Goodbye, Hello.
Unexpected Family
An hour passes and Sulli still isn’t back. Krystal begins to get frustrated because she is already done with her side of the dorm so she begins to help Sulli out by organizing her stuff for her. As she is putting Sulli’s stuff away, she comes across what looks like a diary.
A mischievous smile spreads across Krystal’s face. She thinks to herself, well, we ARE best friends so I don’t think she’d mind. She opens the diary to where she last wrote an entry. It was about 2 months ago.
Dear diary,
I can’t believe that I lost my ity to him.
Krystal soon becomes interested; Sulli had never told her about her losing her ity.
I regret it but then again, I don’t. Because I finally got to be more intimate with him. It wasn’t my exact idea of how we would grow intimate with each other. But I shouldn’t waste my time thinking of such things; I have decided to start over. Sleeping with Minho was a mistake that I don’t regret but intend to forget.
“WHA-WHAT?! SLEEPING WITH MINHO?!” Krystal read the last sentence over again.
Sleeping with Minho was a mistake that I don’t regret but intend to forget.
Krystal was in shock; her best friend slept with her ex-boyfriend. She was hurt and she felt anger inside of her. She couldn’t believe that Sulli did that and she was angry that he kept it a secret from her.
She throws the diary on the floor and storms out of the dorm, in search of her back-stabbing best friend.
***
Sulli is walking around aimlessly; still with her mind being occupied by so many thoughts. She miraculously ends up back at the campus and slowly makes her way up the stairs. I have to take the test or I’ll never be sure if I really am until a bump starts to show. It’s now or never.
Sulli makes her way to the girl’s bathroom and goes to the farthest stall. She closes the lid and sits on top of it. She lets out a low sigh and reaches for the 2 pregnancy tests in her bag. Don’t be nervous; it’ll only make it worse.
She takes the tests out of their boxes, stands up to open the lid and pulls down her pants. She puts down a toilet seat cover first and finally sits down. With both tests in her hands, she takes off their caps and tests both of them at the same time. When she is done, she puts their caps back on and flushes. The box says to wait 5 minutes and it will show the result.
Sulli is restless, anticipating what is going to come next.
***
“Sulli! You better answer your phone! We SERIOUSLY need to talk!” Krystal throws her phone back in her bag after leaving Sulli about 10 messages. Sulli isn’t answering her phone and Krystal can’t find her so she decides to give up for the time being and begins to look for a restaurant to eat dinner at.
Krystal was hurt but the anger had faded away. Sulli was her best friend after all and they’ve been through so much that she can’t stay mad at her for long. When she gets the chance, she wants to talk out this whole situation with Sulli, like adults. Krystal isn’t paying attention to where she is going and accidentally bumps into someone and falls.
“Oh! Are you okay--” The boy helps her up and then looks at her face and recognizes her, “Krystal?”
She looks up and smiles, “Taemin!” She hugs him tightly. “How have you been? I haven’t talked to you since..” Her sentence trails off as she remembers what happened on graduation day. Taemin notices but just smiles, “I’ve been good, but hey, we should catch up. Are you doing anything right now?”
Krystal shakes her head no and Taemin holds out his arm, “Let’s go on a date then!” he says with his brightest smile. She couldn’t resist his adorableness and takes his arm, “I’d like that.” They walk off with Krystal smiling her first real smile in a long time.
***
It’s been 5 minutes and Sulli has been having both tests face down the entire time. She is afraid. She doesn’t want there to be a “+” sign. Her whole world would crash down. Gathering some courage, she flips both tests over and finds what she feared the most; that damn “+” sign and even worse, it was on both of them. Double whammy.
She thinks back to that night and remembers Minho putting a on but the only way it couldn’t have worked is if it broke. Her heart was beating out of her chest. She couldn’t get an abortion, she was against the idea of killing a living being. What was she going to tell her parents, Krystal, and Minho? No, she couldn’t tell them. She wouldn’t.
Sulli runs back to her dorm and thankfully, Krystal wasn’t there. She spots a book on the floor and notices that it’s her diary. She bends down to grab it and she feels that nauseating feeling again. She ignores it and picks it up; it was on the page where she wrote about Minho. Sulli’s eyes widen as she realizes that Krystal must have read it.
The nauseating feeling she felt was replaced with sadness and fear. She tears up and throws the diary down. Grabbing everything she needs from the room and bathroom, she leaves as quickly as possible, scared to face Krystal and everyone else. Before leaving, though, she leaves a note for Krystal, saying goodbye.
Sulli felt like she had to run; run away from everything and everyone. Finding out she is pregnant has to be the worst thing that has ever happened to her and the unluckiest. I shouldn’t have given into him so easily, I should have found another way to help him. Look what helping out a friend in need did. Sulli was mad at herself for being too caring sometimes.
While asking for directions to a bus station, she gets pointed into the right direction. Her forehead is sweating from the hot summer night and also from nervousness. What was going to happen now? She couldn’t tell Minho; she didn’t want him to worry about anything since he had a full-ride scholarship for soccer to Korea University. She wanted him to focus on that and not feel the burden of having a child. She didn’t want to hold him back.
With all these thoughts on her mind, Sulli decides where she is going to go. There is someone that could help her in her situation because the same thing happened to them. That person ran away from home when they figured out they were pregnant so they should have some good advice and insight on the situation.
Sulli purchases a ticket to Incheon, which isn’t that far from Seoul but she figures since she doesn’t know anyone there except for the person she is going to see, she’ll be fine and unnoticeable.
It takes about 95 minutes to get there so Sulli sits all the way in the back, plugs in her ear buds and begins to play her Lee Seung Gi playlist in preparation for this short, yet long bus ride; long from all of her thoughts running around franticly in her mind and the worry that has fully settled in.
***
After Krystal and Taemin’s date, he walks her back to the campus. “Thanks for dinner, it was refreshing,” Krystal says with a smile. Taemin pulls her in for a hug and says, “Anytime.” After he releases Krystal from the hug, he wishes her goodnight and tells her that she can call him anytime. She smiles and says the same thing to him. With that, she says goodnight one last time and goes back to her dorm.
As Krystal opens the door, ready to face Sulli, she finds no Sulli in the dorm. “Ssul? Are you here?” She checks the bathroom but no Sulli. As she walks over to her bed, she finds a note. It’s from Sulli.
Dear Krys,
I’m sorry that you had to find out about me and Minho in that way. I wanted to tell you but I couldn’t because I knew you would be angry with me and never speak to me again and I didn’t want that. You’re my best friend Krystal and you always will be but for the time being, I have to disappear. Please do me one last favor, please don’t tell anyone about my disappearance. Especially him. I don’t want to be a burden to him, you, or anyone else for that matter. I assure you that I will be safe. Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself. Hopefully we will meet again one day. But for now, goodbye Krys.
Love, your best friend,
Ssul♥
Krystal didn’t notice she was crying until she saw a tear fall onto the piece of paper. “What do you mean you’re disappearing? You can’t leave like this..” Krystal forgets about all of the anger she ever felt towards Sulli and places the note on her nightstand. While staring at Sulli’s empty bed, Krystal cries to herself as she holds onto her pillow. Please come back soon Ssul or I’m going to come looking for you.
***
Sulli turns her phone on and notices there are 10 voicemails from Krystal. She is scared to listen to them so she just ignores them for now, Sulli couldn’t handle it at the moment. It shouldn’t be too long until she reaches Incheon now. She is anticipating what will happen next. Will the person she’s looking for accept her into their home? How is Krystal doing? Does she hate her guts? And most importantly, how is she going to take care of this baby when it’s born?
Sulli was afraid. She was only 18 and so much stuff was already happening to her. She felt unlucky and alone. She couldn’t go to Krystal, Minho, or her parents. Other than them, she had no one.
As Sulli arrives to the station in Incheon, she slowly makes her way to the station’s front desk. “Excuse me?” A middle-aged woman looks up from her work and smiles at the young woman in front of her. “How may I help you?”
“I was wondering if you had a phonebook I could borrow for a few minutes and also a map I could buy?” Sulli asked hopefully.
“Of course! Hold on just a sec.” The woman looks for a phonebook and map of Incheon. “Here you go miss, and the map is on the house.” Sulli bows thankfully to the woman and thanks her a few times. She goes over to a nearby bench, sits down and flips the phonebook open. She mutters, “Lee.. Lee..” to herself as she looks for the Lee’s section. When she reaches it, she sighs. Why must there be so many damn Lee’s!?
Sulli begins her search and after a few minutes, she finds the person she’s looking for. “Asa!” Sulli yells out loud and receives a few weird looks from by passers. She clears and inputs the address in her phone. She returns the phonebook to the woman and bows a few more times before leaving with her suitcase trailing behind her.
As she steps out into the night, she flips her map open and stands under a street light so she could read it. “Hmm, if I take this route, it should only take about 15 minutes to get there!” She looks at her watch, 9:05PM. She whispers to herself, “I hope they’re still awake..”
She waves a taxi down and gets into the back seat. The taxi driver greets her and asks where she is heading. She tells him and begins to drive off. Sulli looks out the window, looking at everything as it passes by. This place doesn’t look so bad. Sulli smiles to herself. She was always a positive person but often ran away from things if they got too stressful or complicated.
After a little while, she arrives to the neighborhood. Sulli pays the driver and bows to him as he drives off. She takes a deep breath, “This is it.” She looks for the right house number and when she arrives at the doorstep, she freezes. What was she going to say? Please help me? I’ll do whatever you want if you let me stay? Sulli didn’t quite think this plan through but she decided to just go for it.
She slowly brings her hand up to the door and knocks 3 times. Good thing the lights were still on. Sulli would feel bad if she was waking anyone. She hears the door being unlocked and a lump forms in . What if they don’t accept me? I have nowhere to go.. The door opens and there stands a young woman, early 20’s, blonde hair in pigtails. “Can I help you?” The young woman asks Sulli with curious eyes.
“Hello. Uh-- yeah.. Taeyeon, do you remember me?” Sulli asked hopefully. She was just so nervous that the lump in was growing bigger.
Taeyeon tilts her head to the side and her eyes widen. “Oh my god, aren’t you Sulli?” Her face lights up as she recognizes her younger cousin’s face.
“Ah-- yes, yes I am.” Sulli smiles nervously and the lump slowly begins to fade away. Taeyeon brings Sulli into a tight hug. “Ahh, I haven’t seen you in so long! You have grown up so well. Please come in, come in.” Sulli walks into her cousin’s house and it is pretty nice and it felt, well, homey.
Taeyeon notices Sulli has a suitcase and backpack with her. “Why do you have your stuff with you, Sulli? Anything you need to tell me?”
Sulli nervously fidgets with her fingers and says, “Well, I have nowhere to go but I remembered you and came here to ask if I-- if I--” Taeyeon puts a hand on Sulli’s shoulder and says, “If you need a place to stay, you are welcome to stay here. You’re family. And our guest room is pretty lonely after all.” Taeyeon flashes her a warm smile and leads her to the guest room.
Taeyeon puts a finger over her lips and whispers, “The baby is sleeping~” Sulli nods her head and slowly and silently follows Taeyeon to the guest room. As they enter, Taeyeon closes the door so that the baby wouldn’t be woken up from their voices. “I just recently changed the sheets on the bed so they should be fine and you can use the closet for your clothes and the bathroom is down the hall, to the left. You can use the nightstand to hold all of your toiletries and whatever else. There is also a drawer that pulls out from under the bed for extra storage. Just think of this room as your room.” Taeyeon smiles brightly.
“Thank you so much, really. I appreciate it. I’m glad that you are so welcoming and we haven’t even spoken in so long. I’m surprised that you still remember me,” Sulli says with a warm smile and small chuckle.
“How could I forget my cute little cousin?” Taeyeon giggles but soon becomes serious. “But Sulli, are you in any trouble? Why do you look like you ran away from somewhere or something?”
Sulli feels the lump in beginning to form again. “Wel-well, I’m not going to beat around the bush or anything but, the same thing that happened to you has happened to me..” Taeyeon blinks her eyes a few times.
“..I’m pregnant.”
[UF] i updated my foreword and description~ i should be updating within the next 2 days so stay tuned!
Comments