I can't believe it's already been two weeks since I came here. One week since that intern's meet-up night. Nothing new happened so far, I'm getting the hang of interns' life. Endless studying, book café visits, losing sleep, library date (with Jae Hye), and sometime in the lab, that pretty much sums up these two weeks. Once I happened to meet their dad, he is the coolest person I've ever met. All physics interns were asked to attend one of his lectures, he made sure to end his lecture soon considering our tight schedule, I mean who does that? That made him so cool. He even suggested we much skip and escape out to the world if physics drives us nuts, take a break and start back. This made me wonder if a person is this cool with his students how cool will he be with his kids? I'm one hundred percent convinced whatever is going on between Jae Hee and his dad, it's his fault.
Unfortunately, my heart still acts strange whenever he is around. But thanks to his research and my busy schedule our conversations are only concentrated on the subject. At times the jerk side of him will pop up and annoy me, but I've mastered the art of glaring at him and he'll push away his jerk side.
"Tomorrow, I'm taking you home for lunch, I know you are not being fed properly these days", Jae Hye walks into our dorm room with a made-up mind. Things with her it's so beautiful, she is so bossy and I love her for that. My parents are already grateful to her for taking care of me, which only worsened things. They only spoke once, but they are close already.
"Are you not going to ask if I'm free tomorrow?", I look pointedly at her.
"It's weekend, my dumbass of a brother wouldn't be cruel enough like my mentor to give you work on weekends. You are only allowed to go out if I'm going. So, you are free. What is there to ask?", she shrugs and packs her books to go to the library.
It's true, Jae Hee made sure I only work during weekdays which is good. Her mentor on other hand loves to torture people with additional work. Despite all that, she hangs out with me. I'm scared about this super-fast friendship; I'm scared of how much I'll get attached to her and miss her after going back to India. I also feel bad for only talking with Shreya and Ritu over texts, I mean they are busy with their life too. We went from promising to call each other every day to texting a good morning and good night, each day. This happened in just two weeks. If growing up could do that much to a three years friendship, I'm afraid about what will happen to this three-month friendship. I know it's stupid to worry about these things now, live in the moment and all that, but still, I can't help myself.
"Can I ask you something?", I ask her hesitantly not sure if I should.
"You can ask me anything, if it's about my brother I'll be more than happy to answer", I roll my eyes. This is her hobby these days, if she is not pampering me, she is about how much I and her brother will make a perfect couple. I don't know how that idea started in her mind.
"It's about your dad. I met him, and he is cool as a professor, so I was wondering how he was as a dad"
"He is equally cool as a dad too. He never forced us into doing anything, we fell into this academia crap ourselves", she lets out a big sigh before switching on her laptop.
"Now, about your brother..."
Immediately her face brightens up, and she scurries over to my bed where I'm seated, takes my laptop away from me, and sits so close as if we are about to discuss something very personal and confidential.
"Ask right away"
"God, I'm not asking this because I'm interested in him, just curious", I push her away.
"Curiosity is the beginning of everything. Humans' curiosity was the key to the discovery of fire. Curiosity is good. If you are curious about my brother, it's an improvement, now ask"
"Ughhhhh, why are you doing what you're doing"
"Shh, I'm curious about your curiosity, ask already", her eyes are wide and excited.
"Why did your brother move out?", I regretted the moment the words left my mouth. The color drained from her face, and she looked troubled. I messed up.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that"
"No, don't be. I can't tell you the whole story right now, not because we are not close. We are close. I'm embarrassed to tell you, that's why. The main reason he moved was me", she became a completely different person, eerily silent and all that.
"Hey, I don't know what happened, but your brother loves you more than you think. I'm sure he wouldn't want you to blame yourself for what happened", I'm really bad at this.
"You don't have to say kinds of stuff which don't sound like you at all, now get your stupid ass off this bed and go with me to the library, you promised me to help with my assignment", she drags me along with her.
"Oof, thank God. I was this close to making k-drama references about messed up situations", I laugh.
"Instead, try making romance references to my brother", she laughs and throws her hand over my shoulder. I try to pull away but she's stronger than I'm.
She grabs our bags on our way out, with me on one side struggling to get off her strong grip. We walk out of the dorm; she has no intentions of letting me go.
"Let go", I'm still struggling, what are they feeding this girl?
"Say, please Unnie, I'll let go", she loves testing my patience.
"Like hell, I will, your birthday is in November, and I'm August born, you should be calling me unnie", I would never understand why Koreans are obsessed over being called the eldest.
"Ha ha, my love, I'm 2000 born, you are 2001 born", she lets go of me.
"What really? Stop lying", she shows me her ID. We have reached the library by the time we finish arguing.
We spend the rest of the evening at the library. She asked for my help but did all her work herself. She would probably kill me if I say this to her, but her brother is the same. He'll taunt us that he needs some help with his research but not once have actually let us do any of his work. Siblings indeed. In the meantime, I do my work, but at some point, I must have dozed off.
My hands are numb from resting my head on them, so I adjust myself. I turn around without opening my eyes to ask her when can we leave. My eyelids won't open.
"Are you done yet?", my voice comes out as a sleepy whisper.
"I'm not even close to done yet. How are you so good at making mistakes?", a deep voice answers.
I bolt upright and cupped my mouth before I curse inside the silent library. Jae Hee is sitting casually beside me, where Jae Hye was sitting before, I dozed off. My laptop is in front of him, he is reading my reports with annoyance clear on his face. He is wearing his reading glasses, he looks like a big dork, which is so adorable.
"I won't bite. Why are you always on a verge of shouting or cursing when you see me?", he scowls.
"I didn't expect you to be here"
"Neither did I, my stupid sister said you needed some help", that little shit.
"I...that", I don't know what to answer and the glasses are distracting me.
"Tomorrow we are going home. Mom wants you home too. Don't worry dad is going out to a conference", thankfully Jae Hye saves me from answering.
"We?", Jae Hee asks even when knowing the answer.
"We", she pointed at herself and me.
"You know I won't go", he answers reluctantly.
"Mom asked me to inform you and I did, that's all. Right, Jeeya?", she asks me all of a sudden while I was gawking at him absent-minded.
"Uh", I hate being caught red-handed, she stifles a smile, at least she didn't make an open comment in front of her brother.
"When I said Jeeya needed help, I didn't mean for you to come immediately, you know", she smirks at her brother, he seems equally flustered but is very good at hiding and stands abruptly to leave. He nods in my direction and curses with his eyes at his sister and leaves. She sure has a way of making people flustered.
"I'm two hundred percent sure, he'll be there tomorrow", she says confidently.
"Why? He said he'll not go", I ask her taking my laptop and I'm pretty pleased to see that he has edited most of my work. Thank You, Jae Hee.
"He didn't come home at all, after moving out, visited like twice to see mom. That too making sure, no one is home. If that boy puts his ego away and visits his home, what does that mean?", I can guess where she is coming from with all this.
"It means he misses his family", I shrug.
"Missing his family, my ass. Okay, let me cut to the point, if he is not there tomorrow, I'll drop everything, I'll listen to you, but if he does, you should listen to me. Deal?"
"I mean, him visiting your home or not is your problem, why should I make a deal out of this?", I'm so not playing her game even though I know he won't go there tomorrow.
"Oooooh, so you know he would be there?"
"God, fine deal. I'm doing this only because I know he won't", I frown and shake her hands. Why do I feel like making a deal with a little devil?
"We'll see that tomorrow, my little pop tart", she's giving me this wolfish grin. Okay, it is creepy. I just have to trust Jae Hee's ego, because that egoistic jerk would never let anything touch his ego. A little, Hershey's Kisses size part of my heart hopes he would be there but no. I know he won't be there. I mean it doesn't matter. God, she is influencing me a lot and making me delusional. I should stay away from the Park sister first before she completely infests my brain with crazy ideas.
We go to our dorm. When my head hits the bed, all I could think of is one person. Stupid, Jae Hye.