Sulli and Luna were shocked to see a crying Krystal walking in through the main door of their rented apartment while Gong Myung followed from behind with a puzzled look. Both of them quickly jumped from their seats on the couch and hurried towards Krystal, who cried even louder when they asked her what had happened. Getting no answer from their friend, they turned their attention to the guy behind.

"Yah!! What did you do to her? Why is she crying?" Sulli started questioning him with glaring eyes

"I didn't do anything. I did the usual thing that I had done for the past one week. Just like what we had planned to do. Except that today, she seemed to have met someone while we were on our way out from campus."

"Met someone? Who?" Luna quickly asked.

"I think she mentioned someone by the name of Yunji? Or was it Eunji? Eunjin?" Gong Myung tilted his head, trying to remember the name that he had heard earlier.

"Mwo?!!!"

Both Sulli and Luna screamed at him, shocking the poor boy before the two girls turned their heads to face Krystal, who was already seated at the couch. She was staring blankly at the bouquet of flowers in her hand, without saying anything.

"Are you sure she said Eunjin?" Luna turned to Gong Myung to confirm as he slowly nodded his head. "That's Krystal's girlfriend."

"Her girlfriend? Oh ." Gong Myung finally realised the reason for Krystal's tears. "She must have misunderstood the whole thing. I should have asked her name when I bumped into her earlier."

Gong Myung's last remarks got everyone's attention including Krystal as he explained how he had accidentally bumped into Eunjin when he was rushing to reach Krystal's building.

"I even showed her the way, which means she would have seen everything from the time I waved at Krystal to the time we held hands." Gong Myung bit his lips feeling guilty since he was the one who had suggested for them to hold hands.

"Hold hands? You are only suppose to pretend to be interested in Krystal and be nice to her. Not pretend as if both of you are a couple." Luna's raised voice caused Gong Myung to wince . "I'm going to tell Hye Sung about this." 

"Yah, yah, yah... Andwae. She's going to kill me if she knows about this."

"Her cousin sister will kill you too if she finds out about what we had been doing all this while. You should know how scary Sica-unnie is." Sulli commented causing Gong Myung to let out a sigh.

"It's all my fault. If I didn't agree to this plan, this thing would not have happened and Eunjin would not have misunderstood the whole situation." Krystal finally voiced out her concern as everyone gathered around the living room. "I've been trying to get through to her phone but it's switched off."

"Do you think she flew here because of the argument that you had a few days ago?" Sulli asked as Krystal shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh god, don't tell me she's here to celebrate your birthday with you next week? Didn't you tell us that your family will only arrive the day after your birthday? Maybe they knew Eunjin had planned to celebrate it with you."

"My birthday? Oh no. I've almost forgotten about that. What day is today?" Krystal asked the girls as they answered her. "It's her parent's death anniversary. She must have flown here after paying her respect to them. Oh my god. She must be feeling super depressed right now. What have I done?" Krystal started to cry again as Sulli and Luna tried to console her. "All I wanted to do was to get Jongin off my back but everything had backfired on me now."

"Nobody expect this to happen, Krystal. We should try our best to find Eunjin now and explain everything to her. I'm sure she will understand." Gong Myung gave his opinion as Krystal continued to shake her head, saying that it's impossible since Eunjin's phone was switched off. "We have no choice but to contact your sister and explained everything to her. Maybe she will know where Eunjin is staying at the moment."

(Flashback last month)

"Yah, Jung Hye Sung. Why didn't you inform me that your fiancee is here in New York for a job attachment?" Krystal nagged at her cousin while Gong Myung just smiled at their interaction. "Do you know how shocked I was when he appeared in front of my apartment? I almost couldn't recognised him until he introduced himself."

"Here's your drink." Luna arrived at the living room with a glass of water as she handed it over to Gong Myung before sitting down beside Sulli.

"Arraseo. I'll talk to you another time then." Krystal ended the phone call and handed back Gong Myung's handphone to him.  "How long will you be here, anyway?"

"Maybe two to three months? Depending on what the management decides on." He answered before taking a sip from his drink.

"Let me introduce you to my friends. This is Sulli and Luna. Both of them are studying at the same university as me but taking different majors. We've been friends since we were freshmen in Seoul." Both girls shook their hands with Gong Myung after Krystal's introduction. "Do you girls remember my baby cousin Hye Sung, whom I would mention once in a while? This is Gong Myung, her fiancee."

"You mean your cousin, whom you said got engaged to her high school sweetheart?" Luna asked as Krystal nodded her head.

"That means all of us are of the same age, right?" Sulli asked as Krystal continued to nod her head. 

They continued chatting away but was disrupted a few times by the constant vibration of Krystal's phone. Gong Myung noticed that every time that happened, Krystal would look at the phone screen and just ignore it as she continued to join in the conversations.

A week later, the girls had a meet-up with Gong Myung just to hang out when he noticed once again the constant vibration of Krystal's phone and how she kept ignoring it. Being curious, he asked her about it.

"Just someone from school who likes to irritate me all the time." Krystal answered before Luna asked if it was Jongin who had been messaging her.

"Who's Jongin?" Gong Myung asked.

"Her secret admirer, who couldn't accept the fact that Krystal is already in a relationship with someone else and not interested in him. He had even met Krystal's girlfriend before." Sulli answered on behalf of Krystal.

"Has he been consistently bugging you?" Gong Myung asked as Krystal explained that both of them are classmates and there was no way for her to avoid him, especially since now that they were grouped together for their team assignment.

"Now that we're working together on the same assignment, he's becoming more irritating by the day." Krystal replied with a sigh.

"He kept telling Krystal that her girlfriend was cheating behind her back because of a stupid article that came out a few weeks back." Sulli added on before explaining everything to Gong Myung. 

A few days later, Gong Myung went to visit the girls at their apartment with some Kimchi that his mother had sent over to him. Since it was a lot for a single person to finish up, he decided to share some with the girls. When he arrived, Krystal was staring solemnly at the blank screen of the TV in the living room.

"What happened to Krystal?" He asked Luna when he followed the girl to the kitchen to place the kimchi into the fridge.

"Women's problem." Luna replied as Gong Myung understood that Krystal was on her menses. "She's also feeling bad for snapping at her girlfriend last night after Jongin irritated the hell out of her during class yesterday."

"Wow... That guy is surely one hell of trouble, isn't he?" Gong Myung said as Luna nodded her head. "Should we do something to help Krystal out?"

(End of flashbacks)

************************

The ringing sound of the phone echoed throughout the room as Yuri stretched out her hand to grab the gadget from the side table of the bed.

"Sicababy, it's your sister." Yuri shouted towards the bathroom. "Do you want me to answer it for you?"

"Yes, dear. I'm putting on my facial mask at the moment."

After Yuri heard Jessica's reply, she swiped her finger across the phone and answered the call.

"Hi Krystal, this is Yuri-unnie. Your sister....."

"Yuri-unnie......"

Yuri was surprised when she heard Krystal crying on the other line as she started to panic. She couldn't make out what her sister-in-law was saying so she decided to bring the phone to the bathroom before pressing the speaker button.

"I...I didn't mean.. to... hurt her... in anyway..." Krystal's choked voice with her sobs in between caused Jessica'e eyes to widen. "I couldn't... call her... at all. Her phone.. is switched... off. Yuri-unnie, what should I do?"

"Yah, Jung Soojung. Stop crying and clear your nose. Once you have calmed down, called me back and explained everything clearly to me. Do you hear me?" Jessica's voice was firm as the phone line went dead quickly.

"What's with the fierce tone of voice? Your sister is crying and needed our help. She might not call back if you're scolding her." Yuri looked at her wife with a puzzled look.

"Don't worry. I know my sister well. She will call back. She knows that I need to understand the whole situation well before I could help her." Jessica replied as she took her phone and pulled Yuri out from the bathroom.

Both of them decided to lie down on the bed and tried to guess the reason for Krystal's sudden call. 10mins later, Jessica's phone rang again as Krystal's name flashed across the phone screen.

Yuri's POV

Krystal was much more calm when she called back the second time. When Jessica tapped on the speaker phone, the first thing Krystal did was to ask for our patience in listening to everything that she was going to say before we were allowed to say or ask her anything.

Both me and Jessica agreed to her request so Krystal started explaining about something that happened a month ago. 30mins into her explanation, we finally understood why she had called us up earlier while crying.

"I really didn't expect Eunjin to turn up in front of my school and witnessed everything. I was too shocked with her sudden appearance that I couldn't react fast until I saw her running away. I tried to run after her but she was gone. I badly wanted to explain everything to her."

Krystal's voice was cracking again at her last few words as I realised that my sister-in-law was starting to feel the guilt again. Jessica turned to look at me as I just gestured to her to console her sister.

"Soojung-ah, I can understand where you're coming from because I have heard your explanation. But why didn't you inform Eunjin about this plan way before you decided to act on it? It would have save you a lot of trouble if only Eunjin was actually aware of it." Jessica said as I shook my head at Jessica's words.

I knew that my wife had meant well by saying all those words but she's only going to make Krystal feel worse about the whole matter. I asked Jessica to hand the phone over to me.

"Krystal? It's Yuri-unnie." I began with a soft tone so that Krystal would know that I'm not blaming her for what had happened. "I can understand your frustration since you're not able to reach out to Eunjin to explain everything to her. I can also understand that you're feeling extremely guilty at the moment because of this misunderstanding. We'll try to get in touch with Eunjin and find out where she's staying so that both of you can meet up to sort this out, okay? In the mean time, promise me not to cry anymore."

"Arraseo, Unnie. Thank you so much for hearing me out." Krystal replied in a much stabilised voice before she ended the call after both of us promised to keep each other updated.

I handed Jessica's phone back to her and sat up to grab my own phone from the side table. After typing a message to Sunny to ask if she had already slept, I quickly dialed her number when her reply came back in negative.

"Sunny-ah, sorry for bothering you at this hour. Can I check with you about something? Do you know where Eunjin is staying for her visit to New York?"

I was expecting Sunny to know this information since she's covering Eunjin's duties as the Director but I was disappointed when she told me that she's actually not aware of Eunjin's itinerary for the trip. Sunny would either call or email to Eunjin if she needs any assistance, with regards to the company. I told her that Eunjin's phone was off at the moment and I sort of needed to get in touch with her.

"Maybe you can check with Ms Jeon. Being her secretary, I think she would know better." Sunny suggested. "If you want, I can drop Eunjin an email too to contact you as soon as possible."

"I think I will check with Ms Jeon first. Thanks, Sunny and sorry for disturbing you at this hour. Rest well then." I turned to face Jessica who had been listening in to the conversation. "I'll check with Ms Jeon later. It's almost 2am now. Most probably she would already be sleeping."

I was surprised when Jessica leaned in to give me a peck on my cheek. "I was never good at my words. Even though I meant well, I knew that I sounded very direct at times. Soojung was used to my way of talking and I know that at times, I was a little harsh on her. But I'm really thankful that you're here to look out for my little sister too. I think she will feel much better after listening to what you said."

"Of course I would take care of her. She's my one and only sister-in-law. Your family is now my family too. I will take care of them well just like how I take care of my own family." 

"Thank you so much. I love you." Jessica said with a wide smile.

"I love you too." I leaned in to return her kiss before letting out a sigh when I thought back about the current situation. "I hoped Eunjin's okay. Being in a long distance relationship is not easy. Imagine witnessing your own girlfriend holding hands with another guy when you came so far to see her, I could almost feel my heart breaking if I was to put myself in her shoes. And I suspect that she's hiding something from us. Her decision to fly to New York seems so sudden and rush."

"Hiding something from us?" Jessica repeated my words as I nodded my head. "Krystal snapped again at her?"

"I don't think so. I believed her when she told us that they had settled that issue. Didn't she told us that Krystal called up to apologise about what happened, saying that she snapped because she was sensitive that night due to her menses?" I asked Jessica for confirmation as she agreed to it. "Appa actually planned for all of us to travel together to celebrate Krystal's birthday there but suddenly, she changed her plan and asked permission from Appa if she could celebrate Krystal's birthday, just the two of them while we all will join them a day later. She even travelled a week earlier than that the actually date."

"Should we ask Krystal about it?" Jessica asked me as I paused for a while before shaking my head.

"Your sister already has a lot of things in her mind right now. What's important at the moment is to get in touch with Eunjin."

************************

Everyone were already starting to panic when nobody seems to know where Eunjin was for the past three days. Yuri had checked with Ms Jeon about where Eunjin would be staying in New York, which she gladly mentioned the name of the hotel. Once Yuri was given the answer, she contacted Krystal who said that she would go to the hotel herself after school to look for Eunjin.

So when she called again a few hours later, Yuri was expecting Krystal to tell her that everything was settled but she was surprised when Krystal informed her that Eunjin had checked out from the hotel the day before.

(Flashback three days ago)

"Yuri-unnie, Eunjin's not here."

"Huh? Not there? What do you mean? She went out?" Yuri blinked her eyes rapidly as she stopped her car by the side of the road since she was driving at the moment. 

"No. She's not here as in she had already checked out yesterday night. I'm currently at the hotel's reception counter. The staff here was the one who informed me about it." Krystal bit her lips as she felt her frustration building up again. "Eotteoke, Unnie? She's obviously trying to avoid me."

Yuri was also at her wits end since Eunjin's phone had been switched off the whole time. Yuri told Krystal that she would think about it and asked Krystal to remain calm while she discussed it with her sister.

(End of flashback)

"Eunjin did replied to my email though." Sunny was the first one to start the topic when everyone had finished their dinner.

The girls had gathered at Twin Towers for the second consecutive night. Yuri broke the news to everyone last night about what had happened between Krystal and Eunjin. Since Yuri was not able to get in contact with Eunjin for the past two days, she was running out of ideas on how to look for Eunjin. After discussing with Jessica, both of them decided to reach out to the girls for help.

The only person to throw in a suggestion last night was Sunny. Since she was instructed by Eunjin to email or call her for any emergencies regarding the company, Sunny volunteered to try and leave an email to Eunjin. 

"Did she say where she was?" Tiffany asked quickly as as her expression showed how concerned  and worried she was at the moment.

"Nope. She only replied the questions that I asked about the company." Sunny's reply caused most of the girls to sigh in disappointment. "I asked her about the bi-weekly meeting tomorrow, asked her about the financial report that I need to prepare by end of the week and also about the meeting with Ms Kang next week. At the end of all those questions, I casually asked her about New York and where she was staying at, pretending to ask if her hotel had a nice view and stuff like that. But she only touched on matters about work." 

Sunny took out her laptop and showed the email that Eunjin had replied to her.

Hi Sunny,

With regards to the bi-weekly meeting, you just need to sit in and listen to the presentations from the different branches. Ms Jeon will be beside you to help you out if you need assistance. For the financial report, I've actually done up a draft before I left for my trip. It's in the attachment file. You can look through it and amend accordingly. For the meeting with Jihyun, she'll be there to assist you through the meeting with our new investor so no worries, okay. 

Thank you so much for helping me out, Sunny and I apologise if there's a lot of work for you to handle. Keep emailing me if you need any help. By the way, New York was good.

Take care and send my regards to the rest of the girls. 

Regards, Eunjin.

Eveyone looked at each other with frowns in their expression, trying to think of a new solution. 

"How are we suppose to look for her now?" Yuri let out a frustrated sigh before leaning back into her seat and grabbing her hair. 

"What if she's no longer in New York?" Seohyun's remarks caused everyone to look at her while the maknae had her eyes fixed on the laptop screen. "Eunjin-unnie said that New York was good. If she was still in New York, she would have said that New York is good, right? What's with the past tense?"

"Typo error?" Sooyoung suggested as Seohyun shook her head. "It could happen though."

"Eunjin-unnie is used to doing her work via emails which means she would have the habit to proofread her emails before sending it out. So I believe that it's not a typo error." Seohyun replied confidently.

"Even if maknae was right, we still won't be able to know where Eunjin-unnie is." Yoona commented.

"If she's not in New York, don't tell me she flew back to Seoul?" Taeyeon tried to guess.

"Maybe I can help." Hyomin raised up her hand and smiled nervously. "I know someone who works at the immigration office. Maybe he can help to track down Eunjin's movement from her passport. He would be able to know if Eunjin had flown home."

"Yeobo, can we fly to New York earlier than we plan to? I can't help but feel worried for Krystal." Jessica voiced out her concern before leaning her head against Yuri's shoulders. "She must be feeling very stressed out right now."

"I don't have a problem with that, provided that my leave could be approved as soon as possible." Yuri turned to look at Sunny, who gave her a thumbs up. "That was a very fast approval."

The girls broke out into laughter at Sunny's cheeky and arrogant pose after giving Yuri the approval to take her leave. They then started teasing both Yuri and Sunny about taking advantage of Eunjin's absence in the office.

"Anyway, let me make the arrangement and see when is the earliest we can fly out, Sica." Yuri looked at her wife who could only nod her head. "In the meantime, we will need Hyomin to help keep us updated with the result after checking with her friend."

"No worries. I'll try to get the answer as soon as possible." Hyomin gave her assurance.

The girls decided to end the gathering for the night since there was nothing much that they could do except to wait.

************************

"Krystal, you should eat something. You've not been eating properly for the past few days." Luna spoke in a soft-tone as Sulli just looked at the weak body, lying on the bed.

"I really don't have the appetite right now. Don't worry, it's just a mild fever." Krystal replied as she tried to pull her blanket to cover her whole body.

"Mild fever? Your temperature is almost at 39 degrees. That's not mild. You better eat the porridge that Luna had cooked for you or I'll make sure that I'll drag you to the doctor myself." Sulli was losing her patience and her tone of voice was firm in giving Krystal the instruction. "It's bad enough that you don't want to see a doctor for your fever but at least, don't push away the effort that others are doing for you."

Krystal took a deep breathe and slowly sat up to look at her friends. It's been four days since that unfortunate incident happened. After she found out from the hotel staff that Eunjin had checked out, she was totally at lost. She had left a lot of voice messages, asking Eunjin to call her back since the phone was still switched off. She had not attended school for the past two days as she was not feeling well, losing her appetite and sleep.

"I'm sorry for my behaviour. Thank you for the porridge, Luna and I'm sorry for making both of you worried about me."

"We understood what you're feeling, Krystal. But you need to take care of your health too." Luna coaxed her friend as Krystal nodded her head.

"Let's just hope that your unnies will be able to come up with a plan to track down Eunjin-unnie so that all this misunderstanding can be resolved." Sulli tone down her voice while Krystal continued to just nod her head in silence.