“Who are you?” she asked, in a slightly grumpy tone.

  “Let him in, Soo Ryung!” Soo Kyung called out. She pushed her sister out of the way and let Taehyung in. “Taehyung! Welcome, thank you so much for coming.”

  “It’s no problem Soo Kyung-ssi, sorry for intruding,” he replied as he entered the small apartment. It was an unimpressive space with minimal furniture, cluttered by the obvious presence of a child. A box of toys in the corner upturned and spewing out dolls and balls, crayons and paper sprawled out on the dining table. An older looking woman sat on the sofa, watching the television with a remote pointed at the screen.

  “What do you need to know, Taehyung?” Sookyung asked. She appeared in a much better condition today, her hair combed back in a bun revealing her truly pretty face.

  “Do you mind if I see your messages?” he asked.

  “Sure, but please wait here while I get my computers started up, the thing’s been acting slow for a while. If you’re feeling hungry or thirsty, just ask Soo Ryung or my mother.”

  She hurried down a hall in the side of the room, leaving Taehyung alone in the room with Soo Ryung who was busying herself in the kitchen. The musical clang of a toy caught his attention and he looked down to see a child in the corner, roughly four or five years of age, playing with a toy xylophone.

  Big doe eyes looked up at him and a smile grew on his face. “Hi there,” he greeted, kneeling down to her level. “What’s your name?"

  The child looked at him cautiously, lips pressed together as decided whether he was trustworthy. “…Sooji.”

  “Hello Sooji, what are you doing there?” he asked.

  “P-playing the xylophone.”

  “What song are you playing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?”

  She shook her head.

  He took the stick from her and struck out the tune, bringing a bright smile on the girl’s face and making her giggle.

  “Here, you try,” he said, returning the stick.

  The child excitedly tried to play the tune, hitting random notes as she tried to remember the order. Short, wrinkly legs walked up behind him and looked down on them.

  “Looks like Sooji’s having fun,” said Mrs Lee, a note of approval in her voice. “You’re quite good with children.”

  “Thank you,” he replied, immediately adopting his most polite tone in the face of an aged woman.

  “It’s good that she has someone to play with. She’s a shy child and she doesn’t go out much.”

  “I’m sure she’ll grow out of it.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you helping my daughter?”

  Taehyung made an apologetic face. “I, well, I just felt kind of bad for her. She was really upset after Yira- the fortune teller- kind of blew her off.”

  “I don’t believe in that psychic nonsense but at least the girl’s got her head screwed on right. My daughter should have taken her advice. Her life would be so much easier if she just moved on.”

  “I think she just wants some closure,” he replied. “I think that would be best for her and Sooji.”

  “Hah!” the woman laughed. “Sooji doesn’t even know the man.”

  A puzzled expression crossed his face. “Your daughter made it sound like she rather liked him."

  “She’s five years old, she only met him a few times and I doubt she even remembers.”

  He turned back to the child, who had now abandoned the xylophone as was playing with a Barbie. “Sooji?” he asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you remember a man named Joonhyun?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking distractedly elsewhere. “Maybe.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A look of concern crossed his face but his thoughts were interrupted by a call from the hall. “The computer’s on!”

  “Oh, hey, I’ll talk to you later okay?” he told Sooji.

  The child nodded before returning to her toys.

  He stood up and followed Soo Kyung into a bedroom where she pointed to a computer at the end of the room, lit up bright and showing a series of messages.

  He approached the screen and Soo Kyung sat down on the bed. “I’ll just sit here, please ask me if you need to know anything else.”

  He nodded in reply and sat down to read the messages. His eyes travelled to the top of the screen where he noticed that two tabs were open. “You two used two different messengers?”

  “Yes, we mostly used the first, but recently he’s been using the other one.” As he checked both messengers, Soo Kyung watched from behind. “So, did you find out anything about Joonhyun?”

  “Yes, I called his workplace in the UK.”

  “And?” she asked hopefully.

  “I’m afraid they don’t know anything else about him. He dropped out a few months ago and they haven’t heard from him since.”

  “What?” she said, shaking her head. “No, no, they must have got the wrong person, some other Joonhyun; that’s not my Joonhyun. He does very well at work and is often employee of the month. You definitely have the wrong person.”

  The strong look of denial in the woman’s eye made him stop what he was doing for a brief moment, the strange unnerving feeling when he first met her returned - but he shook it off and returned to the screen.

  The thing that stuck out to him immediately was the way the way in which the messages were written. The one filled with almost a year’s worth of messages were formal, structured almost like a letter, filled with caring loving words. But in the other, the messages were short and casual, reduced to simple phrases asking how Soo Kyung was.

  A cringing look grew on his face as his suspicions were confirmed: Soo Kyung was being catfished but he didn’t know how to break it to her. The person she thought she had been talking to all year was fake.

  Without even looking down, he tapped a random letter on the keyboard and pressed enter.

  “Did you just type something?” Soo Kyung asked.

  Suddenly, through the mix of sounds from the TV and the kitchen, he heard the little ring of a phone notification. Unsure of if he’d really heard it; he typed another one letter message, only to hear it again.

  “Why are you doing that?” Soo Kyung asked, looking almost a little fearful.

  “Soo Kyung-ssi, please go outside to the outside hall.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to test something, please just go outside and take your phone, I’ll follow you.”

  She looked hesitant, but her hand moved to her phone. “Just don’t write anything else, okay?”

  “I promise.”

  Slowly, she walked outside, glancing back every few seconds to check if he was behind her. She made her way into the living area, where she turned the heads of her mother and sister as she left out the door, leaving it ajar behind her.

  “Where’s she going?” Soo Ryung asked, turning to him for an answer.

  “She’s about to call Joonhyun,” he lied, loud enough for the entire room to hear. “She just received a message from him with his number.”

  Before he could hear a reply, he exited the room, where he found Soo Kyung fiddling with her phone while leaning onto the wall.

  “May I have your phone?” he asked.

  “Why?” she asked. “What are you doing?”

  “Just testing something. May I please have it?”

  Reluctance showed in her eyes but she nodded and gave him the phone. Moving next to her, he opened the messenger app and hid the object behind his back.

  “Please tell me what’s happening-”

  The door burst open and Soo Ryung came running out to the hall. “Soo Kyung, don’t call him! For all you know, it’s the scammer! You’re going to get-”

  Ding!

  Her phone rang. Silence filled the halls and Soo Ryung’s eyes widened, her face caught in a look of horror.

  Taehyung sent three more messages and three more dings rang guiltily from Soo Ryung’s pocket, the screen lighting up through the fabric of her jeans.

  “W-what’s going on?” Soo Kyung asked, looking back and forth from Taehyung to her sister.

  Taehyung sent another message and Soo Ryung’s phone sounded again. “All your messages are going to your sister’s phone.” He explained. “None of the messages you received all year are from the real Joonhyun. The current one is the real one; the one that told you he was dead was your sister. She’s been catfishing you.”

  “T-that’s not possible,” she said, chuckling nervously. “My sister wouldn’t do that. Of course Joonhyun was real, he’s a perfect gentleman, he’s-”

  “Oh, shut up!” Soo Ryung snapped, her shout echoing through the halls, and making Soo Kyung step back. Soo Ryung’s expression turned from guilt to one of anger, her face turning red. “Joonhyun’s not a gentleman or a nice guy! He’s complete and utter garbage!” she yelled. “And you’ve always been too delusional to see it! You know when you weren’t looking, he hit on me! The bastard is the kind that would go for anything in a skirt. You didn’t even know he dumped you!”

  “What are you talking about?” Soo Kyung replied in a weak voice. “Joonhyun never broke up with me.”

  “Yes. He. Did.” She replied, with emphasis on each word. “He flew off to UK and he stopped contacting you after, you were too dense to realize that he ditched you! You spent weeks pining after that , wondering why he wasn’t answering your calls and messages. You became convinced something was wrong no matter what mom and I told you and you were going to fly out to him! Without even knowing his address, you were going to use your savings, leave Sooji, your own daughter, and leave your job to fly out to the U.K! So I had to stop you!”

  The door cracked open and Sooji looked out from the crack, her tiny body leaning on the wood. “Mommy? Auntie? What’s happening?”

  “Go back inside honey,” Soo Ryung ordered, too busy staring at Soo Kyung with a look of intense hatred to look at the child.

  Sooji screwed up her face in fear and looked up to Taehyung for help, he tried to usher inside but the two were caught by another explosive shout.

  “So I made that stupid fake account pretending to be him, telling you not to fly over and to stay home, saying that the lack of contact was because he was settling in. I just intended to do it for a short while so you’d stay and be with your daughter, but every time I tried to stop talking to you, you suddenly got the thought into your head to fly out again! So I had to keep it going until I had enough and decided to just kill him off. I Googled images of car wrecks to send you and posed as his sister. I hoped that after a little crying, you’d forget about him and move on, but then that had to come back!”

  Sooji’s eyes squeezed shut and big, fat tears started rolling down her cheeks. Taehyung bent down and tried to comfort her but she proceeded to bawl. The face of Mrs Lee looked through the doorframe with an expression of shock.

  “He couldn’t just stay down; he got bored and decided to contact you again, probably because he sees you as a backup who’ll never get over him. So I asked a friend of mine to pose as scammer specialist and call you. But you still didn’t give up! You even went to a goddamn fortune teller and hired this guy!” she yelled, pointing to Taehyung, who was carrying the child, bouncing her up and down in an effort to stop her crying.

  Tears were now also streaming down Soo Kyung’s face, her hands clutching at her shirt. “N-no, why would you do this to me, this isn’t real!”

  “Why would I do this to you?” she said. “You’re the one doing everything to yourself! Do you know what you put mom and me through? All this time, I’ve been the one raising Sooji, every single day. I’ve been the one looking after your house; I’ve been the one taking care of you! I’m sick of it! I want you to stop chasing after delusions and look after your daughter for a change! You two weren’t even engaged! You started believing that on your own, I don’t even know how!”

  Taehyung backed away from the arguing sisters, still carrying the crying child in his arms, a look of guilt on his face as he realized what he had done. He had failed to stop and think of the after effects of his actions, and Yira’s words came to haunt him.

“There, there stop crying, stop crying,” he comforted, the girl clinging to his shirt and smearing snot and tears on his shoulder.

  “I told you this would happen.”

  Taehyung almost yelped like a dog at the voice, and he turned around to see Yira standing beside him, watching the fight emotionlessly as if she were watching a dull movie.

“W-what the, when did you get here!? How did you even know where I was?”

  Yira shrugged. “Pay me thirty dollars and maybe I’ll tell you.”

  She pointed to Sooji and looked up at Taehyung, and he suddenly remembered her premonition from the other day. “H-how did you?”

  She made the money symbol with her fingers.

  “A-are you actually psychic?” he asked, feeling stupid the moment the words came out of his mouth, yet completely unable to stop himself.

  “Thirty dollars,” she reminded him.

  He turned back to the fighting sisters, where the mother had now joined the argument, siding with Soo Ryung while at the same time yelling at her. “What do I do now?”

  “Nothing,” Yira answered.

  “But, this is all my fault.”

  “Not really,” she replied. “You did what you thought was right, I told you not to but your character type wasn’t the kind to let it go. You did what you believed was the right thing, but in this case, truth was not beauty.”

  “But, what will happen to her?” he asked, pointing to the child hiccupping on his shoulder.

  “She’ll be fine,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Her mom will forbid her aunt from ever seeing her again, but she’ll grow up and disobey. She’ll cope fine and when she’s grown, she’ll learn from her mother to never be like her.”

  He rubbed the child’s back and looked to the rough carpet. “I still feel kind of bad.”

  “You’ll get over it in a few days,” she said. “You couldn’t help yourself anyway. You’re weak to pretty faces.”

  “What? No I’m not,” he objected.

  “It’s the reason why you like your girlfriend,” she continued, ignoring him. “Make sure you don’t let it sway your actions next time.”

  “Wait, what do you mean next time?”

  “You can either wait four days for the answer or pay me now.”