“There seems to be no sign of Ms. Kim.”

Mr. Jung raises his eyebrow at the person giving him the news. Unusual, he believes. This makes him even more disappointed at his daughter, Jessica, who they sent back to her room as they have their personnel search for Taeyeon. He couldn’t understand what drew her daughter to Taeyeon. She couldn’t even raise a finger to kill a fly. She was timid, how could she possibly protect his daughter from danger.

“I can protect myself dad. I don’t need anyone to do it for me.” He remembers Jessica say during one of their fights.

That can’t be. He had a daughter. Daughters are supposed to be protected from any harm. He had not let even a single fly touch Jessica’s skin since she was a kid and suddenly his daughter was claiming that she’d be able to protect herself. After all these years, Mr. Jung believes she can’t. She can’t because she’s had other people do all the protecting since she was in diapers.

“You may go, then. Find that girl and bring her back to me. Dead or alive.” If there was anything he could do in order to protect his daughter, he would. Whatever it takes.

On the other side of the house were the Kims and Mrs. Jung who were all distraught at the news of Taeyeon going missing-in-action. The Kims were confused. Taeyeon didn’t grow up like that. She always had a plan. She was always prepared and it wasn’t in her to run away because of a minor inconvenience.

Mrs. Jung on the other hand, keeps beating herself up at the thought of being impoverished. If their daughter doesn’t marry very soon, everything that they’ve worked for would go to waste. Sure, Taeyeon wasn’t perfect, but her family’s wealth was.

Suddenly, their thoughts are cut off when a tall and handsome man enters the room. He was a new face. They hadn’t seen him anywhere near the neighbourhood before, at least the Kims hadn’t. Mrs. Jung wasn’t so sure though. The man looked kinda familiar, she has probably seen him in parties before. The man oozed of charisma and good-looks. He was even wearing an expensive, well tailored suit. Mrs. Jung stealthily looks out at the window to see if the man had a car, or something else that would give a clue about his standing.

“Excuse me, I believe we haven’t met? Who are you?” Mrs. Jung asks, her eyebrow raising as she eyes the man from head to toe.

The man chuckles and then bows, “I am Taecyeon.” He simply answers. He then ushers for one of his companions to enter the room. “I believe my friend here has some news to share with you all.”

The man pulls out his camera then proceeds to show it to the people inside the room. Mr. and Mrs. Kim’s eyes widen at the photos, while Mrs. Jung gapes. The pictures show Taeyeon with a mystery woman at a nearby bridge and the angle where the photo was taken seems to show the woman kissing Taeyeon on the lips.

Was Taeyeon cheating all this time?

Mrs. Jung shocked and a little confused, sighs disappointedly. As much as she loved money and the Kims would be the perfect family to marry into for them to regain their wealth, she wouldn’t want a cheater to marry her daughter. She angrily turns to look at the Kims who were equally as shocked and says,

“There will be no wedding for Taeyeon and my daughter. I don’t want a cheater to marry my daughter. Jessica deserves better. You can get out of my house now.” She says, calling out to the helper to show the couple out of their house.

Mrs. Kim chuckles and gives Mrs. Jung a smirk, “It’s a pleasure. I’m sure Taeyeon has some explaining to do but it would be better if she finds someone more worthy than your daughter. Have a nice day.” She says before looking at the other woman from head to toe. If anything, this was such a relief.

She only hopes Taeyeon has a good explanation for this whole mess.

Taeyeon groans when she starts to open her eyes, everything's blury. She’s confused. Where is she? Was everything just a dream? She hopes it was, otherwise it would drive her crazy. She opens her eyes and suddenly the same creepy woman from earlier was looking directly at her causing her to jerk away from her. She becomes more dizzy when she sees new faces around her, all eyes boring holes into her physical body. Where was she? Why did everybody look... dead?

“Well hello, looks like we have a breather.” One of the dead people comments grinning while examining Taeyeon like she was some kind of a science experiment.

“Does she have a dead relative?” another asks.

“She’s still soft!” the other remarks as she pokes Taeyeon. This is all too much for the woman’s living human brain to process and she groans before regaining her footing.

“Where am I?” she asks, specifically to the woman who was the root of all this confusion.

“Well, we’re downstairs.” The woman answers back, giving Taeyeon a smile that reaches even her eyes. Taeyeon had not seen a smile as lively as that. Not even with Jessica. She has not seen a megawatt smile and she did not expect to see it especially from someone like this woman.

“What do you mean downstairs? And who are you?”

Taeyeon had lots of questions that she needed answers to but she doesn’t really expect people from the dead to have answers for everything.

“I’m Tiffany and this is basically the underworld, without Hades.” The woman jokes, drawing laughter from the crowd but not from Taeyeon. Was this somekind of a dead joke someone living is supposed to understand? She looks at all the faces around her and realizes that all of them were dead; she was basically surrounded by zombies. She laughs, and she starts to continously bump hit her head on the table,

“Wake up Taeyeon. Wake the up, man!”

“Tae stop that!” Tiffany says, laughing at the silly thing Taeyeon was doing, she puts her hand on Taeyeon’s forehead so she stops hitting herself on the table, “Everything’s fine. You’re with me now.”

“Why are you dressed like that?” the shorter woman asks, curious at why Tiffany was wearing a wedding dress.

“Ah, it’s a long story.” One of the dead mentions before sitting next to Taeyeon, “you see, our Tiffany here came by the name Stephanie. As a young woman, she fell in love, head over heels but father didn’t want her with the man. One night, she and her little boyfriend decided to elope. His boyfriend told her to meet him under the same exact tree where you found her and was even instructed to only bring a box of her family’s jewelry. So she did.” The dead man then looks over to Tiffany who was looking at Taeyeon lovingly, “at 3am, she was murdered by the same man she loved and trusted with her everything. He took the jewelries and left her there until she was covered by snow, her body never recovered again.”

Taeyeon’s eyes then fall back at Tiffany who’s expression suddenly changed to a sad one. She can’t help but feel bad for the girl but she can’t forget that Tiffany was really dead and she basically is married to a corpse bride. Taeyeon never thought this was going to be her fate.

“It’s a good thing you found her though. Now she’s a happy little bride.”

Taeyeon wanted to say that everything was a misunderstanding but she didn’t want to hurt Tiffany infront of everyone, her loved ones. She had to find a way to escape this place and if that meant gaining Tiffany trust (though she believes the woman already probably trusted her enough). Now she just has to give herself the confidence to trick Tiffany into bringing her back to the world of the living, so she could go back to the person she’s supposed to marry. Suddenly, she realizes something and she turns to look at Tiffany again,

“How did you know my name?” she asks.

Tiffany just chuckles and everyone in the room looks at each other,

“I know everyone.” Tiffany smiles reassuringly.

And then Taeyeon realizes she’s seen that smile somewhere.

___________________________

A/N: Hello! Double update for today! I'll try to update and finish this story first before I continue my other fic "Still You" because I'm still trying to edit that one. I see some readers have watched the movie (others have not) and are curious as to how this story would progress. I won't be copying the whole movie plot per se, but I'll try to write this one with a mixture of my theories (and theories I've read) about how Victor, Emily, and Victoria's lives might have been connected. I'll also try to fill up the movie's plotholes (there are a lot) so please please bear with and be patient even at inconsistencies (I also apologize in advance). After all, this is just fiction for everyone to enjoy. 

Thank you to everyone who commented and I hope my other readers would leave their comments too. It keeps me going hehe. Keep the comments coming so I can improve my writing! 

Also, English is not my first language.

Follow me on Twitter if ya wanna talk about things under the sun: @stephxojisoo