Jiyeon finds herself in a room of Seoul Hospital with her T-ara members surrounding her with full concern.

“Jiyeon, are you alright?” The T-ara members kept repeating themselves with the same question, and even though Jiyeon tried really hard to speak, she couldn’t. No matter how hard she tried to talk, only weird noises were heard from her members.

“I’ll get the doctor,” Qri ran outside while the rest of the members kept bombarding Jiyeon with the same question. Jiyeon hit the bed in frustration and the members stopped talking. When everyone calmed down, Jiyeon moved her hands to signal for pen and paper.

Why am I here? Jiyeon wrote and showed it to her members.

“We found you on the floor at the **** alleyway, what happened?” Boram question Jiyeon.

I was walking normally, but then a sudden gust of wind came and I fainted. I… I thought it was real when I had this devastating nightmare and the CEO was there. Jiyeon began to shiver when she remembers what just happened.

“It’s that stupid CEO again! After hurting you physically…he’s hurting you mentally!” Eunjung rages as she sees Jiyeon’s frightened expression.

“We seem so hopeless. If only we could do something to help,” Hyomin added. Everyone fell silent after they helped Jiyeon sleep on the bed.

“I’m back!” Qri exclaimed while bringing in Song Doctor.

“Hello, I am Doctor Song Joong Ki.” The doctor introduced himself, with a bit of shyness  when he started talking to T-ara. On the other side of the room, Eunjung grabbed Hyomin’s arm and pulled her into a corner.

“You don’t suppose Qri is up to something, do you?” Eunjung eyed Qri and Song Doctor carefully.

“We’ll see, but I don’t think we should be worrying about these things at the moment.” Hyomin looked at Eunjung for an answer, and she nodded in agreement.

“What just happened?” Song doctor asked while doing a minor body check on Jiyeon.

“She still can’t speak after her surgery last week. Is there something wrong?” Boram asked the doctor with full concern.

“Usually it takes about 1 to 2 weeks before she can actually make some sounds, but we don’t know when she can’t actually speak properly.”

“Also, Jiyeon seems to cough frequently, and sometimes it will turn very bad, is there a major problem?” Hwayoung suddenly asked shocking the doctor. He thinks for a while before deciding what to say.

“I need one person to come and follow me, it’s something important.”

“That’s obviously me.” Qri began following the doctor but Hyomin stopped her.

“I’ll go, I’ll let her father know after he comes back.” Hyomin said sternly before following the doctor and a startled Qri was lost for words.

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The doctor led Hyomin to his office.

“Please sit down.” Hyomin sat down while she began listening to the important words from the doctor. “There is good and bad news.”

“What is it?” Hyomin began to stiffen up at the words, ‘bad news’.

“The good news is that Jiyeon will be able to talk soon, but when she did surgery last week, and there were some problems regarding the chemicals present during the surgery.”

“I don’t quite get this.”

“A chemical called Astiotine was accidentally stuck onto .”

“Can’t you just take it back out?”

“I’m afraid not. This chemical substance is known to be ‘hard glue’, it will stick on any hard surfaces and it can’t be taken off without ripping parts in Jiyeon’s throat.”

“Is it harmful?”

“Very. However it can be controlled. Whenever Jiyeon is exposed to the same chemical, the Astiotine in will react but bloating, and the chemical can cover the air pipes, making it impossible to breath, hence the heavy coughing.”

“How do we know where Astiotine is, and can avoid it?”

“Astiotine is used in many everyday products, it’s very hard to control how much Astiotine is exposed to Jiyeon. So we created these pills. It will stop the swelling of the Astiotine, but take only one pill, because…”

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Hyomin came back with many thoughts being processed in her head. She arrived at Jiyeon’s room and was flooded with many questions.

“What did the doctor say?” Soyeon questioned.

“What did you do with the doctor?” Qri suspected Hyomin.

After several more questions of basically the same thing, Hyomin sat down and began explaining what she was told. “Okay, Jiyeon can talk normally soon and she needs to take these pills when she’s coughing awfully bad.” Everyone settled down feeling a bit relieved about the news. After having a minute of silence, Eunjung’s phone rang.

“Hello, this is Eunjung. OH! We accidentally forgot. We’ll be there right away!”

“Who is it?” Soyeon asked while checking her fingernails.

“It’s EU, our new CEO, we have to start preparing for our new comeback.”

“Oh right, we totally forgot!” Hwayoung added. They hugged each hugged Jiyeon and put the blanket correctly over her while she was still asleep. They left quickly and quietly.

When T-ara left leaving Jiyeon all alone, the lights began to flicker causing Jiyeon to wake up. Why would the lights not be working properly now? Jiyeon gets out of her bed, where did my members go? She sees a small piece of paper lying on the table, picks it up and barely reads it in the flickering lights.

We need to go practice for our upcoming album.

Sorry how we couldn’t add you in, but EU saidwe can’t just always be on hiatus.

We’ll visit you often! ^^

Jiyeon sighs and scrunches up the piece of paper, I wish I can practice with them like I use to. She suddenly feels a weird aura in the room, and she quickly turns her head towards the door. There, she saw a strange yet familiar face, before she can recognise the person, the lights switched off. Jiyeon began staggering back, It’s another horrible dream. Just a dream…a dream.

“You’re all alone, you want to practice with your members too right? I want to as well…”

Jiyeon couldn’t recognise the voice either, all she could do was keep walking backwards, until she hit a wall. She could hear footsteps, walking towards her. She tries to scream, but weird sounds come out.

“You can try to scream all you want, but no one will ever hear you.”

Jiyeon can barely see the outline of the person, which she thinks is the CEO, as the figure slowly approaches her, she sees the chance and pushes the person away and Jiyeon tries to run out the door. As she reaches the door, a hand grabs her hair then her neck. Jiyeon tugs at the hand but slowly she falls unconscious.

*          *          *

Author’s Note: Is it the CEO, or another person? Take a guess =P Btw, don’t bother searching Astiotine up, I made it up haha. Comment, subscribe and enjoy!