Karina's POV

"Wait. I don't get it, Jessica Jung is your mother?" Winter asked, still lost in the current situation.

"I can't say for sure. We only got a name and even if I get to see her picture, I won't know..." she paused.

"Because I haven't seen her myself." she answered.

"It has to be her, right? She knows about Winter's dreams! There has to be a way we can know if it's her." Ningning argued.

I mean, we can search for her on the internet, see if she has any contacts."

"We tried all that but we got nothing. All hope we have are Minju's parents, they've seen what Rina's mother looked like." Giselle chimed in.

"Unnie... is there something wrong? I can hear your voices inside the room." Minju said, sleep still visible from her eyes. Yujin followed behind the girl. 

The older four exchanged looks, not sure if they should drag the two in this tangled mess. They can include Minju for sure since they need her parents' help but telling the girl to keep it a secret from Yujin will only result in another problem.

Karina might hate to admit it but Minju is just a terrible liar.

Besides, deciding about this matter is not just her decision to make. She needs to ask Winter as well.

She turned her focus to face Winter only for the girl to give her a warm smile. An indication that whatever decision she has to make, Winter will agree with it. 

"We might need to eat breakfast first before we tell you, it's quite a long and confusing story," she finally answered.

They decided to order from the nearby McDonalds instead of cooking before agreeing going back inside their rooms to fix themselves.

"I'm going to leave the story telling to you. But if you need my help or there's something you think you missed, I'll be right beside you." Winter assured her.

"Thanks. There's not much to tell, anyway." Karina answered.

"The Phoenix Blood part, yeah but about your mother..." Winter pauses, probably thinking of the right words.

"It's a topic you don't like poking around, I noticed." Winter said, her voice loosing volume as she's nearing the end of her sentence. 

"What I mean is we can skip the manuscript part if you don't feel comfortable taking about your mother."

"It's okay. I figured I have to tell you about it one way or another. Might as well do it now, right?"

---

They all gathered in the living room in a circle. On normal occasions, the food would have been devoured in seconds. Now it  just looks unappetizing, like there's a huge elephant with them in the room making Karina feel suffocated.

Yujin who seemed to be oblivious about everything started monopolizing the chicken nuggets, only to get swatted by Ningning. Yujin tried to protest but stopped when Minju took the box of chicken nuggets to Giselle's side.

It's an unspoken thing between them but Yujin is afraid of Giselle.

The reason behind it? It's something that crossed centuries and Karina thinks it's not something important to be included in today's discussion.

"Do you plan to eat or not? Because if you don't, let me have my nuggets." the youngest said, acting brave but obviously failing as seen from how her legs shake under the table.

The rest of them laughed with how Yujin cowered in fear when Giselle attempted to pinch her ear.

Liking the reaction from Yujin, her bestfriend gave back her box of nuggets.

She's thankful that the atmosphere is somehow lighter than earlier.

"So... are you just going to stare at the food or...?" Yujin asked, probably noticing that everyone went back to being silent.

"Let's wait a bit more. They're on their way already," Karina said.

"We're waiting for who specifically?" Giselle asked. 

Just in time before Karina answered, a knock is heared from the door. Minju volunteered to welcome the guest or guests.

She invited Yeji and Ryujin over. She figured that if they're going to have a talk about this then she has to include everyone.

Maybe not everyone. She just hope Somi won't find out.

Winter gave her a look, obviously not expecting to see the newcomers to join them today.

"We were invited for breakfast. Happy Halloween people!" Ryujin said as she scoot beside Winter, who gave the girl a questioning look.

Ryujin just gave her a shrug and put a fry on .

Yeji on the other