Jian’s Apartment
Altlanta, GA
United States of America
January 2017
“Are you sure that you’re okay, brother?”
A half-smile crawls up the male’s lips. “I’m okay, Yue. I promise. I’ve just been…more tired lately, compared to these past few weeks. The bar’s been gaining more attention, so it’s only normal that I’m getting tired, you know?”
“I don’t know.” From his laptop screen, Yue throws him a look. “You’ve never really looked this exhausted. Maybe you want to come to Taipei, take a break with us? The family’s been asking how you’ve been,” she expressed. Her brown eyes met the gaze of her older brother, and she gave a small sigh. “I keep telling them to get off your case, but you have to admit that you owe them an answer, too. They’ve been concerned that you were suddenly able to help out with my college tuition and everything. Not that I’m not thankful,” she adds hurriedly, spotting the small frown poking its way to his lips, “I am. Really. They just want to know how you’re doing, and so do I.”
He sighed, reaching up and loosening the deep purple tie that hung around his neck. “I…alright. You’re right; I do owe you an explanation. And our family. But not now.” Yue looked like she was about to protest, but Jian lifted a hand and she kept her mouth closed. “I promise that I’ll explain. But I’m afraid that if I do tell, everyone else will just get on my case. And I don’t want that—I don’t think you want that either. Right?”
She puffed her cheeks at him. “I’m not happy with you, Jian. But okay, I’ll respect that. I’ll try to keep you off our parents’ case. But you owe them—you owe me an explanation. Okay? We at least deserve that from you,” she scolded lightly, folding her arms over her chest. He gave her a faint smile.
“You’ll get an explanation,” he promised. “Soon.”
They continued talking; Yue updated him with how she was doing in college and Jian couldn’t help but give a proud smile at her achievements. She told him of her participation in the various school organizations as well as her position in the school government; when she admitted to him that there was a particular someone she had her eye on, Jian could only raise his brow but listened on without interrupting her.
The two talked until the following hour; Yue eventually got off the call, mentioning that she had to catch up with her work and that Jian had to get to sleep. And to be honest, Jian didn’t even realize that it was late—somehow, talking with his younger sister made time flow even faster. It saddened him slightly. “You take care of yourself, okay?” she asked softly.
“I will, Yue. I promise. You take care of yourself too.” She shot him a smile and the call disconnected within seconds, Jian exhaling slowly as he leaned against the bedframe.
The time difference between Atlanta and Taipei was thirteen hours; despite his recent exhaustion, Jian was willing to sacrifice the little amount of energy he had in talking to his younger sister. It was something they did on the weekends every two or so weeks; he would call up Yue and they would update each other on what was happening in their respective lives. Jian talked about the bar and how the United States was while Yue updated him on how her studies were going as well as their parents and family.
He shifted uncomfortably in bed. He hated lying to Yue—if it were anyone else, he wouldn’t give a shit, but Yue was his baby sister. Despite the age gap between them, it felt like it was completely non-existent. He loved his sister fiercely and would do anything for her, even if it meant having to move to another country to be able to support her education.
Lying made him guilty, though.
The job at the bar paid enough—it was enough to sustain him and to pay for the apartment and everything in between. But even with that, he’d have to scrape parts in order to make way for Yue's tuition.
That was where Kang Jin-ho and Kang Enterprises entered the picture, but he honestly didn’t want to think about that, what more admit to his sister that he had gone off the dark road and resorted to illegal shit in order to support her.
For now, he had to keep hiding and making some kind of believable excuse. Jian exhaled and kept lying in bed; it was too late to go out and smoke the tension away.
He wasn’t kidding about his being tired, however; the week had really taken its toll on him. He had decided to change up his shifts and went during the mornings instead of late nights; Elsie had bugged him why but he never quite gave a straight answer. It reached the point of her simply accepting, and while he was thankful for the privacy, having Elsie give up that quickly made his heart pang slightly. To that day, he was still busy trying to recover—before, he’d cover shifts from late afternoon to closing time. Now, he had switched it up to opening until just a bit into the afternoon.
He defended that he wanted something new, but on the inside, he knew that he had still been avoiding Mack since their encounter a couple of weeks back. Mack did his best—he tried to talk, tried to contact, everything. On a normal occasion, he’d be impressed with the others’ dedication, but at this point it was just tiring.
Adding to that, he had his own worries. Tony had approached him via email and mentioned that Jin-ho wanted to talk to him as soon as possible. It wasn’t that he had a problem with the Korean, no—Jin-ho was one of a kind—but it was more on whether it was going to be a good conversation or a bad one. He had heard what happened months, a year back and was surprised to see that Jin-ho and the man named Leroux survive the ordeal.
Turning on his side, he could only exhale and close his eyes. Yue, Tony, Jin-ho. There as the family to worry about, how we could get more money from the job, and then there was Jin-ho who wanted to speak with him urgently.
Jian felt all kinds of weary and gripped the pillow beneath his head even tighter.
He had honestly not expected things to turn out that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment