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[8:15 AM]
With the great golden lantern rising above the horizon for the day and a chilly morning breeze accompanying it, the night bids its farewell. Jett is one of the first agents to hit the showers once the sun had hit the sky.
Sunwoo had once been in the habit of getting up early for either school or to help with the shop back home. With yawns still clawing their way from her throat and the crust of sleep still plaguing her eyes, she began her days long before the moon had yet turned in. A rushed shower no longer than 10 minutes, followed by the hurried multi-tasking of several necessary steps in her routine—drying her dampened hair with the nearest towel lying around after her wash-up, quickly speeding through the haphazard application of BB cream and lip balm, and each piece of her school’s uniform was thrown on less tidy than the last. Her shirt was rarely ironed, or she’d accidentally toss on two different colored socks, and almost never remembered to bring her gym uniform with her.
If she was lucky she would have time for a quick breakfast graciously gifted by her mother. Some mornings brought a bowl of her red bean soup or an egg sandwich with the bread somewhat charred to a delightful crunch as she threw on her sneakers and made her way to school. It was a long trip, but by the time she arrived the sun would be above the campus horizon to greet her.
As for the early hours where she helped with the shop, prepping food for the day was a tedious task that required planning and ample time to execute. She’d be busy washing vegetables, heating ovens and fryers, and sharpening kitchen knives.
She had mastered the art of finely chopping onions or focusing on mixing sauces as noodles boiled in a pot on the stove behind her. Orders of black bean noodles and stews, or bowls of the ever-popular combination of rice and fish cakes in a spicy maroon soup kept her more than occupied. This routine required an early start and developed an internal alarm clock within her that she struggled to train out once she'd joined the protocol. Thankfully by now, she’d gotten a grasp on the idea of being early to rise, but not so early that it was the God-awful hours of 4 or 5 in the morning anymore.
8 A.M. is the perfect time to start the day. It isn't so early that she wakes up exhausted and beats the sun to the sky, and it isn't so late that she has to maneuver her morning routine around everyone else trying to get through theirs. She likes the quiet too. It wasn't eerie. Quiet was welcome at a time like this, with so much on her mind.
She's got her eyes shut to better linger in the moment, muscles relaxed. When her damp hair starts to hang in her face she pushes it back and opens her eyes. She traces the cement paths between the tiles of the wall like their pattern was a puzzle, a hidden solution to her problem, because this unending daze of emotional confusion was getting annoying. And it was all his fault.
That stupid, pretty boy.
Jett is hardly the type to be hung up on a boy . There are too many other things to worry about anyways—like the whole alternate-world-stealing-their-radianite-crisis, that is a pretty big deal.
And even if she was granted the luxury of normal young adulthood, she'd likely be more pressed to party or find a place to ride her longboard which now had a longtime home under her bed, where it does nothing but gather dust.
She never thought in a million years that she’d be so strung upon him in particular. He talks too much. He can be too reckless. His ego gets him into trouble more times than either of them can count (and she, of all people in the protocol, was arguably the most well-versed in matters of ego). He has more flaws too, probably more than what was humanly possible to record. She’s sure she’s missing quite a few as she rinses out the last bubbly remains of shampoo from her hair.
And yet for every flaw he possesses, something about him remained alluring. Nothing short of it.
He has a beautiful smile and a handsome face to boot. There’s something about that sharpened jawline and those dazzling eyes that she couldn’t keep away from. His grin, as shit-eating as it is, is infectious and addictive. His sense of humor perfectly complements hers. They can make jokes that she can’t make with anyone else in the protocol—not even Raze, and that was her other closest best friend.
He’s the only person she could cry in front of. Her weakness is kept under lock and key—she swallows her fears and her sorrows so that she can be strong. So she can be flawless, especially in front of the others. She'd rather die than let them see a single tear. That was for when she was alone, or for when she was alone with him.
Last month, he rubbed her back and held her head to his chest as she wailed into his shirt in the safety of her bedroom. Both seated upon her mattress and sky blue comforter, his voice gentle and soothing where hers had grown hoarse after nearly losing Raze in a nasty engagement in Morocco.
Earlier in their protocol careers, he’d been the one to sit in the stairwell with her and listen to her ramble through tears and hitched breaths as homesickness hit her hard and the stress of their responsibilities struck her even harder. He was always there for her like that, no questions asked. Better yet, he’s never brought up her moments of weakness in front of the others.
That’s what she can’t keep her mind off of. That knife-sharp jaw, those golden suns he has for eyes, those little harmonies hidden in his laugh.
His kindness. His compassion. His surprising ability to be not only serious but empathetic and respectful -- when he wasn't busy poking fun at her. She wanted to slap him in the face every time he asked her 'How's the weather down there?' Then he'd laugh and throw his arm around her shoulder, pleased with the latest of endless reminders that she was among the shortest on the team.
He’s also the kind to swipe her fries at lunch, and to pull the all-too-popular, ‘What’s that on your shirt?,’ type of prank, only to flick her square in the nose when she looks.
Asshole. She doesn’t want to admit how many times she’s fallen for that one.
With a defeated sigh, she turns the shower handle sharply to the right. The waterfall stops. Small droplets trickle down, scarcer and scarcer until they've all slipped into the gated drain and vanished.
If only she could disappear like that, or at least let her feelings wash away that easily.
She knows what this is. She’s familiar with this song and dance, with this dilemma. Can’t escape it no matter how hard she tries. Yet in that same breath, calling the spoon a spoon is its own special challenge. Swallowing down her pride and the usual embarrassment attached to these feelings feels impossible. Even more impossible than saving the world when an exact replica of you wants you dead at every turn.
She doesn’t want to call it a crush . A crush is an immature heart-flutter of infatuation between schoolyard kids exchanging scribbled notes in class and inviting the other to sit with them at lunch. It’s getting a goofy smile across your face whenever you’re assigned to work with them. It’s punctuating texts with heart emojis and near-arguing every night to get the other to hang up the phone first. It implies her every waking moment leads to thoughts involving him. Like she loses sleep over him as if he’s always somewhere in the back of her mind.
And even if those things are true, that's not anyone's damn business but hers.
She could stay here and debate the matter with herself all day. With how early it was, how empty the room was, she could almost be convinced time was standing still for her. Maybe the day truly wouldn't progress until she decides she's ready for it to. She can sit here in the water until she was more wrinkly than a damn prune, whatever it took to help her sort out all these awful, mind-consuming feelings
Hypothetically, if it were true -- which it isn't -- if it even is a crush, so what?
What did it matter, that she likes his smile? That she gets lost in his eyes? That his laugh makes her feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside like her rib cage might burst and butterflies would come pouring out in spades? It isn't like he feels the same way. Why would he?
She’s too loud, too unorganized, too stubborn. She doesn’t like to listen. She thinks rules are only made to be broken. Every other sentence out of Brimstone's mouth is him scolding her: 'stick with the team', 'don't show off', or whatever other 'firm reminder' he could think of. It all just goes in one ear and out the other anyway. She especially hates advice that holds her back, and she goes to great lengths to ignore it. Then, if it ends up biting her in the ass, the 'I told you so's' hurt that much more.
In hindsight, she really fucking sucks.
But that’s enough self-loathing for one day. The point is, he doesn't have interest in her, so any kind of confession would just mess things up. It'd make their friendship all awkward. The jokes would stop. The beams he gets across his face the first time he sees her after a long time away would vanish. Only vague memories of being able to make him laugh would linger, and they would sting, they would keep her up at night. It would only hurt, so why would she bother saying even a single word about it?
Sure, the weight of it might be a little crushing. It might sit on her chest like cement, topped by bricks, boulders, buildings even—it might push her ribs to their limit with pressure and constant hitches of breath when he hugs her or invites her to have lunch with him. She's convinced that one day it might just all cave in, and she'd suffocate to death. If Sage truly pitied her troubled soul, she wouldn’t bother resurrecting her just to have her repeat the same fate again.
She might get dizzy when she thinks of him as if she’s stuck on a merry-go-round, spinning at over 90 miles per hour. Her stomach might tie in so many knots she’s almost sick. She can’t think straight if he’s too close. Any thoughts in her mind might dissipate if they don't tie back to him. The vaguest, slightest thought of feeling his fingers intertwined with her own or those brown lips delicately pressed to her cheek with a hum made her feel like she’d just burn up from the inside out. His flames were awfully contagious. She wonders if they make extinguishers for this kind of fire, and if they did, how quickly she could get her hands on one. She needs it. Desperately.
Though a tired sigh slipped free from her lips and her mind was hardly ready to let the topic go, she’s forced to cut her pity party short when other voices start to break through her thoughts. Chatter, she realizes, between what sounds like Killjoy and Raze now. It’s becoming late enough in the morning that her companions were here to start their own routines, and if she didn’t want to end up tangled in theirs, then she should probably get to moving on.
Yanking that white-as-snow towel off its hook, she huffs under her breath. Damn it. Hardly ever a moment to herself.
She'll have to leave it be for now. Tomorrow morning, when she's alone with the cement walls and the polished tiles, then she can start the great debate again.