New World | SOOKAI

Chapter 11

I awoke the following day feeling somewhat exhausted. As relaxing as my bath the previous evening was, the conversation between Jack and I had pulled apart the tight ball of a mess of my heart once more. Bits and pieces of it sat in disarray inside my chest, and I was at a loss to the deep impatience to know that it wasn't me who could even put it back together. As much as I sat there at work trying to keep myself busy, half of me wanted to leave early and go to Soobin. But I knew Jack's words were the wiser albeit harder option; I had to wait for Soobin to come to me. I had to wait until he was ready to talk... if he even still wanted to. That, of course, was the main problem: the unknown; the ever deep mystery of Soobin.

I sat behind the counter at work, about to replace the strings on a classical guitar that, if I was honest, didn't even need to be changed, but I liked to keep my hands busy, especially if my mind was. As I pulled the strings out of the headstock one by one I started to count with them; the facts I knew about Soobin.

1. He was ridiculously handsome. And cute. And se- Ugh. Stop it, Kai, these are fewer facts and more personal opinions. Let's start again.

1. He loved music. Almost as much as I did. That was painfully obvious from the beginning.

2. He used to be a musician.

3. He didn't do anything for a living, but he was wealthy due to family inheritance.

4. He was old fashioned, but not in a negative sense. He was deeply traditional to a timeline that seemed hundreds of years old. That, in itself, made no sense, but... I've heard of stranger things. Maybe it was just a personal taste or even some kind of religion I'd never heard of. There were people in the world who lived outside of modern society. Take the Amish, for example.

5. The sight of blood on me disturbed him. Everything was going fine, more than fine before he saw he had bitten my lip. Did he have a violent past? Had he hurt people before or been hurt, himself? Was it a trigger to terrible memories? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, perhaps? That had to be it. What else could it be?

6. I wrapped the end of the string around my finger in thought and couldn't bring myself to pull it out of the guitar. That was all I had on Soobin that I thought was real and not some fabrication of over exaggerated thoughts.

Soobin was an old fashioned, rich, retired musician with a love for music and had... PTSD?

I sighed and pulled the 6th and final string out of the guitar. The more I thought about the 5 things I knew about Soobin, the more they made even less sense in my head when placed side by side with each other. That 6th and final fact about him I needed to know was the biggest piece of the puzzle that I was missing. Nothing else really fitted together, without it; there was no clear image. He was still every little piece of an enigma as when I had first met him. And I was still in love with a stranger.

I found the rest of my day to be eternally frustrating. I couldn't stop thinking about him. I had given myself yet another headache but from hopelessness instead of irritation. I just couldn't win either way. My work day had finally ended and I walked into the backroom to collect my jacket.

"Y'know, I think I prefer ye' bein' angry rather than sad, Kai" Jack said through the thick fog of cigarette smoke that hung in the air like a blanket.

"Ye' seem to get more work done bein' pissed off. Our sales were way below average today. Ye' better make up for that tomorrow, alright?"

"Okay... Sorry."

"Apologizin' won't pay the bills, kiddo. If things don't pick up in a big way soon, we'll both be out of a job."

I nodded and zipped my jacket up to my chest, preparing myself for the cool late afternoon air.