Getting down to it [Ji-Eun] on Library

Arnold Manger

August 29, 2015 1:12 AM

Getting down to it [Ji-Eun] by Arnold Manger

Some of his knuckles had scarred. Arnold hadn’t initially noticed--maybe because he actively didn’t look as he wanted to forget about the whole thing--but over break, it had been brought to his attention by the tiny, grappling hands of his baby cousin Lavender. He’d managed to shove his hands in his pockets or pull down his sleeves for most of the time spent with family that day, and ever since, he had taken to bandaging them. Fortunately for Arnold, “I’m an artist” was a valid enough excuse to do just about anything, so at least at home, no one had really questioned him.

But now that he was back at Sonora, the sixth year was expecting the inevitable inquiries. He didn’t think his roommates had really noticed, mostly because sixteen year old boys didn’t tend to spend much time staring at one another’s hands, but he had plans to see Ji-Eun today, and in a personal, private setting, he wondered if she might say something. Hopefully his artist excuse would work if it came up, since the an outside observer, the only function of the bandages were to shield him from the ink and paint that would otherwise be on his skin.

Arnold tabled that particular anxiety for a whole other one as he approached the library, where he was set to meet Ji-Eun. The plan was to do a little studying for an upcoming exam, although he wasn’t sure just how much work they would get done. It was hard for him to focus around her, and it had only gotten more difficult as time went on. He had fallen hard for her, but God only knew how Ji-Eun felt.

“Hey,” he greeted quietly as he approached their usual table. Arnold sat his textbook, notebooks, and quills down as he slid into the seat beside her. And for a while, things were fine. They studied in relative quiet in the peaceful library, but inside his head, every background noise intensified. The ticking clock, the shuffling feet, his own heartbeat--they gnawed at him, begging him to say those long wondered and long repressed words that he always felt in addition to the butterflies when in his present company.

“What am I to you, anyway?” The question bubbled out before he was truly ready for it, and he cringed immediately at the sound of his own voice ringing out in a volume rather inappropriate for a library. Imagining a stern gaze from Ms. Nicchi, he went on at a more acceptable volume. “I just mean, you know how I feel about you, and when you said you wanted to go to the ball as friends, I respected that, but… I don’t know, you’ve been acting like maybe it’s more than that? Or at least you had been. I don’t know what’s going on anymore, but I had thought that maybe we were… maybe we were getting somewhere.”

“If you just want to be friends, I can do that,” he wrapped up, his volume increased but still quiet enough for their surroundings, “but I need to know definitively that that’s what you want, because right now, it feels like it’s all been in my head.”

12 Arnold Manger Getting down to it [Ji-Eun] 261 Arnold Manger 1 5

Ji-Eun Park

August 30, 2015 11:05 PM

Getting into melodramatic teen mode by Ji-Eun Park

“Your hands are still…” she ventured tentatively when Arnold joined her in the library. Still what, she didn’t know. When she had observed the bandages last term, she had merely got a shrug when she’d asked what had happened. She might have felt entitled to more of an explanation, as one’s of Arnold’s closest friends, but she was so unused to such cold treatment from him that she simply hadn’t known how to react, and had let the issue lie. The fact that Arnold’s hands were still bandaged now concerned her. It suggested he had hurt himself very badly.

Seeing Arnold hurt made her chest clench in a way she couldn’t identify, but which was guilt. Chloe’s warnings about the risk that she might hurt Arnold subconsciously connected to this very tangible, physical hurt. Without realising it, she was anxious that whatever was wrong was somehow her fault. She turned her attention away uncomfortably, not liking the bandages themselves, but also not sure she wanted another dose of huffish teenager directed her way.

The latter was perhaps, slightly hypocritical on her part. Chloe’s advice, although it had stung, had also sunk in, to a degree. The trouble was, her behaviour having been unconscious, she struggled to know where to draw the line. All Chloe’s advice had really done was make her anxious and over-analytical when she was around Arnold. She would hesitate. She would sometimes catch herself mid-gesture and jump back, worried she was coming too close to crossing the line. The hands were another example. She had remembered reaching for them as she asked, only to remember Chloe’s warning and to quickly tuck her hands into her lap, though there had been no way to hide what she had been about to do. Overall, she had probably been more friend-like, but only if you took an average of her warmth towards him from the continuing flirtations and the resulting overly guarded distance when she caught herself.

What am I to you anyway?

Ji-Eun looked up, startled by the sudden shift in tone as well as the volume. Her gaze fell back on her book as Arnold spoke, unable to meet his eye. So it was true… Everything Chloe had said… She’d messed everything up and hurt her friend. She didn’t want Arnold to talk to her like this. Didn’t want to have this conversation. It had been so much nicer living in the little bubble where everything was sweet and romantic but not complicated. She hadn’t meant for that to be playing with his feelings and the thought of having to try to explain and excuse herself… How could she, when there were no excuses? When she was just a bad person?

She really wanted to just tell Arnold that she didn’t want to talk about it. She was already crying. Could she just storm off into the shelves - run away from the issue? And then what? It would be waiting for her when she got back. She couldn’t live amongst the books forever.

“What I want doesn’t come into it, and I don’t know. I like being with you, and I like you liking me. My mother hasn’t changed her mind on me dating though. If I went out with you, I’d have hell to pay for it. And you can say what Chloe did, and that I should think about what I want, not what my mother wants me to do but it doesn’t work like that,” she hesitated, “I’d rather not examine my own feelings too closely and realise that I really do want something I can’t have. I didn’t mean for my doing that to hurt you. I…. I didn’t think. I just tried to make it easier on myself. I’m sorry. I’m selfish, and I was stupid and now you probably won’t even want to be my friend anymore.” She wiped furiously at her eyes. That was it. Bubble burst. Now Arnold knew what she was like, how could anything be nice again?

13 Ji-Eun Park Getting into melodramatic teen mode 268 Ji-Eun Park 0 5

Arnold

August 31, 2015 3:35 PM

Getting off to a rough start... by Arnold

His chest rose and fell in almost triumphant rhythm. The adrenaline of finally getting all of that weight off, of finally figuring out how to say what he needed to say, however blunt it had to be, felt more amazing than Arnold had ever imagined. He felt great. Powerful. Then he looked at Ji-Eun.

She was crying.

Oh no.

The adrenaline and pleasant feelings, accompanied by all of the color on his face, drained away so quickly it made his head spin. The world slowed down, forcing him to live every millisecond like a century in this dreadful, dreadful moment. Ji-Eun was crying. He made the girl he cared most about in the whole world… cry. ~~Just one more way in which he was becoming his father.~~

In his head, a little voice knocked on the door, a stranger to him that sounded so very convincing. It was the urge to just... shut down. How could he feel hurt or guilt if he felt nothing at all? No wonder Sally had done numb for so long; it was so tempting in the face of difficulty. Maybe he could, just this once…

He shook it off. Ji-Eun was speaking. He had to hear what she said. Arnold didn’t really know what Chloe had to do with things, but as far as Ji-Eun’s mother went, as far as he remembered hearing, she just wasn’t supposed to date yet when he asked her to the ball when they were fourteen. But they were sixth years now, both approaching their seventeenth birthdays, the mark of legal adulthood. She should have been able to make her own decisions.

“Of course I still want to be friends.” It came out quickly, almost run together. “I like being you friend, Ji-Eun. I’m going to be here as long as you want me around. But I can’t… I can’t wait around forever seeing if you decide one day that you want to go out. I get that whole thing with your mom”--sort of; he wasn’t sure by what standards the woman judged and he didn’t make, given he was from a good family and all that--“but it isn’t fair to me. I would never ask you to intentionally go against your parents, but I think you really ought to figure out what you want.

“Maybe you were a little selfish, but you definitely aren’t stupid,” Arnold said softly. “You’re in a weird, confusing, difficult situation, and I get that. Parents can be a huge headache sometimes, especially when they want to control you. But you have to just push through and find your own way, you know?” Admittedly, maybe he was saying some things that he needed to hear too, although he didn’t necessarily think about it as he said it. He wanted what was best for Ji-Eun, and whether or not that included him, she needed to figure it out for herself.

12 Arnold Getting off to a rough start... 261 Arnold 0 5

Ji-Eun

September 06, 2015 8:23 AM

How about we hide our feelings deep down inside instead? by Ji-Eun

He got the thing with her mum and would never ask her to against that but it was unfair on him and she had to decide… She didn’t know how many confusing and contradictory statements she could take in one breath. If he wanted her to decide anything other than doing what her mother wanted, he clearly didn’t get it - and how could he, when she was loathe to explain the full situation to him? And unless he was asking her to just outright tell him no, he was asking her to consider going against that. And it was unfair on him. Probably, her mother’s attitude and decisions about her life did make things fairly unfair on Arnold but it was her mother deciding them - she was just the one getting caught in the middle, and having to try to please everyone, or hurt someone’s feelings. And that wasn’t fair either.

She sniffed as he confirmed she had been selfish. It was one thing to say it about herself, another to hear it from Arnold, whom she was used to holding her up on pedestal. She hadn’t liked any of this harsh truth stuff from Chloe, and found that the more the person liked her the worse it was to hear the negative sides of their opinions. It was starting to feel like everything was falling apart, even without her rejecting Arnold. What if she did and he didn’t like her any more? For all his noble sentiments about staying friends, he might see it differently if his feelings were hurt.

“How can you promise we’ll always be friends?” she asked, “What if we did go out and then broke up, and it all got horrible and angry? Outside of Purebloods, most people don’t go on to marry their high-school sweethearts. I mean, it’s not just my mum ending up hating me that I’d be putting at risk here…. What if, by the end of it, you did too? You already seem like you’re pretty upset with me.”

13 Ji-Eun How about we hide our feelings deep down inside instead? 268 Ji-Eun 0 5

Arnold

September 08, 2015 1:03 AM

That's not healthy by Arnold

Arnold didn’t realize one’s heart could break in multiple ways. He had always heard about the dramatic kind of pain that came when one’s romantic interest did not share one’s sentiments. Even when it was hard to believe in, situations and people around dictating a possibility that love wasn’t real, Arnold had accepted it. Maybe that was showing the hopeless romantic he somehow managed to be. But until now, he had not ever realized one’s heart could break on behalf of another, in sympathy regarding another person’s pain.

As Ji-Eun expressed concern that he--him, of all people--could grow to hate her, Arnold learned this new kind of heartbreak, and he learned it well. He didn’t have the mental wherewithal to feel self-conscious of his hands anymore, and he slowly connected them to hers, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing a small patch the longer he held. “Ji-Eun, I could never hate you. Ever. That’s a guarantee. You mean way too much to me. No matter what happens. I need you to know that.”

He felt so very… helpless. And confused. The Aladren had never planned this far into the conversation, mostly because he didn’t expect himself ever to actually say the things that were on his mind. He had intended to hold it in as long as possible and not press the issue. Now that he had, even though it hurt on both ends, Arnold was pretty sure he was glad about it. Suppressing wasn’t healthy. (He had learned that first hand, watched the way ignoring and removing emotions had almost destroyed his sister.) Unfortunately, sometimes, pain was good for an individual. At least, he genuinely hoped so.

12 Arnold That's not healthy 261 Arnold 0 5

Ji-Eun

September 12, 2015 3:17 AM

How about keeping secrets? by Ji-Eun

He would never hate her… Even with Arnold guaranteeing that, it still felt fragile and perilous. She’d read too many teen dramas to really believe that. People always said that, and then later, when they got hurt, it all changed. But she didn’t press the point. She knew Arnold would never believe any differently about himself. Besides, it was what she wanted to hear. To be reassured that however she acted, whatever mistakes she made from here in on, she would still be valued and wanted.

His hand felt nice, wrapping itself reassuringly around her hand. If she told him they had to be just friends, this wouldn’t happen again. She tried to imagine what it would mean, and a big, icy barrier sprang up in her mind, an image of her and Arnold cold and reserved with each other. It wasn’t nice. This was. She leant her head on Arnold’s shoulder, and that was nice too. Ji-Eun was not in love with Arnold. But she liked how him liking her made her feel. And she was not the first sixteen year old to confuse the two sensations.

“I like you too,” she told him. “I just… have to be careful. I don’t want to get into trouble.”

13 Ji-Eun How about keeping secrets? 268 Ji-Eun 0 5

Arnold

September 23, 2015 4:45 PM

I suppose ignorance <em>is</em> bliss. by Arnold

“I like you too.”

It was what he had wanted to hear, and while he might have expected it to feel less triumphant after going through so much to even get her to say it, Arnold felt an earth-shattering giddiness seep into his stomach. It flipped and turned, the butterflies he always had around her apparently mastering gymnastics in a matter of seconds. For a moment, without leaving his chair in the Sonora library, he was on top of the world.

“I just… have to be careful. I don’t want to get into trouble.”

The statement pulled Arnold back to reality, although a diluted euphoria lingered. Because yes, things would be complicated and difficult. Their relationship--if it was one--would be secretive and quiet. But to feel liked, to feel wanted, was such a rush that the Aladren rather foolishly was not concerned by it. And with her head on his shoulder, he felt like they could take on anything.

He craned his neck to gently kiss her forehead. “Okay,” he half-whispered. “It’ll be okay.” The excitement faded into a calming contentedness, and Arnold felt a soft happiness he had not known before. It was peaceful to feel something definite and real when so much of his life felt like a swirl of “maybe”s. If they never left the library, it would be too soon.

12 Arnold I suppose ignorance <em>is</em> bliss. 261 Arnold 0 5