Embodiment || Nine Percent Lin Yanjun

Chapter 2

"You good?" I hear a not so concerned voice say.

"No thanks to you for starling me," I gripe flipping myself around from my face to my back. I look up to the second floor only to find no one standing there anymore.

'God, maybe Mrs. Cartendez was right.'

I think as the memory of this morning fills my head.

I hear footsteps approach from the other side of the wall. The sound comes to a stop and the familiar grey hair from this morning and from the one that was standing a floor above leans his weight over the wall to look down at me.

"Well, I came to make sure after what happened earlier today, that my crab cake is feeling okay," Yanjun utters as he, with ease, jumps over the concrete wall.

"How in the cosmoses did you find where I live? Or the concern to even care?" I eye him suspiciously.

"I've got my ways and can I not?" he playfully says as he helps me off the ground and I quietly thank him.

"Your life. Do want ever you please," I mouth as I run my hands across my arms and butt to get the dirt off.

I walk over toward the wall to jump over, but when I go to hop over I fall short and I have to hang on to the wall to keep from falling. I look over at Yanjun just in time for him to kick a leg over and slide over to the other side. Trying to copy his move I hike a leg over, barely making it. I lay on my stomach to pull up my other leg to the one already on the wall, only it isn't as easy as it seemed.

I feel a hand help grab my ankle scaring me. I jump, sifting my body weight toward the inside of the wall only to nearly fall right back off. At the edge of falling off completely a set of hands stop me in my place. Instantly realizing it was Yanjun I place myself back on the ground and quickly thank him.

With that embarrassment, I start laughing. I laugh involuntarily hoping it would somehow make up for my humiliation.

"I'll be going now," I say as I shyly pick up my bag off the ground.

"Yanjun, did I keep you waiting for long?" A female's voice says capturing our attention.

"No, I just got here," I hear Yanjun reply as I start walking away.

"Oh, really?" Her voice sounded confused but I refuse to turn around to look at her expression.

I turn the corner-cutting off their voices and head up the stairs. I walk up the flights of steps without any hassle like I have been doing since I have lived in these apartments. I don't stop until I reach the top floor, which is on the fourth floor. I turn down the hallway my eyes looking out into the city of Persephone until I come to my apartment's door.

I take one last glance over the flora based city before turning toward my door and unlocking it. The moment I have the door open, I sling my messenger bag off of my shoulder and onto the ground near the entrance. I slip my shoes off and with just my socks on, I slide on the tile floor into the kitchen on the left of the apartment's small foyer.

I skid straight into the fridge, nearly falling from colliding with it. I take a step back and open it to grab a soda. The cool temperature of the aluminum can instantly burn my fingers cold. The can pops open as I rip the tab off. I bring the can up to my lips and sip the carbonated beverage. I close the fridge before making my way out of the kitchen.

Unlike most of the apartments in the building, or at least the ones below, the bedroom was up a small flight of stairs into a loft looking room. I walk up the steps and enter my bedroom. The ceiling dips at a tilt creating a smaller wall on the side my bed is at. The room is painted in a white cream color and right above the bed is a roof window. The bed, itself, is low to the ground wooden framed bed with a small navy striped comforter, which is in a mess on the mattress. A white crocheted blanket lays in a disarray on the bottom right corner of the bed.