CHAPTER 6: ALCALA DE HENARES

"Please take care of yourself." Wendy whispered to her friend before she let her go from her hug. "I hope you will be able to come back here in Seoul with the happiness evident to you f-"

The businesswoman rolled her eyes and talked. "Don't talk as if I'm going there to mourn and start to move one." She said as she asked her bodyguards to take her luggage off of her car's trunk. Irene will be leaving the country for three months and deep inside she also hoped that she was able to cope up with her unsettled emotions as a busy person. "And besides you're also coming there a week from now, aren't you?" Wendy nodded her head and smiled brightly to the older woman.

"Please don't be scared on any ghost that you might encounter short after you arrived in Romero's"

Irene smacked her friend's making it pout. "I'm still standing here and you are already sending me goosebumps." Wendy laughed and patted her friend's shoulder, even though she had been there for countless times, the workers still advice the visitors to show respect to the former owners of the hacienda by lighting up a candle in a specific place of a shrine where the daughter of Señorito Alfonso Romero took her life own life by jumping off the rooftop at her own wedding day.

"But unnie, I'm being serious here, before you decide to sleep in one of the rooms of that hacienda please visit the shrine."

"Shrine?" Her friend nodded her head. "What is the purpose of doing that?" Irene curiously asked but the woman just shrugged her shoulders and answered.

"You will know that for sure, the staffs would tell you to do so and besides, there would be no fun if you're going to know it now." Wendy stopped when she saw a familiar person who looked like she was in a rush as she escalated so fast to the inside of the airport. "I just saw Seulgi running." She said. "She didn't even notice us."

Irene took her backpack from Wendy and wore it to her back. "Then there would be a reason for the media to make baseless news once again, you know them." The businesswoman hugged her friend for one last time.

"I'm going now."

--

SEULGI'S POV

"You got to live a life to the fullest now", that's what she said and the result for it was pure happiness, I guess? I can do whatever I want now but that doesn't mean I haven't tried to love her, she was still the reason why I felt alive from those years since I've got to know her.

I'm moving on and by that means I should let go of those bad feelings from before, but the paparazzis had kept on following me day by day and that was the reason why I need to run inside of the airport, yesterday I've got a call from my father saying that my endorsement to Spain was already approved and I can now go back in there, I was tasked to help my uncle in managing the psych facility that my father bought from a Spanish-Italian family named Rodriquez who had it opened since early nineteen hundreads.

I'm going to stay there for the meantime and after that I can go back to South Korea to start my new business ventures in there. The fire was still burning and the rumours that the media had kept on making had made my ruined image worse, they even include someone that I merely know but I'm also glad that she also knew how to be distant from it. It took me a lot of consideration before doing the right thing and now I had to leave it things there undone.

Of course like what my father had said. "Kims don't hold your life and so I either, if you wanted to leave, leave, I have your brother here with me besides they don't seem to have a good expression on you right now specifically her father. The only thing I can do for you now Seulgi is to support you on whatever things you want to do in life, you already knew that from the day you opened your eyes that I as your father, I will always got your back."

It was glad to know that dad had already accepted me from who I am, he was having a hard time before when I told him that I was planning to marry someone, knowing that her only daughter wouldn't be able to give him a grandchild we started to have a love-hate relationship making me to decide whether to stay in the psych facility or not.

Of course I ended up choosing to leave because Jisoo did not want to let the media see us attending the same work together, making her to decide whether to pursue her dreams as a psychiatrist or enter the world of business but then she chose to become a fashion director of a magazine and later on she built her name in fashion industry by building her own luxury clothing line.

My brother also told me that I was blinded by my love and her selfishness he also said that I shouldn't have let my heart overtaken my brain, I should have let them to work in balance, and I just realized those parts weren't able to do their job properly as I only thought about preserving my relationship towards her even though I wouldn't be able to benefit with it.

Well the pain, it is still there but I'm sure I will be able to cope up with my feelings once again.

"Get out of my way!" After I heard that I just found myself sitting in the middle of the aisle of business class. I looked up to see a white man who really looked so angry his eyes were ferocious and obviously was also in rage as he almost tried to step on me. "Are you deaf or something? Can't you hear me, chink?" He said making me feel offended in my own country land, like what the ? Can I get even more unlucky? From facing a heartbreak to someone with a racist haracter? I stood up and bowed down my head as I said my sorry towards him, of course I still need to show a sign of respect or I will be the one to be blamed with their so called 'white privilege'.

"Small brain peasant." He whispered and started to walk past me when a person suddenly held his arm just tight enough to make him turn around and face the person.

"Ahjussi, we, Koreans don't need to work with your attitude, if you came here and acted like that you should have just wished you never had." Hearing the familiar voice, I looked at her, her eyes screamed with seriousness as she spome to him in straight English with the hint of ferociosness evident to her own eyes. "Get off of this flight." With her voice full of warning, the crew of the flight went to us and asked what was happening.

"She's harassing me!" A smirk was drawn to her face.

"Do you think I would do such a thing to harass you? First of all if I'm going to ask all of these people in here right now, they'd probably agree that you were the one who was harassing a person and mister, you might have forgot that you're a male and she's a female, a woman. " Irene looked at one of the male crew members and nodded her head. "Please, stop using that 'white privilege', this isn't your country. See you out there, old man." She said as she walked towards me, I was stunned I didn't even know that I was just standing there the whole time looking at their heated argument, I mean, Asians are prone to racism and it would be just okay for me since that white man might be just experiencing a bad day and was spittted on me, I would understand but a person walking up on that scene and would bravely do something to that westerner, Irene was surely cool.

"Are you okay?" Irene asked as she stood next to me. "You hit your head on my chair earlier, are you okay?" She asked me to gather some of my stuff lying on the aisle's floor.

"I'm good." I answered, I was about to get my hand bag when I felt a pain in one of my palms then I just noticed that I hit it on a metal when I fell into my earlier, such a dumb woman.

"You good?" She asked as she looked at me, I haven't really noticed her for a few months since the last time that I've got to see her, she even cut her hair a little bit shorter. Seriously, I wasn't mad at her for saying those things towards me and to my marriage to Jisoo, I was glad that she was able to said that just to make me realized that everything in our relationship was wrong, I just did the sudden disappearance to move away from those issues that I've put on her name. I was just afraid that she might file a criminal case towards me.

"Uhm... just a little cut..." I answered silently, Irene abruptly took my hand and looked at it. My eyes abruptly landed to her, one of her brows were perking up making her look like a confused mother, I mean, she really was the type of person who spoke and moved like a mother to those people she knew. I was busy looking at her and back to my hand when I just felt a fabric touching it.

"That was the least thing I can do, we've been standing here too long in the middle so you might just want to hold that handkerchief and go to your seat." She said and patted my hand. I said my thank you towards her and left.

Sometimes there are just some people who will help you up whenever you've set to go down.

--

IRENE'S POV

The night is so cold and there is nothing I could think but you, the only person who never abandoned my thoughts in times where I felt drowning in my own world, tell me, how can I reach you if it is you the only person I am not able to own?

I dry my eyes at night, crying a bucket of memories from my dreams to think that I am able to stay longer with you, to shut everything out proving that you are real and you aren't just someone, someone they believe that never existed at any of the pre-existing times.

Do you have any intentions to tease me? Since all I know once when you started casting your spell I've already felt myself falling to another realm. Could these be just a nightmare? As soon as I closed my eyes and my body got paralysed, your thunderous touch overdosed me.

Don't make me lose my mind with your smile that could make my emotions cry but what happened in one night? You looked at me with your brows of frowning knives, lady, are you trying to stab me? 'cause I've already felt that the more you've tried to hurt me, the more my heart would twitch like it was crazy.

I did not know why I kept on smiling as I saw the life in your eyes leave without nothing. A hot velvety liquid had escaped from your mouth lady, as I leaned myself to kiss you goodbye I 've already tried to save my tears for one last time but why? Tell me?

What are those wounds abandoned on my favourite play, baby?

Nothing more, nothing less, but the way how she wrote this had made me wonder, was she really up to something? Or she just loved the idea of feeling her? I mean sometimes I do forget that my grandmother was mentally ill but this diary was really questionable.

"Señorita." A woman walked up in front of my office, it's been a week since I've arrived here, the countryside of Spain is full of wonder and the way it looks like is really far from what the mainland of the country was. "There were a lot of things you might have wanted to enjoy aside from staying here inside your office, the day was bright and shiny, if you don't mind, would you want me to ask Lejandro to prepare your horse for a ride outside?" Emilia said, she has been working at our house in Madrid just a few years after my grandmother's death, she also took a huge part of me as she saw my sister and I growing up, and now, she remained loyal to us that even her daughter is also working in one of the companies that my little sister owned in Korea.

I turned around and faced her. "How about you also take some rest while I do so? That could result a fair win for the both of us Emilia. You should be taking things slower now and besides I'm getting no younger anymore, so at least, please, please also look for yourself." I said as I went to my room, feeling her footsteps following my back, I took the riding boats next to the cabinet. "You still haven't changed Emilia, you know what, your daughter would surely envy me if she would found out that you were still acting like that to the woman who was older than her."

She laughed and sat at the sofa across me as she watched me wear the boots and prepare myself for the ride she was talking about. "You really grow so well Irene, look at you know, you're an independent fine woman." She said as she stood at my back while I looked at her from the mirror.

"You grow up like a fine wine with a devilish sweet taste of an evil."

A tiny voice inside my head had made me fall into goosebumps as I looked back to the person standing behind my back. "Are you okay?" She asked, looking so worried at me. On the day of my arrival here in the hacienda, I just found out that Suzy chose to bring back the place to a private property without making the former workers being jobless as she made them work fulltime at the vineyard to slowly reestablish the rich wine production of the place and as of now, I've got the whole just for me and some of the stay-in workers who worked as my cleaning and kitchen staff, as I entered the insides of the more than a hundred year old Hispanic mansion, everything was so clean, the candid painting of Alessa and the portrait of her parents were hanged cleanly at the walls but I still do wonder why there were no photos nor a formal portrait of the young lady, I mean they said she was beautiful and a goddess like woman but how come that there were no images left here for the public? The closest thing I could have known about that woman was the painting that Wendy had gifted me for my birthday and if I were to ask the locals, they would just answer me that the authorities or the family of the victim had burnt all of her pictures just to cease the woman's existence after the supposed to be husband of Alessa, Mateo Rodriquez, bought the whole hacienda following the death of Alfonso, stories also said that Rodriquez got to see the night were the noblewoman killed the picker and to fulfil his promise to the worker, he made the decision to buy the house and gave it to the younger brother of the worker who was already studying the field of psychology by that time but this was just one of the sketchy stories of the locals here in the town, I don't know why whether to believe it or not but there is only one thing I knew about living this extravagant hacienda of the famous family of Alcala de Henares,

I am not living here alone.

--

"I told you, why the hell I would do that?" A feminine voice had echoed to the atmosphere of the busy local bread house café of the town after the owner confronted her. "Por favor, señor Trevino, have you seen me getting it from the cashier? Tell me!" The temperature inside the café rose up as the heated argument of the owner and the worker had made the customers to look at them in disturbance.

"No más explicación!" The man took the woman from the back of the cashier stall and brought her out of the café, their fight had gathered much attention as the woman saw how the group of people looked at them "¡Loco! ¡Qué desgracia!" She stumbled upon her feet making her fall to the dirty road in front of the town people's eyes, everyone was whispering and talking about what the worker had done when a horse's footsteps had made everyone move into clusters to make a way for the upcoming person.

A woman wearing a leather jodhpur boots jumped out of her mustang, with her intimidating aura, everyone inside the scene backed out and went back to what they were doing. "Señor." The woman looked at the worker who appeared to be hurt from the scratches she got on her palms and knees. "You're gathering a lot of attention." Her voice sent a warning to the older man who seemed to be bothered by her appearance as he terrifyingly looked at where she was standing. "What's the problem?" With the same tone of voice the people who were left looking at them had started to back away leaving the three of them looking at each other.

The man was hesitant to answer the woman's question, Trevino turned her back to them and left the two in front of his café the woman shook her head and walked towards the worker. "Loco." She whispered and helped the person to stand up. To see her own hand be tinted with dirt mixed with blood, the woman spoke.

"Why do you always need to hurt yourself in front of everyone," She sighed and looked up just to meet those familiar monolid eyes. 

"Seulgi."