CHAPTER 13     A girl with long silky auburn hair, powder blue irises and always clad in traditional black Hanbok over a luxurious wraparound khaki overcoat, the minute Seohyun-ssi steps into a room with her perpetually apathetic facial expression, she’s not very hard to miss.   Everyone here knows who Seohyun-ssi is and yet nobody knows who she is really. Is she even human? A robot? A God? Or whether she actually has a full name or whether “Seohyun” was even her true given name or not. After all, that’s just the word we’ve come to know her by, having introduced herself as such the moment our data is written and burned into a disk. Even I, Sunny, the first ever habitant of the VG world, never came to know more about the girl.   All I know is that, she single-handedly created the whole of the Video Girl world from scratch, and for that we are forever indebted to her, our creator.   For whichever reason she decided to create the VG world, no one really dared to ask or cared to know why. Video Girls were created for the sole purpose of being angel like creatures sent down from heaven to men with pure hearts and after their playing time, they go back to their respective DVDs and cases, waiting again for another turn to get picked. With thousands of options lathered before a pair of eyes, most Video Girls never get selected and only a lucky few ever get chosen.     My case was different; I was assigned the second in command of this world, the manager of the Video Rental Shop, and the overseer of its operations.   Through investigating, I learned that it was primarily because I was modeled after Seohyun’s older sister Sunkyu that passed away some time ago. Data records won’t give me more information than that, but I surmise that’s the reason why unlike other Video Girls, I can feel a host of emotions and practically have a human-like mind.   And because of this configuration, the moment Jessica leaped off the TV screen, I couldn’t bring myself to report to Seohyun a damaged Video Girl because I know like me she wouldn’t just be indifferent to being recalled. She’d be devastated to lose her only chance at being played. She’d get hurt and my compassionate heart couldn’t allow that to happen.   So much so that when I saw from our surveillance cameras that Jessica was starting to fall deeper and deeper into her host Taeyeon, I still couldn’t report to Seohyun this steadily escalating operating mishap.   It was a huge misdemeanor on my part, yes, but maybe because for a while there I just wanted to dream… dream that, somehow, amidst parallel worlds and space, it was possible for a Video Girl to fall in love and end up with their human host…   That Video Girls weren’t just for comforting, cheering up or playing for three months, that if given proper encoding, they could somehow be real.        “Before you recover “Jessica”, please ask her what she wants. In any case, it is true that it’s not the end of her playing time yet.”   But will my sentiments fall into deaf ears again?   “…………”       XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX       Back in the human world     “PARADISE VIDEO RENTAL SHOP!!!”   “PLEASE-PLEASE APPEAR!!!”   “Y-YOU SAID IT WOULD APPEAR ANYTIME IF I HAD THIS MEMBERSHIP CARD!!”   I kept screaming my lungs out till my voice grew hoarse with use, and yet the video rental shop did not show up.   “S-… Please bring Sica back to me…”   I didn’t know what else to do… exhausted from searching for the Video Girl, my legs reluctantly gave way and I found myself sitting at my room’s wooden floorboard.   I kept thinking of what to do next but… , where else have I yet to look?   After a while of racking my brains inside out yet still coming up with nothing, the fear of losing Sica forever was hammering back into my mind. It held an incessant beat that was as torturous as the sound of a jackhammer in a construction site and I see it carefully drilling at the center of my heart. Feeling the need for a diversion, I started to bang the wall with my now throbbing head just to keep my thoughts occupied and myself awake. I haven’t been sleeping well the days before Sica suddenly disappeared and the days following without her weren’t so much different, if not even worse.   Even so, I have made myself to stubbornly believe that as long as that red light on the DVD player is still blinking indicating “play” mode is still on that there is still hope. That I can still be reunited with her.   So I cycled the days with coming back home after hours of trying to locate the girl, sitting down to rest for a while to come up with new ideas or areas that I haven’t quite mapped out and during which I’d find time to boil myself a cup of instant noodles, slurp the curled stands as fast as I can before heading out to continue the search.   I forgot about school, the picture book contest, and even the calls Fany would leave on the answering machine was left unanswered and unattended with.   I gradually forgot about time as well.       A week? Has it really been that long a time without her? Time alone like this was painfully slow while the sun seemed to set faster as I walk around town, clasping her DVD case asking for her from the people around.   It felt foolish at first talking to strangers but eventually the possibility of asking every passing person while still not being able to find her grew apparent.    Where… are you Sica?       XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX       Back to the paradise Video Rental Shop, floating somewhere in the VG world     “Ughhhh… my body…” Wait… whose arms am I into?!   It’s not Taengoo… it’s   Seohyun-ssi!!!   “Let me down Seohyun-ssi!!! W-Why am I in the rental shop?! It-it’s not the end of my playing time yet right?”   “As you wish Sooyeon, or should I say “Jessica-ssi”, but be careful, those bolts of lightning were Taser material”   She let go of me, and immediately my legs felt numbed like jello. I leaned my back against one o