"He was fire, I was Ice. We were too different, yet we were just the same."
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Everything bad was happening to Jin all at once that he was certain he'd burned down a nation in his previous life. His world was freefalling and he just needed an escape...
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Cleaning the guest room had been more work than I'd thought.
Namjoon and I had ended up finishing at past eight, after which he packed his stuff and took off. In other words, we wouldn't be seeing him around for the next few days.
I'd gone to bed the previous night by nine and didn't blink an eye until seven in the morning with a full bladder and still tired eyes, after which I went right back to sleep. My back ached from carrying stuff to the garage while Namjoon alternated between complaining about the workload and telling me about the new guy he was interested in; an aspiring chef he'd met after I abandoned him at the Library.
Mum didn't wake me up either. She knew I was tired so she let me sleep in. When I eventually went downstairs by past ten, she'd done the whole chores and was frying pancakes on the stove. She rejected my help with cooking and asked me to sit and talk to her, instead.
I told her about Mr. Cho quitting and how the school was desperate to find a replacement. She had liked him, especially because he always greeted her 'Good morning' in English. It was strange, the way he left. No one knew why he'd resigned, but it had been abrupt. He'd taught us first and second period in the morning and by afternoon, he was no longer our teacher.
We ate breakfast that morning while chatting about everything we could think of, one topic leading to another, until it led to one that I wasn't ready to hear.
"I spoke to your father's... wife last night," she said, shocking me, because I hadn't been expecting such sour topic on a beautiful morning.
I took a sip of my coffee and shrugged. "That's nice." Wife. She'd called him his wife. I didn't know how she'd managed to keep a straight face as she said the word.
"Jin," she called my name in the same way she did when she had something she wanted to say and expected me to be reasonable about it.
The thing was, I didn't want to be reasonable about any issue concerning my father. I didn't want to hear about him. "Mum, please."
"Jin, he's sick."
She went on to explain to me that he had Pancreatic cancer. They'd found out a few days ago. It was late, of course. Pancreatic cancer was always detected late. He didn't have much time.
I sat and listened to her, losing my appetite. Then I went upstairs, showered, packed my backpack and headed to the Library. Mum called me back, she didn't think I was in the right frame of mind to leave the house.
"I'm okay," I told her. "It's his family's problem to worry about, not ours." I didn't think she bought it, but I wasn't thinking what she thought. I just wanted to do something, be anywhere else. So, I walked left the house and walked the distance to the public library.
