« chapter ten »

•••

Sometimes it’s hard to tell when time is passing—it goes by quickly, leaving only a vague feeling of regret for not noticing its passage. Other times it drags by, its presence so palpable and suffocating, and checking the time to realize it has only been a minute is not an uncommon occurrence.

That was how the next four weeks felt for Lisa.

Granted, she had still been unconscious two days after the incident, but every day since then had been a slow, arduous task to get through. She had even taken to maintaining a calendar to keep track of the days, though only after much insistence from Jisoo. Lisa could tell Jisoo was worried sick, so she forced herself to keep the calendar updated for her sake at least.

The initial police procedures served as distractions for only the first few days—after that, the sheer lack of useful information rendered further questioning and testimonies pointless and led the investigators to focus on tracking rather than identifying. This had the effect of ending further questioning sessions for Lisa, and thus ended her one source of distraction.

She had not been able to rejoin dance until a week later, but even once she did it wasn’t the same. There was a glaring emptiness in the room when they practiced as a group, but no one dared to mention anything. Lisa could feel the pitying looks her friends were giving her, but she didn’t want that pity. Pity meant that the situation was fixed and permanent, but nothing had happened yet. No news didn’t mean bad news.

Another effect of the incident was that her friends no longer left her alone. What used to be solitary and rather relaxing walks to and from dance became group activities, with Seulgi always and Hyoyeon sometimes at her side. It was their presence that was more important than the conversations (or lack thereof).

“Lisa?”

Lisa snapped back to attention as Seulgi glanced at her, a hint of worry in her eyes.

“What?”

“I was talking about the drama, Weightlifting Fai—”

“What about it?”

“You haven’t watched it?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Seulgi sighed, and Lisa felt a small pang of guilt. At least she was trying ... the rest of her class left her in her silence, but Seulgi tried to converse—even if it ended up one-sided.

It was difficult, though, to keep up a pretense of normalcy.

“What’s the ... what’s the next step?”

“Well ... we’re going to continue keeping an eye out for Junhwe, but we’ll also increase security around you and search for more motives—”

“It’s okay, the drama isn’t doing well, so it’s not a surprise. It’s cute, though ...” As Seulgi continued to describe the latest episode, Lisa tried tuning her out. “What about you?”

“What about Chaeyoung?”

“Me?”

Seulgi hesitated, eyes darting away from Lisa. “How is everything?” she asked carefully.

“It’s fine. The usual.”

Seulgi nodded, not expecting anything more. Besides, they had approached the dance academy, which would have ended the conversation—if one could call it that—anyway.

«•••»

“We’ll be making some changes to the choreography today,” Taeyang announced with a clap of his hands. “So if everyone can get into their original positions ...”

Lisa didn’t think anything strange about the change—it was a usual occurrence with Taeyang, since he seemed to have visionary revelations quite often. But very quickly something caught her attention.

With the absence of Ch—of a dancer, there was a gaping hole in the choreography. One person was constantly without a partner even during partner sequences, and the formation was always a bit off. With the way Taeyang was slightly rearranging their order, the hole was being covered.

“Wait, but—” Lisa couldn’t stop herself from speaking up, but didn’t know how to go on. Everyone turned to look at her, Taeyang a bit awkwardly.

Lisa pointed to the ground at a spot next to where Momo had been moved. “That’s where s-she stands.” She could almost swear she heard someone whisper stood.

Taeyang sighed. “Lisa, there isn’t much longer till the showcase, and we can’t have an imperfect formation for that.”

Lisa shook her head, refusing to comprehend. That hole in the choreography was the only concrete reminder—he couldn’t erase it like that. “It won’t be imperfect. Someone will be there.”

Her class members were glancing tensely between Lisa and Taeyang.

“That would be ideal,” Taeyang said slowly, “but we have to plan for other scenarios as well.”

“There’s no plan about Chaeyoung, is there?”

Lisa opened but closed it again, pressing her lips into a tight line. She continued to stare at the spot where there should have been an empty space as Taeyang rearranged the dancers in an attempt to cover it. When trying to move Lisa, though, he hesitated. His voice was soft when he spoke. “See, we just have to prioritize the upcoming showcase ... we’ve put too much effort in for it to be imperfect like that. You get me?”

“We have to prioritize what we know, and all we know for sure is that you’re still a target. We don’t know where Chaeyoung is, or even if she’s alive. So instead of wasting our efforts in a pointless goose chase around the country, it’s more practical to delegate our resources to a more pressing matter, which is your safety.”

Lisa clapped her hand over to stop the strangled sob that was threatening to escape. She stepped back, away from Taeyang, and though the rest of the class was trying to adjust to the new formation, Seulgi caught the movement from the corner of her eye and turned. She met her eyes and frowned, taking a step toward her, and then Lisa couldn’t just stand there anymore.

They were replacing her completely, erasing her presence everywhere, even when she wasn’t gone. Just because she wasn’t there right then didn’t mean—she wasn’t—

Lisa turned around and ran.

«•••»

By the time she could think coherently enough to understand where she was, she realized that she had run all the way home. Jisoo wasn’t home, as was expected; the recent had taken a toll on her as well, and as of late she tended to spend more time at work than at home. Lisa didn’t blame her.

As soon as she walked inside, she was greeted by a very confused Baekhyun.

“Lisa? Don’t you have class right now?”

“Yeah.” Lisa didn’t want to start crying—she was beginning to realize just how tired she was from running, and she didn’t want to seem unstable in front of him, since everyone was already worried about how she was coping.

When she moved to head toward her room, though, Baekhyun strategically placed himself in her way, blocking her path. “But you’re not in class.”

Lisa took a slow breath and let it out steadily. “Clearly.”

“And ... why is that?”

“Look, Baekhyun, I want to sleep. I don’t have the energy to dance right now, okay?”

Baekhyun looked taken aback, and Lisa momentarily felt some guilt—Baekhyun was the epitome of cheerful, and it was only normal that he was worried for her.

“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you like—”

“Oh, yes you did.” Only then did Lisa notice Kyungsoo sitting on one of the couches. He didn’t look up from his phone as he spoke. “You’re stressed. No need for pointless questioning.” He looked up then, and tilted his head toward the hallway that led to her room. “Go.”

Lisa smiled somewhat, still getting used to Kyungsoo’s brusqueness. Baekhyun didn’t seem too affected by it, and he gave Lisa a small smile as she passed him. “Sorry ‘bout that. Remember, 180 minute naps are the most effective.”

At that she laughed lightly, making her way to her room in a now slightly better mood.

«•••»

She was awakened by the gentle shaking of her shoulder. “Lisa? You okay?”

Groggily, Lisa opened her eyes and squinted, finding Jisoo gazing at her worriedly. felt dry, and she wondered how long it had been since she got home. “Yeah ... when’d you get back?”

“As soon as I got a few calls about you disappearing from dance ... what happened?”

Lisa instantly felt more awake as she was reminded of dance. She shook her head. “Nothing important.”

Jisoo sighed. “Lisa—”

“No, really,” Lisa said, looking up to meet Jisoo’s eyes. “It was nothing. I just ... I didn’t want to be there right then. So I ... I came home.”

Jisoo flattened her lips. “Well, you gave everyone there quite the scare. Your instructor—Taeyang, I think it was—he seemed really worried.”

“Oh, crap.” Lisa slapped a hand to her forehead. “He probably blames himself.”

Jisoo had confusion written on her face, but she didn’t ask any more questions. “Well, I think you should talk to them, but maybe later ...” She bit her lip, and Lisa realized that Jisoo looked unusually pale.

“Jisoo?” she said slowly, a sinking feeling in her stomach. “What’s wrong?” Please be something about work.

Jisoo took a shaky breath. “T-they—Chanyeol said they found something.”

For a few seconds, Lisa couldn’t speak, the only sound in the room being her much too loud heartbeat. When she finally did, her voice was small. “What?”

“At the s-station. We’re g-going to the station now.”

•••

Author’s Note:

whoa, i'm so, so sorry for being mia for so long ... but thank you all for still sticking with me! i was suffering from a terrible writer's block for this story and that led me to posting some stuff on my ao3 to try to break through it, and then i got distracted by those stories ... *sigh* i'll finish this, don't worry, now that i'm back and i think i know where this is gonna go :) thank you all for reading and continuing to support this story! so, what are your thoughts/predictions/hopes?

~ thana