Winter Hearts

In Which Siana Starts Her Last Day

Siana yawned and looked up from her book. The clock showed it was just past 9am. She closed the book and hugged it to her chest. Despite sleeping with the aircon on, she felt overly hot and bothered. She wished the book was a warm somebody who would hug her back.

Today she had woken up early to go for a run, but it was raining heavily outside. Condensation fogged up her windows as she read her fantasy novel. It was the latest in a series of books about an immortal woman whose special abilities had forced her on the run from a league of men eager for her demise.

Siana grimaced. She used to love these books. She had waited almost a year for the last one to be published, and now that it was finally in her hands... she wasn't interested anymore. She felt listless, vaguely emotionless. She turned over to lie at the edge of her bed, letting the book fall to the ground.

It was her last day of college, and she couldn't wait to leave. It was also literally her last day in Malaysia, at least for a while, as she was leaving for Greece for a few months.

She would miss her mum, of course. Her mum was a mix of Korean and East Malaysian, and Siana grew up speaking the local Malay language fairly well, as well as a smattering of Hangguk. But since her grandmother had died young, Siana's ties to Korea lessened, and she identified less as Korean and more as general urbanite who spoke several languages and happened to be partly Korean, Sabahan and Greek.

She was Greek because her dad was Greek, and unlike her mum, he had spent a lot of time teaching her to speak and write his language well. But since her parents' divorce almost ten years ago he had returned to the motherland to set up a small mini studio in his village. From there he composed and produced songs for a while. Until the jobs stopped coming. Then he turned his family building into a short stay apartment block for international tourists and began making lots of money.

He had called her one night before she had graduated from high school and told her that he would like her to spend her Christmas vacations with him Greece, where she could help him with guests. She loved the idea, because she knew it was low season during the winter and the work wouldn't be difficult, and because he had a basement space which he let her use as a dance studio. For the last three years she had spent her holidays there, and even started teaching dance classes to children last Christmas.

She sat up, yawning again. Her body felt languid and heavy from sleep, and she wanted to feel her muscles wake up. It was that feeling of restlessness that dancers have, who need to feel their muscles and bones move well. She circled her head gently and stretched her arms up high. Feeling the stretch rejuvenate her sleepy body, she sat on the floor with the soles of her feet together, slowly bending over her them and feeling a deep stretch spread warmth through her back and her inner thigh muscles. She groaned, loving that feeling of a good deep stretch.

She looked up at the posters on her bedroom wall. Kpop idols and Korean drama actors. Her gaze reached the large poster above her headboard. It was of VIXX, during their Chained Up era. White suits, no shirts, red collars. She still cringed a little at their collars, but that same thing that made her cringe was the thing that made her love it so much.

She loved the idea that despite their masculinity, their physical strength and maturity, they were willing to submit to being slaves to love. She looked to Ravi, whose black hair stood high and contrasted with his forehead and darkened eyes. Bless Ravi for his perceptive and seemingly highly sexualised thought processes.

She smiled. It was a bit of a joke, since he always seemed so juvenile on camera.

Then she looked at Leo, whose public persona had become more and more relaxed and cheerful in the past few months. In the poster, though, he looked surly, almost angry.

Under a mop of bleached blonde hair, his eyes were half shut and stared belligerently at her. His high cheekbones and straight nose made her think of those idealised oriental warriors, with narrowed eyes and windswept hair. She smiled, knowing that somewhere in Korea, Leo was probably slouched over a device with a wire headband keeping the hair out of his eyes.

She rolled her eyes at herself. Fantasising over her pop idols was never a clearcut process for her. She always managed to ruin the moment for herself by the thought of those beautiful men, without the stylists and makeup artists, greasy from a day of work, walking around their dorms in sweats and old tee shirts.

Somehow, it comforted her to know that even pop idols have bad hair days.

And sometimes, if she let the pictures in her head linger, those pop idols in sweats became just as delicious to her as they were in white suits with red chokers round their necks.

She looked back up at Leo. He looked back at her, so...pissed.

It was her most favourite look on him.