I nervously stare down at the unconscious boy lying in my bed. He's thankfully alive and being examined by Amma. I feel sorry for her, because even when she's supposed to be resting, she's here yet again, helping an injured person. Dominic's hands are fortunately not broken, but they're a bit bruised up and inflamed. When I feel a stare burning into the side of my head, I curiously look around and find my brother watching me with intrigue shining in his gaze.
Before I can question him on why he's looking at me like that, through my peripheral I see Amma quickly, disinfecting Dominic's knuckles, she wraps a bandage around both hands and then places a gel pack on them both to probably stop the inflammation. When she's done completing her task, she pulls her elastic rubber gloves off and scrunches them up in her palm.
After heaving a deep sigh from her chest, she nods and reassuringly says, "He's going to be fine. We'll just have to wait for him to gain consciousness. You're lucky you didn't break his bones, Seong Jin, because I don't think I would've had the patience to pay for someone else's child's medical bills."
Bashfully, I avert my gaze and again I feel guilty for slamming the window down against Dominic's hands.
"Now," Amma starts sternly, forcing my eyes to flutter back up to meet hers and I read the language in her body as her preparing to reprimand someone, "anyone want to tell me how this happened?" she muses.
"How what happened?"
"How some teenage boy almost fell from the window of your room," she snaps impatiently and the glare in her eyes makes me swallow a gulp nervously.
"No, thank you," I mutter in a tiny voice, cowering away from her lest she decides to backhand someone out of frustration.
Crossing her arms, she looks at Yang Jin pointedly.
At first, it doesn't seem to click why she's looking at him, but when it hits him that she's silently demanding an explanation from him, he throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Why are you looking at me?"
"Because Yang Jin, you always do this," she answers.
"I always do this, Amma? I always sneak random guys in through Seong Jin's room? I always do that?" Before he can get backhanded for answering her with through sarcasm, I nudge him warningly.
"Mueos? Juggo sip-eo?" she threatens him, narrowing her eyes at him and glancing down at her hands, I notice that her left pinkie is twitching just as it does when she's losing restraint. Yang Jin just looks down bashfully, hiding his irritated gaze from her.
"Sweetheart…" My gaze lands on the source of the voice.
He places a hand on my mum's shoulder and she evidently relaxes from his touch.
Franklin, quite the mediator. You can always trust him to intervene in fights like these. Anytime we do anything more than just speak to each other in a normal octave, he'll step in and try to calm my brother down. Yang Jin is normally the one who starts yelling, like now. I think it's because he has a tiny heart. He might act tough, but once you poke him, he'll pop and give you everything he has bottled in.
"This is obviously Seong Jin's secret boyfriend."
"What?" In tremendous horror, my head snaps in his direction as my eyes widen from his statement. Why did he have to throw me under the bus like that? Franklin is not the type to tattle or make such assumptions which would get me in trouble with Amma. I give him a betrayed look and he only shrugs, mouthing a sorry.
My eyes narrow in on him. He's protecting Yang Jin yet again. I knew it. All this time, I've seen the signs showing me this, but I ignored it. It's so obvious now. Yang Jin is his favourite child. I look over at Amma who seems to be in a state of shock after hearing my father's declaration.
Amma's pulled out of her dazes, calculative state, but unfortunately, she is now glowering at me. Even if Dominic's mean stare has no effect on me anymore, I'll never get used to my mum's glare. It will always have an effect on me. My eyes land on my father and they throw daggers at him for putting me in this very tight spot. Now how am I supposed to get myself out of this mess?
"Seong Jin doesn't have a boyfriend," she says to Franklin and I'm pleasantly surprised she believes in me, but what she adds has me rearing back in astonishment, "He's as straight as they come."
"Amma, I'm not straight."
"You're not?"
"No, I came out to you like two years ago," I exclaim, furrowing my eyebrows at her in bemusement. Has she spent all this time thinking I was straight.
"Did you?"
"Yes!"
"Okay, but you've never had a boyfriend," she states in a tone of conviction and assurance, but after taking another look at Dominic something seems to make that certain statement waver. She then frowns at me distrustfully and muses dubiously, "Right?"
"No, I haven't had a boyfriend, Amma."
Even if I did, does she really think that I would expose myself like that? If there's someone I know well, it's my mum and she obviously doesn't like the idea of me dating at all. She'd kill me if I were to even consider relationships before books. She's threatened me on the issue a gazillion times as a little seven year old starting out in reception school. That's why she's making a big deal of the fact that Dominic was sneaking into my room.
I guess, in her mind it seems like I was trying to sneak him into my room when in reality, I actually wanted to push him off the tree branch he was balancing his weight on.
"Then how would you know if you're straight or gay?" she interrogates me, danger glinting in her eyes, darkening them perilously.
I guess we're finally having this conversation. While trying to keep the blush from my cheeks, I answer with a nonchalant shrug, "I mean… I've liked a couple guys… here and there. Just liked them though. I-I didn't wanna date them or anything like that."
"It's true," Yang Jin shockingly supports me, causing me to smile appreciatively in his direction.
I even go as far as thanking him, because it is very unlikely for Yang Jin to speak up for me on my side. But when his words really sink in, a frown of bemusement mars my expression. Wait, how the hell would he know that? I don't think I've ever breathed a word about my crushes to him. That's just weird, talking to my brother about all the boys I've liked.
The only way he would know is if he— "I watched his vlogs."
"You what?" I shriek flabbergasted, watching him with enlarged eyes. I can't even find it in me to be embarrassed from his revelation, because I'm quickly consumed by anger.
What is with people and watching my videos? Do they not understand the concept of privacy? The fact that I didn't tell them about them should be hint enough that I don't want them to watch them. They're private. They're mine. They're a secret. Oh so I thought. Dominic might as well post them on the internet. I'm pretty sure the people in my circle have all watched the vlogs without my knowledge.
Yang Jin grimaces as his dark, already squinted eyes watch me sheepishly. "You were not supposed to hear that."
"I'm gonna kill you," I deadpan, throwing a blunt look his way.
I spring off the bed, preparing to wrap my hands around his neck just so I can choke the definition of privacy into his thick head.
Also, can he just stay the hell out of my room? I told Amma to install a lock for this very reason. Meddling siblings who don't understand that privacy is actually a thing. When he notices my fuming, approaching body, he jumps away from me and runs towards the stairs to escape my clutches. Before I can tail him, Amma grabs my arm and pushes me back into the bed. I huff, pursing my lips angrily.
"Go and have a talk with your son about privacy," she demands, glancing at Franklin with a noticeably, dangerous smile.
"Of course," Franklin replies like the lovesick puppy he is and follows after Yang Jin who is long gone by now, loudly yelling, "Yang Jin, your mum said that we need to talk."
Once he has also disappeared from view, my mum focuses her attention on me. "And you," she starts, folding her arms over her chest like the mother hen she is, "who is this boy?"
"Dominic Lachowski," I mutter quietly.
"And who is he to you?"
Oh God, how do I get myself out of this one? Thanks a lot, Dominic, for getting me in this mess and then passing out on me, you moron.
I can't tell my mum that he's my friend, because she knows that the only friends I have are Taylor, Edward and Damian and she has met them all.
Ever since my mum's friend betrayed her in university with one of her past boyfriends, she has been very serious about girl code and such.
Now, she has drilled it into my brain that I should never go for my friend's boyfriend or their exes. Unlike other mothers, mine literally told me to not disrespect the girl code and not to date my friend's boyfriend. At the time, I was a kid and I didn't know anything about dating, so I just blinked up at her with a confused look. After rubbing a hand through my hair, she turned around and left me at the gate of the reception school all by myself.
I cried for about an hour before I was found.
Should I lie? Should I tell her that he's my project partner. I'll just tell her that we got our chemistry project earlier than expected and now Dominic and I have to work on it outside of school. The only time we could've met up is today since I have to go to church every Sunday. That would surely placate her, right? School work always works on her. In fact, she'd be proud to call me her son from this lie.
The only hole in this explanation is, why was he sneaking in through the window? What kind of weirdo uses the window instead of the door like a normal, fucking human being?
Oh, easy, our chemistry project is to test how oxygen reacts with the leaves of the tree outside my room, so Dominic climbed up the tree to get the leaves before heading over to the door afterwards. That sounds believable enough.
"Seong Jin, don't even think about lying to me," she warns me, when she sees how deep in thought I've been.
A sigh escapes my lips. If I tell her the truth, she's going to blow a fuse and most probably throw Dominic out of the window herself. I'm pretty sure he won't survive a drop from the second floor.
If she hears that he found my sketchbook and is now using it to blackmail me, she's going to kill him for not being a compassionate gentleman. My mum wouldn't care how influential his parents are. She'd use every last cent in her bank account to get him expelled for invasion of privacy or something.
Maybe, I should do that. Maybe I should tell her that he stole my sketchbook so that she can force him into giving them back. Yeah, and then I won't have to associate myself with either him or Jodie anymore. I'll have my sketchbook and vlogs back; my normal life will follow through and my friends will never find out about my dirty, little secret.
No, that will never work. What if he just goes ahead and makes a million copies of the letter before giving it back and then proceeds to paste them all over the school for everyone to see? Or even worse, makes me a YouTuber?
"I can't tell you," I respond softly and fearing that she didn't hear me, I gaze down at my lap.
"You can't tell me?" she muses. I nod slowly. "And why is that?"
I keep quiet, fiddling with my fingers and picking some dirt out of my short nails. I can feel her piercing stare burning two holes into my bowed head and I bet if looks could kill, hers would put me six feet under very quickly. I can't even explain to her why I can't tell her, because that would in turn lead to me telling her which is what I'm trying to avoid.
"I can't tell you that either."
"Is he your secret boyfriend?"
My head snaps up so quickly when I hear her enquiry and I'm shocked that my head didn't snap off my neck from my abrupt movements. "What?"
"Is he your boyfriend?"
"No. God, no. I'd probably kill myself if he was."
She stares at me distrustfully.
"Really, he's just a school mate and, you know even if I did like him, hypothetically speaking that is, it wouldn't work out, because he… well, he actually likes someone else and also, I'm pretty sure he's as straight as they come. He just needs my help with the someone he likes and like the good Samaritan you've raised, I said I'd assist him."
"Oh, so you've become Cupid now?" she enquires sardonically.
"Amma," I start in a defeated tone, looking at her exasperatingly, "I would never date someone like Dominic. He's rude, manipulative, detached, stubborn, demanding and I just—he makes me so mad sometimes, because he doesn't listen to me. He does whatever he pleases. I mean, I get he's the puppet master, but ease up a bit, you know?"
She frowns in perplex. "Now, I don't know what you're even talking about. What do puppets have to do with this?"
"All I'm trying to say is that I would never disrespect you like that. This is your house and I'd never misbehave with boys in your house." I could just do it outside where I won't be caught. "Just… trust what you have instilled in me."
"So, you don't like him?" she asks, still unsure of where Dominic and I stand.
"No, he frustrates and annoys me."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, he really knows how to get under my skin. It's irritating. He's like a tick of some sorts. He reminds me of those parasites that suck on people's blood."
"A leech," she corrects me.
"Yes, a leech. That's Dominic."
Draining me off all my energy and the liquid running through my veins and arteries to sustain my life just so that he can continue to exist. After watching me under her suspicious gaze and seeing that my blank face reveals how honest I'm being, she smiles in satisfaction and nods. Then she mutters something under her breath which I don't catch. I hear the words not, straight, my and arse.
"Adequate, Seong Jin."
In my shock, I stare at her curiously, wondering if she's satisfied with my responses. "Yeah?"
"Mm-hmm. You have made me proud."
"That's," I pause with a relieved grin, "that's great to hear."
"When he wakes up, ask him if he can still feel his legs and arms," she decides to casually drop in as she's standing up and collecting her first aid kit.
"What? Wait, are you saying that he could be… he could be paralysed?"
"No," she drawls out, but her head bobbing up and down contradicts her statement. I don't know how to feel about that. Then she flicks her imaginary long hair over her shoulder and heads out of my room after giving me the I'm watching you gesture with her fingers.
I just gaze after her weirdly and once she's out of sight, I dismiss her peculiar behaviour through shaking my head and go over to Dominic who's still lying unconsciously on the bed. The more I stare at him, the harder it is to believe that he's actually lying here, in my bed. With my lips pursing awkwardly, I start poking his shoulder so that he can wake up. When that doesn't work, I try shaking him awake, but it doesn't help as well.
"Dominic..."
He begins to groan awake, causing me to stop shaking him. He blinks a couple of times to wake himself up fully and when he moves his arms to rub a hand across his face, dropping the gel pack on the floor, a sigh of relief leaves my mouth. At least he can still use his arms. Now I have to wait for him to fully alert himself so we can see if he can still use the lower half of his body.
Bending down, I pick up the gel pack from the floor and put it on my bedside table.
"Fuck," he grits out through his clenched jaw and when he catches his bandaged hands, his brows arch down and uncertainty runs through his dark eyes. "What the… why do I have—"
"My mum patched you up." From my voice, he jumps slightly like he wasn't expecting someone to be here with him. "Remember I told you my mum's a physician?"
When his eyes connect with mine, he still looks quite bemused by what's happening. Until his eyes thin into familiar venomous slits, and I'm guessing from that he recalls what happened. With an accusatory look, he states, "You slammed the window down against my fingers."
"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. You might not believe this, but I actually didn't do it on purpose." His gaze doesn't soften and sheepishly, I glance down at my socks before remembering my mum's words before she left and I quickly ask, "Can you feel your legs?"
"What?"
"I don't know. My mum said I should ask you if you can feel your legs for some reason. I think she thinks you might be paralysed or something. Either that or she's playing some kinda sick joke on me."
"Oh," he murmurs out monotonously and zones out like he is in deep thought. After a few tense seconds he asks, "How am I supposed to know?"
"Oh, right. Can you feel this?" I gingerly poke his leg softly.
"Feel what?"
"The poke. I just poked you."
His eyes widen in panic and he shakes his head ominously. "I-I didn't… feel that."
I breathe out in fear, trying to stop my heart from pumping so quickly. It only speeds up. I'm almost afraid that I might even go into cardiac arrest. Then my mum would have to be called on duty again. Speaking of Amma…
I scramble onto my uneasy feet and just as I'm about to dash downstairs to fetch her, Dominic's hand curls around my wrist. Abruptly, he pulls me back, causing me to yelp and stumble. In the end, I end up falling on top of his body. My eyes pop out of their sockets from the position we're in and I'm about to climb off his body in a panic, because of his rule about my cessation to touching him.
That's when I catch the fervency in his dark eyes, and I don't know why or what the hell causes this, but my eyes intently get drawn into him too. My chest moves up and down quickly from the deep inhales and exhales my body takes, his chest pressed firmly against mine as he too breathes deeply. My hair has almost caused a curtain around both our heads, enveloping us in this moment.
Blinking or looking away isn't an option either.
I'm immediately conscious of everything happening in this moment, except my surroundings have been forgotten completely.
His stare is piercing. His firm grip is numbly resting on my hip as the other hold tightens thoughtlessly around my wrist. My hand gingerly grips his shoulder and I wonder if he can feel my erratic heart slamming against my ribs. Does he hear it maybe? Anxiously, I bite onto the inside of my lip and that movement makes his eyes flicker down to them. That seems to snap me out of the bubble I'm in. I blink rapidly.
What the hell am I doing?
Clearing my throat awkwardly, I hurriedly clamber off him and do everything to avoid his heated gaze. My frantic movement breaks the spell on his side as well as he licks his bottom lip nonchalantly and mimics my actions, trying to look at anything, but me.
What the hell just happened? Were we perhaps in some sort of love spell? That's fucking weird. Especially with how much of a parasite he is, a leech. My face heats up and I awkwardly clear my throat yet again.
"I'll just g-go and… get my mum."
He grabs my wrist yet again, causing me to jump in surprise, but this time he fortunately doesn't pull me down onto him. When I look down at his grasp on me, he coolly let's go and sits up, maintaining an unruffled and calm and indifferent demeanour. It's shocking how he can switch between expressions so quickly.
When he stands up in front of me, my mouth drops and I stare down at his legs in aghast. Didn't he say that he didn't feel the poke not so long ago? When I conclude that he lied, I dryly glare up at him.
"You're really clumsy," he mutters, bluntly.
I give him a look of disbelief, folding my arms over my chest. "You're the one who grabbed my wrist and pulled me onto you."
"No, you're the one who's busy tripping over nothing."
"I won't let you gaslight me, Dominic. I'm not Jodie. Also, why the hell were you lying about not feeling the poke? You actually scared me. I thought I hurt you."
"For amusement I guess," he answers without even missing a beat, not even hesitant about declaring it.
"Yeah, well, it wouldn't have been funny if it were true. You'd be both ball less and spineless," I say, hoping that he reads between the lines and catches the small jab I threw at him.
"You know for someone who claims to be turned off by me, you talk an awful lot about my balls," he retorts, hilarity dancing in his dark browns.
"No, I don't."