(Listening to Maze by G-Idle) 


Placing a few plastic bags contained snacks, fast food and canned drinks on the dining table, she stretched out her slim fingers numerous times, checking on them and whined about the red marks.

"Gosh, my lovely hands," she monologued and randomly picked a can of beer from one of the plastic bags and clicked it opened, before taking a few sips. 

Imme threw her view out of the window while having her bottom leaned to the dining table comfortably. She sipped the drink again and continued enjoying the evening sky of the excluded area before the door has been knocked. 


Shuhua and Miyeon were standing right in front of the door, with a lot of shopping bags in their hands- which made Imme chuckled out loud. 

"Uhh, Imme? Will you let us in? These are so heavy!" Miyeon asked, struggled to balance herself among the new kinds of stuff. 

"Sure, come on in you princesses," Imme laughed and made a welcoming gesture. 

 

Shuhua followed Miyeon closed until they entered the living room. She put down all the paper bags and released a deep sigh. "I swear, unnie. This will be my last time going shopping with you,"

"I would never do this again, I swear to God," Shuhua whined and quickly flopped to the sofa. 


Miyeon, grinning, ignored the youngest and squealed in happiness as she saw all the paper bags on the floor. She took the one with label 'SPAO' and brought out the item, still feeling delightful. 

"Imme, look what I have caught for you!" Miyeon pulled her cousin from the statue standing and forced to sit beside her at the long-soft cushioned furniture.
 

"Knitted sweater? Oh please, Miyeon you know I don't like this style," Imme complained as the latter handed her the cloth. "Even Anne Wintour would prefer dying, rather than seeing this one," 


The excited girl hissed, "You, ungrateful child," 
"I know fashion too, okay? Don't look down on me," she said and grabbed the knitted sweater back from Imme. "I did not use your card, okay? I bought this with my own money," 


It appeared to Imme that her younger cousin started to be sulky. So, she took it from Miyeon's hand and ruffled her hair playfully. 

"Alright, alright, I'll take this one then," she rose from the cushion and her flannel shirt, before taking it off and made her body left with an only black sleeveless shirt. 


Shuhua avoided her gaze from Imme and pretended to look at her cellphone. 


And when Imme had the knitted sweater on, Miyeon clapped repeatedly, praising her non-stop. 


Imme walked to the wardrobe and studied the reflection from the mirror, turning and spinning her body around to see better. "Oh... not bad actually," 
She turned to the girls, "What do you think? Should I wear this tomorrow?" 

"Of course!" Miyeon grinned. "Imme, that style fits you very well! I don't understand why you hate it!" 


She hummed and take off the cloth, stepping back to the centre of the master suite room. She collected her flannel shirt back and wore it again, before taking a seat on Shuhua's side. 
"I bought a lot of things to eat until tomorrow morning. Are you hungry?" 


"Uhm... a bit, but I have to clean first," Shuhua replied to the older, tucking her hair behind the ear.
She felt the heat around her face as Imme pinched her cheek and said, "Alright, I'll reheat the food and wait for you then," 


Miyeon, silently watching from another seat, held her laugh. She aware of the youngest's timid expression so she made 'ehem' sound, to draw their attention. 

"I think I'm starving, I'm not gonna wait for you, Shuhua-yah," she stood up and walked to the kitchen area. "What you got us, Imme?" 


The eldest tailed her younger cousin and approached the dining table, which located between the living room and the counter island. 
"Your favourites," she told, taking out the food-based items one by one from the plastic bags. 


As Miyeon saw the plastic-wrapped of her favourite black bean ramen bowl, she yelled, 
"Jjajang! Ohhhhhh my goodness I'm craving this for years!!!" she ran to hug Imme's side and continued to shriek happily. "Thank you Cho Shin Miiiii I love youuuu!"

Imme rolled her eyes, 
"Liar. I saw your photo on Twitter last week, Cho Mi Yeon. You just ate 5 bowls of jjajang alone, and you were proud of it," she laughed and sipped the beer that she was enjoying previously. 



"Guys, I'm... going to shower. Go eat first, I don't mind," Shuhua spoke as she passed the duo in her way to the bathroom. Leaving Miyeon and Imme alone at the space when they had eyes on her. 


Confirmed that Shuhua had entirely disappeared from their sights, Miyeon whispered, 
"You were being so obvious, you know???" 


Imme whispered back, "What obvious???" 
Miyeon smacked her head then, 

"That you like her, you fool!" 


"I was not!" 


"Yeah, and she was blushing!" 


"Why in the world she did that?! I didn't do anything!" 


"Yes, you did! You were flirting, Cho Shin Mi!" 


Imme's eyes widen. 

"Really??? I-- I don't think--- I'm trying to flirt?" 


Miyeon threw the tortilla chip snack on Imme's chest level and forced her to catch it unwillingly. 
"Hell you just did!" she screamed in her whispering tone. "Behave yourself! Or this secret will be out in just a minute," 

The cousins battled in staring contest for a few minutes on. 

Until the older one inhaled and exhaled so hard, then weakly put back the snack bag onto the table, avoided Miyeon's stare. 


"Forget it, Miyeon," Imme's voice turned flat.

Miyeon' smirk dropped. 



"Either secret or not, that means nothing. I'm confident, even if she knows, we're very impossible," and finished the beer until its last drop. 


Miyeon was feeling guilty of things she had said after seeing Imme's upset face. She eyed Imme's actions and sighed. 


"I'm sorry...." she apologized. 


Imme looked at Miyeon and shook her head. "Don't be," 


"I am really sorry, unnie. I have crossed the line," Miyeon muttered sincerely. "I hope, there's something I could do about this secret," 


"No..." Imme snorted. She tried to smile while staring at Miyeon then. 
"No, there's nothing we could do, Miyeon-nie. You, or me, things are the same. Nothing will change," she explained with her deep voice, taking the plastic bag consisted of soda and beers to the kitchen and next she arranged them carefully into the small fridge. 


"Oh no... you're sad, unnie..." Miyeon pouted her lips. She left the food and walked closer to Imme, hugging her body from the back. 

Imme has frozen at her spot as she felt another warmth and her heart getting heavy all of sudden. 


"No, I'm not," she denied and released herself from Miyeon. Turning around, she faced her younger cousin. 

With the huge height difference, Imme lifted down her chin and said, "Why I should be sad, Miyeon-nie? I am not. I am happy right now. I have you, auntie, uncle and my daddy. And also the money," she pinched Miyeon's left cheek, later on, furthered, "And as Shuhua said, a million girls would kill for this life," 

Miyeon, the shorter one had to shift up her face and met Imme's hidden sad eyes. 


"That's not true, unnie. You're not enough, you should have someone to love you unconditionally," 


Imme put her hands on Miyeon shoulders, 
"And do you love me unconditionally, sis?" 


Miyeon made her head up and down vigorously. 

The taller one hummed, 
"And that's more than enough for me, "she confessed before pulling Miyeon closed to her body. She embraced the younger's upper body as tight as she can. 

Slowly, Miyeon hugged Imme back, putting her head on the latter's chest. 
She was almost to hear Imme's heartbeat when the boyish suddenly pushed her head away.


"Okay, enough," Imme said, not wanting to let the sisterly moment went on any longer. 


Disbelief, Miyeon gasped at her cousin. 

"What the hell??? I thought you love me!" 


Imme scrunched her face at Miyeon afterwards, unwrapping the ramen bowl. "Wake up, Miyeon. We can not dream for all-day long. We have a mission, you fool," 


Miyeon joined Imme at the dining table. 
"What mission?" 

"Until I figured out what happened to Amber, we must be serious and try to detach ourselves from any hard feelings, okay?"

"What are you now? Professor Imme from Unknown University???" 

"No," Imme raised a finger at Miyeon. 

"I am a detective now, Cho Miyeon. Call me Imme Holmes,"  


Miyeon faking like she's going to puke, "I wanna throw up," 


 



***

Shuhua was suddenly awoken by the strike of thunders from the window of the suite room. Struggling to open her eyes, she let her long hair fell on the shoulders as she slowly rising from the bed. 

Miyeon's sleeping posture made she wanted to laugh. The girl was literally having both her arms and legs spread wide like she's doing some of the jumping jacks inside her dreams.
Since Imme refused to take the queen-sized bed, both Miyeon and Shuhua were obliged to sleep in the room while Imme, the one who paid for the renting, having the living room all for herself. 

Shuhua planned to have plain water so she headed out, making her way to the mini kitchen. 

Her walks stuck on the floor the moment she witnessed Imme, in her sleeveless shirt, was leaning to the sofa and having the laptop on her lap. The older girl quickly looked at the spot Shuhua was standing on as she heard the door was closed. 

"Oh, I thought you're sleeping," Shuhua said. 


Imme shook her head and stared back at the white screen. "Not yet, but planning to do so," 



Shuhua stepped into the kitchen and got herself a bottle of iced water from the fridge. From the counter island, she watched Imme's head before spinning the bottle cap. 

"Do you want anything to drink?" she asked. 
"I can make you a cup of coffee or tea if you want," 


Imme stopped her reading on the document she just received from her daddy's secretary and secretly smiled. Steadily pushed her body up a bit, Imme raised a thumb and replied, 

"One cup of warm tea, please Ms Yeh Shuhua," Imme ordered, making the younger girl laughed. 

Shuhua nodded, still laughing as she grabbed the electric kettle from the cabinet. 

"How would you like your tea, sir? With sugar or without sugar?" Shuhua played along while pouring the mineral water into it. Once it's done, she put it to the place and pressed the ON button at the holder. 

Imme replied again, 

"Of course without sugar, please Ms Yeh Shuhua. It passed at 7 o'clock already, my metabolism has stopped working," 


Shuhua continued to laugh at Imme's hilarious act then while Imme had her eyes glued and focused closer to the data analysis. 


Once the hot drink was ready to be served, she brought it to the living room and put the mug on the mini drawer, next to the sofa Imme was leaning her back to. 

Imme smiled, "Thanks Shuhua," 


"Your welcome, my majesty," Shuhua said, sounded like a tease. She settled herself on Imme's right side, taking a few glances to the screen. "Wow, the charts, the numbers," 

That made Imme chuckled. 

"Yeah, this kind of charts and numbers have been my bedtime stories since I'm in college. Super complicated, but I have to understand this either yay or nay," 

The pretty girl nodded in agreement.

"The reason I took a language course because I want to run away from Mathematics, and especially something looks like this one you're digesting for tonight, Imme unnie," Shuhua stated, still having her face scrunched over the analytic data. "May I know, unnie, what you majored when you're in college?" 
 

Imme sniffed before stretching her arm to get the hot drink and put it on the mini glass table. 

"Business management is mandatory for Chos, Shuhua. I wanted to study something else, but, I have no choice. I reckoned, to make sure I am well-educated, I must carry on with the course. Although it is so difficult to comprehend sometimes," Imme explained, while scrolling down through the screen. She sipped the hot tea and accidentally spit because it was too hot for her tongue to handle. 

Startled by the sudden liquid burst, Shuhua immediately got up and grabbed her water bottle from the glass table and passed it to Imme. 

"I'm sorry, unnie! I should warn you about the heat!" Shuhua apologized and panicked after she saw Imme's face was all red. 

Imme struggled to speak at that moment as she tried to endure the tingling on the tip of her tongue.  After a few more seconds, the burning sensation she felt slowly subsided as she drank the cold plain water, and unexpectedly, she began to laugh, out of reason. 

Shuhua's eyebrows furrowed together because she fell deep to a confusion, seeing the older girl was laughing all of sudden. 

"Sorry," Imme paused and wiped the tears that came out at the corner of her eye. "Your face was just too funny. I just can't," then she laughed again. 


Shuhua sniggered a small chuckle, nodding her head- disbelief. 
"Now I agree that you and Miyeon are really the cousins of a crackhead, unnie," she said, passing Imme a box of tissue that she grabbed together with the water bottle just now. "Very easy to be entertained too," 


"Yeah, yeah," the short hair stopped laughing and released a deep breath. She tried hard not to laugh again and glanced at the beautiful girl, "I'm really sorry, Shuhua. Probably because I spent too much time on this document, my brain cells have stopped functioning," 


"So go get some sleep, unnie. You look very drained," Shuhua suggested while staring at Imme's right side profile.

The atmosphere went calm again as Imme recovered from the laugh and clicked the 'save' button for the file she's been checking on using the Microsoft, then made the laptop in 'sleep' mode. 

"I said you need to sleep, not just this device," Shuhua joked. 

The older gave a weak smile as she took the mug again and blew the hot tea gently. "Oh come on, the night is still young, Shuhua. I am trained to stay awake for an outstation meeting, shaking hands with diplomatic people, the ministries and so much more. I can do all of that even I don't get any sleep, you know?" 

"But sleep is important, unnie. Enough sleep can guarantee your health too," Shuhua denied Imme's words. 

She sipped the tea carefully, 
"Not really. Sleep makes me... feel lonely, sometimes," she halted and drank it again. 

Shuhua studied Imme's face afterwards. 
"Why?" 


Placing the mug on the floor, Imme flipped down the laptop screen and looked out through the window. The dark sky has evolved, yet, she felt she just finished half of a day. Taking a short glimpse at Shuhua, Imme said, "I have this one memory with my mom," 

"I was so sleepy and when she lifted me with her arms, I started to cry. Usually, she did that just when the bedtime arrives and my nanny would excuse herself, and left us alone in the room," Imme blinked her eyes, reminiscing how great that memory was. "And she would put me in the crib, sang me a lullaby and whispered these difficult words that my child self couldn't understand," 

Shuhua listened to Imme full-heartedly since she knew from Miyeon that Imme lost her mother when she's not even five years old yet at that time. 

"Do you still remember those difficult words?" Shuhua asked in her gentle tone. 


Imme replied, 
"No... I don't," and sighed. "No matter how hard I try to recall anything from that memory, all I've got were her blurry face, her hair, the Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars song and the darkness of the room," 

The younger caressed Imme's arm, "I think it is a beautiful memory, Imme unnie," 


Imme shifted her head to her right side and caught staring at Shuhua's smile. 
"That's why I don't like sleeping or bedtime. When everything gets dark, and that memory came, I feel... empty," 


"Yes, sometimes I feel the same too," Shuhua said. 


"Really? And why?" Imme questioned.


"When the world is asleep, there is more room for thoughts," she stated. "Sometimes, unnecessary thoughts, not very important thoughts, love thoughts and... blank thoughts too," 


"Overthinking habit you mean," Imme delivered her opinion bluntly. 


"Yes, every time, before the time for bed," Shuhua nodded. "I think of my family in Taiwan, I think of my puppies, and something more extreme, I think of dying as well. I tend to imagine what will happen to the people I know when I'm gone. Will they remember me, or will they erase me from their memories," 


"Are those things really mattered to you, Shuhua?" the older asked. 


Shuhua let her eyes gazed into Imme's brown orbs as she continued, "Not really, unnie. I feel lonely when I start to be overthinking. So I teach myself to make it stop when this kind of thought popped in my brain," 


"You teach yourself that? Impressive," Imme whistled. "By the way, you're from Taiwan? That boba country?" 


Shuhua nodded, smiling. "Yeah, I live in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan," 
"I know my Korean is still not good, but I love being here," 


"No, no, you speak in your own way," Imme defended the girl's humbleness. "Must be hard for you to be here all alone, far from your family, and your puppies," 


"Yeah... sometimes, I feel like that," Shuhua reacted. "But I'm positive about new things. I love to explore, I love challenges," 


Imme offered a handshake as she heard that, "Wow, we share something common here, Shuhua," 

The latter gladly took Imme's hand as they laughed at each other. 


"You know what, I kinda dislike my life," Imme expressed after she took a deep breath. 
"I wish my mom is here, so when my dad ignores me, at least I can go to her and tell stuff," 

The other girl was only able to stare at the older's right cheek because Imme had her face facing upfront. She inhaled and released a breath too.  

"How's your mom, may I ask?" Imme questioned in her gentle voice before they gazed at each other. 


Shuhua immersed in a quick-thinking as she answered, 
"My mom? Erm, I think she's an ordinary mom. Nagging, cleaning, complaining things, nagging again, well... just a normal mother like everyone else, I guess?" 


Imme chuckled. 
"She sounds amazing," 


Shuhua murmured, 
"Hmm right? Sometimes, I think she is. Especially when she conquers everything at once. Doing laundry, cooking and scolding my siblings and me at the same time, and before we leave the house for school, she ensures, we get a goodbye kiss and a wave of love, although she's extremely tired," 


Hearing that made Imme's heart sank deeper. 
She pictured, what Shuhua told about her mom and replaced it with her own. 
Her mom doing everything as Shuhua said. Imme thought, it must be so cool. 


The young girl noticed Imme's silence was the sign of her longing for her late mother. She held Imme's exposed arm then. 
"Do you know Mary Poppins?" 


Imme hugged her knees and shook her head. 

Gently leaning on Imme's right side, Shuhua said, "She is a magical nanny, sent to the human world, especially to children who lost their mother. She babysits them strictly but secretly with so much love and care," 

The boyish did not mutter a thing as she studied Shuhua's pretty face. 

"There is one beautiful song she sings for the smallest kid, when he is sad, remembering the beloved mother," Shuhua added and smiled. 

She started to sing, (Playing The Place Where The Lost Things Go from Mary Poppins Returns)

Do you ever lie
Awake at night?
Just between the dark
And the morning light
Searching for the things
You used to know
Looking for the place
Where the lost things go

Do you ever dream
Or reminisce?
Wondering where to find
What you truly miss
Well maybe all those things
That you love so
Are waiting in the place
Where the lost things go

Shuhua tightened her grip around Imme's arm, staring straight into her eyes- curving a beautiful smile for the latter. 
She continued and Imme's gaze softened. 
 

Memories you've shed
Gone for good you feared
They're all around you still
Though they've disappeared
Nothing's really left
Or lost without a trace
Nothing's gone forever
Only out of place

So maybe now the dish
And my best spoon
Are playing hide and seek
Just behind the moon
Waiting there until
It's time to show
Spring is like that now
Far beneath the snow
Hiding in the place
Where the lost things go...

As she began to feel sleepy, Imme shifted back her face forward, sighting the view of the night sky from the clear window glass. Shuhua's soft voice echoed beautifully in her ears and somehow, she felt the tranquillity of the soothing lyrics.  

Time to close your eyes
So sleep can come around
For when you dream you'll find
All that's lost is found
Maybe on the moon
Or maybe somewhere new
Maybe all you're missing lives inside of you...

And when Shuhua saw Imme had closed her eyes, she sang in a whispering tone, resting her head on the older girl's shoulder, 

So when you need her touch
And loving gaze
Gone but not forgotten
Is the perfect phrase
Smiling from a star
That she makes glow
Trust she's always there
Watching as you grow
Find her in the place
Where the lost things go...


Just before she knew, she also had slowly fallen to a night of deep sleep. Imme's warmth fitted perfectly, as Shuhua sensed the comfiest feeling at the moment and she snuggled closer, smiling, then drifted without a second to the dreamland.