CHAPTER ELEVEN.

“You said Dr. Choi wouldn’t say anything. And he still did. He told our parents that we came to do tests.” I vented out at Yesung.

It has been a week since we went to the hospital and did tests. A whole week where we were trying to get our groove back. And today was D-Day. The day where we got the results of our tests back. We would’ve gotten them the day we took the tests, but because it was a small clinic instead of a hospital we had to wait a whole week. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I had just found out that my parents (actually mom and ahjusshi to be more correct) learned that one of the tests was a pregnancy test. It made sense because when I visited them again, they were giving me knowing looks. Arrgh! The embarrassment! And it’s all Yesung’s fault too.

“Okay, well, first of all,” Yesung huffed, blowing some stray strands of hair off his forehead, “It’s Dr. Choi, and second, yeah, well you blurted out about a pregnancy. Do you really think he would have kept that a secret? I mean you could’ve just asked the nurses about the test, instead of him. You seriously need a filter on your mouth.” He finished of tsk tsking me.

I slapped my forehead. “Ask his nurses?! Are you effin outta your mind?! He would have still known because like he said he is on a ‘first name basis’,” I finger quoted emphasizing the part, “with the nurses. Something about the clinic being homely. You seriously don’t think the nurses would have told him if he asked what kind of tests we took. Plus there are records. He would’ve seen them and taken a look at them anyway. So yeah, there is no hiding from your uncle, since, oh, I don’t know. It was his clinic!”

“Okay, you know you need to learn how to stop yelling,” Yesung groaned rubbing his forehead, “Uggh. You know what? Okay, forget it. Whatever.”

“Yeah, yeah, you whatever just because you don’t have a comeback,” I retorted.

“Fine. I will have a word with him. If that makes you feel any better.”

“It’s too late!”

“Stop Shouting!”

“Look who’s talking!”

----------------------------------------------------------------

After a while, we both had calmed down. Now we were just lounging on the sofa waiting for the express mail that Dr. Choi said he would hand deliver. You know because we didn’t trust anybody, not even the mailman.

“Hey,” I spoke up, “How did your uncle know about foreign global companies and them also using the same chip as we had inside us? He might be in on it too.” I voiced out my speculations.

“He’s not. I highly doubt it. I don’t think so.”

“Then how…?”

“He went to school in the US. He must’ve learnt about these things then. That’s why he knows. Originally, he was majoring in Business, but changed to a medical field. If anyone should know about these things, it would be him,” Yesung reassured firmly.

“Ah. I see. Okay that makes sense.”

Then after a pause. “But still…” I whined

Yesung sighed, “C’mon you saw his face when he found out about the chip. He looked both fascinated and confused. Also worried.”

“I don’t know, maybe he is a good actor.”

Yesung gave me a look, “Then do you really think that he would’ve told us about the chips. Why not keep them a mystery, still in us? That way he could keep spying on us.”

I sighed, slumping down even further on the sofa, “Okay, I guess you’re right.”

To that, Yesung snorted, “Since when am I not?”

I was about to retort, but then the doorbell rang. Needless to say, I was the first one up to get the door.

I opened it and upon seeing Dr.Choi, I gave him the widest and brightest smile I could muster.

“Wow,” He chuckled, “Are you that excited to see me?”

“Hey uncle,” Yesung said from behind me, “How’s it going?”

“Oh, well just dandy. You know we ordered some new EKG…”

“Enough chit chat boys,” I cut off their conversation, and extended my hand towards Dr.Choi, “Now give me the package.”

“So, I guess not that excited to see me, after all?” Dr. Choi looked down at me.

But I didn’t pay any attention and instead grabbed the document he was holding and went on my merry way towards the sofa, leaving the two to talk amongst themselves.

Yesung just scoffed at me, but I let him be. I had more important matters to attend to. I opened up the yellow manila envelope, only to take out a packet full of documents. I scrunched up my nose. I hated reading medical texts. Why couldn’t the answer be written in bold red words on top of the paper and circled? Why did I have to read all these documents just to understand?

I sighed. Then I sighed again.

I wanted to kill somebody. That somebody being preferable Yesung. I mean he was in my vicinity; I might as well strangle him.

“Hey,” Yesung said coming over to where I was sitting at as I was half way through the papers.

“Hm,” I mumbled, barely acknowledging his presence.

“My uncle left. Had some important matters to take care of.” He continued.

I glanced at him. “Really? Your uncle? The guy that has way too much free time on his hands?”

“He’s just a free and easy going person. That’s why it seems like he never works.”

“If you say so.”

“Anyways,” Yesung says changing the subject, “anything substantial in there?’

“Nah, most of it is explaining the various tests we took and what they mean. The result is like legit one line and nothing out of the ordinary seems to pop out.”

“Really? Well, uncle did say that on a couple of the tests that we did are going to have some extra tests run on them, and that could possibly take a couple of weeks.” Yesung explained.

“What? Another couple of weeks? That’s insane!” I bursted, “How do you expect me to wait that long?!”

Yesung shrugged, then grabbed some papers from my hand and began to read them.

“Hey!” I yelled at him, but he just ignored me.

After about another 10 minutes of reading, my brain was about to crack. For starters there was about 50 pages and way too many medical terms to count. Like, how is anybody supposed to be able to understand this? I mean seriously!

I noticed Yesung flipping through the pages, and then going back.

“Hey, hey, hey. That is not how you read. Read it carefully. Otherwise you might miss something important.”

“I think we did.” He murmured.

“What?”

“A page. There is a page missing in here.”

“How would you know that?”

“Well, for starters I decided to pay attention to every inch of the papers. And I happen to notice that each page has numbers on them, but surprisingly, or not so, one of the pages is missing. I even checked your pile of papers too.”

“Hmm,” I said, a little shocked that I missed such an important but miniscule detail.

“Why would there be a page missing?” I asked.

“Beats me. But it seems like someone might have intentionally removed the page. Or it could have been an accident. But I am more inclined to lean towards the former.”

“That’s ridiculous. What page is missing?”

“Page number 20.”

“20, huh.” I began to start flipping through the papers looking for page 19 and 21, hoping there was a reason why that exact page was missing.

“What are you doing?” Yesung asked. “I already checked that page 20 was missing.”

“Yeah, I am not looking at that. I am trying to find a clue that we would have otherwise missed but may be helpful to us in knowing why that certain page is missing.” I answered.

“Aha! Look!” I pointed to the page that I was holding. “I think I found something.”

“What?”

“Well you know how there are a bunch of medical terms here, so nothing really stands out, or we don’t really understand. And who knows when we got drugged, if at all that we did. So, it may have been hard for your uncle to actually deduct anything, but there may have been traces left. And perhaps that would have been a red alarm to the perpetrator if traces of the drug was found or particles of a different form of the drug, even if we didn’t think much of it. And so that is probably what was on the missing page.”

“Okay, so?” Yesung furrowed his brows.

“Okay, if the results were on the missing page, then test description and type of test would be on the page before that or after that. After all, your uncle is really descriptive and explains all the tests and why and how they were done. Maybe we can find out what test we did and what that test was testing for, and possibly get it redone so that we can find out what the results were that was on the missing page, and maybe understand why it is missing.” I explained thoroughly.
 

“Yeah, but by the time we do that—and that is saying if there are currently traces of the drug in our body that scared the perpetrator—they will all be gone if we administer another drug test. And that’s if I can convince my uncle at that too.” Yesung sighed.

“Maybe. But at least this time we will have a fairly certain idea of what we are testing for and can probably do a more specific test for the particular suspected drug.”

“Yeah, but what’s to say that the results of that test won’t go missing too.” Yesung argued.

“Well,” I furrowed my eyebrows in thought, “Why didn’t the person just replace the paper with false information, instead of stealing the paper and thereby alarming us that there is something amiss?”

“Maybe he didn’t have time to forge results?” Yesung guessed.

“Maybe,” I sighed. This was getting more complex than I had originally imagined.

I stared at the pages for a while, especially page 19. Then I stood up.

“What’s wrong?” Yesung asked.

“It says here on page 19 about nitrazepam, and something about a fluorinated N-methyl.”

“What?” Yesung asked confused. But I put up my hand to stop him from talking.

“Anyways, it mentions something called nitro-benzodiazepine, a short-term treatment for insomnia. And last I checked, neither of us have insomnia, unless there is something you are hiding from me?” I turned to him with inquisitive eyes.

“No, no.” He said in deep thought, “I sleep like a baby.”

“Mhmm,” I nodded my head, “Just as I thought. But then why would we possible have traces of that drug within us?”

I went to the main computer in the area where we were sitting at.

“Any chance you know the password to this?”

Yesung shook his head, “I don’t think we should use that if you are searching for what I think you are. It could be bugged.”

I gasped. I hadn’t thought of that. He was right. If it was bugged then we would just give ourselves away. I looked around our house. There was a good chance that our phones were also tapped. We had to learn how to be careful. We were dealing with an unknown enemy.

Yesung reading my thoughts sullenly nodded before handing over his phone, “Here use mine. I just bought it new, and activated right at the stand. We could use this for our secret mission.”

“Thanks.” I grabbed the phone next to him and sat down beside him on the sofa. I quickly searched up nitro-benzodiazepine.

“Okay,” I read the results out loud, “It says that for chronic insomnia, flunitrazepam is used on a short-term basis, and is a nitro-benzodiazepine. So likely what we were given could have been flunitrazepam. But get this. It says here that flunitrazepam is hypnotic drug and can also be known as Rohypnol, a date drug, or as it is commonly known on the streets as roofies or la roch. Anyways, flunitrazepam, or whatever, has some paradoxical effects which include: talkativeness, violent behavior—”

“Oh that explains why you are acting this way, never shutting up and always hitting me.” Yesung interrupted me.

I glared at him.

“Anyways,” I continued ignoring his interruption, “Another side effect is confusion and anterograde amnesia, which could be why we can’t remember anything in the past 3 months but everything before that. It says that sometimes the amnesia could be permanent. What I don’t get is why none of this posed as an alarm to your uncle.”

“Well, for one, whichever lab my uncle sent it to could have tampered with the results, which is why we have a missing page. But since I asked my uncle to be secretive and cautious, the page most likely went missing after the results were received from the lab. The perpetrator must not have thought much about the insomnia part, which is why he didn’t remove page 19, but for us—we both know that none of us have insomnia, so no need to take the medicine, whereas my uncle didn’t think much of it. He also didn’t see the results thoroughly, on my instruction, just a quick skim through, which could be why he didn’t notice the missing page, which I am sure he normally would have. Plus, I think that the only think that stood out to him was the fact that we took medicine for insomnia the both of us, which makes sense because earlier he looked worried and said, ‘I hope you are both sleeping well.’ It didn’t make sense to me, but now it all makes sense.”

“Did your uncle ask anything else?”

“No. he just wondered why we were taking such heavy relaxants and said that he should be our new doctor. I didn’t think much of it, just him trying to get us to be his new customers, but if you look here,” Yesung showed me his phone to the page that he had opened, “It says here that flunit-whatever is used for relaxation, as a heavy sedative and as a mechanism against seizures. So that could be why my uncle didn’t ponder too much about it, especially considering there was a page missing and he only skimmed through the results.”

“I guess that would make sense. So should we test for flunitrazepam specifically this time?”

“Can’t.” Yesung instantly shook his head. “It says here that the drug will only stay in the bloodstream for 24 hours. And we did a urine test for that too, so likely our bacteria has cleansed the bloodstream clean. Since we might have been drugged for 3 months, we might have gotten lucky that there was a few traces left that our immune system did not fight against considering we took the tests a couple of days after we woke up from our “haze”.”

I sighed. “So now what do we do?”

“Well, I think if we do some research on this drug, find out how, where, and when the missing page went missing, we might get some clues.”

“Hey, look,” I said grabbing Yesung’s phone from his hand, “It says that the drug impairs your cognitive and driving ability, so then how did we end up at your family’s—well now ours—villa? Who drove us?”

“I don’t know. But look here,” he scrolled through the page, as I leaned in not noticing our heads were almost touching as we read the content on his phone. “Apparently, the drug can be fatal and can cause impairments in body balance. It can also cause strong amnesia, respiratory depression, anxiety, agitation, disinhibition, withdrawal symptoms like seizures, insomnia, convulsions—ironically—psychosis, somnolence, coma, and possibly death.”

“What the hell? We were administered the drug for 3 months and who knows how high our doses were! We could have died!” I bursted out angrily.

Yesung was silent. I turned to look at him.

And for the first time in a long time I could see actual fear in his eyes.

Of what, I don’t know.                       

 

***Author's note***

I was supposed to update this chapter a while back, but then I lost all my chapters due to a USB malfunction. And so I had to somewhat redo this chapter. Anyways, you all should check out Yesung's solo "Here I am".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNVxS7DPADI