Chapter 17

No News is Good News

무소식이 희소식

-Unread Messages-

8:15 a.m.

Baby chick: “Seulgi Unnie!!! Wendy Unniee!!! Where are you guys??”

Joohyun smiled at the message. They’re always looking for each other. Gosh, how cute. I hope they’re having fun so far.

Bae Joohyun got up that morning with a fluttering heart and a stupidly giddy grin on her face. She had never felt happier. She had a dream last night about all 5 of them running together in the flowery fields of Jeju Island, having the time of their lives. They were laughing and skipping—the warm summer breeze playing with their hair and their loose white dresses as the yellow petals rode with the wind. The dream barely had a plot, but the lovely imagery lingered in her thoughts even hours after she woke. Since when was the last time had she dreamt dreams that made her feel on top of the clouds? Too long ago to remember, if there ever were such dreams in her past.

“I’m meeting Yeri today…,” Joohyun whispered to herself, glancing over to her desk, where IU’s signed CD and poster was placed. Again, a syrupy sweet grin stretched across her porcelain white cheeks. “I hope she loves it!”

Yeri may not explicitly show her love for her three unnies, but Joohyun clearly saw it in her eyes on that day at the amusement park—Yeri truly did have a strong attachment to them. She knew this kid would be bawling when she finally leaves Korea. It would be similar to how much she misses her family in Daegu. There was nothing she could do about the pain Yeri might feel when she leaves, but the best she can do was give her another great memory so that Yeri can look back to her childhood in Korea with a smile.

After getting ready for her classes, she almost left her dorm when then she remembered—oh right, it’ll rain today.

Joohyun looked back to check her happy, smiling reflection on the mirror, then went to grab the long, blue umbrella hanging by her clothes rack.

“I’ll use Wendy’s umbrella today,” she giggled to herself. Then she glanced at her “friend” Ryan and said, “Bye, Ryan!” before skipping out the room.

***

“I’m going to find Wendy. You guys should stay here, obey the crew, and wait for the rescue.”

What Seulgi said went totally out of line. The ship was tilted at more than 50 degrees already when she ventured out to find Wendy. To keep things from getting worse, Soo-Young had grabbed Seulgi by the wrist, scared to let her run out there alone. Unfortunately, the determined bear with the courageous heart had other things in mind… and that same hand Soo-Young had held onto so tightly slipped out of her grasp. She had even wanted to run after that ambitious girl. However, the same barefoot stewardess stopped her, saying it was too dangerous and that she will handle it herself. More than 30 minutes had passed and the listing has gotten so much worse, yet the stupid bear she was so fond of was still out of sight.

“Ugh, that stupid bear!” Soo-Young cried out. “Why’d she run off like that?! Why doesn’t she ever use her brain!”

“Don’t worry,” her friend Rosé assured her. “They’ll find her. And Wendy Unnie too. I hope…”

“They’re not answering their stupid phones. Where the heck are they?!” Soo-Young began to cry—tears trickling down without her noticing. “Why is the signal so bad in the ocean?! I thought our technology has gotten better in the 21st century!”

While she was complaining and Rosé was trying to comfort her, a young man spotted them and called out to them. “Hey, Soo-Young! Rosé!”

Soon, there before them stood a fairly decent-looking young man about their age looking very worried while holding an extra life vest. He had been helping out the crew and the teachers in distributing life vests ever since the ferry started tilting. “You guys need to wear life vests! They say the rescuers are coming soon! Here.” He gave the extra to Soo-Young.

“Thanks, Sungjae…,” Soo-Young muttered, not wanting to look him in the eyes. He was the basketball guy. They used to be good friends and she has had the biggest crush on him. She just had no idea what to feel. But now was not the time to think about complicated feelings when they were all literally in danger. So then, she handed the life vest to Rosé and said, “Here, Rosé, wear it.”

Then he began unbuckling his own life vest and pushed it to Soo-Young’s arms. “Wear this.”

Before he ran off, Soo-Young called out, “Hey wait, you moron! What about you?!”

“I’ll look for another one. Don’t worry about me.”

Another half-hour later, things were turning bleak. None of them could delude themselves into thinking the ship will be alright, for hell was breaking loose before their very eyes while they were still in it—like some horrific episode of Twilight Zone. Water was rushing in; inverted walls and structures were getting deformed and giving way. People were breaking windows, stumbling over tables and chairs, and the braver ones were jumping out for their lives through the open terraces despite the continuous announcements to stay put.

Which was more rational—remaining stationary, or fleeing for life? None of them knew any better at first, but it was more evident now that they had to start doing something and take matters into their own hands. Teachers and crew members helped other passengers wear life vests and helped them out the ship; students held onto their friends and pulled each other out of the sinking metal death trap.

“A few rescue boats are already out there! Head out through the terraces everyone!”

“Rosé! Soo-Young!” cried out one of their teachers. “You both need to get out of here!”

“But Ms. Seo!” Soo-Young pleaded. “I can’t leave! Seulgi Unnie and Wendy Unnie are still in there! I can’t leave them!”

I can’t leave them. She so wished her tears would stop falling and stop adding to the already flooding sea water, but just the thought of losing her two unnies to this awful tragedy overshadowed all other fears. She was so scared of losing them that even she had stopped “using her brain.”

She knew they were still in there somewhere, but there was nothing she could do. It frustrated her to the point that physical pain was tangibly felt: burning pain from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Those two unnies—the two neighbours who lived next door—she had always been over-protective of them—her two losers. They may be losers, but losing them would make her the ultimate loser. It was bad enough that she will lose Yeri in the summer; she couldn’t… she couldn’t be separated from them too. She couldn’t let this happen.

“If you don’t go, you might not make it out!” the music teacher insisted.

“But they can’t die either!”

“It’s okay; we’ll make sure to find them later!”

There could be no time for later.

“Soo-Young, let’s get out of here…,” Rosé begged, tugging helplessly onto her friend’s arm. “We can’t stay any longer…”

“No! You go on out. I can’t leave Seulgi Unnie and Wendy Unnie…”

More dreadful clangorous roars of the slowly dying Eunhasoo resounded throughout the place. At this point, one of the male teachers—Mr. Lee, Seulgi and Wendy’s class advisor—was now pushing and dragging the smaller students out to the terrace. Ms. Seo, the music teacher, was helping students climb up the tilted hall along with the stewardess that helped them out earlier.

“Soo-Youngie,” their big-hearted music teacher begged. “Please, you really need to go. You need to live for your parents and for everyone else.”

“But—”

With much hesitation and weak tugging by her friend Rosé, Soo-Young finally agreed to climb out of the capsizing ferry. However, she was not at peace with this decision at all. Leaving without Seulgi and Wendy seemed so wrong—almost a very selfish deed—that it made her feel guilty. What if they don’t make it out? What kind of friend would that make her?

Up at the opening, she saw Yook Sungjae again, helping one of the teachers push out passengers off the ship. He was not wearing a life vest.

“Hey, you said you were going to find a life vest!” Soo-Young said in a very worried tone.

“I’m fine,” he answered back. The young man then pushed her up to climb the terrace. From there, he insisted that she jump into the water. But Soo-Young held onto the railings. She didn’t want to leave.

“Soo-Young, go!”

“No, I can’t!”

Finally, he pushed her out and helped Rosé up so that she could escape too.

“Hey! You idiot!” Soo-Young let out a shrill yell while sliding down the walls of the ship along with a handful of other students, but Yook Sungjae was still in there helping the other students get out. Soon, Soo-Young was on the cold waters, drifting out into the ocean, away from the sinking ship. “Yook Sungjae, you idiot! You’re an idiot…,” she yelled while sobbing. “My Seulgi Unnie… My Wendy Unnie… I can’t leave them…”

Out there in the vast sea, with the overturned ferry capsizing before her very eyes, she cried out loud in excruciating agony, cursing the ocean waves, cursing the sinking ferry, cursing the school for making them go on this trip, cursing Wendy for not bringing her phone to breakfast, cursing Seulgi for not charging her phone and for running out alone, cursing Yook Sungjae for giving up his life vest and pushing her out… and cursing herself for being the biggest loser in the entire Milky Way Galaxy for not doing anything—for not having enough power to stop any of this from happening. She flailed and thrashed in the tossing waves, crying and hoping she would finally wake up from this terrible nightmare, until the sting of the cold waters and the burning in and temples consumed her… almost.

Before she lost her senses, strong arms had pulled her up into a smaller motor boat. There Soo-Young, Rosé, and a handful of other students with faces drenched in terror, looked back at the gigantic disaster being swallowed by the vast waters. Soo-Young wept in terrible grief, still not believing what she was seeing with her very own eyes. There were other motor boats with passengers in them but, this can’t be all of them, right?

“S-seulgi Un-nie… Wen-dy Un-nie…” She could not hold back her sobs. Seulgi and Wendy—they were the best sisters she ever had. They were family to her. She was an only child and they treated her like their own blood. All those times they spent together; all those lazy afternoons doing nothing; playing pranks and being goofballs; annoying the hell out of each other and free-loading off each other’s parents… It cannot end here.

“They’ll be rescued, won’t they?” The rescue teams will head in there and get them out before it was too late, won’t they? But why aren’t the rescuers going in to help? I don’t understand. We barely even made it out. The crew and the teachers are trying their hardest in there to get as much children out. They need help...

Noticing Soo-Young’s trembling shoulders, Rosé pulled her in for another hug. There on the motor boat on the way to the nearest island of Jindo, they along with a small fraction of other survivours cried on each other’s arms.

Back on land after what seemed like forever at sea, teams of medics were on the rush—wrapping towels, checking others for vital signs, bringing in stretchers… Some were rushed to hospitals, while some students were sent to a small building where they can stay in the meantime. There inside the wide room filled with heart-broken, traumatized souls, people were contacting their families and reporting to them about the incident. Everyone tried comforting each other, though comfort was far out of reach when the near-death experience was still very fresh.

And while it was all still very fresh, there were journalists and news reporters in the scene too, harassing people for interviews for their latest “exclusive” story. The moment the rescue boats arrived on land, those media people were already there, trying to get a word out of the freshly saved survivors. It was like they were all suddenly celebrities. It was ridiculous. The media took every bit of image, word, witness, victim—absolutely anything they could capture—just to provide even a little backbone to their sensationalistic news stories.

“Young student, can I please get an interview?”

“Can you describe to us what happened inside and how you felt while the ferry was sinking?”

“How did you manage to make it out of the ferry?”

“Are some of your friends still inside?”

“Do you know if they are still alive?”

“Do you know if they are still alive?” That very question haunted Soo-Young’s tumultuous soul. All this noise—it was too much to bear. They were very startled and speechless. They had just gone through a disastrous event. Their tear-drenched faces had not even dried yet. Their minds and bodies were still a wreck. Without even trying to be polite, Soo-Young flatly refused to answer and dragged Rosé along with her. Saying she was “not in the mood” to answer is an understatement. In the evacuation center, she just sat in a corner and continued to cry, praying that the others would soon be rescued. From time to time when a new character entered the premises, she would look, but the two faces she so desperately longed to see were not coming. The other faces too, Sungjae, their teachers, and her other classmates, most of them were nowhere in sight.

A little later, she got a chance to contact her mother.

“Hello, Mom…?”

“Hello? Soo-Youngie! Soo-Young is that you?”

“Mom… M-mom-ma…” Soo-Young began to uncontrollably sob again upon hearing her mother’s voice over the payphone. (Somehow, she had lost her phone in the midst of the evacuation.) Words could not express how it gripped her heart to hear her mother after all of this chaos. Back in that ship when all hope was slowly diminishing, she had a thought that she might not ever hear her mother’s voice again. But here she was. “Mom… I’m a-alive… I survived...”

“Oh, good lord! My baby, Soo-Youngie, you’re okay! The school sent a message this morning and it was all over the news! I’ve been trying to contact you!”

“I’m okay,” she hiccupped between sobs like a little child. “B-but Seulgi Unnie and Wendy Unnie, I…  they’re n-not with me... I d-don’t know what h-happened t-to them…” Just saying their name caused a gripping ache in her fear-drenched heart. The thought of them still in that hunk of disintegrating junk—struggling for light and air, being crushed and murdered by the pressure of heartless waters—made her want to explode in anguish.

If she could just head back in there and save all the souls clamouring for dear life like an all-powerful comic book hero, the crying would all stop and they can just go home with a happy ending. But unfortunately, superheroes do not exist. Those superheroes in movies were just frames of people’s imagination, trying to give hope to a hopeless world. And yet, Soo-Young tried to convince herself that miracles exist, because if she didn’t—Seulgi and Wendy and everyone else—they may disappear—forever.

“I’ll contact their parents right away. Your father and I are coming to get you. Praise the Lord you are still alive my Soo-Youngie! We were so worried about you…”

Why does being alive and surviving this tragedy feel so painful?

***

Back in Seoul, where Yeri had lunch with other middle-school kids, the popular thirteen-year-old sipped on her chocolate milk with her hands crossed and a smug look on her face.

“My gosh, Yeri, is that true?” asked one of her friends.

“Yes, it’s true.” Yeri placed her chocolate milk carton on the table and leaned closer for a whisper. “She met IU in person and got the autograph just for me. I’m meeting her later.”

“Lucky little ,” another friend remarked.

“Of course.” Yeri then got up from her seat—in all her sassiness—and motioned for Saeron to come with her too. “I might show you guys when I receive it. But no touching!”

After school, Yeri bid her friends goodbye and headed to the bus stop near the small café that she previously went to with Wendy. Every time she passed by that café, she remembered that rainy day when Wendy talked to her about losing her older sister in her tragic past. Of all the overly dramatic moments she ever had with Wendy, that one was probably the worst. It was terrible because ridiculing her suddenly felt inappropriate. And although she did not want to admit it, Wendy almost made her cry. Almost. Okay, maybe a few tears dropped that day.

Today, just like that day, it was a rainy day in Seoul. The clouds were so thick; the sun could barely shine through. This time, however, she had her own umbrella with her. But she checked the weather forecast for Jeju Island and found out it actually wasn’t raining in that part of the country. Lucky es…

When the bus arrived, Yeri hopped in. She began to browse through her phone messages in boredom and saw that there were no new messages from their 5-person chatroom. The last message was of Soo-Young looking for the other two.

Hm, I guess they’re having too much fun out there to even bother with their phones. Gosh, I’m impressed. Must be one hell of a school trip. They better come back with plenty of good Jeju Island snacks.

While she was there, an older man a few seats back was playing a video of what sounded like a news report through his phone. It was difficult to make out because of the noise from the moving bus, but whatever it was, the only thing in Yeri’s head was: Gosh, old people should learn to use earphones in public places…

Then there was a new message on her phone:

Oh yes! Joohyun Unnie is waiting. I’m excited!

Just a few minutes later, Yeri got off the bus and saw her new favourite unnie waving at her underneath the shelter of the bus stop. The kid quickly leaped toward her to avoid the falling rain and greeted the older girl with a beaming smile. “You got the stuff?”

“Oh yeah, I got the stuff!” the unnie exclaimed enthusiastically. Then she pressed the button on the handle of Wendy’s blue umbrella and held it up with one hand while resting the other around the younger’s shoulder. “I left it in my locker in the library because I didn’t want the poster to get wet. Come, let’s go together.”

It was rather dark and the skies were fully covered with dark grey clouds, yet the two of them had the sunniest dispositions at the time. Joohyun was very thankful about gaining a new little friend, and Yeri was happy to have another older girl shower her with love and gifts. Sure, they could not meet the other three while they were out on their school trip, but at least they have each other.

As they walked together under the rain shower, Joohyun looked down to the shorter girl and asked, “So, how was school today?”

Yeri chuckled. “You sound like a mom.”

Joohyun scrunched up her brows. “Are you saying only moms can ask that question? Or are you saying I’m old?!”

“Sheesh, calm down. I was just kidding. School was alright, thanks for asking.” Yeri liked teasing to feel closer to people and start developing a sort of kinship, but she did not want to get into Joohyun’s bad side before she actually laid hands on the gift. “By the way, this umbrella looks really familiar. I think Wendy Unnie lent me an umbrella similar to this one back then…”

“That’s because it is hers. She let me borrow it the other day,” Joohyun said, remembering how kind it was of Wendy to do so.

“Classic Wendy Unnie,” Yeri mumbled. “Always the Good Samaritan.”

The two of them went into the area of the library that had lockers, Joohyun searching for number 0043. After unlocking the door, she pulled out the CD and rolled up poster. “Ta-da!”

“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this is really happening.” Yeri carefully held the two items in awe. There is was on the cover of the CD—a very visible, authentic signature from the pop star IU herself. “But man, you’re so lucky! What was it like meeting her? Was she pretty in real life?”

“Oh yeah, she was very pretty and down-to-earth. I was very nervous about asking her at first but she was so nice. I wish you could have met her. The poster is also signed. You can look at it later while we sit at the lounge café.”

“Gosh, this has got to be the most amazing gift ever! I gotta hand it to you—you’re amazing, Joohyun Unnie. Now I know why Seulgi Unnie and Wendy Unnie like you a lot.”

Joohyun gave a flattered laugh at the remark. “Thanks. I try. Now let’s go, I’ll treat you to drinks and donuts.”

It’s just like that day with Seulgi again. We went to the library lounge cafe too.

But of all the places to go, of all the times to find out… why?

On that afternoon in the middle of May—when the warm humid air and sudden rains began signaling the entrance of summer—Joohyun and Yeri went together to the university library’s lounge. There, the smell of brewing coffee, the comfy leather couches, the glass coffee tables, and drinks filled with the unhealthiest syrups and sweetest sugars—all had faded from view. The only thing that they remember seeing and hearing were the haunting sounds of thunder… and a wide-screen television in the lounge displaying the latest news.

“…as you can all see now, the entire motor vessel—Eunhasoo, originally en route to Jeju Island—has submerged completely, however, there are still about 300 people missing—mostly the students from Ansan Private High School…”

“Wh-what?”

A rolled-up poster and CD case fell on the hard marble floor.

Joohyun looked to Yeri. The girl was ever so still like a statue, her eyes fixed on the screen flashing footages of crying students and a sinking ship; senseless graphs of stock prices and government agendas…       

“… at 8:50 a.m. the vessel has started listing to the left side—the side of the port—after taking a sharp turn at the Maenggol Channel off the coast of East Geocha Island… So far there are about 170 people rescued and were evacuated to Jindo Island … by 1:30 p.m. the entire vessel has completely submerged … Authorities are still investigating the causes for the capsizing and subsequent rescue operations are still being made …”

Joohyun squatted to grab the fallen poster and CD and placed it on one of the sofas of the lounge. She then took the middle schooler’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “Yeri, sit down.”

Checking back her messages, Joohyun saw the last thing posted to their chatroom.

8:15 a.m.

Baby chick: "Seulgi Unnie!!! Wendy Unniee!!! Where are you guys??"

---

8:15 a.m. was the time of the last message. There was nothing after that. But before that there were photos of them and messages from the previous night, all smiling and having so much fun. And there in one of the older photos, Joohyun saw Soo-Young’s selfie with the ferry named Eunhasoo...

Joohyun sent new messages.

“Soo-Young?”

“Wendy??”

“Seulgi???”

“Where are you??”

“Are you guys ok?”

“Guys… please answer :(”

“Guys ㅜㅜㅜㅜㅠㅠㅠㅜㅜㅜㅠㅜ”

Please… please tell me you all survived, Joohyun pleaded while typing out futile messages. The uncontrollable shaking of her hands was not stopping. The glaring phone screen was turning into a blur as water started flooding her eyes to the brim. She could not make herself look back up that television screen unless they send a reply. If they can send a reply.

“Ha…,” Yeri scoffed without taking her eyes off the television. She sounded lifeless and detached, despite the river of tears streaming down her face. “And they say ‘no news is good news.’”

And I guess that’s true…, Yeri continued in her head. Because I’d rather not hear this news ever again.