” She smiled proudly, her eyes wandering over the other four boys as well to see their reactions. They all nodded in agreement and praised her baking skills.
“But now we’re eating and you’re just standing there, that’s not fair.” Seungri then said, lowering his fork as if he was going to stop eating. She smiled and shrugged. As she walked to the fridge, she got out the juice for them to be able to drink. After putting that one on the table, she pulled another plate like theirs out of the fridge with a piece of cake on it. Without saying a word, she started eating along with them. They all stared.
“You can eat!” Daesung exclaimed, slightly offended that she had lied before.
“Where does that piece come from? There are still five on the table.” Yong Bae cleverly noticed.
“I can’t eat your world’s food, no, but I can eat my world’s food.” she said. “I just have to imagine it is here and I will be able to eat.” It had been something she hadn’t known yet herself and she had only just tried it out, but luckily it worked. She could just imagine herself eating and she would be, but it was not like it had been in the real world. She didn’t really eat something, she just created that image for them.
They easily finished the cake, praising her a few more times on her great skills and singing her another happy birthday song. Once again she felt how good friends they were to her, even though she was just a ghost that had more or less invaded their private life. They had accepted her from the start, giving her a home and a group of friends she did not want to lose ever again. They had made her life brighter, even though she had to die first to achieve that.
After a while of simply chatting and sitting around the kitchen table, she decided to go and visit her parents as well for her birthday. It was a rather short visit, since they were both at work and couldn’t say much, but she told them a little about her life with the boys and about her birthday itself. Her parents were very happy to hear how good the boys were for her and how much fun she was having. They were glad to hear she was doing fine.
Seeing her parents had also given her the new idea of e-mailing them. That was something she could do on the boys’ laptop when they were asleep and then she could talk about her life a little more often with her parents. That idea was enthusiastically agreed with by both of her parents, who both also did warn her not to show any signs of life so that her friends wouldn’t suddenly see her online and freak out.
The rest of the day passed without any more notable events happening. Instead of going to bed with Ji Yong like she had done for the past months, she spend the night in the living room, thinking over the events of the day and mainly the fact that she had not glowed when Top had hugged her, even though the warm feeling that normally accompanied it had been there. The broken strings also came to her mind, and she worried about it.
When morning came she still hadn’t figured out anything, but she decided to push it aside and help the boys during the busy times. So the days went by again. Ji Yong’s birthday was celebrated as well. He got a huge surprise party from the company, co-organized by the other four boys of course, and lots of presents. She wanted to give him something as well and keep it a little original at the same time. In the end she decided to listen to him for a day.
So the next day he made her pinch all kinds of people that couldn’t see her, made her run around on the streets singing the most stupid song he could come up with, made her hug the other boys at random moments and much more of those things. At the end of the day, he even made her sing a serenade. Because she couldn’t sing at all, she decided to overdo it and sing extremely bad, just to bug him. She also didn’t sing the serenade to him, but to his T-shirt.
It ended in all five of them covering their ears and laughing uncontrollably while she made a grand finale by sinking down on her knees in front of him, grabbing the edge of his T-shirt and bowing her head in so called sadness as she sung the last notes. She waited a few seconds, before starting to fake-cry as she let go of his T-shirt and crawled away. She didn’t even make four meters before collapsing on the ground, uncontrollably laughing.
When they finally were able to breathe normally again without bursting out in laughter every two seconds, the boys politely applauded for her performance. She bowed, before sitting down on the couch next to Ji Yong. He put an arm around her, so she let her arm slip around his waist as well, only to pinch his side moments later. He made a surprised noise, jerking away from her and staring at her in shock.
“You are so going to pay for making me sing, you know.” she said, grinning as she did so.
“How are you going to make me pay then?” he brutally replied. She smirked, looking at Top a moment before eyeing Ji Yong again.
“One of you two still owes me a wish, I might just use it on you.” The self-assured expression immediately disappeared from his face and she chuckled.
“That’s right..” Seungri then brought into the conversation. “..you still didn’t make a wish or told us where you want to go.”
“I’m still thinking about it. I’ll let you know in time when I have decided.” she said, thereby disregarding the subject.
August passed, followed by September and October. She and Top started talking a bit again and were even able to be with just the two of them without it getting awkward. She didn’t hesitate to hug him anymore, nor did he seem as distant towards her as he had been, but the glowing did not come back. And even though her relation with Top became closer again, her relation with Ji Yong was even more close.
It was only months later that she would use her free wish. On a dark day at the beginning of November, she finally made the decision. She would ask for the wish she had wanted to have fulfilled from the moment on that she had gotten the choice. For that reason, she gathered all her courage as she sat on the edge of Ji Yong’s bed, waiting for him to come back from the bathroom like every other day.
When he entered, he wanted to get in bed, but she stopped him and motioned him to sit down next to her first. He seemed a little surprised by that request, but did it anyway. There was an awkward silence after that. He waited for her to say what was bothering her and she was trying to think of what to say in her head before actually saying it out loud to him. After a few minutes she took a deep breath and looked up at him.
“I decided.. About my birthday presents. I want you to grant me my wish and Top to go somewhere with me.” she said. Ji Yong smiled and nodded. She couldn’t help but to smile back, even though her nerves were killing her.
“So what’s your wish?” he asked, encouraging her that way to say it. She closed her eyes a moment, before looking at him and simply getting it out.
“I want you to kiss me.”
The silence was almost deafening. It seemed like nothing in the house moved after her words. Ji Yong’s face seemed to lose some of its colour and he looked at her with an expression that showed his obvious uncomfortable feeling. She clasped her hands and took another deep breath so she could explain her wish to him. Before she was able to talk, however, Ji Yong started talking with a very soft voice.
“I don’t.. Why do you wish for that?” He seemed to be totally lost, trying to understand her reasoning.
“I don’t know what has been going on in the past year, but during the recent months I started loving you. Yet I also love Top and he still is the other half of my soul. Only.. The closer I got with you, the more I lost my bond with him. I felt strings holding me to him break. When I first spend the night with you, when I sat on your lap at the breakfast table the next day, when I first comforted you and so on.
I seem to love both of you now, but I don’t know in what way or who I love more. I also don’t know what it meant for those strings to break. I’m confused about this whole situation, but the one person that does know more about it, can’t tell me. I ask you to kiss me so that I can at least determine my own feelings right, so that I will know if what I feel for you is true or just my imagination. I do not know what is real and what isn’t anymore.”
She almost started crying, but held it back, telling herself to be strong so Ji Yong would grant her wish instead of wanting to comfort her and have her think it over again, because she had thought it over so many times already and the only option to end her confusion seemed to be exactly what she had just said. If his kiss made her feel what Top’s kiss had made her feel so many months ago, then she loved him more. If not, then she would have to talk things through with Top.
“K’Ae.” Ji Yong said worried, putting a hand on her shoulder. She already saw the rejection coming, but looked up at him anyway. “I never thought of you that way. I mean, I’m sure that if I would look at you like someone to love, I would fall in love, but to me you always belonged to Top. The way you look at him, the way you seem to come home whenever he hugs you. The way you glow.. I honestly don’t think you can love anyone more than you love him.
But, if you doubt that yourself and you really want this to prove it, then I will do as you wish. I just hope you know what you’re doing. If being close with me made the bond between you and Top less strong, then kissing me might fully break it and I don’t know what will happen then. Are you really positive that that person who knows what’s going on cannot explain all this to you? Are you sure you want me to kiss you?”
She thought about his words, taking all of these things into accord. There was a silence that lasted quite a while, but in the end she nodded. This seemed to be the only way for her to find out the truth. She nodded again, a little more sure of herself and looked Ji Yong right in his eyes. She put her hand on his, softly squeezing it.
“I am sure, but only if you agree. I don’t want you to do this against your will.” she whispered.
He smiled a little, but didn’t reply. Instead, he softly stroked her cheek with his fingers, before cupping her face with his hands. She felt the tension in her build and a tickling feeling appeared in her stomach. As Ji Yong looked her straight in the eye, the tickling became more intense. His face closed in on hers and she could seemingly already feel his lips on hers. She closed her eyes, the tension building in her body.
Suddenly, time seemed to freeze. In the darkness of having her eyes closed, a glowing thread became visible. She followed it with her eyes, realizing it was one of the strings keeping her tied to Top. Instinctively she knew this was the last string. The only thing holding their ruptured soul together. The tickling she had felt became more intense, more painful, until her body seemed to burn. It felt the same as she had felt when Ji Yong had kissed her cheek the first time.
In a desperate action, she pulled her head free of his grip, opening her eyes in shock and gasping for air because of the pain. Ji Yong immediately pulled his head back. His lips had been only inches away from her face. When she turned to him, he smiled and softly stroked her hair. She let her head rest against his hand, closing her eyes again as she slowly breathed in and out. Finally she calmed down. She opened her eyes to look at him.
“I told you.” he softly said, showing a sympathetic smile. “Go talk to that one you said knows more about this all and make him tell you what he knows. It is unfair not to tell you things you should know.” She slowly nodded, smiling a little because Ji Yong kept being so kind and so totally himself. He leaned towards her to give her a kiss on her forehead. She gave him another hug, before gathering her thoughts and moving to Kevin again.
Characters: Big Bang
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 5/6
Summary: Kim Ae Cha wakes up in a room that is not her own, with no recollection of how she got there. Soon she starts discovering things that change her perception on the world forever.
A/N: Chapter five is actually very short compared to the others, but at least it fits in one post then. Heh. It's the second to last chapter already. K'Ae is only 77 pages long in word, really.. But I loved writing this story. ^.^
- - - - -
As had happened so many times before, time seemed to fly by now that she was back with the boys. Weeks followed each other like there was barely any time passing. She blended back into this style of life without difficulties. About a month after leaving, she went to visit her parents again. They were happy to see her, holding almost no sadness over her leaving anymore. To them, they said, it was like she had simply moved out.
She had left her parents after a visit of a few hours, not promising them anything about when she would be back. She simply had no idea. The reason she had visited them had been boredom to begin with, but she had wisely kept that from them. How did you tell your parents that they had become boring and dull to you? She couldn’t do that. Her mother had given her other half as the reason she didn’t visit earlier and she had not opposed. It was better to have them believe that.
In the weeks she spent with the boys, she became even more close with all of them, hugging them very often or just sitting close together or whatever. The only person she hardly even spent a single moment alone with was Top. Whenever they happened to be together in the same room, they would smile at each other and then she would leave as soon as possible. It was awkward to be with him, because often she just wanted to hug him as well, but she had to hold back.
The more she and Top grew apart so to speak, the more she and Ji Yong became close. It was not like Ji Yong was replacing Top, because of course no one could be the second part of her soul, but he proved to be a very good friend for her. Someone she could rely on, someone she could find comfort with, someone she could hug at any possible moment without being looked at weirdly,.. Basically he became someone she would do anything for.
Not that she immediately forgot all about Top. In her heart he still had a solid place and being so close to Ji Yong still felt like betrayal sometimes. When she spoke to the latter about it, however, he had simply told her to ignore him and go spend time with Top again. Of course she couldn’t do that, seeing that Top was the one who had wished for the distance and she was unable to go against his wishes, but seeing Ji Yong’s genuine love and care for his friend had touched her.
So she still spent almost every night in his arms, surrounded by his smell. She would pass through the otherwise lonely times by listening to his heartbeat or his breathing while thinking over the events of the day. Not only did it keep her calm, it also helped him by keeping away the nightmares that had used to haunt him almost every night. She couldn’t help thinking how less close she had been with Top, but then always remembered they never got a chance to be close.
Even though she had thought it impossible, as weeks passed and she spent lots of time with Ji Yong, she felt him slowly taking over the place Top had in her heart. Not fully, of course, but the more she hugged him and the more he came to her when he had had a rough day, the more she felt her love grow. The first time he had cried in her arms, she had comforted him with all her heart, but as she had done so, she had felt another string keeping her to Top break.
Getting that feeling yet another time did make her slightly worried about it. She wasn’t as convinced anymore that it was just her imagination. The idea of the strings keeping her bound to Top felt very real, as if she would have been able to grasp the thin threads if she could have seen them, yet she did not talk to anyone about it. She simply decided to wait and see what would happen eventually.
In July, the boys brought out another mini album called Stand Up that featured another one of their hits called Haru Haru and a very catchy song called Oh My Friend for which they had cooperated with No Brain. The Stand Up-tour again was lots of hectic travelling, but she didn’t mind. Even though she didn’t watch the concerts anymore, she still was around. She often just walked around outside the concert halls or stayed at the hotel.
July passed as well, bringing August and thereby her birthday on the fifth. Even though she hadn’t really thought about it, a visit of her aunt one day earlier made her realize it again. That also brought it to the attention of the boys, who all asked surprised questions and told her they would of course secretly celebrate her birthday. In the end, she also found out that Ji Yong’s birthday was in August as well, the eighteenth to be more exact.
So the next day, they celebrated her birthday. All the boys gave her a small present, nothing material because she couldn’t do anything with that being a ghost, but they all did something for her. Yong Bae, for example, danced for her. At first she had thought it quite strange, but when the dance evolved, he pulled her into it and she ended up slowing with him. Even though she had known him the least, she couldn’t help being touched by his present.
Daesung, however, had used the night to fully rewrite the song Ji Yong had written for him not very long ago. He made a ‘Look at me, Kiki’ version out of ‘Look at me, Gwisun’ complete with the first verse and two times the chorus. He even parodied Yong Bae’s sort of break-dance moves with some of his own dance moves blended into it. He made sure that she laughed from beginning to end. In fact they all did.
“Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki, Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki
Nalbwa nalbwa jigeum dangjang nalbwayo
Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki, Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki
Nalbwa nalbwa nalbwayo
Mother, sister, baby, what should I call you?
Are you sitting on my hyung’s lap again?
I thought you loved me, but you only look at him
Oh darling please give me some attention too
My tears are flowing, flowing, flowing
My heart is pounding, pounding, pounding
I am here for you, but you don’t want me
I guess I have no choice but to go and hug Seungri
Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki, Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki
Nalbwa nalbwa jigeum dangjang nalbwayo
Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki, Nalbwa nalbwa Kiki
Nalbwa nalbwa nalbwayo.”
To even make it more real, he ended by pointing right at her with a serious face and shouting ‘Kiki nuna!’ She hid her face in her hands, blushing because he had actually put an effort into rewriting one of his songs just for her. She clapped, trying to say something but unable because of the smile on her face. Daesung bowed a few times, taking the praise. Without caring about a thing, she jumped up and ran to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she crashed into him.
She lifted herself off the ground, wrapping her legs around him as well, but meanwhile floating so he wouldn’t have to carry all her weight. He wrapped his arms around her middle, pulling her close before swirling around in circles. She shrieked happily, which in the end became happy laughter. When he put her back on her feet, she kissed him on his cheek, only to hug him yet again after that.
“Oh I loved it, Daedae, I really loved it. Thank you so much.” she exclaimed as she let go of him. She was unable to stop smiling or even to try smiling a little less brightly. When she turned around, she saw Top stepping forward, making her realize that he would also give her a present. She had no idea what he was going to give her, as they had hardly talked over the past months. Before he could approach her, however, Seungri ran up to her first.
“Now my present!” he said, almost bouncing up and down like an excited little kid. She laughed and hugged him before he could give her anything.
“Oh Riri, seeing you like this is a great present already.” she said, ruffling through his hair and pinching his cheek. “You should not get any cuter or I might eat you up.” As she said that, he got out his cutest face and made a peace-sign to accompany it. Without noticing, she made a soft, adoring sound and tilted her head a little to the left. “Cute.” she then blurted out.
“Nuna is being too kind.” Seungri seemed to get a little shy, but of course he had to ruin it again only seconds later. “I am kind of cute, though, yes.” She laughed, gave him a soft hit on the shoulder and then took a step back. As she eyed him expectantly, he smiled and shrugged a little, immediately losing the self-confidence again.
“I don’t really have a present that you can use, because I don’t want to copy my hyungs and sing or dance for you, but I hope you will like it anyway.” he said, mumbling a little at the end as he started getting something out of his sleeve. She watched it, seeing it had a nice colour, but unable to make anything out of it. As he pulled, he almost had to spread his arms to get it out fully. She then noticed it was a scarf.
As he handed it over to her, he smiled a little shyly. She took the blue fabric from him, feeling its softness. Letting her eyes wander over the texture of the obviously well made piece of clothing, she noticed it was flawlessly made. She could find no irregularities in the pattern, deciding that it was probably made with use of a machine. Right at that moment, Seungri spoke again, contradicting her theory.
“I made it myself.” He smiled when she looked up at him in amazement.
“You made it yourself?” she repeated his words astonished, making a question out of it. He nodded and snickered because of her obvious disbelief.
“One of our nuna’s helped me at first, because I had no idea how to knit, but once I got the hang of it, I finished it myself.” he then said. He was doing his best to hide his own pride about it, but she found it only normal to be proud of something like that.
“You made this in one night?” It was almost unbelievable that he had, seeing that knitting took an incredible amount of time if you wanted to do it good.
“No. Of course not. I started a very long time ago, to have something to do when I was bored, but I hadn’t worked on it in a long time. I had about three fourth of it. So yesterday, I finished the last part.” he explained. “I was surprised how easy it was to remember how to do it.” She finally tore her eyes away from the scarf to look at him.
“It’s wonderful, Riri. Thank you so much. You did a great job.” she said, immediately wrapping the thing around her neck before reaching out to hug him. He answered the hug, smiling proudly because of her compliment. “It’s too bad I can’t wear it all the time, but I will keep it in a place where I can always find it.” As she said that, she imagined wearing the scarf, making it appear around her neck while she was still holding it in her hand as well.
Seungri eyed it and his face seemed to brighten up. She smiled upon seeing that, meanwhile folding the scarf and holding it close to her. When Seungri backed away again to let the next person give her his gift, her attention was drawn to Ji Yong, who walked to Top’s side and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. They approached her together. Before she even had the time to be surprised about that, all five of them started singing the happy birthday song.
She immediately hid her face behind the scarf, outrageously blushing and unable to stop herself from giggling. She felt a hand softly touch her shoulder and two arms hugging her. The embrace was a very familiar one and she could feel it was Ji Yong. As she wrapped her arms around him as well, he stroked her back and gave her a kiss on her cheek. She smiled, but wasn’t ready to let go of him just yet. He held on a little longer than needed as well.
“Happy birthday, Kiki.” he whispered, before taking a step back. Because she followed him with her eyes, the next touch came unexpected. It felt like a strong electric current jolted through her, almost knocking her senseless. Her legs slightly trembled and felt very unstable, as if they would lose their ability to carry her weight any moment. Luckily the touch was not just a touch. She was pulled into a hug, instinctively knowing this person was Top.
With her arms caught in between their two bodies, and her head resting against his shoulder, she felt her whole body relax, almost going limp. Luckily his hug was quite tight, so he was basically holding her upright. She breathed in his smell and closed her eyes, cherishing the immediate familiarity of hugging him after such a long time of not being able to. It felt like suddenly being able to breathe freely after having had trouble to do so.
“Happy birthday, K’Ae.” he mumbled to her. She felt his grip on her loosen, which almost made her panic. Without consciously thinking it over, she buried her fingers in the fabric of his T-shirt, pulling him closer to her so he wouldn’t step away. She was unable to say anything, so she just hoped he got the hint. There was a short moment in which nothing happened, before he softly stroked her hair with one hand, tightening his grip again with his other arm.
“Ji Yong and I both have a present you can decide about.” he then said, his voice rising to a normal level again. She decided she had to look up at Ji Yong, because he seemed to be involved as well now, so she did. When she noticed she wasn’t glowing, she felt a strange fear take hold of her. The broken strings came to her mind and she immediately rushed through the possibilities of what they could mean after all. When she saw Ji Yong’s smile, however, her worries disappeared.
“That’s right.” he said. “We will both do one thing for you. One of us will grant you a wish, the other one will go visit a place with you where you always wanted to be. Sadly this place cannot be too far away, because we have to be able to get there in one day due to our busy schedule. You can choose yourself which of us will do which thing.”
She let the words sink into her mind for a while, realizing what exactly these gifts meant. They would grant her any wish she would make and go to any place she wanted to go to with her. A thing that was hard to accomplish seeing they indeed had a very, very busy schedule for the next months. Her eyes were still pointed at Ji Yong, but it was only when he moved that she became aware of her surroundings again.
“This..” she started, stopping again to formulate a normal sentence. “This is too much. I can’t pull one of you away to go somewhere with me now that your schedule is so busy. It would be a major risk for you as well because fans might see you or whatever. I can’t do that. That’s too much you want to give me.” She shook her head, letting go of Top as she did so. She took a step away from him, her thoughts confusing her even more.
Somehow what bothered her most was that the moment Ji Yong had said one of them would grant her a wish, she had immediately known which wish she wanted to be granted and by who. And that wish of hers had shocked her, yet on the other hand she knew it was what she had been wanting for a while. Her eyes wandered from Ji Yong to Top and back, while she still shook her head, to show her disagreement.
“Don’t worry, Kiki. We have thought about all that as well. We’ll just make sure fans don’t recognise us and we’ll do it on a free day. It doesn’t have to happen right this month or whatever. You don’t have to freak out, we’ve thought this over a countless number of times.” Ji Yong said, calming her down by putting a hand on her back. She looked at him and his smile reassured her it was all fine. She smiled back a little.
“Are you sure?” she then asked. He nodded.
“I’m absolutely positive. We’ll make it the least risky as possible and we’ll do it at a time when we’re free, so that it will bother no one.” She smiled wider now, hugging him shortly again.
“Thank you all so much for these gifts. You’ve all accepted me and my weird story so calmly and you’ve all been so nice to me..” she said as she let go again. She pressed the scarf she was still holding to her face and smiled. “It’s hard to imagine it hasn’t even been a year yet since that first day. It feels like I’ve known you all for years now, like I’ve never not known you.” She saw them all smiling as well and felt truly happy.
“Let’s celebrate with some cake!” she suddenly exclaimed after about a minute of simply standing there. She walked to the kitchen, followed by the surprised five guys.
“Cake? Which cake?” Daesung asked.
“My birthday cake of course, Daedae.” she replied, chuckling. When she entered the kitchen, she immediately went to open the fridge and got out a nice chocolate cake with birthday decorations and everything on it. When she put it on the table, the five boys eyed it with an astonished look on their faces. She chuckled.
“How did you get it here?” Yong Bae asked surprised.
“I made it. I did have to buy the ingredients, but I just called the store and had them deliver the things here. Then I went to pick them up downstairs without anyone noticing. I’m rather proud of myself, really.” she explained. “I wasn’t able to taste, though, but I hope I did it right. I used to be very good at making cake.” She smiled a little and looked up at them. Their astonished looks were still present on their faces.
“You.. Made a cake?” Ji Yong said, staring at the chocolate cake in disbelief.
“That’s what I said, yes. Let’s not waste a good cake and eat it.”
“Can you eat?”
“Of course not, but you can, and quite a lot for what I’ve seen. I think you’ll manage to finish this cake, right?”
She took a knife and started cutting the cake into pieces in such a way that she had ten in the end. Then she got out some plates and forks, putting one piece of cake on every plate and handing them all one. It was only when she gave the first person a plate, that they seemed to wake up from their shock. Daesung was the first to taste, his expression immediately brightening when he did so.
“It tastes great!” he exclaimed, taking another bite. “You really did a great job.” She smiled proudly, her eyes wandering over the other four boys as well to see their reactions. They all nodded in agreement and praised her baking skills.
“But now we’re eating and you’re just standing there, that’s not fair.” Seungri then said, lowering his fork as if he was going to stop eating. She smiled and shrugged. As she walked to the fridge, she got out the juice for them to be able to drink. After putting that one on the table, she pulled another plate like theirs out of the fridge with a piece of cake on it. Without saying a word, she started eating along with them. They all stared.
“You can eat!” Daesung exclaimed, slightly offended that she had lied before.
“Where does that piece come from? There are still five on the table.” Yong Bae cleverly noticed.
“I can’t eat your world’s food, no, but I can eat my world’s food.” she said. “I just have to imagine it is here and I will be able to eat.” It had been something she hadn’t known yet herself and she had only just tried it out, but luckily it worked. She could just imagine herself eating and she would be, but it was not like it had been in the real world. She didn’t really eat something, she just created that image for them.
They easily finished the cake, praising her a few more times on her great skills and singing her another happy birthday song. Once again she felt how good friends they were to her, even though she was just a ghost that had more or less invaded their private life. They had accepted her from the start, giving her a home and a group of friends she did not want to lose ever again. They had made her life brighter, even though she had to die first to achieve that.
After a while of simply chatting and sitting around the kitchen table, she decided to go and visit her parents as well for her birthday. It was a rather short visit, since they were both at work and couldn’t say much, but she told them a little about her life with the boys and about her birthday itself. Her parents were very happy to hear how good the boys were for her and how much fun she was having. They were glad to hear she was doing fine.
Seeing her parents had also given her the new idea of e-mailing them. That was something she could do on the boys’ laptop when they were asleep and then she could talk about her life a little more often with her parents. That idea was enthusiastically agreed with by both of her parents, who both also did warn her not to show any signs of life so that her friends wouldn’t suddenly see her online and freak out.
The rest of the day passed without any more notable events happening. Instead of going to bed with Ji Yong like she had done for the past months, she spend the night in the living room, thinking over the events of the day and mainly the fact that she had not glowed when Top had hugged her, even though the warm feeling that normally accompanied it had been there. The broken strings also came to her mind, and she worried about it.
When morning came she still hadn’t figured out anything, but she decided to push it aside and help the boys during the busy times. So the days went by again. Ji Yong’s birthday was celebrated as well. He got a huge surprise party from the company, co-organized by the other four boys of course, and lots of presents. She wanted to give him something as well and keep it a little original at the same time. In the end she decided to listen to him for a day.
So the next day he made her pinch all kinds of people that couldn’t see her, made her run around on the streets singing the most stupid song he could come up with, made her hug the other boys at random moments and much more of those things. At the end of the day, he even made her sing a serenade. Because she couldn’t sing at all, she decided to overdo it and sing extremely bad, just to bug him. She also didn’t sing the serenade to him, but to his T-shirt.
It ended in all five of them covering their ears and laughing uncontrollably while she made a grand finale by sinking down on her knees in front of him, grabbing the edge of his T-shirt and bowing her head in so called sadness as she sung the last notes. She waited a few seconds, before starting to fake-cry as she let go of his T-shirt and crawled away. She didn’t even make four meters before collapsing on the ground, uncontrollably laughing.
When they finally were able to breathe normally again without bursting out in laughter every two seconds, the boys politely applauded for her performance. She bowed, before sitting down on the couch next to Ji Yong. He put an arm around her, so she let her arm slip around his waist as well, only to pinch his side moments later. He made a surprised noise, jerking away from her and staring at her in shock.
“You are so going to pay for making me sing, you know.” she said, grinning as she did so.
“How are you going to make me pay then?” he brutally replied. She smirked, looking at Top a moment before eyeing Ji Yong again.
“One of you two still owes me a wish, I might just use it on you.” The self-assured expression immediately disappeared from his face and she chuckled.
“That’s right..” Seungri then brought into the conversation. “..you still didn’t make a wish or told us where you want to go.”
“I’m still thinking about it. I’ll let you know in time when I have decided.” she said, thereby disregarding the subject.
August passed, followed by September and October. She and Top started talking a bit again and were even able to be with just the two of them without it getting awkward. She didn’t hesitate to hug him anymore, nor did he seem as distant towards her as he had been, but the glowing did not come back. And even though her relation with Top became closer again, her relation with Ji Yong was even more close.
It was only months later that she would use her free wish. On a dark day at the beginning of November, she finally made the decision. She would ask for the wish she had wanted to have fulfilled from the moment on that she had gotten the choice. For that reason, she gathered all her courage as she sat on the edge of Ji Yong’s bed, waiting for him to come back from the bathroom like every other day.
When he entered, he wanted to get in bed, but she stopped him and motioned him to sit down next to her first. He seemed a little surprised by that request, but did it anyway. There was an awkward silence after that. He waited for her to say what was bothering her and she was trying to think of what to say in her head before actually saying it out loud to him. After a few minutes she took a deep breath and looked up at him.
“I decided.. About my birthday presents. I want you to grant me my wish and Top to go somewhere with me.” she said. Ji Yong smiled and nodded. She couldn’t help but to smile back, even though her nerves were killing her.
“So what’s your wish?” he asked, encouraging her that way to say it. She closed her eyes a moment, before looking at him and simply getting it out.
“I want you to kiss me.”
The silence was almost deafening. It seemed like nothing in the house moved after her words. Ji Yong’s face seemed to lose some of its colour and he looked at her with an expression that showed his obvious uncomfortable feeling. She clasped her hands and took another deep breath so she could explain her wish to him. Before she was able to talk, however, Ji Yong started talking with a very soft voice.
“I don’t.. Why do you wish for that?” He seemed to be totally lost, trying to understand her reasoning.
“I don’t know what has been going on in the past year, but during the recent months I started loving you. Yet I also love Top and he still is the other half of my soul. Only.. The closer I got with you, the more I lost my bond with him. I felt strings holding me to him break. When I first spend the night with you, when I sat on your lap at the breakfast table the next day, when I first comforted you and so on.
I seem to love both of you now, but I don’t know in what way or who I love more. I also don’t know what it meant for those strings to break. I’m confused about this whole situation, but the one person that does know more about it, can’t tell me. I ask you to kiss me so that I can at least determine my own feelings right, so that I will know if what I feel for you is true or just my imagination. I do not know what is real and what isn’t anymore.”
She almost started crying, but held it back, telling herself to be strong so Ji Yong would grant her wish instead of wanting to comfort her and have her think it over again, because she had thought it over so many times already and the only option to end her confusion seemed to be exactly what she had just said. If his kiss made her feel what Top’s kiss had made her feel so many months ago, then she loved him more. If not, then she would have to talk things through with Top.
“K’Ae.” Ji Yong said worried, putting a hand on her shoulder. She already saw the rejection coming, but looked up at him anyway. “I never thought of you that way. I mean, I’m sure that if I would look at you like someone to love, I would fall in love, but to me you always belonged to Top. The way you look at him, the way you seem to come home whenever he hugs you. The way you glow.. I honestly don’t think you can love anyone more than you love him.
But, if you doubt that yourself and you really want this to prove it, then I will do as you wish. I just hope you know what you’re doing. If being close with me made the bond between you and Top less strong, then kissing me might fully break it and I don’t know what will happen then. Are you really positive that that person who knows what’s going on cannot explain all this to you? Are you sure you want me to kiss you?”
She thought about his words, taking all of these things into accord. There was a silence that lasted quite a while, but in the end she nodded. This seemed to be the only way for her to find out the truth. She nodded again, a little more sure of herself and looked Ji Yong right in his eyes. She put her hand on his, softly squeezing it.
“I am sure, but only if you agree. I don’t want you to do this against your will.” she whispered.
He smiled a little, but didn’t reply. Instead, he softly stroked her cheek with his fingers, before cupping her face with his hands. She felt the tension in her build and a tickling feeling appeared in her stomach. As Ji Yong looked her straight in the eye, the tickling became more intense. His face closed in on hers and she could seemingly already feel his lips on hers. She closed her eyes, the tension building in her body.
Suddenly, time seemed to freeze. In the darkness of having her eyes closed, a glowing thread became visible. She followed it with her eyes, realizing it was one of the strings keeping her tied to Top. Instinctively she knew this was the last string. The only thing holding their ruptured soul together. The tickling she had felt became more intense, more painful, until her body seemed to burn. It felt the same as she had felt when Ji Yong had kissed her cheek the first time.
In a desperate action, she pulled her head free of his grip, opening her eyes in shock and gasping for air because of the pain. Ji Yong immediately pulled his head back. His lips had been only inches away from her face. When she turned to him, he smiled and softly stroked her hair. She let her head rest against his hand, closing her eyes again as she slowly breathed in and out. Finally she calmed down. She opened her eyes to look at him.
“I told you.” he softly said, showing a sympathetic smile. “Go talk to that one you said knows more about this all and make him tell you what he knows. It is unfair not to tell you things you should know.” She slowly nodded, smiling a little because Ji Yong kept being so kind and so totally himself. He leaned towards her to give her a kiss on her forehead. She gave him another hug, before gathering her thoughts and moving to Kevin again.
[FIC] Soulmates: K'Ae
Title: Soulmates: K'Ae
Characters: Big Bang
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 4/6
Summary: Kim Ae Cha wakes up in a room that is not her own, with no recollection of how she got there. Soon she starts discovering things that change her perception on the world forever.
A/N: Chapter 4 is like 31 pages long.
- - - - -
She woke up with the memory of Top’s arms around her still fresh in her mind. Wait.. She woke up. How could she have woken up? She didn’t need sleep. The smile that had brightened her face when she thought of Top disappeared and she opened her eyes with a sick feeling. When she got up, it seemed so much harder than it had been, as if her body had become heavier than before. A sudden gasp made her turn her head to see.
Her eyes opened wide in shock when she saw her mother, looking at her with a surprised, yet relieved expression. How could she be with her mother? Where was she? Why didn’t she just spend the night in Top’s arms to get up and start a new day when he woke up? What had happened? He was in Japan at the moment and judging from the fact that her mother was looking right at her, she was all the way back in Korea now.
“Ae Cha!” her mother said, reaching out and pulling K’Ae against herself in a hug. It felt weird and surreal, but it was probably the most human contact she had had in weeks. She felt tears run over her cheeks and she heard her mother cry as well. There was a slight bit of guilt inside her because she didn’t cry from happiness. She cried because she was pulled away from Top to come back to this boring life.
“I was so worried. You have been in coma for the past month and a half and they were going to give up on you because your body was faltering. And now you woke up!”
The words made no sense. How could she have been in coma? Her spirit, her soul, had been somewhere totally different. What had kept her body from dying? More importantly, what had made her come back? Her eyes filled with more tears, but it felt only weird to be able to cry. Everything felt weird and it seemed to have been better before, when she was a ghost. Why did she have to return?
As her mother let go of her, a nurse walked in. When their eyes met, the nurse dropped her plate of food in surprise. With the same shocked expression as her mother had done, she stared at K’Ae, before turning around and running out the room again. She probably hadn’t been a nurse for all too long, because she wasn’t able to show the same kind of business like ‘I don’t care’-attitude as other nurses often did.
“Ae Cha?” her mother asked. She turned her head to look at her mother who had let go of her. “Why aren’t you talking? Is something wrong? You do remember me, don’t you? Oh God, please don’t tell me you have amnesia.” The tears started flowing over her mother’s cheeks again and K’Ae felt bad for her. She wanted to tell her everything was alright, but the words didn’t come out. There was no sound when she opened her mouth. She freaked out upon realising that and put a hand on her throat.
“Don’t worry, it’ll get better. It’s because you haven’t used your voice in so long. When you drink a little and do some voice exercises you will slowly regain your voice.” She looked up at the sudden voice and saw a doctor coming in, followed by the nurse from earlier who immediately started gathering the forgotten plate of food to take it away. The doctor approached her and took out a pen while overlooking the papers in his hand.
“I must say it’s a surprise to see you awake. To be honest, we had thought you would have died in the next week. Your heartbeat was starting to falter and your body didn’t respond to anything anymore. It’s a miracle that you woke up again, actually. That’ why it’s possible that you feel weak or that your body might have difficulties working properly again. I’ll have to examine you, take a look at your pulse and your reactions, to see how you’re doing.”
She listened to the whole explanation, not really caring about a word of it. Only the part about her voice had been of any use to her. The doctor walked up to the cargo meter next to her bed and inspected the measurements. His astonished look made her smile. Her body was probably much stronger than he had expected. After he finished inspecting the meter, he turned to her and started doing all kinds of little tests on her to examine her reactions and all.
When he was finally satisfied, the astonished look on his face still hadn’t left. She knew he was wondering how she could be so alert after just coming out of a coma, but even the amusement of seeing the doctor caught up in riddles wasn’t enough to get her out of the downward spiral her thoughts were in. She was beginning to realise she was really back in her body and there was no way to go back to Top. She had tried moving to him often enough by now.
“Everything seems to be fine. We’ll keep you here a few more days to recover, so that if you should get a relapse, we can immediately be around to help.” the doctor finally said, addressing her in person and not her mother like most of those doctors did. Upon hearing his words, however, every bit of hope in her died away and instead of smiling, like most people probably did, she just lay back down, pulled the blanket up to her chin and tried to fall asleep.
“Ae Cha?” her mother immediately asked, wondering about her strange behaviour probably. She didn’t respond. She heard the doctor say some things to her mother, before leaving the room. Only moments later another person entered the room. There was the sound of a plate touching the table next to her bed, but still she didn’t look up. The person, probably the nurse from before, left the room again, leaving her alone with her mother.
“Ae Cha, dear, don’t you want to eat?” When there was no response, her mother sighed. “At least eat something so that your body can recover.” she then started pleading.
K’Ae didn’t even bother trying to be considerate as she pulled the blanket over her head. Her mind was filled with the desire to return to Top. How would he feel, waking up to find her gone? Would he be as lost and confused as she was, or would he just get over it and move on. He had been very casual when she appeared, so he could as well be casual about it when she disappeared. That thought pierced through her like a knife, making her silently gasp for air and start crying again.
What if he really didn’t care if she was there or not? She had always felt like she belonged with him and life wasn’t as complete without him. Her feelings had always been swirling around Top, but she had been a ghost. For her he was everything she had left and without him she would fade away. For him, what was she? Just some girl hanging around him that he was intrigued by, but that was it. What if he didn’t care about her?
That was the start of her lifeless life. Despite the panic and hurt inside her, she fell asleep in the end. She sunk into nightmares about Top. Some where he immediately moved on like nothing had happened, some where he was together with other girls. From that day on she was plagued by such nightmares nonstop. She often woke up in tears or unable to breathe for a few seconds. Her parents never knew, because she never made a sound and by the time they woke up, she had been awake for a few hours already.
Her days in the hospital were mostly the same. She slept a lot, hardly ate anything, but as her health was still fine, the doctors soon let her go home. At home she didn’t do much different from at the hospital. Sometimes she would get her computer and try to talk to friends some, but even when she went out with her friends and laughed, it felt like something was missing. She could not forget him.
As days became weeks and weeks became months, she felt like her human side was disappearing more and more, like she was turning into the ghost she had actually been for a while. Her body was becoming very slim because of the little amount of food she ate and even people she hardly ever talked to told her she was silent. Even her birthday passed without celebration, because her parents couldn’t even convince her to get up in the morning.
After about three months, it was April meanwhile, her parents finally couldn’t stand her behaviour anymore and they got her to sit in the living room with them to talk about it. She was basically dragged downstairs by her father and placed in the couch. As her mother and father took place in the other couch, an unknown woman stood behind them, resting a hand on her father’s left shoulder and her mother’s right one in a comforting gesture.
“Ae Cha..” her mother started the conversation. “We are very worried about you. You eat very little and you hardly get out of your room anymore. There’s no life left in you. This has been going on ever since you woke up from your coma. Did something happen? Is there something you want to tell us?” The worried tone was unmistakeable, but she couldn’t feel bad for her mother’s hurt.
“You would not believe anyway, mom.” she said, not even trying to sound interested.
“Try me.” Even though her mother sounded very sincere, she didn’t want to try and explain everything about her being a ghost and all to her mother. In the end they would just declare her crazy and make her see a psychiatrist or something. She would do the same herself if she hadn’t seen proof of her story. The silence lasted. When her mother looked like she was going to say something, the unknown woman restrained her.
“Don’t try to push her into talking.” she said. Her voice was a little dimmed, as if she was talking from a distance. For the first time in months, K’Ae looked up and focused her eyes on something. She could see the surprise on her parents’ faces as they saw her movement, but didn’t pay much attention to it.
“Who is this anyway? Some psychologist you’re going to make me see? You can give up that idea right away. I’m not going to go.” she said, nodding at the woman. The surprise on her parents faces grew and the woman looked surprised too now.
“Can you see me?” she asked, with the shock sounding through in her voice.
“Of course I can see you. It’s not like you’re hiding.”
The woman approached her, going straight through the couch as she did so. The image made the blood in her veins turn into ice. K’Ae’s eyes were locked on the woman, repeating the scene in her head where she had walked through the couch. She couldn’t believe it was really happening. Tears filled her eyes and rolled over her cheeks.
“I’m a ghost, Ae Cha.” the woman then said. All the feelings she had tried to escape for the past months suddenly came back to her, surprising her with their intensity. As she collapsed in the couch, crying her heart out, the still unknown ghost woman put her arms around her and started comforting her. She closed her eyes, immediately seeing the image of Top as he lay in his bed sleeping. The hurt became worse and she almost choked in her gasps for air.
When the tears started to lessen and her breathing became more even again, she noticed her parents were next to her as well. Stroking her hair and back in an attempt to calm her down. Her father was considerate enough to have put a few tissues ready for her. She grabbed one and started to clean her face. The silence was only interrupted by her occasional sniffing as she slowly got herself in hand again.
“Ae Cha..” her father finally said. “What happened?”
“I..died.” she replied. Speaking was still difficult after the sudden outburst of tears, but at least she was able to. “Or at least I thought so. My soul left my body and I went to my other half. I was with him for the time I have been in coma according to you. Then suddenly I woke up in my body again.”
“Who was it?” It was again her father who spoke, her mother and the unknown woman remained silent.
“Choi Seung Hyun.” Thinking about him had been painful, but it was no match compared to what saying his name felt like. The hurt was so intense that her nerves seemed to go numb, leaving her with a disoriented feeling.
“Who is that?”
“Honey, please don’t ask any more.” her mother said softly, wrapping her arms around her. She couldn’t help feeling relieved that she didn’t have to talk about Top any more. Her mother’s arms seemed a safe place to hide, so she let her head rest on her mother’s shoulder as she closed her eyes, trying to ban out the images of Top.
“I’m so sorry, Ae Cha.” her mother whispered. “If I had known I was pulling you away from your other half I would never have tried to bring you back.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the doctors told me you were going to die, I was desperate to keep you with us. That’s why I asked your aunt, Soon Yi, to help me get your soul back.” Her mother stroked her hair and tried to show her a smile, but she was too caught up in thoughts to notice.
“I have an aunt?”
“Yes. She is my twin sis, but she died when we were young. She has been with me ever since in ghost form. Your dad has always been able to see her, but I only told him about her true self when I got pregnant. You were never able to see her, though, up till now.”
“She looks your age.”
“Ghosts age when their other halves do.”
“I see.”
It was weird to have the business like talk as they were having, but it was easier than to think about Top too much. Her mother was half of a soul too and she seemed to know avoiding the subject was better. That’s when her mother had to ruin it all with her next words.
“But Ae Cha.. Can’t you try living again? It can’t be that bad. It hurts so much to see you being as lifeless as you are. You don’t laugh anymore like you used to. There is nothing left of my happy little girl. I know being back probably isn’t easy, but now that you are, can’t you make the best of it?”
She pulled free, a sudden rage rushing through her. For the first time in months she looked her mother straight in the eyes and spoke with a voice that was louder than a mumble.
“Try living again? Not that bad? Make the best of it?” If suddenly fireballs would shoot out of her eyes, she wouldn’t have been surprised by it. “Mum, you don’t know how much it hurts to even breathe. How it feels to suddenly be incomplete. How disoriented I felt at first. You don’t even have a single clue how much it’s killing me to have to put food in my mouth and swallow it. Being back in a body is like torture. And you want me to try keeping it up?”
“I understand it is difficult, but..”
“Difficult doesn’t even come close. I just want to go back to him.”
Her anger disappeared again and she sank back into the couch, defeated. If only she could be back with him. If only she could die a second time. How many times had she thought of suicide in the past months? She probably couldn’t count it on two hands anymore. Yet she had never done it, afraid of hurting herself. She was too much of a coward to do that.
“So why don’t you go back to him?” her father suddenly suggested. “You can go visit him the way you are now, alive. He will recognise you, won’t he? I mean.. You don’t look different in your ghost form, right? So you could visit him and tell him everything. Then you can live together with him, without having to die for it.”
All three women looked up at him, but K’Ae was the only one who didn’t seem thrilled by that idea. In her head, she tried to picture it. She would never get passed the door of the boys’ apartment. She would never be able to get his attention during a concert, unless when she threw a fit, but then she would just be kicked out of the concert hall. And even when she did, there was no way for them to be together. He was famous. Once the company found out he had a girlfriend they would either force him to dump her or kick him out.
“I can’t, dad.” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“He’s part of a very famous band. There is no way for him to have a girlfriend while his contract is running.”
“What band?”
“Please, dad..”
Her voice died away and tears started filling her eyes again, but she held them back, trying her best not to let the hurt take over. Again her mother hugged her tightly, caressing her back.
“Can you tell us something more about him, Ae Cha? Just tell anything you can tell, don’t push yourself.” It was the unknown woman who had turned out to be her aunt Soon Yi who was talking. When K’Ae looked up at her, she noticed she indeed looked like her mother, but they were obviously not identical twins. She thought about the question a while, before slowly starting to talk.
“He’s part of a band together with four other guys. Ji Yong, Yong Bae, Seungri and Daesung. They are very famous. At the end of last year they had a big concert and there were probably more than 10.000 fans present to watch them. He’s 20 years old, but will turn 21 this year. His eyes are very deep and powerful and-” Her voice cracked and a tear escaped her eyes. She wiped it away. “I’m sorry. Maybe you should just look him up on the internet. You’ll find a lot about him there.”
“He’s older than you?” her aunt asked surprised.
“Yes. Why does that surprise you?”
“When a soul is divided, it happens at one moment. The both babies will be alive at the same time. Of course the date of their birth can differ depending on how long the pregnancy takes, but it’s not more than a month. There’s certainly never a year difference. This is strange.” Upon hearing her aunt’s words, she remembered something Kevin had said when she met him.
“There was a ghost I met at that concert who told me everything about our life. I had explained to him some things that I had already found out, like how I needed to want to be visible for people to be able to see me, even when they believed in me. He told me that there is only one pair among us who can do that. He also said that it had a reason, but that he couldn’t tell me that reason. Do you know more about it?”
Both her mother and her aunt shook their heads.
“I have no idea what he was talking about. I know nothing about something as strange as that.” her aunt said, shrugging as she did so. K’Ae looked at the ground for a while, not really thinking about anything, just letting time pass by. Eventually, she looked up again.
“Can I go to bed?” she asked. “I feel tired.”
When her parents allowed her to go, she immediately stood up and left. While dragging herself up the stairs, she felt a sudden resolution take hold of her, as if she had just made an important decision. She had no idea what she had decided about, though, but her steps became livelier and she almost felt at ease when she finally got in bed. She rested her head on her pillow and closed her eyes, ready to fall into a dreamless sleep.
When she opened her eyes again, she felt much better than she had done in the past months. It was only when she got up that she noticed what had changed. Even though she walked away from the bed, her body remained there. It was almost scary to watch herself lying there seemingly asleep, but she felt strangely happy upon noticing that she was back to being a ghost. She only now realised how much of a burden it had been to live in a body again.
Slowly she walked out the door, or better, she walked through it. Her feet automatically led her to her parents’ room and she entered it, again by just walking straight through the door. She looked at her still sleeping parents, unable to call forth the love she should feel while looking at the two people that gave her life. The life she had chosen now was not given to her by them. Of course she would still visit them, but for now it was time to go back to where she belonged.
“I will tell them.” a voice suddenly said behind her. Upon turning around she saw her aunt, Soon Yi, looking at her with a slight smile. “Even I don’t know how close you are linked to him, because my relation with your mother is only the one between sisters and I was told it is harder for lovers to be apart, but I think I come closest to understanding from the three of us. I hope you will be happy and please do visit. Knowing you’re not fully gone will make it more bearable for them.”
“I will visit when I can. But how..?”
“How did you become a ghost again? I have never heard of something like this before. All I can conclude out of this, is that you must have a strong will or a very strong connection to the other part of your soul. I cannot give you more of an explanation than that. You said you met a ghost who seemed to know more, maybe you should try and get some answers from him.”
“That might not be such a bad idea. Thank you, aunt Soon Yi. If they ever really need me, you know how to find me, right?” she said, looking at her parents a last time. When her aunt nodded, she closed her eyes and tried to recall the image of Kevin’s face.
“Oh and Ae Cha.. Staying away from your other half gets easier when there is another ghost with you. You will still fade away, but much slower. It is possible to live like that for a few months.”
She nodded before disappearing from her parental house. When she opened her eyes, she was in an unknown room. Her eyes scanned her surroundings, but she had never seen the place before. Suddenly a hand was placed over her mouth and she was pulled backwards.
“Don’t speak out loud, you’ll wake her.” a slightly familiar voice whispered next to her ear. When she turned around, she recognised Kevin. He slowly took his hand away from her mouth as he eyed her suspiciously.
“I need to talk to you.” she whispered back, walking away from the bed in which she suspected Chan Sook was sleeping. Kevin went ahead of her, walking through the door and then down the stairs. Once they arrived in the living room he sat down, motioning her to do the same. She went to sit across him, looking at him a few moments before starting to speak.
“I want to know what you meant with your words at the concert. What is so special about me?”
He sighed and pointed his eyes at the wall. He seemed to be deep in thoughts, but she didn’t have much time to wait for his answer. Her longing to see Top again was getting bigger with the minute, making her feel uncomfortable with the silence. Luckily he didn’t test her patience too long. After a few minutes his eyes found hers again and he started to talk.
“I cannot tell you what I know, because there is no way of knowing what it will do to you or your view on things. I can tell you one thing, though, but only if you promise not to ask any more questions after that.” His expression was a very serious one which convinced her that he was speaking the truth.
“I don’t know if I will or won’t ask more questions, but I’ll keep in mind that you said you won’t answer them.” she replied, after thinking over the answer.
“This is not the first time you have been on this earth.”
“What!? But you said souls don’t return to earth after they moved on.”
“Exactly.”
“That means..I..didn’t move on?” Kevin remained silent, giving her an apologetic look. “But if I’m not here for the first time then..neither is Top. How is it possible that.. What.. How can you tell me something like that without allowing me to ask you some questions? What happened? Why did we return to earth instead of moving on? Who was I before then? Or who were we?”
She kept rambling on like that for a while, before finally realising that Kevin was not going to say anything else. In her memories the one sentence that had caused all of her unanswered questions repeated itself over and over. She couldn’t get a stop to her thoughts, making her unable to think clear. Everything became kind of blurry and she could only see Top’s face in her mind. Her eyes focused on Kevin again as she made another decision.
“I have to go.” she slowly said. Kevin nodded, getting up from the couch and reaching a hand out towards her. She took it and they shared a moment of silence.
“Feel free to come by at any time, but I really can’t answer questions about that subject anymore. For questions about anything else, you are welcome to ask them. Say hi to Top for me when you see him.” Kevin then said. She nodded and focused on the image of Top in her head. The moment she did, her surroundings changed again and she ended up in yet another unknown room. She did recognise Top’s bed, so she knew she was in the right place, but everything else was still unknown to her.
She immediately walked towards Top’s bed, but it was empty. Not wanting to wake anyone up, she slowly left the room to end up in an unfamiliar apartment. It was obviously not a hotel, but it was really big. She guessed the guys had gotten a new apartment. She crossed the living room and walked through doors and walls, trying to find someone. Behind one of the doors she found Seungri and Daesung’s room. Only the latter was still awake, but he hadn’t noticed her yet.
“Daesung.” she said, relieved to see a familiar face. He didn’t respond. She walked closer and put her hand on his back, repeating his name again. A shock went through him as he looked up from his book. When his eyes found her, they became wide in amazement. He stared at her a few seconds, before carefully touching her face. When he was convinced she was real, he turned his whole body to face her.
“K’Ae? What.. Where have you been? You suddenly disappeared and we had no idea what happened. We have been waiting for you to come back for weeks, but you never did. We were all so worried..” His voice died away, but was replaced by his genuine smile. He reached his arms out to her for a hug which she gladly accepted, being pulled close to him for a few moments.
“I was brought back home against my will.” she softly said, glad that she didn’t have tears to cry or they would have made her unable to speak. “But now I am back and I won’t go again without letting you know.”
She couldn’t even put in words the happiness she felt now that she was seeing the boys again, even if it were only two of them and one was asleep. Right at that moment, Seungri opened his eyes a little, still sleepy and kind of unwilling to wake up. His whole expression changed when his gaze went over her. He almost jumped out of the bed in his surprise. She let go of Daesung to open her arms for Seungri. He answered the hug enthusiastically.
“K’Ae!” he exclaimed as he did so and she could hear that he was smiling. Her own smile was probably twice as wide as his. She almost squeezed him flat in the hug, only to go back to squeezing Daesung in a hug. If she had been a little girl she would probably have been bouncing on the bed, but she kept herself to just laughing out loud to express her joy. In the end she ended up being hugged by both guys from each side.
When they finally let go, the smile didn’t disappear from her face anymore. She sat down on the bed with both of them across of her and told them everything that had happened to her at her parents’ house. They listened with sincere interest, not once interrupting her. When she finished, it was silent for a little while, but she couldn’t keep herself from wanting to see Top as quick as possible. That’s why she broke the silence.
“I’m going now, but I’ll see you guys in the morning. Go to sleep now. Great new place you got, by the way. It’s really cool.”
She smiled at them and moved again, trying to get to Ji Yong’s side this time. She arrived in some kind of disco-bar-thing. The place was very crowded and in the corner where she stood everything was covered in darkness. It took her a few seconds to find Ji Yong only a meter away from her. He was walking by, so she quickly took his hand and pulled him into the dark. He made a surprised noise that went lost in the loud music.
“Ji Yong, don’t leave, it’s me, K’Ae.” she said the moment he bumped into her. He froze where he stood, slowly turning his head to look at her. Of course he didn’t see anything in the dark, so she softly squeezed the hand she was still holding and walked into the light. His eyes went wide upon seeing her, but apart from that he was rather calm in his reaction. He did immediately pull her back to him to squeeze her in a typical Ji Yong-hug.
Even though she was very happy to see him again, the longing in her had become too much to bear for her. She hugged him back only a moment, before letting go and looking over the crowd. Ji Yong probably knew exactly who she was looking for, because he took her hand and pulled her through the crowd with him. She closed her eyes, imagining there was nothing in front of her and just walked through all the people.
“He’s over there at the bar, but I can’t see him at the moment.” Upon hearing Ji Yong’s words, she opened her eyes again to look for Top. At first she didn’t see him either, but then her eyes caught sight of him. He was indeed sitting at the bar, a glass of wine in his hand, a girl next to him. They were in a lively conversation and even from that distance she could see he was flirting. His hand was resting on the girl’s upper leg and his smile was a very teasing one.
She stared, not able to believe what her eyes were seeing, not able to grasp what her brain was telling her. In the moment that followed, he looked up and their eyes met. His expression turned surprised, but there was not much of the happiness she had expected there to be. The look of love he had given her before she had left had completely disappeared from his eyes now. It hurt her more than it should have done.
Before he even had the chance to get up or move towards her, she turned away, knowing that he probably wouldn’t come to her and she didn’t want to see that. Ji Yong’s questioning words completely went past her. It took her only moments to leave the club, not really knowing where she would end up. Judging from the furniture and the mess on the desk, she had gone to Ji Yong’s room. Without another thought, she crashed down on the bed and started crying.
Time passed but it was insignificant. All that mattered was that her fear had come true. Top didn’t care about her anymore. She had been gone for about three months and already he had forgotten about her. Every loving gesture, every hug they had shared, even their kiss suddenly seemed all mockery to her. He didn’t care the least bit about any of those things anymore. He didn’t care about her anymore. He just went on with his life. Had he ever really cared?
She didn’t know how much time had passed when the door opened and someone walked in. A hand was put on her shoulder and following that she was pulled into a hug. She knew it was Ji Yong because of his smell, so she let her head rest on his shoulder as the tearless sobs kept following each other. She had left her body for no reason. Top would probably only think it a burden to have her around again. He would send her away, or worse, just ignore her.
After a few minutes, she realised that Ji Yong was softly singing to calm her down. She didn’t know the song, but it was serving its purpose, so she tried listening to it. It wasn’t one of their songs and she had never heard it before either. As she concentrated on his voice, her sobbing finally came to an end, so she forced herself to lift up her head and look at Ji Yong. He gave her a little smile, but she wasn’t able to smile back.
“Where have you been, girl?” he asked, stroking her hair. She closed her eyes a moment to gather herself together, then sighed.
“You can ask Daesung or Seungri. I told them before I left to find you and Top.”
“They’re asleep already and I don’t really want to wake them up. Can you please tell us, K’Ae?”
“Us?” she asked surprised. Who else did he mean?
“Yong Bae and Top are curious too, of course.”
“Top?” Saying his name made her feel warm inside and she saw the room brightening as she started glowing. It didn’t take long for Ji Yong to cover his eyes and turn his face away from her. She immediately tried to hold back the feelings inside of her. It was strange to feel that her love for Top didn’t falter even though his love had seemingly disappeared. The moment the glowing stopped, Ji Yong turned back to her.
“What was that?”
“Oh nothing. It happens more often. I just occasionally start glowing here and there. No big deal.”
At first he looked at her in shock, but the moment he noticed the little smile on her face, he realised she was just joking. His smile was twice as bright as before, just because she was able to joke even though she didn’t feel very happy. She rubbed her arms, sighing deeply and then getting up. She could as well face Top’s disapproval right now instead of trying to postpone it until a later moment. It would never be less painful to see anyway.
Ji Yong quickly walked out ahead of her, holding the door open for her, even though it didn’t make much of a difference. She strengthened herself and proceeded walking into the huge living room. When she looked up, she saw Yong Bae and Top sitting in the couch, both of them immediately getting up as she approached. Yong Bae smiled at her and gave her a hug. She hugged him back, feeling a little more confident as she did so.
To her great surprise, she was immediately pulled into a hug by Top when she let go of Yong Bae and turned to him. At first she just crashed into his body, stunned by his sudden action, but then the warm feeling grew and she let her arms slide around him as well. Her head rested on his shoulder and she closed her eyes. She was suddenly surrounded by his warmth and smell again, making her feel more complete than she had thought to be possible.
“You’re going to make us blind, K’Ae.” his low voice whispered next to her ear. She opened her eyes, surprised to see the bright light around them. With a little ashamed smile, she immediately tried to dim the feeling again so that the light would leave as well. When she gave Yong Bae and Ji Yong an apologetic look, they simply laughed. It made her laugh as well. Top’s little gesture of friendliness had made her feel a little better. He at least was not going to ignore her.
“So tell us.. We’re curious.” Ji Yong finally said, unable to hide his curiosity.
All three of them sat down in the couch. She sat down in another one, which immediately resulted in Ji Yong getting up and walking towards her to literally pull her out of the couch, sit down himself and then just pull her down on his lap and hug her from behind. She couldn’t help smiling, but her eyes flashed to Top afraid to see the discomfort that had always been there when she was close to Ji Yong. He didn’t show any sign of that old jealousy however.
She tried not to let it hurt her too much as she started talking. She told them about how she had woken up in the hospital and how disoriented she had been. She skipped the details of her life by simply saying that a few months passed before she and her parents talked about the whole thing. When she told them of her mother’s twin sister, they all seemed as amazed as she had felt.
“What a coincidence.” Ji Yong said. She could only agree.
As she told them the whole story, the faces became more serious. When she reached the end of her explanation, telling them how she had gotten up as a ghost again, they were as mystified as she had been. None of the three boys had even the slightest idea what could have happened, just like Soon Yi and Kevin. She had purposely left out the part where she visited Kevin, because somehow it seemed like a bad idea to tell Top about the fact they had been on earth before.
“It’s time for you guys to go sleep now, I think.” she finally said after a short silence. Yong Bae nodded, so she got up from Ji Yong’s lap to make him able to go to bed as well. As she started walking away, not really sure where she was going, Top called her name. She stopped and turned around, trying to keep her feelings under control so that she wouldn’t start glowing again. He was looking at her with an almost sympathetic look in his eyes.
“Can we talk?” he asked. She nodded, walking back towards him to sit down in the same couch she had sat in before. “Please come sit with me.” he said. He waited in silence as she got up, walked towards him and sat down on the couch he was sitting in as well. When she was seated, he looked right at her and their eyes locked. She didn’t know exactly what to do. Be scared, feel happy, smile, say something or just do nothing at all.
“Why did you come back?” he then asked, turning his eyes away from her. She stared at him for a second, her mind immediately flashing through a few possible answers. In only a matter of seconds she had chosen for the one answer that seemed the most logical and believable one.
“I was dead again. You know it is very weakening for me to be away from you as a ghost.” she said, trying to sound as convincing as possible. Her eyes wandered over his face, in the hope that she could find a sign of his love there. She couldn’t. It felt like a knife went right through her heart, but she tried to keep her expression neutral.
“I see.” he said, looking at her again. A little smile appeared on his face. “It’s nice to see you, K’Ae. It was a little silent without you here.” She smiled back.
“It was hard to suddenly be away from you. I missed you.” There was a very short silence before she softly added “Very much actually.” His smile became a little wider, as if those words pleased him.
“I wish I could say the same. At first it was weird. At first I missed you. I had no idea where you had disappeared to or why, but after a while things got back to normal. It’s easy for me to forget someone I don’t see.” he replied. He shrugged a little as he said so. She tried to keep the smile genuine as his words shot through her like bullets. How could he kill her over and over again with every word that came out of his mouth?
“I understand.” she said, but her voice was no more than a whisper.
“I’m sorry, K’Ae.” He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, slowly getting up after doing so.
“It’s nothing you should apologise for. Such things happen.” She managed to smile again for him. “You should really go to bed now, dear. It is very late and I’m sure you have to get up early again tomorrow.”
She wanted to walk away, but she had no idea where to go to, so she just waited until he left. Too bad for her he didn’t leave. He got up, but only to walk towards her and take her hand in his. She tried to ignore the jolt of energy it sent through her.
“I don’t want you to feel bad, K’Ae. I want you to be happy.” he mumbled. She gathered every bit of self-control she had in her and closed her eyes a short moment.
“I am happy when you are happy, Seung Hyun.” she then said, using his real name to make it even more convincing. “So just be happy. That’s all I want.”
She pulled free and turned away. Without giving it a second thought she walked towards the door she had seen Ji Yong walk through earlier. She hoped it was his room and not the bathroom, but since it was her only way of escaping Top, even the bathroom was good enough for her. The only problem was that it might cause some awkward moments if she just walked into the bathroom like that.
Top watched her walk away from him, slowly disappearing through the door of Ji Yong’s room. The last bits of a smile left his face as her back dissolved into the door. His shoulders fell and he turned away with an almost defeated expression on his face. He started walking towards his own room, trying his best to keep a normal posture should she walk back out of the room.
He had known it was a bad thing to say when the words left his mouth, but of course it had already been too late then. The defeated look in her eyes when she heard his words had shocked him more than any part of her story had done. It was obvious that she still loved him, that she had come back to be with him, not only because she didn’t have a choice. She wanted to be around him as well. She gave up a real life to be with him, probably. He felt like a traitor for not showing her the love he still felt for her.
It was as he had said. He easily forgot about people when they were out of is sight. It was a survival mechanism that he had learned during his days in the band. He was away from the ones he loved so often for such a long time that it was easier to forget about them than to keep thinking about them and miss them. That’s why he had made himself able to push back the feeling of missing someone into the back of his mind so that it became unnoticed, yet always there below the surface.
Of course it was not that he had forgotten the feeling of loving her, the moment she had come into his sight, the feeling had burned inside him again as bright as it had done months earlier. The months he had been without her seemed to suddenly have vanished and when he had hugged her it had felt like nothing had changed. He had just thought it might be better not to give her too much hope. She was a ghost, she would always be around him until he died, but he might not always love her. He wanted her to understand that.
How painful his theory was now. Now that she walked into Ji Yong’s room instead of accompanying him like she had always done. How deep his jealousy reached that it hurt him as much as it did right now. He couldn’t believe himself. If this was how much she meant to him, then why did he just reject her? The reasons he had given himself for doing so suddenly seemed insufficient and absurd. Everything seemed so ridiculously messed up that he almost wanted to laugh at himself.
Once he entered his room, he walked straight towards the bed, lay down and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to have to think about everything. He didn’t want to realise she was back and he had made her feel bad. He didn’t want to feel any of the feelings he was feeling at that moment. He wanted life to become normal again. Most of all he wanted to hold her again, but he had made a stupid decision and now he was unable to undo what he had said.
It didn’t take him long to fall asleep, leaving the hectic day behind him to sink away in dreams.
The moment she entered the room, which luckily turned out to be Ji Yong’s room, she lost her unaffected posture. She walked towards his bed and sank down on the foot end. She turned her back towards the door, pulling her legs up against her body and wrapping her arms around them. She sighed deeply, trying to clear her mind so she could think about the things that had happened to her in just one little day.
Her head felt heavy, her whole ghostly body felt heavy. For the first time being around Top in her ghost form, she felt tired and weakened. If she could, she would have gone to sleep to forget about it all. Yet that option didn’t exist for her. She sighed another time, unable to escape the memories of hugging Top and being close to him. She again remembered the calm, unaffected way in which he had smiled after she had told him she had missed him. How coldly he had told her that he hadn’t missed her. How little he cared about her.
The door opened, but she didn’t look back, expecting it to be Ji Yong. Soon after the door was closed again and someone sat down on the bed behind her. There were no more sounds or movements for a few minutes, but then a hand was put on her shoulder. The hand slid further over her arm and another arm was put around her neck as well, making it so that she was softly hugged from behind. She heard the soft breathing and smiled for no reason.
When she turned her head a little, she saw it was indeed Ji Yong sitting behind her. His chin rested on her shoulder, his cheek touching hers now that she had turned her head. He pressed his cheek a little more against hers and closed his eyes. She closed her eyes as well, feeling almost happy with the contact. She stroked his arm with her hand absentmindedly, making herself calm down as she did so.
“You should go to sleep.” she softly whispered after a while, leaning away from him a little. He opened his eyes and lifted his head to look at her.
“I don’t want to leave you alone.” he answered as he looked at her with a worried expression on his face, gently stroking the hair from her forehead. She managed to smile, touched by his care for her. He smiled back, but still kept his arms around her.
“Will you lie down with me?” he then asked.
She was surprised by those words, remembering the first time she had lay in the same bed as Top. Somehow it seemed a totally different thought to do the same with Ji Yong. It had a different feel to it. With Ji Yong it was just lying in the same bed with a friend. With Top it had been something very special and close. Because she didn’t want to think about it too long, she nodded and started getting up. He let go of her to crawl under the blanket, leaving her enough place to lie down next to him.
When she did so, she immediately cuddled up against him. He pulled the blanket over her and tucked her in a little before letting his arms slide around her waist. She soon found herself matching her breathing with his while listening to his steady heartbeat. It made her feel less lonely quite easily, even making a smile appear on her face.
It didn’t take her long to feel the need to put her arms around him too. She hid her face against his chest as she did so, closing her eyes. She was immediately surrounded by his smell, one she was familiar with but that was still a little strange. She had gotten used to avoiding Ji Yong because it had felt like betrayal to her, but as she lay next to him now she didn’t feel anything but happiness and relief that at least he was still there for her.
“He still cares for you.” Ji Yong suddenly whispered. She opened her eyes again upon hearing those words, looking up at him.
“Yes, of course. It was so obvious.” she said, making sure to add the right dose of sarcasm.
“K’Ae.. Believe me on this one. I’ve known him longer than you have.” He sounded very convinced and sincere and she couldn’t keep up her sarcasm, so she smiled a little, hiding her face against his chest again.
“Goodnight Ji Yong. You really need to sleep now.” she softly said.
He made a sound as if he was going to protest, but then just gave her a kiss on her hair and remained silent. Even though he must have been very tired, it still took a while for his breathing to even out. When it did she slowly looked up at him, noticing a single tear escaping his eye. She caught it with her finger, wiping it off his face and softly kissing his cheek as she did so.
As she put her head back down, his arms tightened around her in his sleep, as if he was trying to hold her close even when not fully aware of her. She stroked his hair, which didn’t cause him to wake up as it had always done with Top. As she hid her face against his shoulder, she realised any living person would have been unable to breathe decently in her current position. At least there were some positive points about being a ghost.
She stayed there, lying in Ji Yong’s arms until the morning. When the room started to brighten up by the morning light, she carefully tried to get out of his grip without waking him up. When she slipped out of his arms, he made a little noise, only to grab his blanket and squeeze it tight to him while sleeping on. She smiled because of the youthfulness he expressed lying there like that and gave him a kiss on his forehead, before leaving the room.
She immediately walked through the living room towards Top’s room, entering it without any hesitation. She walked to the foot end of his bed, only to stand there and look at him. He didn’t look any different than how she had imagined him in the months that she had lived without him at home. He still had the same cute, yet tough expression on his face while sleeping and he still slept in the same position as he had always done.
Seeing him somehow always made her feel complete, even when he was asleep or unaware of her. The moment he came in her sight, her life -or whatever it was, because life might not be the best word for it- was as it should be. He had a very calming effect on her, no matter if he was aware of it or not. Even now that she knew he didn’t love her anymore like she loved him, she still wanted to be close to him, just to feel so at ease.
After a while, she wasn’t really sure how long she had been standing there staring at him, she sighed, turned away from the bed and walked out of the room again. She didn’t want him to see her if he should wake up anytime soon. As she walked through the door, she felt as if a string was cut loose. A string that had been keeping her tied to Top before, but now it was broken. She knew it was true, but she didn’t know if it was good or bad.
Her eyes inspected the living room she was in, for the first time really seeing the new space. They had gotten a very nice and big new apartment, that was for sure. The room was very bright as well, even though it didn’t have any windows. Probably the light colour of the walls had something to do with that. She smiled a little as she walked through the room, making her way back to what she now knew was Ji Yong’s room.
He was still lying in the same position as she had left him in, squeezing his blanket tightly. She couldn’t help chuckling as she walked closer. When she carefully sat down on the edge of the bed, he slowly opened his eyes, as if he wasn’t really sure if there was a reason to wake up. His eyes cleared when he noticed her and he slowly let go of his pillow to put a hand on her arm. She smiled at him and let him pull her a little closer to him.
“Please stay with me a little longer.” he mumbled, still half asleep. She chuckled, but didn’t think it was possible for him to sleep much longer.
“Don’t you have to get up soon?”
“What are you talking about? We have a free day.” he grunted, before closing his eyes again, obviously ready to go back to sleep. She chuckled and crawled back under the blanket next to him. He immediately pulled her back to him, holding her tight in a hug. Her chuckle became a giggle and she was soon struggling to hold back her laughter, making her tremble all over. Ji Yong noticed this and opened his eyes again, to look at her.
“Everything okay?” he asked, not really sounding worried, but neither did he sound like he fully trusted the whole situation. His sleepy question only made her laugh harder and she let out a few more giggles. She quickly turned around in his arms to put her finger on his nose, making him squint to be able to see it. She had to press her face in his pillow to muffle the sound of her laughter.
When she looked up again, he was eyeing her in an amused way. She looked back, trying to make him look away, but he confidently kept staring in her eyes. In the end, she averted her eyes, making Ji Yong let out a victorious cheer. As she looked back at him in surprise, he grinned widely and hugged her again. She chuckled as she wrapped her arms around him as well. It was a little difficult because they were lying in the bed, but she managed.
“You’re such a little kid.” she softly said, making him chuckle.
“I am older than you, young lady.” he then said in a tone that was probably supposed to sound very grown-up or something, but came out sounding plain funny.
“Maybe your body is, but your mind definitely is that of a five year old.”
“Why thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled at her and she smiled back. After a few moments of looking at his bright expression, she hid her face against his neck, nuzzling her nose against his skin. He stroked through her hair and pressed a kiss on it before laying his head down as well. His chest rose and fell with every breath, making her more aware of the slow rhythm of his breathing.
She closed her eyes, letting her head slowly get emptied of thoughts as she focused all her attention on the boy next to her. Again she found herself surrounded by his smell that had lost all strangeness to her. It was weird how simply sleeping in the same bed as someone for one night only could create a bond between the two persons. The first time it had happened with Top and now with Ji Yong as well. Making her always feel at ease around both of them.
Pretty soon the room was filled with the peaceful silence that marked the fact that Ji Yong was soundly asleep already. The whole house seemed drenched in that same silence, leaving her with a very distinct feeling of peace. Even though she could feel the heat radiating from his body, she didn’t feel warmed up in his arms, as if he was not there. Of course in her dimension he actually really wasn’t. It was also never cold or hot for her, the temperature was just right at all times.
Thinking about temperature made her think about her clothing. She had been wearing the same clothes for months when she was a ghost before. It hadn’t really bothered her, seeing that when she got the electric shock, her clothing had been decent at least, but a little change sometimes was always nice. When she had died a second time, she had been wearing her pyjamas, but that realization only just now struck her. She immediately looked at herself, wondering how she could be wearing normal clothes then now, only to discover she was actually wearing her pyjamas.
She was certain she had been wearing normal clothing before, when she had been in the club. Her clothes must have changed somewhere between talking to top and lying down in the bed next to Ji Yong, without her really noticing. She tried figuring out how it could have happened. A lot of her current life had to do with imagination according to Kevin, so maybe when she just imagined herself with different clothing, her clothes would change?
As she came to that conclusion, she tried thinking of herself in another pair of her pyjamas. Immediately the fabric and colour of her clothing changed, making her gasp for air in surprise. She noticed she didn’t need to keep the image in her head for the clothes to stay. From the moment on they had changed, the clothes didn’t change back unless she imagined herself in her previous clothes again. When she got over the first surprise of her new discovery, she started grinning.
At fast pace, she started switching outfits, trying her best to imagine the clothes from her wardrobe back home. After a while, she tried out outfits that she had only worn once or even things she had seen in a store back in her real life and that she had always wanted to wear. Every time she imagined a new outfit, the clothes she was wearing changed in the blink of an eye. She didn’t know how long it took her to skip through all the outfits, but the room was already very bright when she finally settled for her pyjamas again.
Ji Yong, who hadn’t moved at all in his sleep, suddenly let go of her a little and started turning. She let go of him as well so she wouldn’t disturb his sleep, but made sure that he didn’t fall out of the bed. When his moving was accompanied by some distressed sounds, she realised he was dreaming again, probably having another nightmare. She put a hand on his shoulder, whispering comforting words to him to try and calm him down without waking him up.
In the end he calmed down quite easily. She slowly snuck out of the bed, leaving him alone with his last few hours of sleep. She imagined a nice, comfortable outfit for the day before walking into the living room. The TV was on, which surprised her, but the person walking in a little later surprised her even more. She hadn’t heard anyone wake up or move around in the apartment. It must be very neatly isolated.
“Daedae!” she said as she walked towards him to hug him. “I didn’t hear you wake up. Good morning. Did you sleep well?” He laughed and hugged her back, swinging her around in a circle as he did so.
“Daedae?” he replied grinning, expressing his amusement with the new name she had given him. “Good morning, K’Ae. I slept very well, thank you. I didn’t see you around, though, when I woke up?”
“I was keeping JiJi some company. He was a little lonely and cuddly I guess.”
“He always is a little cuddly.” Daesung replied.
“True.”
“And .. JiJi?”
She chuckled upon seeing his grinning face. Being with Daesung meant being happy. It was impossible to look at his bright smile and feel bad. She ruffled his hair with her hand and grinned at him.
“I decided you needed some nice new nicknames from me.” she said smiling. “So now it’s Daedae, Riri, Dongie and JiJi.”
“What about Top hyung?”
“I didn’t quite find him a nice new nickname yet. It’s a little hard.” she frowned upon saying it, thinking about how she was ever going to change Top into a nice nickname. Or Choi Seung Hyun for that matter.
“What about Hyunnie?” Daesung then suggested. She couldn’t help giggling as she heard the name.
“That sounds like a girl’s name. I think it would then be better to call him Choichoi or something.” Daesung laughed upon hearing the name, immediately starting to nod.
“That’s great. You should really call him that.” he said, grinning widely. She chuckled, but shook her head.
“I don’t know if I want to risk that. I would like to keep my head.”
Her comment made Daesung laugh out loud, trying to muffle it with his hand a little. He then effortlessly picked her up from the ground and carried her to the couch, where he put her down again to sit down in it next to her. She pointed her eyes to the TV and followed the program for a moment. When she didn’t immediately recognise it, she focused her attention on Daesung again, moving a little closer to him to put her head on his shoulder and watch TV like that.
“What’s on?” she asked. He mumbled some answer that she couldn’t understand, but since she didn’t really care what exactly she was watching, she didn’t ask again.
“Did you understand that?” he asked surprised only moments later when no answer came. She chuckled and shook her head, making him smile widely again. “I said that I had no idea what it is, but it looked easy and I don’t need to think while watching it so I let it be on and am now watching it while actually still half asleep and only slowly waking up.” he then repeated his words.
“You mumbled all that just now?” she exclaimed, lifting her head to give him an astonished look. He snickered and ruffled through her hair with his hand. She shrieked as she pulled away, only to imagine herself with her hair in a ponytail. The astonished look on Daesung’s face told her she had succeeded. Or she had failed and her hair looked terrible now, of course. Maybe it was all gone. She quickly shook her head to verify her hair was still there. It was. She couldn’t help feeling relieved.
“How did you do that?” Daesung asked with the astonished look still on his face. She grinned, imagined herself with short punker hair and watched how his jaw fell upon seeing the sudden change.
“I’m a ghost. You see me as however I want to look like, so simply imagining that something is different will make it different as well.” she explained, changing her hair back to normal. She decided she would check the internet for a fitting haircut later and maybe look up some nice clothing too. If she could choose what to look like, she would make something cool out of it and change the outfit as often as she would have changed clothes in real life.
Her attention was drawn back to the TV because the program ended and a music video started. It took her a little while to realize it was one of their songs, but she didn’t know it. It must be a song from the Japanese album ‘For the world’ that they had released right before she had disappeared. It had a very catchy rhythm and she liked it, even though it was sung in English. She understood most of it, although their pronunciation wasn’t very accurate.
“Do we have to watch this?” Daesung started complaining, trying to get a hold on the zapper to turn the TV off. She pushed the thing out of his reach and nodded in reply to his question, not for a moment averting her eyes from the screen. “Why? It’s just a bunch of guys lip-syncing to a song. Besides, isn’t the original much nicer to look at?” He got up and stood in front of the TV as he said that, forcing her to look at him. She grinned.
“You’re right.” she then said, getting up as well to give him another hug. As she did so, she was able to watch the TV over his shoulder. Fortunately, he wasn’t bright -or awake- enough to notice her secret plans, so she happily watched the end of the music video as well, only letting go when the music ended. She took a step back and smiled at him. He smiled back, but immediately after poked her in the side.
“If I didn’t like being hugged by you so much, I wouldn’t have let you watched the rest of it as well.” he said, grinning. She had to admit he was smarter than she had thought, but she couldn’t help smiling widely, glad that she had been able to see the whole video after all.
“You looked good in it, so you shouldn’t complain too much. I now at least got to see a very good-looking side of you. That’s a first.” She poked his chest as she said those words, only to be picked up by him and flung over his shoulder. “No! Daedae! Not nice! Put me down!” she exclaimed, trying to keep her voice down so she wouldn’t wake anyone, but still loud enough to make him understand she was serious.
“Why would I do that?” he asked, amused by her immediate reaction.
“If you don’t do it, I will ignore you for the next week.” she threatened.
“That will finally give me some silence then.” He obviously wasn’t impressed by her threat.
“Humph.. You know I will just move away myself if you don’t put me down and you know I will actually do it.” She was speaking in a very business-like tone now, leaving all the empty threats behind. He sighed.
“That is so unfair. You just blackmail me into putting you down!” he then complained. “And the worst part is that it is actually working because I know you mean it.” He put her back on her feet, letting go and walking away in a very defeated manner. She giggled, ran after him and jumped on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
“You know you love me.” she said next to his ear, chuckling a little. He turned his head to be able to look at her, revealing his returned bright smile. She poked a finger in his cheek, but immediately had to grab hold of him again to not fall down.
“You know you’re right.” he replied, walking towards the kitchen like he had originally planned, but only now he was carrying her on his back. When they arrived there he started to get out food and rice to make breakfast. Well actually it was almost lunch time, so maybe lunch would be a better word. He proceeded his preparations while she clung to his back like a little monkey, smiling throughout it all.
“Daedae, you’re a cool guy.” she said, letting her head rest on his and closing her eyes. He seemed to be surprised by those words, but she didn’t explain them any further. A little smile appeared on her face when she closed her eyes. That was the moment she thought of something. Hadn’t Kevin told her that she was able to float. As long as she imagined it was really possible, she should be able to actually do it, right?
She felt a knot in her stomach as she started creating an image in her head of herself floating through the air. Since that didn’t seem to make any difference, she tried in another way. She kept the picture in mind, before starting to convince herself that moving through the air was perfectly normal. In her head she added a plate underneath her that would lift her up or something, to make it easier to feel like she could actually float.
“Hey you suddenly got a lot lighter.” Daesung said, making her open her eyes again. She looked at him, but was still at the same place, clinging to his back. She tried to make herself go higher, only to realize that she would have to let go of him to be able to float away. So she did, expecting to move or something alike, but nothing happened. She sighed, wrapped her arms around his neck again and then unwrapped her legs to stand on the ground again.
When she stood on the ground, she looked up at Daesung, noticing that she suddenly got taller than him. Giving her feet a closer look, she realized she was floating about 20 cm above the ground. She cheered her new victory over the ghost world and started moving around the kitchen, practicing the floating thing. All the while, Daesung watched her in awe, following her around with his eyes until she stopped in front of him again.
“You should stop amazing me so much this early in the morning.” he said, shaking his head with a smile. She chuckled and made a pirouette in her happiness.
“But it is so cool. I amaze myself as well, you know. This is all new for me, so I want to do it a lot and show off my new skills to myself and anyone who’s watching.” she grinned, making him snicker in reply.
“You better not show off too much when others are watching. They might think they’ve gone crazy. I was surprised how easily we all accepted your whole explanation about souls and other halves and what not. Especially Ji Yong is normally much more sceptic, but he took you in like it’s nothing.” Daesung smiled, shrugging a little. “I guess he really wants to see Top hyung happy.”
“It’s just my charm, Daedae.” she said as she tilted her head a little and gave him an innocent smile. He shook his head again, but couldn’t help smiling widely.
“Whatever you say, Kiki.” he mumbled upon turning back to the food. He got the rice out of the cooker and put it in a bowl, focusing his attention on the meat next.
“Kiki?” she asked surprised. He grinned.
“You say we needed new nicknames, so now you have a new nickname as well. I couldn’t let you feel left out now, could I?”
She laughed about his reason for giving her such a funny nickname and then laughed some more just because she felt like it. Being back with the guys was like being reborn. She wouldn’t even be surprised if it turned out that she was happier now than she had been with them before. She floated around the kitchen some more, making Seungri freeze when he walked in. He was almost immediately followed by Ji Yong, who ran into him because of his sudden stop.
“You two must have smelled the food.” she said, landing back on her feet to hug Seungri first and then Ji Yong. While doing so, she greeted them with their newly invented nicknames, making them both look at her with an even bigger frown on their face. She chuckled, sharing an amused look with Daesung, before pushing the two guys towards the table. “Those are your new nicknames.” she explained. “You better get used to them.”
“Whatever you say, nuna.” Seungri said, at the same time as Ji Yong sheepishly asked: “Jiji?”
“Yes. Aren’t those wonderful nicknames? She called me Daedae. I then decided we should give her a new nickname as well, so I named her Kiki. Does that sound like an acceptable name?” Daesung took part in the conversation as he put the rice on the table. To help him out, she took the meat and put it on the table as well, so that he could take the bowls and chopsticks. She watched him closely so she would be able to find those things too later on.
“I like Kiki.” Ji Yong said, slowly waking up a little. “Kiki is a nice name, sounds very feminine. We’ll keep it.” He smiled as he sat down. When Daesung sat down next to him, Ji Yong immediately pulled his friend into a hug. She chuckled when she saw that, exchanging another glance with Daesung, thinking back to their conversation from earlier where they had agreed that the leader was always a little cuddly.
“Kiki is a good name, yes.” Seungri agreed, sitting down at the table across from his two hyungs. Because he looked a little lonely like that, she skipped towards him to give him a hug from behind and nuzzle her cheek against his. He smiled, putting a hand on hers and softly pushing his head against her shoulder to give a little sign of hugging back. The gesture made her smile as she let go again and skipped out of the room. In the living room, she came across Yong Bae, who was on his way to the kitchen as well.
“Dongie! Good morning! Daedae made breakfast, or maybe lunch is a better word, and Jiji and Riri are already there to enjoy it. Now only Choichoi should get up so that you can all eat together.” she happily greeted him. He looked at her with a frown, the same way the other two boys had looked at her, but then started smiling as they walked into the kitchen again.
“Good morning to you too, K’Ae.” He replied.
“No, no, it’s Kiki from now on. To compensate for our silly nicknames.” Daesung interrupted him from the table. Yong Bae smiled again, as he took place at the table next to his friend.
“You should wake up Top as well so you can eat together.” she then exclaimed, because they didn’t seem to be planning anything like that. No one paid much attention to her, so she decided to be a little more convincing. “If you don’t wake him up, I’ll go invisible on you and hide the food.” she threatened. Daesung sighed.
“You should also not blackmail people as much this early in the morning.” he said, but he did get up. “We’ll try and wake him, but it’s not going to work anyway.”
The rest of the group got up as well, setting for Top’s room, all sighing and obviously not looking forward to the upcoming task. She followed them only after she put the rice and meat in the microwave to keep it warm. They knocked on his bedroom door before entering and gathering around his bed. She waited as they stood there unmoving for a decent amount of time. Finally, Ji Yong sighed and looked up at the others.
“How are we going to do it today?” he then asked.
“Let’s just pull off the blanket and all jump on him.” Yong Bae suggested.
“Maybe jumping on him isn’t very healthy for us. Let’s just steal his blanket first and see what happens before doing anything else.” Seungri then said. They pulled the blanket off of the bed, which caused no reaction whatsoever coming from Top’s side. She couldn’t help chuckling upon seeing that.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Daesung said, pushing Top against the shoulder in a futile attempt to wake him up. “Time to get out of bed.” When no reaction came, he pushed a little harder.
“Normally we would be a little more inventive, you see, but I don’t really feel like waking him up so roughly on our day off.” Ji Yong mumbled as Top still didn’t move, giving her a short look. She focused her eyes on Top, who just slept on, probably not noticing anything of the previous efforts of the guys to wake him up. A little smile appeared on her face and she walked closer to the bed.
“I’ll give it a try. If it doesn’t work, we’ll let him sleep.” she said. The guys nodded, closely watching her every move. She knew they didn’t think it would be possible for her to wake him up without being a little harsh. She felt her body tense as she sat down on the edge of the bed. She put a hand on Top’s cheek, bowed a little closer to him and calmly stroked his face.
“Time to get up, Choichoi, the food is ready.” she said, unable to hide her smile because of the nickname. For a few moments there was no reaction, but then Top opened his eyes and looked into the room. After blinking twice and focusing his gaze, his eyes found hers and a slight smile appeared on his face. The smile soon turned into a frown as he realized what exactly had made him wake up.
“Choichoi?” he asked, getting up a little. Only then he noticed the other people standing around his bed and he let his gaze wander over them, the frown on his face deepening. “And what are all of you doing here? Has me waking up become so special that everyone has to watch it?” The other boys backed away a little, looking her way with astonished expressions.
“How did you do that, nuna?” Seungri was brave enough to ask.
“Doesn’t matter how, from now on we’re always letting Kiki wake up Top hyung.” Daesung exclaimed. She chuckled upon hearing that and shook her head a little.
“Kiki?” Top asked. He was still frowning and probably had no idea at all about what was going on between the other people. She turned her attention back to him, only to feel herself starting to glow again because he had put a hand on hers. Even though she dimmed the feeling the moment she became aware of it, Top had seen it already and his frown was replaced by an amused smile. She remembered how he had said he liked it when she glowed, making the warm feeling inside of her twice as heavy. She was unable to dim the feeling any longer when that happened.
“I’m sorry.” she mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed because she was glowing in front of everyone for seemingly no reason at all. “Choichoi is your new nickname and Kiki is the new nickname I got from Daedae in return for all the beautiful nicknames I have given the five of you.” Her smile was a little unsure because she had no idea how he would react to her words and, more importantly, her glowing.
“I like Kiki. It has a nice sound.” he said as he sat up straight. She smiled widely when he approved, glowing even brighter. Upon noticing that, she pushed back the warm feeling in her stomach with all the strength of will she could manage to use for it. The bright light around her disappeared again and she averted her eyes to the ground so she wouldn’t have to see Top’s amused expression any longer.
“You can leave again now, you know. I’ll be in the kitchen in a minute so you can eat.” he said, focusing his attention on the others again while motioning them to leave the room. They all did as he said and she got up as well, walking out the room right behind the four boys. Before she had fully left, however, she suddenly turned around and bounced back in, a joyful expression on her face.
“I learned something new this morning.” she said, proudly changing her hair colour, clothing style and shoes to different things. His eyes had rested on her in a slightly uninterested way, revealing the fact that he was only listening out of politeness, but when she changed her outfit, he was immediately paying full attention. He leaned closer towards her, studying the new clothes she was wearing and even softly touched them.
“They even feel as real as you do.” he said, obviously just as interested in her new discovery as she had been at first. “Can you change it at all times?” he asked, looking up at her face for a moment. She nodded. He focused his attention on her hair, now that he had noticed it. “Interesting.” He let his fingers run through her hair, inspecting the red strokes in it from close by. She felt the tension build up inside of her, but tried to keep a calm look.
“That’s not all I’ve learned.” she said, smiling again as she remembered her second new skill. Top looked at her face again, thereby making eye contact. His eyes were so fierce that she found herself unable to speak for a moment. With a quick imagined slap she snapped out of that situation, to start bouncing again for her next revelation. Without giving it much thought, she floated away from him, going up in the air and moving around a little before getting back down.
Top watched her the whole time with wide eyes, probably not at all believing what exactly he was seeing. She smiled at him, not really knowing what to say now. Suddenly she got a nice idea. She gathered her courage, pictured in her mind how exactly she was going to do it and then reached out to pat Top on his head. While doing so, she smiled brightly, showing him her totally happy side, unafraid of whatever his reaction might be.
“See you at lunch in a minute, Choichoi!” She giggled in a very girlish way, shortly waved at him and skipped out of the room. “Don’t be late or the rice will be cold.” she called to him over her shoulder as she skipped through the living room. When she entered the kitchen, she saw all four guys looking around the table for the food. Daesung looked up at her with a dismayed expression when he noticed she had come in.
“You said you would hide the food only when we didn’t wake him up!” he exclaimed, pouting because he couldn’t find his precious rice. The other three gave her a look that was much alike, making her unable to hold back her giggles. Without paying attention to their now offended expressions, she walked towards the microwave and got out the rice and meat.
“Warm things cool down when you leave them out in the room, you know. That’s why we put them in the microwave, to keep them warm or even to warm them up again when they are already cold. But don’t tell too many people about this, we, the order of the microwave, do not want everyone to know of our miraculous invention.” she said while walking to the table and putting the food back where it had stood.
When she was done with that, she looked up at them with the most serious expression she was able to manage, but upon seeing their now sheepish smiles, she burst out in laughter. The boys sat down and she happily skipped towards Ji Yong to save Daesung from more hugging. When she reached him, she sat down on his lap, snuggling close to him and wrapping her arms around him. She was sure all eyes were on her after that action, but she didn’t mind.
“So what is this precious lunch that I was pulled out of bed for?” Top’s voice broke the silence as he walked in, stretching to loosen up his muscles after his very long night of sleep. His eyes wandered over his four friends, ending at the leader. He could only barely keep himself from freezing when he saw K’Ae sitting on Ji Yong’s lap, holding his friend as tightly as she so often used to hold him in the past, with her head resting against his chest.
As he sat down on his place next to Seungri, she lifted her head up and smiled at him. He smiled back, but at that moment felt as if a string was cut loose. A string that had been keeping them tied together. He grabbed at it with invisible hands, but was unable to catch the thin line that completely disappeared. For a moment, he thought he saw her smile falter a little, but then she pointed her eyes on the food and smiled again, putting her head back against Ji Yong’s chest.
“Enjoy the lunch. It’s made by Daedae. I made sure he didn’t put any poison in it.” she said, her voice muffled because she was practically pressed against Ji Yong’s body. The guy himself didn’t seem to mind the least bit, not even asking her to move away or whatever so that he could take some food decently, he just tried to manage with her on his lap. The worst part probably was that he succeeded and that after that the two of them shared a smile.
It felt like a thousand knives were stabbing him over and over. The feeling of being betrayed by her came over him, but he reminded himself of the fact that he was the one to have cut off whatever there had been going on between them before. Still it hurt to remember how hurt she had looked yesterday and how uncaring and happy she seemed today. On top of that, she had probably spent the night with Ji Yong as well.
He closed his eyes a moment, averting his gaze to the food when he opened them again. A slight sigh escaped his lips as he put some rice and meat in his bowl, taking an incredibly small amount compared to his normal eating habits. He stared at it a moment, before picking up his chopsticks and poking in the food a little. When he noticed the others were looking at him, he quickly started eating, but it was difficult to even swallow one grain of rice.
“What’s wrong, hyung?” Seungri asked, being the first to notice the small portion as he was sitting next to Top. K’Ae lifted up her head again to look what had brought up the question. When he noticed her gaze coming his way, he immediately gave Seungri an annoyed look before he continued eating.
“Nothing.” he said, shrugging off the question.
“You never eat this little.” Seungri just had to keep nagging today, of course.
“Well I never get to sleep this long either just to be woken up for food.” he replied, giving the maknae another annoyed look. “Just shut up and go on eating.” He shook his head and mumbled something incomprehensible of which even he didn’t know what it meant.
She watched him closely as he conversed with Seungri, noticing the hurt underneath his act of toughness. Her heart hurt for him, her whole body hurt for him, but he had put the fence of ‘it is over’ in between them and she was afraid to cross that line. She didn’t know why he had made it anyway, but it was his wish, so she was going to respect it, no matter how much it would hurt her to do so.
She sighed, hiding her face against Ji Yong’s shoulder again in an attempt to ban Top out from her mind. Of course the attempt was futile. It was like he was bound to her with invisible strings, keeping them both together. Strangely enough, she had felt one of those strings break just now when they had smiled at each other and earlier, when she had left his bedroom in the middle of the night, another one had been cut loose as well.
It bothered her that she got that feeling, because that must mean something was not going right, but on the other hand, it was just a feeling like she had so many. It could just as well be nothing more than that. Some figment of her imagination, her fantasy gone wild. She smiled in herself over those words, realizing that she had probably just given the most fitting explanation for the weird feelings. With that thought in her head, she let everything fade away as she concentrated on Ji Yong’s heartbeat.
Characters: Big Bang
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 4/6
Summary: Kim Ae Cha wakes up in a room that is not her own, with no recollection of how she got there. Soon she starts discovering things that change her perception on the world forever.
A/N: Chapter 4 is like 31 pages long.
- - - - -
She woke up with the memory of Top’s arms around her still fresh in her mind. Wait.. She woke up. How could she have woken up? She didn’t need sleep. The smile that had brightened her face when she thought of Top disappeared and she opened her eyes with a sick feeling. When she got up, it seemed so much harder than it had been, as if her body had become heavier than before. A sudden gasp made her turn her head to see.
Her eyes opened wide in shock when she saw her mother, looking at her with a surprised, yet relieved expression. How could she be with her mother? Where was she? Why didn’t she just spend the night in Top’s arms to get up and start a new day when he woke up? What had happened? He was in Japan at the moment and judging from the fact that her mother was looking right at her, she was all the way back in Korea now.
“Ae Cha!” her mother said, reaching out and pulling K’Ae against herself in a hug. It felt weird and surreal, but it was probably the most human contact she had had in weeks. She felt tears run over her cheeks and she heard her mother cry as well. There was a slight bit of guilt inside her because she didn’t cry from happiness. She cried because she was pulled away from Top to come back to this boring life.
“I was so worried. You have been in coma for the past month and a half and they were going to give up on you because your body was faltering. And now you woke up!”
The words made no sense. How could she have been in coma? Her spirit, her soul, had been somewhere totally different. What had kept her body from dying? More importantly, what had made her come back? Her eyes filled with more tears, but it felt only weird to be able to cry. Everything felt weird and it seemed to have been better before, when she was a ghost. Why did she have to return?
As her mother let go of her, a nurse walked in. When their eyes met, the nurse dropped her plate of food in surprise. With the same shocked expression as her mother had done, she stared at K’Ae, before turning around and running out the room again. She probably hadn’t been a nurse for all too long, because she wasn’t able to show the same kind of business like ‘I don’t care’-attitude as other nurses often did.
“Ae Cha?” her mother asked. She turned her head to look at her mother who had let go of her. “Why aren’t you talking? Is something wrong? You do remember me, don’t you? Oh God, please don’t tell me you have amnesia.” The tears started flowing over her mother’s cheeks again and K’Ae felt bad for her. She wanted to tell her everything was alright, but the words didn’t come out. There was no sound when she opened her mouth. She freaked out upon realising that and put a hand on her throat.
“Don’t worry, it’ll get better. It’s because you haven’t used your voice in so long. When you drink a little and do some voice exercises you will slowly regain your voice.” She looked up at the sudden voice and saw a doctor coming in, followed by the nurse from earlier who immediately started gathering the forgotten plate of food to take it away. The doctor approached her and took out a pen while overlooking the papers in his hand.
“I must say it’s a surprise to see you awake. To be honest, we had thought you would have died in the next week. Your heartbeat was starting to falter and your body didn’t respond to anything anymore. It’s a miracle that you woke up again, actually. That’ why it’s possible that you feel weak or that your body might have difficulties working properly again. I’ll have to examine you, take a look at your pulse and your reactions, to see how you’re doing.”
She listened to the whole explanation, not really caring about a word of it. Only the part about her voice had been of any use to her. The doctor walked up to the cargo meter next to her bed and inspected the measurements. His astonished look made her smile. Her body was probably much stronger than he had expected. After he finished inspecting the meter, he turned to her and started doing all kinds of little tests on her to examine her reactions and all.
When he was finally satisfied, the astonished look on his face still hadn’t left. She knew he was wondering how she could be so alert after just coming out of a coma, but even the amusement of seeing the doctor caught up in riddles wasn’t enough to get her out of the downward spiral her thoughts were in. She was beginning to realise she was really back in her body and there was no way to go back to Top. She had tried moving to him often enough by now.
“Everything seems to be fine. We’ll keep you here a few more days to recover, so that if you should get a relapse, we can immediately be around to help.” the doctor finally said, addressing her in person and not her mother like most of those doctors did. Upon hearing his words, however, every bit of hope in her died away and instead of smiling, like most people probably did, she just lay back down, pulled the blanket up to her chin and tried to fall asleep.
“Ae Cha?” her mother immediately asked, wondering about her strange behaviour probably. She didn’t respond. She heard the doctor say some things to her mother, before leaving the room. Only moments later another person entered the room. There was the sound of a plate touching the table next to her bed, but still she didn’t look up. The person, probably the nurse from before, left the room again, leaving her alone with her mother.
“Ae Cha, dear, don’t you want to eat?” When there was no response, her mother sighed. “At least eat something so that your body can recover.” she then started pleading.
K’Ae didn’t even bother trying to be considerate as she pulled the blanket over her head. Her mind was filled with the desire to return to Top. How would he feel, waking up to find her gone? Would he be as lost and confused as she was, or would he just get over it and move on. He had been very casual when she appeared, so he could as well be casual about it when she disappeared. That thought pierced through her like a knife, making her silently gasp for air and start crying again.
What if he really didn’t care if she was there or not? She had always felt like she belonged with him and life wasn’t as complete without him. Her feelings had always been swirling around Top, but she had been a ghost. For her he was everything she had left and without him she would fade away. For him, what was she? Just some girl hanging around him that he was intrigued by, but that was it. What if he didn’t care about her?
That was the start of her lifeless life. Despite the panic and hurt inside her, she fell asleep in the end. She sunk into nightmares about Top. Some where he immediately moved on like nothing had happened, some where he was together with other girls. From that day on she was plagued by such nightmares nonstop. She often woke up in tears or unable to breathe for a few seconds. Her parents never knew, because she never made a sound and by the time they woke up, she had been awake for a few hours already.
Her days in the hospital were mostly the same. She slept a lot, hardly ate anything, but as her health was still fine, the doctors soon let her go home. At home she didn’t do much different from at the hospital. Sometimes she would get her computer and try to talk to friends some, but even when she went out with her friends and laughed, it felt like something was missing. She could not forget him.
As days became weeks and weeks became months, she felt like her human side was disappearing more and more, like she was turning into the ghost she had actually been for a while. Her body was becoming very slim because of the little amount of food she ate and even people she hardly ever talked to told her she was silent. Even her birthday passed without celebration, because her parents couldn’t even convince her to get up in the morning.
After about three months, it was April meanwhile, her parents finally couldn’t stand her behaviour anymore and they got her to sit in the living room with them to talk about it. She was basically dragged downstairs by her father and placed in the couch. As her mother and father took place in the other couch, an unknown woman stood behind them, resting a hand on her father’s left shoulder and her mother’s right one in a comforting gesture.
“Ae Cha..” her mother started the conversation. “We are very worried about you. You eat very little and you hardly get out of your room anymore. There’s no life left in you. This has been going on ever since you woke up from your coma. Did something happen? Is there something you want to tell us?” The worried tone was unmistakeable, but she couldn’t feel bad for her mother’s hurt.
“You would not believe anyway, mom.” she said, not even trying to sound interested.
“Try me.” Even though her mother sounded very sincere, she didn’t want to try and explain everything about her being a ghost and all to her mother. In the end they would just declare her crazy and make her see a psychiatrist or something. She would do the same herself if she hadn’t seen proof of her story. The silence lasted. When her mother looked like she was going to say something, the unknown woman restrained her.
“Don’t try to push her into talking.” she said. Her voice was a little dimmed, as if she was talking from a distance. For the first time in months, K’Ae looked up and focused her eyes on something. She could see the surprise on her parents’ faces as they saw her movement, but didn’t pay much attention to it.
“Who is this anyway? Some psychologist you’re going to make me see? You can give up that idea right away. I’m not going to go.” she said, nodding at the woman. The surprise on her parents faces grew and the woman looked surprised too now.
“Can you see me?” she asked, with the shock sounding through in her voice.
“Of course I can see you. It’s not like you’re hiding.”
The woman approached her, going straight through the couch as she did so. The image made the blood in her veins turn into ice. K’Ae’s eyes were locked on the woman, repeating the scene in her head where she had walked through the couch. She couldn’t believe it was really happening. Tears filled her eyes and rolled over her cheeks.
“I’m a ghost, Ae Cha.” the woman then said. All the feelings she had tried to escape for the past months suddenly came back to her, surprising her with their intensity. As she collapsed in the couch, crying her heart out, the still unknown ghost woman put her arms around her and started comforting her. She closed her eyes, immediately seeing the image of Top as he lay in his bed sleeping. The hurt became worse and she almost choked in her gasps for air.
When the tears started to lessen and her breathing became more even again, she noticed her parents were next to her as well. Stroking her hair and back in an attempt to calm her down. Her father was considerate enough to have put a few tissues ready for her. She grabbed one and started to clean her face. The silence was only interrupted by her occasional sniffing as she slowly got herself in hand again.
“Ae Cha..” her father finally said. “What happened?”
“I..died.” she replied. Speaking was still difficult after the sudden outburst of tears, but at least she was able to. “Or at least I thought so. My soul left my body and I went to my other half. I was with him for the time I have been in coma according to you. Then suddenly I woke up in my body again.”
“Who was it?” It was again her father who spoke, her mother and the unknown woman remained silent.
“Choi Seung Hyun.” Thinking about him had been painful, but it was no match compared to what saying his name felt like. The hurt was so intense that her nerves seemed to go numb, leaving her with a disoriented feeling.
“Who is that?”
“Honey, please don’t ask any more.” her mother said softly, wrapping her arms around her. She couldn’t help feeling relieved that she didn’t have to talk about Top any more. Her mother’s arms seemed a safe place to hide, so she let her head rest on her mother’s shoulder as she closed her eyes, trying to ban out the images of Top.
“I’m so sorry, Ae Cha.” her mother whispered. “If I had known I was pulling you away from your other half I would never have tried to bring you back.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the doctors told me you were going to die, I was desperate to keep you with us. That’s why I asked your aunt, Soon Yi, to help me get your soul back.” Her mother stroked her hair and tried to show her a smile, but she was too caught up in thoughts to notice.
“I have an aunt?”
“Yes. She is my twin sis, but she died when we were young. She has been with me ever since in ghost form. Your dad has always been able to see her, but I only told him about her true self when I got pregnant. You were never able to see her, though, up till now.”
“She looks your age.”
“Ghosts age when their other halves do.”
“I see.”
It was weird to have the business like talk as they were having, but it was easier than to think about Top too much. Her mother was half of a soul too and she seemed to know avoiding the subject was better. That’s when her mother had to ruin it all with her next words.
“But Ae Cha.. Can’t you try living again? It can’t be that bad. It hurts so much to see you being as lifeless as you are. You don’t laugh anymore like you used to. There is nothing left of my happy little girl. I know being back probably isn’t easy, but now that you are, can’t you make the best of it?”
She pulled free, a sudden rage rushing through her. For the first time in months she looked her mother straight in the eyes and spoke with a voice that was louder than a mumble.
“Try living again? Not that bad? Make the best of it?” If suddenly fireballs would shoot out of her eyes, she wouldn’t have been surprised by it. “Mum, you don’t know how much it hurts to even breathe. How it feels to suddenly be incomplete. How disoriented I felt at first. You don’t even have a single clue how much it’s killing me to have to put food in my mouth and swallow it. Being back in a body is like torture. And you want me to try keeping it up?”
“I understand it is difficult, but..”
“Difficult doesn’t even come close. I just want to go back to him.”
Her anger disappeared again and she sank back into the couch, defeated. If only she could be back with him. If only she could die a second time. How many times had she thought of suicide in the past months? She probably couldn’t count it on two hands anymore. Yet she had never done it, afraid of hurting herself. She was too much of a coward to do that.
“So why don’t you go back to him?” her father suddenly suggested. “You can go visit him the way you are now, alive. He will recognise you, won’t he? I mean.. You don’t look different in your ghost form, right? So you could visit him and tell him everything. Then you can live together with him, without having to die for it.”
All three women looked up at him, but K’Ae was the only one who didn’t seem thrilled by that idea. In her head, she tried to picture it. She would never get passed the door of the boys’ apartment. She would never be able to get his attention during a concert, unless when she threw a fit, but then she would just be kicked out of the concert hall. And even when she did, there was no way for them to be together. He was famous. Once the company found out he had a girlfriend they would either force him to dump her or kick him out.
“I can’t, dad.” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“He’s part of a very famous band. There is no way for him to have a girlfriend while his contract is running.”
“What band?”
“Please, dad..”
Her voice died away and tears started filling her eyes again, but she held them back, trying her best not to let the hurt take over. Again her mother hugged her tightly, caressing her back.
“Can you tell us something more about him, Ae Cha? Just tell anything you can tell, don’t push yourself.” It was the unknown woman who had turned out to be her aunt Soon Yi who was talking. When K’Ae looked up at her, she noticed she indeed looked like her mother, but they were obviously not identical twins. She thought about the question a while, before slowly starting to talk.
“He’s part of a band together with four other guys. Ji Yong, Yong Bae, Seungri and Daesung. They are very famous. At the end of last year they had a big concert and there were probably more than 10.000 fans present to watch them. He’s 20 years old, but will turn 21 this year. His eyes are very deep and powerful and-” Her voice cracked and a tear escaped her eyes. She wiped it away. “I’m sorry. Maybe you should just look him up on the internet. You’ll find a lot about him there.”
“He’s older than you?” her aunt asked surprised.
“Yes. Why does that surprise you?”
“When a soul is divided, it happens at one moment. The both babies will be alive at the same time. Of course the date of their birth can differ depending on how long the pregnancy takes, but it’s not more than a month. There’s certainly never a year difference. This is strange.” Upon hearing her aunt’s words, she remembered something Kevin had said when she met him.
“There was a ghost I met at that concert who told me everything about our life. I had explained to him some things that I had already found out, like how I needed to want to be visible for people to be able to see me, even when they believed in me. He told me that there is only one pair among us who can do that. He also said that it had a reason, but that he couldn’t tell me that reason. Do you know more about it?”
Both her mother and her aunt shook their heads.
“I have no idea what he was talking about. I know nothing about something as strange as that.” her aunt said, shrugging as she did so. K’Ae looked at the ground for a while, not really thinking about anything, just letting time pass by. Eventually, she looked up again.
“Can I go to bed?” she asked. “I feel tired.”
When her parents allowed her to go, she immediately stood up and left. While dragging herself up the stairs, she felt a sudden resolution take hold of her, as if she had just made an important decision. She had no idea what she had decided about, though, but her steps became livelier and she almost felt at ease when she finally got in bed. She rested her head on her pillow and closed her eyes, ready to fall into a dreamless sleep.
When she opened her eyes again, she felt much better than she had done in the past months. It was only when she got up that she noticed what had changed. Even though she walked away from the bed, her body remained there. It was almost scary to watch herself lying there seemingly asleep, but she felt strangely happy upon noticing that she was back to being a ghost. She only now realised how much of a burden it had been to live in a body again.
Slowly she walked out the door, or better, she walked through it. Her feet automatically led her to her parents’ room and she entered it, again by just walking straight through the door. She looked at her still sleeping parents, unable to call forth the love she should feel while looking at the two people that gave her life. The life she had chosen now was not given to her by them. Of course she would still visit them, but for now it was time to go back to where she belonged.
“I will tell them.” a voice suddenly said behind her. Upon turning around she saw her aunt, Soon Yi, looking at her with a slight smile. “Even I don’t know how close you are linked to him, because my relation with your mother is only the one between sisters and I was told it is harder for lovers to be apart, but I think I come closest to understanding from the three of us. I hope you will be happy and please do visit. Knowing you’re not fully gone will make it more bearable for them.”
“I will visit when I can. But how..?”
“How did you become a ghost again? I have never heard of something like this before. All I can conclude out of this, is that you must have a strong will or a very strong connection to the other part of your soul. I cannot give you more of an explanation than that. You said you met a ghost who seemed to know more, maybe you should try and get some answers from him.”
“That might not be such a bad idea. Thank you, aunt Soon Yi. If they ever really need me, you know how to find me, right?” she said, looking at her parents a last time. When her aunt nodded, she closed her eyes and tried to recall the image of Kevin’s face.
“Oh and Ae Cha.. Staying away from your other half gets easier when there is another ghost with you. You will still fade away, but much slower. It is possible to live like that for a few months.”
She nodded before disappearing from her parental house. When she opened her eyes, she was in an unknown room. Her eyes scanned her surroundings, but she had never seen the place before. Suddenly a hand was placed over her mouth and she was pulled backwards.
“Don’t speak out loud, you’ll wake her.” a slightly familiar voice whispered next to her ear. When she turned around, she recognised Kevin. He slowly took his hand away from her mouth as he eyed her suspiciously.
“I need to talk to you.” she whispered back, walking away from the bed in which she suspected Chan Sook was sleeping. Kevin went ahead of her, walking through the door and then down the stairs. Once they arrived in the living room he sat down, motioning her to do the same. She went to sit across him, looking at him a few moments before starting to speak.
“I want to know what you meant with your words at the concert. What is so special about me?”
He sighed and pointed his eyes at the wall. He seemed to be deep in thoughts, but she didn’t have much time to wait for his answer. Her longing to see Top again was getting bigger with the minute, making her feel uncomfortable with the silence. Luckily he didn’t test her patience too long. After a few minutes his eyes found hers again and he started to talk.
“I cannot tell you what I know, because there is no way of knowing what it will do to you or your view on things. I can tell you one thing, though, but only if you promise not to ask any more questions after that.” His expression was a very serious one which convinced her that he was speaking the truth.
“I don’t know if I will or won’t ask more questions, but I’ll keep in mind that you said you won’t answer them.” she replied, after thinking over the answer.
“This is not the first time you have been on this earth.”
“What!? But you said souls don’t return to earth after they moved on.”
“Exactly.”
“That means..I..didn’t move on?” Kevin remained silent, giving her an apologetic look. “But if I’m not here for the first time then..neither is Top. How is it possible that.. What.. How can you tell me something like that without allowing me to ask you some questions? What happened? Why did we return to earth instead of moving on? Who was I before then? Or who were we?”
She kept rambling on like that for a while, before finally realising that Kevin was not going to say anything else. In her memories the one sentence that had caused all of her unanswered questions repeated itself over and over. She couldn’t get a stop to her thoughts, making her unable to think clear. Everything became kind of blurry and she could only see Top’s face in her mind. Her eyes focused on Kevin again as she made another decision.
“I have to go.” she slowly said. Kevin nodded, getting up from the couch and reaching a hand out towards her. She took it and they shared a moment of silence.
“Feel free to come by at any time, but I really can’t answer questions about that subject anymore. For questions about anything else, you are welcome to ask them. Say hi to Top for me when you see him.” Kevin then said. She nodded and focused on the image of Top in her head. The moment she did, her surroundings changed again and she ended up in yet another unknown room. She did recognise Top’s bed, so she knew she was in the right place, but everything else was still unknown to her.
She immediately walked towards Top’s bed, but it was empty. Not wanting to wake anyone up, she slowly left the room to end up in an unfamiliar apartment. It was obviously not a hotel, but it was really big. She guessed the guys had gotten a new apartment. She crossed the living room and walked through doors and walls, trying to find someone. Behind one of the doors she found Seungri and Daesung’s room. Only the latter was still awake, but he hadn’t noticed her yet.
“Daesung.” she said, relieved to see a familiar face. He didn’t respond. She walked closer and put her hand on his back, repeating his name again. A shock went through him as he looked up from his book. When his eyes found her, they became wide in amazement. He stared at her a few seconds, before carefully touching her face. When he was convinced she was real, he turned his whole body to face her.
“K’Ae? What.. Where have you been? You suddenly disappeared and we had no idea what happened. We have been waiting for you to come back for weeks, but you never did. We were all so worried..” His voice died away, but was replaced by his genuine smile. He reached his arms out to her for a hug which she gladly accepted, being pulled close to him for a few moments.
“I was brought back home against my will.” she softly said, glad that she didn’t have tears to cry or they would have made her unable to speak. “But now I am back and I won’t go again without letting you know.”
She couldn’t even put in words the happiness she felt now that she was seeing the boys again, even if it were only two of them and one was asleep. Right at that moment, Seungri opened his eyes a little, still sleepy and kind of unwilling to wake up. His whole expression changed when his gaze went over her. He almost jumped out of the bed in his surprise. She let go of Daesung to open her arms for Seungri. He answered the hug enthusiastically.
“K’Ae!” he exclaimed as he did so and she could hear that he was smiling. Her own smile was probably twice as wide as his. She almost squeezed him flat in the hug, only to go back to squeezing Daesung in a hug. If she had been a little girl she would probably have been bouncing on the bed, but she kept herself to just laughing out loud to express her joy. In the end she ended up being hugged by both guys from each side.
When they finally let go, the smile didn’t disappear from her face anymore. She sat down on the bed with both of them across of her and told them everything that had happened to her at her parents’ house. They listened with sincere interest, not once interrupting her. When she finished, it was silent for a little while, but she couldn’t keep herself from wanting to see Top as quick as possible. That’s why she broke the silence.
“I’m going now, but I’ll see you guys in the morning. Go to sleep now. Great new place you got, by the way. It’s really cool.”
She smiled at them and moved again, trying to get to Ji Yong’s side this time. She arrived in some kind of disco-bar-thing. The place was very crowded and in the corner where she stood everything was covered in darkness. It took her a few seconds to find Ji Yong only a meter away from her. He was walking by, so she quickly took his hand and pulled him into the dark. He made a surprised noise that went lost in the loud music.
“Ji Yong, don’t leave, it’s me, K’Ae.” she said the moment he bumped into her. He froze where he stood, slowly turning his head to look at her. Of course he didn’t see anything in the dark, so she softly squeezed the hand she was still holding and walked into the light. His eyes went wide upon seeing her, but apart from that he was rather calm in his reaction. He did immediately pull her back to him to squeeze her in a typical Ji Yong-hug.
Even though she was very happy to see him again, the longing in her had become too much to bear for her. She hugged him back only a moment, before letting go and looking over the crowd. Ji Yong probably knew exactly who she was looking for, because he took her hand and pulled her through the crowd with him. She closed her eyes, imagining there was nothing in front of her and just walked through all the people.
“He’s over there at the bar, but I can’t see him at the moment.” Upon hearing Ji Yong’s words, she opened her eyes again to look for Top. At first she didn’t see him either, but then her eyes caught sight of him. He was indeed sitting at the bar, a glass of wine in his hand, a girl next to him. They were in a lively conversation and even from that distance she could see he was flirting. His hand was resting on the girl’s upper leg and his smile was a very teasing one.
She stared, not able to believe what her eyes were seeing, not able to grasp what her brain was telling her. In the moment that followed, he looked up and their eyes met. His expression turned surprised, but there was not much of the happiness she had expected there to be. The look of love he had given her before she had left had completely disappeared from his eyes now. It hurt her more than it should have done.
Before he even had the chance to get up or move towards her, she turned away, knowing that he probably wouldn’t come to her and she didn’t want to see that. Ji Yong’s questioning words completely went past her. It took her only moments to leave the club, not really knowing where she would end up. Judging from the furniture and the mess on the desk, she had gone to Ji Yong’s room. Without another thought, she crashed down on the bed and started crying.
Time passed but it was insignificant. All that mattered was that her fear had come true. Top didn’t care about her anymore. She had been gone for about three months and already he had forgotten about her. Every loving gesture, every hug they had shared, even their kiss suddenly seemed all mockery to her. He didn’t care the least bit about any of those things anymore. He didn’t care about her anymore. He just went on with his life. Had he ever really cared?
She didn’t know how much time had passed when the door opened and someone walked in. A hand was put on her shoulder and following that she was pulled into a hug. She knew it was Ji Yong because of his smell, so she let her head rest on his shoulder as the tearless sobs kept following each other. She had left her body for no reason. Top would probably only think it a burden to have her around again. He would send her away, or worse, just ignore her.
After a few minutes, she realised that Ji Yong was softly singing to calm her down. She didn’t know the song, but it was serving its purpose, so she tried listening to it. It wasn’t one of their songs and she had never heard it before either. As she concentrated on his voice, her sobbing finally came to an end, so she forced herself to lift up her head and look at Ji Yong. He gave her a little smile, but she wasn’t able to smile back.
“Where have you been, girl?” he asked, stroking her hair. She closed her eyes a moment to gather herself together, then sighed.
“You can ask Daesung or Seungri. I told them before I left to find you and Top.”
“They’re asleep already and I don’t really want to wake them up. Can you please tell us, K’Ae?”
“Us?” she asked surprised. Who else did he mean?
“Yong Bae and Top are curious too, of course.”
“Top?” Saying his name made her feel warm inside and she saw the room brightening as she started glowing. It didn’t take long for Ji Yong to cover his eyes and turn his face away from her. She immediately tried to hold back the feelings inside of her. It was strange to feel that her love for Top didn’t falter even though his love had seemingly disappeared. The moment the glowing stopped, Ji Yong turned back to her.
“What was that?”
“Oh nothing. It happens more often. I just occasionally start glowing here and there. No big deal.”
At first he looked at her in shock, but the moment he noticed the little smile on her face, he realised she was just joking. His smile was twice as bright as before, just because she was able to joke even though she didn’t feel very happy. She rubbed her arms, sighing deeply and then getting up. She could as well face Top’s disapproval right now instead of trying to postpone it until a later moment. It would never be less painful to see anyway.
Ji Yong quickly walked out ahead of her, holding the door open for her, even though it didn’t make much of a difference. She strengthened herself and proceeded walking into the huge living room. When she looked up, she saw Yong Bae and Top sitting in the couch, both of them immediately getting up as she approached. Yong Bae smiled at her and gave her a hug. She hugged him back, feeling a little more confident as she did so.
To her great surprise, she was immediately pulled into a hug by Top when she let go of Yong Bae and turned to him. At first she just crashed into his body, stunned by his sudden action, but then the warm feeling grew and she let her arms slide around him as well. Her head rested on his shoulder and she closed her eyes. She was suddenly surrounded by his warmth and smell again, making her feel more complete than she had thought to be possible.
“You’re going to make us blind, K’Ae.” his low voice whispered next to her ear. She opened her eyes, surprised to see the bright light around them. With a little ashamed smile, she immediately tried to dim the feeling again so that the light would leave as well. When she gave Yong Bae and Ji Yong an apologetic look, they simply laughed. It made her laugh as well. Top’s little gesture of friendliness had made her feel a little better. He at least was not going to ignore her.
“So tell us.. We’re curious.” Ji Yong finally said, unable to hide his curiosity.
All three of them sat down in the couch. She sat down in another one, which immediately resulted in Ji Yong getting up and walking towards her to literally pull her out of the couch, sit down himself and then just pull her down on his lap and hug her from behind. She couldn’t help smiling, but her eyes flashed to Top afraid to see the discomfort that had always been there when she was close to Ji Yong. He didn’t show any sign of that old jealousy however.
She tried not to let it hurt her too much as she started talking. She told them about how she had woken up in the hospital and how disoriented she had been. She skipped the details of her life by simply saying that a few months passed before she and her parents talked about the whole thing. When she told them of her mother’s twin sister, they all seemed as amazed as she had felt.
“What a coincidence.” Ji Yong said. She could only agree.
As she told them the whole story, the faces became more serious. When she reached the end of her explanation, telling them how she had gotten up as a ghost again, they were as mystified as she had been. None of the three boys had even the slightest idea what could have happened, just like Soon Yi and Kevin. She had purposely left out the part where she visited Kevin, because somehow it seemed like a bad idea to tell Top about the fact they had been on earth before.
“It’s time for you guys to go sleep now, I think.” she finally said after a short silence. Yong Bae nodded, so she got up from Ji Yong’s lap to make him able to go to bed as well. As she started walking away, not really sure where she was going, Top called her name. She stopped and turned around, trying to keep her feelings under control so that she wouldn’t start glowing again. He was looking at her with an almost sympathetic look in his eyes.
“Can we talk?” he asked. She nodded, walking back towards him to sit down in the same couch she had sat in before. “Please come sit with me.” he said. He waited in silence as she got up, walked towards him and sat down on the couch he was sitting in as well. When she was seated, he looked right at her and their eyes locked. She didn’t know exactly what to do. Be scared, feel happy, smile, say something or just do nothing at all.
“Why did you come back?” he then asked, turning his eyes away from her. She stared at him for a second, her mind immediately flashing through a few possible answers. In only a matter of seconds she had chosen for the one answer that seemed the most logical and believable one.
“I was dead again. You know it is very weakening for me to be away from you as a ghost.” she said, trying to sound as convincing as possible. Her eyes wandered over his face, in the hope that she could find a sign of his love there. She couldn’t. It felt like a knife went right through her heart, but she tried to keep her expression neutral.
“I see.” he said, looking at her again. A little smile appeared on his face. “It’s nice to see you, K’Ae. It was a little silent without you here.” She smiled back.
“It was hard to suddenly be away from you. I missed you.” There was a very short silence before she softly added “Very much actually.” His smile became a little wider, as if those words pleased him.
“I wish I could say the same. At first it was weird. At first I missed you. I had no idea where you had disappeared to or why, but after a while things got back to normal. It’s easy for me to forget someone I don’t see.” he replied. He shrugged a little as he said so. She tried to keep the smile genuine as his words shot through her like bullets. How could he kill her over and over again with every word that came out of his mouth?
“I understand.” she said, but her voice was no more than a whisper.
“I’m sorry, K’Ae.” He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, slowly getting up after doing so.
“It’s nothing you should apologise for. Such things happen.” She managed to smile again for him. “You should really go to bed now, dear. It is very late and I’m sure you have to get up early again tomorrow.”
She wanted to walk away, but she had no idea where to go to, so she just waited until he left. Too bad for her he didn’t leave. He got up, but only to walk towards her and take her hand in his. She tried to ignore the jolt of energy it sent through her.
“I don’t want you to feel bad, K’Ae. I want you to be happy.” he mumbled. She gathered every bit of self-control she had in her and closed her eyes a short moment.
“I am happy when you are happy, Seung Hyun.” she then said, using his real name to make it even more convincing. “So just be happy. That’s all I want.”
She pulled free and turned away. Without giving it a second thought she walked towards the door she had seen Ji Yong walk through earlier. She hoped it was his room and not the bathroom, but since it was her only way of escaping Top, even the bathroom was good enough for her. The only problem was that it might cause some awkward moments if she just walked into the bathroom like that.
Top watched her walk away from him, slowly disappearing through the door of Ji Yong’s room. The last bits of a smile left his face as her back dissolved into the door. His shoulders fell and he turned away with an almost defeated expression on his face. He started walking towards his own room, trying his best to keep a normal posture should she walk back out of the room.
He had known it was a bad thing to say when the words left his mouth, but of course it had already been too late then. The defeated look in her eyes when she heard his words had shocked him more than any part of her story had done. It was obvious that she still loved him, that she had come back to be with him, not only because she didn’t have a choice. She wanted to be around him as well. She gave up a real life to be with him, probably. He felt like a traitor for not showing her the love he still felt for her.
It was as he had said. He easily forgot about people when they were out of is sight. It was a survival mechanism that he had learned during his days in the band. He was away from the ones he loved so often for such a long time that it was easier to forget about them than to keep thinking about them and miss them. That’s why he had made himself able to push back the feeling of missing someone into the back of his mind so that it became unnoticed, yet always there below the surface.
Of course it was not that he had forgotten the feeling of loving her, the moment she had come into his sight, the feeling had burned inside him again as bright as it had done months earlier. The months he had been without her seemed to suddenly have vanished and when he had hugged her it had felt like nothing had changed. He had just thought it might be better not to give her too much hope. She was a ghost, she would always be around him until he died, but he might not always love her. He wanted her to understand that.
How painful his theory was now. Now that she walked into Ji Yong’s room instead of accompanying him like she had always done. How deep his jealousy reached that it hurt him as much as it did right now. He couldn’t believe himself. If this was how much she meant to him, then why did he just reject her? The reasons he had given himself for doing so suddenly seemed insufficient and absurd. Everything seemed so ridiculously messed up that he almost wanted to laugh at himself.
Once he entered his room, he walked straight towards the bed, lay down and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to have to think about everything. He didn’t want to realise she was back and he had made her feel bad. He didn’t want to feel any of the feelings he was feeling at that moment. He wanted life to become normal again. Most of all he wanted to hold her again, but he had made a stupid decision and now he was unable to undo what he had said.
It didn’t take him long to fall asleep, leaving the hectic day behind him to sink away in dreams.
The moment she entered the room, which luckily turned out to be Ji Yong’s room, she lost her unaffected posture. She walked towards his bed and sank down on the foot end. She turned her back towards the door, pulling her legs up against her body and wrapping her arms around them. She sighed deeply, trying to clear her mind so she could think about the things that had happened to her in just one little day.
Her head felt heavy, her whole ghostly body felt heavy. For the first time being around Top in her ghost form, she felt tired and weakened. If she could, she would have gone to sleep to forget about it all. Yet that option didn’t exist for her. She sighed another time, unable to escape the memories of hugging Top and being close to him. She again remembered the calm, unaffected way in which he had smiled after she had told him she had missed him. How coldly he had told her that he hadn’t missed her. How little he cared about her.
The door opened, but she didn’t look back, expecting it to be Ji Yong. Soon after the door was closed again and someone sat down on the bed behind her. There were no more sounds or movements for a few minutes, but then a hand was put on her shoulder. The hand slid further over her arm and another arm was put around her neck as well, making it so that she was softly hugged from behind. She heard the soft breathing and smiled for no reason.
When she turned her head a little, she saw it was indeed Ji Yong sitting behind her. His chin rested on her shoulder, his cheek touching hers now that she had turned her head. He pressed his cheek a little more against hers and closed his eyes. She closed her eyes as well, feeling almost happy with the contact. She stroked his arm with her hand absentmindedly, making herself calm down as she did so.
“You should go to sleep.” she softly whispered after a while, leaning away from him a little. He opened his eyes and lifted his head to look at her.
“I don’t want to leave you alone.” he answered as he looked at her with a worried expression on his face, gently stroking the hair from her forehead. She managed to smile, touched by his care for her. He smiled back, but still kept his arms around her.
“Will you lie down with me?” he then asked.
She was surprised by those words, remembering the first time she had lay in the same bed as Top. Somehow it seemed a totally different thought to do the same with Ji Yong. It had a different feel to it. With Ji Yong it was just lying in the same bed with a friend. With Top it had been something very special and close. Because she didn’t want to think about it too long, she nodded and started getting up. He let go of her to crawl under the blanket, leaving her enough place to lie down next to him.
When she did so, she immediately cuddled up against him. He pulled the blanket over her and tucked her in a little before letting his arms slide around her waist. She soon found herself matching her breathing with his while listening to his steady heartbeat. It made her feel less lonely quite easily, even making a smile appear on her face.
It didn’t take her long to feel the need to put her arms around him too. She hid her face against his chest as she did so, closing her eyes. She was immediately surrounded by his smell, one she was familiar with but that was still a little strange. She had gotten used to avoiding Ji Yong because it had felt like betrayal to her, but as she lay next to him now she didn’t feel anything but happiness and relief that at least he was still there for her.
“He still cares for you.” Ji Yong suddenly whispered. She opened her eyes again upon hearing those words, looking up at him.
“Yes, of course. It was so obvious.” she said, making sure to add the right dose of sarcasm.
“K’Ae.. Believe me on this one. I’ve known him longer than you have.” He sounded very convinced and sincere and she couldn’t keep up her sarcasm, so she smiled a little, hiding her face against his chest again.
“Goodnight Ji Yong. You really need to sleep now.” she softly said.
He made a sound as if he was going to protest, but then just gave her a kiss on her hair and remained silent. Even though he must have been very tired, it still took a while for his breathing to even out. When it did she slowly looked up at him, noticing a single tear escaping his eye. She caught it with her finger, wiping it off his face and softly kissing his cheek as she did so.
As she put her head back down, his arms tightened around her in his sleep, as if he was trying to hold her close even when not fully aware of her. She stroked his hair, which didn’t cause him to wake up as it had always done with Top. As she hid her face against his shoulder, she realised any living person would have been unable to breathe decently in her current position. At least there were some positive points about being a ghost.
She stayed there, lying in Ji Yong’s arms until the morning. When the room started to brighten up by the morning light, she carefully tried to get out of his grip without waking him up. When she slipped out of his arms, he made a little noise, only to grab his blanket and squeeze it tight to him while sleeping on. She smiled because of the youthfulness he expressed lying there like that and gave him a kiss on his forehead, before leaving the room.
She immediately walked through the living room towards Top’s room, entering it without any hesitation. She walked to the foot end of his bed, only to stand there and look at him. He didn’t look any different than how she had imagined him in the months that she had lived without him at home. He still had the same cute, yet tough expression on his face while sleeping and he still slept in the same position as he had always done.
Seeing him somehow always made her feel complete, even when he was asleep or unaware of her. The moment he came in her sight, her life -or whatever it was, because life might not be the best word for it- was as it should be. He had a very calming effect on her, no matter if he was aware of it or not. Even now that she knew he didn’t love her anymore like she loved him, she still wanted to be close to him, just to feel so at ease.
After a while, she wasn’t really sure how long she had been standing there staring at him, she sighed, turned away from the bed and walked out of the room again. She didn’t want him to see her if he should wake up anytime soon. As she walked through the door, she felt as if a string was cut loose. A string that had been keeping her tied to Top before, but now it was broken. She knew it was true, but she didn’t know if it was good or bad.
Her eyes inspected the living room she was in, for the first time really seeing the new space. They had gotten a very nice and big new apartment, that was for sure. The room was very bright as well, even though it didn’t have any windows. Probably the light colour of the walls had something to do with that. She smiled a little as she walked through the room, making her way back to what she now knew was Ji Yong’s room.
He was still lying in the same position as she had left him in, squeezing his blanket tightly. She couldn’t help chuckling as she walked closer. When she carefully sat down on the edge of the bed, he slowly opened his eyes, as if he wasn’t really sure if there was a reason to wake up. His eyes cleared when he noticed her and he slowly let go of his pillow to put a hand on her arm. She smiled at him and let him pull her a little closer to him.
“Please stay with me a little longer.” he mumbled, still half asleep. She chuckled, but didn’t think it was possible for him to sleep much longer.
“Don’t you have to get up soon?”
“What are you talking about? We have a free day.” he grunted, before closing his eyes again, obviously ready to go back to sleep. She chuckled and crawled back under the blanket next to him. He immediately pulled her back to him, holding her tight in a hug. Her chuckle became a giggle and she was soon struggling to hold back her laughter, making her tremble all over. Ji Yong noticed this and opened his eyes again, to look at her.
“Everything okay?” he asked, not really sounding worried, but neither did he sound like he fully trusted the whole situation. His sleepy question only made her laugh harder and she let out a few more giggles. She quickly turned around in his arms to put her finger on his nose, making him squint to be able to see it. She had to press her face in his pillow to muffle the sound of her laughter.
When she looked up again, he was eyeing her in an amused way. She looked back, trying to make him look away, but he confidently kept staring in her eyes. In the end, she averted her eyes, making Ji Yong let out a victorious cheer. As she looked back at him in surprise, he grinned widely and hugged her again. She chuckled as she wrapped her arms around him as well. It was a little difficult because they were lying in the bed, but she managed.
“You’re such a little kid.” she softly said, making him chuckle.
“I am older than you, young lady.” he then said in a tone that was probably supposed to sound very grown-up or something, but came out sounding plain funny.
“Maybe your body is, but your mind definitely is that of a five year old.”
“Why thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled at her and she smiled back. After a few moments of looking at his bright expression, she hid her face against his neck, nuzzling her nose against his skin. He stroked through her hair and pressed a kiss on it before laying his head down as well. His chest rose and fell with every breath, making her more aware of the slow rhythm of his breathing.
She closed her eyes, letting her head slowly get emptied of thoughts as she focused all her attention on the boy next to her. Again she found herself surrounded by his smell that had lost all strangeness to her. It was weird how simply sleeping in the same bed as someone for one night only could create a bond between the two persons. The first time it had happened with Top and now with Ji Yong as well. Making her always feel at ease around both of them.
Pretty soon the room was filled with the peaceful silence that marked the fact that Ji Yong was soundly asleep already. The whole house seemed drenched in that same silence, leaving her with a very distinct feeling of peace. Even though she could feel the heat radiating from his body, she didn’t feel warmed up in his arms, as if he was not there. Of course in her dimension he actually really wasn’t. It was also never cold or hot for her, the temperature was just right at all times.
Thinking about temperature made her think about her clothing. She had been wearing the same clothes for months when she was a ghost before. It hadn’t really bothered her, seeing that when she got the electric shock, her clothing had been decent at least, but a little change sometimes was always nice. When she had died a second time, she had been wearing her pyjamas, but that realization only just now struck her. She immediately looked at herself, wondering how she could be wearing normal clothes then now, only to discover she was actually wearing her pyjamas.
She was certain she had been wearing normal clothing before, when she had been in the club. Her clothes must have changed somewhere between talking to top and lying down in the bed next to Ji Yong, without her really noticing. She tried figuring out how it could have happened. A lot of her current life had to do with imagination according to Kevin, so maybe when she just imagined herself with different clothing, her clothes would change?
As she came to that conclusion, she tried thinking of herself in another pair of her pyjamas. Immediately the fabric and colour of her clothing changed, making her gasp for air in surprise. She noticed she didn’t need to keep the image in her head for the clothes to stay. From the moment on they had changed, the clothes didn’t change back unless she imagined herself in her previous clothes again. When she got over the first surprise of her new discovery, she started grinning.
At fast pace, she started switching outfits, trying her best to imagine the clothes from her wardrobe back home. After a while, she tried out outfits that she had only worn once or even things she had seen in a store back in her real life and that she had always wanted to wear. Every time she imagined a new outfit, the clothes she was wearing changed in the blink of an eye. She didn’t know how long it took her to skip through all the outfits, but the room was already very bright when she finally settled for her pyjamas again.
Ji Yong, who hadn’t moved at all in his sleep, suddenly let go of her a little and started turning. She let go of him as well so she wouldn’t disturb his sleep, but made sure that he didn’t fall out of the bed. When his moving was accompanied by some distressed sounds, she realised he was dreaming again, probably having another nightmare. She put a hand on his shoulder, whispering comforting words to him to try and calm him down without waking him up.
In the end he calmed down quite easily. She slowly snuck out of the bed, leaving him alone with his last few hours of sleep. She imagined a nice, comfortable outfit for the day before walking into the living room. The TV was on, which surprised her, but the person walking in a little later surprised her even more. She hadn’t heard anyone wake up or move around in the apartment. It must be very neatly isolated.
“Daedae!” she said as she walked towards him to hug him. “I didn’t hear you wake up. Good morning. Did you sleep well?” He laughed and hugged her back, swinging her around in a circle as he did so.
“Daedae?” he replied grinning, expressing his amusement with the new name she had given him. “Good morning, K’Ae. I slept very well, thank you. I didn’t see you around, though, when I woke up?”
“I was keeping JiJi some company. He was a little lonely and cuddly I guess.”
“He always is a little cuddly.” Daesung replied.
“True.”
“And .. JiJi?”
She chuckled upon seeing his grinning face. Being with Daesung meant being happy. It was impossible to look at his bright smile and feel bad. She ruffled his hair with her hand and grinned at him.
“I decided you needed some nice new nicknames from me.” she said smiling. “So now it’s Daedae, Riri, Dongie and JiJi.”
“What about Top hyung?”
“I didn’t quite find him a nice new nickname yet. It’s a little hard.” she frowned upon saying it, thinking about how she was ever going to change Top into a nice nickname. Or Choi Seung Hyun for that matter.
“What about Hyunnie?” Daesung then suggested. She couldn’t help giggling as she heard the name.
“That sounds like a girl’s name. I think it would then be better to call him Choichoi or something.” Daesung laughed upon hearing the name, immediately starting to nod.
“That’s great. You should really call him that.” he said, grinning widely. She chuckled, but shook her head.
“I don’t know if I want to risk that. I would like to keep my head.”
Her comment made Daesung laugh out loud, trying to muffle it with his hand a little. He then effortlessly picked her up from the ground and carried her to the couch, where he put her down again to sit down in it next to her. She pointed her eyes to the TV and followed the program for a moment. When she didn’t immediately recognise it, she focused her attention on Daesung again, moving a little closer to him to put her head on his shoulder and watch TV like that.
“What’s on?” she asked. He mumbled some answer that she couldn’t understand, but since she didn’t really care what exactly she was watching, she didn’t ask again.
“Did you understand that?” he asked surprised only moments later when no answer came. She chuckled and shook her head, making him smile widely again. “I said that I had no idea what it is, but it looked easy and I don’t need to think while watching it so I let it be on and am now watching it while actually still half asleep and only slowly waking up.” he then repeated his words.
“You mumbled all that just now?” she exclaimed, lifting her head to give him an astonished look. He snickered and ruffled through her hair with his hand. She shrieked as she pulled away, only to imagine herself with her hair in a ponytail. The astonished look on Daesung’s face told her she had succeeded. Or she had failed and her hair looked terrible now, of course. Maybe it was all gone. She quickly shook her head to verify her hair was still there. It was. She couldn’t help feeling relieved.
“How did you do that?” Daesung asked with the astonished look still on his face. She grinned, imagined herself with short punker hair and watched how his jaw fell upon seeing the sudden change.
“I’m a ghost. You see me as however I want to look like, so simply imagining that something is different will make it different as well.” she explained, changing her hair back to normal. She decided she would check the internet for a fitting haircut later and maybe look up some nice clothing too. If she could choose what to look like, she would make something cool out of it and change the outfit as often as she would have changed clothes in real life.
Her attention was drawn back to the TV because the program ended and a music video started. It took her a little while to realize it was one of their songs, but she didn’t know it. It must be a song from the Japanese album ‘For the world’ that they had released right before she had disappeared. It had a very catchy rhythm and she liked it, even though it was sung in English. She understood most of it, although their pronunciation wasn’t very accurate.
“Do we have to watch this?” Daesung started complaining, trying to get a hold on the zapper to turn the TV off. She pushed the thing out of his reach and nodded in reply to his question, not for a moment averting her eyes from the screen. “Why? It’s just a bunch of guys lip-syncing to a song. Besides, isn’t the original much nicer to look at?” He got up and stood in front of the TV as he said that, forcing her to look at him. She grinned.
“You’re right.” she then said, getting up as well to give him another hug. As she did so, she was able to watch the TV over his shoulder. Fortunately, he wasn’t bright -or awake- enough to notice her secret plans, so she happily watched the end of the music video as well, only letting go when the music ended. She took a step back and smiled at him. He smiled back, but immediately after poked her in the side.
“If I didn’t like being hugged by you so much, I wouldn’t have let you watched the rest of it as well.” he said, grinning. She had to admit he was smarter than she had thought, but she couldn’t help smiling widely, glad that she had been able to see the whole video after all.
“You looked good in it, so you shouldn’t complain too much. I now at least got to see a very good-looking side of you. That’s a first.” She poked his chest as she said those words, only to be picked up by him and flung over his shoulder. “No! Daedae! Not nice! Put me down!” she exclaimed, trying to keep her voice down so she wouldn’t wake anyone, but still loud enough to make him understand she was serious.
“Why would I do that?” he asked, amused by her immediate reaction.
“If you don’t do it, I will ignore you for the next week.” she threatened.
“That will finally give me some silence then.” He obviously wasn’t impressed by her threat.
“Humph.. You know I will just move away myself if you don’t put me down and you know I will actually do it.” She was speaking in a very business-like tone now, leaving all the empty threats behind. He sighed.
“That is so unfair. You just blackmail me into putting you down!” he then complained. “And the worst part is that it is actually working because I know you mean it.” He put her back on her feet, letting go and walking away in a very defeated manner. She giggled, ran after him and jumped on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
“You know you love me.” she said next to his ear, chuckling a little. He turned his head to be able to look at her, revealing his returned bright smile. She poked a finger in his cheek, but immediately had to grab hold of him again to not fall down.
“You know you’re right.” he replied, walking towards the kitchen like he had originally planned, but only now he was carrying her on his back. When they arrived there he started to get out food and rice to make breakfast. Well actually it was almost lunch time, so maybe lunch would be a better word. He proceeded his preparations while she clung to his back like a little monkey, smiling throughout it all.
“Daedae, you’re a cool guy.” she said, letting her head rest on his and closing her eyes. He seemed to be surprised by those words, but she didn’t explain them any further. A little smile appeared on her face when she closed her eyes. That was the moment she thought of something. Hadn’t Kevin told her that she was able to float. As long as she imagined it was really possible, she should be able to actually do it, right?
She felt a knot in her stomach as she started creating an image in her head of herself floating through the air. Since that didn’t seem to make any difference, she tried in another way. She kept the picture in mind, before starting to convince herself that moving through the air was perfectly normal. In her head she added a plate underneath her that would lift her up or something, to make it easier to feel like she could actually float.
“Hey you suddenly got a lot lighter.” Daesung said, making her open her eyes again. She looked at him, but was still at the same place, clinging to his back. She tried to make herself go higher, only to realize that she would have to let go of him to be able to float away. So she did, expecting to move or something alike, but nothing happened. She sighed, wrapped her arms around his neck again and then unwrapped her legs to stand on the ground again.
When she stood on the ground, she looked up at Daesung, noticing that she suddenly got taller than him. Giving her feet a closer look, she realized she was floating about 20 cm above the ground. She cheered her new victory over the ghost world and started moving around the kitchen, practicing the floating thing. All the while, Daesung watched her in awe, following her around with his eyes until she stopped in front of him again.
“You should stop amazing me so much this early in the morning.” he said, shaking his head with a smile. She chuckled and made a pirouette in her happiness.
“But it is so cool. I amaze myself as well, you know. This is all new for me, so I want to do it a lot and show off my new skills to myself and anyone who’s watching.” she grinned, making him snicker in reply.
“You better not show off too much when others are watching. They might think they’ve gone crazy. I was surprised how easily we all accepted your whole explanation about souls and other halves and what not. Especially Ji Yong is normally much more sceptic, but he took you in like it’s nothing.” Daesung smiled, shrugging a little. “I guess he really wants to see Top hyung happy.”
“It’s just my charm, Daedae.” she said as she tilted her head a little and gave him an innocent smile. He shook his head again, but couldn’t help smiling widely.
“Whatever you say, Kiki.” he mumbled upon turning back to the food. He got the rice out of the cooker and put it in a bowl, focusing his attention on the meat next.
“Kiki?” she asked surprised. He grinned.
“You say we needed new nicknames, so now you have a new nickname as well. I couldn’t let you feel left out now, could I?”
She laughed about his reason for giving her such a funny nickname and then laughed some more just because she felt like it. Being back with the guys was like being reborn. She wouldn’t even be surprised if it turned out that she was happier now than she had been with them before. She floated around the kitchen some more, making Seungri freeze when he walked in. He was almost immediately followed by Ji Yong, who ran into him because of his sudden stop.
“You two must have smelled the food.” she said, landing back on her feet to hug Seungri first and then Ji Yong. While doing so, she greeted them with their newly invented nicknames, making them both look at her with an even bigger frown on their face. She chuckled, sharing an amused look with Daesung, before pushing the two guys towards the table. “Those are your new nicknames.” she explained. “You better get used to them.”
“Whatever you say, nuna.” Seungri said, at the same time as Ji Yong sheepishly asked: “Jiji?”
“Yes. Aren’t those wonderful nicknames? She called me Daedae. I then decided we should give her a new nickname as well, so I named her Kiki. Does that sound like an acceptable name?” Daesung took part in the conversation as he put the rice on the table. To help him out, she took the meat and put it on the table as well, so that he could take the bowls and chopsticks. She watched him closely so she would be able to find those things too later on.
“I like Kiki.” Ji Yong said, slowly waking up a little. “Kiki is a nice name, sounds very feminine. We’ll keep it.” He smiled as he sat down. When Daesung sat down next to him, Ji Yong immediately pulled his friend into a hug. She chuckled when she saw that, exchanging another glance with Daesung, thinking back to their conversation from earlier where they had agreed that the leader was always a little cuddly.
“Kiki is a good name, yes.” Seungri agreed, sitting down at the table across from his two hyungs. Because he looked a little lonely like that, she skipped towards him to give him a hug from behind and nuzzle her cheek against his. He smiled, putting a hand on hers and softly pushing his head against her shoulder to give a little sign of hugging back. The gesture made her smile as she let go again and skipped out of the room. In the living room, she came across Yong Bae, who was on his way to the kitchen as well.
“Dongie! Good morning! Daedae made breakfast, or maybe lunch is a better word, and Jiji and Riri are already there to enjoy it. Now only Choichoi should get up so that you can all eat together.” she happily greeted him. He looked at her with a frown, the same way the other two boys had looked at her, but then started smiling as they walked into the kitchen again.
“Good morning to you too, K’Ae.” He replied.
“No, no, it’s Kiki from now on. To compensate for our silly nicknames.” Daesung interrupted him from the table. Yong Bae smiled again, as he took place at the table next to his friend.
“You should wake up Top as well so you can eat together.” she then exclaimed, because they didn’t seem to be planning anything like that. No one paid much attention to her, so she decided to be a little more convincing. “If you don’t wake him up, I’ll go invisible on you and hide the food.” she threatened. Daesung sighed.
“You should also not blackmail people as much this early in the morning.” he said, but he did get up. “We’ll try and wake him, but it’s not going to work anyway.”
The rest of the group got up as well, setting for Top’s room, all sighing and obviously not looking forward to the upcoming task. She followed them only after she put the rice and meat in the microwave to keep it warm. They knocked on his bedroom door before entering and gathering around his bed. She waited as they stood there unmoving for a decent amount of time. Finally, Ji Yong sighed and looked up at the others.
“How are we going to do it today?” he then asked.
“Let’s just pull off the blanket and all jump on him.” Yong Bae suggested.
“Maybe jumping on him isn’t very healthy for us. Let’s just steal his blanket first and see what happens before doing anything else.” Seungri then said. They pulled the blanket off of the bed, which caused no reaction whatsoever coming from Top’s side. She couldn’t help chuckling upon seeing that.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Daesung said, pushing Top against the shoulder in a futile attempt to wake him up. “Time to get out of bed.” When no reaction came, he pushed a little harder.
“Normally we would be a little more inventive, you see, but I don’t really feel like waking him up so roughly on our day off.” Ji Yong mumbled as Top still didn’t move, giving her a short look. She focused her eyes on Top, who just slept on, probably not noticing anything of the previous efforts of the guys to wake him up. A little smile appeared on her face and she walked closer to the bed.
“I’ll give it a try. If it doesn’t work, we’ll let him sleep.” she said. The guys nodded, closely watching her every move. She knew they didn’t think it would be possible for her to wake him up without being a little harsh. She felt her body tense as she sat down on the edge of the bed. She put a hand on Top’s cheek, bowed a little closer to him and calmly stroked his face.
“Time to get up, Choichoi, the food is ready.” she said, unable to hide her smile because of the nickname. For a few moments there was no reaction, but then Top opened his eyes and looked into the room. After blinking twice and focusing his gaze, his eyes found hers and a slight smile appeared on his face. The smile soon turned into a frown as he realized what exactly had made him wake up.
“Choichoi?” he asked, getting up a little. Only then he noticed the other people standing around his bed and he let his gaze wander over them, the frown on his face deepening. “And what are all of you doing here? Has me waking up become so special that everyone has to watch it?” The other boys backed away a little, looking her way with astonished expressions.
“How did you do that, nuna?” Seungri was brave enough to ask.
“Doesn’t matter how, from now on we’re always letting Kiki wake up Top hyung.” Daesung exclaimed. She chuckled upon hearing that and shook her head a little.
“Kiki?” Top asked. He was still frowning and probably had no idea at all about what was going on between the other people. She turned her attention back to him, only to feel herself starting to glow again because he had put a hand on hers. Even though she dimmed the feeling the moment she became aware of it, Top had seen it already and his frown was replaced by an amused smile. She remembered how he had said he liked it when she glowed, making the warm feeling inside of her twice as heavy. She was unable to dim the feeling any longer when that happened.
“I’m sorry.” she mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed because she was glowing in front of everyone for seemingly no reason at all. “Choichoi is your new nickname and Kiki is the new nickname I got from Daedae in return for all the beautiful nicknames I have given the five of you.” Her smile was a little unsure because she had no idea how he would react to her words and, more importantly, her glowing.
“I like Kiki. It has a nice sound.” he said as he sat up straight. She smiled widely when he approved, glowing even brighter. Upon noticing that, she pushed back the warm feeling in her stomach with all the strength of will she could manage to use for it. The bright light around her disappeared again and she averted her eyes to the ground so she wouldn’t have to see Top’s amused expression any longer.
“You can leave again now, you know. I’ll be in the kitchen in a minute so you can eat.” he said, focusing his attention on the others again while motioning them to leave the room. They all did as he said and she got up as well, walking out the room right behind the four boys. Before she had fully left, however, she suddenly turned around and bounced back in, a joyful expression on her face.
“I learned something new this morning.” she said, proudly changing her hair colour, clothing style and shoes to different things. His eyes had rested on her in a slightly uninterested way, revealing the fact that he was only listening out of politeness, but when she changed her outfit, he was immediately paying full attention. He leaned closer towards her, studying the new clothes she was wearing and even softly touched them.
“They even feel as real as you do.” he said, obviously just as interested in her new discovery as she had been at first. “Can you change it at all times?” he asked, looking up at her face for a moment. She nodded. He focused his attention on her hair, now that he had noticed it. “Interesting.” He let his fingers run through her hair, inspecting the red strokes in it from close by. She felt the tension build up inside of her, but tried to keep a calm look.
“That’s not all I’ve learned.” she said, smiling again as she remembered her second new skill. Top looked at her face again, thereby making eye contact. His eyes were so fierce that she found herself unable to speak for a moment. With a quick imagined slap she snapped out of that situation, to start bouncing again for her next revelation. Without giving it much thought, she floated away from him, going up in the air and moving around a little before getting back down.
Top watched her the whole time with wide eyes, probably not at all believing what exactly he was seeing. She smiled at him, not really knowing what to say now. Suddenly she got a nice idea. She gathered her courage, pictured in her mind how exactly she was going to do it and then reached out to pat Top on his head. While doing so, she smiled brightly, showing him her totally happy side, unafraid of whatever his reaction might be.
“See you at lunch in a minute, Choichoi!” She giggled in a very girlish way, shortly waved at him and skipped out of the room. “Don’t be late or the rice will be cold.” she called to him over her shoulder as she skipped through the living room. When she entered the kitchen, she saw all four guys looking around the table for the food. Daesung looked up at her with a dismayed expression when he noticed she had come in.
“You said you would hide the food only when we didn’t wake him up!” he exclaimed, pouting because he couldn’t find his precious rice. The other three gave her a look that was much alike, making her unable to hold back her giggles. Without paying attention to their now offended expressions, she walked towards the microwave and got out the rice and meat.
“Warm things cool down when you leave them out in the room, you know. That’s why we put them in the microwave, to keep them warm or even to warm them up again when they are already cold. But don’t tell too many people about this, we, the order of the microwave, do not want everyone to know of our miraculous invention.” she said while walking to the table and putting the food back where it had stood.
When she was done with that, she looked up at them with the most serious expression she was able to manage, but upon seeing their now sheepish smiles, she burst out in laughter. The boys sat down and she happily skipped towards Ji Yong to save Daesung from more hugging. When she reached him, she sat down on his lap, snuggling close to him and wrapping her arms around him. She was sure all eyes were on her after that action, but she didn’t mind.
“So what is this precious lunch that I was pulled out of bed for?” Top’s voice broke the silence as he walked in, stretching to loosen up his muscles after his very long night of sleep. His eyes wandered over his four friends, ending at the leader. He could only barely keep himself from freezing when he saw K’Ae sitting on Ji Yong’s lap, holding his friend as tightly as she so often used to hold him in the past, with her head resting against his chest.
As he sat down on his place next to Seungri, she lifted her head up and smiled at him. He smiled back, but at that moment felt as if a string was cut loose. A string that had been keeping them tied together. He grabbed at it with invisible hands, but was unable to catch the thin line that completely disappeared. For a moment, he thought he saw her smile falter a little, but then she pointed her eyes on the food and smiled again, putting her head back against Ji Yong’s chest.
“Enjoy the lunch. It’s made by Daedae. I made sure he didn’t put any poison in it.” she said, her voice muffled because she was practically pressed against Ji Yong’s body. The guy himself didn’t seem to mind the least bit, not even asking her to move away or whatever so that he could take some food decently, he just tried to manage with her on his lap. The worst part probably was that he succeeded and that after that the two of them shared a smile.
It felt like a thousand knives were stabbing him over and over. The feeling of being betrayed by her came over him, but he reminded himself of the fact that he was the one to have cut off whatever there had been going on between them before. Still it hurt to remember how hurt she had looked yesterday and how uncaring and happy she seemed today. On top of that, she had probably spent the night with Ji Yong as well.
He closed his eyes a moment, averting his gaze to the food when he opened them again. A slight sigh escaped his lips as he put some rice and meat in his bowl, taking an incredibly small amount compared to his normal eating habits. He stared at it a moment, before picking up his chopsticks and poking in the food a little. When he noticed the others were looking at him, he quickly started eating, but it was difficult to even swallow one grain of rice.
“What’s wrong, hyung?” Seungri asked, being the first to notice the small portion as he was sitting next to Top. K’Ae lifted up her head again to look what had brought up the question. When he noticed her gaze coming his way, he immediately gave Seungri an annoyed look before he continued eating.
“Nothing.” he said, shrugging off the question.
“You never eat this little.” Seungri just had to keep nagging today, of course.
“Well I never get to sleep this long either just to be woken up for food.” he replied, giving the maknae another annoyed look. “Just shut up and go on eating.” He shook his head and mumbled something incomprehensible of which even he didn’t know what it meant.
She watched him closely as he conversed with Seungri, noticing the hurt underneath his act of toughness. Her heart hurt for him, her whole body hurt for him, but he had put the fence of ‘it is over’ in between them and she was afraid to cross that line. She didn’t know why he had made it anyway, but it was his wish, so she was going to respect it, no matter how much it would hurt her to do so.
She sighed, hiding her face against Ji Yong’s shoulder again in an attempt to ban Top out from her mind. Of course the attempt was futile. It was like he was bound to her with invisible strings, keeping them both together. Strangely enough, she had felt one of those strings break just now when they had smiled at each other and earlier, when she had left his bedroom in the middle of the night, another one had been cut loose as well.
It bothered her that she got that feeling, because that must mean something was not going right, but on the other hand, it was just a feeling like she had so many. It could just as well be nothing more than that. Some figment of her imagination, her fantasy gone wild. She smiled in herself over those words, realizing that she had probably just given the most fitting explanation for the weird feelings. With that thought in her head, she let everything fade away as she concentrated on Ji Yong’s heartbeat.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)