Chapter 16

[Schwestern]

Jessica ordered her body to stand up and dash away, away from Yoona, as far as possible.

“Unnie!” Yoona screamed. The formerly missing girl was so taken a back at Jessica’s immediate action. It took her a couple of seconds before she could actually stand up and follow Jessica’s trail.

Jessica ran towards her car, even when her high heels were killing her, even when the tears (she did not know when they were formed) were blurring her vision. She ran even when her lungs felt like they wanted to explode; she had never run that fast in her life; she ran to save her life.

“Unnie!”

Gifted with longer legs and more stamina, Im Yoona could quickly catch up with Jessica’s steps in no time. Jessica almost reached her car, but Yoona’s arm was extended to reach her faster, and thus Yoona pulled Jessica away from the car even before the later could open the door.

“Unnie! Calm down!”

“Let me go! Let me go!”

“Unnie! I’m not gonna hurt you! I’ll never gonna to hurt you! Calm down, please!”

Perhaps Jessica was tired of struggling. Perhaps, she realized that Yoona was stronger than her physically. Or perhaps, Jessica finally realized how ridiculous she must have acted, being paranoid that way. Either way, Jessica ceased all her fight and she laid limp in Yoona’s embrace.

Sensing the older girl had calmed down, Yoona slowly let go of her embrace around Jessica’s body. Yoona’s own actions puzzled herself. Wasn’t she the one who wanted to continuously be away from people these past weeks? Why did she finally refuse to let Jessica away from her sight? Perhaps Yoona was just slightly pissed that the unnie she liked so much treated her as if she was a murderous ghost.

Oh.

Perhaps, that was the reason.

“Sica Unnie,” Yoona muttered to the now calmer girl. “I’ve heard about Seohyunie’s and Shin Dong Oppa’s… deaths. And I know that my sudden disappearance must have cast more doubts. But please, please, trust me that I am not involved in any of those horrid acts.”

As ratio started to invade her mind, Jessica found her strength back. Pushing Yoona away, Jessica cautiously muttered, “Your statement could be lies, for all I know.”

Jessica’s eyes darted around, looking for weapon. But suddenly, Yoona rose her arms up as if surrendering. Her doe eyes calmly, casually, almost childishly challenged Jessica. “Go search me up. Will you find anything that I can use as a weapon against you? All I have is a wallet in my pocket. Do you think a person can kill with a wallet?”

Yoona was a queer young woman –that was absolute.

But Jessica did not put her suspicion away. “The blood. On your hand. Did you just…do horrible things to something?”

The Im girl blinked as she brought her arms down and stared at the smear of blood on the palm of her right hand. “This? I tripped on my way here. I haven’t had the time to heal it. See, there’s this wound,” she said as she pushed her palm closer to Jessica’s vision.

Jessica cringed at her action and at the real wound on Yoona’s palm. “That’s disgusting. Get your hands away off me,” she muttered. Jessica cursed herself for having to go to the extent of saying ‘disgusting’ to someone’s injury, but she just wanted to defend herself as flawlessly as possible. And people said that her biting words were her strongest weapon. “Still, you’re suspicious.”

Yoona sighed. “What should I do to make you trust me?”

Jessica glared at her. “Nothing. I’ll just go back, report your appearance to the police and let them take actions.”

“Unnie…” Yoona pouted as if she was a ten year old kid. Jessica frowned. Yoona had no sense of danger even considering the seriousness of their situation was. Perhaps those people were right. Yoona was too unpredictable, and her carefree attitude was more perplexing rather than refreshing.

“I. Am. Going. To. Report. You. To the Police,” threatened Jessica. She did not even know where all these bluffs suddenly came in. It was absurd. Not a few seconds prior she was afraid of Yoona, but now, she treated Yoona like an angry mother would to her daughter.

“Ah, Unnie!!” Yoona said as she clutched at Jessica’s designer blouse.

Jessica eyed at the lithe fingers around her blouse. “Let.It.Go.”

“Nope, Unnie. I won’t.”

Jessica grabbed Yoona’s thin wrist and forced her to let the grip off her blouse.

Yoona only strengthened her clutch on the fabric.

“Let go, Choding.”

“Right. I’m a choding. A stubborn one. And I won’t let go,” challenged Yoona back.

“You are an annoying brat…”

“And you’re a stuck-up, arrogant Unnie…”

“You have no respect towards the older!”

“What? Didn’t you say that you hate Korean culture? That you hate the senior-junior thing? I’m doing exactly what you like,” Yoona calmly used Jessica’s earlier sayings weeks prior to attack her. Her clutch on Jessica’s blouse tightened.

Jessica was worried that her favorite blouse would be torn if their persistence continued. But more than anything, to even be able to think of the possibility of her clothes to be ruined, even when she was facing a very plausible killer amazed her. To think, the situation where it was downright scary turned out to be comical (if she ever let herself had the littlest sense of humor. Unfortunately, Jessica was a bad joker).

“Fine, brat!” Jessica exclaimed. “I won’t go. Now let go of my blouse!”

Yoona’s grin was wide enough. She reminded Jessica of an alligator, somehow. A very pretty alligator, but an alligator nonetheless.

Again, the thought of something that was so trivial made her afraid of herself. Perhaps it wasn’t Yoona who had zero sense of danger. Perhaps it was Jessica herself who couldn’t sense danger.

But…

Looking up at Yoona’s playful eyes…

“Unnie, I love you.”

…she honestly felt no danger.

And Jessica had a pretty good intuition, as Krystal often complimented.

Clearing , Jessica spoke up again. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

The twinkle on Yoona’s eyes slowly dimmed down and she looked down to deliberate on her words before speaking, “How’s everybody been doing? How has… Donghae Oppa been doing?”

Something about the way Yoona spoke of Donghae made Jessica flinched, somehow. “He’s…fine, I suppose. He’s busy looking for you. Everyone else is fine, perhaps. At least, with such traumatizing events that have been evolving, people have been sane enough…at least on the surface.”

Yoona exhaled a deep sigh. “What have we gotten into?” she asked, more to herself.

Jessica weakly shrugged. Her eyes were looking back towards the children playground she had ran away from moments ago and her feet unknowingly made their way towards it again. Yoona followed her and soon both girls found themselves seated on the swings. The swings’ handle were made out of chain, so they supposedly were able to bear both girls’ weights. Rustling sounds were heard, but they were both to tired to take notice of them.

A few swings. Then Jessica broke the silence again, “Where have you been these past few days? It’s almost two weeks.”

Yoona shrugged casually. “What do you call it? Backpacking? Travelling? Running away? Either way, I just jumped from one town to another. I’m quite the adventurous type. I’m proud enough to be able to even deceive the police,” she said with a grin.

There was something empty in her grin that time. Jessica pushed more.  “Why are you running away?”

Yoona took a few seconds before replying. “I was trying to save my life…and my sanity, I suppose.”

“From what? The killer who targets Der Märchenclub’s members?”

“Perhaps, I don’t know,” Yoona said as she pushed her swing farther. “I don’t know whether it is the same person or not, but I was…”

Jessica waited.

It took Yoona almost one full minute before she finally replied, “I was being stalked.”

Jessica stopped her swings and stared at Yoona. “Stalked?” Jessica suddenly remembered Yoona’s job as a model. That kind of job tended to attract stalker, but she did not originally think it would actually happen to Yoona.

“It first started out pretty harmless actually. Just mere letters. Possessive words, empty threats… things that I wouldn’t have really been bothered with,” Yoona said as she closed her eyes and tried to fight the trembles that started to invade her. “Then it got worse. Photographs of me taken. Phonecalls. But it was when the stalker sent me a photograph of me…” she gulped. Her trembles were more visible to Jessica’s eyes. “…a-a p-photograph of me taking bath in my personal bathroom…sent with lustful letters…”

Jessica’s face fell. It was a horrible thing, it was –

“D-disgusting,” Yoona spat the word out in ire, in depression, in fear. “Like he was spying me 24/7. And to know that he was capable to even invade my privacy t-that way… I-I got…really stressed… That’s why that day you found me with the anti-depressant pill. I… couldn’t take it anymore…”

Jessica, for the rarest time, was sympathetic towards someone. “Why didn’t you report it to the police?”

“The stalker threatened to do harmful things to my families and friends if I do…” Yoona managed to speak out. “To even imagine he would do horrible things to my parents… to Donghae Oppa…” she shook her head. “I was afraid of what he would do. He seems to be capable of doing things he threatened to do.”

“…And are you intending to run away forever?”

“No,” said Yoona firmly. “I’ve decided to face it. Running away like this… it’s probably safe enough, but it’s not good for my mental health. And I miss everyone…”

Jessica let out a sigh as she stared at the dark, starless sky. “Perhaps you should. And go report it to the police this time. It’s not as if the Im could not hire capable bodyguards to protect your parents. And Donghae…