Chapter 14: Renewing an Acquaintance
I waited inside the park, sitting on a bench along the path that Namjoon was most likely to take. I allowed myself to feel the energies around me, sensing the trees, plants, animals and humans inside the park, within a certain radius. As Namjoon entered the park, along the path, his energy signature became stronger, and I turned my head in his general direction. As he grew closer, and within my line is sight, I began to watch him leisurely riding his bike along the trail. He looked all around him at the sky, and nature as he seemed to soak it in. He seems lost in the sensation of riding and daydreaming, and I smiled to myself, looking down at the ground. 'He was most definitely cute.' I decided.
I sent a suggestion to his mind to stop and adjust his mask and hat and when he did, across from me, looking away, I watched him as he made the adjustments. When he stopped suddenly and turned around, looking at me, I smiled faintly, gazing back. His mask was half on his face as he moved one of the loops over his ear and he replaced the other one over the other ear. He continued to stare over at me as I folded my hands together in my lap. Today I was wearing beige slacks and a feminine blouse in a solid light blue shade. The blouse accentuated my figure and the cut along the collar drew attention to my neck and collar bones. My shoes were practical, but feminine, allowing some style, while allowing me to run, if needed. My hair was loose and my auburn curls were blowing in the breeze. I was wearing light sunglasses, which partially hid my eyes, but also allowed them to be seen. I smiled more at him, my lips curving up further, baring my teeth slightly, while mimicking his earlier movements. I was not wearing a mask today and smoothed my hair back behind my ear, exposing it. My ear was shadowed in glamour, of course. Unless he could see past glamour, he wouldn't see it. I did not need him to know exactly what I was. I only wanted him to know who I was.
He spoke into the silence between us, as he stood on the other side of the path, with a whisper, "Louvre girl."
I laughed and responded politely, remaining in my place on the bench, "Hello. How are you?"
With his mask still on, he walked over to me, bringing his bike with him. He pulled the kickstand down with his foot and sat next to me on the bench, not bothering to look around as he seemed deeply distracted. He turned towards me and asked, "You are real, aren't you?" He almost reached his hand out to touch mine, but began to pull it back. However. before he could bring it back to his body, I caught his hand and gently squeezed his fingers, before releasing his hand.
"Yes. I am real." He looked down at his fingers and rubbed the digits lightly, as if considering the sensation of our hands touching.
He gazed back over at me, removed his mask and hat, and ran his fingers through his hair briefly, and then replaced the hat again. He looked at me, "Who are you?" He asked, then furrowed his brow as he looked down at his lap again, thinking for a moment, "I mean. What is your name? And who are you? I am Namjoon. Kim Namjoon." He explained.
I smiled in response and answered with my head tilted to the side, watching him. "I am Felina. You may call me by this name." I paused for a second. The name I used among humans was enough for now, if ever I shared anything else. "But I know who you are. It's hard to miss who you are in Korea, or almost anywhere." I explained.
He watched me, taking my words as they were spoken, soaking me in, and I caught his passing thought, wondering if it was a dream, and if I would suddenly disappear. 'He didn't want me to disappear.' He thought. Ignoring my statement that it was hard to miss who he was, he spoke again, "So you remember me?"
I smiled at him, "Yes. I responded. In the French Revolution hall and at the accident. Yes."
His eyes grew larger, and he slowly began to place his hand over his mouth, "So that did happen. I mean, I know it did, but it was so... vague." He said past his fingers that hovered close to his face. He lowered his hand as he spoke, "So much about it was unreal." He explained.
I laughed and touched his arm gently, "Yes. It did happen." I responded simply.
~~~
Namjoon watched the woman before him, taking in her details. He couldn't believe she was actually sitting next to him here; that after months she was here and they were talking. 'Again', he supposed. Of course he remembered the accident and talking to her, at the time, but there was so much that didn't make sense. And she looked somehow different. She was still gorgeous, ethereal, like a butterfly with translucent wings, but her hair was much shorter than he remembered it, having been past her waist and probably below her ass as well the first time he saw her. And her skin had a slight sun kissed tan, when before her skin had been pale. Her eyes were partly obscured, but he could see the light color behind the lenses. She took her sunglasses off and looked at him directly and he gasped on a faint breath, remembering her eyes and comparing them to now. "Your eyes are so..." And he trailed off.
She leaned towards him, "What?" She asked.
Namjoon whispered, "Amazing. Beautiful. Mesmerizing." He waved his hands a bit, "I can't describe them, exactly. Maybe I could write a song about them." She laughed again. As before, the sound was like bells, tinkling in the wind. Or chimes, but it was rich and feminine and he wanted to hear it again, he decided.
She stood up and almost as a compulsion he stood up too, half afraid she would leave. When she looked down the path and then back at him, she spoke, "Walk with me." She offered, then suggested, "And you may want to replace your mask." He blinked at her in vague surprise and realized he had forgotten to put his mask back on. He felt flustered and clumsily replaced his mask, looping it over his ears, as he murmured a thank you to her.
She waited for him while he retrieved his bike and walked beside her, leading his bike along the path as they moved down it. He realized that he probably seemed like a child talking to her, uncertain and awkward and he felt mildly embarrassed. She unsettled him, though, and it was no wonder he was fumbling over himself, even to the point of forgetting that he was in public and sitting next to a woman without his mask on. And a beautiful woman, at that. He ventured a question into the silence between them as they walked, "Are you in Korea for long? Or do you live here? Your Korean is really good, but you are obviously not native." He pointed out.
She laughed again and he smiled, "No. I am not native. And yes. I know Korean fluently. I am visiting and I am here for as long as I need to be." She explained.
"So awhile?" He asked her as he looked at her profile, and when she looked back at him with a smile, her eyes softened.
"Yes. A while. Or however long I need to."
He pursed his lips slightly. "That's vague." He muttered faintly and she laughed again.
"Mmmm..." she responded, deepening the mystery. He looked away and blushed. Her drawn out 'Mm' was both alluring and mysterious.
Maybe it wasn't so bad that she was ambiguous, and yet because of who he was, he couldn't just let it go. "You are so mysterious." Voicing his thoughts. He said, stopping to gaze at her, "Felina." He said, testing her name on his lips, "Felina." He said again, "Why are you so mysterious?" He asked.
"Why are you so famous? Why are you Kim Namjoon?" She retorted lightly.
He was surprised into laughter, "I was born Kim Namjoon."
She shook her head, "From the moment of birth until the moment before you were named, you were simply you. Did you have a name then? The moment you came screaming into the world?" She asked him and he was taken aback by her question, "You were you before you were Kim Namjoon. And you were you before you were famous. And you are always you with or without your names." She stated. He simply stared at her and began to walk again, not knowing what to say to that. She followed suit, walking beside him. "As for your fame, I suppose that is luck and talent rolled into a lovely package." She gestured at him and he looked away from her, pleased but embarrassed.
"Thank you." He murmured into the air around them. She nodded, but he missed the movement until she grabbed his wrist and stopped him, seeming to catch something on the wind, "Bring your bicycle." She said as she began to pull him towards the bushes and trees to one side of the path. She looked at him again as he hesitated. She raised her brow at him and pulled at him with more intensity. "Please." She said and pulled at him further.
Namjoon frowned deeply at her as he followed her, "Why? What's going on?" He asked as she pulled him and his bicycle into the bushes, helping him to hide it in the foliage. She then proceeded to quickly, and with more grace than he could imagine, leap and then climb into the lower branches of a tree. He looked up in shock, feeling unsettled as she put her hand down to offer him a hand up.
He heard the sounds of laughter and bickering from feminine voices and could tell it was a group of girls, "I really think he went this way."
One of the girls said, "Are you sure, Sunhee-ah? Cause I don't know about that."
The other girl retorted, "No. Really. I'm almost sure of it." Hearing this, Namjoon suddenly realized what was happening and took her hand as she helped him climb into the tree. He sat next to the trunk on a branch opposite from her, watching as the girls came into view. They were looking around, watching for him as they continued to discuss where he may have gone.
One of the girls gave a small sigh and elbowed her friend, "I really hope you are right, because I would die to see Joonie." She said as her voice became more excited by the idea and she ended his name with a sound of a squeal.
Namjoon looked from the group of girls to the woman sitting in the tree with him and found himself speechless. 'How did she know?' He wondered to himself. He began to ask a question on a whisper, but she silenced him by putting her finger to her mouth. They watched as the girls moved away from their position and disappeared down the path continuing to talk amongst themselves. When the girls were out of sight, he began to speak again, and said in a low voice, barely above a whisper, "How did you know?"
She looked at him, giving him a playful grin, "Sixth sense." She explained, saying nothing more. She began to climb out of the tree, moving quickly. Halfway down she saw he was still perched on the branch and looked at him, as she clung to the tree as if she were a monkey, "Do you need help?" She asked him.
"No." He responded looking around at the tree around him, then considered, "Or maybe." He said, half laughing. She climbed back up to his position and guided him down and as he jumped the last few feet down, he landed with a thud. She landed softly beside him, making no sound at all. He looked at her feet, again mystified. He began to ask her how she did that, then suddenly realized she might not answer his question and kept silent.
She began to move away from the tree and bushes onto the path. As she did so, she answered his unspoken question, murmuring, "It's magic, Joon." She looked at him, grinning faintly, appearing to enjoy his confusion, "And it's kept you safe from your sasaeng's."
She wiggled the fingers of both hands at him, teasingly, implying the magic was in her hands and his only response was, "Well, fuck."
She laughed again at his response and replied, "You're welcome." She followed her laughter with movement to help him remove his bike from the bush it had become entangled in, then began to walk again along the path.
~~~
I looked over at Namjoon as we walked, truly enjoying his company and finding his confusion adorable. 'In fact, his confusion is highly amusing,' I decided, 'but I suppose I should give the man a bone.' I threaded my fingers together as we walked, both of us in silence, as his thoughts almost screamed at me through his attempts to understand what was going on. On a breath I stated to him, "Just as you are limited in what you may do or say because of your persona in public, I am limited in what I may do or say. I am here because I am following a path. It is one that returns to me again and again, and I am compelled to follow it." He looked at me and his brow furrowed again, not saying anything yet, but I could tell that he was forming a question. I followed my words up with the statement, "You are part of that path."
My answer left Namjoon speechless with only one word in his mind, 'Why?'
I responded to his unspoken question, "Because I have come across you three times, and I don't know why."
He started to speak, then stopped and looked at the ground, then back at me, "Three times? When was the third time?" He asked.
I smiled. "The first time," I explained, "Was at the Louvre. The second was here in Seoul when I was at your concert for a time. The third was the accident."
"You were at one of our concerts? Which one?" He asked.
"At the beginning of your last comeback." I said, "I was there." I said as an explanation. "I saw you there."
He stared at me, seeming a little concerned, as he appeared to consider what I said, then almost jokingly asked, "Are you stalking me? Are you sure you aren't a sasaeng?"
I laughed, "I am most certainly not a sasaeng. And I didn't know who you were when I saw you at the Louvre and the concert, though I saw you backstage, before the concert, and later again on the stage. I was there for another reason." I explained.
As he stared at me, his alarm was held in check, but lingered in his eyes, "That isn't creepy at all." He stated in a whisper.
I laughed as I watched him, "I apologize. We were not there for you. I cannot say why." I answered his unspoken question. Frowning at me, he was momentarily distracted as he felt his phone vibrate and took it from his pocket to look at it, then responded to the text quickly.
I knew he would need to leave soon, given the contents of the message I was able to catch from his mind, and as he looked back over at me, he pocketed his phone into the pocket of his hoodie and said honestly, with a chagrined expression, "You know, you are a deeply unsettling woman, and I am not sure I like the mystery. You aren't exactly straightforward. Are you ever straight forward?" He asked me as I looked at the sky with a smile.
"At times. I can be. Yes." I laughed at his expression as I looked back from the sky to him, "You don't trust me fully. Yes? And I cannot trust you fully, either. You and I have only just truly met. You know my name and I have yours. But it is the beginning of things." I explained, "You see? So I cannot lay my cards before you and you cannot lay yours before me, though you may choose to do so. Such things take time and exposure to each other."
The alarm began to fade from his eyes as he fingered the handle of his bike, "You have a point. I can't say it isn't creepy though." He looked at me and laughed, "Cause it fucking is."
I laughed with him, and nodded, "I know how it looks, certainly."
He smiled back at me as his laughter faded and he spoke again, "I could decide I like the mystery."
I answered his smile, agreeing, "You very well could."
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