SINB

I don’t know what I’ve been doing really. Where to start? I want to buy myself a packet of cigarettes, but then the taste would remind me of this one person I wished I hadn’t kissed. For the one person I had placed on the margin of my memory, just so that I had a reason to live. I had placed her there, hoping to forget about her. I just couldn’t and no one really understands me.

I am. With myself and I, once again alone. While everyone was off to college, I struggle to find a part-time job to be able to pay my rents. College will forever be my understatement. I was forgotten, because I couldn’t keep up with everyone else. The people I had thought of, as my closest friends got tired of waiting for me. They let me go to pursue their dreams. Sowon. God Sowon. I haven’t seen that girl in so long I couldn’t even recall what she looked like. She’s half the world away and I’m pretty sure she is drinking her life away. I smile at the thought.  

I need to organise myself, honestly I am in a complete mess.

So, I had decided to make things right, start the thing I couldn’t finish.

I knock on the door three times and waited for a response. The door of the apartment opened and an unfamiliar person stood in front of me.

“Can I help you?” He says, arms crossed. I stared at his veiny arms, which slowly moved up to his unmoved face.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is this apartment 612?” I asked.

He stared down at me and I felt so small with his tremendous height.  “I’m afraid we do not have an apartment number of 612. The last number is 611, which is my place.” He says.

“Pardon me. Thank you for your time.” I turn to walk away.

“Are you sure you don’t have the wrong building?” He steps out of his doorway.

“Yes.” I turn back around. “I know what I am sure of.”

“Okay. Chill yeah?”

“Do you live alone?”

“Yes?” He lifts up an eyebrow.

“Can I check the inside of your place?”

“Uhmm…” He eyes shifts and hesitates to answer.

“I promise I am not the police or anything. I just need to che-“

“Sure come in.” He says, almost too quickly. He steps aside from the doorway, guiding me into his home. This swirling feeling in my stomach, makes me shift uncomfortably under my hoodie. I stop halfway in the living room and look around at the apartment.

This was apartment 612.

The kitchen where I would swing my feet on the chair while I drank my hot chocolate during the winter. Or maybe the balcony where I would watch the fireworks every New Year. I know I wasn’t wrong. But why would this apartment not be 612 anymore? Something was suspicious and I see something hidden and I am close to it.

“Are you okay?” the guy asks.

“Are you?” I bluntly say to him. “I’ve got a question for you. When did you buy this place?”

“How do I know you aren’t a police or something?”

“You don’t.” I stare at him. “So?”

He walks over to me. I took a step back. “Don’t you think it is a little dangerous for you to be in a guy’s home?”

“Are you trying to intimated me? I came in here to look for something.”

He takes a hold of my wrist, but I shake him off. “Listen don’t try anything.”

“Why?”

“Do you really want to know?” He nods.

“I’m not really into boys.” I went to go into what used to be my room and look around the interior. I heard him following me.

“So answer my question or would you like me to cut it out of you.” I reach into my pocket. He took a step backwards.

“Just last year.” He quickly blurts out. “This place was not occupied for a while and I bought it for a low price.”

“Right.” I went back into the room. There was a bed in the corner and a desk. I circled the room and was about to leave when in the corner of my eye I saw an uneven part of the ceiling. I climbed on the bed and reach up to nudge the loose piece. It came apart and a note fell out with it. I picked it up and put it in my bag.

“Was there any stuff that was still in here when you moved in?”

“What is this a private investigation?”

“Why? Did you do something?”

“N-no.”

“Then why are you scared?”

“What do you want from me?”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking? Since you suppose I am the one investigating?”

He stayed quite. “The stuff is in the boxes in the spare room at the back. Do you need me to show you?”

“You’re really stupid are you?”

I walked into the spare room he implied and opened the door. There were two exact boxes sitting in the dust. I drop down and flip the lid open. My dad’s shirts are neatly folded and I notice something sticking out of the chest pocket, I pull it out to reveal a business card. I stared at the name ‘Park Hang-byul’, which was an imprinted with some blood- stains.

The unfathomable thought hit me, as I search my memory. It’s the taxi guy, who gave me a free ride. I have thought and thought again, how it is possible. It does not make any sense. The information under the business card does not match the name and face of the man behind the wheel. Private investigator? My stomach drops. I should’ve burned the other card he gave me. I looked at the card again, and to my surprise, the address of his resident is close to the place Yuju and I ran away.

YUJU

“Why did you cut off your connections with Mr Park?” I stood up from the lounge.

“He seemed suspicious…”

“He was my best man and probably our chance to make things bigger and you let him go!”

“That wasn’t what seems like to me. I could tell he was up to something.”

“The man even travelled all the way here just to see you!” He took off his suit jacket and threw it on the ground.

“I told you I could handle things just fine over here. Why did you have to come?”

“Fine? Not even that you even cancelled the whole of meeting today! You have embarrassed me in front of many important people. What would happen if they change their mind of the project? You are lucky they didn’t.” He took his jacket and headed for the door. “If I see any further complication during these following weeks, with no progression. It will be upsetting for you to have no freedom, when I call in the high supervision team you will have to work under.”

“I will try harder. I’m sorry.” I bowed to him.

“S-coup, keep an eye on her. The meeting tomorrow are as scheduled, and she must attend. That girl completely abused her authority as a major here.”

“Yes sir.” S-coup glanced quickly at me, with his apologetic eyes.

“I’m flying back tonight, there shouldn’t be any problem.”

“Do you want me to drive you to the airport?”

“No it’s alright, I have my men.” He turns to look at me. “Take my words into careful considerations Yuju. You are already a disappointment.”

After he left I sink back into my seat and closed my eyes.

“Bad timing. It’s such a bad timing, he came so suddenly. I wasn’t informed about his incoming, not even you.”

“Right.”

“He hasn’t found out about personal business right?”

“Not even a chance.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Bad or Good news first?”

“Well?”

“She’s still where she was. But the problem is I have to postpone the investigation. I feel like we’ve been watched.”

“Understandable. I can cope with that at least.”

“That’s good.”

“I just miss her.”

“Tell me about this mysterious Eunbi.”

“She was I guess…my first friend.” I start. “She made me feel things, other people couldn’t make me feel. I would always for half my life, walk to school, fist clenched, eyes down, afraid that if people look at me they will hate me. She. Hwang Eunbi, lifted my chin up and showed me how beautiful the universe was.” I smiled a little.

S-coup gave me some tissue. “How undeserving of me to have your tears.” He laughs. “This is my cue to leave you alone.”

I laugh. “You know me too well.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow…friend.”

I remember the days I couldn’t help but cry in the bathroom stalls, just so no one would see how weak you are. I sometimes wonder why people would carry hate around on their shoulders. I am, just this once will be arrogant. What did I do wrong? I did nothing, how is it that I was deserving of all the badness of the world. It was a storm all this evil, it was drowning my soul. It rotted my already fragile state whole. It only took one person to change all that. She was someone who saw the hole in my heart and saved me, before it was too late. She must know how it felt like to feel worthless. You could say when you first looked at her, a devil with a pretty face. That was until you watch her smile and uncoil you realise she needed to be loved. I, with all the love given to me by her, I didn’t know if I was capable of loving her back. I was afraid of her. Sinb was walking right into a storm. So what have I learned after all these sleepless night? Lying to her. Hurting her. She keep smiling at me, but looking into her eyes. Is it happiness? I want to love her. I want the best for her, but instead I am destroying all the little sparkle left in her. Why am destroying everything I love?

I need to find her and answer her question. Unfortunately the time isn’t parting ways for me to do that.

SINB

I took a sip out of my coffee and pulled out the note. I skimmed threw it and furrowed my eyebrows at the little information it gave me.

This isn’t the place you are looking for.

Look again.

                                                    -H

What does this mean? It was the right place for sure. It just had a different room number. Unless it wasn’t. It has been a long enough since I left the apartment building. And the limited information didn’t satisfy my needs. I needed to go back. I downed the last of my coffee and ran back to the apartment building. How inconvenient. Then again, it wasn’t like I had anything to do anyway.

I counted down the number of floors and made sure to avoid the camera in the elevator. The elevator stops at my floor and I made my way to apartment 611 and looked around to find apartment any other door that could be labelled 612 but there wasn’t any other doors. But down the hallway I notice a storeroom. I made my way down cautious of any passers. The door was painted green and the paint was chipping off to reveal the colour of the other entire apartment doors. Strange? It appeared unlocked.

I slide my hand on top of the handle. “Are you alright there Miss?”

I spin around to see a janitor. “You shouldn’t be here.” I didn’t say anything.

“Do you hear me? It’s not safe.” I turn, facing back at the door. Bad timing.

“I’ll make my leave sir. It’s just so dark around here I lost my way.”

“Right.” I began walking, and brush past him.

“They don’t pay you much do they?” I ask him.

“What do you know?”

“Something that you don’t”

“Listen kid. Don’t come up here.”

“I’ll pay you twice as much, ju-“

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” I wince at his words. “Move it.”

Son of a gun.  

A/N Where? What?