>_____<;;

Victoria opened the door to their grandma’s bedroom and peered over at the bookshelves in the room. Closing the door after her she started in and ran her eyes over everything possible in the room. The white sheets on the bed still felt warm to the touch even when no one had been there and the little picked up the little angel standing on the bedside table. She set it back down with a small smile and continued the rest of the way to the books.

After walking through the second aisle she heard a noise as if a book was being pulled out and turned to see that a thick red book was sticking halfway out from where it should’ve been tucked in neatly. Stepping back she crouched down to pick it up and glanced the heavy book before flipping it open to discover pictures, many of them inside. She looked up and around her wondering if it had been pulled out for her to look at on purpose.

Repressing her paranoia as best as she could she backtracked out from the bookshelves and sat on the ground. Crossing her legs she set the heavy picture book over it and started flipping through it. She saw pictures of her mom in her school uniform and in normal clothes. There was one of her standing happily in front of Lotte World, others of her with her boyfriends, some she recognized as her father, Chorong’s father, and Namjoo’s father; the three who never stayed for long. Suddenly, Victoria wondered if mom had ever felt abandoned and if that had driven her into depression.

If she remembered correctly, after Namjoo’s father left her mother never met with a single man ever again. Why they had left her - them - she couldn’t understand. If she asked her father, who she rarely kept in touch with now, would he be able to answer her?

Then she flipped the page over to see that it was a portrait of them 2 years before mom’s death. Namjoo was standing shy in mom’s arm with Chorong and Victoria standing behind her. They had been so close back then; it was what a real family had felt like. Victoria had tossed all that away the moment she became an adult at 12 years old.

She ran her hand down the page to see a picture of the three of them holding each other’s tiny hands tightly. Victoria couldn’t remember taking the picture or where they’d taken it at. There was an open lake behind them, green trees casted a dim shadow over them but the sunlight won through, and she could see half a sign that had been caught at the side of the picture. Victoria pulled the picture out and flipped it over.

“Songdo Resort with my lovely girls.” Had been written at the bottom of the photograph. One of the last memories as a family before it all fell apart.

Victoria closed her eyes disappointed in herself. The family mom had tried to keep glued before her death had fallen apart because Victoria hadn’t found it important enough to keep them together. Chorong had no real support after watching Woohyun die at 17 and when she suddenly became quiet for one month. Namjoo had no real support either when she became 10 years old, the youngest who’d suffered the most. Yet, Victoria was the oldest sister and hadn’t tried understanding or helping her two sisters. She’d cruelly changed on her own and left home when she found the right chance. And now they were suddenly back under one roof.

She cried pitifully quietly apologizing to her mother and her sisters again and again.

>_____<;;

“Maybe you think that, but I can’t do it. You’re really cruel, Namjoo.” He slowly let go of her. “A lot of times, I wonder where the ‘you’ I knew went.”

Namjoo stared up at the ceiling a little sad, on a part worried and crushed. Chanyeol had totally given himself to her the second he’d confessed. The nerdy boy she’d been friends with had suddenly transformed into a handsome man before her. Those long dreary nights in which she would have cried herself to sleep disappeared because he’d been there in place of the sisters who never came to her rescue.

Throughout these years she’d been nothing, but the thorn of pain in his life. It was unfair to him. She hurt him repeatedly, and did it again when she thought she was ready to have him again. This time she thought she’d done enough damage again, but instead of setting him aside she still wanted him as a friend. How much greed could she possess this time?

She groaned and to her side, “Forget it.”

Covering her face with her arm she closed her eyes for sleep.  

>_____<;;

A gentle glow shimmered before Luhan slowly transitioned from a transparent figure into a solid one sitting at the edge of Namjoo’s bed. He twisted around to look at her. It was just as it was even 1,000 years later. She never changed the way she slept. A warm smile fell over his lips before he saw the slight frown on her face that marked the bad dream she was having. Reaching his hand out and hovering it over her head he watched his hand glow before her face became peaceful again.

He sat there watching before hesitantly reaching his hand out to comb his fingers through her soft hair. He was apologetic in a thousand ways for himself and for her.

>_____<;;

Chorong let out a loud shout when she sat up from her desk the next morning when her alarm went off. She shot up from the chair upon realizing that she’d fallen asleep while doing research on how to be a teacher. Shuffling over to her closet she pulled out some random clothes before running out of her room and into the bathroom.

After a morning wash up she changed into her uniform and raced downstairs only to skid to a halt in her socks at the doorway upon seeing Namjoo awake.

“You got something going on today or something?” Chorong wondered eyeing her.

“No.”

Deeming that it was safe Chorong walked into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. She turned around to eye Namjoo who was currently trying to solve some puzzles in the newspaper.

“Did something good or bad happen? Cause you’re usually not up until after me.” Chorong half turned around to stare at her sister.

It took a second for Namjoo to turn and look at her before shrugging, “I don’t know. I just slept unbelievably well even though I felt like crap before sleeping. I’m just in a good mood.”

“Hmm…really…” Chorong muttered before putting some bread into the toaster then turned around when Victoria walked in. “Are you in a good mood too?”

“What?” Victoria asked confused before looking at Namjoo who just shrugged. She turned back to Chorong, “Yes, I’m in a good mood. Why?”

“Well this family gets stranger day by day,” Chorong raised her brows before grabbing a spoon to stir her instant coffee.

When she arrived at the school Suho was walking down the hallway with some papers in his hand. He was so concentrated on flipping through them that he wasn’t aware of the pole he was going to walk into.

“Pole!” Chorong shouted, but it was too late.

She watched him walk into it helplessly before walking over to pick up the papers he’d dropped.

“Are you ok?”

He moaned in pain before shaking his head, “I’ve got a hard head.”

She smiled before handing the papers back to him. “Grading assignments?”

“Graded assignments,” Suho corrected, “the kids didn’t do as good as I thought they would.”

“What was it about?” she walked with him down the hallway.

“It was about a book they were supposed to read.”

“Oh…that must mean they didn’t read it then.” Chorong told.

They walked together into the classroom and Chorong went to sit in the back with the students while Suho handed back the papers.

“Miss Park,” one of the students turned to her, “do you know anything about literature?”

“Hey, idiot! Don’t think that by cheating it’s going to raise your grade.” A girl with pudgy cheeks shouted from the next row of desks.

“Am not!” then the student turned back to her, “Here, I can’t understand a thing about it. You’re a teacher, you’re supposed to help us, right?”

He shoved a packet into her face and Chorong quietly flipped through it before she started feeling helpless the more she read. It would only be obvious that she didn’t know a thing the kids were learning nowadays compared to the days when she was in school. It didn’t help with the fact that she didn’t know how to teach or where to start from. She had no idea about what teachers actually did. Reality was so different from what she’d thought it out to be.

“See! She doesn’t know anything, so stop trying to cheat!” the pudgy faced girl shouted before laughing.

When the kids were sent out for lunch Chorong found herself sitting on the front steps of the school building. The sun was hidden by white clouds which cast a dim shadow down on her. Chorong was suddenly wondering if she was making the right turn in her life. If Woohyun were there she would know what to do.

“Thirsty?”

She turned at the voice and saw a water bottle in her face before she realized it was just Suho. “Not really.”

“Here, take it anyway.” He set it down beside her before sitting beside her leaving a safe gap between them. “It’s supposed to rain a little later in the evening. I hope you brought your umbrella.”

Chorong tilted her head down and lightly bit on her bottom lip. Her long hair trailed over her shoulder as she did so.

“If something the kids said bothers you, just remember they’re little naïve things.” Suho said.

No, it wasn’t the kids. It was what she was doing and why she’d impulsively made the decision to apply at the school when she knew nothing about being a leader, a teacher.

“I’m just thinking I made a blind turn,” Chorong told. Then she turned to him, “I don’t know anything about teaching.”

“I’m not good at it either.”

She shook her head, “I may not have been here for long, but you’re a good teacher. You’ll get there someday if you keep trying.”

Suho slightly tilted his head to better look at her before the ringing of the bell signaled for lunch break to be over.

“Looks like you’ve got class,” Chorong smiled.

“You’re not coming?”

“I think I have some place to stop at first.”

After watching him walk off she made her way down the hallway and knocked on the principal’s door. After a few seconds she opened the door and walked in.

“Ah…Miss Park, what brings you here?” the principal got up from her desk.

Chorong slowly started walking toward her and nervously glanced out the wide glass wall to her right. She hadn’t looked around before, but she finally realized why Suho had said that the principal was scary. There were strange paintings of beasts hanging on the wall with humans cowering in the lower corner of the picture. Definitely weird for something a principal should decorate a school office with. It made her feel uneasy and for some reason she was sweating in the warm room. The weak wooden plates that had been nailed into the wall looked weak, but created an illusion that the room was darker than it should be. No wonder there were never any visits from the other teachers.

“Actually,” Chorong nervously began, “I was going to ask why…you hired me so quickly…”

A devilish smirk climbed onto the principal’s face before her female voice changed into a low deep one, “I was waiting for you to come back.”

Then she waved her arm out and Chorong felt herself fly back into the air before she roughly crashed into the wall. Chorong moaned when she slipped back to the thinly carpeted floor and looked up to see the principal walking toward her. Her heart started to beat rapidly before she searched through her mind for any remembrance of how to activate her power, but she couldn’t remember.

With another wave of the principal’s arm she flew back up smoothly and was held against the wall by some kind of invisible force she couldn’t see. Chorong couldn’t move even when she tried summoning up all her might. She turned toward the door and hoped that someone would walk in, but as her eyes landed on the doorknob she saw the lock turn. Twisting her head back to look at the principal’s dark eyes she tried to scream, but couldn’t. It was like an awful nightmare in which escape was no option.

“What do you want!? Let me go!” Chorong tried wriggling her feet free.

“Your gem belongs to me, mortal!” the low voice bellowed before her hands changed into a thick gray one with long furry hair.

Chorong heard her insides scream when she saw the long nails the hand came with before she went into an all full panic rage once the hand plunged into her stomach. She felt a dry cough attack her before she suddenly started screaming. Suddenly free to move she grabbed the monster’s arm, full of fear, panic, and anger before she felt sharp waves like electricity fly through her. Blue and white lines flashed through the monster and she listened to the low shrills of echoing pain before she was suddenly pulled away from the wall and tossed at the window when the monster went into a rage.

Glass shattered as she went flying outside in a daze. Chorong landed with a harsh thump onto the dirty field outside and could hear students immediately gasping and gossiping when they poked their heads outside of the classroom windows to see what the noise was about. Never minding them and realizing her first priority was to get the monster out of the school Chorong turned to glance into the room to see the principal’s body falling to the ground when something black and gray seeped out of her before vanishing into the air.

“Oh my god! Someone call for an ambulance!” Chorong looked up to see an old man, who was one of the school’s yard cleaners, looking down at her before she instinctively reached up to her head. She let out a cry when she realized she was bleeding all over. “Miss, stay with me! Don’t close your eyes on me! The paramedics are on their way!”

The ambulance did arrive fairly quick. Chorong was lifted onto a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance where she went to the hospital and received stitches here and there on her face, neck, and arms. Thankfully her legs were free from injury.  

When the doctor who’d tended to her left she turned when the doors to the ER opened and a police officer walked in. She glanced around at the other patients and wondered if he was there to see them, but her hopes flew away when he stopped in front of her.

“Park Chorong?”

She looked up into his sun tanned face. “Yes?”

He showed her his badge for identification, “I’m Officer Lee Ji Hwan. You’re going to need to come in for some questioning.”

“B…b…wha….”

“This concerns the incident at the school,” he then gestured his arm to lead her out, “this way please.”

And within due time Chorong found herself sitting at the back of a police car again.

>_____<;;

Victoria listened to her phone vibrate repeatedly before she finally reached the limit of her patience. Grabbing her phone she shushed it into silent mode and turned back to focus on the diagram she was supposed to be creating, but her eyes wavered over to her phone when she saw that the police department was still calling.

She’d made a mistake by answering earlier and when they’d asked about her participating in the investigation she’d immediately hung up. Now they were calling non-stop as if she were some kind of suspect in the case. Victoria was at her wit’s end.

“Damn, is that your boyfriend calling? It’s been ringing nonstop the past hour,” one of her classmates commented when she walked by for the sixth time.

Victoria shot her a polite smile and rolled her eyes when she walked away. Biting her bottom lip she finally answered. After listening to the officer on the other hand she finally said, “I’ll be there by 1,” and immediately hung up with a groan.

Why the case seemed so important and why the police were trying to get all of his high school classmates to participate she didn’t know. Of course justifying a death was important, but what the heck could students who used to go to school with a dead guy from some 7-8 years do!? It wasn’t like every one of them kept in touch with him because she was certainly sure everyone had their own lives by now like she had hers. And it was becoming more of a nightmare every day.