IN HER HOUSE

The pelts were like rocks. They didn't wipe her tears away. They were hurting her and were only making her cry more. She was walking and walking and walking—praying she was walking in circles so she'd end up arriving where she came from—but she knew she was lost.

Actually, she has known she was lost about half an hour ago already.

She had known she was lost when she crossed an unknown small intersection that certainly didn't look like it was part of Apgujeong.

How and when she had reached that part of the city, she didn't know but she was quite sure it wasn't entirely safe to roam around the streets of Seoul during a rainy night. Well, at least she had the comfort of the city lights.

Not that it could substitute the amount of warmth she wishes she now had.

"Somebody will come," she assures herself, knowing that it might be an impossibility. She was at that point now—blaming herself for seeking the coward's silent way out. She certainly did play that part when she refused to come back to retrieve her phone and purse.

Now she had no ride home and no idea where she was.

So she did what a rational person would do.

She walked.

Again.

****

"She'll come back." Hae had assured Yoona.

But half an hour has passed and she still hasn't gone back.

"She should be back." Hae muttered under his breath, slightly turning around to see if she was already on the couch.

But she wasn’t.

Another quarter of an hour has passed and he finally felt uneasy. Yoona noticed it, having glanced at him sideways for the ninth time in the last fifteen minutes.

"You should probably go and check on her, oppa. It's not like her to not say she was leaving. Maybe you should call her or something."

"Can't."

"Oppa—"

"She left her phone." Hae stated, now going to the small table in front of the couch where he'd last seen her. "And her coin purse."

"She's probably somewhere, right? Do you want to just call this a night, oppa? You and I can work on this another day."

"Yoong…this is the only time you're available, right? We might as well just finish—"

"We can but you're not focused on making music tonight, oppa. Ever since she left the room, you have been controlling the urge to check if she has come back. And that didn't escape me."

"Was I too obvious?"

"A bit. But I'm one of your exes so I can definitely read you like the back of my hand." Yoong cooed at him as she pushed her swivel chair towards him. "You like her, don't you?"

He didn't really answer her.

"Come on, don't even deny it. You were doing that maneuver where you'd be touchy with anyone whenever you want to make a girl jealous."

"I wasn't."

"Twenty-three pats on the head and eleven shoulder squeezes."

"What?"

"That's how many you did a while ago."

"You counted? You're weird."

"Well, you used to like that about me but both of us just didn't work out because you like her."

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on, oppa, you favoring Dara-unnie over anyone and everyone was an open secret. It was only her who didn't see. I'm leaving now though but I'm hoping she'll come back here or you'll have to stay the night to wait for her."

"She may have gone home."

"Without her phone? That doesn't sound like her at all." Yoona gave him a kiss and a pat on the cheek before she left but she left him grinning when she jokingly said, "If ever things don't go well between you two, I believe news portals say I'm single and ready to mingle. Just hit me up, we might hit it off."

"Nah, your then-again boyfriend Seung Gi might try to corner me again and tell me to back off."

"I’m really sorry about that, oppa. I heard that threat was such a fail when he started cracking up and you ended up laughing."

"He told you, eh? Good times. Be safe, Yoong~"

***

No man is an island but one woman is.

She found a small hill in this park she happened to pass by and didn't hesitate to climb towards the top. The rain was getting heavier by the second, and that was the first thing to a shelter she could think of.

Oh how Dispatch would love to see this if they were following her.

But they weren't. If they were, she already would have let them take all the photos they wanted in exchange for a ride home.

Stuck under the dark skies and wet ice, she was, all frozen and sad all through the night.

***

He was very worried. After calling some of their close friends and figuring out she has not gone home, he went straight outside SM praying he'd find her in the parking lot, stubbornly sitting on the hood of her car because of her stubborn pride.

But she wasn't there.

And it was raining. One would think it was the soft kind—the kind that hits Korea this time of the month—but it was the exact opposite. The rain was vicious and getting more vicious by the second.

This is the kind of weather he'd love to have if he was doing nothing in the confines of his own apartment. This was the perfect weather to snuggle in bed and forget about the day's worries. This was the kind of weather where you'd want to check up if you have stocked up enough food for the upcoming rainy days.

This was the worst weather and time of day to look for someone who didn't even want to be found.

And yet he searched and searched, looking for her—meticulously—even though he'd been up since god-knows-when to work on D&E's new album.

But she wasn't there.

Driving in circles won't take him anywhere. That was what he had thought after almost have a dozen rounds of scouting famous Gangnam areas, wishing she was just there, somewhere, looking all spiteful because tonight she didn't get any of that after- attention she had wanted from him after she had rudely barged in his workplace.

Oh how he wishes she was doing exactly that.

And so he sped, seemingly following that imaginary rainbow he s