We were hiding from the storm in houses made of paper.
And how beautiful it was to think
That the hurricane couldn't reach us
If only we wished hard enough.
Isaac Maul Tegin, 'Eyes Tightly Closed'.
MC snorts when Seven slips on a stick of butter and falls on his ass. They laugh until their bellies hurt while the pie they're baking amidst a culinary whirlwind sits in the oven. There are broken eggs on the floor and cream on the walls.
They're best friends.
Maybe it's because he's the one that came for them, the one that came to their rescue when everything seemed lost. Maybe because he's the second member of the RFA she ever met.
Maybe because he sees Jihyun as his father figure.
They're best friends and they're having pie for dinner because nobody can stop them and calories don't count when you bake them yourself.
Seven makes a show of being exhausted lying on the floor and MC picks up the dreadful butter stick with two fingers while making a disgusted face.
"I'm gonna go wash," he says with a sigh. And it's a good idea, because his buttered sole is the least of his problems, given that his hair is basically white with flour.
"Nobody forces you to go about barefoot, you know?"
"FREE THE TOE!"
She keeps on laughing while Seven jumps on one foot, disappearing towards the bathroom.
MC shakes her head with a smile and returns to the small kitchen, cleaning a bit of the mess, knowing Seven will get poor Vanderwood to do it if she doesn't.
It's fun, albeit quite chaotic, to spend some time with Seven when Jiyun is on a work trip. Ever since he started painting, people all over the world have offered him to exhibit his works in their galleries, and MC's job doesn't always allow her to accompany him.
She visits Seven in these occasions, they have sleepovers and paint each other's nails and braid friendship bracelets.
MC starts when she hears Seven screech.
She runs to the bathroom where the door is open, and sees him jumping about, a cockroach running in circles between his wet bare feet, making him shriek like a little girl.
"I WAS WASHING MY HAIR WHEN I FELT SOMETHING TICKLE MY FOOT!"
"STOMP IT!"
"ARE YOU CRAZY!? I'LL GET COCKROACH PUDDING BETWEEN MY TOES!"
"SEVEN, GROSS!"
"KILL IIIIIIIIIIIIT!"
MC charges into the bathroom screaming atop of her lungs and desperately tries to step on the roach while Seven keeps on hollering in terror.
CRACK.
"Ewwwwwww!"
MC pales lifting her foot and finding white and black smeared on her heel, causing her to scrunch her nose with the most disgusted expression she's ever made.
Seven sees her and suddenly bursts out laughing nonstop, with tears streaming down his face, wheezing and clapping like a stupid seal.
MC takes off her shoe and throws it at him.
After a brief war torturing each other with the remains of the cockroach, the two exit the bathroom while still laughing when they smell something burning in the kitchen.
MC dashes to the oven and opens it, finding the pie acceptably charred.
She cuts two slices and sits on the counter to blow on hers before taking the first delicious bite. Seven does the same.
"Hot, hot, hot!"
She giggles and looks up.
And her blood freezes in her veins.
Seven had flour in his hair. Flour he hadn't gotten to shake and wash completely before the roach thing happened.
He was wetting his hair with the help of the sink.
So the messy waves have been slightly tamed.
It doesn't look combed.
But the difference is enough.
On top of that, he had taken off his glasses to put his head under the water, leaving them hanging from the neck of his shirt.
And suddenly it hits her like an icy wave.
Like a ghost.
Her hands start shaking and she drops the slice of pie. Her best friend starts and looks up.
"Gah! Was it too hot?"
MC stammers something and even she doesn't know what she was trying to say.
A million seconds flash in front of her eyes, a voice and a touch and a scent, words. And a question.
A question.
And she's so stupid.
She's so blind…
She's dizzy and doesn't notice the moment when she stands and walks on weak legs to where her bag is.
She doesn't hear Seven's words, but somehow in the middle of the wave of nausea she manages to brush off his concern. Tell him she doesn't feel good. Tell him she forgot the stove on at home. Tell him she has work to do.
She blurts ten different excuses in a row and almost literally runs.
The door of her car slams when she launches herself into it. The headlights illuminate Seven's confused form at the driveway.
No.
Not Seven's.
"MC! What's wrong!?"
She speeds away from there.
Going home.
The home in the hills she shares with V…
She pulls over not five minutes away from her place, not able to hold her vomit anymore.
She throws herself out of the car and empties her stomach by the side of the road.
She sees her hands trembling through her blurry vision.
She's crying.
Again.
MC doesn't sleep for the two following days. She doesn't answer her phone, not even to V. Not even to Seven.
Eventually one of the two becomes increasingly worried, and either sent by her fiancé or by his own choice, Seven knocks on the door.
It's a beautiful Sunday morning.
She'll never forget this day.
MC tries to ignore the insistent knocking, but Seven yells from the outside that he knows she's in there and that he'll spend the night outside if he has to.
So she drags herself to the door and opens it.
And she can't look at him in the eye.
He finds she hasn't been eating and scolds her for a good ten minutes while improvising some rice and sandwiches.
MC still doesn't look at him.
He tries to pry what's wrong for hours, but she won't bulge.
Seven calls Jaehee, and she drops by after work.
MC keeps saying she's fine, that nothing is wrong.
Jihyun calls Seven and asks him to put MC on the phone. He tells her he's heading back home immediately.
And it finally causes a reaction.
"No!"
"Wh-what? My love, what's wrong?"
"No, don't come home. Don't… I can't see you right now."
She can practically hear her fiancé's heart break.
Hours later she stands at the door, eyes still fixed on the ground, showing Seven out.
"Was it something I did?" He asks in a small, soft voice.
Her face snaps up and she gasps "No!" And she throws herself in his arms, holding him tighter than she ever did.
"Of course not! You've done nothing wrong, you idiot! I just… I… Seven… I need to sort my head out."
And he understands and is so relieved to know she doesn't hate him.
"Alright. Call me if you need anything."
Jihyun should already have returned but he has postponed his trip back home because MC hasn't picked up the phone yet.
And something is burning inside of her.
Something is killing her because she promised herself she would never hurt him.
But like his puzzles, things she didn't know the meaning of have started to fit together somehow. One by one, falling in place.
She finds herself driving west almost every day, but she never quite reaches the destination the back of her mind screams at her to go to.
She can just bury all of this…
She can just pretend she doesn't see the new pieces of the puzzle that fit with the old ones she saw four years ago.
Back when…
…
But she knows she can't.
She knows things will never be the same.
She knows she'll never again have a calm night of sleep if she doesn't find out the truth.
She feels herself frozen in place.
With just one question in her mind.
She cries herself to sleep.
Zen calls every day, and Jumin comes to visit feeling terribly worried.
Nothing changes.
Two days later, Yoosung knocks on her door.
He looks so much taller, and his hair is back to its natural dark brown, something MC will never get used to.
"Hey there. I thought of dropping by. Maybe we could watch a movie."
MC stares at him in absolute silence and doesn't move from the door.
"Umh… MC? Are you…?"
"When was the last time you saw Rika?"
The question is blunt and it throws him off balance. He blinks for a moment and frowns in confusion.
They don't talk about Rika.
She's a ghost for the others.
"… I visit every week."
"How is she?"
It's been four years since she was committed, and the whole RFA stopped asking about her within six months. V is the only exception. Yoosung updates him once a month in a handful of words: she's fine, still the same.
MC knows this, but she has gotten over it. She closed that chapter in her life and never looked back.
So why now…?
Yoosung repeats the ritual with V's fiancée.
"… She's fine… Still the same."
MC doesn't find this to be enough answer.
"Does she talk? Can she remember everything? Can she keep a conversation?"
Yoosung frowns.
"MC I don't unders-"
"Tell me!"
He starts almost scared.
"MC I don't know what's gotten into you, but you need help-"
He stops talking when he sees his friend's eyes get filled with tears.
"MC…"
"The only person who can help me right now… is Rika."
"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?"
"No, I… I'll be fine."
"Alright… I'll be outside."
"Yoosung?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
Rika's room is brightly illuminated by the afternoon sun.
The sheets are white and a bible rests next to the bed. By its side a plastic vase with fresh daffodils serves as the only decoration.
If it weren't for the bars in the window, maybe it could have looked like a normal room.
She doesn't acknowledge MC.
Instead, she keeps on looking up, outside the window.
A long silence passes between them.
"Rika-"
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
MC takes a deep breath. She reminds herself she needs this woman's help a hundred times before opening her mouth.
"The sun?"
"Yes… I love staring directly at it. I love that my room welcomes its warmth."
"I… I guess that's good."
"I can't do it for long, though. It hurts my eyes and blinds me for a short moment. So I have to be careful."
She turns away from the window, her pupils extremely contracted, still recovering from gazing at the burning orb.
"What do you want?"
"I'm here to… Ask you something."
Rika giggles softly to herself.
"Isn't that ironic? I'm the villain, but you're the one that only visits an old friend when you need something?"
"Please, Rika. This is serious."
"Is it about something he did? Something he didn't do? Did you come to ask me how to survive his perfect, scorching light?"
"No. No, I didn't come to talk about Jihyun, and I'd appreciate it if we didn't mention him."
"Oh? Even now you're sheltering him? My, my. What a lucky man… Well, then. If you haven't come to talk to me about V, then what do you want?"
MC holds her breath. She know she's come to ask this question, but now she simply can't voice it.
This is it.
This is the answer that can make everything fall apart.
And as she watches Rika observe her, she notices the other woman already knows.
Suddenly MC finds herself speeding towards a collision she can't avoid.
So she just closes her eyes and lets the words roll off from her tongue.
Jihyun has returned home.
He finds dust on the dining table and all the lights out.
And his feet move him forward, to the bedroom. Their bedroom, where they made love for the first time, where they spent countless hours holding each other close between the sheets, where he proposed…
He finds MC hugging her own legs, sitting on the blankets, and somehow it disturbs him.
Somehow he knows he should flee this house, but he can't.
"Darling… I'm home… I'm back…. I-I missed you…"
MC's face contorts in absolute pain and she hides it between her knees.
"D-darling? What is it? What's been going on…?"
She shakes her head softly.
V sits on the bed and reaches forward to touch her. To hold her.
"I went to see Rika," she says, her voice muffled. And he stops dead in his tracks.
When he says nothing, she continues.
"I asked Yoosung not to tell you."
"Ah… I'm not against it, but… it's been so many years. Why did you?"
"I had a question to ask her."
"A… A question?"
MC sniffles and hugs herself tighter.
"Dear… Love, please, tell me-"
"Have you ever lied to me, Jihyun?"
He stops talking.
She raises her head and glares at him, perfectly aware of the answer.
"Have you? Have you ever lied to me?"
He swallows thickly.
"What is this about, MC? Please, tell me. Please, let's fix this."
"Four years, V… How could you do something like that? What kind of person-? How can you sleep at night!?"
"MC, please calm down. Please, let me fix this. Please."
The tears fall freely from her eyes and she wipes them furiously with the heel of her hand.
"No, you can't fix this… It's too late… It's too late now, Jihyun… God… God, how could you…"
His eyes are misty now as well. "No, please. I know it's not too late. Please, I…"
She angrily brings out her phone, the screen glaring at him in the darkness.
The date is of over a thousand days ago. How has she managed to find this particular conversation, he doesn't know. But it must have taken her hours or days.
Her jaw clenches tightly.
"He asked you."
V suddenly realizes everything is crashing down on him.
"He asked you, Jihyun! And you lied to his face!"
Two letters.
"It's been four years, V! You didn't find a moment to tell the truth in four years!"
All it took was two letters.
Her voice becomes a strangled whisper.
"His brother has been dead for four years! And he doesn't know!"
The world ends.
MC hides her face in her hands. Not a sound has been spoken for the last two hours.
The first words are like venom.
"Rika says Seven visited almost daily for a year and stopped two months ago… But she said she didn't tell him."
V sniffs, his hand tight on his mouth, his tears falling.
"He'll find out any second now… It won't be hard… If he hasn't, it's because he suspects it and is avoiding confirmation…"
"God…"
"You're like a father to him, Jihyun… He'll lose his brother and his father all at once…"
He trembles and for the first time in many years…
He wishes he would just stop breathing.
"If there was any hope he found support in his friends to push through it, you've taken it from him…"
MC sobs into her hands.
"He won't even be able to hold a funeral for him…"
V's voice is broken and weak.
"P-please… Don't tell him."
"What…?"
"Please… It'll kill him."
MC turns to see his profile in the dim light and suddenly jerks up, enraged.
"HE'S BEEN LIVING ON BORROWED TIME, JIHYUN. RIKA KILLED HIM YEARS AGO AND YOU LENT HER THE KNIFE."
"I can't be with you right now."
And the sound of a zipper slashes through the air like a whip.
Please, please stay.
"I don't know if I'll ever trust you again. I mean, you've been staring straight into his eyes for almost half a decade with a poker face. Who knows what kind of secrets you're keeping from me."
And a suitcase wheels across the house.
She knows she's being unfair.
"If I ever get to forgive you for this, I won't be able to do it while staying under the same roof as you."
But truly, how do you come back from a thing like this?
How do you meet your lover's eyes after a thing like this?
She stops at the door and bites down hard on her lip one last time.
She turns around.
"I'm going to come back. Someday. Wait for me if you want to, or don't. But be alive when I return… Please… I never asked anything from you, so please just do this one thing…"
V doesn't understand why those words feel like a white hot iron piercing through his chest.
MC takes a shaky breath.
"Tell. Him."
He wants to look up but he's so ashamed, like a fire burning in the pit of his stomach and crawling into his throat, grasping his shoulders like a vice.
"It's only a matter of time… Lesser the betrayal. Make him understand before he draws conclusions… Be gentle… I'll… be there for him."
And she's gone.
And V claws and holds onto that request of 'keep breathing'.
I just…
I wanted to save him the pain…
God…
I…
I just wanted to save everyone…
'We were hiding from the storm in houses made of paper', by Agustina Kazuyo.
Word count: 2,903
Publishing date: 19-Sep-17