안녕하세요.

 

It’s been three days since the boys and I escaped from the lab. I should soon be looking for another job if we want to survive financially. Who would have thought being free would cost so much!

 

Tonight has been windy and since the bedroom window is still broken, I have been sleeping in the cold for three nights. Today, I was woken up against my will again. However, this time, it was because of an annoying ringing sound and then, a few minutes later, Seungri’s hand shaking my shoulder lightly. When I recognized him and saw he looked worried, I rubbed my eyes and yawned. My throat felt rather sore and I had a light fever. I think it was around 9 o’clock. Some of the boys were still sleeping.

 

“What is it?” I croaked.

“Phone.” he said and pointed at the door.

 

When I went to the living-room, still in my pajamas, my first reflex was to rush to the interphone and talk to the man (or woman) who had been ringing for so long. Who could it be, so early in the morning? However, I froze when I looked at the little screen of the interphone and recognized the uniforms of a couple policemen. In a microsecond, I remembered Saturday, the memories hitting me like a meteorite. I was tempted by the idea of not picking up the phone at all but eventually did, aware that ignoring it would only delay the inevitable.

 

“Yoboseyo?” I asked hesitantly.

“Clarke-halmeoni?”

“Neh.” I answered, surprised by the female elder honorific, then realized they probably thought they were talking to my mum and decided to play along. “I’m sorry. I speak a little Korean but not much so please talk slowly.”

 

The policemen then started to explain slowly all about the incident that I already knew about. However, when I asked them details about what happened, they said they had no idea of what the mysterious “mass hysteria” came from and that no witness wanted to talk or hear about it anymore. However, they knew that “my daughter” was related to the incident since she appeared clearly on the recorded videos. 

 

“Did it hit the news?”

 

For a second, the man who was explaining paused, both of their faces looking a little confused by the urgency in my voice, then they shook their heads. They must have thought I was one of these crazy lonely grannies who do nothing but watch TV all day and get excited when they hear about anything related to them on TV.  

 

“No halmeoni. It didn’t. However, we would like to ask you a couple questions about your daughter since she is still missing. She still has to pay for the plasma screens she broke with another boy. They destroyed a lot of them. Can we come in?”

I hesitated. In my back, from the doorframe, I noticed the boys slowly waking up, stretching their arms and yawning.

 

“I’m sorry, officer.” I declared softly. “I know she’s missing but she is not here. And I have no idea of where she could be. Tell the agents to send me the bill. I’ll pay for the broken screens, don’t worry.”

“Who is it?” G-Dragon suddenly came from behind me and talked in the microphone as he looked at the screen.

 

I froze.

 

“Who is it, Mrs Clarke?” one the policemen asked.

“He is one of my neighbors’ grandsons.” I lied. “He came to visit me become he knows how worried I am about my daughter.”

 

“Could we talk to him for a moment? We would just like to ask you both basic questions about your daughter: how often she visited you, her friends, her habits, the places she could have possibly gone to…”.

 

“I can’t because… she never visited me!” I cut him off sharply. “She never even gave me a single phone-call ever since she arrived here about a month ago. After everything I did for her, no mail, no Skype call, let alone Facebook… Nothing. She has no friends, no places to visit, no habits, she’s a complete stranger! Now if you excuse me, officer, I’m going to hang off to have some peace. Show some mercy to an old woman! There’s no way I will say one more word about my daughter to anyone before I hear of her by herself first!”  

 

As I finished my last sentence maybe a little too dramatically, I did as I said and hung off, feeling my heart beat at the speed of a shotgun. However, they then rang again and I picked up with shaky hands.

 

“We are sorry, Mrs. Clarke. We’ll do anything we can. Before we leave, some agents from the mall sent the bill to your daughter. But since she is missing, they probably sent it back to you. It must be in your mailbox now if you want to take a look.”

 

They then bowed to the camera and left. Some of the boys applauded at my little outrage scene and I gave them a little smile of complicity.

 

When I went to pick up the mail and came back, as I looked at the numbers at the bottom of the letter, I showed it to the boys and they paled. How much could be worth 2 million and 4 hundred thousand wons? Certainly a lot, I thought. When I converted the numbers in dollars, I almost dropped my computer and fell from my chair. 2178.50 DOLLARS! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!! As I tried to survive my heart attack, I also took the opportunity to check the electronic sources of local papers. They did mention “a mysterious brawl starting out of nowhere” but didn’t publish any picture since “the tapes had been stolen”. By who? I thought. Could it be one of the boys? Or… Did Jo know about it? 2200 dollars. I’ve never paid so much at once for anything in my life!!!!!!!!! Plus my mum and Kwan’s TV, a new couch and armchairs, the window, plus the food and clothes I’d already bought… Numbers and numbers kept adding in my brain as I stared at the piece of paper.

 

The boys around me were quiet again, looking at the ground with guilty faces. I raised my head and my eyes met Top’s who was also staring at me (at this point, it didn’t even shock me anymore), his left eye still half closed with a large black ring around the eye-socket. I had no idea if he guilty if he felt guilty as well. I hope he did. In the tense silence, he seemed to be waiting for my reaction, much like the four others whose eyes were now going back and forth between him and me. To his surprise, as I could see, I folded my eyes as I stared back at him.

 

“You look cute like that.” I declared in a calm tone. “You look like a lemur.”

 

When he heard the word, he tilted his head lightly, which made him look even cuter.

 

““Lemur”?” he replied, puzzled.

 

I smiled and, without a word, went to my computer, then showed them the results on Google Image. When the pictures appeared, they all burst out in laughter to the point it almost brought tears to their eyes, except Top of course, who just clenched his fists and teeth and his cheeks reddened with embarrassment and anger. After that, he sulked harder than ever.

 

Since at least I was now in a good mood, I left the boys and walked to the kitchen to prepare lunch. This time, I’d prepared a lot of rice, not only because eating without rice was a no-no in Asia (now I know :D) but because I thought this would do good to the boys’ stomachs.

 

During lunch, I could feel Top’s intense glare on me, as if he was trying to burn holes in my face. As for me, I just looked back at him, smiling.

 

“You can watch me all you want because I’ll be watching you too from now on. That eye of yours cost me enough!” I said and pointed at his black eye. 

 

I know he understood what I said. Without a word, he just kept glaring until he suddenly lost eye contact with me and collapsed from his chair. The boys and I immediately stood up and I kneeled next to him to check what was wrong with him when the four others suddenly left the room, their chests shaken with spasms. No way! How could it be? I only gave them rice though! There’s no way it could have made them sick again! Meanwhile, Top, whose head was on my knees now since I had been looking for any commotion, woke up with surprised and confused eyes. When he saw where he was and then saw me, he wriggled and stood up again before he sat back on his chair, avoiding my gaze. When the boys came back and did the same, there was a long silence during which we all looked at our full plates, including me.  

 

Suddenly, GD brought his plate and chopsticks closer to him and picked a small ball of rice which he put in his mouth and chewed with both of his hands on his lips. He finally swallowed, then took a second mouthful and did the same. As the other boys looked at him going, Seungri was the next to follow as he even took a piece of meat from one of the dishes and chewed on it with his eyes shut as if he were crunching spiders. Daesung, Taeyang and even Top, eventually, looked at each other and did the same, struggling with all their might not to vomit it all, disgusted, in distress, sometimes almost crying with reluctance.

 

“Guys!” I said. “Stop it! 중지! It’ll just make you sick again!”

“We want work it out.” G-Dragon groaned stubbornly between two mouthfuls, now eating furiously.

 

The others slowly got in the same state. It’s like they were fighting with the content of their plates, turning pale but going on, eating all the pieces one by one, even picking more, swallowing it all with fire in their eyes. It’s like they were back in training, defeating adversary after adversary with the same determination. Lunch had become a true tour de force for them. Watching them put so much efforts into vanquishing my rice moved me somehow :P

 

Since learning requires regularity, we revised our vocabulary and looked for new ones.

Everybody did quite well except maybe Daesung who still showed a lot of difficulty understanding and articulating. That idiot keeps smiling all the time to make me forget about punishing him anytime he’s not listening >< So he is basically still at the same level as he was before we escaped. I’m getting desperate T_T Plus I know he is a manipulator since every time I turn my head and focus on the others, he immediately stops smiling and yawns, bored with my lecture. THAT BRAT!!! Taeyang also has trouble learning but less, and for another dumb reason: every time I try to talk to the poor guy, he keeps avoiding my stare and mumbles shyly when it’s his turn to repeat. Taeyang, buddy, a word of advice, never date an American girl :-/

 

At some point, I sneezed and my nose became runny. There is just so much my body can take, especially now that I sleep in a room like a Swiss cheese ><

 

When I tried to get up to go get some tissue, Daesung stopped me and made me sit back on the couch. He then touched my shoulder from the tip of his fingers and looked at the others, then typed something on the computer as they looked for the word they had in mind by themselves. When they finally found it on Google Translate, Daesung turned at me and smiled as he said:

“Schver.”

 

 I frowned. As there was suddenly a draft and I felt it go through my whole body, I understood and nodded. I was shivering. Maybe I was sicker than I thought. However, as he then brought his hands closer to my chest, I sat further away from him, surprised and shocked. What, was he not only a manipulator but a ert too D: ?

 

He smiled at me before he stuck his hands on the skin of my collarbones and, surprised at first, I then closed my eyes in delight as the heat of his palms went through my body and I found myself breathing better. I didn’t even know it had been that bad before I felt it disappear. Actually, it felt so good I was starting to drowse off. Suddenly, all the others came towards us and gathered around Daesung, either touching one of his arms, his legs, or his shoulder, anything they could grab, and clung onto it like cats around a heater. To be honest, anytime he was healing someone, Daesung’s skin felt like a warm teddy-bear you want to grasp and not let go. As the boys closed their eyes slowly and sighed happily, I assumed they all knew what I was talking about. Surrounded by so much love from so many people, as it tickled him from all sides, Daesung started to laugh, showing his eye-smile and beautiful white grin at maximum length. That was almost our first group hug there, as they all stuck to Daesung and I was still connected to him by his hands ^^ Suddenly, I felt a little sad inside. I realized that one day, at some point, we would have to say goodbye. That’s our goal, actually: to find them their place. I hope it actually turns out their biological parents are all from the same building as my mum so they can be our neighbors forever ^^.

 

Due to his eye that is not supposed to be healed yet, Top was excluded from the hug. I could tell it was pissing him off more than anything, even though he tried to hide it behind his appearance of the cool, tough boy who thinks hugs are for sissies. When I extended a hand towards him and asked him to join us, he got up, took a piece of cardboard from an old package and went to my bedroom. I then heard him fix the window better. When he came back, I smirked.

 

“I don’t know why they called you T.O.P.” I said. “They should have called you Cranky pants. Actually, I will. That’s your new name from now on, cranky pants.”

 

Even though I make fun of him and am slightly more at ease around him now, I still find his stare a little scary sometimes, enough to remind me of anything he could do when his eye is fully healed.

 

Now here I am, late at night again, looking through the whole web for any explanation about the boys’ condition. Could they really have stomach cancer?! The FIVE of them?! After a while, I gave up and tried to look for more rational reasons through the boys’ dossiers. According to the documents, none of them had any preexisting disease before they were “admitted”. The only explanation left is the Superman’s Blood then.

It makes sense: it’s been a week since they got their last dosage, plus the change of atmospheric pressure now that they live on the surface, the temperature, the lack of training… I assume their bodies are just going through some kind of detox/readaptation. My theory is that is compensates the dependence by rejecting everything it absorbs that is not SB. I’m glad I had the presence of mind to download the boys’ dossiers in my computer. But I’m still mad at myself: doing that wasn’t enough! Why didn’t I take the black goo?! I should have taken as much products as I could, so maybe I could keep trying to look for an antidote! I’m so stupid! I should have forced Joseph to write down the SB formula! I should have taken a sample from Beast’s blood when he was in front of me! I should have

 

I hear noises.

 

I went to the living-room but the boys are all asleep, even GD. Maybe one of them fell on the ground in his sleep. I guess we should shop for mattresses next time we go out. I remember Joseph would move in his sleep too and I would think the exact same thing. Anyway, back to you, journal.

 

Speaking of Joseph, my phone and mailbox are full of his messages. I didn’t dare to look at any of them so far. Yet they keep piling up. I know they will be fake love letters full of threats and that he will remind me of the promises we made to make me cry and what a loser I am without him. As I read the titles of his e-mails, since I haven’t showed up to him like he had told me to, they were followed by more and more exclamation points with more and more explicit vocabulary. The title of his last message, which dated from today, spelled it out in case I had a doubt: “I WILL KILL YOU”. As I tried to erase it, I accidentally opened it and read its content:

 

“My patience has its limits, Joan. If you want me to be the bad guy, I will. I have a bigger experience than you in dealing with secret illegal projects. Do you think it scares us at this point? The team and I have so much blood on our hands yours will be barely visible when I’m done with you. Unless you want me to take care of someone else. Say, sweetheart, how is your mother doing lately? Maybe we should pay her a visit someday, don’t you think? Let’s say tomorrow?

PS: I’m being fair-play by warning you this time. That means you can still stop it all. And you know how.

Love. Jo-Jo.”

 

I can’t sleep now. I know Mum is out of town. But if the guys from the lab show up at the apartment, everything will turn out better than they planned! If I call the police, they light arrest me and Joseph will know I’m there for sure. If I don’t call the police, neither me nor my old neighbors will prevent them from taking the boys. We need to get out. I must not make the boys panic!

Where could I take them all day tomorrow? Obviously, the mall is not an option anymore. Then where? My palms are sweaty. Think! Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. Don’t

 

Something weird just happened. He’s gone and I’m all alone now but… I have no idea of what went through his mind when he did that. Through my previous paragraph, as I was typing, I saw something in the dark next to my bed and I jumped when I recognized the one standing right behind my screen. It was Top. Needless to say, I was shocked and angry as I stood up and ordered him to get back to the living-room with the others. However, he didn’t flinch. I saw he had been crying. He then went closer to me and suddenly took me in his arms.

 

“I’m sorry.” he whispered.

 

Taken off guard, when I tried to wriggle my way out, he only clung onto me tighter like the others would with Daesung earlier. Did he expect to have the same influence as him on me? Or did he think hugging somebody he touched could still heal his own wounds a little? I can’t deny, it did start to feel good after a while as he kept breathing softly with his chin tucked on my shoulder, his chest lifting gently against mine. When I finally hugged him back, I sighed and whispered:

“You’re the weirdest of them all, you know that?” 

 

We kept hugging a little longer. Then, without a word, he parted from me and left the room. Now I can see his silhouette from my door, lying on the ground next to Taeyang with his back on me. Yet I don’t think he’s sleeping. His breathing is not as peaceful as the others’. I have no idea why he acted like that. I never thought Top was the kind of guy who would express regret, let alone so… sensitively. That boy keeps surprising me every day.

 

Anyway, I’ll see where I can take the boys. I need them to pretend to have fun. Maybe we’ll decide on the spot. Maybe we’ll just go in town and look around so we’ll get to know it better! I heard from some colleagues that it had beautiful places I haven’t seen yet :3

 

안녕히 주무세요 <3

Joan <3