S U L L I

Today, I decided to visit my cousins Yoong and Yoseob. They live in a small apartment in the heart of the city. When I arrived, I was expecting Yoong to be at the kitchen baking brownies and Yoseob waiting eagerly at the table.

However, I was surprised to only see Yoseob eating instant noodles. Beside him were a fat textbook and a calculator. He looked as if he didn’t sleep for days. There were huge dark circles beneath his eyes. Yoong was nowhere to be seen.

“Sulli! You came at the right time!” Yoseob called out. “Could you please make me some pancakes?”

“Pancakes?” I asked, taken aback. “It’s five in the afternoon!”

“Yoong just slept after she came home from work today,” my dear cousin explained. “Maybe it was because she came home late last night. Please make me some mung-bean pancakes? Pretty please?”

“She came home late last night, huh?” I was grinning from ear to ear as I walked towards my cousin. “Could it be that she’s dating someone?”

“I don’t care,” Yoseob whined as he stabbed a dried carrot with his chopsticks. “I need someone to make me real food.”

“That’s why you should learn how to cook for yourself,” a voice came out from the hallway at the end of the apartment. It was Yoona! She probably just woke up. I went to hug her but stopped midway. The dark circles beneath her eyes looked worse than

Yoseob’s and she looked really really angry.

“Oh, hi, Sulli! I’m glad to see you,” she greeted halfheartedly. “What brings you here?”

I pointed towards my laptop, which I have left sitting on the sofa. “I want to show you something!”

“Oh no,” she complained. Yoong hates it when I share my latest obsessions. You see, unlike her, I have unlimited access to the world wide web so I’m always updated with the latest happenings (my parents pay a lot of money for it). Right now, I wanted to show her something new that I have discovered.

“Is it Arashi again?” Yoong wanted to know. She took out a banana from the fridge and started to peel it.

“No, of course not!” I piped up. “I’m so over Arashi. I want to introduce to you my latest addiction!”

~~~~

E U N H Y U K

It’s been three days.

But we still don’t know where Donghae is. Next, we tried his mobile phone. But no one was answering. Then, the team tried to contact all the nearby airports to inquire where he went. They interrogated the security officers at the dorm. They called his home at Mokpo. They contacted all of Donghae’s friends and family – anyone who might know where he is presently. They even asked help from the authorities, in case Donghae was kidnapped (it sounded very unlikely though, because we all thought that Hae was big enough to fend off for himself). But it was all futile. We still don’t know where Donghae is.

Everyone is worried of course. Even Shindong, who isn’t that close with Hae, kept calling from Korea every now and then. Siwon woke up an hour early to pray for Hae. Kyuhyun had ceased from practicing his singing and from playing computer games. He now busied himself with going online, visiting gossip sites, looking for clues on where Hae might be. Henry, Zhou Mi, Sungmin and Ryeowook tried to make up for Hae’s sudden disappearance by filling in for him on talk-shows, fan-meets and radio shows. Our manager was on the phone twenty four seven, cancelling appearances, scheduling new ones and the like.

E.L.F’s have gathered in front of our dorm with flowers, balloons and posters. They were all praying for Hae as well.

Me? I couldn’t sleep.

I found it difficult to finish my meals either. My whole being was drowning in immeasurable frustration and anxiety. That guy was like a brother to me and I loved him as much. How could he do this to us? How could he think of only himself?

I was sitting alone in my bedroom that afternoon when my cell phone began to ring. I picked it up.

Ivy Chen calling.

I sighed and ignored it. This was the fiftieth time that girl has called today. Apart from Hae’s family and me, she was probably the most worried person out there. I guess it’s because she has a little crush on Hae.

Okay. That was an understatement.

She has a huge crush on Hae. There’s never a week when she wouldn’t call. It doesn’t matter where we were either. She called Hae when we were in Vietnam, when we were in Japan, when we were in Korea. At first, Siwon and I found it cute. We’d tease Hae about it. But he’d always retaliate and tell us she wasn’t his type.

As time passed, we didn’t think it was cute anymore. All of us grew tired of her constant calls. There was even a time when Hae deliberately left his cell phone in my room (to my dismay) because he didn’t want to hear it ring for the hundredth time that night.

Now that Hae was gone, Ivy was bothering me.

The phone kept ringing so I took out a couple of magazines and threw it on top of my iPhone. That was when I realized that one of the magazines was a National Geographic – the same mag that I showed to Donghae last year.

I looked at the small island featured on the cover and it all came back to me.

Babo, Eunhyuk, I told myself. You were the one who told him about this place. Of course!

I know where Donghae is.