I've got it all wrong. My entire prediction about this is just wrong. It's not like I'm that good at analyzing people after meeting twice, but I thought I couldn't go wrong with this guy. He's not trying to be rude; he's enjoying the fact that I fear him (which is not true, duh). I found out that only after catching him controlling his laugh, how silly of me. I shouldn't let him have the satisfaction of making me annoyed or embarrassed.
He's still waiting for me to answer, it's not like he asked a question, he just threw a statement saying I have a rotten attitude, not the same words.
"My attitude is absolutely none of your concern", I say rolling my eyes.
"One, you rolled your eyes; Two, you are not addressing me as sir; Three, talking back to your mentor. This is exactly why you are in dire need of someone to correct your attitude", he says with a smirk. I can tolerate everything he just said, but that smirk, argh.
"I think you're in no position to say this after the way you treated me on the flight, sir", I fire back, stressing on sir.
"What flight? I don't know what you're talking about", he acts like he is really confused"
"And now you're lying, just great...sir", it pains me to call him sir and not jerk.
"I guess you've mistaken me for someone else, that's fine, I forgive you", I want to go home.
As if he read my mind, he sighs and continues talking.
"Okay sorry for earlier, just let's start fresh. I'm Park Jae Hee, and professor-to-be at SNU. I'm just 25, so you can call me by my name. You have already met my sister and my father. So...what about you?"
Wait, he finished Ph.D. and he's only 25? Is that even possible? Or is he lying about his age? Whatever, not my problem. The real deal is him waving a peace flag. Why? Maybe he's friendly just like everyone else said, maybe he was in a bad mood on the flight, and I was just there. Wrong place, wrong timings. Maybe he felt bad after that and couldn't sleep peacefully for treating me like that. So many maybes but I'm not actually convinced for any of these maybes to be the answer. Maybe, I'm being cynical.
"I'm Jeeya, 21 years old, from India", super great Jeeya, nice self-introduction.
"Good to know you, Jeeya. You know this already; I'll be your mentor for the rest of your internship time spent here. From tomorrow you'll need to come to the lab and help me with my project. You'll even have to submit a report at the end of the internship time. Your performance will be validated based on your report. You've made it here, which means you are quite stable in your subject, which is good news to me. Any questions?"
I stared blankly at him, I have so many questions to shoot at him but I couldn't think of anything now. I'm mostly shocked to see him swap his personality so quickly. I end up nodding a no.
"Then you can leave, explore the campus, make new friends and do anything you want. But come exactly at 9:00 here tomorrow morning. If you have nothing else to say you may leave"
I mutter a quiet thank you and turn to leave, I'm about to exit the cabin, and he calls me again. I turn to come face to face with him which startles me, I didn't hear him leave the seat. In that one moment, all I could see were his eyes, it was so hard to not notice it. It's a trap, a death trap. I get a feeling once you make a move toward those eyes, it's equal to trying to run in quicksand, the more you try to move your muscles the more you'll sink deeper and deeper. I step back a little, mostly as a reflex.
"I didn't mean to startle you. I have a favor to ask", he says and observes my reaction. What could I do for him? Guess we'll figure that out, now.
"Yeah?"
"It seems like you and my sister are already friends. You both are roommates too. Can you make sure she stays out of trouble? If you notice anything off with her just let me know. Hmm?"
Here we go, the answer for the peace treaty. I sensed something was up, but I didn't see this one coming.
"You want me to be your little spy, great. And bold of you to even assume that I'll oblige", is he for real? He wants me to spy on that one friend I have here. He's just adding reasons to my 'Why should you hate Park Jae Hee list?", which I made mentally, just now.
"Look, I know it sounds bad. But trust me, she's a person who attracts trouble easily. I can't give you the full story right now but I can make you an offer. I'll help you with anything if you just do this one thing for me. You need not report everything she does to me, that sounds like spying. I just want to help her if she needs help. Please?", he asks with that doe-eyes that will even melt an assassin's heart. Also, his brotherly concerns are adorable. It's cute to hear him plead for his sister. And I have nothing to lose.
"Anything as in anything or anything as in academically anything", just to make sure that deal is worth my new friendship. If he says academically, the deal is off, because academic help is his responsibility.
"Anything as in anything", he says with a little smile of hope.
"Okay, as you said I won't report everything. But I'll make sure she stays out of trouble if not you'll be the first person to know about it"
"Then it's a deal?"
"Deal, sealed", I say with a smile which he returns.
There is a wide shift in my mood before I entered his cabin and after coming out of his cabin. I'm a bit happy to get to know him. He's not that bad after all. We even exchanged phone numbers, which was surprising, because earlier he was not ready to text me. Whatever, let the past be past. I open my contacts to call Jae Hye, to know what's her plan for the evening. It's almost five in the evening and when she doesn't answer I decide to take a walk outside the campus.
I can't trust Google if I go out of campus, so I take screenshots of the map in case I can't manage to ask people for a route with my broken Korean. I decide to go to Nakseongdae Park which is a thirty minutes walk from here, that's what Google said. It's five now, so I'll reach there by five thirty, say I spend an hour or so in the park, but I can still manage to come before dinner, which is not until eight. I have plenty of time to kill.
I connect my air pods and start to walk, it's warm today but it might get hot within a few weeks. I play Haven's songs, their voice sounds enchanting as always, now that I'm here I feel closer to them. I smile at the thought of meeting them, which I hope will become possible someday, for now, all I have is their songs to comfort me when I'm feeling down. To make me dance when I'm happy. To heal me, when I'm wounded. To find me, when I'm lost.
Uh oh, I'm actually lost. The stupid screenshots are not helping. It's a mistake to come out here alone, idiot. I turn around but there is no one near me. I walk a few yards to find someone, but my luck is so bad that I couldn't find anyone in the next ten minutes. Great, Jeeya.
I try calling Jae Hye, but she is still not responding, even after my ten missed calls. Finally, she texts me saying she was with her mentor, so she can't call right now. Just when I lost hope, I see a bunch of school students in one corner. Three guys were ganging up against one feeble-looking guy. He wasn't crying, but I still wanted to save him.
I walked in their direction, maybe if they see an adult, they'll leave that poor guy alone. But they do the opposite, when they saw me, they push the guy down.
Then realization dawned on me, I have seen so many YouTube videos. How did I fall for this? This is for a prank show, a camera must be hidden somewhere here. It's time to play hero, rescue this poor boy, and make a sensational video on YouTube. Ahh, it's so exciting.
"Hey, what are you doing?", I grab one guy's arm to stop him from beating the guy. They are overdoing it, even for a YouTube video, it's too much.
The guy being bullied pleads with me in Korean, I can understand that he's asking me to leave. I shove the guys aside and help the poor guy to stand.
One of the three guys curses at me, I can very well understand it, "Who the fuck are you? what the fuck are you doing?", tsk tsk tsk, school kids and cursing, they think it's a trend or something.
"Okay, nice prank, this stops now", I turn around and search for the cameras to come tell me how brave I'm. But when nobody comes out that's when I realize this is not a prank.
That kid says something again, even when I didn't understand what he said, I didn't want to be said twice, so I run dragging him along with me. Those three bullies follow us, soon they'll get us. They are fast, faster than me. I don't know for how long we ran, but we ran till our lungs gave out. I thought those bullies will give up eventually, well I was mistaken. It's dark now, so I take advantage of that and hide behind a garbage bin, it can host one person to hide but two is not possible. I search for somewhere to hide. They reached us but didn't see us yet. When they couldn't see us, they split up and runs to search for us. I gesture for the boy to stay still. I text desperately to Jae Hye, "I don't know where I'm, I think I'm going to die", I don't know what else to say, as a miracle I got an open Wi-Fi network there, I quickly share my live location to her and wait. All I can do is just that, wait, praying I shouldn't die here today.
She responds after a few seconds, "Nice try bestie, I think I'm going to die too. My mentor is a jerk. Meet you in hell!"
What? She thinks I'm pranking her. I'm done for sure. I text her this is serious to which she doesn't reply. Tears sting my eyes, I tried hard not to cry, at least for this boy's sake but I couldn't control it. He looks at me with pity and asks for my phone. When I don't give him, he speaks, "Noona, I want to make a call. I know English, but if I spoke in front of them, they'll beat me for that. Sorry, to get you into trouble", he's crying too. I hand him my phone and wipe my tears with my sleeves. He dials a number and waits, when the receiver picks up, he cries a bit harder. I didn't know what to do, so I grab the phone and narrate what happened as shortly as possible, then hands back the phone to him so that he can tell where we are hiding.
While we were waiting for that person he called to come, I try to make a conversation to stop his crying.
"Hey, it's okay. None of this is your fault, but you let them treat you like this is unacceptable. Did you tell your parents about this?"
"No noona, they have so much on their plate right now. I don't want to burden them with my troubles. I thought they would stop bullying me if I did what they said, but when I do one thing, they ask me to do another, it's endless. I don't know how to stop this. I want this to stop", he sobs. He is so pure-hearted that's what makes him an easy target. My heart goes to this kid. He is so good and shit happens only to good people. I take out a tissue from my bag and wipe off his tears.
"Listen, your parents will want you to tell them everything about yourself. Parents are not the people who want to see only the best days of yours, they'll be with you even on your worst days. They'll fight anyone to make their child's worst days as best days. Will you tell them about this?", I ask him.
Before he could answer, I hear a deep voice from the front, "Park Jae Hyun", he says it angrily. The light is illuminated behind him, making him just a shadow. But that voice.
"Hyung", the boy, whose name now I know, is Park Jae Hyun runs toward that man and hugs him tightly.
It's not even a coincidence anymore, that guy is my mentor, Park Jae Hee and the guy I saved from bullies is his younger brother Park Jae Hyun, and my friend, who is going to die in my hands tonight is Park Jae Hye, who is their sister.
I don't know why or how is this happening, but one thing is for sure, I'm tangled up with the Park family.