Tale Three
Hidden: Tales of a shipped off teenagerTale 3
It’s been a month of nothing. The seven boys knocked on the door a couple times again, but Kiyoko didn’t buy it. She talked to her mother about it, and although her mother did question that maybe they were just trying to be nice, she looked at the bigger picture and realized that her husband was clearly capable of hiring anyone and discouraged Kiyoko on ever opening her door to them. Every single time they knocked on her door, she would be on the other end without them knowing. She’ll always reach for the handle to open the door and finally greet them, but her paranoia always gets the best of her.
So it’s been a month of the same routine, however now, every time she hears the elevator ding at the end of the hallway indicating someone is leaving or coming home, Kiyoko would hurry over to the peep-hole at her front door to watch. From her observations, her neighbours were tight-knit. They would always leave in the morning and come back late at night, and sometimes an older man about his mid-thirties would visit them. Kiyoko had to admit, it was amusing to watch them bicker back and forth on their way out or back from their unit. She questioned their ability to fight almost every time they had the chance. Kiyoko got bored of sitting by the window and found this more enjoyable.
“Well, that’s the last of it.” Kiyoko said to herself as she discarded the last box of frozen food she had. “What do I do now? Should I go out and stock up..” She questioned. It didn’t look like she had a choice, it was either to brace the outside Seoul or die of hunger. There was another factor she was worried about though, “what if I bump into the neighbours?” “I know! I’ll go at noon. They would have left by then and that way I wouldn’t risk bumping into them.”
As the clock struck 12, Kiyoko carefully opened the door making sure there wasn’t anyone outside first. She succeeded at descending down the elevator and walking out the front entrance without anyone noticing. Now the problem was finding a supermarket. Kiyoko decided to head left and walk a couple blocks down, to no avail. Biting down her paranoia, she finally caved in to the logical sense in her and finally asked a passerby if there were any nearby supermarkets. The kind old lady pointed towards the direction of a k-mart. “Thank you for your help.” Kiyoko said politely. “You’re welcome, young lady.” The old lady smiled.
Kiyoko finally stumbled upon the k-mart and quickly grabbed everything she needed; more frozen food, some instant noodles, canned soup and some bottled drinks. She paid through the self-paying kiosk which amazed her because she’d never seen or heard of it. It took her about 10 minutes to make her way back to the apartment building. Kiyoko hurriedly made her way to the elevator before anyone could spot her. Right before she could press the button bound for the 8th floor, another person swiftly entered the elevator nearly colliding with the closing doors. “Oh dear..” Kiyoko started to worry. She carefully looked up to see who the other person was, hoping and praying it wasn’t one of the bad men working for her father. To her dismay, it was someone just as worse. She recognized him as one of the boys from next door and sure enough he pressed the 8th floor button. She realized that by going up to the 8th floor would blow her cover and it would also probably piss this guy off because of her constant ignoring towards their knocks. In a state of panic, she quickly pressed the button bound for the 7th floor instead. “Aren’t you gonna get off?” The fellow guy asked. “Huh, what? Oh..” Kiyoko realized that they’ve already ascended to the 7th floor. She carefully walked out into the unfamiliar hallway as the other guy on the elevator moved on. She waited for a good two minutes before going up to the 8th floor. After making sure that no one else was around, Kiyoko quickly made her way to her front door and pinned in her key code though it was quite a struggle with all the plastic bags she was carrying. However, before she could close the door behind her, the ringing indicating another door opening sounded and to her horror it came from the three boys making their way out of unit 7-2-0. “Hey! You-“ the one she bumped into on the elevator started but was cut off by Kiyoko’s startled action to immediately shut the door in their face.
“How was she? How did she look?” A curious Minhyuk asked the three lucky ones who managed to catch a glimpse of Kiyoko. “We didn’t really get to see her face but she was about 5’5, really long dark hair, nice figure.” Jooheon said. Hyunwoo and Hoseok gave him a look. “What? I’m only saying what I saw!” “You know, it’s weird because I bumped into her on the elevator and she got off on the 7th floor first. “ Hyunwoo added. “Maybe she got off on the wrong floor?” Changkyun suggested. “No.. she obviously pressed the button to the 7th floor.” Hyunwoo tried justifying. “But she entered unit 7-2-1 so she must be the tenant to that unit!” Hoseok said. “But why did she even bother getting off the 7th floor, look, she even walked down the hallway as if her unit was on that floor.” “Maybe.. she was afraid of you hyung.” Minhyuk joked. “Yeah, for a guy as big as you, I’m not surprised she would be.” Jooheon continued and turned to Minhyuk for a high five. All Hyunwoo could do was roll his eyes at their jokes and chuckle.
“Did she really have a nice figure?” Changkyun asked, breaking the silence.
“Yah, Changkyun-ah!”
“Oh dear no, they saw me! They saw me, right? No I’m pretty sure they did.” Kiyoko worried to herself. “What do I do now? If they’re really working for him wouldn’t they have come to get me by now since they’ve already seen me to confirm their speculations? But even if they’re not one of his men, they now know that I was probably ignoring them the whole time! Or maybe not since they wouldn’t have known if I was home or not. Right?”
Knock knock
The sudden knocks on the door broke Kiyoko’s line of thoughts, again. “Is that them?” Kiyoko whispered to herself.
“Hello! We’re uh your neighbours.. here.. again.”
“Yep, that’s them.”
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