𝐋𝐮𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚 𝐌𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐡𝐲𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐬 ʰʸᵘᶰᶜʰᵃᶰ

❀

11 days after the accident

Felix slept over at my place that night. Understandable, I wouldn't want to go home either, knowing my mom would only scream at me for something I didn't do.

The evening we spent watching several movies, drinking hot chocolate and eating all kinds of snacks. Felix tried making pancakes for us, but they kind of burned, so we just dumped them and ate some toast. It was nice, spending time with him and for once my head was not full of worries. I was able to laugh with my best friend and just enjoy the time with him. During Frozen 2 I couldn't stop staring at Felix for a while, but he didn't notice. I just came to realize how thankful I should be for having friends like him. He was laughing at Olaf being goofy. If it wouldn't have seemed weird to hug him right then, I would've actually done it. But something made me unable to move. Maybe because Felix seemed so engrossed into the movie. He would've jumped.

At night I wasn't really able to sleep. I kept thinking about this and that, nothing in particular. Felix fell asleep right away. He was straddling his pillow with his arms and legs and moved around a lot, but it seemed like he was sleeping very well. I wasn't able to wake him up the next day. What opened his eyes was the door bell at seven in the morning.

"Probably my neighbors, Lix. I'm sorry", I apologized. Felix yawned with his mouth wide open, closing his eyes again. "A'ight."

It was kind of strange, my neighbors normally wouldn't come over at this time, unless they had some breakfast leftovers.

The bell rang a second time just before I was able to open the door.

"You're Chan?"

Before me stood the one I knew as Jaebum.

"That's my name at least", I answered, a bit too sarcastically. I think He didn't like that attitude, the look on his face seemed almost degrading.

"I would like to talk to you about Hyunjin, but I guess you have better things to do right now?" He looked past my figure into my apartment, making me turn around. Felix came after me, ruffling his hair. As soon as he spotted Jaebum standing in the door frame, he stopped everything he was doing and bowed.

"Good morning." His bed voice showed.

"Ah ... yeah." I turned back to Jaebum. "Right now I'm kinda busy, but I can hand you my number if that's fine."

The elder nodded at me, so I told him to wait just a second. Something about him made me nervous, yet I didn't really know what it was. He just seemed ... strict? Maybe that's not the right word to use, but he was weird.

I came back to him with a piece of paper on which I'd written my number. Never have I ever written down my number as neatly. Every digit looked printed onto the paper.

"There you go." I handed it to him, watching his eyes as he scanned it. Four seconds later he left, no further words, no bowing. He just left.

"What was that, man?" Felix asked, sounding completely lost. "He was weird."

"Mhm. He was."

After that moment I constantly checked my phone, thinking that Jaebum will probably message me any time soon, but he never did. Maybe he lost the paper. But he would've come back to ask for another one.

Maybe he just forgot about it.

Probably not.

Something probably came up so he couldn't contact me anymore. Or whatever he wanted, he maybe found someone better to help him with it.

And like that, 20 days passed without a call or message from him. 20 days of constantly checking my phone, making others think I'm paranoid or whatever.

It's been a month since the accident and I sometimes forgot about Hyunjin still being tied to this white bed. Sometimes I went to the hospital to see him, but the view made me tear up every single time. I brought him flowers. The same ones he had in his green house. I figured he must like them a lot since they were all over the place where he lived.

After two weeks I stopped visiting him. Not because I forgot about him or something, but I just didn't go to the hospital anymore. Maybe because it hurt me too much and I was tired of the sight. Tired of white.

And when I least expected anything at all to happen, I got a message. When I was sitting on my bed in the evening, cuddling with Berry and watching old movies, the display of my phone lit up, showing me a new message from an unknown number. At that moment I wondered who that message could be from, because I had forgotten about Jaebum to that day.

I leaned to the side to get my phone, making Berry jump off of my lap. The display was too bright, compared to the TV, my head hurt after looking directly at it. The message popped up after I unlocked my phone to read it, and just as I read the first line I sat up straight.

Hello Chan, this is Jaebum.
I would like to talk to you today.
It's a bit late, so I hope you're still free.
If so, please contact me and I will come over right away.
It's about Hyunjin and his past, you might want to know about it.