I was stuck in the hallway with people passing by bumping my shoulder every turn they made like it was on purpose, but I was standing in the middle of the hall. For some reason it was hard for me to turn every time I would try to move. My feet were stuck, buried in the tile.
"Kang," a hand pops up in my face lightly waving and I see nice expensive pink nails with all kinds of decorations on them. One finger had a bow, another had a bear, and so on but it didn't look like too much at all.
Her hand laid on my shoulder before her overbearing ginger hair swung down and hit me in the face and some hair even flew into my mouth a little. It smelled like vanilla- no she smelled like Vanilla but with a swirl of perfection making my eyes roll back and my mind go blank.
WHO IS IT AGAIN?
"Kang? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I awkwardly laugh rubbing the back of my neck and looking everywhere but at the person talking to me. It was like I didn't want to know who I was talking to but curiosity was eating at me.
"That's good," I hear her sigh and I do the same out of habit. "The last time I saw you- you passed out in the middle of the street and Jangsoo had to take you to the emergency room-"
"KIM SO-AE" unintentionally my voice raises and I swing my head around to see not only her but a guy standing behind her embarrassingly close. There was barely breathing room between the both of them and I ended up staring at him.
"Oh yeah, this is my boyfriend Bo-Joon"
Boyfriend? My eyes enlarged as I looked at him. He wore nice clothes, a tan suit, no wrinkles- pinpoint straight- and many shiny accessories such as a watch that seemed to be made of gold and he wore stud earrings.
"I just wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings between us"
"Misunderstanding?" I repeat
"Yeah, I wanted you to know I wasn't using you to see Jangsoo- I just didn't go on a date with you because I have a boyfriend," she finishes, looking over her shoulder she smiles at Bo-Joon and he had no expression written on his face. I thought I made it clear two weeks ago that I had no interest in her but I guess she didn't get it. She was never a thought in my mind, not even for a second.
"Oh that's so thoughtful of you," the words left my mouth as if I was bored. I look around trying to find the perfect moment to step back without Bo watching every inch of me with a smug look but it never happens.
"Did I come off a bit rude," she takes a split second to look back at her boyfriend and he meets eyes with her and I take that as my cue to leave. Immediately I turned away and sprinted down the hall to class before they could say anything because the sound of my steps hitting the ground got canceled out by the sound of chatter and walking of others.
"Kang? Welcome back," I was bent down on a wall trying to catch my breath when an arm laid on my shoulder. I was looking at the floor and saw some beat-up sneakers I would call running shoes or maybe hungry shoes as they had a mouth and were basically falling apart.
"Hey," I stood up and smoothly removed their hand from me, not sure who it was. As I turned my head, Yoo Min was there. The wannabe news reporter/ blogger.
"I heard that Jangsoo checked up on you in the hospital, is that true," I begin to walk off, opening the door right next to me to go to class, and can see him following close behind. "The little birdies even said that he ditched Sung Ji to come to your aid."
"Who?" I didn't want to talk to him but when I hear names that I don't know I have to say something. I don't want to forget someone important.
"You know the bodyguard that goes everywhere with him," he said and it didn't ring a bell. Other than his fans following him around like he was a duck and they were his kids, I haven't seen anybody following him. I brush Yoo Min off and walk into the room. I couldn't seem to catch a break as he continued to chase after me while I walked to the front row to the empty seat next to Dal who somehow beat me to class.
"Hey brother, I thought you weren't coming to class today," he says and the word brother makes my stomach swirl. He had a huge smile on his face and was looking down at his phone before meeting me in the eyes. "Jae said he can't make it to class today isn't that sad?"
"No," What's sad about it? I'd rather be in my room sleeping than in class getting harassed by Yoo min sitting right next to me writing down everything I say in his bright yellow little notebook. But now that I think about it, "why is Jae not here?"
"He said he didn't feel good but when I asked what was wrong with him he wouldn't go into detail," Dal handed me his phone filled with messages between the two, and Jae was most definitely acting weird. Every other message was him reassuring Dal that he was fine though he complained that he wouldn't be able to get out of bed because his stomach was so messed up that he couldn't stop throwing up. I hand Dal back his phone and continue on like nothing happened.
"Kang," I heard my name and turned my head around a couple of times and no one was calling me. My eyes could barely stay open like there were weights tied to my eyelashes and I was already laying on the desk in front of me because the professor's lesson was on history. My feelings about history are very on and off.
"Kang!" My eyes shut and the darkness that usually forms turned white. Everything was white like my eyes were open looking into a blank room.
"Welcome back," I lifted my head up and I was no longer in the classroom but on the floor with a woman standing over me in all white.
"Not again," I sigh, wanting to bury myself alive as I stand up to meet her menacing red eyes.
"Why do I get the feeling that you don't want to see me," she asked and I shrug looking around the room trying to pass the time. "Fine then I'll make it the last time," I turn my head back around to face her and she holds her hand up to my face before I could say a word.
"When the day is right the time repeats and what you thought you knew will make you weep," what the hell is she doing? Why is she talking in riddles? "The clue you missed is a crucial piece but if you don't go back you might lose the key."
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't interrupt me," my mouth shuts like it was glued down and she begins to speak once again, "You say you saved the one with a soul but what you don't know is their time is close." she snaps her fingers and I'm back in class freshly opening my eyes as I feel eyes staring at me.
"Are you okay," Dal asked as I sat up readjusting myself in my seat, nodding, "Oh," he looks me up and down "Just making sure." He turns away with a huge grin on his face. "You were talking in riddles in your sleep," he giggled grabbing a hold of his pen before facing the professor.
What was she even talking about- I thought to myself looking down at a sheet of paper on my desk. All I could think of doing was to write down what she told me. Word by word.
"Hey, what are you working on," a hand hits my shoulder from behind but I don't react. From the corner of my eye, I make out the silhouette of Tae as he takes a seat next to me. I never noticed that Yoo Min had left the room all I could see was Tae hovering over me. "Are you trying to solve a riddle," he asked, pulling the paper off my desk to get a better view and I was too stunned to move.
"'When the day is right the time repeats' I think this line means that something that happened before will happen again at a specific time," Tae says but my mind was blank. What happened before that is going to happen again? There are tons of things that happened before. Does that woman want me to go through everything?
"'And what you thought you knew would make you weep' This line is confusing," Tae takes his eyes off the paper to stare at me as I shrug before he continued, "I feel like it's talking about something that had any impact on a person. If you take the sentence from before which meant something bad was going to happen at a certain time then this sentence has to mean that whatever is supposed to happen is going make you question what you know and crush you from the inside."
"What about the next sentence," I ask and he smiles up at me.
'"The clue you missed is a crucial piece but if you don't go back you might lose the key.' I don't know exactly what this is referring to but it sounds like someone missed something important and whatever it is- is not going to stay in one place for long which could be why the events are repeating."
Through all this nothing made a light switch go off in my head. I think I was just lost for the fun of it now.
"'You say you saved the one with a soul but what you don't know is their time is close.'" He reads. "A baby can figure out this line, it's so obvious that someone was saved and they weren't supposed to be, so now they are about to die. Honestly, everything makes sense now, the time repeats to kill off someone and the person that's supposed to weep is the one that saved them. They believed they saved someone's life but now have to question it when they die. But only one part doesn't fit," he looks at me like I know.
"It says that the person missed a crucial piece and now has to go back to find the key, but if this is the case that means that the person that was saved doesn't have to die if the key is found. That means the first line and the very last line won't happen if the person just retraces their steps and find out what they missed."
Wait, I think...