CHAPTER TEN: Truth

“9 Days left, mortal girl. Please hurry.”

“Aigo, where are you?” Jessica sighs as she sits herself down on the park bench. It was 6PM already. She just returned from visiting Krystal and spent the entire afternoon trying to find Onew.

She didn’t find him at their place.

She hasn’t seen him since the night of the dream about him leaving.

‘He didn’t leave,’ she tells herself, but thinks inside to herself, ‘What if that wasn’t a dream? What if…’

But every time she had doubts, she would shake her head and tell herself the same thing, over and over again.

‘He didn’t leave.’

So she spent most of the extra time she had looking for him. She didn’t know why but she continued to search for him although she reassured herself many times, he didn’t leave. It’s like a force was pushing her to go look for him, like there were strings attached to her body and someone was moving them, controlling them.

But there was really just an empty space in her heart that only he happened to be able to fill.

So she decided that for the next few days, she would skip school just for him. She would do that for him. She would use that time to find him. 

Jessica was firm with this decision, and so she went to sleep with determination.

‘I will find him.’

“Yah! You guys take care, okay?” The blonde man said as he waved the two goodbye.

“Yeah yeah.” A boy with doe eyes laughed at his cousin as he and a short girl finished loading in their luggage. “It’s not like I’ve never been there before.”

“Yeah, oppa. It’s just Seoul...” The girl smiled.

“Well whatever, just go already...”

“We’ll miss you oppa~”  She giggled and got into the car

“Bye!” The doe-eyed boy followed after her.

“Visit me! I’m gonna be lonely!” The blonde man shouted as their car took off.

CRASH

Two people were found lying on the road, covered in blood. A careless driver’s truck rammed into them, almost crushing the vehicle they were riding in. The boy in the driver’s seat was injured badly, and the girl wasn’t...she wasn’t able to make it.

Beep Beep Beep Beep

“No way...” Jessica mumbled as she opened her eyes. She felt tears on her face as she opened her eyes.

She didn’t know what to feel right now.

She knew she felt sad, but that was just because of that dream and those faceless people. Who were they, exactly? Jessica didn’t know. She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why she had that dream in the first place. She didn’t know the people involved in the crash. She didn’t know if what she saw was true, or if it was just her wild imagination playing tricks on her. And if it was true, did it already happen? Or was she seeing the future? She hoped for neither.

Confusion surrounded her.

‘Who were those people? And where were the boy and the girl headed? Where did they come from?’

Those were the only things running through Jessica’s mind right now.

Sure, it was none of her business. The identities of the boy and his cousin, and the girl? What of them? Why would she care about those things. Where they were headed was none of her business. Where they lived and where they came from was not supposed to concern her either.

But what if it did?

What if she knew the boys, or the girl? What if they met, or were fated to meet? What if…

There were so many questions.

“Aish,” Jessica just sighed. She had no time to find out about that dream. She had no time to go see a fortune teller or a dream interpreter, and ask them what those things meant.  She would just be wasting minutes, even hours, of her precious time—the precious time she was supposed to use to go find her lost friend.

In fact, she was wasting her time just thinking about the little details about her dream. She had to get moving.

So she shook everything off and headed to the bathroom, like she would everyday after waking from her sleep. She would take a bath and comb her silky, blonde hair. Then she would decide on what to wear for that day. Today, it was a blue and white, short-sleeved, striped button-down polo tucked in her jean shorts and a bright Red pair of Chuck Taylor’s.  And of course, ever since the day Onew gave her the ice princess necklace, putting the said necklace on became a part of her daily routine. And each day when she did so, she would look into the mirror, and smile.

And when she was all dressed up, she would go to the kitchen and prepare herself something to eat for breakfast—washing the dishes and clearing the table came after. Jessica would end her morning routine by brushing her teeth and grabbing her schoolbag, which hung from the golden doorknob of her bedroom door, and take the keys. She would then let herself out the front door, locking it securely behind her, ready for another day.

She looked about her, deafened by the silence in her surroundings. Maybe it was still early, for she didn’t bother to check the time today when she got up. She didn’t know.

And she was out of the house now, what was she going to do?

Right, she was going to look for Onew.

She knew she was looking for him, but she didn’t know where to look.

Jessica then remembered the notebook she kept in her bag—the one with the list of places she thought she might find him in. Her eyes moved left and right, and then downward, as she read off the places one by one while she walked to the park bench.

Her eyes widened and she blinked a few times when she reached the bottom of the list. There was an item she didn’t recall adding to that list. Yet there it was, screaming in her face, written in her very own hand writing.

‘The place where the boy and the girl in my dream came from,’ was written in big, black letters at the bottom of the page.

It was the only place that wasn’t crossed out yet, along with the mall, the chicken restaurant and the other stores she had written on the clean notebook paper.

“What’s this?” She asked herself as she took as seat on the park bench.

It was seriously freaking her out.                

And she didn’t know what to think about it.

“SICA!”

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a voice. It was familiar, yes. But she knew that it didn’t belong to the person she was looking for. It wasn’t Onew’s deep, warm, and endearing voice. It belonged to someone else. But still, she looked up from her notebook, and her eyes widened at the sight of the people in front of her.

There they were. There were her friends standing in front of her, a few of them still running behind the others.

Tiffany, Yuri, Minho, Key, and Taemin were there.

The voice, she assumed belonged to Minho.

“Guys?” She said, wondering what they were doing here right now.

Then she remembered what happened at school not long ago.

She left them at that time, and ran out of the school with no particular reason.

So Jessica stood up, and immediately bowed repeatedly in front of her friends, uttering the words “I’m sorry,” every five seconds.

“Noona, please stop that,” Taemin said as he grabbed her shoulder. Jessica paused for a moment, and then straightened her top before facing the people standing in front of her, trying her best to avoid their eyes.

“Jessica, we’re sorry,” Key started, “We’re sorry for whatever we did to make you run out of the school that day. We’re sorry about what happened to Sunny, maybe she was close to you and-“

“No,” Jessica interrupted him. “It’s me. I’m sorry,” she said as she finally mustered up the courage to look into the pair of eyes staring straight into hers.

“But Jess, we-“ Yuri tried to speak, but Jessica interrupted her once more.

“It’s me. I’m sorry. Okay? Please let’s not make this longer…”

Jessica’s statement makes everyone silent, until Tiffany cracks a smile.

“But why did you run, Jessie?” Tiffany says mockingly and winks at her best friend.

“I don’t know?” Jessica laughs, and all the others burst out in laughter as well. “I missed you guys,” Jessica admits and the group of friends all hug each other.

“By the way, Noona, Jonghyun-hyung says sorry too.”

‘Come to think of it, where IS Jonghyun?’ Jessica ponders as she looks up at the sky, and then she finally turns to her friends to verbalize her thoughts. “Wait, Where IS Jonghyun?”

Key replies, “Oh, he’s at the hospital taking care of his friend...whose name I forgot.”

“Yeah, I heard he was in coma for a month already?” Minho says suddenly.

“He was with a girl when he came to Seoul. But they got hit by a truck. She didn’t make it, but the guy’s still there in the hospital. Or at least that’s what hyung told us,” Taemin adds.  

“Oh,” was all Jessica could say. Traces of sadness and fear were painted all over her face. Sadness, because she remembered her little sister and the day they took her life from Jessica’s hands. Fear, because of her dream– the one of the boy and the girl. It was almost like Taemin was talking about the exact same people in her dream. But she didn’t ask him anything more about the people or what happened to them. In truth she wanted to know more about them, but she decided not to let her curiosity get the best of her this time. She was afraid. Even though she could talk to her deceased sister and friend; she was afraid.

“Yah!” Tiffany screams in the blonde ice princess’ ear, snapping her fingers loudly in front of her best friend.

“Huh?” Jessica blinks, and then laughs. “Sorry, I was just thinking about what Taemin said...”

Yuri and Tiffany look at each other, worried looks and seriousness carved on their beautiful faces. And though the three boys stood there clueless, Tiffany and Yuri knew very well what– or rather, who– their best friend was talking about.

Their gazes shifted to the girl with blonde hair standing in front of them. She’s grown stronger in the past few months living independently. They helped her along the way, and now she has someone who can make her smile when they aren’t around.

Onew.

They look back at each other, and smiles cross their faces. They knew exactly what to do.

“Yah Jessie~ Don’t be like that! Your boyfriend might think that we aren’t taking care of you!” Tiffany jokes, her worry and fear hidden by her bright smiling eyes.

“Boyfriend?” The three boys all ask simultaneously.

Yuri replies, “Yeah, her boyfriend~ On–“

“Yah! He’s not my boyfriend okay!” Jessica says in a cold voice and throws them a stare that you would’ve frozen the Han River solid.

Silence takes over the moment, and the two Brunette girls look at each other once more, then to the ground.

“Hahahaha!”

And just then, the ice princess bursts out laughing.

Author's Note:

Oh my god. Hello! 

Wow I never really thought people were still reading this thing. :o 

First of all, I'm sorry for abandoning all of you for like a year. .___. *hides in a corner* It was just that it was fourth year high school and college prep and I fell in love and now It fell apart and I'm broken but you don't really wanna hear about my life and oh look at the lack of punctuation in this sentence. But anyway, yeah. Excuses. 

If anybody is still reading this- or if anybody isn't lol- I'm still gonna update it. It feels so bad to be left hanging (really bad and heartbreaking) and I'm really sorry it took me so long but I'm here now. And If you people still want to read this then that's great! ^^ I edited the previous chapters a little. But you don't have to read them back. I didn't change the story, just a few things with sentences and stuff. Hihihihi.

I'M SORRY!!!! *BOWS 360 DEGREES AS IF SHE CAN EVEN DO THAT*

Anyway, see you guys around here~

-BAD BAD BAD EVIL AUTHOR.