Dont know where to turn (1/1)

« Chapter Three »Eating Busan’s special seafood potluck only meant travel to Busan. Travel to Busan meant three days using car (without stopping), one hour on a plane, one whole day (24 hours) on a bullet train. But right now I am standing on this old train station gaping at the oldness of the old train that was on a stop right in front of me. I didn’t know that we were still using this Harry Potter (I mean the train in the Harry Potter movies) looking train. “Why are we here?” I turned to Jiyong who was busy having this conversation with the ticket seller, through this clear window. “We are going to eat Busan’s Special Seafood Potluck,” he answered glimpsing for seconds at me before talking back to the ticket seller. “Two tickets for Busan please,” he said pushing his credit card through the small opening in that huge clear window. “Suite type sir?” I heard the girl speak, rather bored. “Deluxe? Do you have that? I don’t know what are the rooms called here. Okay whatever, the most expensive.” I looked at him still trying to process his words. He was not serious right? But then standing next to him in this ran down train station with this old train in front of me, with him buying us tickets while holding those paper bags of clothes that he forced me to buy in this store called Forever 21, made me think that he was hell serious about this shit. I rolled my eyes remembering the stop at that store. The dresses were all for teenager having studs and patterns and bright colors and all, clothes that frankly caught my attention.   “How many days are we going to get there?” I gave up thinking, knowing that sometimes things unplanned were the best things. Beside my head was aching. “We could take a plane. I’ll pay for the tickets.” I suggested while he was still busy having conversation with this lazy toned lady who sells tickets. “No, we’re good.” He turned to me walking to the entrance of the train with me following him. “Busan is really far, it’s more convenient to ride a plane,” I tried pushing my suggestion more. I mean this was crazy. We were just going to eat some seafood potluck and yet we were riding this old train which takes who knows how many days before we reach the forever summer state of our country—Busan. “Tickets please,” Jiyong handed him our ticket before walking inside the train with me trailing behind him. I was about to ask him questions yet the interior of the train stopped me. It was like how the movies portrayed it and it was like how I had imagined it. The only difference was it was better, more beautiful and much realistic—well, perhaps because I was really inside the real train, staring and stepping at the real thing. “The travel will be two days and one night.” I looked at his back as we walked to this narrow carpeted corridor, on or right side the huge glass window of the train trapped in the metal frame on our left were the rooms that they were talking about awhile ago. “That’s too much, don’t you have work?” it was not really too much for someone like me who was doing nothing but write for some pathetic drama in the television but for a doctor like him who has this duty of taking care the health of the people around him, it was too much. “Don’t worry, I’ll just get suspended.” He answered non-committal enough to make me halt my next steps. “You serious?” I asked him almost gasping and well perhaps obviously shocked. He turned a looked at me. Then he smiled. “And you think you don’t care about anything.” I blinked at his words and watched him find our suite. I walked to follow him, his words still ringing inside my head. And you think you don’t care about anything. His words made me thing, think of things, think of myself, think of him. I pondered on his words of me thinking that I don’t care about anything. Was it true? Am I like that? The more I think of it the more I have proved that he was indeed right. I kept thinking that nothing matter, not the stars, not the heavens and not even life and death.It was as if I don’t care but then like what he had pointed out, I did care of some unnecessary things like his work as a doctor. I shook my head lightly, concluding to myself that this guy was way too smart for me and that my list of the things I liked about him was getting longer.  It was in all honesty bothering but I refused to dwelling on it. Jiyong opened the door of the suite using a card. Even though the train looked vintage and I am sure it was, it was still influenced by the modernity of our generation. He pushed the door open and walked inside, and like a shadow I followed him dutifully. The room was not that huge but it has generous space with one huge white bed and all wooden interior with a small television and a small table with a small couch plastered on the wall. One bed, that was the first thing I noticed about it. It only had one bed. I looked at the couched plastered on the wooden wall. It was small but if he bent his knees he could fit on it. “One bed.” Jiyong said the words that were swimming in my head. I looked from the bed to his back, where he was standing facing the bed. I could not see his expression. I wish I can though. “I told you, we could have taken the plane.” I said it for the sake of clearing my mind with thoughts of him, the bed, and me, and us. It was so wrong, that I wanted to drown all of the thoughts away. I never had any intimacy with any guy after my jerk boyfriend but then having no intimacy for a long time and being with him in this room of one bed, you will not blame me for thinking such things right? “I need time to cure myself.” He said walking to the small table and placing all our things on the white couch. I nodded not really understanding the more time he needed. “I don’t think I could offer you the cure you needed.” My voice was small, my thoughts were louder. I didn’t even notice that it came out of my lips for him to hear. He looked at me for a moment, walking close to me he then patted my head like I was this small cat he found on his way home walking alone the road one cold silent night. “I am a doctor, I know what can cure and not. I didn’t spend years in the university for nothing, Sandara.” I looked at his eyes. He was the second guy who had called me using that hideous name of mine. That funny name of three syllables, that stupid name my mother and father loved. I hate my name. I hate it. I hate hearing it from my dad, seeing it from my documents. And I hate its beholder. My lips pursed. I walked to the bed, plopping down my bag pack on the soft mattress. I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the still view outside of the huge window. “I hate my name.” I turned to look at him and he stood there silent and just looking back at me. “Figures,” he shrugged. He wasn’t asking for a reason or asking for further information but it was as if I owe it to him. “No reasons, I just hate it. Is that possible?” I asked him. It was a stupid question really. He walked sitting down next to me and I felt the mattress sank. I looked at him, wondering why I don’t feel awkward nor felt embarrassed, perplexed at his presence. It was as if I had been with him for the longest time I could ever think. Is it possible to feel comfortable to a stranger, con-looking and mildly crazy (to put it mildly) doctor who told you that you have this brain cancer and you’ll die sooner than what you expected? “Having no reasons… hmm…” he clasped his hands together his elbows leaning against his thighs. His posture was poor as ever. It was as if he was not a doctor and he was never educated regarding the importance of having proper posture. “Sandara, rhetorical as it seems but everything has its own reasons and that’s the truth of it, when you decided to tell those things to your dad, you have reasons whether out of love or hate. Reasons, the things that often made us go on.” I liked how he let go of his words, how gentle they seemed and how good it was to hear. I liked how he mentioned my name, not too fast, not too slow, not too stressed and not too light. It would make you wish that you have that name. In his tongue my name sounded beautiful the most. “I don’t have reasons, Jiyong.” I fought the urge not to say those but they slipped off my lips. He had this presence like he was sucking the truth out of you like he was casting this spell that you will say anything to him, from the pettiest to the most embarrassing, knowing that he doesn’t care, that he doesn’t judge you and he doesn’t draw conclusion based on your choice of words and the tone of your voice. “You have,” he looked at me, his voice firmed and assured. “You just don’t recognize them yet, and maybe you don’t want to recognize them. The problem, Sandara, you wanted to walk lightly, you don’t want anything or anyone to hold you because you might end up thinking of how the fucking way are you going to extend your numbered days.” He was honest. He was the most honest guy I met. I nodded to him and looked back out of the window. How the fucking way are you going to extend your numbered days… “Conversation like this calls for a hot cup of coffee, right?” he asked. It was so out of the blue. I turned back to him and he has this smile plastered on his lips and I knew by that time that we had moved on from the conversation. I nodded smiling at him. “Well, let’s answer the call,” I stood up and he followed, the next thing I knew we were sitting at the almost empty café section of the huge old vintage train. xxx I watched the waiter as he placed down the plate of spaghetti in front of me. I loved spaghetti. The first time I have tasted it when I was a child, I have loved it and up until now I do. Some things don’t change, like how much I have loved spaghetti when I was young. I loved it before and I loved it the same degree up until now. “You looked happy,” he noticed sipping from his cup of coffee or his milk that has a pinch of coffee. It was practically made of 97% milk and 3% coffee. “Spaghetti is a happy food.” I answered digging to my spaghetti. He watched me for seconds, in his eyes I knew he was thinking something yet now he don’t even bother voicing even a single syllable of that thought. He lifted his gaze and looked at me. “How old are you, Sandara?” one thing that I had notice about him was that he seemed like he couldn’t survive a minute without saying my name, like it was some kind of breathing for him. And I couldn’t put myself of whether I would want him to call me Sandara or Just Dara, like how he used to. “I believed I have answered that in the form I have passed to Chaerin when I was in your clinic,” I took my second scoop of this red saucy spaghetti. “I’m afraid, I don’t have this habit of checking the form that my clients passed to my secretary.” I gazed at him for good amount of seconds before focusing back on my pasta. “Thirty.” “Thirty?” he doesn’t sound like shock like most people who found out of my real age, he sounded more on pondering if I was telling the truth of not. Or maybe he was shock but he doesn’t have this gasping tone of obvious shock and doesn’t have this expression that would have his lips on an o and his eyes wide like saucers. “How old are you?” I asked taking my third scoop and him sipping his milk. Equivalent exchange. “What age? Mental age, physical age or emotional age?” I rolled my eyes. “Your real age.” I almost hissed. “I am unfortunately eight years younger than you are, Sandara.” Twenty-two. He was twenty-two. How could he be a doctor on such young age? He must have been real smart to be. But then he was really smart, you don’t need to think of it. One look you’ll know. He was too smart that he crossed the border of being weird. I shook the thought away and focus on my food but then my body started rejecting the food. I felt my head pounding and my food climbing up. I pushed myself up and covered my mouth. I walked out of the canteen and Jiyong followed me. With his help, we were able to reach our suite. Upon entering the suite I went inside the small bathroom and started throwing up all the food that I had took in for the past, how many hours was it? I don’t know. Jiyong was helping me, caressing my back up and down and handing me tissue. I hate this. I hate that I threw up all the food I ate, from the fruit platter, to the pasta. I hate that my head that keeps on pounding like shit. I hate my cancer that keeps on demanding for my attention like I didn’t know that it exist within me. I know you are there, you goddamn cancer. I know, I notice you, so please stop. Just stop. The train started moving, a bit of jerking, a bit of shaky, then slowly into even glides in the metal rails. I lost my footing and almost fell, but his arms held me, his body ready for my fall. “Sorry…” it was crazy how painful my head was, my vision was spinning, then slowly dimming, then spinning and dimming. Please help me. Someone help me. I remembered shouting, screaming, my throat being scratch as I screech. Painful, it was too painful! Someone help me! My tears brimmed, my fingers digging on my scalp. I screamed. I called for help and he was there holding me. Holding me so close to him. I tried looking at him, crying, begging. I was embarrassed at my cancer’s desperation for attention, its pleading for me to notice it. Repeatedly it says: Hey! I’m here!! I shook my head, my hands clung on his shoulders. “Make… make it stop…” I shook my head incredulously. “Make it stop!!” His hands cupped my face. “Relax… Sandara…” he said more, he said words. I loved his words, but I couldn’t hear them, I couldn’t recognize them. The pain was too loud… it was too loud. I want to hear him. I wanted to hear his words.  I just wanted to hear his words. xxx Slowly, I opened my eyes. Letting myself adjust to the darkness. I pushed myself up and looked at the view outside. The room was flooded by the light coming from the huge glass window. I stared at the trees, at the sky and the moon sailing to it. Raking my hair, I heaved a sigh. I felt some movement next to me and I saw him lying, sleeping next to me, his arms on my lap, which was probably on my stomach when I was sleeping. He looked so young, so innocent, so fragile. “Jiyong,” I called his name, my tongue played with it. Gently, I brushed the hair falling almost covering his eyes. His nose crumpled, his brows crinkled and slowly he fluttered his eyes open. I stared at him and he pushed himself to sit next to me. “How are you feeling, Sandara?” he asked, his voice almost echoes in the room. I can hear them clear. “Good?” I shrugged and my stomach made a shameful grumble. “And hungry…” I bit my lips. I’m probably, embarrassingly, blushing. He chuckled. How could he look so beautiful in the dark, so fascinating against the kiss of the moonlight. I didn’t notice I was staring for too long in that silence, inside a cabin of an old train moving to Busan. “You’re so beautiful.” I thought it came from my lips and flowed in the still air between us. But I realized it didn’t come from me, as his fingers ballet on my forehead, pushing the stray strands of my probably messy hair. Consciously I tucked my hair neat. My heart was pounding, it shouldn’t be. I cleared my throat and he moved, sliding away from the bed, standing up. “Let’s eat,” he offered his hand for me to take. I stared at his hand. If I take his hand, if I let this to continue, I wondered… I wondered if I will be able to escape the chain that was slowly binding the two of us. I grabbed his hand, and the moment his fingers locked around mine, I knew I was selfish enough to make him believe that there could be something more. More nights to spend together, more trains to ride to, more words to say, more warmth to feel. That there were more rails, that it never ends, and that in the end there was something more waiting. What is more? It was quarter to two and we walked to the empty canteen, hugged by lights only coming from the moon. It was so beautiful that I can only stare and admire. Walking in the darkness in this old train was something I really enjoyed. And walking hand and hand with him came with a skip of heartbeat, and wondering thoughts. We should not do this. I pulled my hand away from his hold. He looked at me for a moment, but didn’t say anything. I watched him pocketed his hand and continued walking. I wondered what was he thinking. Was he mad? I wish he was, and I wish he wasn’t. He was good at making you feel confuse. We reached the canteen were a sleepy waiter was behind the bar. He was yawning and already groggy but he found time to smile  to us and asked what we want. I ordered spaghetti and Jiyong ordered his milk with coffee and a clubhouse sandwich. We sat on our chosen table and as we wait I looked at the view outside the window. I fired up the laptop I insisted on bringing and soon began on typing. My words played in the screen, fumbled in my brain and poorly executed in my sentences. I keep on deleting, repeating until I can hear a small thump in my head that made me stop. I sighed, giving up, there was no way to concentrate. As our food arrived, I felt the loss of appetite and to think it was my favorite food, my happy food. I inhaled deeply and mixed the pasta and the sauce, thinking, hoping that in one bite I will have my appetite back. I forced it inside my mouth. The flavor was rich and thick. It was undeniably good, but still I was not in the mood for it. I tried to swallow. “Don’t force it.” I looked at him and he was sipping on his coffee, or milk, or coffeemilk. My lips twitched. “Hmm.” I placed the fork down and leaned my elbow to the table. “Jiyong,” I called him and he looked at me, waiting for my next word. “I know, we haven’t know each other that well, and I am bit of a mess, but if I die will you miss me?” it was bold and stupid, not to mention embarrassing. “Miss you?” he placed down his mug of coffeemilk back to the wooden table. “I am here and you are there, but I terribly miss you, Sandara.” I blinked. Shocked. I fake a cough and pushed myself away from the table. “I don’t think you understand what missing is all about.” I tried to get back of myself after being caught off guard for the nth time. My voice was meek, it quickly blend with the cold air of the air conditioning. “Well, what is missing to you, Sandara?” he was expectant and I felt pressured. “Longing, the feeling of…” I tried to search for the right words to form the right sentences in order to answer his question. “The feeling of wanting something, not in your presence and you can never have.” I looked back at his gray eyes. His lips curved into a small smile enough to deem me speechless, almost gawking. He placed his chin over the back of his hand, elbow resting, leaning on the table. He looked at the view outside, the moving trees, the clouds gathering and the moon. “Exactly.”   Finally, as my spaghetti was down to half of the plate, I was able to write two paragraphs—339 words. I sighed, cracking my knuckles, deciding to rest for awhile. I forgot about Jiyong, when I looked at him, I saw him, leaning on the glass window, eyes closed and perhaps passed asleep. I was torn if I should wake him and tell him to go back to our suite or just let him sleep peacefully. In the end, I chose letting him sleep peacefully. I stared at him, I looked at him and scanned his features: the crazy hair, the clear smooth skin that almost glows, the nose, the long lashes, neatly kept eyebrows, and the curvy pinkish lips. For a man, he was too beautiful. Inhaling deeply I roamed my eyes all over the still empty canteen. It was almost quarter to three. My eyes landed on the black grand piano in the corner. I stood up and walked to it. I sat on the seat in front of it. It was full of dust and I felt a bit of piss to whoever own it. Lifting the lid, and preparing what I needed. I tested one key by pressing it, which pretty much was loud in a place of few people, in the darkness. The sound was still good, and that’s what piano was all about. Its sound, how the keys played the note, in its pure voice. Placing my hand I started to play. My fingers dancing on the keys, playing, hopping as it weaves the song, sang the story. My eyes fluttered song and my being was locked into the symphony of pain and beauty, of hello and goodbye as I play the song I wrote for my mom when she died—The Lament of the Musician. “You never cease to amaze me.” I looked up to him as he took the space next to me and I continued to play. At the last hopping, at the last tapping, the music faded to end, like how everything has always been. There was no forever, no infinity, there was always end to everything. End that you hope for, end that you hate, end that gives no satisfaction. There has always been ending. Everything ends. And that was living has been all about, the stories, the music.It was the thing that made life beautiful, the meaning of life—it ends, it stops.  ˹author’s blah˼Lament of the Musician is a musical piece that Allen Walker (D.Gray-man) played in order to stop the downloading of the ark that the fourteenth Noah originally owns. Missing You isn’t my story either, it’s a Korean Drama on 2012 that stars Park Yoochun, Yoon Eun Hye and Yoo Seung Ho. If you wanted a psycho, angst drama, missing you will give it all to you full blast. The travel information regarding Busan here wasn’t true either. This is a work of fiction and most of the information regarding cancer and the geography of Korea were baseless and senseless and only for the sake of the story.