Chapter 8 Missing You A Little Too Much

 

Missing someone is as painful as suffering from paralysis. The body won’t move, it refuses to function no matter how hard they try. The brain declines to work normally, they lost their presence of mind, thoughts and ideas flying away with concentration collapsing. It makes them restless, from morning to night and for the worst case, it can leave them breathless and suffocated on their own. How painful this could be that even the people that are close to perfection and people who are as industrious as ants get greatly affected.

 

It is certainly a starry night sky and a quiet midnight but can everyone’s souls be as peaceful as this night? The mansion has once again lightened up upon receiving the facts of Jessica’s return. The chefs are on their quick cooking, the servants are maintaining the mansion’s cleanliness and the housemaids are sustaining Jessica’s room preparing for her comeback. Everyone has gone busy and all gone hectic.

 

“Ms. Jessica has arrived!” A servant on watch informs all his fellow workers and thus they go on standby.

 

That one old-modelled van is seen entering the mansion’s gate. The moment it parked near the mansion’s main door, several servants approach and open for Jessica.  Like a princess, Jessica got down of the van with her casual outfit that the servants seldom see, with her bare face that she’s supposed to only have in the morning and with her body figure that surprisingly toned down. All of these changes in Jessica were observed by everyone who is welcoming her back.

 

“Thanks for the hard work, chief.” Jessica faces the chief as she formally makes a handshake with him.

 

“We should be the one thanking you. If only you didn’t come to the hall and suddenly asked me to drive you back home then we could have given you a farewell party, at least.” The chief said.

 

“Then I would have declined it, if ever.”

 

“But you know, you should have told Tiffany about your departure. For sure, she must be so depressed by now.” The chief continued regretful hoping for an explanation out from Jessica’s zipped mouth.

 

The chief’s hope instantly turned down as Jessica dodges his statement by saying, “It’s almost midnight and I know you must be dead tired of driving me all the way here in our mansion. Maybe you’d like to stay for the night and wait for the next morning? The road going back to the village might also be dangerous at night.”

 

“I’m fine. Besides, I still have obligations to do as their village chief. I have to go back as soon as possible to supervise everything.” The chief returned, turning down the offer like how Jessica turned down his concerns.

 

“I see. Then I won’t stop you. Take care on your way back to the village.” Jessica forced out a smile as she took care of the situation as professional as she is.

 

The chief made his last bow before taking off a little disappointed over Jessica’s evasion of Tiffany. Jessica, unknown to anyone, has been so restless by the time she left Tiffany’s house. Restless not because she’s physically busy and tired but she’s restless because of overthinking of how she unprofessionally controlled her circumstances with Tiffany. The four to five-hour long drive from the village to their mansion was full of heavy silence for Jessica just can’t help but get so agitated.

 

“Welcome back home, Sica. I missed you so much.” Yuri greeted with a long tight hug that was unreturned when Jessica entered the mansion together with the servants carrying all of her heavy loaded bags.

 

“Unfortunately, you’re not the first person I want to see right now.” Jessica said unemotional.

 

“C’mon, I waited for you!” Yuri still battled but she is being completely ignored by Jessica who is searching all over the spacious mansion while she stayed on foot in the living room.

 

With her stress and fatigue hitting her hard, Jessica begun questioning everyone in the mansion, “Where’s Krystal? Why isn’t she around? I can’t even reach her phone. What has she been up to?”

 

No one dared to answer as everyone looked down from her furious and fuming glares. Yuri has known Jessica for quite a long time and using this lead, she closely observes every single act that Jessica has been doing since she arrived. For Yuri, Jessica is someone who doesn’t randomly shout and rage in anger around the mansion even if she’s as tired as hell. Jessica is always composed and doesn’t interrogate those poor servants aiding her but now she just did, just now.

 

“This is the second time, Sica.” Yuri pointed out and Jessica turned to her raising an eyebrow. “This is the second time I see you randomly throwing a tantrum inside the mansion. The first time was when you first encountered Tiffany. I wonder if your odd attitudes right now are somewhat connected to her.”

 

“Shut up! Tiffany has nothing to do with this!” Jessica roared and marched close to her with heavy fuming footsteps. Breathing heavily, she rustled, “Aren’t you thinking too much? Or maybe you’re out of your mind! I’m looking for my sister whom I’m expecting to be here right now but she’s not. Of course I’ll rage out and not just a mere tantrum!”

 

“Don’t get so worked up. I only stated my speculations and not to mention, calmly and professionally just like how you’re supposed to be.” Yuri fights back as she shares intense flaring close stares with the wrathful Jessica.

 

Offended and upset, Jessica puffed loud and eventually breaks her eye contact with Yuri, looking to her side. “Call in Victoria Song for me. I need to talk to her, ASAP. And if anyone of you can pinpoint where Krystal is, call her to come back immediately.” She then ordered the servants on standby and avoided Yuri who too partly got out of control with her words towards her only love.

 

“But it’s already past midnight ma’am. Ms. Victoria might be—“ The servant attempted to talk back but when he received a death glare from the furious woman, he at once changed his mind, complying to her direct order,,“R-right away, ma’am!”

 

The loud shut from Jessica’s room door echoed all over the expansive mansion and this serves as an indication for the workers to comply fast and accurately with her orders. This new side of Jessica is something to be remembered for everyone because her once cool, calm and collected side vanished and replaced by a fierce one, as if Jessica is a whole new person.

 

Just like Jessica who can’t settle down at midnight, Sulli feels the same way.  Staring up the ceiling with all the lights off and nothing but the moon’s beam lighting the constricted room, Sulli can’t relax to put herself to sleep. Rolling from left to right, counting sheep to thousands and blinking her eyes fast to tire them up, she did all of these but still, her mind rejects to let her tired body to put on sleep.

 

And for the real reason behind her impatient mind is, “Kai… Kai… Kai…” She bit her lower lip thinking how Krystal spent so much time with him during the day. Pulling up the entire blanket up to her head, she lowly groaned, “Why was she with Kai the whole day?”

 

“He’s my classmate. Of course I’m with him for the whole day. Moreover, you’ve been groaning there for almost an hour now. You sound like an alarm clock that’s mistakenly set on midnight.”

 

Sulli yelped as she heard Krystal replying in an undertone to her silly nags. Because of thinking too much of the day’s happenings, Sulli had forgotten that Krystal is temporarily living with them, using her bed and that she’s occupying the floor to let Krystal have her comfortable rest. Thanks to the dimness, Sulli can hide her face from embarrassment as she was caught off guard without using anything to hide it.

 

“B-but…” Sulli whispers into the night while looking up on Krystal’s bed. “He’s not your classmate during lunch break. Why were you still together?”

 

Krystal opened her eyes at the query and this made her drowsiness goes away. She turned around to face Sulli whose figure can’t be seen in the dark down the floor. Sulli’s tone of words, for Krystal, is somewhat expressed sulky and a little bit of morose at the same time. Krystal tried to clear her vision but still can’t have at least a small sight of Sulli, only Luna whose bed is parallel to hers, sleeping soundly and dumb of what’s going on around her.

 

“He wanted to catch up with things because we haven’t seen each other for such a long time. Dad has been going back and forth overseas and so his mother.” Krystal explains further while she tries to keep her voice as low as she can do.

 

“I see.”

 

“How about you? You said you’ll stay beside me but you didn’t.” Krystal this time, it’s her turn to nag.

 

“Because you were catching things up with Kai and I didn’t want to be on your way. You seem like to be having fun with him so I didn’t want to be a hindrance.” Sulli answered back and made Krystal confused.  

 

Krystal rose up from her bed to argue further of what Sulli just stated. Due to the confusion, Krystal unintentionally increases up her voice as she asks, “Hey, who told you that? You’re never a hindrance. Where’s that coming from?”

 

“Good night.”

 

In the end, Sulli nailed their conversation which eventually turned into exchange of heating and boiling discussion. Krystal exhaled in disbelief from the attitude that Sulli gave her, so exasperated that her questioning was left unanswered for the night.  And as for Sulli, she continues on creaking in mixed emotions under her blanket but with so much muteness. Even Sulli herself doesn’t know why she acted so cold and unreasonable when she talked of Kai.

 

Not only people from the metropolitan who can’t find peace on such quiet and starry night, but also someone far from the modern world who is in the process of suffering, in sorrow and desolated Tiffany. In the room which Jessica left, there Tiffany decides to spend her whole night, crying as she thinks of how Jessica treated her until the last minute. She’s all by herself in the locked room lying on the bed, no one to cry to and no one to lean on.

 

“Fany, are you alright?” The concerned and troubled grandmother knocked but she only heard heavy sobs from the other side. The grandmother feels helpless and so she surrendered saying, “You know grandma is here for you. If you feel like talking, you can always come to me anytime, my dear.”

 

Tiffany heard all of it clearly but still she refused to move a little inch from her position. She keeps on crying to the point she feels losing her breath in between her heavy snuffles. Burying her face onto the used pillow with Jessica’s scent remained on it, Tiffany uses it in some way hold her loud cries, her miserable howls and her wretched shrieks of heartache.

 

“Jessi, why?” Tiffany cried. “I hate you… why did you leave me like that? You’re so unfair!”

 

Unknown to Tiffany, there’s also Taeyeon standing just outside her door, heeding to her cries as she’s hurt of whatever’s happening to Tiffany. As much as Taeyeon wants to break in to the room and comfort Tiffany like what’s supposed to need the most, she does nothing but to give her a space which is at the same time, might Tiffany needs too. No one knows what to do with Tiffany, and no one knows what she feels for even Tiffany can’t make herself clear.

 

“Taengoo-noona…” A kid peeked on a side, rubbing his teary eyes as he frowned.

 

Taeyeon advances close to the kid then asks while she fixes his messed up hair, “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you asleep yet?”

 

“I miss Sica-noona. When will she come back?” The kid asked.

 

“Uhm, about that…” Taeyeon hardly seeks for an answer, looking down in helplessness.

 

“Don’t worry. Your mommy Fany will do something about that. For now, go to sleep or else your mommy Fany will get more stress.” The grandmother saw Taeyeon’s defenselessness and rescued her from it as she approached the saddened kid with her smiles.

 

“Thank you, grandma.” Taeyeon said when the kid left to rest.

 

“You too Taeyeon. You should take some rest too. Fany will be fine tomorrow for sure. Maybe she just needs some time alone. Jessica’s departure was a big shock to her so let her heal herself from it. Sooner or later, she’ll find a way to stop her remorse.” The grandmother comforted the worried Taeyeon and so she nodded, agreeing to what the old woman said.

 

When the morning came, everything became bland. Both Krystal and Sulli shared cold shoulders the moment the sun rose up. From eating breakfast together, from riding the train to having a short ride of the public bus together, no words were shared, only awkward eye contacts which were desperately avoided. Even Luna’s loud mouth and funny stories couldn’t do anything about it and eventually she also shut .

 

“I guess I’ll just meet you for the stage play meeting again Ssul.” Luna awkwardly excused herself to her extremely quiet juniors.

 

Krystal takes a glimpse of the giant woman standing so uneasy beside her and later found out she’s only getting more uneasy each second that passes by. Krystal really hated it, the silence and awkwardness and everything that’s surrounding them as she’s never used to have this kind of Sulli beside her who’s supposed to be loud and bubbly like Luna.

 

“Sulli…” Krystal gave in and Sulli looked sideways to her direction. “Maybe later, together, we can go get some lun—“

 

“Good morning, Soojung.”

 

Just when Krystal finally got the nerve and momentum to talk with Sulli, Kai came running to them, greeting with his charismatic smile that never failed to annoy Sulli.

 

“I’m going ahead.” Sulli rolled her eyes as she announced before she streamed fast away from the two.

 

“Yah Sulli! Seriously?” Krystal yelled but Sulli never looked back to her anymore.

 

“I kept my promise Soojung. I didn’t tell your dad or to anyone that you’re staying at Sulli’s apartment.” The naïve Kai said while pacing together on the building’s corridor going to their first class.   

 

“Well, thanks for that. You know my dad would kill me once he finds out about my situation. I can tell he’s going to be like a monster if he finds out. And also, I keep on telling you not to call me Soojung. How many times to I have to remind you?” Krystal said as she paraded ahead of Kai, not wanting to stand beside him.

 

The students all over the university have been talking about Kai and Krystal’s close friendship, garnering much attention from the public’s eyes. Some believes they’re not just friends but lovers while some jealous and envious women say that they’re nothing but friends. Unknown to these public’s eyes is Sulli who never became comfortable to see someone else clinging with the hostile Krystal. All she can do is to watch them from afar or secretly, as long as she can monitor Krystal’s daily activities, and to keep her promise of watching her out.

 

“Why is she always with Kai anyway? And why the hell is that guy keep on popping out of nowhere? He’ll be with Krystal the whole day again. I hate him.” Sulli grumbles on her seat as she waits for the morning meeting to start for their upcoming stage play.

 

“Tell Krystal that you hate to see him around. I’m sure she’ll listen to you.” Luna, sitting beside her, heard her complains and advised right.

 

“I doubt. He’s her childhood friend while I’m just someone whom she met not long ago. Of course she’ll listen to that Kai dude more than me.” Sulli still insisted on her childish thoughts.

 

“Are you sure? You keep on complaining there Ssul, but are you even replying to Krystal’s messages? I saw your phone a while ago and you keep on ignoring her calls too.” Luna asked and Sulli shook her head. Luna sighed at her silliness and commented, “Then no wonder she’s with that guy because you’re the one ignoring her. Stop being so childish and talk.”

 

Sulli replied none as she dropped off her head straight down to the table, waking up her corrupted feelings of the day. She has no idea when she turned like that, turning into a childish and immature woman. But surely, she knows she misses Krystal the most, only that her feeble and miserable side is telling her not to admit any of it and act unaffected.

 

Simultaneously, Tiffany couldn’t still find peace for herself too. She couldn’t sleep as she spent her whole night crying and curling on the bed all by herself. Unlike the weak Sulli, Tiffany is still able to do her morning responsibilities despite of suffering from a break down. Though Tiffany feels like a paper that’s ready to be flown away by the strong wind, she still forces herself to walk the kids to the school using her wobbling knees and shaking legs.

 

“Noona, are you alright?” The concerned kid asked.

 

“I’m fine. Your mommy Fany just forgot to eat her meals since last night. But don’t worry, I’ll be all fine. Just focus on your studies and finish all your remedial classes so that you can enjoy your weekends with me.” Tiffany bent down as she said with her forced smile.

 

“We want Sica-noona to be with us during weekends too. We miss her omelet. We want to play with her again.” The kids demanded, frowning at Tiffany’s problematic expression.

 

“Your Sica-noona…” Tiffany just started but couldn’t complete any continuation to finish at least a single phrase to respond to their demands. In the end, she could only bit the side of her lower lip while she looked down in despair.

 

“We’re going in. We’ll just wait for Sica-noona to come back. If not today then maybe we can still wait for her. She might still come back to visit us, right? We’ll wait for her.” The kids said that cheered up Tiffany a little as she showed a faint yet genuine smile of relief.

 

“Good morning Fany.” The chief greeted from behind when the kids all ran inside the school.

 

“Chief…”

 

“Do you have a minute? I want to talk with you. I found out from Taeyeon about you last night. I just want to explain some things since I’m partially to blame why Jessica left without you knowing it.” The chief said as he chased Tiffany fleeing the discussion about Jessica.

 

“You shouldn’t blame yourself chief. It was Jessi who left me, left us without saying a word. What’s worse is that she just left that brief case packed with money as if we’re after her wealth and gold diggers.” Tiffany heatedly replied and made the distance bigger from the chief.

 

“Don’t be like that Fany! Please do understand her! It was hard for her to leave you too! You should know that!” The chief raised his voice to make sure the distancing Tiffany can hear him clearly.

 

“If she didn’t want to leave like that, then why did she continue it and left me without knowing about it?” Tiffany cried in an instant as she turned to the chief to show her misery that’s getting higher. “Don’t you think it’s so unfair chief? Did she even think of my feelings before she did that? Why can she do things like that so easily? What are we to her? Who are we to her? Are we just some research material that she used then she threw away afterwards? Did she even reconsider? Did she really hesitate from leaving like what you’re saying?”

 

“Frankly speaking, only Jessica can answer that Fany… But trust me, I just know that there’s regret on her eyes when she said she’s leaving. I can tell that she’s a little hesitant and hurt too.” The chief desperately said just to stop Tiffany from her overflowing sentiments.

 

“Chief is right, Fany. Only Jessica can answer you.” From the other side, Taeyeon was seen walking towards them after hearing their passionate exchange of words. “Now if that’s clear for you, why don’t you go and follow her to the city?”

 

“Follow… Jessi…” Tiffany thought.

 

“Follow her and go ask her questions yourself and don’t ask anyone of us here. Go and confront her. You’re seeking confirmation and clarifications, am I right? If you want to stop that pain in your heart, asking her personally is that only way for you. I heard you crying, like there’s no tomorrow last night and it breaks me so much, Fany. I don’t want to see you or hear you like that. Grandma, the kids and even the chief, no one wants to see the bubbly and always positive Tiffany turning into a miserab