The First Chapter

Der Märchenclub
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Chapter 12

[The First Chapter]

 

“Are you sure that Im Yoona came to Der Märchenclub today?” Sungmin asked the crowd.

 

What he got as replies were uncertain responses. In the hazed memories and shocks after Seohyun’s death, nobody could be blamed upon missing the tiniest detail such as meeting another regular of Der Märchenclub. Some thought that Yoona was present, but none could really recall the precise information.

 

“So…nobody is ascertained on this issue?”

 

Jessica sighed. She knew for sure that she had met Yoona earlier that night. But the question would be that whether she needed to share the particular information or not. There was no benefit she could gain out of retelling her encounter with Yoona, but  on the other hand, there was no foreseeable harm in sharing such a trivial information either.

 

In the end, she chose to cooperate. “She was here tonight. I saw her.”

 

All eyes looked at her. Some even frowned. It was most probably because her voice sounded like an unfamiliar sound in the Bluebeard Chamber. Jessica could not blame those who thought that way though. She rarely spoke in public anyway.

 

Sungmin had other concern though. “Are you sure, Miss?”

 

Jessica nodded. “Yes. I met her in the ladies restroom. She was already there when I entered. We only exchanged a few words, she went out, and I don’t know where she went.”

 

The young police scratched his head and posed her another question. “Can you recall any other details, Miss? This will probably help the investigation.”

 

Jessica’s sigh was very audible, as if she wanted to express to the other how…troublesome it was and how much she regretted having to share the information to begin with. But there was no turning back. Her mind traveled  back to the incident earlier as she recounted the meeting, “Well, as I told you… I entered the ladies rest room –“

 

“At what time?”

 

Jessica shrugged. “I don’t remember precisely. Around eleven in the evening, I suppose.”

 

“And what other details?”

 

The brown-haired Jung lady snorted “What, you want me to go to the details of the color of the dress or something?” she asked sarcastically. “I don’t remember much. I only met her for a very few minutes. She greeted me, I greeted her. She dropped her belonging, I helped her. That’s it.”

 

“What belonging?”

 

“Just a… bottle of medicine,” she hesitated for a moment. “Anti-depressant pill.”

 

There was a look of acknowledgment in Sungmin’s face. He took a deep breath before his next words rolled out, “…is it the one with high sedative?”

 

Jessica frowned. “How am I supposed to know?” she responded. It was a lie, of course. She recognized Yoona’s medicine very well –Jessica used to be very dependent on it too. She knew that it was composed of sedative substances. But something about Sungmin’s way of interrogating her made her inclined to tell him the truth.

 

“Very well,” Sungmin said as he ended his series of questions to Jessica and asked to the others. “So, Im Yoona was here. Does anyone know where she is now?”

 

“Perhaps she already went home?” suggested Kwon Yuri.

 

“Can somebody call her? Or give me her address? I’ll have my men pick her up.”

 

Though with grunting, they obliged to Sungmin’s request. Yuri took out her cell phone to call Yoona’s cell phone, while Sunny gave him Yoona’s address. Sungmin took the note on his phone, immediately called for his subordinates and ordered them to go to the referred address.

 

The moments passed in silence afterwards. Yuri was still on the phone, but the others were seated in silent agitation.

 

“She’s not picking up my call,” informed Yuri after ten minutes passed by. “And I called her house. Her maids told me that she hadn’t returned.”

 

Sunny bit her lips. “Where is she? Did…Seohyun’s murderer kidnap her or something?”

 

“Hey, you can’t jump into conclusion like that,” commented Ryeowook.

 

“But… the murderer might be targeting us all! Perhaps it’s Yoona that he’s targeting  now! We need to find her and –“

 

“Or perhaps…” Hyukjae slowly said in a quick mutter. “She’s involved in Seo Joo Hyun’s murder?’

 

The group fell into another series of silence as Hyukjae’s words seeped into their mind, creating doubts, arising suspicions.

 

“That…could be a possibility,” muttered Kibum.

 

“Hey, that’s not fair!” protested Yuri. “Just because she’s not here, doesn’t mean that she’s the culprit!”

 

“…But Heechul Hyung also suspected Yoona to be the one who stabbed him a couple of days ago,” added Ryowook. Doubts still colored his tone, but his words only furthered wild guesses in the room.

 

“Well, she’s been acting weird lately…”

 

“And she disappears right after the murder –“

 

“Could it be that she’s targeting us now?”

 

“The young man here is right,” commented the young police, Sungmin, as he referred to Ryeowook’s earlier words. “We cannot jump into conclusion.”

 

But paranoia had clouded everything: trust, faith, sanity. Was it truly human’s nature? To blame those who could not speak for themselves? To put doubts on someone else in order to cloud doubts other people could have on them? Like a ripple effect, crazy hypothesis swarmed in the crowd of the richess.

 

“The police shall find her soon. We cannot sleep well if there’s a possibility she’s targeting us next –“

 

“Go trace her cell phone! The police can do that, right?”

 

“I can’t believe it… Yoona… She’s a nice girl…”

 

“Well, she can be unpredictable at times –“

 

“What is her real intention?”

 

“I was involved in a heated argument with her once. Do you think she will target me first?”

 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” spoke Sungmin authoritatively. He was getting rather impatient. He had handled many similar cases, and anxieties of those who felt targeted were nothing new. “Like I said, it’s too early to draw any conclusion. No one can render her as the suspect this way. We will need evidence and –“

 

But his words were clearly dismissed as the members of Der Märchenclub got into more speculation. Jessica felt slightly unease. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told the police about Yoona’s anti-depressant pill. She was about to clarify the matte (with what, she did not know), but someone beat her to it.

 

“There’s no way she can be the murderer.”

 

The voice was far from being authoritative, but the essence of his words made all people silenced.

 

Donghae’s jaw tightened and he elaborated his point more. “There’s simply no way. I know her, I know Yoona very well. She…she will not have any motive to do this vile thing.”

 

“But why does she need to escape?” Kibum asked calmly. “If she doesn’t commit any crime, why should she arise such suspicion?”

 

“She could have been threatened!” Donghae defended. “Or kidnapped! Or…” he did not have the heart to continue his words, but the option was left open once again.

 

“There’s no use of you all playing guessing game at this stage. Please let the police handle the problem. My men are looking for Im Yoona at the moment. For the time being, my team will commence the small interview with each of you. Starting with Cho Kyuhyun-sshi,” mandated Sungmin.

 

The argument stopped there as Kyuhyun stood from his chair and followed Sungmin out of the room.

 

 

Jessica let out a tired sigh as she let her exhausted body fell on to her soft bed. Her interview with the police squad had only finished by dawn. When she finally reached her bedroom, the sun was almost peaking up through her windows. It was a long night. Sungmin had not let her forget any kind of details, and sometimes she understood why the senior police, Jae Won, said that Sungmin was a good investigator. Sungmin was very critical, however it ‘forced’ her to remember one of the most traumatizing nights in her life.

 

“So you said that in the restroom, you heard someone singing from the garden? And it’s the same voice that you heard prior to Kim Young-Woon’s accident?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How could you be so sure that it’s the same person singing?”

 

“Intuition, I suppose.”

 

“People don’t often have the capability to remember voice that easily. Could it possibly that even prior to Kim Young-Woon’s accident you’ve heard that voice before?”

 

“…I don’t think so.”

 

“Then how could you be so sure?”

 

“I said, it was just my feeling, okay? Perhaps I misheard. I don’t know.”

 

Jessica sighed. She had never really been that intuitive type of person and she knew she was making less sense of herself. Perhaps the queerness of Der Märchenclub eventually got to her. The thought sent shrill of disbelief to her. She was always a rational woman, she vowed to herself that she would not allow the club to affect her.

 

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pinboo
05/5/13: change the posters for chap 6, 9, 12, 14, 15, 18, 25, 26, 27

Comments

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yeonniestan94 #1
Coming back to reread this. For a moment i thought the story was deleted because i search for this on the jessica tag. Kekeke...
Found it finally thanks to Haesica😀😀
Macaroonssi
#2
its 2021 and I'm stil here so.....
aseulmonsta
#3
❤️
gyuhyeon #4
I'm here again for the nth times. This is my fav fanfic ever! I used to dislike sugen pairing but this fanfic brought a new light. Pinboo, could you please sign this story up for a drama please? It will be daebak really.
bwtplove
#5
Chapter 50: This chapter will always traumatized me. Imagine to encounter something like that as child..... :(
bwtplove
#6
Chapter 38: I thought Sunny x Sungmin's side story will be my fav one...but after reading Kibum's story....I guess the ranking change. I could understand the hatred he has toward his family so well. It's such an emotional story to me and the way the poor always have a big heart than the rich....you really did a great job at interpreting this.
LeiLeiLeiLeiLeiLei #7
Hi there! I actually read this fic when I was younger, and I wanna reread it but it's members only :(

I have long forgotten my old AFF account....... AHH how do I reread? hehe
shiningshawol13
#8
Hi! I don't know if you'll be able to see this comment, but yeah, just gonna share my thoughts here hahaha.

So I reread Project: Cupid and Der Marchenclub earlier this week because I've been feeling nostalgic lately and thought, hey, maybe I could reread my favorite Super Generation fanfics coz why not?

And well, I'd just like to say that your works remain to be one of my favorites. It's been years since you've published this, years since I've first read it (early 2015). I could still remember the times when I read a chapter or two in between classes back in college, struggling not to give in to the urge to read them while in class hahaha! This is the first time in a long while that I read it again but everything is still as wonderful and impactful as when I first read it.

Der Marchenclub, in particular, is my favorite Super Generation fanfic. Reading it again cemented that fact in my mind. I loveeeee the plot! In particular, I love how you utilized previously uttered lines and details, smoothly tying a to b. I love the flow of the narration, I know you must've hit some rough blocks, too, but in the end, the writing is just superb: the balance between the dialogue and narration is very nice. I love the characterizations and how utterly realistic and imperfect and humane there are (Heechul's my fave haha), though I agree that there are some characters you could've developed more (Yoona and Siwon, for instance, as you mentioned in yuor DMC blog haha). Overall though, I'd go so far as to say that your work is a masterpiece. I took my time re-reading it again, took my time to appreciate the smoothness in the flow, the humanity of the characters, the thrill of solving the mystery. Every single scene played out in my head, and I could perfectly picture Super Generation here (man, I miss them!). This story, the whole plot, it's a very good material for a TV series, that's how good it is.

It's also good in inspiring people. This fanfiction, your fanfiction - it reignited my desire to write again. These past few years I've been stuck in a slump, probably because of the combined stress from my personal and college life, plus the slightly growing distance from kpop, that I wasn't able to continue any of my stories here at all. I even find it hard to write anything because I began to doubt myself. Whenever I type something up, I ended up not finishing it or just erasing it because it feels off. I've graduated now though haha, so college's one factor off the things stressing me out, but I still didn't dare try to write again. At least, not until I read your stories again.

Der Marchenclub (and Project: Cupid!) reminded me of my love for YoonHae, for HeeSica, for SNSD and Super Junior, and most of all, my love for writing. It made me want to try writing again, mostly about YoonHae and HeeSica hahaha!

So I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for creating Der Marchenclub, thank you for creating your stories, and thank you most of all, for sharing it with us and not deleting it. A few days ago I tried searching again some of my favorite YoonHae fanfics, I can't remember their exact titles but what I know is that it's on livejournal (and soon remembered that it's written by muffinmaverick, if you know her hehe). However, I found out that she deleted her account, which means that even her stories were deleted. It suffices to say that I was utterly devastated. Fanfictions are some of my ways of coping even back then, so to find out that I could no longer read them again really pained me. I know the author must have her reasons, and she has all the right to delete her own account and works, but it still hurt. So really, thank you for keeping this precious works here in this site, thank you for sharing it with us still.

I think I'm kinda rambling at this point haha but what I want to say is that your works have inspired me again, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'm sure there are other readers out there, too who were inspired to hone or jumpstart their craft after reading your stories. So once again, I would like to say thank you to you. I'm still not very confident, I'm still doubting my skill but well, that can be honed and what's important is that I'm trying again, right? Haha.

Anyways, I miss seeing Super Junior and SNSD together, and reading Der Marchenclub again made me very nostalgic. I'm not that active here in asianfanfics nowadays but I think there are fewer and fewer Super Generation stories now, which I admit breaks my SONELF heart a little. I think it's fitting, though, since our idols have grown more and are living their own lives now, and we're living our own. It won't stop me from writing about them, though haha! If you ever get back to writing again (and I hope you do, I miss reading your stories!), I hope you know that there will still be people who'll welcome you back, and readers who will read your works.

Once again, thank you for writing!! Thank you for bringing Der Marchenclub and your other works to light, and for sharing it with us. :) It's rough in our world right now due to the pandemic but I hope you'll stay safe!