III. WONDERMESS

Lisa Monoban knew one thing – she was not crazy.

Or actually she knew even more things, at least for now.

Firstly, she felt fine - like everything was finally running out of her system. Secondly, she was still in the white room with mattress-like walls, floor and ceiling. How come they put a wheeling bed over here? Nevermind.

Thirdly, lastly and most importantly – she was aware of the fact that there was something wrong with the pills Doctor Dong was keep on giving her. What was even more important was the fact that she told him this many times and he was still so eager, convincing her it was something for appetite or some other bull. A tired sign escaped her lips. Well, at least the hallucinations were gone.

She was allegedly schizophrenic, with noone to talk to and ask for help. Obviously her visions were present only after taking the mysterious pink pill so something very erroneous was going on in the asylum. She did not trust doctors but she needed to get out of the white room – were they her only chance? Maybe if she would obey the situation will change then...

Suddenly she jumped on the bed after hearing something from the left side of the wall.

“Hello?” she called softly, slowly standing up and approaching the sound. It happened again. How come? Not only that Lisa could hear it but also slightly see, as the mattress seemed to move. It looked like something, or hopefully someone, on the other side was punching it. Were not these walls soundproof? And punch-proof? And generally everything-proof?

“Hello, can you hear me?” Lisa touched the wall, rising her voice a little “I'm begging you, please! Please say something!”

Surprisingly she heard something back – it was muffled a lot, resembling a hiss.

“How is that possible...Hey, punch the wall once for yes and twice for no, ok?”

One punch.

“Are you in the isolated room too?”

One punch.

“Are you a patient?”

One punch.

“Schizophrenic?”

Two punches and she smiled.

“Listen, whoever you are, you need to help me...The doctors...They are drugging me with something and it causes me visions I've never had, I...I think they do it on purpose. I need help”

No response.

“Are you there?” Lisa was on the edge, the sob slowly growing in “Please, oh please...”

One punch.

Lisa's eyes, for the first time in many days, sparkled as she leaned on the wall more forcefully.

“Will you help me? Are you able to?”

One punch.

MEANWHILE

Park Chaeyoung did not remember the last time she had this kind of hangover. Her eyes were literally pulsing while the head weighted more than the local gym's barbell.

She groaned loudly before moving around on the bed. Something was not right and she definitely was not in her bedroom – though she knew the surroundings damn too well.

“” Chaeyoung hissed, the realization hitting on her hard as she looked under the sheets nonchalantly wrapped around her numb body. Well, at least her yesterday's outfit, minus shoes, was still there.

Phew.

The soft knocking on the doors put her back to reality. So it really happened again.

“Yes?” Chaeyoung answered in unusual, raspy voice thanks to the late night's rum bottle she decided to swallow all by herself.

“Good morning”

Chaeyoung could only wave back and feel like going underground because of how bad and embarrassed she felt. He did not change a bit.

Park Chanyeol, her ex-boyfriend she broke up with over a year ago, stood in the doors with a glass of water and diet coke.

“How are you feeling?” he asked but got no answer “Right, stupid question...Um, may I come in?”

Chaeyoung blinked her eyes, not really believing he was asking that.

“Chanyeol, this is your room” she looked away, the blush covering her cheeks as she remembered how it used to be theirs “You don't need to ask any permission”

“Well, yeah but you might be undressed or something...Nevermind” he was awkward too “Do you remember anything from the last night?”

Chaeyoung gulped while accepting the water and expecting some very bad news.

“No...Not really” she massaged her temples and then pointed at the bed “Did we-? Umm...You know?”

“No, no! Of course not! I slept on the couch” Chanyeol waved his hands defensively “Anyway you called me and told you're on the way here...You've been crying so I picked you up from the Uber and put on the bed. You were practically asleep on the lift already and that's basically it”

Chaeyoung felt a bit better but seeing his sad smile broke her heart. Again.

“Chanyeol, I am so, so sorry” she started “It happened again and I don't really know what to say, I just-”

“You don't need to say anything” his trademark grin was back but Chaeyoung knew better “And you don't need to be sorry, nothing happened”

Liar.

She nodded and he nodded back, the awkward silence filling the room again.

“So anyway, I called Jisoo” he started to exit “She'll be here in few minutes”

Chaeyoung smiled lightly and watched him leave, trying to get the missing memory pieces of last night together. She remembered meeting Jimin and another so-called deep conversation with him where he focused more on his conspiracy theories than her feelings, obviously. Then she came back to the bar and ordered the bottle and then, well, black hole.

So apparently she got pissed at Jimin so then decided to get -faced drunk and call Chanyeol? Well done Chaeyoung. She groaned and drank the water in one gulp.

Then some other voices were heard from behind the closed bedroom doors – she recognized Chanyeol, some other guy and the obvious fight they held.

“She's using you!”

“Stop it Bacon! She's still my friend and she needed help!”

“Friend, what a bull! Each time she's drunk she's calling you for help! Just a quick reminder she ing left you and-”

“Bacon, calm down-”

“I will not!”

Chaeyoung's eyebrow perked and she slowly stood up from the bed, deciding to face whatever was waiting in the living room. Chanyeol and the the other person were talking about her anyway right?

She opened the doors slowly and saw Chanyeol together with shorter guy dressed in nothing but boxers and baggy t-shirt. He was holding a cup of, probably, coffee and had a grumpy, angry expression. Puppy-like, cute face, messy hair and very unique tone of voice – that must be Byun Baekhyun, Chanyeol's best friend and professional opera singer who came back to Korea from France few months ago. Chaeyoung never got to know him personally – apparently she met Chanyeol few days after Baekhyun left. And how she met Chanyeol? At the funeral, actually.

“Um, hi” she started softly after clearing . The attention of two guys was on her immediately.

“So it's you” Baekhyun took a sip of his coffee nonchalantly “You look better on pictures”

Chaeyoung bit her lip while Chanyeol just rolled his eyes. She was not surprised though – she broke Chanyeol's heart so she did not expect his friends to be nice to her.

“Bacon, stop being such an ” Chanyeol growled “Chae, this is Byun Baekhyun, my best friend and current roommate, you've heard of him I am sure...Bacon, this is-”

“The funeral chick who left you and used to treat Kris but miserably failed, yeah, I see”

That took her aback, the tears coming to her eyes. Baekhyun was obviously pissed and he had every right to be, but throwing Wu Yifan in the conversation was too much.

Yifan 'Kris' Wu was a patient at St. John's few years ago when Chaeyoung was still an intern. He suffered from extreme schizophrenia that caused him suicidal thoughts – finally he managed to escape and end his life by jumping from the top floor. His death caused shock and sincere sorrow inside the hospital as everyone tried to save and help him. Yifan was young, incredibly wise, open-minded, good-looking and well-mannered, with the whole life ahead of him.

She was about to protest when Chanyeol took her side again, throwing all possible curses at Baekhyun to what the other reacted in the same way. The argument got pretty nasty when suddenly the front doors opened revealing Kim Jisoo. Chaeyoung took a sigh of relief while fuming Baekhyun visibly softened, gaping at the brunette from head to toe.

“Sorry, I've been knocking for the last few minutes” Jisoo smiled awkwardly while scanning the trio “Chae, I got you something to change and eat...Shall we go? The parking is free only for 15 minutes”

“Right, of course” Chaeyoung nodded and quickly went back to the bedroom to collect her bag and phone before joining Jisoo near the exit “Thank you Chanyeol and I'm sorry once again...I really-”

“Don't worry about that” he assured with a soft smile.

“Ok then...It was, um, interesting meeting you Baekhyun”

“Yeah, whatever” the shorter boy rolled his eyes and that was the last thing Chaeyoung saw before closing the doors after her. She made her way to the lift with Jisoo who looked like having the time of her life.

“Stop it, it's not funny”

“Yeah right” she grinned “You getting hammered and calling your ex-boyfriend so you could sleep at his place is actually super funny”

“Stop it, I feel so embarrassed...” Chaeyoung hid her face in her hands “Why did you leave me yesterday?”

“Well, I tried to get you out of the bar but you were so pissed at Jimin that it was impossible” Jisoo opened her car and lit up a cigarette before starting an engine “I guess you know the rest of the story...Chanyeol looks good by the way. Maybe you should give him another chance?”

“Jisoo stop, we had this talk many times before”

“Yeah, I know, have a guy who's good-looking, nice and still totally in love with you but smash yourself over some dumb pseudo-journalist”

“Look who's talking” Chaeyoung scoffed before opening the takeaway bag from McDonald's “By the way Baekhyun was totally checking you out and he seems like a jerk - absolutely your type”

“Sorry, not interested”

“What, do you have someone on your radar?” Chaeyoung's eyes sparkled, the hangover suddenly gone “And if so then how complicated is that?”

Jisoo could only chuckle in response because her best friend was lowkey right. From the very beginning of her love-life history Jisoo had an incredible tendency to fall for guys she should never even consider dating in the first place.

And yesterday at the bar, when she was alone with her thoughts she faced another thing – she liked Min Yoongi. A lot.

“Oh , don't tell me it's the split personality guy!” Chaeyoung munched on her cheeseburger with the mixture of trouble and need “Seriously Jisoo, what is wrong with you? First Jiwon who left you for his wannabe-rapper career, then Luhan who went back to Beijing, then Jinyoung who's a sociopath, then V who's a literal sociopath-”

That made Jisoo almost pullover.

“Excuse me? V?!”

“Yeah, I mean...You two have something special. Some sparks...And chemistry. And it's pretty obvious”

Jisoo did not even know what to say. What the hell Chaeyoung was talking about? There was absolutely nothing between her and V.

Right?

“You're still drunk Chae”

“Maybe”

LATER

Jennie ran out of tears, literally.

She was sitting in something called 'the common area', staring blankly at her bottle of water. The patients of the St. John's Mental Asylum, just like herself apparently, were not able to drink anything else unless it was served during meals.

This morning, with a little delay though, her blood test results came saying that Jennie had an enormous amount of her prescribed antidepressants and some derivative, unspecified type of hallucinogen still running in her veins. The summary? Jennie was oblivious to her actions and high on, most probably, LSD during the feral wedding night when the murder happened. The outcome? Accusation of mental instability and being the 'threat to the society' but thanks to the lack of evidence so far, not of murder. At least for now.

Still it caused a true wrath among her relatives and lawyer, the legendary Gong Minji, who was not ready for anything she heard from doctors as Jennie told her specifically that during the wedding night she took nothing and only drank alcohol. Jennie was honest or so she thought.

But apparently the medical tests were stating otherwise, taking the police detectives, prosecutor and doctors to the agreement to keep Jennie in the asylum until the investigation will be over. The next step? The court. When? She did not know. So what now? She did not know either. And what after all that? Jail or asylum anyway, that was the only thing she was sure of. Hell, she officially heard that.

If she was mentally ill – St. John's.

If she was mentally ill and committed the murder – St. John's infamous 6th floor for criminally insane.

If she was mentally stable and committed the murder – jail.

It all depended on the investigation and upcoming trail.

Maybe she was not a possible murderer now but she became a suicidal, crazy junkie instead.

On the top of bad news Mino did not bother to come to the hearing and later to pick up the phone when Jennie managed to get hold of doctor Park Chaeyoung's Samsung as promised.

So yes, Jennie had nothing to cry with anymore.

“Song Jennie the fashion blogger, right?”

Jennie looked up, being ready to face either her father or some doctor but saw the guy who gave her the coat when she arrived here.

“Hey, it's you” somehow she returned his smile “I have your coat back in my, umm, room? Sorry, I didn't have time to give it back”

“It's understandable, please don't worry about it” Namjoon shook his head and then pointed at the chair next to hers “May I?”

“Oh, sure, of course” Jennie was surprised because of the sudden number of