Mr. No || NCT || Completed

29 - Where a trip down memory lane is inevitable

"Your uncle?" Chaewon echoed while staring at the calendar as if it had grown a mouth and started talking. "Do you mean the uncle who died?"
"I ever had only one uncle."

Chaewon reached over Renjun and turned the page. "Maybe there will be more notes about him", she sounded hopeful and started going through the appointments with a newly found determination, following each line carefully with her finger. "Do you have any idea why he would've wanted to meet Nam Jihoon?"

Renjun was still staring forward, too stunned by the appearance of his uncle's name to look through the calendar with her. "I... don't know."

"Maybe we'll find the answer from here." Chaewon's shoulder was brushing against Renjun's, and somehow the warmth was almost comforting.

His stomach turned again, when he remembered the odd turn his conversation with grandmother had taken during the previous Saturday's family lunch.

"What would you say if I told you that I'm trying to find a cure?" Renjun asked when he and grandmother were alone.
She was taken aback. "What?"
"I'm still figuring it out. There has to be something I can do", he tried to sound convincing instead of desperate. "I want to try my best first."

Grandmother touched his shoulder and he agreed to face her. Her cheeks were pale and she seemed worried. "That can get very dangerous very quickly, Jun-Jun. Your uncle - ", she snapped her mouth shut mid-sentence and turned abruptly, facing her plate.

Renjun frowned. "What about my uncle?"
"It's nothing."

He felt lightheaded.
Had his uncle really been researching the injection before his death?

While he had been a part of Renjun's childhood, Renjun hadn't thought about uncle often after he distanced himself from the family. Moving to Korea had been such a big change in Renjun's life that it had been easy to forget about an uncle who had seemingly forgotten about him. And when the news about his death reached Renjun, he hadn't known how to react. It had been easier to forget.

As if his brain wasn't overheating already, it pushed another, older memory to him.

"Jun-Jun can become whatever he sets his eyes on", uncle said, when Renjun kept whining on the way to school on the third day of the first grade. On that morning, Renjun was the grumpiest 6-year-old in all of Beijing. "Jun-Jun can become a president, a singer or a police officer!"

Renjun, while dragging his feet against the street, pointed at an empty plastic bag that was thrown around by the wind. "Can I become a plastic bag?"
"Of course", uncle nodded in a heartbeat, "a very well-educated plastic bag."

"I don't wanna go, uncle", Renjun whined loudly. "I want to become a painter and painters don't need to study."
Uncle tutted at his sour attitude. "Jun-Jun, these days everyone has to study, even artists."
"Father says that I can't become a painter."
"Maybe he'll change his mind if you become the smartest painter in the world?"

Little Renjun looked up to him pensively. "Do you think so?"

Renjun blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his head. This wasn't the moment for a trip down memory lane.
Chaewon was still leafing through the calendar.

"Is there anything interesting?" Renjun asked in a coarse voice. They were currently reading through the second week of October.
She shook her head. "Mostly just work stuff, it would seem." She stopped for a moment and glanced at him, "so, you don't have any clue why we found your uncle's name here?"

Renjun rested his arms against the table and allowed his eyes wander around the cosy, lively café.

"I think that he was trying to find information about the injections too."