Wasteland // Kim Seungmin

29 - Act Natural

Jeongin and I walked a couple of blocks until we came upon the hotel. We climbed 3 flights of stairs, then keyed into a room. Inside, Haeni was laying sprawled out on a bed, staring up at the ceiling, clearly bored. Fully clothed, which was a good sign. And on the other side of the room, in an almost identical position on the other bed, was Sky. At the sound of our entrance, both looked up at the door. Sky was on his feet in an instant, and at my side in two strides.

"That was a lot longer than 30 minutes Jeongin, what the fuck happened?"

His eyes scanned me up and down, looking for any sign that something had happened to me. He picked my arms up, looking at my sides, then spun me by my shoulders. He was about to lift my shirt to inspect me when I pushed his hands, holding his fingers. "I am completely fine Sky, nothing happened."

"Are you drunk?" He asked lowly.

"Is Arjun-?" Haeni asked, also sitting up and staring at Jeongin. Jeongin sat beside her on the bed, taking her hands in his.

"It was really, really quick. He didn't know what hit him." He assured her gently.

She smiled hugely at him, and then threw her arms around his shoulders. He hugged her back, and the two were silent, except for Haeni's quiet sniffles.

Jeongin finally turned to Sky, explaining our cover story. Which also answered Sky's previous question – I was drunk. 

"He gave her something too, so she's a little out of it."

"Why did you let him do that?" Sky asked, furious.

"I am fiiiiine." I repeated, flattening my hands on his chest. "I am just tired."

Sky hugged me, a deep frown still on his face. Haeni and Jeongin were talking about the closest haven, and decided they didn't want to wait until morning, they were going to head over there right now.

Once we were alone, Sky guided me over to the bed. "You can go to sleep Paila." He still looked perturbed, and resisted when I tugged his arm to lay down beside me.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He looked down at me, and ran his finger across my cheek, "I really hated that. We were apart for a really long time. I thought for sure something bad happened. I was about 5 minutes away from saying fuck it and just tearing off to find you. Haeni suspected Arjun was dragging things out, but...I just hated that."

I smiled, wrapping both my hands around his forearm to pull him down again, "But it all worked out."

But Sky still didn't lay down with me. He furrowed his brow. "It got to this point because you didn't listen to me. I told you it was a bad idea, and I wanted to pump the brakes after Jeongin kept changing things, but I let you talk me into going through with it anyway."

I propped myself up on my elbow, "Are you mad?"

"I'm mad at myself." He closed his eyes, walking away from me. "It's a miracle nothing bad happened to either of us." He finally opened his eyes to glare at me, "Don't ask me to do anything like that again."

I laughed, "We won't have to. Please come back over here."

He sighed, but came back over, sitting on the corner of the bed. I slid over to him on my knees, wrapping my arms around his shoulder and hugging him from behind, "So what happened here, when Arjun left?"

"Well, he cleaned me out first. I forgot to ask Jeongin for my money, I need to remember to do that when they get back. We will be living the next 7 and a half months off his table scraps if I don't."

"He's got it. But I mean, after Arjun left, what happened here."

"We waited for you two? Thought it was going to be 30 minutes tops, but it was closer to two hours."