Chapter Ninety-Five
 
Taeyeon was astonished to find that their room was nearly done with the furnishing. The last thing she remembered before she dozed off, the room was still filled with dust, while the old furniture was sitting on its original position. But now, almost everything had been replaced. The bed was obviously new and the wardrobe too… The sorceress turned to her lover, jaw-dropped. “You did all these by yourself?” The room would be perfectly done after filling up that empty space next to the window.
 
“How is it?” Tiffany was afraid that Taeyeon was unhappy with the placement of the furniture. She kind of changed the position of their bed and she wasn’t sure if Taeyeon liked it.
 
“It… It’s awesome!” Taeyeon exclaimed in awed. She could hardly believe Tiffany did all these by herself after she went into coma. “You’re awesome. How did you even finish all of these works by yourself? But why didn’t you leave me here instead of the inn? You must be tired after all these physical work.” Taeyeon felt really bad after realizing Tiffany was doing all these hard work when she was sleeping. This was their home. They should help out one another.
 
“I only bought the bed after I took you to the town.” Tiffany slipped one of her arms around Taeyeon’s shoulder and rested her head on it. “It took me awhile to put the frames together and I didn’t want you to sleep on the grass.”
 
“You could have waked me up.”
 
“And make you work despite feeling tired?” Tiffany pinched Taeyeon’s nose lightly. “Silly, who do you think I am? I don’t overwork my lover.”
 
Taeyeon pouted at her, “Neither do I.”
 
“I didn’t tire out myself like some silly girl who slept for more than ten hours.”
 
“Yah!”
 
Tiffany leaned forward suddenly and planted a swift kiss on her cheek. “Let’s get to work, silly girl. We still have a lot more things to go.”
 
Cleaning up the house was tougher than what Taeyeon expected initially. She thought throwing out everything and cleaning up was something simple, until she moved them by herself, she suddenly recalled that she was bad at physical job in the first place.
 
And then, she fell asleep.
 
Stepping out of their bedroom, Taeyeon observed the living room and became restless instantly. The amount of dust was unimaginable. Taeyeon wouldn’t dare to imagine how much time they had to take in order to clean up the entire place, let alone throwing out the old furniture.
 
She felt like fainting already.
 
Tiffany stuffed something into her hand suddenly.
 
“What?” Taeyeon shot Tiffany a questioning look when she saw the notes in her hands.
 
“Go to the town and get the bed sheets.”
 
The sorceress frowned upon hearing the reply. “Why didn’t you get them before we come here?” It wasn’t even ten minutes since she stepped into this place.
 
“I forgot about it.” Tiffany simply shrugged and walked into their bedroom. “I’ll clean the living room while I wait for you. Remember to pack my lunch for me too~” And she turned around, flashing her infamous eye-smile at Taeyeon.
 
Sigh, Taeyeon sighed to herself inwardly. She would never reject Tiffany whenever Tiffany showed her that.
 
“Is there anything you’re craving for?” Taeyeon asked as she stepped into their bedroom too. She moved to the corner of the room and picked up her bag. It was left here since they reached this place yesterday.
 
“Nothing in particular.” Tiffany shrugged again. “I’ll eat anything you get.”
 
“Alright.”
 
“Take your time and buy whatever you want.” Tiffany added just as the both of them walked out of the main door.
 
Taeyeon turned around and squinted at her partner, “Why do I feel that I’m a child getting chased out of the house by my mom––” When Taeyeon realized what had just spurted from , it was already too late to take it back.
 
“Did you just say I’m your mom?”
 
Her voice sounded dangerous.
 
Cold sweat rolled down from Taeyeon’s temple. “Um… I think I should get going.”
 
“Kim Taeyeon!”
 
“I’ll come back soon! See you later!”
 
*
 
Taeyeon stepped out of the store with two big bags of bed sheets in her hands. One was in baby blue color, while the other one was in baby pink color.
 
“One pink and one blue, I hope she likes it.”
 
The sorceress smiled to herself as she continued down the streets to look for a decent food stores where she could grab a simple lunch for the both of them.
 
“I wonder if she still likes the same thing.” Taeyeon mumbled to herself as she stepped into small restaurant where it seemed the busiest. She wanted to grab something tasty for Tiffany, but since she was new to this town, she was unsure which restaurant would be better. So eventually, she picked the one where most people visited during lunch.
 
The queue was long for her. There were approximately seven people who made an order before she did.
 
Taeyeon managed to find a stool at the corner of the restaurant. She left the two bags of bed sheets next to the stool and sat down, pulling her own bag to the front and allowed it to rest on her lap.
 
Time is ticking away slowly.
 
Letting out a soft yawn, Taeyeon pulled open her bag and started digging. That device… She frowned, having the urge to throw out the content in her bag. That little device which allowed her to communicate with Sunny, she remembered she threw it inside her bag––Ah! There it is!
 
Taeyeon took out the phone from her bag.
 
She switched it off the other day after reading her friends’ blessing messages, and she hadn’t turned it on ever since.
 
Brrrr! Brrrr! Brrrr!
 
Her phone vibrated constantly for at least three minutes before it came to a stop.
 
“What the…”
 
The screen showed many missed calls. There were several messages too and all of them were from her best buddy, Sunny.
 
Taeyeon was too lazy to go through every single one of them. She scrolled through the message hastily, allowing the screen to reveal the last message which Sunny left for her.
 
It was a message which Taeyeon wished she never read.
 
*
 
Calm before the storm, an idiom which described a period of peace before chaos or crisis. Yuri thought it was very suitable for describing the situation they were facing now.
 
It all started from three days ago, which was approximately a week after the tomb incident. As usual, everyone was working on their assigned duties when they suddenly received emergency from three towns which were within the Satron’s territory.
 
Hunters, who were patrolling around the area, rushed to the location immediately after receiving the alerts from the headquarters. Normally, based on their previous experiences, the patrolling hunters would have been able to settle the problems by themselves… but it was different this time.
 
The three groups of the hunters requested for extra help in unison upon reaching their destinations.
 
Yuri was one of the hunters who witnessed the first hand of the mutants’ return and she could only describe the situation with one word.
 
Terrifying.
 
Her fellow hunters were fighting against plenty of mutants when she arrived at the scene with her temporary assigned team mates. She witnessed how some of the victims struggled in their own pool of blood while the firstly arrived hunters tried to get the mutants away from them. People, who were still in good shape, tried to carry the victims away from the vicious battle that was happening in front of them too.
 
The scenario reminded Yuri of her first official mission, which was the outbreak of the mutants, but she thought that it was worse this time because the mutants were much more tricky and intelligent than the ones they faced in the past.
 
Yuri couldn’t remember what happened throughout their saving process, she only knew they had escaped from the infested town eventually with a handful of surviving victims back to their headquarters.
 
Why headquarters? It was because the outbreak in the three towns was only the beginning.
 
Nearly every half an hour, they would receive three emergency calls from various towns and villages in the Satron’s territory. Different batches of hunters had to make their ways across the border continuously until the outbreak spread – or rather – narrowed down to the towns within Aurales’ territory.
 
The constituency of three calls every half an hour implied a very obvious foul play, but as much as Aurales wanted to dig out the mastermind, the people’s safety was the most important. In the end, every hunter’s mission was to save the humans and the culprits were still on the loose.
 
“Unnie.”
 
A familiar voice broke her trail of thoughts. Yuri looked up from the can of drink which she was holding onto and found Yoona walking slowly towards her while holding the side of her upper body.
 
“What are you doing in here?!” The older hunter got up from the patch of grasses and rushed to her friend immediately, helping her to the nearest bench before sitting next to her.
 
Yuri’s over-reaction created scowl on Yoona’s face. The hunter answered in displeasure, “Unnie, you’re treating me as though I’m a handicap.”
 
“Technically speaking, you are a half handicap now.” A crack on the rib, it was already a miracle that she could get out of the bed fifteen days after the accident and if they hadn’t brought back all the surviving casualties from all the towns and villages, she should still be lying in the ward rather than moving about the headquarters. “What brought you here anyway?” The older hunter asked. She remembered asking Jessica to look after Yoona before she went out this morning.
 
“Jessica unnie is worried for you. She thought something happened to you since the others had returned and you were nowhere to be seen.” The elite hunters decided to move into one dormitory and offered their own dormitories to the leftover surviving victims who did not have a bed to sleep. “Jessica unnie wanted to look for you, but she isn’t that familiar with the headquarters so I volunteered to look for you.
 
“You don’t have to be the one who come, you know.”
 
Yoona shrugged nonchalantly and tugged the corner of her lips, “I’m just the first one who found you, not the only one.” Of course, she wasn’t going to let Yuri knew that she sneaked out of the dorm after the others went out to search for her. “Are you going to go back soon?” Jessica was still looking for her.
 
“Probably not.” Yuri took a big gulp from her drink. “I have some queries in my head and I need a quiet place to sort things out.”
 
Yoona surveyed their greenly surroundings before turning back to Yuri. They were at the training ground now. Yoona had no idea why she chose to come here to look for Yuri, but probably because she happened to recall that this used to be one of Tiffany’s favorite places in Aurales.
 
“What queries?” She asked curiously.
 
“The recent event.” Yuri released a heavy sigh. “I’m trying to figure out Satron’s intention. I don’t get why they chose to attack three places at a time when they could have taken us down easily if they launch the attack in a go.”
 
Three places… Yoona had heard about this situation from the others when they were discussing about it in the foyer yesterday.
 
“Unnie, why don’t you discuss this with the others? More brains, more solutions perhaps?”
 
“Yeah, but––” Yuri was part of the discussion yesterday. Honestly speaking, no one could figure out anything. Having a discussion with them again wouldn’t do any help. The older hunter transformed this reason into a heavy sigh eventually and continued, “If only Tiffany and Sooyoung are here…” Tiffany had always been the brain of their group, while Sooyoung was the one with the weirdest theory. If only they were still with them, they might have an answer that was closest to the truth already.
 
“Unnie…” Yoona creased her forehead at the mentioned name. Tiffany had so-called became their taboo ever since she left because whenever her name was mentioned, it only brought bad memories to them. While Sooyoung… It was the same for Sooyoung. None of the hunters dared to mention the name of her missing partner for they knew it only worsened the depressing situation now.
 
“I wonder where they are now.” The can in Yuri’s hand released a clink-clank yelp when she enforced a little too much strength at the innocent aluminum tin.
 
None of the hunters met Tiffany nor Sooyoung throughout the entire rescuing process which shouldn’t be the case at all, unless they weren’t in any of those towns and villages or––
 
They had become part of the mutants.
 
Yuri tried to stop her thoughts from venturing that way. She should put more trust in her friend. Tiffany had always been a legend in Aurales. No way would she become a mutant so easily.
 
However, Sooyoung… Who knew what exactly happened to Sooyoung.
 
On the other hand, Yoona was still blaming herself for ditching Sooyoung and also, cursing under her breath for having this injury on her rib. If only she hadn’t escaped and injured herself after rolling down that steep hill, Sooyoung might still be here with them and she could have sneaked out of Aurales and gone to that Kim Taeyeon’s house already.
 
Somehow, she had a very strong feeling that Tiffany was with that Kim Taeyeon now.
 
“Let’s go back.” Yuri announced suddenly and pulled Yoona up from the seat.
 
“Eh? But…” She thought she wanted to have some quiet time.
 
The older hunter ruffled her head with a gentle smile before wrapping her arm around Yoona’s shoulder, the other hand held Yoona’s arm firmly. “We wouldn’t want Jessica to be worried, right?”
 
“Right…”
 
She stood behind the tree and watched the two hunters made their ways slowly, but steadily, towards the exit of the training ground. The dismal in her eyes was ever growing and it became even darker upon hearing the hunters’ conversation.
 
“Jessica…”
 
She felt like laughing when that name rolled out from , but she couldn’t. That name only reminded her of her despicable acts and the pathetic state she was in now.
 
“You deserved it, Jung Sooyeon.”
 
Closing her eyes, she allowed the long accumulated tears escaped her eyes.
 
She could blame no one but herself.