We take fast steps to walk away from the ahjumma’s house, and after a turn, the house disappears. I stop walking next to a thick grapevine, and let myself go from Sehun. “What are you doing?”

          Sehun faces me with one hand on his waist. Yumi and Jinho stay still behind us, and I keep staring at Sehun, demanding an explanation. “Think of it as a payback of what I did to you yesterday.” he says.

          The town? When I was being followed? “Hey, it was emergency!”

          “The ahjumma was an emergency too.”

          “And you resolved that by sacrificing me?”

          “Don’t you think I was sacrificing myself too yesterday?”

          “I—” I try to say something, but give up. “Whatever. Alright, we’re even. Let’s keep walking.”

          Sehun smirks to me, and Yumi and Jinho make a commotion in the back. “Wow, are you guys hiding something?” Jinho teases. Sehun warns with a loud ‘sssh’ and the couple giggles. I’m pretty sure my face is red right now, and I look down.

          Later that night, Yumi and I are in our bedroom, each doing our thing until Yumi scoots over to me. “Hey, what did actually happen?”

          I stop folding my clothes. “Nothing.”

          “Ah, don’t be like this!”

          I sigh deeply. “Honestly, I didn’t want to tell you because it was your happy day. But yesterday…” I tell her the summary of what happened in town, and Yumi looks shocked but delighted after I explained what Sehun did.

          “You two protected each other, it’s so cute!”

          “More like I was forced to do it today.” I roll my eyes. “I could’ve paid him back in another way but he made his own, so, yeah.”

          “Ugh, you guys are so cute.” Yumi shakes my shoulders. “It’s dinner time, let’s go out.”

          Grandma and Grandpa go to a village meeting right after dinner, and the guys stay over in the house for awhile to discuss about tomorrow. I propose that Yumi and I are going together because our project locations are near. Actually the locations are not too far away from each other but mine and Yumi’s are the closest.

          “Can you girls manage to go alone?” Jinho asks.

          “Of course, we’re adults.” I say. “It’s not too far as well.”

          “How about we take you two there first in the morning?” Jinho offers, and I shake my head.

          “Hey, no need to. We aren’t kids. We’re going to be fine, we’ll go home earlier if we can.”

          I can feel Sehun looking at me when I say that, but I avoid meeting his eyes. “Be careful.” he says slowly. I just give him a curt nod.

          The next morning, Yumi and I are walking to our destination, and she looks cheery. I was actually kind of worried that I ‘separated’ her and Jinho, but she seems pleased.

          “Nooo, I’m so happy I could go with you!” Yumi says after I touch the topic. “It’s nice for a change, actually! You don’t have to be always together. You know, you have to do push and pull in a relationship.”

          “Why?”

          “It makes someone yearn for the other more! We’ve been together for a month and we spent two weeks next to each other for the whole day. We might get tired of each other, so this is necessary.”

          “Ah… Okay.” I emptily respond.

          “You should do that with Sehun too!”

          “What—me? Why would I?”

          Yumi laughs. “Sometimes you two look so good, sometimes you guys just bicker so much. It’s fun to see. I bet you’ll miss the small fights when you’re not together like this.”

          I scoff. “Nah.”

          We arrive at the location, which is a small hill covered in trees. I’m going to stay on the foot of the hill while Yumi is going to climb. After a few hours, when I was done taking samples, a hoard of grey clouds hides the sun and makes the sky slightly gloomy.

          Three high school kids in their uniform pass by when I’m packing, and they start laughing after seeing me. I recognize them from the festival when they were assigned to help me in decoration, but they were only fooling around, adding my rage along with Sehun’s disappearance that day. “What?” I call them out.

          “No, work hard, Noona.” they say mockingly. I shoot them death glares, and ignore them. Eventually they’re gone, and I decide to follow Yumi to the top of the hill.

          There’s actually stone stairs in the middle to make climbing easier. I arrive at the top, and Yumi is not done yet. As I sit on the ground, I start to hear unnatural sounds, like an overly loud cracking of tree trunks and rough brushes of leaves. I take glances here and there, but find nothing. Maybe it’s just the sounds this hill makes.

          “Nana, why do I think this place becomes creepier?” Yumi says as she tidies her stuff, slipping a self-assuring awkward laugh. “I think I’m hearing weird sounds.”

          I stand up, and shudder hard when my sole comes in contact with a thick, fallen tree trunk. I thought it was something else. “…yeah. Let’s go down to the road.”

          We head to the stairs, and as we step down, I swear I can see a black shadow quickly passing the line of trees on my right from the side of my eye. I almost stop on my tracks, but I continue walking, holding Yumi’s hand.

          Not long after, Yumi shrieks. “Nana—did you see that?!”

          “What?” I attempt to stay calm.

          “I saw something dark between the trees!”

          My breathing gets ragged. This might be a sick joke, but I’m still scared. I look around the trees, trying to spot something. Is it the high school kids? But they were wearing white shirts.

          I see the dark shadow again, and my heart gradually beats faster. “Don’t do anything ridiculous.” I try to sound as strict as possible.

          Yumi wraps herself around my whole right arm. “Nana—who are you talking to?”

          “Keep going.” I mutter. We’re almost arriving at the end of the stairs when the dark shadow passes right in front of us, and I see that it’s a person covered in long black fabric but my vision is interrupted by Yumi’s bloodcurdling scream. She pulls us down to the ground, and we both fall to the stone stairs.

          The dark shadow is gone in a flash, and I’m struggling to process my drumming heart, aching bottom part of my body, and Yumi’s panicked wails right next to my ear. “Oh God—that was scary! What was that? Oh no, I can’t do this.” Yumi gets teary, gripping onto my arm.

          “Sssh.” I try a futile attempt to soothe her. I’m mad, afraid and stressed at the same time. “Let’s stand up—and leave.”

          “Yumi! Nana!”

          I see Sehun and Jinho appearing from the road, and looking at our distressed faces, they start running to where we are. Yumi hurries to Jinho’s side and throws herself to him. I see Sehun glance at their direction as Jinho pats Yumi’s back repeatedly, then he walks to my direction.

          My heart is still beating hard, and I grip onto my bag strap tightly on my chest, trying to make my heart-clutching not too obvious in front of Sehun. I grit my teeth and control my breathing. I see Jinho is cupping Yumi’s cheeks as he tries to calm her. I look down to the ground, and see a pair of shoes walking towards me.

          “What happened?”

          “I think—there were—some high school kids—pranking us.” I try to speak normally. “Dark clothes—and all.”

          “If not for Jinho’s strong instincts, we wouldn’t have come to you.” Sehun says flatly, stopping two feet in front of me. “We should’ve stayed with the original partners.”

          I blink. Is he blaming me for switching pairs? I lift my head and look at him. Sehun is looking annoyed, and the fear I felt turn into fury. “What do you mean?”

          “See how dangerous this area is? You shouldn’t have insisted on going with Yumi, we could just go together as a group or with me!”

          His tone gets higher in the end, and I stare at him at disbelief. “Why are you yelling at me?!”

          I reply just as loud, and the air goes completely silent. I can feel Yumi and Jinho’s eyes on us. Sehun and I are glaring at each other for three seconds until I avert my sight and walk past him, heading home without turning my back.