cn:yx
/next
He knew that she was staring. No, she wasn’t the only one and he was used to the gathering of a crowd whenever he felt like getting better acquainted with the grand piano which sat at the foyer with an unwavering grace, but something about the figure that he could see from the corner of his eye told him that she was different. Before, he had merely let his fingers drift freely in random chords, now that he had started on an actual piece, her gaze was burning. She wasn’t giving him the attention because he was quite the looker, she wasn’t a friend of the unofficial fans he had garnered after the few spontaneous occasions of playing; she was alone. Song Kwang Sik’s Reflection I was a piece known by many, but it seemed like she really knew. Had he touched upon an unwarranted memory?
The electronic organ that he had in his apartment couldn’t hold a candle to the resonance of this antique maple, but the unseasoned caresses that he was performing was making him sentimental, and a frown settled over his forehead with the surfacing of a longing to reunite with the Steinway back in his parent’s home, and everything that had came along with the journey of a young and loved son learning the language of love.
The brunette came back into his mind as soon as the last key dissipated with his own musings and temporarily curbed frustrations, and he turned around to look at her, almost surprised to see a semblance of a smile on her face as they made eye contact. He heard his name being called by a friend over the light chorus of applause and he took his eyes off her to find the said friend and acknowledge his call. When he looked back, and before he could approach her to make some excuse for small talk, she was gone.
1. Introduction
2. Love
3. Light
4. Dark
5. Seeking Solace
6. Break Away
7. Heaven
8. Innocence
9. Drive
10. Breathe Again
11. Memory
12. Insanity
13. Misfortune
14. Smile
15. Silence
16. Questioning
17. Blood
18. Rainbow
19. Gray
20. Fortitude
21. Vacation
22. Mother Nature
23. Cat
24. No Time
25. Trouble Lurking
26. Tears
27. Foreign
28. Sorrow
29. Happiness
30. Under the Rain
31. Flowers
32. Night
33. Expectations
34. Stars
35. Hold My Hand
36. Precious Treasure
37. Eyes
38. Abandoned
39. Dreams
40. Rated
41. Teamwork
42. Standing Still
43. Dying
44. Two Roads
45. Illusion
46. Family
47. Creation
48. Childhood
49. Stripes
50. Breaking the Rules
51. Sport
52. Deep in Thought
53. Keeping a Secret
54. Tower
55. Waiting
56. Danger Ahead
57. Sacrifice
58. Kick in the Head
59. No Way Out
60. Rejection
61. Fairy Tale
62. Magic
63. Do Not Disturb
64. Multitasking
65. Horror
66. Traps
67. Playing the Melody
68. Hero
69. Annoyance
70. 67%
71. Obsession
72. Mischief Managed
73. I Can’t
74. Are You Challenging Me?
75. Mirror
76. Broken Pieces
77. Test
78. Drink
79. Starvation
80. Words
81. Pen and Paper
82. Can You Hear Me?
83. Heal
84. Out Cold
85. Spiral
86. Seeing Red
87. Food
88. Pain
89. Through the Fire
90. Triangle
91. Drowning
92. All That I Have
93. Give Up
94. Last Hope
95. Advertisement
96. In the Storm
97. Safety First
98. Puzzle
99. Solitude
100. Relaxation
-stares hard at the directions that he had scribbled in a hurry before he left the apartment, feeling the sense of frustration rising as he wondered why he did not just take a snapshot of his computer screen, but he was determined not to let any bit of a foul mood get to him- Come on, it should be around here… Somewhere… -he muttered to himself, squinting as he caught sight of a shop with an exterior that set it apart from the cosmopolitan and almost uniform looks of the others in the area, very English, very… Monarchical. He grinned to himself and quickened his steps, tucking the useless slip of paper into his pocket when he finally reached end of the street. Pushing the door open, he looked around as he took in the design of interiors with an awed expression on his face, his lips forming a small o in a silent ‘wow’-
The alarm clock just decided to shamelessly pull her back to reality. Krystal rolled over her bed in attempt to turn it off, when she ended up knocking the clock over instead. Oh well, at least it served her purpose of shutting it off. She shuffled through her things as she got ready for the morning. She groaned as she rubbed sleep from her eyes as she chose what to wear for the day and looked for the books she needed to bring to her classes. She wondered why on earth she signed up for the 7:30am English class. She cursed as she forced the frizzles out of her hair. This was going to be a long morning.
She walked out of her dormitory to get to her first class on time. She looked at her watch and realized she still had 30 minutes to spare, so she dropped by at the café nearest her first class’ building. Life in Seoul was very different from life back in California. Things were a lot less complicated over there, and people actually spoke in English! Back there, she could insult people in Korean and they’d never know they were already being insulted. Another thing was that people in Stanford were a lot less competitive than the college students in Seoul National University. People here were batshit crazy and competitive that it scared Krystal a bit. She shuddered at the thought. Despite the craziness of it all, she liked it here. No parents, no responsibility to think about. She was a normal college student here in Seoul and she was her relieved face never made the newspapers back when her father was still in office. It was funny that she ended up here in Seoul, right where her parents feared she would end up going. Her father had made too many allies and enemies during his term as a senator, so he never wanted her to visit the country they were supposed to call home. Life away from her parents was perfect. She could walk on the street without having to wait for a bodyguard to play catch-up with her.
It was a relatively normal day for Krystal and she had to go to the library to borrow some of last year’s students’ thesis on black and white photography. For possibly the hundredth time in her life, she wondered why she double-majored in Economics and Communication as she looked through the millions of pegs in front of her. As Krystal looked up from one of the theses she was studying, she saw a face that looked familiar to her. He was someone she saw frequently. She didn’t want to be paranoid, but she saw him more than once a day in this huge campus. She refused to think the campus wasn’t big that it was inevitable that they saw each other, but she saw him more times than what was considered average. Maybe he was in one of her classes, but she’s spoken to almost everyone in her classes. She knew most of her classmates and she liked to think she was quite sociable, so it was just unnerving that he was almost everywhere she went and they’ve never spoken. When she looked up just now, he actually smiled at her as if they were friends. He may have been easy on the eyes but this was getting out of hand. She was going to put her fears at rest and STOP this guy from creeping her out. Just as she stood up, she found herself entangled with her chair’s leg and the table. She found herself falling down the floor, shamelessly letting out a blood-curling scream inside the library.
Having watched her for 2 years now, Lay knew that this girl wasn’t the most glamorous on her feet, almost too clumsy for someone who did ballet even, but he hadn’t expected for her to fall right flat on her face at that very moment. Women fell for him, they don’t exactly land right on the ground. No, it was not the reaction that he was waiting for, and looking at how the other students and the permanently not amused librarian were closing in to help the poor girl out, he decided to step aside and not add to her humiliation. It was not as if he was especially good at comforting people anyway, not his client, for that matter.
Fishing out his mobile as he strolled down the aisle which would lead him to the exit, a smirk played across his lips as he did a spontaneous report to his senior: “1417hrs - Miss Jung met with a minor accident”, eyes glinting as he imagined the older guy tugging at his sideburns in exasperation. Lay had always been berated for not being thorough enough with his reporting and paperwork, though he knew very well that the senior was judging his work based on its quantity and not the quality of it. But of course, the latter mattered more. It didn’t bother him in a negative sense that he was always having to endure his senior’s repetitive nagging; he knew that the elder was just being cautious to keep them out of trouble, and it was just too easy to avert his attention whenever he was about to start on Lay’s lack of performance. He just didn’t want to miss out on a chance to pull his hyung’s leg.
Spotting the brunette’s head nearing the doors, her head bowed as her forehead creased in desperation, obviously still suffering from the aftermath of that little number in front of the studious population, he swiftly kept himself hidden beside the pillar and waited for the moment to strike, chuckling as he shook his head. “Does your nose hurt?” He asked, the minute her figure came into view, slightly raising his voice on purpose so that she’d know that he was talking to her, “I apologise… For distracting you.” He was careful to hide any traces of amusement away from his features, after all, the making or breaking of his career was in her hands, no matter how unconvincing this child may appear to be.
He took a quick check of himself in the mirror before slinging his backpack over his shoulders, looking out of his window as his hands grabbed hold of the remote to turn the stereos off, chuckling as he watched the girl living in the apartment directly opposite his shuffling about, looking still half-asleep. To anyone else who didn’t know better, Lay must look like some creepy stalker. Only that was not the case - rich little girls were not his type. It was but his job, one that only seemed to increase in difficulty by the day despite him being back in a city which he was much more familiar with. It was interestingly ironic that the politicians actually found their own country to be embedded with even more potential threats than any others. The increasing demands of his job was rendering him more and more like a surveillance camera, what with having to cover the girl’s tracks almost three quarters of the day and reports two times daily, if there were any more additional requirements to come, he might just as well suggest that they actually plant a device on the girl herself.
The girl was never going to find out that he was tracking her; there was a reason why he was recommended for this assignment, apart from his black belt certificate and the face that swooned girls of all kinds and ages which set him apart from the stern and intimidating stereotyped image of most bodyguards. But ever since they had returned to the country, he decided to spice things up a little and make his existence known, after all, he was living right opposite her and they were now attending the same university - it was only normal for her to bump into him. He just had to make sure that he was always a step ahead of her, which he always was, effortlessly. Being well-received by the female species has its many perks, all of which he had learnt well to use to his advantage; he had a copy of the girl’s entire schedule for the rest of the semester, and on top of that, the school clerk had gladly volunteered to inform him via text if there were to be any changes. Of course, he hadn’t gotten it through sleazy methods that you might imagine, he had a written proof of authorization - being handsome just made sure that he did not have to be subjected to unnecessary paperwork and waiting, making the entire process much more enjoyable.
Lay knew that the girl was starting to find his face familiar, what with the variety of puzzled expressions that she had been displaying and he had caught on right before she could notice that he was looking, and given the period of time that had accounted for the build up, he was sure that she was close to approaching him. The smile that he had just flashed as they made eye contact in the quiet and neutral ground that was the school library was a bait, one that he was secretly betting his pride on as it is with every time that he entered a cyber game room. And Lay never loses a bet.
