Sitting on her bed, Daesung mustered a sigh. She had been reluctant—very, very reluctant—on calling another after her initial experience with Jiyong; however, his demands for her presence at a bar, coupled with the accusatory tone that he directed at her, made her feel nervously obligated to comply. For the most part, she was anxious, being now aware that she had done an offense to someone named Seunghyun yet didn’t know what.

It wasn’t exactly a guilty conscience, but she was weighed down by the idea that this was something that she shouldn’t avoid. It was probably the urge to justify herself, that, while Daesung could understand why Jiyong would lash out at her (in a vague sense), she, who regressed to an ignorant state, didn’t deserve what the other Daesung should have received instead.

Daesung set the phone aside and rubbed her face, feeling the onset spiral of exhaustion and frustration. While she was aware that adjusting to the current circumstances wasn’t going to be easy, she at least expected a protracted and deliberate process. Already was she entangled in something troublesome and was sinking bit by bit into the complications that were given. She was sinking because now she was beginning to perceive herself wearing the body of someone who she should identify herself as and yet couldn’t help but alienate. This adult version of herself, the person who had apparently “pulled the stunt on Seunghyun” and was to apologize to him, was gone and replaced by a high school student, who was apparently bestowed the duty to clean up the mess.

Furthermore, where she had to clean up, where this bar was, she had no idea.  Likely in Seoul, she figured, but Seoul happened to be a big city.

Who was she? What kind of person did she become?

She had no idea.

After a moment’s contemplation, Daesung picked up the phone and thumbed across the screen a few times before returning back to the list of missed calls, but then went to her contacts when noticing that the recent content was flooded with Jiyong’s name. She didn’t feel comfortable recalling the man.

She scrolled down the names and pressed her finger on one of them by random—Seungri. The phone rang a couple times before receiving a rejected call. Daesung frowned. Her call was canceled?

Before she was about to select someone else, her phone began to chime and the screen flashed with Seungri’s name.

“Hello?” she answered, feeling uncertain.

“Why’d you call me, hyung?”

She blinked, and it took a few seconds for her mind to wrap around the word that was uttered. Hyung? Hyung? Did she hear that correctly? Her eyes flickered back to the mirror of the vanity across the room, getting a glimpse of her hair. And then to her face. Her confusion melted away into somewhere between apprehension and weariness—ultimately making an ugly mix of dejection. Should she expect for the worse? Should she not assume at all and see how things would play out?

She really didn’t want to think about it, but she ended up doing so anyway.

The corners of her lips tugged into a grimace.

“Hey, are you still there?” The impatient grumble brought her out of her stupor. Daesung began to dumbly mouth something, later realizing that she wasn’t saying anything. Finding her voice, it could be later understood that the prior conversation with Jiyong—if it could be considered to be a conversation—left her senses a little dulled.

“Um, did you reject my call?” she blurted, and then mentally slapped herself.

“Oh, are we gonna play this game where we just ask each other questions and never give answers?” His biting tone abruptly turned sanguine, making her head spin. “Then I’ll ask another: Where the hell were you for the past couple weeks?”

She tensed at the familiar demand. “I...I can explain—“

“And what happened to your voice? You sound all pitched or something.”

The words that she was ready to vomit out were clogged in ; her voice refused to be heard and she was mouthing mutely like a fish out of water once again. Daesung just didn’t know what to say. Did he want her to answer the former or the latter question? Or perhaps he would cut her off again and dismiss her like how Jiyong did? His attitude towards her and his speech did come together in similarity.

“You sound like a girl,” the person from the other line continued, as if an afterthought. “Yah, hyung, are you okay? You didn’t, like, breathe in helium before calling, did you?”

When she didn’t answer, the man groaned aloud. “Are you there?” he cried out exasperatedly. “You didn’t go drinking and decided to contact me in your inebriated state, right? Because that’s what I would do and you’re supposed to be the responsible one, hyuuung! Well, maybe not so much anymore after the that’s been going on before your disappearance act—“

“I’m sorry,” Daesung exhaled in one go. “I, um, got into an accident.”

There was a minute of silence before he broke it by asking, “So what does that have to do with anything?”

“I was involved with the car crash incident almost a month ago. There…there was a car that tried to drive past the intersection before the light would turn red, and then collided into my car when I was making a turn.” Or so the feeds had revealed.

“Wait, a month ago? You mean the huge accident that happened in the Gangnam District? You were there? What were you doing there?”

“I don’t know—“

“What do you mean you don’t know? Don’t bull me—you were there to see—“

“I have amnesia,” said Daesung.

A few seconds later, the line went dead. Seungri hung up on her.

And then he called her again.

“Where were you for the past three weeks?”

“I was unconscious in the hospital,” she choked out. “For two weeks. For another week, I was undergoing recovery.”

“Why do you sound like a girl?”

“B-because I am one. A girl.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Right,” he said disbelievingly. “You probably hit your head too hard.” When she didn’t respond, he went on indifferently, “Anyway, where are you now?”

“Um. Home.”

“Yeah, but where? I’m right in front of your door, but you’re definitely not there. Did you pack up and leave your apartment?”

For the next twenty minutes, Daesung found herself disclosing her address to a complete stranger while listening to him ramble on about nonsensical things. She couldn’t even summarize the day that the man had been having because there were so much going on at once coming out of his mouth. It was very confusing hearing him talk.

Finished, he asked, “So, you really have amnesia?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Hm.” And then he hung up.

In the end, Daesung didn’t get the chance to ask him for directions to the bar that Jiyong ordered her to come to.