My body bounces around loosely in the car as we drive out into the night. My eyes slowly droop and I try to focus my gaze on the person sitting beside me, but he appears as a slight blur in my eyes. The more I squint at him, the more my head begins to ache, but for some unknown reason, I continue to squint which makes it worse.
Whiningly, I bury my face in the palm of my hands and violently rub my fingers into my eyelids.
"Stop squinting," Dominic says to me, grabbing my hands and forcing them down onto my lap. "You're just making it worse."
"I can't focus my eyes," I whine, bringing my fingers up to dig them into my eyes again, but again, Dominic grabs them and pulls them down. This time he doesn't let go of my hands lest I bring them back up to my face.
"Yeah, I know. Stop trying to. It's not going to work."
"How come you're fine already? We both drank from the same bottle."
"I had like two sips," he points out, and when he stops at a red light, he turns to look over at me. "Also, I'm pretty sure this is the first time you've ever taken any kind of hallucinogen."
"Was that not your first time too?"
"It was," he clarifies and then his face contorts in a way that portrays some sort of disagreement with his statement, "well, actually it wasn't my first time getting high or hallucinating."
For a split second, I think I may have misheard him, but no. He did just say that. It's not his first time getting high. I try not to look at him with my judgemental face, but it just happens automatically. It's something I can never control and even though I know that it has gotten me into trouble many times, I just cannot stop it from happening. Sometimes, I wish I was like him and I could remain emotionless, but I am not. I am me, Seong Jin and very expressive.
"What?" he asks when he feels my judgemental stare, seemingly irritated.
"Hmm?" A sound of innocence escapes the back of my throat and I try to wipe the expression off my face, but it doesn't leave.
"You clearly have something on your mind so just come out and say it," he presses.
My mouth opens and closes like a fish in the water as I contemplate what to say in response. With a mild stutter, I say, "I just never thought that you'd be the type to get high willingly," and then I avert my gaze from his guilelessly.
Through the corner of my eye, I catch him shaking his head at me in exasperation. He certainly did not appreciate my comment. I shouldn't have said anything. I should have just kept my mouth shut. Now I have likely added another reason for him to hate me under his belt.
Awkwardly, I play with my hands in my lap and then firmly fix my gaze out the window at the houses blurring into indecipherable colours and shapes. The car's engine hums quietly as we navigate the narrow roads of Shoreditch, the only sound puncturing the silence between us.
I can't help but wonder if prying further into that conversation would do more harm than good. How would it make me look? Nosy probably, but when has that ever stopped me?
"So," I start after turning around to watch him, causing his eyes to flicker over to me expectantly, "you do drugs?"
"Why should I tell you?" he eventually muses. "So you can judge me?"
I grow quiet when he asks me that, unsure of how to respond. Read like a fucking book as always. The tension in the vehicle becomes unnervingly thick. My unanswered question presses onto my curiosity, daring me to press further, to pry open the carefully guarded secrets he keeps hidden behind that impressively impassive façade.
I hesitate for a second when he glances away irritably, sensing the vulnerability that seems to lurk just beneath the surface of his rhetorical musings, but my contemplation doesn't last long because these whispered words spill from my mouth, "I won't judge you, Domi."
He somehow manages to catch my barely audible words and seems a bit caught off guard by them. He remains silent, looking away with his jaw set in a stubborn line. After a second of me openly watching him, he reluctantly lifts his head and connects his dark brown gaze with mine.
"Don't call me that," he says softly and for some weird reason, I sense that he doesn't mean that this time around.
"I pinkie promise."
As I hold my pinkie out to him as some sort of sworn offering, I notice him glancing over at my hand through his peripheral vision. I then catch the corners of his lips twitching the slightest bit, and before I can see the amusement playing in his browns, his gaze wavers again. Patiently, I wait for him to accept my gesture, hoping that he will trust me enough to open up to me, but he doesn't seem to be in the mood.
Disappointed, I drop my hand back onto my side and direct my gaze back outside the window. The view is a blur of colours, shapes, and movement that I can't quite make sense of especially with my dazed mind. But it's a welcome distraction from the awkward silence that has fallen between us. I can feel the tension in the air, and I wonder if there will ever come a time when he shares whatever else is on his mind.
"Well," he speaks again, his voice barely above a whisper, "I don't do them in the way you're thinking."
I turn to look at him, surprised that he responded at all. "What do you mean?"
"Like smoking or snorting lines and injecting myself with heroin." He narrows his eyes when my face pinches in guilt at the fact that he guessed what I had been thinking. "No, I don't do that, Starr. I know the dangers of doing that."
"Then what do you do? Space cookies? The whole hash brownie thingy?"
He pauses, his fingers drumming nervously against the steering wheel. "If I tell you this, you'll have to promise not to tell anyone."
"Okay," I drawl out, moving closer to him as curiosity plagues my mind.
"I'm serious, Seong Jin."
I can hardly contain my surprise. Did he just address me correctly? Has he finally dropped his usual moniker for me and is deciding to use the name I have been prompting him to call me by? The implications of this are huge—it's as if the dynamic between us has shifted from the mere fact that he has not addressed me by Starr.
"I've never told this to anyone before. Not even Dinah James knows. Not even some of my family members know."
"Okay," I say to him earnestly, trying not to enquire about who Dinah James even is. "Okay, I promise."
He takes a deep breath in, preparing himself for the big revelation and he finally spits out his big confession after a long suspenseful moment, "Sometimes I take Valium to help me fall asleep and sometimes it causes me to get anxious, and then for some reason, I keep taking more which… admittedly does make me drowsier and sometimes even hallucinate."
Then he pauses to see how I take in the news.
"Why do you need Valium to fall asleep? Are you an insomniac?"
"That," he pauses again and his eyes study my open expression, a raw honesty shining through the cracks in his carefully constructed mask, "I am not telling you."
"I think I read somewhere that some of the side-effects of taking Valium is that you get depressed and aggressive and hostile?" I muse with a concerned glint shining in my eyes.
"What are you trying to imply?" he grits out, glaring at me indignantly.
"Um… nothing bad. I was just wondering if that has ever happened to you too or… I don't know why I said that actually. Just ignore me. I am stupid. Ignore me." I glance away from his narrowed gaze, nervously twisting my fingers. "I'm sorry."
A sigh of exasperation escapes him.
With a pout on my mouth, I nervously bring my gaze up to him again and still, the black dots playing around my eyes momentarily blind me. How come I have not sobered up yet?
Underneath the multiple street lights that we pass by, I see his still damp hair, sticking down onto his forehead and his nape. I still cannot believe he's the neek who was jumping into the pool from the roof. Curiously, I bring my hand up to touch his wet hair, brushing a few strands away from his forehead. A tiny flinch escapes him from my actions, but he doesn't slap my hand away so I proceed to twist his curly strands between my fingers.
Again, when the headache hits me, I pinch my eyes shut tightly and tiredly, I rest my forehead on his shoulder.
"What are you doing?" he questions, sounding a bit nervous.
I whine lowly like a wounded dog, "I can't focus my eyes."
"Stop trying to," he scolds.
When I peek up at him, my heart for some unknown reason flutters within my chest. Underneath the lowly dimmed light cast by the moon and the streetlights we're zooming past he looks like a devilish angel with a faux halo. Slowly, he tilts his chin down and our gazes meet. In that nanosecond, my eyes disbelievingly focus on his dark, chocolate-brown eyes before the black dots play in the corners of my eyes return to blur my vision and I blink rapidly.
He quickly turns to look at the windscreen again so we do not end up in a car accident even though there isn't much traffic tonight. Exhaustively, I snuggle into the crook of his neck and inhale his scent deeply. Beneath the dazing scent of chlorine, he smells so good too.
Did he put on some cologne tonight?
"I don't appreciate you using me as your pillow," he mutters, the grit in his low tone sending involuntary shivers down to my toes.
"I can move if you want me to," I whisper petulantly, though the prospect of leaving my cosy spot doesn't seem particularly appealing.
A long, pregnant silence answers me and when I look up at him to see the stiff, contemplative expression on his face through my lashes, he glances down to look at me. After heaving a sigh, he relents somewhat reluctantly, "No, it's fine. Just for five minutes, though."
My eyes flutter shut and as I gently settle back into the crook of his neck, a content smile tugs on the corners of my mouth. The minutes tick by and I find myself getting lost in the rhythm of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest and the soft hum of the car's engine. In this quiet moment, when his walls come down and he allows himself to be vulnerable, this is when I strangely feel closest to him.
The second I hear the tyres of his car slowing down to a stop on the pavement outside my home, I open my eyes, reeling from the effects of whatever hallucinogen I was drugged with. I've unfortunately not sobered up yet.
My forehead is now pressed against the cool glass of the window and I can but imagine what I look like. My widened doe-like stare reflected in the window is an immediate reminder of the hiding which is awaiting me within my home, its towering shadow awfully daunting. I don't want my mum to see me like this.
When Dominic asks me if I will be able to make it to the door by myself, I glance over at him over my shoulder while trying to hide the panicked look on my face and after swallowing a gulp, I nod and then push the door open. But I do not leave the car just yet.
"You good?" he asks me.
Should I tell him that I don't want to head into the house yet? Would he understand?
I let out a heavy sigh and quickly settle back into the passenger seat, closing the door. When I reluctantly peek over at him, I don't miss the look of confusion he is currently giving me.
"What's wrong?"
"I haven't really sobered up. I'm still feeling it pretty hard." I run a hand through my dishevelled hair. "I don't think I'm ready to go home just yet in case my mum sees me like this."
He looks at me for a second, his gaze searching mine.
And he must see the desperation in my gaze because after ordering me to put my seatbelt on, he starts up his engine again and steers the vehicle back into the road. A relieved grin breaks out over my face, from ear to ear.
"Where are we going?" I ask him, interested to know where he's planning to take us. I wouldn't have minded waiting outside my house until I sobered up enough to convince my mum that I was not high on some kind of substance.
"I'm going to get us some grub," he answers before reaching over to click my seatbelt on when he notices me struggling. "Nothing sobers you up like some greasy Chinese takeout."
"Ooh!"
After some time, we pull into a dimly lit car park of a twenty-four-hour Chinese restaurant. As we step out of the car, the cool night air which breezes through the air clears some of the fog in my mind. Inside, the establishment is nearly empty save for a lone server wiping down tables. The smell of spices and grease floats around, a sobering mixture of aromas.
After placing our orders and speedily receiving our meals in the form of two large paper bags, I turn into the restaurant to take a seat at a table but before I can do that, Dominic grabs my wrist and drags me back out to the car in the car park.
"We're not eating in?" I muse.
"We can eat in the car." He proceeds to unlock his car and we enter almost simultaneously. "There's no reason for us to be an inconvenience for the workers so late at night."
"And here I was thinking you were too snobbish to care about inconveniencing workers," I reply with a playful glow in my eyes even when he narrows his eyes at me.
I carefully balance the white cardboard carton on my lap, steam curling up from the hot dish when I unpack the meal. The aroma of freshly prepared Chinese food wafts through the luxurious encampment. I peer down at the array of colourful vegetables, tender meat and glistening noodles, having to refrain from drooling in anticipation.
After snapping my chopsticks off each other and rubbing them between my palms, Dominic fortunately opens the windows to let a cool breeze in. I instantly feel a sense of relief washing over me.
Then I bring the carton up to make it easier for me to take a bite out of my food, the spices immediately exploding in my mouth and I have half the mind to close my eyes and moan in satisfaction.
"You're such a foody, I swear," he mutters after seeing the look on my face and with my hand covering my mouth, I bob my head up and down happily.
"How did tonight go by the way?" I question, while still tossing my food around the cardboard carton with my chopsticks and for context, I add, "With Jodie?"
I see him fiddling around with his own meal as he dismissively throws the plastic somewhere in the backseat with the plastic bag of clothes he forgot to take in his house. I bet he didn't even forget, he chose not to take the bag in his house on purpose. Because he's used to being pampered.
"I don't even remember half the shit I did," he admits, settling into his seat with a tired groan. "You know, she must think I'm a completely different person when I'm at parties than I am when I'm at school or maybe she knew I was on something."
"I still can't believe you actually jumped into the pool from the roof."
"A dare's a dare," he mutters and I chuckle quietly.
Eventually, I say to him, "Thank you."
While slurping a string of noodles in his mouth, he glances up at me like a deer caught in headlights and then he furrows his brows with question running through his chocolate brown eyes. "For what?"
"For this," I gesture to my meal.
Again, his eyes meet mine and for a moment, he silently holds my gaze. "Well, I would rather you not get your arse whipped by your mum over something I essentially forced you to do."
The sides of my lips arch up in amusement at his words. His eyes light up the slightest bit. It's nice to see that he's opening up to me a bit more than he used to before. This jesting side of him is not something I get to see often so when it happens, I cherish it.
Quietly, we both go back to eating our noodles.
At some point, I hear a frustrated huff coming from him and I glance up, only to catch his brows furrowed in concentration as he attempts to manoeuvre the chopsticks between his fingers. Try as he might, the thin wooden utensils refuse to cooperate, slipping and sliding in his grasp. For a moment, I watch him with a mixture of hilarity and sympathy.
"Need some help there?" I ask him, my tone light and teasing.
He looks up at me and when he sees my expression, where I'm trying really hard not to laugh at his expense, the tips of his ears suddenly turn a shade of pink with embarrassment. "No, I'm fine. I just need to get the hang of it."
"Well, for a start, you're holding them wrong."
"There's a right way to hold them?"
"Of course, there's a right way to hold them." I reach over to his side and gently take hold of his chopsticks as well as his hand, repositioning them in the correct place between his fingers.
His fingertips are warm against my usually cold hand, sending a subtle shiver down my spine and I have to force myself not to let my mind linger on why his touch even had that sort of effect on me. When I feel his gaze on me, I slowly glance up at him and our eyes meet for a brief moment. The intensity in his browns has my heart skipping a beat.
I blink up at him, intrigued by his look.
There will always be something captivating about him, something that draws me in against my better judgement.
"There," I murmur, reluctantly pulling my hands away, "now give it a try."
For a nanosecond, something indecipherable flickers through his gaze and then he nods. I watch him, rapt as he attempts to pick up enough noodles with the utensils. This time around he demonstrates the proper technique, deftly using the chopsticks with effortlessness.
There is a beat of silence, a tangible tension hanging in the air before he breaks it by saying something about me surprisingly being a good teacher. I simply nod with a grin and I cannot help but feel a sense of pride at my small accomplishment.
Luckily, by the time I make it back home, I have completely sobered up. Now I'm recovering from a food coma. I quickly make my way to the door. After waving at Dominic who's still sitting in the driveway waiting for me to safely go into my house, I quietly open the door while trying not to alert anyone that I'm home.
A slight pause in my movements follows as I listen out for anyone waking up perhaps. The cold silence of the house answers me and I almost release a huff of reprieve until I catch myself at the last minute and just gnaw on my bottom lip. I quietly drop the spare key softly in the bowl that occupies the table near the door.
Tiptoeing all the way upstairs without the stairs loudly creaking, I have a small celebration at my swift change in luck. The one thing I was worried about didn't happen. I was expecting my parents to be waiting for me in the dark lounge and then they would switch on the light as I was trying to sneak into the house like they do in the movies. Fortunately, that does not happen to me.
Reaching out for the door handle with a relieved grin, I jump when a hand taps me on my lower back.
This is it.
This is the end of Seong Jin Lee.
My parents weren't waiting for me in the lounge. They were waiting for me upstairs.
Tensely, I turn around and open my mouth so I can explain to them why I'm sneaking into the house during the early hours of the morning. I'm not going to tell them the truth, though; that I was at a party. That'll get me grounded forever, and by grounded I mean put in the dirt infinitely.
I almost melt into a puddle when I see that it's only Ji Ho.
"Hey, kiddo. What are you doing up so early?"
He rubs his tiny fist into his sleepy eyes and his mouth opens into a wide yawn. After a few blinks, he finally looks up at me, his gaze still a bit unfocused.
As I glance down at myself, I can't help but notice what a mess I am.
My hair is tousled and sticking out in all directions, and my fanny pack is hanging askew around my waist. The shirt I'm wearing is crumpled and wrinkled, as though it's been balled up and tossed around like a basketball. And don't even get me started on my face. It's a disaster, with dark circles under my eyes and a general look of exhaustion.
"Where were you?" he signs with hands, eyes enlarging in concern.
After pondering what to say in response to his question, I stammer, "I was over at Taylor's house."
"Why do you look like the girl from Walk of Shame?"
"I do not."
"The only thing you're missing is the yellow dress."
"Go back to bed, Ji Ho."
"Are you doing what Yang Jin was doing when he was in high school?" He looks up at me dejectedly and my face drops at his enquiry. "Because I didn't like him very much back then."
I go down on one knee and deliberately sign, "I would never do that, Ji Ho."
"Promise?"
"Pinkie promise," I swear quietly, holding my pinkie up for him to intertwine his own with mine.
He runs into me and hugs me instead and, after recovering from being thrown off balance, I hug him back, tightly.
"I love you, kiddo," I whisper into his hair. "Now go back to bed, okay?"
He nods and after smiling at me, he patters back into his room which he shares with his twin sister.
Standing up and shutting my bedroom door quietly behind me, I ponder Ji Ho's words. That stage in Yang Jin's life not only made my siblings dislike him but our parents too. I remember Amma even threatening to throw him out if he carried on with his behaviour. And when Yang Jin made her cry, that was the last straw for Franklin.
His behaviour scared us all.
Ji Ho didn't like all the yelling every night. Chu Hua didn't like that her favourite, older brother was being scolded non-stop. I didn't like that I had to stay up all night watching a cartoon to calm my nerves as I waited for him to come back home. When the sound of muffled music could be heard outside the house, I sighed in relief knowing he was being safely dropped off. The other possibility was something I didn't even want to consider.
The scary thing is that, if they did throw him out, we would have all left with him because at the end of the day, he was still our brother.
I would never subject my siblings to that again.