Chapter Seventy-Four

Yoona noticed Tiffany has been acting weirdly ever since they returned the other day. Being friendly is only one of her unusual acts. Tiffany had always been hiding in her room. Whenever she tried to call her for breakfast, lunch or dinner, her room was always locked.

Of course, there were times when she left her room too. But rather than out of her room, she actually went out of the headquarters, claiming to do self-training outside on her own.  

Yoona couldn’t understand why Tiffany can’t have the so-called training their training ground? It is not like she is trying to hide something from them… right?

The suspicious hunter was tailing Tiffany. Her unusually friendly unnie had gone to Nicole’s dormitory. Yoona assumed they were going to discuss about the Satron since she vaguely remembered Tiffany had asked Nicole to replace her for the trip.

Their talk didn’t seem to last for long though. Yoona spotted Tiffany walking out of their dormitory after half an hour of waiting.

Tiffany was on her way back to her own dormitory after having a talk with Nicole in the latter’s room. According to the hunter, the abandoned site was empty when they reached there. Thus, they returned with nothing but empty hands.

However… Tiffany folded her arms together as she paced through the empty hallway.

Being the usual sensitive her, Tiffany sensed that Nicole was lying to her. It was kind of obvious because Nicole was stuttering throughout the conversation. She was also constantly avoiding her gaze.

She must have found something, but what could that be?

Tiffany frowned and rubbed her temple with one hand.

So many things had been running through her head these days that it gave her difficulty in analyzing all the problems smoothly like how she usually did in the past. There were many bits and pieces of puzzles in her head now and they all belonged to different images. Unless she was able to slot these bits and pieces into the correct slot, she could never solve these problems.

“Tiffany!”

Tiffany snapped out of her thoughts and spun around. Not too far away from her, she spotted Wooyoung approaching her from another side of the corridor.

Yoona saw that hunter as well. She quickly hid herself behind a pillar in case any of them noticed her.

She was pretty sure Tiffany wouldn’t like what she was doing.

“Wooyoung…” Tiffany muttered his name under her breath. She had almost forgotten about this one. She had yet to apologize to him for the incident which happened a few days ago.

Wooyoung stopped in front of Tiffany and observed the girl, making sure Tiffany wasn’t going to be offensive to him again. “I see you’re better now.” He commented with a smile.

“I’m sorry for what happened. How’s your arm?” The incident happened because she couldn’t differentiate the past from present. But thanks to that mysterious person who calmed down her mind when she was in the ward, she managed to recover successfully.

Wooyoung took a quick glance of his arm and shrugged nonchalantly, “Still attach to my body.”

“I’m really very sorry about it, Wooyoung.” Tiffany apologized again.

But Wooyoung wasn’t paying attention to that, instead, his mind was attracted to another factor which he had just discovered.

“You’ve changed.” He stated with disbelief. Tiffany frowned at him confusingly. Wooyoung let out a short laugh and said, “You… I hadn’t seen you being so friendly for a long time.” He paused for a second. “Especially towards me.”

Tiffany flashed a faint smile at him, “Isn’t that a good thing?”

Tiffany’s reply creep the hell out of Wooyoung. Not that he really mind a friendly Tiffany, but this was a little bit too over. He frowned at her, “Are you alright?” He reached out his hand, attempting to feel Tiffany’s forehead when the latter took a step backwards.

Tiffany scrunched her face into a scowl subconsciously.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me.”

Perhaps he was wrong. Tiffany was still reluctant towards him.

“I see.” Wooyoung let out a soft sigh and tucked his hands into his pants. “Well, I shall get going then. It’s good to see that you have recovered by the way.”

“Recovered huh?”

Tiffany mumbled to herself after Wooyoung left.

“If only I hadn’t recovered those which shouldn’t be recovered.”

Yoona came out from her hiding spot a few minutes later and found Tiffany nowhere to be seen. But judging from the path and direction Tiffany was heading, her next destination should be their very own dormitory.

*

The dormitory was in dead silence when Tiffany finally returned. Assuming everyone was still asleep, Tiffany made her way to pantry on the second level softly, planning to grab a glass of water to ease her thirsty throat from all the talking earlier on.

She washed and kept the glass back to its original position after she was done with it. However, just as she was making her way out of the pantry, the girl with blonde hair came in.

This was officially their first time alone in a room ever since the incident days ago.

Jessica tried to ease the tensed atmosphere by smiling at the hunter, but Tiffany did nothing and stared at her coldly, seemingly piercing the poor girl’s body with her eyes.

“I… I’m going to grab some milk.” Assuming that Tiffany was unhappy with her appearance in the pantry, Jessica quickly explained her intention, hoping that Tiffany would peeled her penetrating eyes away from her if she knew she meant no harm.

Fortunately for Jessica, Tiffany decided not to waste her time with her because tackling and killing her now would only create problems. She should look for evidences first, so she could eliminated this blonde without worries.

Folding her arms together, Tiffany started to make her way out of the pantry. Seeing this, Jessica lowered her head frighteningly and quickly paced towards the fridge at the back.

“Tiffany…”

Tiffany stopped abruptly when she heard an unfamiliar voice ringing in her head. She spun around reflexively and searched for the source of the voice. Her eyes naturally landed on the other living soul, Jessica, who had just walked past her and was standing in front of the fridge, preparing to grab the milk from inside.

Maybe she heard it wrongly… Tiffany thought to herself as she turned around and continued her way out of the pantry.

“How does it feel to regain your memories? Good?”

Tiffany stopped again. This time round, her eyes dilated with shock, and panic was written all over her face. She turned to her greatest suspect again and watched her reaching for the glass on the top shelf innocently.

“Will you continue to love Yuri as Tiffany?”

The voice spoke in her head again. Tiffany had unknowingly clutched her fists tightly together and narrowed her eyes on Jessica.

It has to be her… there is no one else in the pantry except for the both of them!

Still oblivious with Tiffany’s fixated stare, Jessica twisted open the cover of the milk package and began to pour the white liquid content into the glass. The smile on her face was reflecting her good mood.

“Or will you return to Taeyeon as Stephanie?”

Jessica was finally done with the milk. She closed its cover and looked up from her glass. Her eyes met Tiffany’s gaze. She flashed a smile at the hunter again before heading towards the fridge to keep the milk in it.

But to Tiffany, that was a taunting smirk.

And her trembling right fist had already reached for the silt of her blade on her thigh without any hesitation.

*

Sooyoung yawned and stretched her body along the corridor as she slowly walked towards the pantry. When she got nearer to her destination, she spotted a familiar figure standing by the entrance.

Curious, Sooyoung went ahead and nudged the girl on her shoulder.

“Hey Yoona! Why are you standing here?”

“Huh?” Yoona looked lost for a moment. “I uh––”

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

Clink clang!

“What the hell was that?!” Sooyoung exclaimed out of surprise. She ran into the pantry with Yoona following behind her to witness a horrifying scene.

“OH MY GOSH, TIFFANY!”

Tiffany had pinned Jessica on to the table. She was also holding her blade dangerously close to the latter’s neck.

Sooyoung threw herself at Tiffany from behind and hugged her tightly by the waist. “YAH! TIFFANY! STOP! DON’T DO IT!”

“UNNIE!” Yoona had rushed to their sides. She planted her hands on top of Tiffany’s hands, trying her best to lengthen the distance between the sharp blade and Jessica’s neck. “UNNIE! YOU’RE GOING TO KILL HER!” Blood was gushing out from the small cut on Jessica’s neck. If Yoona and Sooyoung hadn’t come in earlier, Tiffany would have silt open Jessica’s throat with her blade already.

Tears were streaming down Jessica’s cheeks as she tried to struggle out of Tiffany’s hold. Despite having Yoona and Sooyoung holding Tiffany back, she could still feel the cold steel brushing against her vulnerable neck.

She didn’t even dare to imagine what would happen if the both of them didn’t come in time.

“UNNIE!”

“YAH TIFFANY!”

“Yah! Yah! Yah! What’s with the commotion in the morn––SICA!” Yuri was still in her dream world when shouting from the outside woke her up. She walked out of her room irritably, planning to shut those two hunters up so that she could get back to her bed and sleep again, but when she saw the chaotic situation in the pantry, sleep was the last thing she wanted to do.

Yuri leaped across the pantry and stopped right besides Tiffany and Sooyoung (on the opposite side of Yoona). She gave Tiffany a hard push by her shoulders with both hands, causing the determined hunter to tumble backwards along with Sooyoung.

She turned around, pulling Jessica up from the table and into her embrace. When she noticed blood was rolling down from the blonde’s neck, her anger instantly exploded.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, TIFFANY HWANG?!”

Tiffany ignored Yuri’s question. She didn’t have the time or the patient to answer that now. Pushing Sooyoung – who was still holding her back – away, Tiffany made her way towards Jessica again when Yuri suddenly passed Jessica to Yoona and stepped in front of her.

PIAK!

The loud slap startled everyone who was present in the pantry. Even Jessica stopped crying and forgot about the wound on her neck.

“I have enough of you and your ridiculous attempt, Tiffany!” If it was like the usual accusations, Yuri wouldn’t have been so agitated. But clearly, Tiffany had crossed her limit this time. The blood on Jessica’s neck was yelling something. If Sooyoung and Yoona hadn’t come in earlier, there would only be one result to Tiffany’s attempt.

The initial determination on Tiffany’s face was gone. It was showing an expressionless face with a tinge of mockery.

“Ridiculous?” She let out a soft laughter bitterly. She stared at Yuri with pain in her eyes. “So you’re telling me you believe her and not me?”

Yuri squinted at her partner and stated coldly through her gritted teeth, “Your accusations are illogical.” Since the day they brought Jessica back to their headquarters, Tiffany never stop accusing Jessica. It wasn’t like Yuri didn’t want to believe her partner, but Tiffany never gave any explanation to why she felt Jessica was dangerous.

In other words, Tiffany was just accusing Jessica blindly.

“And she’s logical to you?” Tiffany argued.

“We don’t talk about logical if it’s between me and Sica.” Tiffany found her eyebrows drawing together uncontrollably when she heard her partner making that sentence.

She had a bad feeling about it.

“Jessica is my girlfriend.”

Tiffany felt her body numbing from head to toes, it was as if her blood had stopped flowing for a moment.

“I love her and I trust her.” Yuri continued, seeing how Tiffany had no intention to comment on the news. “If you still see me as your partner, I wish you can understand how I feel and stop whatever nonsense ideas you have in your mind now!”

Yuri had been finding chances to break this piece of news to Tiffany ever since she returned safely from her patrolling, but she wasn’t given a chance to because her partner was always hiding herself in the room. Either that, she was always out of Aurales, and no one knew where she went.

Never had she thought she would share this – supposedly happy – news with her partner under such a dramatic circumstance. She would love to share this in a happier atmosphere if it was possible. But sadly, and unfortunately, it was impossible.

“I see.” That was the only two words Tiffany could make out after hearing the news. A bitter smile was formed on her face uncontrollably as she lowered her head and walked out of the pantry.

There is no reason for her to be here anymore.

But is there even one in the first place?