...Don’t try looking for me. I need some time alone. You know how that is, don’t you? Of course, I’m sure you can understand my reason for doing this. I’ll be back eventually. Until then, HM

I cursed under my breath. I should have expected something like this out of her. Filled with a sudden wave of heat, I threw the note on the ground and shoved the chair next to me over. “Dongwoon! Stop it!” Mir screamed as I proceeded to push everything off the table to the floor. I looked at him and scoffed. Nothing matters. Who cares? Obviously Hae Mi doesn’t.

I felt a hard shove on my chest that sent me backwards onto the ground. Mir stood over me, obviously enraged. “Do you have any self control?” He was obviously pissed. “Do you really think throwing everything on the floor is going to bring her back?”

I rolled my eyes and sighed, “No.” He held out a hand and helped me up. I walked over to the pile of papers on the floor and began picking them up. Mir crouched down next to me.

“Maybe we should just let her be for a little while. She’s capable of taking care of herself, you know. Besides, she said she wanted to be alone. You say the same thing all the time. I can recall plenty of times you’ve locked yourself in that room for days at a time, not even coming out to eat. I always get so worried, but I leave you alone, don’t I? She’s the same way. Just give her time. She’ll come back.”

“Where do you think she went?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She went to that cabin. Wherever it is.”

Why didn’t I think of that? My excitement was quickly crushed when I realized I had no idea where this cabin was. Great. I know where she went, but I don’t know where it is. I could always go back to the police station and look it up, but I didn’t want to go back there if possible. Surely she must have written it down somewhere. No, Mir had given her the key. He must have written it down somewhere. He definitely wrote it down, but he’d never give it to me. 

* * *

Days went by as I waited for her return. Every hour felt like an eternity. Every crevice of my heart ached to see her, hear her voice once more, but she stayed gone. Her absence left an empty space inside me. I thought of her, and nothing more.

As I lay zoned out on the couch day after day, my mind wandered to distant lands while my body remained unmoving. I imagined her lying in the grass somewhere. Grass so tall that if she were to lay there forever, I might never find her. I wondered if she ever made it there or if she had been taken by someone whom I may never know and lies dead in an unknown place as of now. Petrified with fear, I pushed that thought out of mind, but the remnants remained painted in my mind. I couldn’t seem to push the image of her stone cold body lying helplessly in a ditch out of my mind. 

Not even sleep could bring an end to this mental torment. Endless nightmares tormented me through the night. I screamed and cried out, but by now Mir had accepted it. At first, he would rush from his room and wake me. As I sobbed my heart dry, he waited silently until I could cry no more and sleep overtook me. 

After about a week of my incessant sulking, Mir, whom was obviously fed up with my current state, forced me off the couch and into the bathroom. In front of the mirror now, I noticed the overgrowth of stubble covering my face. My hair was a knotted mess and my clothes gray and dingy. There were prominent bags under my eyes from the lack of proper sleep. If I were not myself, I’m sure I would have smelled like death. 

Peeling off the clothes which felt more like another layer of skin revealed the now more prominent bones that stuck out of my body. I resembled a skeleton, my chest being nothing more than a bunch of bones with skin stretched over. My skin itself was now tinted a slight grey color. If only I had stayed where I was for a while longer, I might actually appear to be dead. Perhaps I would be better off dead. 

The water that came out of the shower head felt like bullets of ice that slowly warmed to become darts of fire. The water from above and the water from my eyes became one under that indoor waterfall. My body shook despite the warmth, and my bones rattled. My cries were muffled by the continuous pounding of the water of the ground. 

Once out of the shower, I stood in front of the mirror once more. My arms and legs were nothing more than the twigs on the ground. I shook my head. I thought about not shaving, but I decided against it. I looked like I had aged ten years in the time I spent on the couch.

I could tell Mir noticed how thin I had become as I walked from the bathroom to my own room with only a towel around my waist. I was quite surprised myself, but no matter. Once in my room, I sprawled out on the bed without bothering to put on clothes. Almost immediately, my mind drifted to Hae Mi as if by default. I wondered what she was doing. Again, I thought of her lying in a ditch somewhere, or lying in the grass, hidden from everything. At this moment, I realized I am obsessed.

Filled with a sudden urge to get out of this place, I threw on the first thing I got my hands on and silently snuck out of my own room into Mir’s. I rummaged through the drawers until I found what I was looking for. His journal. 

For the longest time, Mir used to carry around a journal to write down any sudden thought that popped into his head that might be useful later. After a while, he gave up, but once we began helping Hae Mi, him and the journal were practically inseparable. I never really paid much attention when he wrote, so the contents of the journal were a mystery to me. Of course, I never had much interest in the journal to begin with until now. This was the only logical place that would contain the address. It was this or nothing.

A fair amount of pages were taken up by his neat handwriting, none of it what I was looking for. Finally, I found it. My heart pounded inside my chest as I copied it onto another piece of paper and shoved it in my pocket. I figured I could get there by tomorrow sometime if I left tonight. Mir would be asleep soon. He wouldn’t realize I had left until the morning and by then I’d be far from here. And so it was decided, I would be leaving tonight.