Chapter Seven - Mellow Doubt

Seohyun stared at her screen blankly. She had arrived to work on time as usual and noticed that Yoona had also arrived properly on time to her station. She seemed to be in quite a good mood too, better than what Seohyun remembered she had been the day before. As Yoona had settled in her cubicle Seohyun had asked her friend if everything was alright and why had she not called her last night at all. The fact that Yoona hadn’t come over after her meeting with Soonkyu worried her a lot.

Yoona had told her that she had gone home because she hadn’t felt too good after meeting with Soonkyu. She said that they had a very short discussion that had been awkward, but noticed that there was nothing out of the ordinary. It was after meeting Soonkyu and waking up in her own bed this morning that Yoona had noticed she could no longer see through Soonkyu’s eyes anymore. Seohyun tried to ask her more but Yoona said they would talk about it later. The usually chatty Yoona was much quieter and calmer than usual.

Another thing that bothered Seohyun was that Hopper had come to check up on the two five times during the first half of the day. Usually, if everything during the work day went normally, he would come maybe once to check up on them but that was it. Today it seemed very odd that he came so many times and that he bothered to talk with Seohyun. He usually ignored her and just scolded Yoona instead.

Something felt off about today but Seohyun couldn’t say what it was. Her mind was preoccupied with trying to figure out what was going on and she stared at her vacant computer screen, so lost in her own world that she missed the phone ringing on her desk. A tap on her shoulder brought her back and she turned to look around her with a lost look to see Yoona looking at her. Seohyun shook her head, blinked a couple of times, dragging herself back to this reality.

“What did you say?”

“Aren’t you going to answer the phone?”

Seohyun turned to look back at her desk where the phone was ringing next to her computer screen. She reached out and picked up the phone before she looked back at Yoona with a confused look. Yoona smiled at her before walking back over to her own cubicle, continuing with her work.

“Hello?”

“This is reception. There are two people who are asking for you. They say it is urgent.”

“Who are they?”

“One Kim Hyoyeon and Im Yoona.”

Seohyun’s breathe hitched for a moment as her mind began to grasp the names that had just been uttered to her. The hairs on her arms stood up and a shiver ran up through her spine.

“S-say that again.”

“Kim Hyoyeon and Im Yoona. Should I tell them to wait?”

Seohyun turned to look to her right to the other cubicle where her friend was working diligently. She looked like Yoona and sounded like her, even acted like her mostly. But something was bothering Seohyun to no end about her friend and the fact that Hyoyeon was down there had to mean something. Why was Hyoyeon coming to meet her at work and how did she know where Seohyun worked or even know about Seohyun in the first place?

“N-no. I mean yes tell them to wait a minute I’ll be right down.”

She placed the receiver down on its place and kept staring at Yoona across in the other cubicle. What was going on?

She got up from her chair, lifting her bag from the floor and walked over to her friend’s box.

“Hey Yoona, I need to go down for a bit. Will you cover me for just a moment?”

Yoona turned to look at her.

“Sure. What’s up?”

“A friend of my mother’s is waiting to see me downstairs. I’ll go and see what it is about.”

“Okay sure thing. I’ll tell Hopper you are copying or getting a report or something.”

“Thanks.”

Seohyun turned around and made her way towards the elevators. She felt a few beads of sweat form on her forehead as she waited for the elevator to get to her level, nervously looking around her to see that nobody was following her. An almost debilitating panic was building up but something wasn’t right with any of this and she managed to keep the worst of her jitters to a minimum. The only way she could find out anything right now was by meeting the people downstairs. It wasn’t like anything bad could happen in the main lobby right?

Arriving on the ground floor made her way to the reception while looking around the lobby to try and see if she could recognize anyone, if she could see Yoona, but there was nobody she knew. At the reception desk she asked the lady where these two people were. She had directed them into the restaurant to wait.

Seohyun continued to the right from the main lobby to where the ground floor restaurant attached to this office block was, stepped in and soon a waiter was asking her what she needed. She told him that she was just here to meet a friend so the waiter walked away leaving Seohyun alone at the entrance, trying to look around if she could recognize anyone. Walking a little further in she heard someone shout her name.

“Seohyun-ah! Here!”

Looking past the plants that were lining the main path of the restaurant, a short girl with short hair was waving at her excitedly with a huge smile plastered on her face. Seohyun took a couple of steps forward and then saw another person sitting at the table, a beautiful blonde haired woman who looked at her with interest. Seohyun didn’t recognize either of them. The other one could be the blonde she’d heard of, Kim Hyoyeon, but where was Yoona? Had someone just used these names to reel her in?

With apprehension she made her way towards the two, the short haired girl finally calming down to sit still in her seat. She seemed very excited and could barely sit down and was constantly fidgeting. A very active person. The blonde haired woman on the other hand was much more reserved and regarded Seohyun’s approach in a studying manner, her eyes taking in every detail, the eyebrows of the blonde scrunching up and pouting slightly as if she was trying to get an answer to an important mystery or secret.

“Hello.”

“Good-day Seohyun, my name is Kim Hyoyeon,” the blonde one regarded her and they both nodded at each other curtly. Seohyun looked at the fidgety short haired girl who had a wide expectant smile plastered on her face, her lips almost forming in a shape of the number three.

“Seohyun…” the other girl began looking up at Seohyun.

“Yes? Where is Yoona? I was told she was here.”

“Seohyun-ah… I-… I’m Yoona.”

Seohyun looked at the shorter girl with wide eyes that were trying to comprehend what she had just been told. The short haired girl claimed to be Yoona? But that was impossible! Was Yoona playing a very bad practical joke on her?

“Please, have a seat,” Hyoyeon told her pointing at the empty spot that was next to the short haired woman.

“This sounds unbelievable I know, even I do not fully believe it myself…” Hyoyeon started as she took a glance in the direction of Yoona, shaking her head and then continued, “But I’m not discounting the possibility of it. Yoona said that you and her have been finding out information about Sunny, and that Yoona has been invading her body somehow, is this right?”

Seohyun nodded looking intently at Hyoyeon.

“What seems to have happened after yesterday when Yoona was supposed to meet Sunny is that, well, she got stuck in Sunny somehow. After she went to sleep she woke up this morning in her body and can’t seem to leave. Since she is in Sunny’s body, Sunny is missing.”

Seohyun turned to look at Yoona seeing a short hazel haired girl instead of her friend and she was trying to wrap her mind around the things that were presented to her. It was true that they had been doing all these things and it seemed like this Kim Hyoyeon, the blonde that Yoona had been talking about, knew about it all. If this was a prank then obviously Yoona would have told Hyoyeon all the necessary details, but it was hard to believe that Yoona would take a prank this far after experiencing all of those weird dreams. Or had all of that also been an elaborate prank?

“Seohyun,” Yoona started to talk, interrupting Seohyun’s thought process who turned around to look at her, “Is… my body still here? Is there another Yoona now?”

“Yes, Yoona is upstairs working at the moment,” Seohyun replied but only half believing what she said herself. The whole morning she had had this awkward sensation and feeling regarding the Yoona she was working with that morning.

“Oh…” Yoona cast her eyes down looking away from Seohyun and at the coffee that she had in front of her, one which she had barely drank at all before looking up at Hyoyeon with a forced smile, “At least we now know where my body is, right?”

Hyoyeon noticed the awkward situation that was developing and knew that she had to get both of the two to her friend’s shrine to clear things up. If Seohyun agreed to go meet her friend she would call her now to set up a time. Although Hyoyeon knew her friend would help her, it had been far too long since her last conversation with her. That was going to be another very awkward moment to bear through.

“We were thinking that if you would come along with me and Yoona to my friends to see if what she claims is true.”

“Friend?”

“She is a shrine maiden and, well, she knows this stuff. Possession of spirit, out-of-body experiences, dreams and all the sorts.”

Seohyun snorted almost silently, her nostrils flaring a little finding all and everything related to spirits unbelievable. She saw the change in Hyoyeon’s expression and realized how rude her reaction was. She shouldn’t mock others beliefs just because she didn’t believe in them herself, besides the fact that in her current situation there wasn’t really much else that she could go by. She shouldn’t discount any option before checking to see if it would bring about some sort of solution.

“I realize this hocus-pocus stuff is for the stupid people,” Hyoyeon continued talking, her voice overloaded with sarcasm. She looked at Seohyun whose expression turned to one of apology, she clearly felt bad for her earlier remark, “but it is one of the options. We need to begin somewhere.”

“I apologize; it was not my intention to mock. I’m sorry.”

“So how about it?” Yoona asked with her eyes gleaming with expectation and almost leaning in on Seohyun, so close and in a way that only Yoona would do to her. She was acting as familiar as Yoona did with the same mannerisms as she had, but her body was different. Everything else screamed to her that this person was Yoona, everything except her physical appearance.

“Well, to be totally honest Yoona has been acting quite… weird and very distant today. I’ve had a strange feeling in the back of my mind the whole day and… I just don’t know. But I guess it wouldn’t hurt would it?”

Yoona clapped with glee, reaching out to give a hug to the surprised Seohyun who lifted her arms up as not to return the hug. Yoona hugged her tightly, the tiny body of Sunny pressing against Seohyun and the girl felt herself flush. Since Sunny’s body was unfamiliar to her she felt like she was getting hugged by a stranger in such a familiar way and it wasn’t normal. Sunny’s body’s gifted chest pressing up against her didn’t help the situation at all either.

Yoona pulled away beaming her smile at Seohyun who returned a slightly puzzled and embarrassed smile to the former. Hyoyeon eyed the two curiously, a small grin creeping to the edge of as she pulled her phone out from her bag.

“So should I ask my friend if we could go meet her tomorrow? I think the sooner we get this thing sorted out the better.”

Seohyun nodded in reply. So far it seemed very unbelievable but Yoona wouldn’t take a prank this far would she? Yoona wouldn’t bring in a third party into this situation and even less likely that she would drag Seohyun out into some shrine out in the sticks.

Hyoyeon searched through her contacts and found the correct number, hitting the green call button and placed the phone to her ear. The other two sitting at the table focused their gazes on Hyoyeon who seemed to be getting increasingly nervous with each passing ring of the phone. She hadn’t talked to her friend in over half a year and wasn’t sure how she would respond to this phone call out of the blue asking for help.

The other end of the line answered.

“Hyoyeon… Hi.”

“H-hey…”

The line fell silent as Hyoyeon tried to organize her thoughts. She hadn’t thought that calling her friend like this would make her feel so vulnerable, that just hearing her voice would make her stutter and bring forth emotions that she thought she had buried. Her face flushed and both Yoona and Seohyun stared at her with a mixture of anticipation and confusion.

“It’s been a while. How are you?”

“I’m doing fine. How… how is everything at the shrine?”

“It’s the same as usual, mostly.”

“How is Sooyoung?”

“Soo…”

Once again the line went quiet and Hyoyeon felt dread rise in the pit of her stomach. Why was her friend being so quiet all of a sudden?

“Jessica, is Sooyoung alright?!” Hyoyeon raised her voice in alarm. Seohyun and Yoona sat up in their chair, the sudden turn of events making the atmosphere even tenser than it had been since the beginning of the call.

“You would know if you came to visit…”

Hyoyeon felt the cold icy words strike her and she felt nauseated. She knew that she should have visited and called more often but…

“I’m sorry…”

It was all she could say before the line went quiet again. Hyoyeon felt tears surge in her eyes as she thought of the situation and the stinging words of her friend. The prospect of something being wrong with Sooyoung made her panic even more and her breathing was becoming slightly irregular as Hyoyeon fought the tears and the horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Why did you call?”

Hyoyeon shook her head wiping the few tears that were dangling at the edge of her eyes. She looked up at Seohyun and Yoona, both with worried expressions on their face. With a slight smile of reassurance to the two she took a deep breath.

“It’s about Sunny, she isn’t… well.”

“Take your little friend to the hospital then.”

“Jessica you are being unfair! I wouldn’t call you if it was something like that!” Hyoyeon shouted in the receiver, slightly frustrated how Jessica was acting towards her.

“Well what is it then?”

“Sunny… she is no longer in her body. She is missing.”

Once again silence reigned as Hyoyeon waited for Jessica to respond to her.

“How do you know?”

Hyoyeon’s voice lowered and turned serious, her husky low tone giving weight to each word she uttered. The teary eyes seemed to disappear and both Yoona and Seohyun bore witness to how her eyes seemed to lose their brightness, gathering in a darker colour.

“You know how.”

“…”

In that moment it seemed like the restaurant was perfectly silent as all three waited for Jessica’s reply on the other end of the line. The chattering of other customers in the restaurant, the sound from the kitchen and bar, the waitresses asking for orders – everything had fallen silent.

“Come in tomorrow evening. I’ll get things set up by then.”

“Thank you, Jessica. I’m…”

“Save it for tomorrow. Bye.”

Jessica cut the line and Hyoyeon was left with the phone in her ear, listening to the silent ring of an ended call. Returning her phone into her bag she took the napkin that Yoona offered her and sneezed, wiping away the tears and regaining her composure.

Hyoyeon hadn’t expected calling her friend to be such a strenuous event and now the knowledge that something was possibly wrong with Sooyoung made her even more worried. Why had Jessica not told her what was wrong with her? Why had she not called her when something had gone wrong with Sooyoung? Thinking about it now it was probably a punishment towards Hyoyeon for not keeping in touch and leaving things the way that she had left them half a year ago. But even if things had gone the way they did, Jessica had been too cruel and cold to her. Were they not friends? She looked back up at the other two waiting for the outcome of the phone call.

“We’ll go in tomorrow evening after the official shrine hours.”

“Are you… alright?” Yoona asked her. Hyoyeon beamed a smile.

“I’m fine. Can you get there by yourselves or should I pick you up with my car?”

“Where is it?”

“It is just outside the city, a bit higher up the mountains from the hot springs.”

“If you wouldn’t mind then we would very much appreciate the car ride,” Seohyun finally spoke up giving a slight nod in to Hyoyeon’s direction.

“Okay, we’ll meet you tomorrow here at four?”

“Where are you two going now?”

“Well we got the afternoon off since Yoona, or Sunny, has been called in sick and I took a day off too. But we are going to go and get things sorted out for tomorrow.”

“What about… Yoona?” Seohyun asked getting a quizzical look from the other two. “I mean the one upstairs. Should I ask her to join us?”

Hyoyeon shook her head while Yoona looked visibly terrified at the prospect of seeing her own body out of her own control. “It’s best we go just the three of us. We don’t know what is controlling Yoona’s body right now.”

“It could be Yoona,” Seohyun said immediately feeling a pang of guilt as Yoona’s face in the form of Sunny, sank into a deeper frown.

“Well if it is, then you Seohyun have nothing to worry about and Sunny’s weirdness is my worry alone.”

“Alright then,” Seohyun got up from her seat, “I shall see you two tomorrow in front of here at four. I should be out of work by then.”

She stepped away from the table and was about to make her way out of the restaurant when Yoona called to her.

“Seohyun-ah…”

Seohyun turned around to look at the short hazel haired girl.

“Thank you.”

Seohyun smiled for real this time, feeling that she was doing the right thing by going through with this all.

“No need to thank me. I just want to know what is going on.”

With that said she made her way out of the restaurant and back to the elevators. All the while her mind was trying to get around the fact that the Yoona she apparently knew was in Sunny’s body, and Hyoyeon’s friend Sunny had disappeared somewhere. This would mean that the Yoona working with her today was someone or something different altogether. She should have asked for Hyoyeon’s and Sunny’s identification to confirm that they were who they were claiming to be. She would do that the first thing tomorrow when they met up again.

She got up to her floor and walked in to her work station finding Yoona still engrossed in her work. Usually she would be dosing off at this time or complaining how hungry she was and she would immediately acknowledge Seohyun’s arrival. But none of this happened. She was doing her work diligently, typing away at the reports that she had to complete.

Seohyun sat down and began to work on her report. She opened up another link on her screen and searched for shrines that were situated in the mountains in the area that Hyoyeon claimed the shrine to be located in. It didn’t appear immediately in the first searches but it didn’t take long for her to find the mentioned shrine. It was quite a reclusive place, not one with many visitors, but had been there for centuries possibly one of the area’s oldest shrines.

“What’s up, how was your mom’s friend?”

Seohyun quickly minimized the screen she had been looking at and looked over to see Yoona leaning in on her cubicle entrance in her usual relaxed manner.

“It was fine. She has just recently moved in to town and was wondering if I could take her out tomorrow and show her around the city.”

Seohyun lied through her teeth. She could only remember lying once like this to Yoona and it had been when she was supposed to have a surprise birthday party for her friend, who had been too nosy that day.

“If you want I can tag along so it wouldn’t be as boring.”

“It’s quite alright, but I’ll take you up on that offer some other time.”

Yoona turned back around to continue her work while Seohyun reopened her browser with the information about the shrine. The place seemed to exist and to be in operation. So Hyoyeon had been speaking the truth about a shrine existing there. Now all that was left to see was if everything else they were talking about was true. The website she was looking at had a phone number of the shrine and the name of its primary care taker the shrine maiden, Jessica Jung.