𝐋𝐮𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚 𝐌𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐡𝐲𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐬 ʰʸᵘᶰᶜʰᵃᶰ

❀

"So this is his house?", I thought, looking at the building in front of me.

Easier said than done. My eyes could hardly capture the entire building. It was huge. Seriously, gigantic!

"How much money do you have to earn to be able to pay so much for a house? How much does a house like that cost a month, huh?", I muttered as I took a closer look at the mansion.

It had three floors. Probably with an attic, so all in all four floors. Great. More to clean- wait. Seungmin said I don't have to clean that much. A cleaning lady would take care of most of it.

The building itself looked very old. Antique, I would say. The walls were really tall and made of beige stone. It looked more like a small castle, to be honest. Archways adorned the entrance, many big pillars held up balconies here and there. It cast a huge shadow on me.

Huge.

Creepy.

Intimidating.

So with the bunch of keys in my hand I stood there and looked up at the windows on the second floor. Behind some of them, curtains blocked the view. Thick, heavy curtains. They were probably worth a fortune.

The decorations on the walls were very pretty. In some places stones were highlighted. This made the texture appear more. Somewhat distributed, tendrils grew up here and there on the walls.

"Did he live here all by himself?"

No way.

I took a few steps to the front door - huge as well - and took out the first key. It looked old, adorned with gold and in the end it was nicely curved. Since I thought this key looked very important, I thought it should be for the front door. But it wasn't.

So I took another key.

A rather simple one. Also curved at the end, but not adorned with gold. Just iron. It was heavier than the other. Very heavy for a key, actually.

And this key also fit into the lock.

There was a click and the big door opened. I carefully pressed my hands against the door, which made a loud creaking sound as I did so.

The outside of the house had already thrilled me, but the inside exceeded all my expectations. First I came into a large entrance hall, which presented a wide staircase that led upstairs. Several doors led to different rooms. The walls were decorated with pictures and other nice things.

It felt just like being in a castle.

But maybe I'm overdoing it a little. The property was nowhere near as big as a castle. It was just very old and nicely built. In addition, I was used to small apartments, so the whole thing felt much bigger anyway.

It took me about 40 minutes to take a quick look around. I couldn't remember everything right away, but at least I knew where the basement and kitchen were. Next to the kitchen was a large living room with a door to the garden. I went there next.

The garden itself wasn't that big. It was behind the house, had a pool, some cherry trees and bushes. The shed was a little further in the back. When going out of the living room, you were standing right next to the indoor garden.

And that was my last destination. So I went to the indoor garden, and realized it was connected to the green house. From here you could already see that the greenhouse was really big. The door to the greenhouse was large and opaque. You could only see a bright glow behind it.

I took the key I thought was the key to the front door and put it in the lock. Of course. That was it.

It clicked again and the first thing I heard was a loud noise. A noise, very familiar to me. I opened the door and entered the room.

I saw green everywhere. The glass ceiling let in sunlight, ivy and other plants completely covered the walls - also made of glass -, and in the middle of the green house was a grass field. Everywhere were bushes on which various flowers grew. There were some small trees and a big tree right in the middle.

It was really beautiful there, but not all the green was what I found so breathtaking.

The room was filled with birds. They were flying everywhere, chirping around, sitting on tree branches or hopping on the floor. What struck me was that it was the same species. I knew this species, actually. I thought of these birds while drawing my picture in art classes.

Nightingales.

That was the sound that seemed so familiar to me. I immediately recognized their chirping.

Back then, a few years ago, Mrs. Yoon told me about these birds. Luscinia megarhynchos. That's what they're called.

For a moment I closed my eyes as I stood there under the tree in the middle. I felt like I was in the park or in the forest. The flutter of bird wings and the singing sounded soothing. Really soothing.

That was the bird, Hyunjin drew.

Luscinia megarhynchos.