The wind coming from the air conditioning unit was too cold – almost as if it was biting at your skin.

Seulgi was awake, but her eyes remained close. She pulled her blanket higher, listening to the soft shuffling sound coming from the movement.

Lately, she haven’t had any sleep and to worsen the condition, she was depriving herself from eating.

It feels like if she sleeps again – if she dare closes her eyes and submit to a peaceful slumber, she’ll lose someone again. She’ll be pulled away from the arms of comfort.

And she doesn’t know what she would do if it happens again.

“I know you’re awake, Kang.”

Seulgi’s eyes weren’t even opened, yet the visitor who just came in immediately guessed it right.

“It’s alright to sleep. We got you covered.”

Seulgi covered her eyes with both her hands, sighing as she stopped herself from feeling dramatic. “I just… I just don’t want things to repeat all over. I can’t risk you, too.”

A snicker was emitted from the visitor’s mouth.

By now, Seulgi have guessed who it was.

“Sit up, woman.” She gently tapped Seulgi’s forehead and pulled her hands away from her face. “I brought you breakfast. You better eat up, because I have a news to tell you.”

Seulgi was naturally stubborn, so you’d guess she didn’t stand up the first time that Seungwan obeyed her to.

So of course, Seungwan had to do plan B.

As cruel as it may be, it was the only way to force Seulgi into getting out of bed without using physical strength on her recovering body.

Seungwan rummaged through her backpack and found the bottle of perfume that was given to her about a year ago.

She hesitated at first, but seeing that Seulgi wouldn’t be sitting up for the next few minutes, she opened the perfume and sprayed thrice in the air.

The scent quickly spread like wildfire.

When Seulgi inhaled the smell of rose and vanilla,

“Joohyun!” She sat up, wide-eyed, eyes darting around the room to look for the woman, but to her dismay, she found Seungwan with a bottle in her hand instead.

With a growl, Seulgi crossed her arms over her chest. “Seungwan..!”

“Seulgi,” Seungwan spat her name with equivalent stress on it. “I’ve just returned in the region, and the first thing I hear is that you’re getting worse. You haven’t slept for days, nor have you eaten anything from what they’re bringing you.”

Seulgi huffed. “I’m fine. There are more things that you should worry about. You’re wasting your time on me.”

“I’m not.” Seungwan said, keeping her strict tone. She took a container from the plastic bag she brought with her and opened it.

Seems like it was cake.

“Seulgi…” Seungwan sighed, placing the container right on top of Seulgi’s lap. “As much as this statement would hurt you, we all know it’s the truth…

“If Joohyun was here, she wouldn’t be happy with what you’re doing.”

Seulgi’s breathing got deeper and faster.

It was like an emotion got triggered deep inside her.

“We have a lot to talk about, Seulgi.” Wendy continued, handing Seulgi the fork. “But with your condition, I’m afraid you might not be able to take it well. So please, try to at least finish the cake I tried to bake for you.”

Seulgi poked the cake with the metal fork.

“How do you feel?”

So far, Seulgi had eaten half of the slice of cake, and Seungwan had pulled one of the visitor’s chair closer to Seulgi’s hospital bed.

Seulgi swallowed the piece of cake in before responding. “I’ve had these recurring dreams for the past week, so I stopped sleeping these days.

“It’s the strange thing about me, that I get the same dreams over and over when something bad is about to happen… Like they’re foreshadowing what’s about to happen.”

“I know,” Seungwan said, gradually lowering the volume of her voice. “That’s what makes you special. And that’s why you’re a part of the organization.”

“Yeah, I know.” Seulgi said.

“Well, what were you dreaming about? Care to tell a friend?”

Friend, Seulgi thought. Now I remember. It’s been long since she last had a talk like this with Seungwan, as her friend. And not as teammates who had to be focused and serious all the time.

Just a normal heart-to-heart talk with an old friend, with no secrets to keep and with freedom to speak.

“You seem like you’re in deep thought,” Seungwan said, sipping from her cup of tea that she just brewed a little earlier. “It’s alright if you don’t want to talk about it today. I’m not forcing you to do it, but just know that I’m here to listen to it and we can find a way to make it better.”

“In my dreams, I see Joohyun running. But it’s not like the same running you do when you have something you’re trying to catch. More like she’s running away from something, or someone.” Seulgi says. “And she reaches this region. But I doubt that would ever happen.”

Seungwan shrugged. “Well, it’s possible.”

Seulgi’s face suddenly got dull and lifeless. “No.

“The real Joohyun would never come back to me.”

By this time, Seungwan remembered that Seulgi was fully blaming herself for everything that has happened to Joohyun. She was about to speak, when Seulgi cut her off.

“It must be the pills I’ve been taking last week. My doctor said it may cause hallucinations. But I don’t want to be reminded of her, so I don’t want to sleep.

“Not when she’s in it, where I remember her face, and there’s a possibility that she might get in danger again. Because in my dreams, she sounds so real. She looks so real. It feels so real.”

Seungwan was left to feel sorry for Seulgi. Now that I remember, I think now is not the right time to tell her the news I received. At least not today.

“I know you’re still recovering both from the damages you took the last time you were with us – and recovering from Joohyun’s disappearance. But I promise you, we’ll do our best to make things right. Just take some rest, and we’ll try to look for—”

“There’s no point!” Seulgi boomed. “She’s gone now. It’s all my fault. If you’re going to find her, then don’t tell her where I am. I’d rather I die from lack of sleep and—”

Seungwan stood up. “You’re selfish, Seulgi. Stop thinking that the world revolves around you, or Joohyun, or the whole thing that happened back there. We need you, as a colleague. As a friend. If you don’t want to recover for yourself, then…

“Recover for the rest of the world.”

Seulgi was speechless.

Seungwan was right.

She had always been right, and I’m nothing but a failure.

“Just try to sleep, Seulgi.” Seungwan said.

Joohyun wouldn’t like it if she was here.

---

∑µ, or Sigma Mu, is an organization where they take special kids into their facility, educate them about the unseen dangers that they’re trying to keep out from the world, and train them in order to gain more people to fight with them against the mystery that’s been kept from media.

Sigma Mu isn’t just a typical organization; it has branches all over the world and hired agents study each and every person around each branch’s area to find the scattered special children.

According to statistics, there are four out of ten thousand kids in each region born every year who has a special ability, and it’s their goal to kill their family, brainwash the child, and start feeding them information.

It’s kind of a ed up process, you see.

Moving on to explaining the whole organization; by the time that a student is already old enough, they get grouped with other people and be formed as a sub-unit. By then, they are ready to set off their own missions together. There are special cases when minors are able to