September 28

When it was close to midnight I had to give up waiting for Hyoyeon. Narsha came looking for me and I’m pretty sure I heard her talking with Nicole about Hyoyeon acting very suspicious lately. If I wasn’t so weak and timid I would have gone out to look for her but I’m not hero-material. I’m not like her.

When I went to our room the other two were already sleeping. I lied in my bed, silent tears staining my pillow and waited to fall asleep.

The first thing I did when I woke up was to check Hyoyeon’s bed. When I saw her there, sleeping soundly, I could have screamed from happiness. She looked tired and unbelievable pale but other than that she seemed perfectly fine. I called in sick for her and brought a tray with breakfast for her and a note telling her that she could stay in bed today. I left it on the table, changed clothes making as little noise as possible and hurried to the office.

Jessica had cleared all her schedule for the week. She’ll be taking the rest of the week off. I wasn’t that surprised. She did look awful yesterday. I was glad she was taking her time to rest, plus I could go back and talk to Hyoyeon much sooner than I had thought.

I didn’t lose any time. I called the other secretary so she wouldn’t come to the office for no reason like me and run all the way back to the orphanage.

Hyoyeon had already woken up by the time I arrived and was enjoying the breakfast I had left for her. She looked pleasantly surprised to see me back so early.

“Sunny, what are you doing here?” she said with still foul.

“Jessica is on vacation for the rest of the week. If she’s not in the office, I don’t have to be either” I answered before sitting at the edge of my bed “never mind that. How are you? Why did you come back so late? Are you hurt? You look awful! Do you have any idea how worried I was? I should have gone with you!” I said without taking a breath.

“Wow, relax, will you? I’m not that easy to kill you know. No, no, don’t worry nobody tried to kill me” she added when she saw my face changing fifteen different colours at the word “kill”.

There were so many things, I wanted to ask but I didn’t want to rush her. I gave her time to finish eating and think about last night’s events.

“I’m sorry Sunny, my memory is not as good as yours and I’m not nearly as good at describing situations but I’ll try my best ok?” she said while chewing the last bite

“I’m not asking you to give me a report, just a brief summary.”

I took the tray away from her and sat back on my bed.

“Well, let me see. Finding Tiffany was easier than I had expected. I just looked her up on the phonebook. She lives somewhere close to the river. I decided to take a detour there instead of going straight just in case somebody had seen us together at the bridge and was following me. I was just wondering around the city for a couple of hours before arriving at her house. She lives in a pretty nice apartment; she must be making a lot of money as a journalist. I don’t know why I never thought of becoming one myself, I’m sure I’d do a pretty…”

“Hyoyeon please get back to the point” I cut her off impatiently.

“Oh, right. Where was I?” she paused for a moment to think. I shifted nervously and I urged her to continue.

“So, I entered the building and went up to her apartment. I had already checked around the building but there was nothing suspicious. I knocked on the door but it opened on its own. So I went in…”

“You went in? Hyoyeon are you crazy? What if somebody was in there?”

“Well what if Tiffany was in but she forgot to lock the door?”

“Who would forget to lock their door and leave it open?”

“So anyway, I went in and looked around. At first I thought that somebody had broken in the house because all the drawers were upside down, all the closets open and the floor was covered with all sorts of things. Then I noticed that both her laptop and her television were still in the apartment. I checked her bedroom and there were many valuable things lying around. I don’t know if they came looking for her and she had already left or if they caught her. I knew I had to leave as soon as I could. I was about to return to the living room when I heard footsteps right outside the front door”

I felt my heart stop for a moment. All I could think about was: What have I done? I got her in trouble. If they saw her face everything is over.

She must have noticed the change in my expression because she smiled reassuringly before continuing with her narration.

“I looked around the room for another possible exit. I saw that the window was small but I could probably fit while they, assuming they were men, wouldn’t. I didn’t hesitate, or check to see where that window led for that matter, so I just jumped outside. Turns out there was nothing to stand on. Fortunately she lives on the second floor and there were some bushes underneath her window to break my fall”

“Wait, you fell from the second floor?”

“Yes, wanna see my bruises?” she lifted her shirt up so I could look at her back. It was full with purple marks, pretty painful looking if you ask me. I have no idea why she is so proud of them.

“After that I ran as fast as I could. I didn’t want to risk coming back here immediately so I hid somewhere nearby”

“But still, I was waiting for you until midnight. The way you describe things it doesn’t seem to have taken you so much time” I practically screamed at her. I was unbelievably sorry later but at that moment my only thought was that she almost got herself killed and she was telling me about it like she would tell me about a new recipe she discovered.

“You know I did hurt my leg too. Walking was difficult. There is no reason to yell… Oh my God, Sunny sweetie you don’t have to cry” she pulled me to her bed and held me close while I was sobbing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of your feelings at all. It must have been awful waiting for me without being able to do anything. It’s okay, everything’s going to be fine. They didn’t see me and I made sure nobody followed me back”

I tried to answer but Nicole coming in interrupted me. She wasn’t in a good mood that’s for sure.

“You guys are still here? Don’t you have work or something? Morning is the only time of the day that I can finally be alone.” She jumped on her bed and buried her face in the pillow.

“Is everything alright Nicole?” Hyoeyon asked.

“Nothing much. I just feel kind of pressed that’s all” I felt a shiver down my spine. I squeezed Hyoyeon’s arm slightly but she didn’t notice.

“Well I’m here to talk about it if you want. You know that right?” Hyoyeon offered smiling kindly at her. I looked up at her and noticed that the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Good, she hadn’t fallen for her lies.

Nicole went on to pretend that she was interested in hanging out with us. Yeah, right. And I’ll grow wings and start laying eggs. The only thing she is interested in is saving herself. Apparently she believes that if she sells out enough people they will award her.

Keep on dreaming Nicole. They don’t care about you.

Even though Hyoyeon is a master of avoiding uncomfortable situations and easily evaded Nicole’s questioning, she still stayed for at least half an hour in the room trying to dig up dirt on us. I didn’t talk much, Hyoyeon was doing fine even without my help.

After a while I stopped paying attention to them and turned my gaze to the sky out of the window. The dark clouds were still there, like they have been for the last few days. The first rain of autumn is just around the corner but it’s still too soon.

~ ~ ~ ~

Hyoyeon is safe and sound. Don't worry about her, Sunny still needs her for support. 

Does it seem like there's been a lot of crying lately, or is it just me? 

By the way, in case some of you didn't notice I updated the foreword adding a little bit of background story about Sunny's family and how she got the diary. It's not much but I think it was necessary.