Mr. No || NCT || Completed

45 - Where a deal is a deal

"Do you want to wait in the car or come inside with me?" Renjun asked while parking the car. The drive from the airport had been quiet and Chaewon had alternated between staring out the window and skimming through her grandmother's diary. "It won't take long. I just need to drop off my stuff and change clothes."

Chaewon shrugged, looking at the book on her lap. "I don't know. My brain isn't working."

Renjun studied her face for a moment before getting out of the car. Even when he closed the door, the girl inside didn't lift her gaze. She looked so defeated. Renjun didn't really understand why she was reacting so strongly but he didn't want to make her feel worse by questioning it. Maybe he was so used to being disappointed by both his father and himself that relating to her fresh feelings wasn't easy for him.

Was he supposed to let her wait in the car and have a moment to herself? He took out his backpack and looked around the quiet parking lot.

The garage was kind of dark and eerie. Maybe it would be lonely for her to stay behind on her own.

He circled around the car and opened the door on her side. She was still holding onto the diary, and her hair covered most of her face.

"Come on." Awkwardness stiffened Renjun's voice, making him sound almost annoyed. He cleared his throat, trying to soften his tone, "Let's get going."

Slowly, Chaewon got out of the car and, after a second of hesitation, left the diary behind on the front seat before Renjun closed the door for her.
She walked beside him but it felt like she wasn't completely there.

"Uncle Wenyin had an odd sense of humour", Renjun heard himself say. It wasn't natural for him to do monologues, but since Chaewon was usually so fond of talking, he figured that maybe listening to someone else talk might cheer her up a bit. At least he could try. "Ever since I was a little, whenever I fell ill, he would always get all serious and ask me if it was the bubonic plague or rabies."

When he peeked at her out of the corner of his eye, she was already looking at him. Her face was still pale and her eyes red after all the silent tears she had shed during the flight but he saw a hint of curiosity behind the sadness. Maybe his pointless story time was working even though it made him feel stupid.

"My mother disapproved the joke and chastised him for it every time but somehow no one ever explained to me that it was uncle's way of joking with me." Renjun shrugged while they waited for the elevator. "I guess that they all thought that I was smart enough to understand on my own how unlikely it would be for me to have either of those diseases, but I was so used to uncle asking me about it that I thought that he was serious. And then, years later, his hard work finally paid off when I fell ill in the middle of the day in elementary school and the teacher sent me to see a nurse."

Renjun noticed that a shy smile was tugging at the corners of Chaewon's lips, loosening a knot in his gut he hadn't even been aware of. The elevator arrived.

"The nurse asked me what was wrong and I told her that I was quite certain that I had plague or rabies. She didn't know how to react since I was very serious about it. Mother and father weren't very happy with me when the nurse called them but uncle thought that it was hilarious. But when my father yelled at me for embarrassing the family by saying something so dumb, uncle took the blame and, afterwards, bought me ice cream."

"I guess he and your father didn't share similar sense of humour then", Chaewon commented.

Renjun scoffed. "I'm quite sure that uncle took all of the humour our family had to offer and left nothing for my father."
"Did your father take all of something else and leave nothing for your uncle as well?"
Renjun considered the question. "Yes. The ego and self-entitlement."