Ivory (Sequel to Porcelain)

Chapter 2: On the Way Home

Saturday morning began like all Saturday mornings do, with me struggling to wake up my twin sister, who had stayed up till 3am the previous night—yet again. This time I had a cup of cold water prepared and I wasn't afraid to use it.

Honestly, I don't even know what she does when she stays up all the time. I'm an early sleeper and an early riser, and I rarely sway from my usual slumber routine. Every night, I crawl into bed at 9:00, read for about 30 minutes, and then Kwangmin calls for a fifteen-minute good night chat. I'm dead asleep by 10:00. But for Sohyun, it's like the party hasn't even started until after midnight, at least.

It was already 6:30 and she still wasn't awake. I sighed, frustrated. When Donghyun arrived at 7:00, I'd have to explain to him how I had failed once more at waking my sister up. Then, we'd waste another thirty minutes or an hour trying to get her out of bed—nothing working, of course, until she decides she's ready to wake up on her own. At that point, she'd spend another thirty to forty minutes getting herself dressed and packed for the weekend. After all of it, we will have wasted up to two hours of our precious father-daughter quality time, all because Sohyun insists on being a wild child every night.

I'm not gonna deny it, it annoyed me. And that day, I was especially annoyed. Which was why I sincerely had no problem with pouring the ice water all over her pretty little head.

"Sohyun, wake up," I said halfheartedly, knowing it wouldn't do any good. "Wake up, or you're getting soaked."

And then, something strange happened. Miraculous, even. Sohyun opened her eyes.

I was so shocked I think my heart actually paused for a minute. The whole world stopped, went silent, as though the entire universe was frozen, shocked by the rarity of Kim Sohyun waking up without a fight, watching to see what happened.

Then she looked from me to the cup in my hand and then back to me.

"You weren't going to pour that on me were you?" she asked in her raspy sleep voice.

"N-No, I was just, I..." It was insane. I was actually stumbling over my words because of how ridiculous this was.

"You were," Sohyun replied with a tiny smile. She yawned and then sat up in bed. I stared at her with wide eyes, wondering if she was actually my sister and not just some plastic doppelganger clone or something.

"Are you...okay, Sohyun?" I asked her carefully.

"I'm fine," she said. "Well, actually I'm not all fine. I had a really scary dream last night. This weird man in a mask kept trying to get at me, but no matter how hard I tried to run, it was like my legs were stuck. I couldn't move. And then he would just laugh this terrible, awful laugh. Kind of like Voldemort in those Harry Potter movies you like. And then...he would closer and he'd start to take his mask off and I knew I was going to die. But then right when I was about to see his face, I woke up."

I stared at her, my heart oddly picking up speed. "Well, it was a dream so it's fine. Come on, you've got to get dressed, okay? Dad will be here soon..."

I decided to just brush the burning question of how on earth did she wake up so easily under the rug because I could tell she seemed a bit shaken by this nightmare of hers. I had had the same sorts of vivid dreams before, and they are terrible. Plus, there were more important things to worry about. I hadn't eaten breakfast yet.

Twenty minutes later, Sohyun and I walked outside to wait for our dad to arrive. I was still a little startled that she had gotten ready so quickly, but she was back to being her normal bouncy, bubbly self, which put me more at ease.

"How do you have so much energy?" I asked her as she suddenly broke out into a perfect rendition of BTS' Blood, Sweat & Tears choreography in the middle of the driveway.