Clash of Colors

After the Rain

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"Come eat." Aunt Youngja had gone at it for the past fifteen minutes. "Don't starve yourself. It's not good for your body."

Succumbing, Namjoo had climbed into bed. With her back toward the door. Staring at nothing at all. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to listen to the woman who was not her mother.

"Chunhei." She touched her arm. "Come eat, huh? The food is getting cold."

Namjoo would not go down. She refused to look Uncle Jaejin in the eyes. She refused to look at any of them.

Aunt Youngja finally left. Closing the door behind her. The lock jiggled.

Namjoo watched the pink sky turn dark. When her stomach started cramping, she got up to pace the room. Struggling to find her resolve. Scared for Sehun. She didn't want to be the flaw in his life. She didn't want to be the sentence that would nail him forever.

No longer able to tell the time, Namjoo sat down in the dark. Stressed and frustrated. Folding her knees up to her chest she hugged herself. Tried to resurrect the smell of the field, the wild grass, animal dung, and Sambok to memory. The scent of home. Of coffee. Her father's homecooked meals.

Her stomach churned. Her insides ached. Her eyes burned with tears.

Kind of sorry she had left home for an adventure like this.

She didn't know how much time passed when the door caked open and footsteps entered her sullen prison. Namjoo didn't raise her head. Didn't want to welcome her visitor.

"Get up." It was Hyunjae. He had somehow managed to avoid her since their last conversation about Hyejoo. "You have to eat."

Namjoo stubbornly refused to raise her head. Go away she wanted to tell him but she didn't speak.

"If you want to hear a story, eat first." He bargained.

Finally looking up Namjoo stared into his face. He didn't give her even two seconds before turning to leave. With the door wide open behind him.

Namjoo found him in the kitchen. Bowls of warmed food set out on the table for her. He sat down opposite her. Quietly picking up his spoon and filling up his plate. Namjoo reluctantly pulled out the chair across from him and started eating.

What could have been a cheerful meal between siblings was filled with desolation. The air so thick with broiled emotions. Much on the mind that needed to be collected carefully before being dissected.

Feeling full and happy now that she'd eaten. Feelings against her will. Namjoo refused to express her satisfaction.

On silent cue, she stepped outside with him. Tasting the cool draft. The wind picked up howling past her ears. For some reason Namjoo felt sick to her stomach. Unease churned throughout her chest, like she was tasting the painful aftermath of war. Ache that peeled away the layers of her skin one by one. Stinging awfully.

She struggled not to convert her injured feelings into self-pity. This was not supposed to be the darkest part of her life. Experiencing Uncle Jaejin's wrath was not supposed to send her spinning into the depths of gloom.

Sitting on the deck she faced the moonlight. For a few silent seconds, as if paying tribute to some sort of entity neither spoke.

"I'm an only child," Hyunjae confessed.

A fact that shouldn't be shocking, but Namjoo was still taken aback. Finally hearing him say it.

"I was young when Chunhei arrived, but not young enough not to remember how events unfolded," Hyunjae continued. "My parents were on a trip, leaving me to take care of the house with a friend. Somewhere to hot summer nights where dragonflies glowed. Faraway from the city. A week's vacation, but they were gone longer than that. When they returned, they had a girl with them. I was told she would be my sister from now on. They called her Chunhei."