Inyoung purses his lips in thought, really thinking back to if he’s met even one person that has claimed to have seen ghosts before. Considering the amount of crazy people hanging about him at all times, it is most likely. For good ten seconds Inyoung stops everything he’s doing, even breathing, and waits if any funny feeling would travel through him that very moment. Nothing happens. “So you’ve felt that before? Unexplainable cool air…” Inyoung murmurs softly and rubs his arms as if the cold has been there. There’s a shiver that’s caused by his own chilly hands, and he wonders briefly if he’s meant to be touched by the living, the barrier between him and spirits just too thick.
Knowing everything in the house is Dio’s makes Inyoung braver and brasher. Suddenly there’s nothing in his eyes that feels sacred and his imagination runs wilder thinking anything could become his, even window panels or pieces of wallpaper. Though of course, he has always been fascinated with what happens to be the smallest. When it comes to matter, his greed is bottomless. Sometimes there’s a little voice in the back of his head reminding people are tender, and their feeling should be taken into consideration. Sometimes he’s too excited and forgets all about it.
“Grandma would definitely smile! You are spoiling her, hyung. She will feel so important having something all the way from Europe. She urges me to leave, too, but I don’t really want to…” Inyoung hums with a tiny smile. It was always more fun to hear of other’s adventures and imagine everything rather than actually see it. They haven’t discussed Dio’s trip in detail yet, but Inyoung trusts they’ll come by the topic later. Perhaps over a meal, or when he’ll hand souvenirs to his grandmother. Now he’s too frantic to go deep into anything, fingering all items he finds from Dio’s drawer instead of focusing in words.
“Sounds like everything’s well. Do you have pictures of them, though? If you do, you should show me one of Minjae,” Inyoung glances at Dio. Although Dio is acquainted with his family, he doesn’t know much of the people around his friend. They’re brought up briefly in brief conversations, so Inyoung has a hunch who they might be and what kind. More is kept in the dark than he can imagine.
Inyoung keeps watching all things he’s found from the cabinet, indecisive and overwhelmed. He could take all them, ask if he could. He hasn’t decided on anything before Dio offers to direct him elsewhere, making him swiftly close the drawer. “You should find one for me,” Inyoung confirms with a sense of relief, inching closer to the other. “I like everything here. So show me all the things you don’t need…”
[ ✈ ] Now, come to think of it. The unusual chill may be something unusual, and maybe a little terrifying for someone who is afraid of these peculiar happenings. The cold, the first time he felt it, he embraced it like it was carrying warmth along with it. It was as though the air shaped into his mother’s arms, as though the cold transformed into her warm embrace, enveloping him the way she did when he was young or the way she trapped him around her fragile body with the little strength left on her. Maybe that was why he has grown so used to the cold. He embraced it thinking it was warmth.
A failed conception of the mind.
“Yup, not that I want to scare you, but yes, I did, indeed. But who knows? Maybe those ghosts are selective. Maybe they won’t bother you. If they do really exist.” His lips are pressed, quivering, a chuckle threatening its release as he observes the younger. Finally, he lets it out, one hand extending to lightly pat his shoulder. “Chill. It’s just the air.” Just the air. Right.
“I wouldn’t mind spoiling a lovely grandmother such as her.” And perhaps it is a fact that he may have treated the old woman like the way he would his grandmother or even his mother. A displacement of affections that has lost its recipient – but the woman deserves it. She’s kind, he sees it in the way she had taken good care of Inyoung and even of him in the few instances when he’d visit her. There was warmth in her that only mothers can give. “Grandma should always feel she’s very important. And don’t worry, I have something for you too. I’ll bring it once I drop by your house.” He turns to him, just after he had stuffed his bag with a roll of paper he has found in one of the drawers. “I had no intentions of travelling before, but there’s something about it that makes you discover yourself, bit by bit. Especially when you’re by yourself. Is there any country or just a place you’d always dreamed of visiting?” Inyoung is capable of going elsewhere, but Dio wouldn’t really blame him if he doesn’t want to. Who would want to leave from a place you felt safe all the time?
( When it starts to feel unsafe. )
He keeps the thought to himself.
“Oh, I have more than just a photo. I have videos of Minjae. He’s a lovely child.” Perhaps his family’s past may be too unsettling to discuss but be it about Minjae and he’d be more than willing to share. It is one of the brighter parts of the story of his life – half connected by blood yet a child he adored so much. Blissful innocence, as it is something he had lost early on, amazes him. “I’ll show you later over dinner, how’s that?” He glances back at him before he stood up to proceed to his room.
The room is a cage where memories are kept aside from the inner crevices of his mind. One step into the room and it will all come rushing in, moments such as her mother sneaking inside on an early morning, to plant kisses on his face to wake him up. Or such as whenever he hears two firm knocks on his door and he knew it’s his father. Or when he, at nine years old, enters the room alone, bruised body and heart, gentle face tainted with blood and tears. These and all other memories are the true ghosts of this house.
He decides to lock it down. His thoughts. The door that paves way for memories to surge.
He enters, goes straight to his closet to get a notebook – his music notebook he had left, and then that one box of old things, before he rushes back to the living room. The soft click of the doorknob that signifies the closing of the bedroom’s door relieves him.
“Have you ever had a cassette tape player before?” He motions Inyoung to follow him as he sat on the carpet instead, picking up things from the box. He knows he had it here somewhere, so his hands dived into the pile of plastic toys and play cards until he feels the cold metal upon his fingers. Scooping it up, Dio sees the player he had used for a good several years. It has a tape inside – he barely knows the contents. Maybe some silly voice recordings he did before, maybe an actual song he composed when he was young, or maybe a recording of the sounds of the streets. “Let’s see if this one still works, you can have it if it does.” One ear piece is placed on his one ear while he raised the other one for the younger to take. He is ready to press play and he wishes the sound to be the latest out of the three. He liked it best. The city streets have always calmed him.
