Chapter 5

Curious Hwang

Kwon-Kim Taeyeon was a neurologist. She was the best neurologist on the hospital she attended. She was a good person with great spouse and a lovely daughter. She was loved by her patients and her colleagues. She had a nice and cosy apartment to live. In short, her life was near to perfect.

But she wasn’t a stress-free woman at all.

Not when she got a deranged woman suffering a Parkinson disease for a patient, a difficult little boy with abnormal nervous system, and lastly a teenage girl with damaged brain with no emotions whatsoever.

Taeyeon sighed when she looked at the report. It wasn’t an ordinary report. It was a health report of one of her patient. The patient was a young female, with a curious case of illness. No, not exactly illness, but rather slight abnormality. She wasn’t feeling bad about the report. Instead, she was feeling relieved while looking at it. But it made her a bit restless. That was the reason she was rocking back and forth on her comfortable couch.

“Honey I’m home!” Came a cry from the door.

Emerging from the darkness (Taeyeon always shuts off any lightings when she was reading in living room. A strange habit she developed from her childhood.), a pair of purple eyes glinted merrily. Instead of making the neurologist afraid, it brought a smile to her lips.

“Welcome home, Kwon!” She greeted back, hugging the ‘Kwon’ happily. Releasing her hug, her happy expression turned into cold one. “Kwon Yuri I’ve already make dinner and yet you still come late.” She chided with an annoyed frown on her face.

“Sorry, Taeng.” Yuri grinned, taking off her small bag and lab coat, revealing her casual stripped shirt underneath. She then proceeded to turn on the light and plopped herself to the comfortable couch, with Taeyeon followed after. “But hey, it’s not good to have darkness around and wearing a glasses!” With one swift motion, Yuri successfully took off Taeyeon’s glasses, showing her perfect ocean blue eyes for her to see.

“I hate my eyes.” Taeyeon snapped, crunching up her nose. “Why don’t you hate your purple eyes too? Everyone will think you’re a freak.”

Yuri laughed at that. She gently placed the glasses on the coffee table and looked smugly to her wife. “FYI, Kim, my patients all think my eyes are pretty,” she swore Taeyeon instantly looked gloomy at that. “You can’t just hate yourself just because you have recessive blue eyed gene on your blood.”

“I only hate my freakish eyes, Yul.” Taeyeon snorted. “Mom and my other siblings are brown-eyed. I feel like I’m genetically failed.” A smile suddenly appeared on her lips. “Hey that rhymed!”

Yuri chuckled at her wife’s antics. “Genetics, Taeyeon. You’re medicine top graduate and you forgot it. Pshhh.” Yuri grinned when Taeyeon instantly gave her a sharp glare. “But you know,” she continued nervously. “You’re beautiful. Blue eyes or not. Hideous glasses or not.”

“My glasses is hideous?”

“Yes.” Yuri answered seriously, giving a peck to the older but shorter woman’s forehead. “They are hideous because they shield your beauty from being seen.”

“Yah! Cheesy Yul!” Taeyeon screeched, hitting Yuri’s arm softly, much to the taller woman’s amusement. Taeyeon continued to do the … er, hit of love until a figure stepped out from the shadows and placed itself between the two woman.

“Umma don’t hit mom!” The figure, which was a girl no more than 8 years old, piped out with a pout, holding Taeyeon’s hand with her small hands.

“Why are you awake sweetie?” Yuri asked, pecking her beloved child on her cheek. Irene, their child wiped her cheek as if it was a plague. “It’s 10 PM already, you should’ve sleep.”

“Dark.” The little girl replied simply. “Irene don’t like dark!”

“Irene doesn’t like dark.” Yuri corrected with a hint of mockery and amusement. Irene glared at her. “Whatever!” She haughtily said before plopping herself to Yuri’s lap. “You always come late, mom! Why?”

“Works dear,” Yuri answered simply. “C’mon, let’s sleep?”

“Shireo!”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes when Irene and Taeyeon shared a highfive. Their daughter surely inherited Taeyeon’s everything. Everything except her eyes. She has bright brown eyes just like hers, before her gene ‘mutated’.

Irene let out a squeal when Yuri mercilessly hauled her to her room.

Taeyeon smiled gently at the sound of subsided laughter. She reached her glasses, then looked fearfully at the report on the paper.

“I really need to take crazy steps…” She groaned.

On the way to the cafeteria, they (Sooyoung and Yoona agreed to go together, mostly because of Jessica) bumped to ever-looking-tired Hyoyeon. Hyoyeon was alone, like usual, with her left hand on her skirt pocket (custom made!) and her school’s blazer neatly folded and slung over her shoulder. Her right hand was holding a medium sized bag.

Hyoyeon greeted Jessica warmly with her grin, but then she took notice of Tiffany. Her grin quickly disappeared when she saw Tiffany was glaring daggers at her, for no apparent reason she could fathom. Hyoyeon held her urge to flinch, and then glanced to Sooyoung and Yoona, whom nodded.

“Hwang,” she called out, turning her heels to catch up with them. “I’ll borrow Jung for a while, yeah?” As she suspected, Tiffany immediately looked as if she was about to bit her head off. She looked incredibly reluctant and was about to reject but then Jessica agreed to be ‘borrowed’.

“As long as I’m not late for meal and class.” Jessica declared monotonously. Her simple declaration wasn’t intended for humour, but the two shikshins found themselves chuckling. Jessica shared their love for food, that’s why they loved her.

Hyoyeon nodded curtly at that. She showed the bag on her right hand, almost looked smug. “Of course. You are safe.”

Like Hyoyeon said, she was safe.

Hyoyeon brought Jessica to rooftop. And the school’s rooftop is close to her class.

Just as Hyoyeon planted her rear to the bench under the tree, Jessica asked her a question she dreaded. Jessica followed Hyoyeon to the bench, and crossed her arms. “Let me guess; Tiffany?”

Hyoyeon visibly stiffened. Looking at Jessica’s raised eyebrow, Hyoyeon sighed in defeat. She, based on her experience on the school’s infirmary hangout, could never lie to Jessica even though when she did a good job on lying. Jessica always bluntly said this and that, much to her embarrassment for lying.

“I could never lie to you, couldn’t I?” Hyoyeon chuckled bitterly. Hyoyeon slammed her bag to the bench and stood. She decided to walk and lean on the railing. With a sigh she answered, “Yes, it’s about Hwang.”

Jessica uncrossed her arms and followed Hyoyeon on the railing. But Hyoyeon suddenly decided to retreat and sat on the floor, hugging her knees close to her chest. Judging from her action, Hyoyeon was anxious. She didn’t look like that, but she bloody knew when someone is having any [anxiety]. Taecyeon, being a psychology graduate, is actually a good teacher along with some books Taecyeon gave to her.

“Enlighten me.” Jessica demanded softly.

“She’s a nasty woman, Hwang that is,” Hyoyeon began. She looked terrified for a split second. “I don’t know why she’s acting like this to you now, as I recalled you are on the same class since the start of this bloody school.”

“True that,” Jessica nodded. “But the strange thing is, I also don’t remember her. When I first [met] her, we were on a café after school. And that was… a month ago. Along with her twin, Stephen.”

“Interesting.” Hyoyeon muttered. "I always presumed you did encounter them on a strange occassion." Jessica nodded at Hyoyeon's assumption. "You met them on cafe, and somehow Hwang took interest on you? I don't know about you but I find that strange."

Jessica couldn't help but to agree. “There’s a strange thing also,” Jessica turned to Hyoyeon. “I only remembered Sooyoung and Yoona. I remembered the others by their surname. Lee, Jung, Ji, whatever that is. During name calling, I remembered a ‘Hwang’ was called, but I don’t recall it’s a girl.”

“You could mistake Hwang’s husky voice as a boy,” Hyoyeon replied incredulously. “I don’t know if you noticed, but Stephen’s voice got a feminine quality in it… Sica, do you think what I’m thinking?” As crazy as it seemed to her mind, it was possible judging from how sociable Stephen was to females. Aside of his voice, he was handsome - in a pretty way. In simple words, he was a pretty boy. Almost like a girl if not because of his rarely shown manly charm.

“I’m not sure,” There it was, the unsettling pain on her head. “Perhaps…” Jessica trailed off, didn’t dare to continue the sentence.

He..hey? I am ah, sorry? I would like to apologize for my long absence. This chapter was completed long time ago, but I wasn't really bothered to publish it. You see, I was depressed lately, I don't know why and... I think I do suffer this Alexithymia thing after few tests from psychologists. I had trouble on expressing my emotions, somewhat confused sometimes, and... I'm rambling. But I guess it's not severe like this Jessica? I don't know.

And the Kwon Yuri here is different with the Yuri from Jessica's circle of friends. I somehow forgot I already planned Yultae and insert Yuri earlier than Taeng. My mistake, but please don't be confounded! Older Yuri will be referred as Dr Kwon often, and will surely meet the Young Yuri. But that'll be a long time from now.

Perhaps in a week?