Star-Crossed Lovers

Chapter I - Sunday Assembly

PRESENT TIME

It was a sunny Sunday morning, where people will normally go to church as their weekly routine, and same thing goes to that one particular young adult, Na Jaemin. Only this time, it was not the same church that he usually went to every week.

Jaemin was asked by his parents to stay at his distant grandmother's home who lived alone on the other side of the country during his spring break. He willingly agreed because he was quite close with her, even though she was just his maternal grandmother's cousin, or maybe more distant than that, he was not sure. He was never actually visited her at her own home, because she loved traveling. So, this was his first actual visit.

They walked together to the church as the Na family's villa was just a few blocks away from the church. The Na family was actually quite rich as they own several properties in the town. However, Jaemin's granny was an only child and a widow who was unable to have any children during her married life.

Once they arrived, Jaemin was amazed by the classic design of the church. The building had stood up for more than 200 years already and it still looked like it can stay sturdy for another hundred years. As an architectural major university freshman, such design really intrigued him.

They took seats at the fifth row from the front and wait for the Sunday Assembly to start. Jaemin could not help himself from admiring the interior design of the church and kept on gazing upward towards the ceiling.

When his eyes landed on the chandelier, he catched a glimpse of a fading white shadow that formed a shape of a man. He blinked several times to clear his vision and when he looked up again, the shadow had disappeared.

He suddenly felt a cold shiver ran down his spine but managed to just shrugged it off. He was convinced that it was just his imagination and shook the thought off his head.

Jaemin did not believe in ghost.

The morning preach was taking forever to start, so Jaemin kept on wandering his eyes on the people in the church, from one face to another. His attention was then fixed on a young male, who was about his height and age, talking to an old man sitting at the most front seat.

The thing that captured his attention was not the fact that the male was pale white and almost looked like he was fading with the background, neither was his red-stained white shirt and poor fashion sense that looked like he came from hundreds of years ago, nor his gorgeous and heavenly sculptured facial features with crescent eyes and sharp jawline. It was actually the reaction of the old man he was talking to, which was nothing at all.

The young male was chatting excitedly, with excessive hand gestures and facial expressions, but the man he seemed to be talking to was not even looking his way, even far from replying. They were quite far, so Jaemin could not actually hear what the male was talking about.

"Granny, who is that?"

Jaemin whispered after nudging his granny on the arm and pointed to the young male's direction.

"Who? Oh, that's Mr. Kim. He's the old man who lives across the street from our home."

His granny answered after squinting her eyes towards the direction Jaemin had pointed to.

"Not Mr. Kim. I've met him already earlier this morning. The other man, the younger one who was standing in front of him."

Jaemin asked, eyes still on the male.

"Jaemin, what are you talking about? There's no one standing in front of Mr. Kim."

His granny shot a confused look at him, with a raised eyebrow.

"Huh?"

Jaemin turned to look at his granny, more puzzled than he already was. Then, a sudden chill ran down his spine again and he felt the hair behind his neck stood up.

'No Jaemin, ghost doesn't exist. You don't see anything. You're imagining things.'

Jaemin mentally reminded himself.

The voice of the priest snapped Jaemin back to reality and he put his focus back on the preach. When he glanced towards Mr. Kim direction, the male had already disappeared. Or so he thought.

Almost an hour had passed when suddenly, Jaemin heard someone's voice, different from the priest's but was repeating what the priest was saying. Or maybe was actually saying the priest's words exactly at the same time, but in a bored tone. The voice sounded quite close, making Jaemin turned his head towards the source of it.

He almost let out a yelp when he saw the same young male from earlier sitting in an empty seat several metres away from him. He tried to ignore the male and kept his attention back on the priest. Maybe the young male was getting bored with the preach, he started to roam around the church again, floating in the air.

Sometimes, he would stopped by some people and greeted them, even when there was no one responding to him. Jaemin was really having a hard time trying to focus on the priest. When the male was floating near to where Jaemin and his granny had seated, he stopped in front of her.

"Good morning, Miss Na! I haven't seen you in a while. Where had you travelled to recently?"

The male asked joyfully, even when he completely aware that no one heard him. Or maybe so he thought.

"Oh, look! A new face? I haven't seen you here before!"

He noticed Jaemin who was sitting beside his granny and floated in front of him to get a closer look. Exactly at the same moment, the priest started to say the prayer, so everyone in the church bowed their head down.

Jaemin could see a pair of floating feet in front of him but he still tried to keep his composure and his head down. Halfway through the prayer, Jaemin looked up and his eyes met with a pair of faded black orbs in front of him that were looking straight at him. He pretended like he saw nothing and bowed his head down again, with closed eyes.

"Jaemin."

Jaemin heard his name escaped from the male's lips. His voice was deep and longing. It also sounded like he was holding back tears. Then, he felt a sudden cold wind brushing against his left cheek. A sudden realization hit him. It could be that the floating male just touched him.

Jaemin gathered all his courage and lifted his head to look at the male in front of him again. But at the moment he looked up, the male had already floated above him and dived his way through the air across the hall towards the wooden door that lead to the underground storage room. When he was about to hit the door, he vanished into thin air.

Jaemin swore he saw tears streaming down the male's cheeks when he floated away.