Between Truths ║Dahkook║K.DH J.JK

playing parts

CHAPTER XIII

In that familiar dimness of the theatre backseat, the face smiled down at him. Dahyun. No longer a stranger. But he was not about to make her an acquaintance either. She was not supposed to be here. Neither was she supposed to plague his thoughts. Yet, that scene of her hiding in the cave of shadows while she hugged her knees kept replaying in his head. His mind would wander in the middle of droning lectures, during showers, sometimes between conversations. Remembered the relief when she found a tall figure in front of a school's gate, Then anger. But she spoke quietly, gentle, "Let's go home; mom cooked your favourite food." "Okay," he said, a high schooler in his uniform, his gaze haunted and faraway. "Answer your phone next time. We're all worried." "Seungmin?" She nudged, "Your phone. Answer it." "Okay," he said again. Distracted. The exchange was perplexing. The boy did not seem like one to have left home. He looked kind. He looked blank. "Come," she tugged him to walk, rubbing comforting circles on his arms.

"Interested?" She asked, head nodded at the stage behind her. He looked past her silhouette, perturbed. Yein stood in the middle of it, the spotlight bright and intense on her.

"Maybe."

It was curious how the universe lined things up for him—made him chase after a shadow of someone who had no time for him while he kept bumping into the very person he would rather avoid.

"Here," she indicated at the cup she held out that he still had not taken. He thought about the times she would eagerly hold her hands out for him—someone she barely knew. Was it pity? If so, he did not need it.

"I ate," he said, refusing the cup of rice cakes drenched in red sauce she offered.

She nodded, moving towards the seat on the opposite aisle of him. A respectful distance from him and he realised that he should have felt uncomfortable at the lack of space earlier.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" She said, and he turned towards her, "I saw how you look at her." His fingers found each other at her words. He intertwined them mindlessly, weighing his response because he could not fathom her reasons for saying them. She continued, "There's something magical about standing under a light. It makes you seem alive like nothing else could; makes it very easy for people to love you."

Inexplicably, her words teased out a picture from entangled memories. Her, coloured by morning light. The sun enchanted more than any light could. 'That must be it.' She had a way with words like he never did; could explain things for him about him when she barely knew him.

"Aren't you supposed to be up there?"

"Have you ever stood under a spotlight—you're bright and everything else dark?" She asked instead.

"No." But she must have had.

"It must be beautiful for her. To have been nothing, and suddenly they care about what she has to say. Even for things she doesn't."

"Is that what you think?" Jungkook asked. 'That Yein was nothing?'

She must have sensed his displeasure because her reply was non-committal; evasive, "It's what everyone says."

"It's a little late to take it back now, no?" Jungkook said, wedging her door from closing on him. "It must be what you think too."

She stilled in her seat, a haughty deer caught in a headlight.

"It is" she conceded finally. Her voice did not sound light and airy now. It dipped to her natural timbre. Jungkook nodded, settling back on his seat, pleased he made her uncomfortable, even better, admit her flaws. It must not have been easy for someone with an unblemished façade like her to do.