The Violin and the Flute

The remainder of the trip was spent listening to all of my SuJu M songs. I wanted to be familiar with their voices. Somewhere between Me and a repeat of Blue Tomorrow I fell asleep because the next thing I know Mimi is shaking my shoulder telling me to take off my head phones. I blinked a few times before my brain really registered what was going on. When all my brain hamsters were up and running, I stood up and pulled my small messenger bag over my head.
I didn’t bother to take my head phones off. I turned the volume down a little though. “U” was playing now and I was very tempted to start dancing, but I resisted. I took my time looking around the “resort” we were staying at. It wasn’t like any resort I’ve ever been too. It looked more like a mansion on a farm. There was a—I don’t want to say huge, but it wasn’t small—large house-like building in front of us.
From what I could see, it was in front of a forest. There was another building to my right that looked almost like a barn or some sort of storage building. On the left of the house was another house like building, but this one was smaller. A lot smaller. It looked like only 1 maybe 3 people could live there. It was more of a garage. On the other side of that building was, wow. There was a cemetery across the street. Oh no, scary! No, I don’t think so. Personally I love cemeteries. I know it sounds creepy, but I love looking at all the names and pretending to talk to them. It’s also normally very quiet, so it’s a great place to think and wonder around.
“Hey, Rini. Oi. Earth to Cat. Turn your music down.” I turned to face Mommy. I smiled sweetly at her and waited for her to speak. She sighed at me, but chuckled a bit at my face. “Alright,” she said getting serious again. “The guys are going to be here in about an hour, this give us time to familiarize ourselves with the area.” I feel like a ninja. “Familiarize myself with the area.” I’m funny.
“First things first, let’s get our stuff into our rooms. The owner lives in the-” she paused as though she was trying to think of the right word. “Smaller house. Along with the driver. By the way, thank you so much for driving us out here-Jongmin?” the guy that I just now noticed was standing by the bus smiled and bow/nodded slightly. I raised my hand like I was at school-just to be funny. Mommy smiled jokingly and “picked me”.
“Can I go explore the cemetery?” Suzie groaned. I turned to her with a questionable look.
“Obviously you would want to go to the cemetery first. I don’t know why you like them so much. They’ve got dead people in the ground. I’d rather chat on facebook if it’s alright with you. In fact, that’s what I will be doing now. Bu-bye.” She half waved, then grabbed her 3 bags from the bus. Why she needed 3 bags I do not know. I have all my stuff in my one duffle bag. It’s black with cute little purple music notes sewn to it. Mimi giggled quietly, while Mommy half glared at Suzie for interrupting. She didn’t raise her hand. Bad Suzie bad. I smiled at the scene and waited for my answer.
“oh, right yes. Sure you can, just put your bag in your room first. Speaking of which, the owner, as I said, lives right next door and said he was going to be helping us set-”
“AAAAAAAAAAH!” Mommy was cut off by a shriek. I whipped my head around to see Suzie run out of the house. When did she go inside anyway? Unimportant right now. What is important is why did she scream?
“Chan, what’s wrong? What happened?” Mommy asked frantically. Suzie was panting while trying to clam herself down. She wasn’t doing very well so I helped. I wacked her arm. She cried out and grabbed it.
“Rini! What was that for?” I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Are you going to tell us what happened or not?” she blinked before she took a few more breathes. She turned to stare at the house. Then pointed to the door.
“There’s a ghost in there!” all three of us blinked at her. A ghost? In the house? COOL! I grinned and started walking towards the front door. “Gah! Rini! What do you think you’re doing!?!” Suzie shrieked as she grabbed me and pulled me back. I looked up at her and pouted.
“I wanna see the ghost.” I said blankly. I could see Mimi was frowning at our behavior. She looked at the house, then back at Mommy who shared a look with her.
“Now Chan, do you think maybe you saw wrong?” Suzie released me and whipped around to stare appalled at Mommy. I noticed Jongmin, the bus driver, was trying not to laugh at us. I raised an eye brow in question.
“Sang-hee! How can you think I would lie! I know what I saw! It was a ghost! You can go look and see for yourself! It was…in the…” she faded off as she heard chuckling that quickly turned into a chortle that then turned in to a full cackle. She turned around to see Jongmin, the bus driver, literally “laughing his ass off.” I grinned at his laughter and was tempted to laugh as well, but didn’t. Suzie was glaring at him as though she wanted to kill him, which, knowing her, she was probably already planning how to hide the body. “what’s so funny?” she hissed out. The poor guy took a full 3 minutes before he could stop laughing. He whipped his eyes and grinned at us.
“The “ghost” I think you are talking about is my uncle. Dongmin. The owner you were talking about earlier. He’s old, so he probably looks like a ghost to someone who had never met him before.” I held back my laugh as Mimi and Mommy chuckled a bit at Suzie’s airheaded-ness. Jongmin smiled kindly in understanding. “It’s alright, but we better go make sure he didn’t have a heart attack.” I like this guy already. I grinned as he walked past me and bounded up next to him. He sent me a side smile and I returned it. We walked up the 3 steps onto the medium sized porch. He held the door open for me like a gentleman.
“Thank you.” I smiled up at him again. I turned my attention to the house. The den was huge! Well not huge, but it was big enough to fit at least 30 people comfortable. It was decorated very nicely. It almost looked like a hotel, but without the reception desk. I saw Suzie’s bags lying on the floor to my left. In the doorway behind them was a tall pale figure. He wore a light gray suit and was staring at the bags as though they had moved and he was trying to catch them moving again. I grinned at him and cleared my throat. His head shot up, and then he winced. I giggled at his old man-ness.
“Reun-sshi, this is my uncle Dongmin.” Jongmin’s voice made me turn to him and nod, then smile back at Dongmin. I turned back to Jongmin after a minute.
“You know you can call me Rini.” He returned my smile and nodded. The old man before me blinked before he smiled at me and suddenly gained about 50 years of life energy back.
“OH! Well! Forgive my lack of manners! Welcome, welcome. I’m terribly sorry, but it appears that your friend is much more frightful than you are I see.” He smiled at me with that old man twinkle in his eye. I grinned back and nodded. He cleared his throat as the others entered. Suzie was very tense, but the other two only seemed mildly more alert that usual. When Mommy spotted Dongmin she paused before bursting into laughter. I continued to grin as I saw Mimi had mimicked Mommy and was also cackling away. Suzie fumed at them, completely ignoring the fact that the “ghost” was standing right in front of her.
“Stop laughing. It’s not my fault he looks so scary.” The laughter died down quickly. I raised an eye brow at her. We all shared a look before we turned to gaze at Dongmin. He simply smiled at us kindly, but somehow energetically. I was very confused by this. Old man + hyper=…something broken? Oh well. His shoulders shook gently as he chuckled a bit himself. I continued smiling while the rest all looked confused.
“It’s quite alright. I do hope I didn’t scare you too much. I would hate for you to not enjoy this chance to stay in this house. So I do, formally welcome you to my home. I am Dongmin, and I am the owner as you know. I will be living in the side house with my two nephews who are helping to bring yourselves and our other guests.” I blinked at his hotel-register voice. I noticed that the other girls were mildly miffed as well. Dongmin clasped his hands together in a dismissive fashion. “Well then, I can assume that you are all quite tired from your journey? Jongmin, why don’t you help these young ladies with their bags and I will make arrangements for dinner.-eh, oh. Yes?” I had raised my hand again.
“Mommy said I could go walk around the cemetery.” I said in a sweet child like voice. He blinked and smiled, and then nodded in understanding. He turned to Jongmin.
“You can bring her things to her room, yes?” Jongmin nodded and took my bag from me while still holding one of Suzie’s bags. Mimi gave me a see-you-later wave, while Suzie was too busy trying to carry her remaining 2 bags. Mommy was holding one of her bags while a slightly larger one rested beside her. She was giving me a warning stare. I smiled innocently.
“Rini. Now listen. Don’t destroy anything. Don’t follow anyone. And be back in one hour. Can I trust you to do that?” I grinned widely and nodded frantically before rushing out the door. I’ll bet she sighed when I left. Oh how I love being me.