Until The End of Time | Wonho [√]

25: LIBEROSIS

LIBEROSIS: THE DESIRE TO CARE LESS ABOUT THINGS

I met Wonho again after exactly two days. It was finally the weekend and the sun was already glimmering gallantly at 8 o'clock in the morning. I was still half asleep, rocking back at forth on my seat at the almost empty bus. I didn't yet know where he was taking me.

"I still don't have a clue where we are going," I told him as I turned away from the window and faced him.

Clad in a grey overdized sweatshirt and dark blue jeans and sneakers, he beamed at me. "You'll see," he laughed a little by himself, all along his feet tapped rhythmically on the floor.

"What was the urgent matter that day?" I stifled a yawn. The question didn't seem to reach him.

His eyes whirled around the bus, and then again he turned to me. "Almost there." Despite his radiant demeanor, the circles under his eyes indicated how deprived of a good sleep he had been.

When he called me early in the morning and told me he'd pick me up in ten minutes I thought I was in a dream. It registered three minutes after and by then I was jumping up from my bed like a clown puppet attached to a box with a string.

I was sure my short hair looked as frantic and crazy as a crow's nest, and even that might be an insult to the crow. I tugged onto the hem of my red hoodie and yawned a little. "The mall?" I peered outside the window and by then Wonho was tugging onto my sleeve, pulling me out of the seat with him. We stepped out on the bus stoppage. The road devoid of people, obviously no one was crazy enough to awake early on a weekend.

"It's not open yet." The humongous building complex glared down at me, even from the outside it looked deserted and hollow.

"They start to open up around nine. Come on." He fished for my hand and blindly pulled me along with him. I followed behind reluctantly, my other hand placed over my eyes to shield them from the torturing morning sun of the summer.

"You sure about this?" By the time I had asked him that, we were already to the front and main gate, long glass panels which parted away when we stepped closer. There was a very tired-looking old man with stubble and a head full of graying hair, wearing his security dress and staring at us droopy-eyed as he sat on a stool.

"Hey pa, how are you doing?" Wonho asked him cheerfully but didn't stop. The man begrudgingly lifted his hand for a terse second and didn't spare us another of his bored glances.

"You know him?" I asked when Wonho was pressing the button for the elevator to open up. Inside the mall, no one was there, except for that guard. It was cold and barren, and dark as far as my eyes laid ahead, the shops were closed under the metal shutters.

"He's known me since I was a kid. He lives in our block," he explained and we both stepped inside the lonesome elevator. He pressed the button for the eleventh floor, not letting go of my hand all this time.