Hi

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“Unghhh…”

I woke up alone in Tiffany’s bed with a mild headache. Light was shining through the window, which caused me to rub my eyes in order to help them adjust. I took some time to look around the room, and noticed that it was empty.

I had known that Tiffany got out of bed nearly half an hour early, but it was still strange waking up by myself in that large pink room.

I sprang to my feet, and came to the conclusion that my body was fully restored after moving around for a bit. It felt good to be able to walk without feeling a sense of strain.

Last night… was crazy…

It almost didn’t seem like what happened the previous night was real… But I knew it was. Last night was the beginning of a new chapter for each of us: Tiffany and I. We were both finally able to make it over that invisible wall that blocked our paths and progress towards the future.

I sat on Tiffany’s bed for some time before eventually getting dressed and heading downstairs.

 

“Good Morning, Tae.” A bright-eyed Tiffany said as she turned away from the stove.

The sight was unsettling in a good way: She had done a complete one-eighty from yesterday when she wouldn’t even speak to me.

Haeyeon was at the kitchen table, messing with her spy-kit. She looked at me with wide eyes to show her surprise at Tiffany’s sudden change.

I shrugged in response to my sister’s look, and made my way over to the stove. Tiffany was cooking bacon and eggs; a breakfast combination common in America.

“Tiff… about last night…”

“Don’t worry about it.” She responded. “I’ve gotten everything out of my system now. The details about what happened can until another day.” She leaned over and pressed her head against mine to reassure me.

“Ok… Ahh!”

As I spoke, some grease from the bacon squirted from the pan and landed on my arm; leaving a mark on it. The grease stung for a bit, but Tiffany and I ended up laughing at the randomness of the event.

Tiffany quickly wet a piece of cloth and helped me dab the small burn mark forming on my arm. “Go sit down, breakfast will be ready in a bit.” She said as she shoved me towards the kitchen table.

It felt as if she was my wife, and I was her clumsy husband. The thought of the analogy was humorous, but one I could agree with as well.

I sat at the table and had somewhat of an awkward conversation with Haeyeon before Tiffany brought the food over: She asked me about what happened last night and where Mrs. Hwang was. I ended up changing the subject because I didn’t want to throw any more weight on what Haeyeon already had to carry.

Tiffany soon arrived at the table with three plates of: bacon, eggs, and toast. My sister and I ate the food with a degree of intrigue as we had never eaten the combination before. The food was good, though it was salty and sort of lacking something. We coupled the food with some conversation of how things been since the last time we were in Gachul, until somebody rang the doorbell.

 

The three of us were greeted at the door by the ice cream store owner, and her daughter. Haeyeon swiftly ran back to the kitchen table and grabbed her spy-kit; to show her potential new friend.

“Whoa, is that a spy-kit?” The girl said excitedly through half-closed eyes. Haeyeon nodded, and the two girls became instant friends. They conversed about what to do during the day before agreeing on: going to the park and using the kit to spy on people.

“I won’t stay out too long, Unnie.” My sister said as she made her way out of the house. She and her new friend were already halfway to the car before I had a chance to respond.

The ice cream store owner smiled at the girls and made her way towards the car before turning around and doubling back to the door. There was a folded sheet of paper in her hands, which she slowly handed to us.

“This note was on the door with both of your names on it. I almost forgot to give it to you.” She let out a cheerful laugh as she headed to the car once more.

…

Tiffany and I stared at the letter with anxiousness and curiosity.

“Who’s it from?”

“It has my father’s handwriting, so we it’s safe to assume the letter’s from him.” Tiffany responded while grabbing the letter. “What’s this seal on the back?”

We looked at the back of the letter and noticed that the folded paper was held down with a wax seal on the back. After further inspection, I realized that the seal was imprinted with the same symbol that was on my bracer and the metal piece that came along with it.

“Wait here.” I told Tiffany before running upstairs to retrieve my bag.

The bag was in the same spot I left it and still had everything inside of it which quelled my initial suspicion that the items were taken.

I speedily jumped down the staircase and showed Tiffany what I had been carrying around the past few days.

“What is all of this stuff?” she asked, holding the strange metal piece in her hand.

“I don’t know yet, but I think all of these things and your father’s letter are related”

After spending some time discussing everything over, we finally garnered up the courage to open the letter…

 

Taeyeon and Tiffany, you girls have exactly two hours to find me.

If you cannot find me within the set two hours then I cannot allow you to take off your blindfolds.

Hint: Checking my room would be a good place to start and finish

Good luck!

 

What does he mean by blindfolds?

Tiffany must have been thinking the same thing. She turned to look at me; confusion evident on her face.

The note was short, but it was impossible to know exactly what Mr. Hwang meant.

We stood there for some time; each of us trying to decipher the letter.

“Well were not going to get anywhere just standing here.” Tiffany was the first of us to speak up. “We should start off with my dad’s room like he said.”

“That’s a good idea.”

 

We ended up in Mr. Hwang’s room, which was enormous, even compared to Tiffany’s. The room was littered with trinkets and random items from numerous countries. I had heard a few stories of my father and Mr. Hwang’s travels, but nothing too detailed.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Tiffany asked while checking behind a group of statues.

“We need to find something that’s out of place; something might give us a clue to his location.” The words rolled off of my tongue as if I had been in this situation before.

Tiffany obliged without a word, but I could tell that she was surprised at my response because I caught her randomly staring at me several times. It didn’t help that we hadn’t discussed the whole fight situation that took place yesterday: no ordinary person could have done what I did against that gang.

Curious as she was, Tiffany kept her thoughts to herself and continued to search for something of use.

…

It took us an hour just to look at all of the items in Mr. Hwang’s room.

We’ve already used up half of our time…

“Maybe we should check somewhere else.” Tiffany suggested as we both dropped onto her father’s bed.

“Maybe… but the letter said to start and end with this room, so it’s best to assume that whatever we’re looking for is here.”

Tiffany rubbed her chin as she pondered the statement. “He could be in this room. He wouldn’t tell us to end here if there was only going to be a clue in this room.”

It made sense, but we were still missing one piece of this puzzle.

“I don’t think it would be that easy.” I responded “He might show up here at the end of the time limit, but we can’t risk that. Our best bet would be to…”

A thought pushed its way into my mind…

The riddle of this note resembled the hide-and-seek association. At the restaurant there was a hidden wall that I had to break down. The reoccurring emblem was also a dead giveaway.

These two things might be more related than I thought.

I jumped out of the bed and ran to the closest wall in the room.

“What are you doing, Tae?”

I began sliding one hand across the wall while tapping it with the other. My goal was to find any part that sounded hollow. The reason I was sliding my hand across was so that I would not lose my place: This room was huge and it would be easy to mess up at any time.

“I have an idea.” I replied without taking my eyes off of the wall.

 

I was almost through with tapping the wall, and I still hadn’t found any hollow spots. A frown made its way across my face as doubt entered my mind.

I slumped over as my fist came into contact with the last part of the wall. There were no hollow spaces in this wall, and I had no other ideas of what to do.

My eyes began to randomly trace my hand, which was still on the wall.

What are we missing?

As my eyes ran over my ring finger, they caught something…

There was a faint line that was hidden within the wall. It was nearly impossible to see normally, so I had focus solely on my eyes. They followed the line along the wall, which required me to step back due to how large the wall was.

When my eyes finally finished tracing the line, I realized that it was the same reoccurring emblem. It was on a small area of the wall where there was a gap in the souvenirs.

I can’t believe I missed that.

“Did you find something?” Tiffany asked from behind me. She had been watching me this entire time, choosing not to interrupt what I was doing.

“Yeah, that same emblem that was on the letter, and the bracer, is on this wall.”

Tiffany stood directly next to me and focused as much as she possibly could.

“I don’t see anything…”

 “Your eyes aren’t prepped to see it yet.” It was difficult for me to see it even with my enhanced eyesight, so it made sense that she couldn’t see it.

She looked at me with a slightly upset look. “Sort of like I have a blindfold on…”

“Exactly like that.” We both knew that we were getting closer to finding out exactly what Mr. Hwang was talking about.

“… But you’re sure it’s there?”

“Mhm”

…

How are we supposed to open this?

Tiffany and I had tried a myriad of things that we thought would open up the wall, but none of them worked: Moving around the souvenirs was unsuccessful; pressing against the emblem didn’t do anything; we even said random words that we thought might open the wall. We had both ran out of ideas, and were stuck there; just staring at the wall.

“How much time do we have?” I asked, glancing at the ceiling.

Tiffany looked at the pink watch that covered her wrist: “We have fifteen minutes left.”

Frustration filled my body. I didn’t know exactly what we would be missing out on, but I knew it was something crucial. We had expended almost all of our time, and only had a small hint to show for it.

“So you think what we’re looking for is behind that wall?” Tiffany asked as she stood up.

“Yes, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a way to open it.”

“… And you’re telling me that the emblem is right there?” she pointed at the spot in the wall I had designated.

I nodded in response without taking my eyes off of the ceiling.

“Ok. Well you might want to back up a bit.”

I looked behind me to see Tiffany carrying a large vase that she found within the souvenirs.

“What do you plan on doing with that?” I stepped back as Tiffany approached the wall.

She didn’t respond, but cracked her knuckles as she stood directly in front of the wall. In one swift motion, Tiffany raised the vase over her shoulder and threw it directly at the wall.

 

A large hole now appeared where the emblem had been lining the wall. It wasn’t a clean break, leading me to think that there was another way to open the wall, but it got the job done. I stood behind Tiffany, and stared at her wide-eyed as she dusted off her hands.

“My dad’s going to kill me.” Tiffany stated as she poked her head through the new gap in the wall. “… But we needed to get through here before time was up, so it needed to be done.”

I walked up beside her at the hole; through it was a walkway that led downwards. The walkway was dark and curved, from what I could see, and appeared to go on for a while.

This is the path we need to take.

I quickly jumped through the hole without any hesitation.

“Wait Tae: we don’t even know what’s down there yet.”

“We’ve used up too much time already.” I retorted “Besides, I’ll protect you from whatever’s down there.” I smiled as I reached my hand out to help Tiffany get through the hole.

“Alright, let’s go.”

…

We ran down the walkway for what felt like a few minutes. The darkness that previously filled the path was constantly being pushed away by small lights that lined the floor. I had soon realized that the lights responded to where we stepped on the walkway: They didn’t continue to light up if we stopped, and would turn off if we stepped backwards.

The walkway soon started to become narrower, so Tiffany and I decided to slow down. We stopped as we reached the end of the walkway, which opened up into an enormous room.

Along the walls of the room were strange objects that neither of us had seen before. Vegetation filled up the majority of the room, as it was covered in unique herbs, plants, and flowers; all of which gave off distinct and powerful aromas.

In one corner of the room, there were machines that didn’t seem to have any obvious uses. In another corner, I spotted ancient artifacts that appeared more valuable than the souvenirs in Mr. Hwang’s room.

“You girls made it with ten minutes left. I expected a bit better, but I’m happy you made it nonetheless.”

The room lit up with a dull overhead light flickering on. In the middle of the room was a relatively small desk with a man sitting on top of it, eating an apple.

 

“Dad?” Tiffany asked from the far end of the room.

Mr. Hwang smiled and hopped off of the desk to expose what he was wearing. He had on a white t-shirt that was marked with the ever reoccurring emblem on it. The emblem was: A small circle with curved lines radiating from it. It resembled an inverted drawing of a sun: where the lines were a lot larger in comparison to the small circle they came from. The entire emblem was pink, but now there was a solid, horizontal, black line that went through the middle of it.

“How is that grease burn doing, Taeyeon?” Mr. Hwang asked with a sheepish grin on his face.

“How did you know about that?” He hadn’t been in the kitchen when it happened, and for all I knew there wasn’t a camera in the house.

He pointed towards his ear before responding.

“Let’s just say that my hearing is better than most. By the way, I’m expecting for you two to fix my wall.”

Embarrassed looks grew on both of our faces as we were called out about smashing the wall.

“There was no other way for us to get in.” Tiffany responded sharply.

Mr. Hwang allowed his face to fall into his palm as he began to shake his head.

“All you had to do was tilt the two identical souvenirs that were directly next to the marking on the wall.”

Tiffany and I simultaneously face palmed ourselves as we weren’t able to recognize something so obvious.

“But there are multiple ways to get a job done.” Mr. Hwang reasoned in an attempt to make us feel better. “And you girls succeeded in the task that I gave you.”

“So what’s next?” Tiffany asked

“Well now it’s time for you to take off your blindfolds, and learn the truth about this world…”