Yeonseok called when Jisoo just got off from the bus after about three hours trip.
They hadn’t actually reached the destination, they had just arrived at this kind of transit place because the village they visited couldn’t be passed by the bus. The only kind of car that had access to the top—because it's supposedly still about five miles up the mountain—was small open trucks parked in the district farmers’ community base camp, and the cars would take them to their destination village.
“Everything’s good. The air is so fresh, the view is nice. I think you’ll like it here too, it’s so green in here.”
She wasn’t really comfortable to get a longer conversation when people started looking at her, so implying her desire to immediately end the call, she lowered her voice. She knew Yeonseok caught that in instant without too much difficulty, because he then winded up their chat.
“Alright, send me some pictures when you get there.” He said.
“Sure, I will. And…” For a second there was a debate in her head for something that she was thinking for the whole three hours on the trip, did she have to tell him about Sehun’s being here?
“Yes?”
“Um, Sehun is here too. Well, he’s not supposed to be here, but someone cancelled in last minute, and Jongin said—he’s the one who invited me to this trip, Jongin said he was the only one available. So...”
There was a pause for a second, but then she heard him replied a short ‘okay’. She was relieved that it’s not a problem for him, but it didn’t make anything less awkward in a sudden, though.
“It’s nothing actually, I just thought that you may want to know.”
“Yeah, sure.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks for letting me know. Have a fun weekend, you guys.”
“You too.”
Jisoo ended the conversation right there and joined the others. The bus returned to Seoul that morning and would come back to pick them up on Monday. They were prepared for another car trip by then, two small pickup trucks were ready to go to ride with them and and their stuff together.
This was the first time Jisoo rode in a pickup like this, if her dad was still around and knew she's doing this sort of thing, he would be thrilled. But it turned out the trip wasn’t too bad, although the terrain was more dominated by the uphill road, the scenery they passed was so incredible. It really worth the thrill in the sharp wobble and tight grip on the side of the wall of the car, as well as the cold wind that slapped their faces fiercely and the staggering fresh air. Squeals and shrieks of excitement met them in surprise. The village they visited was on the highest hill side, everywhere laid a vast agricultural area overgrown with vegetables. It’s really beautiful.
Jisoo took out her phone camera and took some pictures to send to Yeonseok later, then returned to enjoy the rest of the trip until they stopped in front of a white community building. The village chief welcomed them and invited them into the hall, where they would stay there during the activities here.
Some women and grandmothers also welcomed them and brought food for lunch. An elderly deaf grandmother caught Jisoo's attention when she saw her communicating with Soojung using her hands. The grandma looked very happy because someone could understand her language by communicating with her among them.
“Her name is Geunseok, she said.” Soojung explained to everyone, “And she cooked this dishes since four in the morning, she hoped you guys like it.”
They unfurled a long table in the center of the hall, then with the village chief and some of their residents having lunch with the cooking menu the women cooked for them.
Jisoo didn’t expect they would be warmly welcomed like this, it was her first time to see this form of hospitality where as if the whole village gathered to meet them and cooked this much for everyone. Maybe because she had been living in the capital since she was kid where people tended to be more individualistic, the scene around her was enough to make her emotional. It reminded her of her mom who used to be very friendly to everyone. She remembered how her mom could remember all the names of people who lived in their area, and how eoveryone seemed to know her too. Her mom would love to be here if she was alive.
She seated herself between Lisa and Hayi, and they reminded her of this saying that great minds think alike—these girls were full of wits and made a great team at lightening up the mood. Ah, they also had Baekhyun as their male version, they’re just a perfect trio. It could be said that lunch mood was great thanked to them, Baekhyun was really great with the elders, the grandmas loved him a lot while Lisa and Hayi were practically good with everyone, and they successfully broke the ice among the formality and made their first meeting with the villager much more fun with their jokes.
And the more Hayi got to know her, the girl couldn’t help herself to keep teasing her with the married-girl joke, and because Lisa and Baekhyun joined her, it became the talk of the lunch.
“You must have married a heck of rich man to get you this shinny bling-bling, Young Lady.” One of the aunties commented when they asked her to show them her wedding bands—she needed Baekhyun and Soojung to translate it for her since the ladies here were speaking in a very strong dialect.
“She’s the congressman’s daughter in law, Aunty. Her husband is the owner of one of the biggest hospitals in Seoul, super rich.” Said Baekhyun, again with the teasing.
“You’re so lucky. When I was your age even getting married with the chief village’s son was only just a dream. We couldn’t do much in this small place, everyone just married each other. We’re practically a big family tree here.”
Jisoo could only smiled responding the varies of comments from the elders. Indeed, if everything was measured with money and wealth, Jisoo probably would think that she was very lucky to marry Yeonseok. He, to all intents and purposes, had everything in his life, and she believed Yeonseok wouldn’t mind giving her anything she asked for. The only problem was her measure of happiness was not about those things mentioned. Jisoo didn’t even care about it.
Now that everyone knew about her marital status, the topic of their conversation suddenly turned into marriage counsel, the elder was, like, sharing their experience and view about their marriage and let them know what to expect from it when the time came for her friends. And in the depth of the discussion, Jisoo couldn’t resist to land her glance on the only passive figure at the end of the table. Sehun looked unconcerned with the chatter of the most of people, while looking busy chatting to one or two uncles across from him.
When her eyes met Jongin, who sat next to him, who also didn’t comment much from the beginning, Jisoo broke their gaze and stared at her rice bowl. She didn’t say anything more for the rest of the lunch.
They had free agenda until the evening after lunch. Their main event was actually in town. When Jisoo asked why they chose to spend the night in the mountains, in addition to saving money—because it was apparently free to use community hall building, Soojung got the fact that the village always celebrated the harvest party in late autumn every year. And she thought they could do some works there, even if it only helped the preparation of the celebration party in that small village. What was interesting was this village was very small and remote, that almost no young people lived there. Infants and toddlers even could be counted.
The youngest and the only young generation was grandma Geonseok's fourteen-year-old grandson. Jisoo met Junsu at the grandmother's entourage around the village, and took them home while visiting their home—which was far apart. There, the nearest neighbor could be up to hundreds of feet away.
Grandma Geonseok also lived with her another granddaughter, a young woman who was almost due with her pregnancy. Jinsu, the woman's name, was probably the first young woman, and probably the only one they'd found in the village all day. Jinsu's husband worked in the basecamp community where they had transited before, and always came home at night after his work was over.
Jisoo and Soojung escorted grandma Geonseok back to the house, which Jisoo herself was not sure was enough to live in. The house was just a small hut with solid ground and wooden walls. They got a traditional ondol, a manual heater was set under the high floor and worked only when the homeowner turned it on from the fireplace outside near the kitchen, or rather a small room with a clay stove and a small table filled with vegetable casks and spice bottles. Jisoo felt a little sad when she found the toilet, in which she thought was a storage room at the backyard, was not worth it at all. Without a water tank or tap, it contained only a hole covered with a thin iron board stacked with stones. She could only exchange look with Soojung, and she could see the girl was almost weeping at this sight.
“You okay?” Jisoo asked when they walked back to the community hall. It was only two of them left on the entourage, and Soojung being silent after the visit to grandma Geunseok’s house was a clear hint that the things they saw earlier bothered her a lot.
She loved Soojung, even though today’s officially the first time they conversed properly not as cashier-customer the way they used to do, she was very lovely. Soojung wasn’t like the cheerful Lisa or Vic, she actually didn’t speak a lot, but everytime she said something she let out this kind of aura that pulled her strongly for the desire to get to know her more. She’s attractive, in a way that a good innocent girl would look. If she was a boy, she would definitely fall for her pure and kindness traits—she’s just adorable. And in this trip, she also learned that Soojung had lost her mother when she was younger just like her.
So Jisoo thought, maybe that’s why she enjoyed talking to her.
“I’m a weep for such scenes, it reminded me to my old days.” She answered.
In her peripheral view, she saw Soojung wiped her eyes and slightly snorted—she wasn’t sure if it was because she was crying or the cold wind, but she guessed it probably the former. Jisoo wasn’t really sure if she understood what Soojung was saying, she didn’t exactly know her to know her past. Despite her curiosity, she decided not to ask anything. Soojung would have elaborated it if she wanted to tell her story.
And told her the story she did.
“My family’s life wasn’t really well in finance these years. Even if we’re no way near to grandma’s Geunseok’s state, I always thought the worst, like I was the poorest person in the world.” She explained, Jisoo listened to her attentively. “And now I feel worse for being an ungrateful brat, I’ve been living much better life than, maybe, many of these people here, but I never thanked enough. I feel bad to my dad.”
For some reason, with Soojung she felt like finding someone who lived the same life with her. They had similarities in some respects, and this made it a bit more to understand Soojung's feelings. From the way the girl talked about her father, she could see the extent of Soojung's love for him. And at once, it made her jealous.
“At least you can still say sorry to your dad, and say you love him. I can never do any of these anymore to mine.” She responded after the long talk about her dad and family.
Soojung stopped walking, as if she just realized something at the time. And as Jisoo stopped just next to her, Soojung turned and pulled her to wrapped her arms around her.
“I’m sorry, but everything will be okay. Eventually we’ll just move on with our life and forget the death, you’ll be fine.” She then pulled off and tapped her upper arm with consolation.
Jisoo then chuckled and nodded, “I know, I’ve actually heard that many times.” She said before she joined her laugh and they went back walking and caught up with the other girls.
As they walked home, they stopped at one of the gardens to see the boys helping some farmers harvest vegetables. They had no idea how they ended up being here while the last time she saw them were walking down with the uncles to see other side of the village. So they sat on the edge of the ramp and watched the boys work. It’s always interesting to see how the farmers had their own techniques like just to pull radish and carrots off the ground they had to water it first to let the soil wet and separated them with the tubers’ skin, then it would be much easier to pull out. They actually got many things to learn from them.
When everything’s done about a half of an hour later, the boys moved to the small stream next to the field to rid themselves from the dirt. But of course, it seemed like they would never stop by just dipping their feet. Even though the water was freaking cold, what they wanted to do at first was to wash their feet, it ended with a water war in the river.
Jisoo couldn’t stop laughing at her friends’ silliness, and she was delighted to see Sehun came to have fun with them. After more than a month of seeing his tense stoic face, it was a relief to see him laugh out of the push and pull jokes with Jongin and Baekhyun.
It turned out to help farmers harvest was more than a good thing, because they came home with some vegetables the farmers gave them for dinner; like two big radishes, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes and lettuces. The girls divided themselves into teams to prepare the healthy dinner while Chanhyuk and Jinwoon made some instant noodles for them. They made some fresh salads from the greens they harvested earlier and cooked other menu with some utensils they borrowed from the villagers, and unfurled the lunch tables so they could eat dinner together.
After dinner they sat in a big circle to talk about the plan for tomorrow morning. They would visit this highscool in town, the so-called school of gifted children and the largest potential university students creator in Danyang. They targeted the first and second year students, and planned to gather them in the school hall where they would execute their event there.
So that evening everyone share their plans on what they had prepared and what they would do to show the students at the convention. Some of them had prepared games for the students, Lisa would show them some dances and probably taught how to do it simply. Soojung had prepared her guitar, while Jongin would made a speech on entrepreneurship, she would sing with them. And Changhyuk also had a guitar and harmonica with him, so they decided to have a collaboration.
While Jisoo told them that she had prepared a small lecture about what her classes would do in general. She showed them her presentation file she made a day earlier on from her laptop screen, that she also had prepared a portable LCD with it just in case the school wouldn’t prepare for that, and the last was her drawing kit that she planned to show how to draw a simple design live if they had camera to connect with her LCD. Apparently, they did, and Jongin was glad she’s prepared that much for them.
“I think you should do it with Sehun,” Jinwoon said a moment later, after she finished her turn. “I mean, you guys at the same college and your majors are a complete package. If you can collaborate, it will make your lecture more fun, and save more time too. Am I right?”
The atmosphere turned cold instantly as Jinwoon expressed his idea. That's actually not really a bad idea, and Jisoo believed the other kids thought the same thing too. The only reason why Jongin didn’t propose the idea from the start was because he knew the situation between them both, and maybe he wanted to let them to decide the collaboration themselves if they wanted to. So, when everyone's gaze was divided between her and Sehun, her eyes were automatically fixed on him, whose eyes were on his laptop screen.
After a few seconds Sehun then raised his head and nodded, it was until he said what’s on his mind then Jisoo knew he wouldn’t mind to have the collaboration with her. She was glad.
“We can do that,” he said nonchalantly, then he turned to her, “Can you send me that file you just showed us? I’ll edit it with mine, give me an hour.”
“Okay.” She replied.
And the atmosphere went back to normal after that short conversation, everybody started talking about their plans and giving each other ideas. Lisa nudged her on the upper arm and gave her a secret smile while Jisoo made the last editing on her presentation file and sent it to Sehun’s email.
The hall was filled by random activities after their discussion was done. Some of them gathered to sing and play music with Soojung and Changhyuk, while some other prepared their bed or did something else. They all would sleep at this big hall with the boys and the girls lined facing each other by each side of the wall.
Jisoo had just finished showering and joined Lisa who had buried herself under a thick blanket, sat back against the wall and played with her phone.
“Oh, you got good connection here?” Jisoo was surpised to see her actually was talking to Jongdae through the video call.
“Nah, it’s on and off. We barely communicate here.” She said, a little annoyed. And Jisoo chuckled at that.
“You should just do voice call anyway. Bad connection, bad communication. It’s bad for your relationship too.” She commented while doing a night skin care routine, only to get attacked by Lisa’s smart retort.
“Oh, says the one who has a really bad communication with her husband.”
“Shut up.” She elbowed her on her waist, but showed no mercy when Lisa whined in pain. She tilted her head so her face would be seen on the screen, “Your girlfriend is being mean to me.” Said she complaining.
“I’m not!” Lisa defended herself, and then she leaned her face close to the screen to whisper something, Jisoo didn’t expect she would tell Jongdae what would happen tomorrow. “Jisoo will have a collaboration with Sehun tomorrow.”
“Oh really? What collaboration?”
Jisoo turned to Lisa looking surprised, what shocked her here wasn’t the fact that Jongdae had a calm response about it, but more that he could catch the information itself.
“You said the connection is not good?” she said, more a statement than a question.
“I said the connection is on and off, I think it was on when I told him that.”
Jisoo rolled her eyes. Although Jongdae's response was not expected, Jisoo knew that the tone meant that this information wasn’t something too disturbing or shocking. Because if Jongdae didn’t like it, he would have reacted aloud. But still, Jisoo prefered not to talk about Sehun with him, she knew there was still a hint of dislike in his tone, so she told him that this wasn’t a big deal, and that what they would do tomorrow was just a mere collaboration presentation, only so he would no longer ask.
But Lisa turned out to be totally unhelpful as she commented, “She’s so happy though, you should see her face when Sehun told everyone he’s going to do it.”
There the traitor, Jisoo felt like choking her to death as if it’s not for the crowd in the hall. And she knew if she looked annoyed, Lisa would be much happier and would never stop the teasing, so the only thing she did was smile sarcastically then checked on her phone. She just realized that she had left it untouched since this afternoon to see so many notifications of messages from her group chat and everything.
“Hey, who are you guys talking about?” Jisoo threw Hayi, who just seat herself at Lisa’s other side and attacked the screen with her face, a glance and smiled. “Is that your boyfriend? Wow, he’s hot.”
“Hey, that’s my brother you’re talking about.” Jisoo commented with her eyes stuck on her phone screen. Damn, the connection was so slow here, she really need to wait patiently to load the chat application.
“You date her brother?” Her tone raised up as the question was phrased, as if she couldn’t believe it. “But you guys don’t really look alike.” She said that then to Jisoo as she compared them by looking at her and Jongdae alternately.
Jisoo wasn’t really in the mood to explain, so she just laughed softly and refocused on her phone screen. She found a message from Kyungsoo who was upset this afternoon because he had prepared everything for the study group and had been waiting in the library for almost an hour just to get a short text saying that Sehun would not make it and that he forgot to tell him that he is on Danyang right now. Jisoo smiled sadly, if she could hug the boy to comfort him, she would have done it by now. But she couldn’t blame Sehun too, their schedules were kind of tight today, she thought it was possible to be forgotten in such notice.
She also got a message from her mother-in-law who asked for her for hearing from Yeonseok that she's on a 'holiday' right now. Jisoo responded by saying that she was helping her friend for a campus project, and the 'holiday' was a bit more fun because the air was so different here as in Seoul, she also sent a photo of the harvest they got today, saying she had learned gardening, even though she was just watching the whole time.
Yeonseok sent her a photo of his dinner, along with Changmin, saying that tonight they would be doing men's activities while there was no scheduled surgery. They went to a bar with some of the other doctors, and said tomorrow they were going to go camping and fishing at Sanjeong Lake until Sunday. Jisoo responded by sending some photos she promised this morning, including photos that she also sent to his mother.
And Jisoo was focused opening and replying to messages when a notification appeared, indicating an email had just arrived. She closed all the screen windows and opened an email from Sehun, and she couldn’t hide her smile to find a short message, which might not mean anything to him, but deep enough for her.
Read and study. Don’t get choked on it. He said there.
Two enter spaces, Fighting.
*