TRIGGER WARNING: A DEPRESSED JI AH AHEAD!
The First Time I Saw You
Ji Ah didn't sleep a wink at night, and didn't feel like leaving her bed in morning. She had cried all the tears that were threatening to make their appearance in the last 2 weeks, on Kim Tan's shoulder last night. None of them had tried to console each other, and wept on.
However, the tears she had shed with Kim Tan yesterday had only managed to make her heart even more heavy. The guilty conscience had striked her too brutally this time, and she laid in bed whole day like a wounded animal. Such that who wasn't even passionate about living anymore.
Her stomach grumbled, but she ignored it. She hated eating too. Her throat was aching and a headache had formed. Today was her weekly check up day, still she ignored everything and closed her eyes, tugging up her blanket more. Ji Ah desperately wished her Eomma was here to comb her fingers through Ji Ah's hair.
Her phone rang somewhere and she tried to ignore it. Only one person called her and that was Mr Seo. She mused if he would come and see her out of concern if she were to not pick his calls. Not this soon, she thought ruefully. If she were to die today here, her body might not be found for a few days. Mr Seo would grow infuriated like he had been at the hospital, and visit her apartment. He would ring the bell and tap his foot impatiently. When she wouldn't open even after 4 bells, he would demand the landlord lady for a spare key. When they would enter the apartment with a spare key, Ji Ah would appear to he sleeping, but as they would nudge her shoulder, she would roll over and they would finally realise that she was dead.
Ji Ah groaned in irritation and threw away her blanket grumpily when her cell phone rang for the fourth time. She sat up and reached over for her phone in dark at the kitchen counter. Her bed's headboard rested against the kitchen counter. It was a one room apartment with a bedroom, a kitchen and a living room in just one huge room.
Ji Ah picked up the call, "Hello?"
"Where are you? Why are you not at the hospital?" Mr Seo was a very straightforward person, Ji Ah thought with subtle sarcasm.
"I don't feel well." She said quietly.
"More of a reason for you to be at the hospital." He replied drily.
Ji Ah frowned. "Can I go tomorrow?" She asked meekly.
"You would have to." He said, "I will have Dan Te-sshi get another appointment for tomorrow."
Ji Ah felt embarrassed.
"I am sorry, Ahjussi." She apologised sheepishly.
"Araso." He didn't pay much attention to her apology, as his attention seemed to be elsewhere "What is wrong with you? You said you don't feel well."
"It's more mental than physical. I am all good physically." She assured him, as she began picking at her cuticles with her fingernail.
There was a brief silence on the other side before he spoke thoughtfully, "You need to see a psychiatrist too." Ji Ah frowned. "What you have been through isn't normal and should be dealt as such too."
"What am I supposed to tell the psychiatrist? I can't talk about more than half of my traumas to him." Ji Ah said meaningfully.
"That is right." Mr Seo agreed. "But you can get therapy for your Amaxophobia. That is necessary."
"I don't want to get therapy for my phobia. I mean for the time being, please." Ji Ah said feebly, rubbing her throbbing forehead.
"Alright." He said calmly. "But one thing intrigues me." Ji Ah imagined him leaning back in his chair and squaring one leg over a knee, "You were not in any sort of vehicle at the time of the accident, then why are you afraid only when you are in a vehicle?"
Ji Ah's stomach grumbled again and she squinted at the clock sitting on her study table. The faint light shining from the window showed 3:37 pm. It was going to be her work time soon, but she had no intention of going today. She might collapse while carrying a tray.
"I don't know, Ahjussi." She said tiredly and picked on the skin under her thumbnail. "I just feel like something is going to collide with the car any second. I even have nightmares of a truck crashing into a car I am trapped in. The car turns over and I wake up. Even the pain in it is so vivid."
There was a long silence from the other side, but Ji Ah didn't take much notice, as she laid down in the bed again, and pulled the blanket over herself.
"Did you see Cha Ji Ah's car accident before you passed out that day?" Maybe it was his monotone or his question, but something about him grabbed Ji Ah's attention.
"No," Ji Ah said worriedly, "Why?"
There was another moment of tense silence from his side and Ji Ah grew more worried.
The he spoke in an odd tone. "A runaway truck had crashed into her car when her driver had turned it to the other road. The car had turned over first, then the truck had dragged it forward till the roof of the car came off. By the the time the truck stopped, the car was in ruins."
Ji Ah shuddered awfully. This was how Cha Ji Ah and her driver died? If the car was in such a condition then what would have been her and her driver's conditon? Ji Ah felt tears form in her eyes again.
"Are you there?" Mr Seo asked.
"Yes." She said, trying to hide the thickness of her voice. "This is a strange coincidence."
"Indeed." He said warily, then paused for a moment before continuing. "You often have these nightmares?"
"Almost every night." She told him.
"Then at least get therapy for them." Mr Seo suggested.
Ji Ah frowned thoughtfully. This didn't seem as hard as overcoming her Amaxophobia.
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Ji Ah threw food inside her, took her medicines and slept really early. She woke up briefly for eating again, then went back to bed after checking her phone once.
Ji Ah woke up gasping and sweating.
She had another nightmare. This time a car had charged towards her, instead of a truck, but the car was being driven by Kim Tan. A new addition to her nightmare.
Ji Ah shuffled into a sweater and picked up her coat and woollen gloves while running out of her apartment. She couldn't sleep inside.
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Standing inside the convenience store, Choi Young Do placed his ramen bowl on the counter in front of him and uncovered the lid. Hot steam brushed his hands.
He was moving the noodles with his chopsticks when he caught sight of a pretty girl -- with the longest hair he had ever seen on a girl -- waddling outside, towards the store. She was sleepily pulling on gloves.
He placed the chopsticks down and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyebrows bumping together, as he eyed her with interest. The weather was not that cold today, yet she was wearing a coat over a sweater. She collapsed on the table outside the store, but got back to her feet immediately and started to the store with half closed eyes. His gaze followed her, as she bought an energy drink, moved to stand beside him without taking any notice of him watching her, and opened the bottle. His eyebrows rose and fell, as he watched her gulp down the entire bottle in one go and wipe her mouth with the back of hand.
She then trudged back outside to the table and slumped down on it, resting her head on her arm.
Young Do picked up his noodle bowl and came outside. He placed the bowl on the table quietly, and pulled a chair across from her. She seemed to have fallen asleep. He waved a hand in front of her face to check. She didn't respond. Young Do vaguely thought she appeared somewhat vulnerable, lying on the table like that.
He slurped his noodles and chewed them lazily while leaning back in his chair, and studying her. Her long hair were splayed on her arm and back. They were neither exactly curly nor exactly straight -- and currently they looked frizzy and half tangled, as though she had just left her bed. Her smooth dewy skin shone in the morning light and her pouchy lips were shaped into an undeniably adorable pout. He looked around at the almost empty street with furrowed brows. She was too pretty to be sleeping here like this.
Young Do was chewing noodles peacefully in the company of his fast asleep companion when two kids came out of nowhere, and began arguing loudly. He glanced at the sleeping beauty, and turned to the kids.
"Ya, kids. Can you quiet it down a little?" Young Do spoke in hushed tones, motioning with a hand to speak low, "There is a person sleeping here." He gestured towards the sleeping beauty.
Young Do instantly regretted speaking, because in the next moment the kids exchanged a look and then without warning, burst into loud tears. Young Do wiggled his fingers in his ears as the kids shouted "Eomma! Eomma!"
He tried to keep eating, but the kids were going to rupture his ear drums with their Eomma's name.
"Are you bragging that you have an Eomma?" He scoffed at them, "I too had an Eomma when I was your age." Young Do said with mock pride.
That only increased their volume and Young do wiggled his fingers in his ear again.
The sleeping beauty stirred, and raised herself from the table drowsily. Without opening her eyes fully, she rose to her feet, turned and trudged away while Young Do lowered his eyebrows at the kids wailing in full volume.
A black car came to a stop behind the still wailing kids and Myung So peeked out. "Ya, Young Do-ah! What's going on?" He shouted over the kids' wails.
"These kids picked a fight with me." Young Do pointed a finger at them with mock offense, "They are teasing me for not having an Eomma."
The kids exchanged another look and ran away shouting "Eomma!" at the top of their lungs.
Young Do got to his feet, his half eaten noodles forgotten, and stared sideways at the long haired beauty disappearing around a corner.
"What happened?" Myung So wriggled himself out of the car window petulantly, trying to follow Young Do's gaze. "What are you looking for?"
"My heart." Young do mumbled after a moment.
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Ji Ah blinked rapidly at her shiny surrounding. Everything screamed wealth. Mr Seo's lavish office had a huge table which was decorated with two laptops, one tablet, pen holder, some files and some other objects. With some space in front of the huge table, a set of sofas were placed carefully with a table in the middle, resembling a small living room. That was where Ji Ah sat with her feet crossed over each other. Across from her, a bewitching massive watertank glowed with fishes of various colors and sizes swimming in it. There was a door behind Ji Ah that presumably lead to a washroom. The blue painted walls were adorned with paintings that made no sense to Ji Ah. However, what caught Ji Ah''s attention the most was an expensive looking piano standing in the far right corner of the spacious office, looking quite out of place.
When 15 minutes passed, and it didn't look like Mr Seo would be here anytime soon, Ji Ah got up hesitantly and moved to the alluring piano.
Its lid was propped open, and its keyboard was not covered, yet there was not a single particle of dust on its any part. Ji Ah deliberately moved her slender fingers over its black and white keys. Acting on impulse, she seated herself in front of the piano, and in the next moments Ji Ah's fingers were tapping the keys, playing a music that sounded sad to her ears.
Notes rose and fell, rhythms tugged at the strings in Ji Ah's heart. Maybe, it was her depression, or her recent encounter with Kim Tan, but tears didn't seem to have a stop.
Her fingers came to a stop, but her tears didn't. She crossed her arms over the keyboard and leaned her head on it, forgetting where was she altogether.
"Your fingers," Ji Ah jumped in her place, "Were too stiff."
Mr Seo stood nearby, looking over her with an unreadable expression.
Ji Ah sniffed and wiped her tears. "Ahjussi, I am--"
''Relax your fingers." He said softly.
Ji Ah blinked at him dumbly with tears still clung to her lashes.
"Move." He gestured for her to step aside and Ji Ah did so hazily. He seated himself in her place, gracefully.
'Stiff notes come out with stiff fingers." He told her, playing the same song. His fingers glided over the keys far more skillfully. "Touch the keys as though you are caressing them." The notes rose and fell with expert gaps in between and rhythms connected admirably.
The song ended soon and the office grew quiet. He raised himself to his feet and started towards the sofas in the middle of the office.
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I loved writing this scene, where Young Do kind of protected Ji Ah. It looks like Young Do likes Ji Ah because she is pretty, but wait. I will give Young Do moments to really fall in love with her.
~Fawns