Small Talks

Unniedul, Saranghae! ❤ -- Discontinued --

Chapter 07

 

Yongsun's POV

 

"Unnie, you sure you're not high?"

"Or drunk? You're not drunk, aren't you?"

"No, Wheein, Hyejin. I swear to God that was what I heard."

"Since when do you believe in God?"

"Since I met two embodiment of Satan living alongside me all this time," I growled, narrowing my eyes dangerously to the two giggling college students. I put my latte cup on the table, crossing my arms and looked away.

My reaction is apparently amusing to the two girls as they're now roaring with laughter. I huffed, feeling a soft hand tapping my knees. I smiled as I realized that the only sane person in this group is the one who called for my attention.

Moon Byulyi. The last keeper of this seemingly disastrous group of Anihumans raiser. We introduced ourselves yesterday, although we technically met a week ago. Silver hair, greyish eyes, charming smile. Just like Wheein and Hyejin, she raised two Anihumans with her. One of which is our hot topic for today.

"Yes, what is it, Byulyi-sshi?" I asked her.

She has this distraught look on her face that I can't help but find it adorable. She's really protective of her sisters and that made her the one with more worry concerning my previous statement.

"Is it true what you said, Yongsun-sshi?" she spoke, eyes never leaving mine. "Momo had actually died?"

Well, yes. If Mina wasn't having hallucinations last night. I remember clearly that she said that Momo had died, and she was the one who killed Momo. I couldn't ask her further because she cried even harder after confessing that and then passed out in my arms a few moments later.

This morning before I went to meet my fellow keepers, I actually tried to scrape some more information regarding Mina and Momo's past. But the main character herself doesn't even wake up until I left, and the other two Anihumans are conspiring to not telling me anything.

That was why we are here now, in some homely cafe near the town square, chatting and occasionally sipping our drinks. Aside from getting to know each other, we also wanted to talk about our sisters and the upcoming tests.

"Yongsun-sshi?"

Crap. I forgot that Byulyi's still waiting for my answer.

"I don't doubt my hearing, Byulyi-sshi. So, yes, she died."

Byulyi retracted her hands from my knees. There are wrinkles on her forehead when she thinks things deeply. The girl sipped her iced water before sighing heavily. "But how? She's alive now. She's still breathing and eating and doing daily works normally. I'm not living with a zombie, now, right?"

"Well, she's literally crippled," Hyejin speaks up. She plays with her glass of coke while staring at both of us. "Looking at her walks around limping like that will certainly make me think that she's a zombie."

"And what's with her eye, though?" this time it's Wheein's chance to talk. "Heterochromia? She has two different eye colors."

Byulyi shook her head. "Her left eye's blind."

"Woah, hold on a second," I stopped her sentence. "She told you about her wound?"

"Sadly, no," Byulyi frowned. "I made my own experiment after I accidentally threw a book at her left side and she doesn't even realize it. Not until it hit her square in the face."

Hyejin quirks her eyebrow. "Accidentally?"

"I'm serious. Wanted to throw it somewhere else but Momo just kinda showed up out of nowhere straight through the book's pathway."

Byulyi's now slumped on the cafe's chair. Probably feeling helpless. "At first I thought she only has a problem on her left leg. But little by little I found out that she's having trouble with her whole left body."

By now I'm listening with full focus. Wheein and Hyejin who usually can't keep quiet for even a minute are also listening intently.

"Aside from her eye and leg, Momo has three massive claw marks on her upper arm. I could see by the way she uses her left arm that those claws tore a muscle. There are teeth marks on her shoulder. The last one... Momo please forgive unnie for this, but when I accidentally saw her changing her clothes, I saw a scar running from the center of her chest to her left waist and then it curved upwards to her shoulder blade."

"Whoa," I stare dumbly at Byulyi, but my mind is nowhere near her figure. I'm imagining the scary scar and ended up feeling a bit freaked out. How on earth does a person get a scar that terrifying?

"I'm..." Hyejin starts only to close back. "...speechless. That's... wow. I... wow..."

"Is she truly alive?" Wheein shivers, hugging herself. "Byulyi-sshi, you checked right? She has a pulse, right?"

"I assure you, Wheein-sshi. She's alive and well. To be honest, it's not really that scary if you see it yourself. The only difference is the wrinkles and the different skin tone. I knew because I've hurt my arm badly once and it seems similar."

"I... I see..." our youngest is still in her dazed state, playing with her nails to distract herself.

"What do you think about that?" I asked again. "What happened to her?"

"Did they fought?" Wheein proposes. "I've seen Tzuyu and Nayeon nearly fight each other seriously and they certainly grew claws. Dunno about the teeth but... maybe it grows too?"

"No way, no," I interrupted Wheein. "Mina's a sweet child. She won't have the heart to hurt her friends. Moreover fighting them to death."

"But, unnie! That's the most plausible backstory! Even the nicest people could snap too if they're triggered!"

"Not Mina! I knew her only for three weeks but I know she won't do any of that!"

"Yongsun-unnie, stop, you're making a scene," I felt a hand lightly pushing my chest. I blinked, seeing Hyejin's worried face. I realized that I've stood up from my seat to yell at Wheein. She seemed terrified and also surprised that I yelled at her.

"Omo! I'm so sorry, Wheeinnie! I... I... I didn't mean to..." I hastily grabbed her hands, clenching it in panic.

She nodded, patting my hand until I relaxed enough and settled to just holding her hands.

"I'm sorry, Wheeinnie..."

She grinned. "No problem unnie. Besides, I managed to prove my point."

"What point?"

"That even a nice person will snap when they're provoked," she answers with a cheeky smile.

I threw her hands down without any hesitation. "Oh my God, I hate you so much."

"Love you too, unnie!"

I groaned. So much for being the oldest of the group. I'm always the one bullied by these two evil maknaes. I could feel Byulyi's gaze as I look away at anything except them.

"I think we should just drop this matter," Byulyi offers, touching my hand to catches my attention. "We're literally blind about this whole Anihuman thing. Heck, we don't even know how their world looks like aside from the castle yesterday. Let's not jump to conclusion."

I sighed. Byulyi's right. There's no point in continuing the argument if what we'll conclude are merely our scenarios. Nobody knows what truly happened back there, not even Dahyun if she was honest to me.

"Why don't we talk about other things?" she asked, looking at me and the two evil maknaes. "When did you met Sana and Chaeyoung, Hyejin-sshi?"

Hyejin points at herself. "Me?"

She then scratches her head. "Probably about two months ago. I found them in front of my house. I thought Chaeyoung was going to eat Sana because she had her in . So I smacked her head with a broom and threw a fish at her after she let Sana go."

Wheein stares at her friend in disbelief. "You smacked her? Let me rephrase this. You smacked a cat for carrying around a lizard in ? Are you kidding, Hyejinnie?"

"Okay, in my defense," Hyejin raised both her hand. "I don't usually involve myself with animals but on the other side, what I saw that day is a helpless, dying lizard with an evil cat trying to eat her. So I just moved on instinct and grabbed the broom to chase Chaeyoung away."

"What kind of normal human did that!"

"Oh, shush. Sana said it herself that it was their charm that made me did that. Caring about them, I mean. In the end, I took Sana to my house. The next day, I woke up to a woman cooking at my kitchen."

All three of us are now speechless, listening to Hyejin's extraordinary story with full attention.

"And... then?" I dare myself to ask.

"Then what?"

"What did you do next?" Byulyi continues my question.

"Oh, well I did what every people did when they saw a , gorgeous stranger cooking at their kitchen."

I shifted closer to Byulyi. "Why do I feel like I need to prepare myself?"

She nodded, understanding me perfectly. "Me too. Brace yourself."

Wheein took a deep breath and asked the ultimate question. "What... did every people do?"

Hyejin laughs. I'm having goosebumps. "I gave her a back hug and I asked her what is she doing so early in the morning."

Somewhere in the background, I heard Byulyi's, Wheein's and my own moral compass shattered loudly.

"Please tell us you're joking."

"No. I did that. But then she screamed and slapped me with a pan. I was already dizzy when the-also- Chaeyoung broke through my front door and roundhouse kicked my face until I passed out."

Wheein groaned and slammed her face to the table. "If I was Sana, I would have stabbed you."

"Aww... don't say that. I know you love me."

"Used to. Don't you ever come to my house again."

"ual offender," I heard Byulyi mumbling to herself with horror.

"Aish, enough about me!" Hyejin flails her hand in an attempt to stop us to envisioning her backstory. "How about you, Wheeinnie? How did you met Tzuyu and Nayeon?"

"My story is simpler and is certainly less questionable than yours, thank you," Wheein exclaimed with disgust. "It was six weeks ago. I was walking home when I heard a ruckus in an alley near me."

"Don't tell me Tzuyu and Nayeon fought before meeting you?" I asked, genuinely curious. I've always felt that these two didn't get along well. Maybe it's the age, both literally and figuratively. I mean, Nayeon is the oldest member with the mental age of 10 while Tzuyu is their maknae with the mental age of 40.

"Ding dong, wrong. Tzuyu did fight, but not with Nayeon," Wheein wiggled her index finger in front of my face. "She fought for Nayeon."

"Eh?"

Wheein nodded pridefully. "Yup. Nayeon was attacked by a random house cat and Tzuyu dived from the air. She injured the cat but both just didn't relent. I happened to walk past so I chase the cat away."

"See, Wheeinnie? We both chase the cats away!"

"No, I'm unwilling to be on the same boat with you. I chase the cat away because both Tzuyu and Nayeon are clearly injured," Wheein slaps Hyejin's arm. "So, yeah, I brought them into my house. Immediately after I finished patching them up, they turned to human and explained everything."

Hyejin chuckled lightly. "That's like... really normal."

Wheein stuck her tongue at her friend. "Of course. I'm not a weirdo like you."

"How about you, unnie?" our youngest turns to me, smirking. "Is your story normal or no?"

"I thought I've told you already," I said, rolling my eyes in exasperation. "Met Jihyo hanging on my roof, then she tugged me and I followed her. Found Dahyun and Mina lying covered in blood. They told me afterward that Mina was chased by local dogs around there. And.. they turned human the morning after, so I kinda screamed and shoved Mina out of my bed when I found her snuggling me ."

Byulyi shook her head then sips her iced water. Now that I paid attention to her, she only ordered iced water without any food or snack or whatsoever. Is she on a diet? But she's very thin. I bet her ribs are visible under all those jackets she always wore. Betcha she has abs too.

...

Wait a minute.

I immediately backtrack.

Why the hell am I thinking like that!

"Byulyi-sshi! How did you meet Jeongyeon and Momo?" thankfully Wheein's high pitched voice called me back to earth.

Said girl chuckled, probably memorizing her first meeting with Jeongyeon and Momo. "Well, after listening to your stories, I realized that I'm the first keeper to meet them. I met them two months ago, plus a few days. I was just walking home when I found both of them lying on the ground."

"And you just took them in?" Hyejin is confused. "That's really... nice but kinda random of you."

"Not really," Byulyi hummed. "They were starving. You should have seen them that day. Jeongyeon was so thin and Momo's literally skin and bones. They even need a few days to replenish their power to be able to turn human."

We silently nod, giving Byulyi time to tell her story.

"So I fed them. They eat everything I swear. Meat, rice, fish, even vegetables! Momo really likes jokbal, though, so I always tried to bought a piece of it when I went home," she chuckled with a fond look on her face. She must have loved her sisters deeply.

"You love them. Don't you?" Wheein softly voiced our shared thought.

Byulyi just smiled. "Yeah, I do. They are so sweet, even when they're outright weird or starving. They also understand that I can't feed them on daily basis and they went to find a job. Even with Momo's condition."

"Hang on," I lift my hand, stopping Byulyi with haste. "What do you mean you can't feed them on daily basis?"

"Well, babe," she winked effortlessly. "Some people work to scrape for food."

I'm stunned, 100% did not expect that. Hyejin and Wheein are also seem surprised by this revelation. My eyes involuntary drifted to her iced water, realizing that Byulyi ordered the cheapest menu not because she's on a diet. But because that's all she could spare.

Suddenly I'm feeling self-conscious.

"Ahaha, but don't worry." Byulyi giggled, waving her hand as if to shoo the uncomfortable feeling surrounding us. "I'm used to it. Good thing is that Jeong and Mo also learned to live in a harsh condition. At least now they know how to make a priority and to be humble. That's the least I could teach them."

I sat there in awe, listening to Byulyi's every word. Her last sentence got me thinking hard. The young Anihumans are supposed to live alongside us for a time period to learn about humans. As a keeper myself, I need to become a role model to them so they grow into a better person.

The question is... what... have I teach to Mina, Jihyo and Dahyun?

###

Normal POV

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the town, another group of people is also in the middle of the meeting. But, in contrast with the keepers' jolly atmosphere, the air here feels suffocating.

Jihyo keeps on stealing glances towards her teammates. Mina sat in silence, leaning on the glass window staring blankly at the outside world. Dahyun sat beside her, trying to soothe her by running her hand slowly on Mina's upper arm. Sana who sat across them is playing with her drink, stirring it mindlessly.

Tzuyu's keeping her eyes closed beside Sana, one arm draped around the latter's shoulder and her other arm is circling Chaeyoung's waist. The smallest Anihuman had her head on Nayeon's shoulder. While Nayeon simply stares at her drink, watching the strawberry in it floats.

"I'm sorry, we're late! Got caught up with traffic!"

All seven Anihumans lift their head at the loud voice nearing them. They smiled, reciprocating Jeongyeon's wide grin. The short haired girl sat beside Jihyo, wrapping her arms around her friend's waist.

"Where's Mo?" Nayeon asked.

"Is struggling to walk. She'll be here in a few moments," Jeongyeon sighed. "Okay, I lied. I left her behind. I need to say something to you. Especially you, Mina and Chewy."

At the mention of her own name, Mina finally shifted her gaze. Tzuyu opened her eyes when she heard her old nickname. "Spit it out, Jeongyeon-unnie."

"Whatever Momo tell you now, never ever put the blame on yourself. For two years, we only know the story from our side, so now's the time to finally understand what was truly happening at the border that day. And why she 'died' only to be back when we're dispatched to the human world. She'd told me before. It was not your fault. It was never anyone's fault. What happened back then is purely an accident."

"Not my fault?!" Mina slammed the table, surprising everyone. Her eyes are bloodshot, lips quivering in an attempt not to cry again in the cafe. "She sacrificed herself for me, Jeongyeon-unnie! I was there! You won't understand because you're not there!"

"No, unnie," Tzuyu growled. "I was the one she sacrificed herself for. I'm the one at fault. If only I was strong enough..."

"It was no one's fault, both of you! Haven't I made it clear for any of you not to blame yourself?"

"I LEFT HER–"

"Because I told you to."

Mina stopped her sentence when a new voice joined. She trembled, eyes focused on the girl standing with the help of a crutch. Tzuyu also tensed, looking at Momo who stood at the end of the table. The brown haired girl glowered, warning everyone with her cold stare which gradually softened.

"It wasn't your fault," she said. "It never is."

"No, Momoring–"

"Myoui Mina."

Momo called, her voice calm but laced with superiority.

"For the second time in my life, I ask you to put your faith in me."

Mina was stunned. She remembered that sentence. Her eyes started to water again, but Momo reaches her hand with difficulty and grasps her fingers.

"Trust in my words that it was not your fault, or Tzuyu's, or even mine. It was fate, and it was what made us now, no matter how painful it was. You get me?"

Mina nodded fast, holding her tears with every strength she has.  Momo sighed in relief, smiling softly at the penguin girl. She then turned to the gaping crow, Tzuyu's head once and sat at the chair prepared for her.

"Now, listen up, folks. I'm going to reveal everything that happened to me in the past two years since the day JYP-sunbaenim declared my death."

 

To be continued...

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Izarakovic
When I'm on my laptop I write too much case reports and playing Genshin :/ I need to write more lmao

Comments

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poplarbear #1
Chapter 41: Thank you so much for the closure ❤️ as cringe as it sounds, I really hold this story dear in my heart.
iNeedRomance2
#2
Chapter 41: Thank you for giving us closure author-nim! I'm sad that a lot of my favorite authors have seemed to have left their stories to focus on their own lives, so thank you for coming back to say goodbye and giving us readers a great ending to your wonderful story! I'll miss your stories! Have a great life author-nim!
iNeedRomance2
#3
Chapter 41: Thank you for giving us closure author-nim! I'm sad that a lot of my favorite authors have seemed to have left their stories to focus on their own lives, so thank you for coming back to say goodbye and giving us readers a great ending to your wonderful story! I'll miss your stories! Have a great life author-nim!
GG_sone_sz
#4
Chapter 41: Thank you author-sshi..
Wivern #5
Chapter 41: 💕
seungwaan
#6
Chapter 40: i'll miss your wenhyo fics! but be healthy and stay positive, i understand it's hard to keep consistancy as a writer. you've done so well until now! wish u all the happiness u can get 🥺
Wivern #7
Chapter 40: I am one with your wish.
May it come true.
Will be waiting for your return.
Until then live without any burdens.
Fighting authornim! 💕
urmamaroxs #8
Chapter 40: Thank you for sharing your stories with us. I'll read whatever you are willing to put up. All the best for everything!