Genie

Eleven: Kim Jong In

Posted: 29 May 2016 EDT

~//~

Murky, gray skies above the NEATT tower signaled an oncoming, nasty rainstorm in Seoul. The first drop spilled out of a saturated cloud and stung Kai on his cheek like a cold, wet bullet. The driblet of water rolled down his jawline and disappeared along the curve of his neck.

Subsequent projectiles fell right through the genie who turned invisible and lay unfeeling on the concrete roof. The dull heavens above had painted a grimly accurate representation of his past, present, and future. It was springtime but it felt like a winter at the Pole – no sun, no color, no warmth. That was the life he was meant for. He'd learned now to never aspire for more again.

But it was hard to forget temporary bliss, even when he now knew it had been built upon disingenuous promises.

Kai picked up his hands and stared at them. For a brief moment, his dreams had become prospects that he could just touch with his fingers. With a little more reach, they would have been in his hands, hands that now flickered with the rain pouring through them.

Kai.

An ember in the ashes – that was how Ji Won's calling felt.

So this is it, her final wish.

Jaw set, Kai put on a mask of indifference and let his master drag him through space like a dog on a leash for the last time. He appeared in the center of her room.

Ji Won stood by her bedside, her back to him. "You called, Master," he said, keeping his voice emotionless.

She spun around to the sound of him and slowly approached, but Kai refused to meet her gaze and kept his eyes low. He didn't know if he'd be able to maintain his cold detachedness should he see her face.

With only two steps between them, Ji Won halted and said, "I have something to say before I make my wish, but I don't want you to listen because you have to." Her hand appeared in Kai's periphery. In it was the talisman. "If our friendship meant anything to you at one point, then please, hear me out."

Was this all her efforts at atonement amounted to? Returning the talisman a few minutes before her final wish?

Anger building, Kai's eyes drifted up to Ji Won's face despite his earlier resolve. There was so much red. From her bloodshot puffy eyes to her pink-tipped nose to her blotched cheeks, it was evident that she'd been crying since he'd left her hours ago. Were they tears shed for him, for what she'd done to him, for what she had yet to do?

No. Don't let her sway you. Once was already enough. Do you really want to let her crush you with her crocodile tears a second time? Just take the talisman and leave.

Kai carefully collected the necklace from her palm and held the stone with a crushing grip. He could have left then and there. He should have left. But Ji Won had attached a condition. All he wanted was to forget the nightmare disguised as a daydream of the past couple days, but the puppet master of the dream was insisting on one last show before cutting his strings.

Well he wouldn't play into her hands anymore. With one last hard look at Ji Won's anxious face, he flicked his visibility off. He would listen to whatever venom spilled out of her mouth because yes, he had at one point valued the deception she called friendship. But it was up to her to talk as he turned a bitter back to her and waited.

A gasp followed by a loud thump.

Kai spun around thinking Ji Won had passed out on the floor, but she was still conscious. On her knees, moist eyes stared vacantly ahead, a mirror image of him when she'd tried to make her final wish for her grandfather. The genie almost reached for her, but the somber voice that came from her pale, cracked lips arrested him and he kept his distance. Did she know he was there?