They arrive at their destination.
Wendy doesn’t know where since she wasn’t really paying attention to her surrounding earlier. When she got out the car, she immediately hears the sound of the waves hitting the shore and that tells her they are somewhere near an ocean.
Hyoyeon walks ahead with Taeyeon trailing behind her. Wendy decides to stay back to wait for Yuri.
“You guys come here often?”
Yuri nods. “Especially on nights when we couldn’t sleep”
“Everyone?”
Yuri shakes her head. “Just the three of us. We call this our secret place”
Now that she’s not under the influence of alcohol, Wendy can feel the cold midnight breeze brushing against her exposed skin as they walk towards Hyoyeon and Taeyeon who are trying to light up the bonfire.
“Yah!”
Wendy smiles.
They can see Hyoyeon holding a matchbox while Taeyeon is kneeling beside the bonfire, fixing the twigs properly.
Taeyeon turns to Yuri. “This kid almost burned me!”
“It was an accident!” Hyoyeon quickly defended. “I swear it was not intentional!”
Is this what Taeyeon said about Hyoyeon and Yuri burning something down unintentionally?
After a little bit of bickering and Taeyeon wanting to get back for almost getting burned, the four have finally settled around the bonfire.
The warmness of the fire helped keep the coldness at bay added in the sound of the ocean and the silence. It somewhat calmed the storm within Wendy.
Maybe she could ask Yuri for directions later so the next time she can’t sleep, she can go here by herself without bothering her unnies.
“Who found this place?” Wendy asks while looking around. She really couldn’t see much because it was too dark.
“I did” Yuri smiles. “One night I couldn’t sleep so I started driving around until I found this place”
“Then you brought Hyo-unnie and Tae-unnie?” Wendy asks innocently.
Yuri laughs, Hyoyeon shakes her head while Taeyeon remained silent, pocking the fire with the twig she’s holding.
“Hyoyeon caught me sneaking” Yuri answers when her laughter died down.
“I knew she had been sneaking every night” Hyoyeon added. “At first I ignored it since she’s always comes home in one piece and unharmed. But when the sneaking out got frequent, I knew I had to at least know where she’s going”
Yuri chuckles. “She thought I was meeting someone”
“Not just someone, but her”
Wendy can’t help but look at her unnies. The conscious effort to not mention the name but everyone already knows who Hyoyeon is talking about. Funny, it seems like she’s not the only one refusing to utter the forbidden names.
Wendy felt the shift in the atmosphere. She looks at Yuri who is still smiling but this smile is different, it doesn’t reach her eyes. So, she took it upon herself to change the topic. “How about Taeyeon-unnie? She also caught you sneaking out?”
Yuri shakes her head. “Taeyeonnie couldn’t sleep”
“What do you mean she couldn’t sleep?” Hyoyeon shakes her head. “She hasn’t been sleeping for three consecutive days”
Wendy turns to Taeyeon who is looking up in the starless sky.
Everyone knows Taeyeon has been suffering from depression. She’s pretty vocal about it but all she received is backlash, like s