Episode 9: You Won't Forget

Development: Summer continued

            Jay rolled his eyes. Sitting on the beach was supposed to be relaxing, but it made him feel quite agitated as he tried not to watch the two shameless love birds running and splashing each other on the beach.

"No, stop it!" Isabelle laughed playfully as LOQ picked her up off her feet and swung her in a circle.

Jay scoffed and turned his head the other way,

"Shameless..." he muttered under his breath.

"What's wrong?" Da-ge¹ asked, as he applied sunscreen. Lao Hu answered instead,

"Can't you see he's jealous?" He laughed, "And what are you doing putting on so much sunscreen? Do you have baby skin or something?" He snatched the bottle of sunscreen from Da-ge.

"Hey! I have to maintain this complexion!" He whined, snatching it back.

"Yeah, Hu-dee², leave him alone. He needs all the help on his face that he can get." said Taiyo, who was spread out on his towel, thoroughly enjoying the sun. Everyone burst out in laughter at what he said. Except Da-ge.

"Hey! I'm the oldest here! Show me some respect!" Da-ge whined, his eyes crinkling into little slits as he frowned. "Hmph! You guys are always so mean to me. I can't take it anymore." He whined as he continued to rub sunscreen on his face.

"Hey look at that." Lao Hu was smiling and making eyes at Karin who was sitting a little ways away. Karin smiled back, and flipped her golden hair over her shoulder before turning around to look back at the ocean. Lao Hu chuckled quietly.

"Don't you think you have enough women to keep you company? How many girlfriends do you have as of today?" Jay scolded him.

"Hey! You're just jealous. We all see how you've been looking at Isabelle and Li Qiang over there." Lao Hu defended himself.

"Leave Isabelle and LOQ³ out of it." Jay threw back, glaring across the way at the two now splashing around in the water.

"Why do you always call Li Qiang by his stage name?" Da-ge asked, finally finished applying sunscreen.

"Yeah, we all call him Li Qiang. Why do you call him LOQ?" Taiyo lifted up his sunglasses, curious about this too. Jay rolled his eyes,

"I just don't like the guy ok?"

"Why?"

"I just don't! I don't feel comfortable around him." Jay scratched the back of his head in frustration.

"We all like him..." Lao Hu started. Then Isabelle let out a loud laugh and squeal as LOQ tickled her, interrupting the conversation. Jay scratched the back of his head furiously again, springing to his feet this time, unable to take it anymore.

"I'm leaving." He started off in the direction of the beach house, trying to drown out the sound of Isabelle and LOQ's laughter and squeals.

He slammed the door of the beach house behind him and went to sit down at the kitchen table. Head in his hands, he kept replaying the scene from a couple nights ago in his mind. He remembered the dragon tattoo so clearly. The following day he saw that the tattoo on her arm was gone, covered with makeup. Isabelle caught him staring at her arm, and immediately stood up from her breakfast and left. She had been avoiding him ever since. Jay slammed his fist down on the wooden table with a frustrated shout.

"Gah! Why am I constantly thinking about this?!" He scratched the back of his head again, ruffling up his platinum blond hair, the black roots starting to show more and more.  "There's no way Isabelle is Fenghuang." He said to himself. "Isabelle's too...too..." He flashbacked to the night in the rain when she had pushed him into the water. He remembered being pushed back and forth by the waves, holding Isabelle close to him in the cold water, looking into her eyes as they burst out into laughter. He snapped out of his day dream as he heard  footsteps walking up to the beach house.

"Karin, what's so important that you can't say in front of Li Qiang?" Isabelle's voice came from right outside.  Jay jumped up from the table, and dashed into the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind him, then leaning his ear against it to hear the conversation.

The front door opened and closed and the footsteps stopped in the kitchen, right in front of the bathroom Jay hid in.

"Izabelle, " Karin started, "Do not get too close to ze Li Qiang."  She said firmly. Isabelle was silent for a moment.

"What? Why?!" She asked exasperated.

"He iz too strange." She tried to explain.

"Strange? How?! I know you guys don't like any of the rock musicians, but I think they're fine!" Isabelle said, raising her voice. Karin raised her voice to match hers,

"Zat is not vat I mean! I mean I can see the real person, not vat zey pretend to be." She struggled to explain.

"Oh really?" Isabelle asked sarcastically, "Well then tell me, what do you see in Li Qiang? What do you see in all of them? What are they hiding?"

"Zat one zey call Da-ge pretends to be confident, but he iz ze big baby. Ze Taiyo he pretend he doez not care about anyzing, but he vorries a lot. Ze Lao Hu iz zo smooth, but he iz really a player. And Li Qiang, he haz ze tattoo and look very cool, but he is trouble!" Karin explained frantically.

Hearing this in the bathroom, Jay almost laughed, but caught himself. "So true..." he thought.

"How is a tattoo a bad thing?!" Isabelle argued.

"We are ze classical musician. Have you seen any with ze tattoo? It iz ze thing all ze gangster does!"  This made Isabelle silent. She took a deep breath and asked,

"You didn't mention Jay." She paused again, "What do you think of him?"

"Jay..." Karin thought, "He iz liking you." There was a moment's pause and Isabelle burst out laughing,

"Hahaha. You're kidding right? He's so rude! Plus, he never takes his shirt off at the beach when all the other guys do. I'm pretty sure that he's hiding a tattoo too."  Karin made a sound of agreement, and Isabelle assured her,

"Nothing serious is happening with Li Qiang. Don't worry, ok? Let's go back."

Jay heard the two open the door and walk out of the house. He slowly opened the bathroom door and walked back into the kitchen.

"So that's why she hides it."  He said to himself, visualizing Isabelle's now tattoo-less arm.  Then he heard Karin's words in his head again. "I...I like Isabelle?" He asked himself. "Hahaha no..no..no...how in the world did she come to that conclusion?" He laughed it off, and started walking upstairs to his room. But as he took each step up the staircase, a strange feeling started growing in his chest. The feeling that Isabelle just might be Fenghuang. The feeling that Fenghuang just might mean more to him than he could imagine.

___

Jay sat at the dinner table. Quietly eating his rice while everyone else crowded around the table shouting, laughing, and joking. He stole long glances at Isabelle whenever he could, trying to think of a way to prove once and for all who she was. Suddenly he had an idea.

"Hey, Da-ge!" Jay shouted across the table at Da-ge who sat on the left side of Isabelle (LOQ sitting on the right).

"Yeah?" He mumbled, mouth stuffed with food.

"You remember that one classical pianist...what was her name...Yang Chun Hwa?"

Da-ge stopped chewing and looked up at Jay, speechless. Lao Hu and Taiyo silenced too, looking at Jay with the most serious, chilling look. LOQ, and the classical musicians were the only ones still eating. But the silence spread and they stopped as well. Jay furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at Isabelle who was the first to stop eating. She sat still, looking down at her food. Da-ge finally snapped to his sense and shook his head violently,

"No! I haven't heard of her!" He then proceeded to stuff his face with food. Others started slowly eating again. Lao Hu glared at Jay, sending several threatening words telepathically before eating again.

"Isn't Yang Chun Hwa that famous pianist that died of an aneurism ten years ago?" Hendrick asked Raj quietly, (he had only heard the name Jay said, not understanding the rest of the Chinese). Raj simply shrugged and kept eating, not having understood anything. Isabelle's eyes flicked over to glare at Hendrick for a split second, but Jay, who was staring intently at her, caught it.

"How about you, Isabelle?"  He asked in a calm, eager voice. She jumped a little in her seat.

"Huh? What? Oh...I..." She looked up at Jay, dark eyes piercing his, giving away that she was angry, "I haven't heard of her either."   She said in a forced tone, then gave Jay one last glare and went back to eating.

"Ah...I see." Jay smiled a little and let out an exaggerated sigh, "You just kind of look like her, so it reminded me." This time he didn't have to wait for a reaction. There was a loud thud as Isabelle slammed her chopsticks on the table. Everyone ceased to eat once again, eyes on her.

"Really?" Isabelle said calmly, but her eyes grew hot as they threw daggers at Jay across the table. "Well, I haven't heard of her." With that she stood up and took her bowl of unfinished food and her chopsticks, "I'm full now." She slammed the bowl down on the countertop next to the sink and stormed out of the kitchen.

"What was that about?" Hendrick asked, not having understood anything that just happened. Lao Hu, Da ge, and Taiyo all glared furiously at Jay. LOQ only looked confused at himself, sniffing his underarms, thinking it was him who drove Isabelle off. Jay, seeing this, rolled his eyes and slouched back in his chair. The entire kitchen was quiet for the rest of the time, and one by one, everyone silently excused themselves from the table. Finally, Jay and Lao Hu were the only ones left. Once Lao Hu made sure everyone was gone, he whipped around and grabbed Jay's shirt collar.

"What the hell was that?"

Jay stared right back into Lao Hu's glare, grabbed the hand that was pulling his shirt, and pulled it off, throwing it to the side.

"What are you overreacting for?!" Jay shouted back.

"Overreacting?!" Lao Hu scoffed in disbelief. "Have you forgotten who we are? What happened to us?! Why we have to keep quiet?"

Jay flashbacked to his memory of confronting his father about quitting classical music and how his two friends, Dasun and Song Lin did the same. He grimaced as he recalled how their parents had disowned them and forced them to change their names so that they would not be able to be traced back to their parents as they pursued rock music and "tainted their family name".

"I know. But that's not what's important right now." Jay took a deep breath. "Isabelle...it's her. Fenghuang. I had to make sure." 

Lao Hu was silent. He took a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling, taking in what he just heard. He started in a more calming tone,

"Look, I know you miss her the most out of all of us, but you can't just go assuming..." Jay cut him off before he could finish,

"I'm not assuming anything!" It was Jay's turn to be angry. "You saw how she reacted when I mentioned her mother's name and that she looks like her!"

"But she denied even knowing her!" Lao Hu shouted back. "What reason would she have to hide that?!"

"She's competing with four other classical musicians for a chance at fame and fortune! You think she's just going to go around advertising that her mother was a famous pianist who died when her career had just started to kickoff?"

Lao Hu sighed, running his hand through his short buzzed hair. "Fine. Say it's really her..."

"It is!"

"Ok, ok, it is. Now that you've found that out, what are you going to do about it? Tell her? Pick up where you two left off twelve years ago? Become best friends? Times have changed, people have changed. What can you do?" Lao Hu was right. Jay looked down at the floor." It's true. What would I do? If she knew, what would change?" He thought. Maybe they would talk more, maybe there would be a little less animosity? But in the end, they were both pursuing different careers, careers that because of the stereotypes and prejudices, would never allow them to have the same relationship they did as kids.

"See? I'm right aren't I?" Lao Hu put a hand on Jay's shoulder. "She must have a reason for keeping her past secret. Let's not go stir stuff up and cause trouble. It'll get us nowhere."

Jay nodded. He took a step closer to Lao Hu and grabbed him in a hug. "Forget about her." Lao Hu smiled and roughly hugged him back.

"Let's make some music!" Jay exclaimed eagerly, wanting to forget all that had happened. Lao Hu shouted in agreement and they ran out of the kitchen, skipping steps up the stairs to find the others.

As Jay ran up the stairs, he thought of what he just told Lao Hu, " Forget about her." But as he felt his heart pounding from running up the stairs, he felt a twinge with each beat. A twinge that told him, "you won't forget."

Notes:

1 "ge" is a term for older brother/friend attached to one's name to show respect and familiarity

2 "dee" is the same, but for a younger brother/friend .

3 "LOQ" is pronounced "lock"