Page 43 of A World Apart (Between Worlds #1)

He squinted at me, and it could have either been because of the bright day, or he was trying to figure out if I was taking the piss, but I had a real fondness for ink.

I always planned on getting more, I even booked an appointment for the summer after I graduated, but then LA happened and well, I never got round to it.

“Oh, I’m Kaiya, by the way,” I held out my hand, smiling just as brightly as the mid-morning sun.

“Albert.” He took my hand with surprising gentleness and lightly squeezed it.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Albert.” I nodded at him, still smiling.

Albert looked over at Jihoon, who had been casually flicking through the folders of custom and flash work on the table. Jihoon, sensing eyes on him, didn’t miss a beat and held out his hand.

“Joon,” he offered, “nice to meet you, sir.”

Some folks who looked like Albert might have looked for the hidden insult at being addressed as ‘sir,’ but given Jihoon’s utterly earnest delivery, it was clear it was sincere. Albert eyed us both speculatively.

“Y’know, we do this thing these days, where we can print custom, temporary tattoos so you can see how you feel about it on your skin before you have to live with it for life. You interested? I got a few minutes spare.”

I turned to Jihoon to see what he thought. He raised his eyebrows at me, an interested gleam in his eye. He cocked his head to the side in a half-shrug, his mouth pursed as if to say, ‘why not?’

I turned back around to Albert and said, “That would be awesome!”

“Yeah, well alright then,” he groused, “why don’t you kids let me get something drawn up for you, and you head back here in a little bit and we’ll see how you like it.”

“You’ll pick something for us?” I asked, surprised.

“Sweetheart, that’s what I do.” Albert raised one bushy eyebrow, the northern neighbour to that majestic mouth canopy.

“Albert,” I said very seriously. “I trust you.”

He hacked out a laugh and waved us away.

“What do you think he’s going to draw for you?” Jihoon asked when we were far enough away not to be overheard.

I pretended to give the question some real thought, before suggesting, “The Union Flag.” For a moment, Jihoon stared at me, and even through his mirrored sunglasses, I could tell he was trying not to react, which just made me laugh.

“Yeah, I have no idea. I guess we’ll take what he wants to give us.” I shrugged, feeling as carefree today as I’d ever felt.

“What about you?”

“By your guess, probably the Korean flag,” he said dryly, making me laugh again, and I automatically reached for his hand only for him to pull away at the last second. He tried to cover it up by reaching up to run his hand through his hair.

My laughter dried in my throat, and I turned away, trying to pretend not to have noticed. I knew no handholding was a rule and I was even completely on board with the why of it.

So why did that sting so bad?

I tried hard to push down the intrusive thoughts, the ones that reminded me this was what our future looked like ? always pretending we weren’t a thing. The pretence was so convincing that even I wasn’t sure anymore: were we something real or was I just a good time?

I hated the rule, but even more, I hated that I understood it.

But most of all, I hated not knowing what we were.

I cleared my throat to cover the sudden cloud of awkwardness that had settled between us .

“Look,” Jihoon suddenly pointed to a porta-cabin style pop-up that was decorated in hand-drawn portraits in various different styles, from Picasso to Renaissance. The words ‘Photo Booths’ were lit up in neon tubes, even though the day was bright.

“You want to go in?” I nodded my head to indicate the small, boxy building just as a smiling couple walked out, hand-in-hand, clutching a long roll of photos. My stomach clenched, just ever so slightly at the sight of the happy pair.

“Yes, come on.” He headed over and I followed.

Inside the doors, the cabin was small ? about the same size as the apartment I shared with Becka ? with several, differently coloured and themed photobooths.

One was very obviously occupied, if the giggles and scuffling feet under the burgundy curtain across the door was anything to go by.

We gave that one a wide berth and looked over the other machines as we passed.

Musical booths, black and white portraits, old timey booths, one that I think made you look like cartoons, and then finally the last one ? a normal yellow and black Kodak machine.

Jihoon pulled me inside, and it didn’t escape my attention that he looked over my shoulder beforehand.

The booth was predictably small with only one small, flat disc passing itself off as a seat.

Jihoon sat and then, with his hands securely wrapped around my hips, he pulled me down so that I was perched on him, and in that moment, all thoughts of hand-holding, or not, were erased to make room for the way he felt so close to me, surrounding me in every possible way.

The booth was lit only by the screen, cheerfully asking us to make a selection, but all I saw was his eyes, his sunglasses pushed up onto his head.

His eyes seemed to glow in the dim light, pupils so dark and wide they almost swallowed his irises.

“Hello!” chirped a mechanical voice, startling us both, “please make your selection.”

Jihoon chuckled, his eyes crinkling slightly.

“Allow me,” I offered, pulling some change out of my pocket and feeding the machine, selecting a standard 4-frame.

“Get ready!” the mechanical voice warned, the screen flashing a countdown from 5.

Jihoon and I turned to the camera and smiled before the flash went off .

“Holy hell,” I muttered, “that is hella bright.”

Jihoon chuckled but then the countdown started again and in that near-panic of indecision, we both ended up sticking our tongues out, half-laughing when we realised we’d done the same thing. I was a little more prepared for the flash this time and didn’t look directly at it.

When the countdown began again, I impulsively turned to face Jihoon and pressed my lips against his cheek.

The flash went off, but my eyes were closed.

Jihoon turned his face so that my lips traced the contour of his cheek before finding his mouth.

I sighed as his lips parted. I reached a hand up to cup his face, lost in the feel of his skin, stubble rough against my palm.

Jihoon’s hands tightened around my hips, pulling me harder against him as he deepened the kiss.

“Please collect your photographs and have a great day!” the mechanical voice politely telling us to leave was somehow hilarious to me in that moment, and I broke away from him, giggling, the opposite to Jihoon, who was grumbling.

Carefully, I eased myself off of Jihoon’s lap and opened the curtain to exit the booth. The photos were waiting in the tray and I picked them up, scanning the images.

I grinned at seeing the silly faces we had attempted to pull after our first, slightly awkward photo. The third and fourth photos made my cheeks heat, and I wordlessly handed the strip to Jihoon as he exited.

He took them from me and looked them over, his mouth curling up as his eyes darted across the photos before he put them in his back pocket.

The sunlight outside the small cabin of photobooths seemed brighter as we pushed aside the bead curtain, and I hastily pulled my sunglasses back down, noting Jihoon had already done the same.

We wandered further up the market, looking but not stopping. I did pause at one woman’s stall, though. She was selling hand-made jewellery that she and her husband made. He metal-worked and she designed, and it was clear they were in it for the love, both theirs and of the process.

Though she talked to me, she never lost contact with her husband, they were always either sweeping a carefree hand across each other, or looking at each other.

It was kind of nice. I know some people don’t like public displays of affection, but having grown up around my parents constantly proving how much they loved each other, I found it peaceful to be surrounded by reciprocated love.

I cooed over the delicate pieces of silver and onyx, the bands of hammered metal and stones, but I guess I gave off that air of ‘young and broke,’ so the couple hadn’t seriously tried to sell me anything and had just been content to make small talk with me, until an older woman had paused to look, and they’d moved away to see to her.

We next stopped at a food truck to get a couple of coffees and a soft, doughy pretzel; which we shared.

I think we were both just content to walk and look around until we seemed to be approaching the end of the market where fewer and fewer actual stalls were and more vans were parked with the names of various businesses on their sides, so without needing to say it, we each turned back around and began to head the way we’d come.

About an hour had passed since we’d first come upon Albert’s tattoo stall, and I was surprised to see another man there now, equally as inked up but far less follicly-blessed than Albert.

The man was sat on a stool in the back, hunched over the back of another man, in the process of tattooing him, although I could not see the design.

“I’ll be right back; I wanted to see something,” Jihoon muttered to me, before darting off and back into the crowd, slightly busier now that the morning was turning into afternoon.

Just then, Albert emerged from somewhere behind a dusty curtain at the back of the stall, holding an A4 sized envelope.

“Just in time,” he groused, heading towards me. He handed me the envelope, but then put his hand on the opening just as I’d been about to open it to look.

“Open it when you get home, that way I don’t have to hear you bitchin’ about it, if you don’t like it.”

I snorted, but closed the flap all the same. “Alright, Albert, keep your secrets. What do I owe you? ”

“Call it an even $20 and promise not to post about it on your social media bull crap.”

“Goddamnit, Al,” moaned the heavily tattooed artist, lifting the needle from the prone man’s back. “This is the opposite of publicity; we’ve talked about this.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn,” Albert intoned, “it’s my shop, I’ll advertise how I want, and I don’t want some pasty-skinned punks seeing some of my work on the Internet and getting the idea to come see me.

“If folks want a tattoo, they’d look me up in the yellow pages, or come find me here, like normal people.”

I hid my smile at the outburst of this curmudgeonly, hairy, walking canvas of ink.

“See? The kid agrees with me,” Albert said, pointing one thick finger at me. I held my hands up in mock surrender.

“Don’t bring me into this, I’m just an innocent bystander.”

“Al, I swear to God…” the other tattoo artist trailed off into incoherent, dark mutterings as he resumed his work on the man lying face-down.

“Look, there’s instructions in the packet, it’s easy, you can’t go wrong. And if anyone asks where you got ‘em, just tell ‘em the old-fashioned way. We ain’t got no website?”

“Yes, the fuck we do!” interrupted the other artist. This was the most bizarre exchange I think I’d ever been privy to. Just then, I saw Jihoon heading back towards me, weaving his way through the stream of people heading in the opposite direction.

“I’ll be sure to give them your name and street address,” I reassured Albert, who nodded his thanks at me.

“You do that, kid. Enjoy the ink.”

I thanked him as Jihoon reached my side, but Albert just waved us off and disappeared back round that dusty curtain, like some sort of magician that only came out to begrudgingly read peoples fortunes.

“Everything ok?” I turned to Jihoon, who just nodded.

“Shall we head back?” he asked, and I agreed and together we walked the few streets back to our temporary home for the weekend.

No, I mentally corrected myself, for the next 18 hours.