A/N: Heyo Everyone!

To the Readers of this booster "sequel",

Again, as I've mentioned, this chapter would be a parallel account of the events that transpired during the first version of the story. These are mainly thoughts of Jessica, the ghost, because I thought it would be nice if you can hear her side of the story too. ; ) But I didn't want to repeat the story much so I ommited parts and so I suggest going back to the first version (because heck even I did too! >,< ) to better experience her side. Nevertheless, I hope you all enjoy it! And thank you in advance if you spend time with my story.  <3  M.P.@(o3o)@

 

Note: These are all in Jessica's POV

 

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A bubble.

Clear, Transparent and Empty.

That’s how I feel.

 

Floating, drifting, and moving along the wind and off the ground.

Going elsewhere, and nowhere.

Not needed elsewhere and nowhere…

But still here.

Just invisible, unnoticeable.

 

I don’t know when I ended up being like this, I… but in some stupid but otherwise brutally honest simple words

It just came to be.

One day, I woke up at quarter past one in the afternoon like I normally do, and found out I can no longer hold the cute and smooth little hands of my children, Sulli and Minho, caress the usually tired back of my hardworking husband Siwon, and… Kiss, embrace, and express my love to the ones I love…

At first, I couldn’t understand it.

Is life playing tricks on me? Why does it seem suddenly that I don’t exist? 

I searched all over the house for things that belong to me,

but I couldn’t find any. 

 

My filled to the brim closet of clothes,

My favorite porcelain teacup.

My hairbrush, diary book, shoes,

Everything!

Nothing was in sight, but everything was in its place. It was as if I have been completely removed from their life… I was panicking, and I felt my heart worried that it couldn’t take any of this nonsense anymore.

But I couldn’t feel my heartbeat. Yet I could feel a dull pain, all the way inside my heart, making me believe I was still here.

It was when I went to the southern portion of our house, our supposed to be storage space that I found something that reminded me of who I am, or rather of who I was.

That I existed.

But however, now I cease to exist…

That I was dead.

 

I found a picture of me in a shrine.  

 

It was then that I came to realize that I was now Siwon’s former wife Jessica.

And from now on, I would have to introduce myself as such.

 

 

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As a ghost, I felt no time. Everything was a continuous flat line. Never ending and never ceasing.

Although I could see it passing by me.

Or through me.

 

I’d stay at our traditionally inspired garden and sit silently on a stone post. There I’d witness the sky’s colours fade and change from the hues of azure to blinding white to a beautiful shade of fiery rust and rose before it comes back to the deeper shade of the night. That was how I felt the world moved even without me.

That amidst all the magnificent colours of the world, I was left in a sketchy charcoal, grey and monotone.

Just like some insignificant rock pebble on the side of the street

 

 

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Today someone saw me!

Kyaa! Why do I seem so giddy all of the sudden?!

Tae-Tae-yeon or something like that?

Anyways, she was the daughter of Siwon-ajussi’s new wife.

She was so cute, frightened as hell to see me! Haha

I couldn’t help but .

Hah! I may not be of the living and I accept that, but I do know I still got them skills to make people fret and fiddle like a leaf!

She looked so adorable open, breath hitching and cheeks flushed as I move an inch closer to her face.

HiHihi! I’m Jessica Jung after all. 

 

So… umn, does that make me her step mother?

Ewww I’m not that old! But... I do think she’s in her high school…

So I could be her Unnie?

I… guess that’s fine?

YEY! I now have a dongsaeng that sees me!!!

Following the days should be more exciting and easier now that she’s here.

Thank you Taengoo (my new pet name for the midget)!

You make Sica-unnie happy. <3

 

 

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NO EFFIN WAY!!!!

 

She’s in the university…

Err…

So she’s already in her twenties?

BUT. BUT BUT BUTTTTTT

I’M IN MY TWENTIES!!!

I thought she was a teen?!

I overheard her mom talk with Siwon-Ajussi about her early university lectures in the dining table and just sat there, on top of the table, dumbfounded.

So she wasn’t a kid?

BUT-

 

Then she came down the spiral staircase, with an expression of kids waking up on the first of Christmas morn (now I’m doubting again if she really isn’t a kid) but when she stuttered looking at the dining table, immediately I brushed off the thoughts I had about her age and noted that yesternight wasn’t just a fluke.

That it doesn’t matter how many years she already spent on earth, what matters is that she could really see, feel and hear me.

A smile sprawled unconsciously at my face as I glided to her side and asked her. “When’re you coming back today midget?”

Hey… she was really fun size.

 

Seeing that reaction I elicited from her, I couldn’t help but chuckle on the inside.

What a cutie pie.

I couldn’t help but poke her in the cheeks.

 

 

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That afternoon instead of waiting for the day to end by watching clouds and the sky change colours, I waited for Taeyeon. I didn’t really do anything but sit there at the front steps to our house, like usual, but I felt that today was different. Time seemed to pass by a bit faster, everything a little brighter…

I felt so giddy inside.

I guess waiting for someone who recognizes you, really does make a difference huh?

Taeyeon came in with friends, in an attempt to test whether they can see me too. As expected though, the test failed.

Sigh…

“It’s no use midget”

“So far there hasn’t been a single person, aside from you that’s been able to see me.”

 

But she dismissed me and just continued showering attention to Pinky (she had this pink ribbon on her head, along with her pink bag, ring and makeup. UGH) and Eyebrows (A hottie but obviously whipped by Pinky).

HEY! LOOK AT ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU MIDGET!

SEE ME!

NOTICE ME!!

Please…

 

Don’t ignore me…

 

Please I don’t want to go back being invisible again…

But the midget still wouldn’t turn her head and acknowledge me in any way….

I know though she knows I’m there.

I can feel it

I wonder if she does too…

…

They continued to talk about people I didn’t know, and raved about things I can’t do or participate in. Whether in the present… or even in the past. Like eating out, sports, or even just going to school….

In truth… I don’t even remember the last day I set foot in the university… did I even attend? My memory of the past has been fading quietly but for sure I remember well that Siwon-ajussi was my private tutor at one point. I had to be homeschooled for my failing health. My parents at that time were no more, they had me when they were already quite aged, and the only legacy they left me was this house, and some money to sustain me from my chronic heart disease.  

I kept talking about MY stories but that midget wouldn’t even lend me an eye or an ear!

… and somehow... somehow it hurts so much to be in this situation again, of being invisible to everyone. Whether you’re physically separated from the world, or whether you no longer belong to this world…

So why am I even still here?!

I can only ask the question…

 

And then hit Taeyeon at the side of her head with my slippers. 

SMACK!!!!

“KYAAA!!!!” <- Pinky

“WHOAAA!” <- Eyebrows

“OUCH!!!” <- Midget

 

 

“You were asking for it”

 

 

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When I came back to MY room, I didn’t care as always and entered through the door like a normal gho.. ghost. Usually, I would hurriedly enter and squeeze myself through, whenever someone steps in and out of the room, so that I could feel I’m still alive and living in this world.

But tonight, I just didn’t care… but unusually, I found that midget sitting at the foot of the bed. And the moment I came in, she glanced at me puffed some smoke and then patted her hands on the space beside her.

I was confused…

Just this afternoon, she did everything she can to ignore and avoid me. I even had to throw my slipper at her to gain her attention. And now this?

Nevertheless, without anything else to do, and energy left to argue, I just sat myself by her side, silently thanking her for the warmth that her body is emitting. It was strangely comfortable.

For some reason with her, even for the few minutes when we didn’t talk and just sat there side by side, I felt human again... I felt that had I been alive at this point in my life, she could’ve been that friend I ran off to whenever life hurts me too bad. She could’ve been that person that would’ve been the reason for the foldable ladder I’d have secretly kept on my room so that I could help her up on nights when she’d decided to stay and fill in nights when I couldn’t go to her.

I’ve always wanted that person to come into my life, and up until tonight I’ve still yearned for it.

 

And then finally she decides to sleep and so I left towards the balcony to give her some space. With the evening’s breeze scattering my hair and the sound of the night calm, I looked over the scenery of Seoul and thought that Taengoo was indeed a nice girl. 

She never said it but I felt that the moment she patted her hands on the space beside her, everything about her changed. That room changed. That from a secret incantation of two soft thuds and a layer of smoke that clouded the air, the world transformed and I became more real.

Real enough for my concerns to matter.

Real enough for my feelings to matter.

Real enough that I’d matter to her.

 

Tonight, I decided to spend my time wholly by her side.

 

 

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Sometimes I ask myself why am I still here?

When people I loved and still love no longer see, hear nor feel me…

And every single time, the only answer I come up with is,

I don’t know.

I… I really don’t know Taengoo.

If it was you would you have stayed?

Or would you have moved on to the other side of the light?

You see, I do see it.

And pretty much I’m tempted to just lunge in and jump to it to end my suffering here on Earth.

But that still doesn’t answer why I’m still here…

Though what I DO know is that,

YOU,

you, are keeping me here.

You who painted my clear bubble white, so that I can imagine I’m not hallow inside.

That even if I felt like a shadow, a reflection of my former human shape.

I was me.

And not just some wandering ghost unable to let go of the life she used to live. 

 

 

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I wish that I could sleep, even just once,

So that I could possibly dream, and pretend that I was still alive.

Just so that I can spend more time with you…

And Err my family!

Cause that’s…

That’s what girl friends do right?

 

 

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Since Taeyeon came, I’ve grown this habit of watching her as she sleeps.

Of course I know she’s just pretending at first!

Still… I’m not sure why, but I’d always find myself playing along her game.

Dancing to the tune of a song we spun together through the days…

Then when she’s really about to fall into sleep, she’d shoo me away and I’d never argue to stay.

I’d go. 

I’d leave and give her the space.

But little did she know that I’d always come back finding her truly sleeping. It wasn’t hard to tell the way her chest would rhythmically rise and fall and her face relaxed with no worries in sight. These days I’ve noticed that Taeyeon has grown a bit anxious as if something important is plaguing her mind… I had wanted to ask, but I was afraid to offend her and step outside the bounds of what we had. Whatever it was we had… I was so afraid of displeasing her I didn’t know why…

Then I’d watch her all night until that moment right before she awakes. But the most adorable part of all is Taengoo’s funny tendency of mumbling gibberish as she slumbers. Giggle.

One time she talked of peas! One time of her beloved minions! And… sometimes of me.

And when she does that somehow my feelings of loneliness throughout the night would slowly lessen and fade away, replaced by a small smile that would grow from the inside. Sometimes I’d answer her; sometimes I’d just listen and let the night take its course.

“ugh… je-jesi-Jessika..., wher- wher..re”

                “hmnn? Yes Taengoo... I’m here.”

 

 

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Taeyeon talked about her school activities tonight, and I hated myself for being envious of her.

I hated myself for being envious of the way she spends most of her days playing around and going to places I can only dream of, with friends I can only know through stories of her.

The way she’d give and tell the smallest of details of the places they went to, of the shape of the shores in Incheon, the rotating doors of Shinsagae mall she almost got stuck in, the graffiti of a cute bear in the noraebang they went to celebrate the end of their exams... she… she even brought me a bag of sand once! We threw it in the garden’s pond after her mom complained of the mess she’d made, all for me to… to feel like I’ve gone there with her…

I hate it…

I hate it all!

I hate myself for being bounded up in this place for so long, for not having the ability to go to where I wanted to go, living or dead.

And I hated Taengoo for doing all she can to make me feel that I was there with her when at the pit of my stomach I knew the reality was I wasn’t.

 

I hated that I was a ghost.

 

 

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Tonight, Taeyeon told me that she had someone she liked.

But she wouldn’t tell me who that person is.

I bet it’s the one that visited our room that day. And oddly enough, I have a gut feeling that it’s that girl Pinky and not that thick eye-browed hottie that she liked.

Then she told me she thinks she might be liking someone new…

She joked around, but I believed every single word she said.

 

Then, immediately, I thought it was me.

I know it was arrogant of me, but what can I say? I was pretty confident it was so. Haha…  

I’m Jessica Jung after all aren’t I?

And… if it was?

…

…

I don’t think I’d mind it.

 

Taengoo is a cute, adorable and good natured girl. And I’ve never cared for gender when I was still alive. At least if I remembered correctly… and actually…

I…

If I…

If I was being completely honest with myself, I wanted her to want me.  At first I wanted someone to just notice me. But…

But now that it was Taeyeon…  I wanted her to want me even more.

 

But then I felt greedy.

Of wanting someone; of wanting someone living to possibly like me.

Cause somehow, I felt that no matter what it’ll end in pain.

 

So how could I wish the person who likes me pain?

How could I wish the person I like pain?

 

 

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I knew I was never the best mother to my kids…

Left them when they were just barely one and three… I wouldn’t have been surprised that they’ve forgotten me.   

Bu-but-but BUT WHY DOES IT HAVE TO HURT S