Jiyeon retreats from her first step, still staring at Tae Hee, who then realises that they have arrived. Tae Hee, suddenly nervous, stands up awkwardly and stares back at Jiyeon with mixed feelings.

Soyeon, who was walking forward, realised that Jiyeon had stayed back and asked, “Jiyeon, why are you still standing there? What’s wrong?”

Jiyeon was lost for words when she sees a familiar yet cold face. Her hands were shaking and she wanted to go and hug Tae Hee, but she shook her head and mimed something with much difficulty but everyone understood, ‘excuse me’. She took one last glance at Tae Hee and ran off to the bathroom.

“I’m sorry, she must be feeling unwell, excuse me,” Soyeon was about to run after Jiyeon but Hyomin pulled her back.

“No stay here. You need to stay here and know some information for Jiyeon. I’ll go after her.” With that, Hyomin ran out the door while taking her phone out.

Back in the room, Soyeon looked rather confuse as to why Hyomin wouldn’t listen to her. She was still standing there, a bit dazed and unable to know what to do next.

“We’ll start the meeting now then,” Tae Hee started, quickly putting on a professional look to try and cover her unethical actions just then.

“Uhh…okay then…” Soyeon replied, still not understanding the situation.

“Didn’t you know, our madam is Jiyeon’s- OUCH!” Se7en randomly blurted out before being nudged by Han Byul, which caused Soyeon to be even more confused.

“There’s no need to hide it. I, Kim Tae Hee, is Jiyeon’s biological mother.” Soyeon literally froze from what Tae Hee just said. Not only was she lost in space, but now she feels very awkward.

“I think we should just wait for Jiyeon, I’ll go get her,” Soyeon stood up to go away from this weird situation, and left the room with tangled thoughts.

“You two stay here, I’ll go with Soyeon,” Tae Hee said before following Soyeon.

----------

Jiyeon continues to run down the hallway until she reaches the toilets, with tears subconsciously dribbling down her face. She pushes the door and goes in slowly, her mind looking back at her past with her family. Following behind not so closely, Hyomin finishes talking on her phone and waits outside, with no intentions of going in to talk to her. Even though Hyomin doesn’t understand what’s currently going on, she waits outside, so as to not ruin Jiyeon’s alone time.

Inside the toilet, she talks to herself. Why…why do I have to meet her in this state? I was going to wait, and throw at her face my popularity, and probe that her decision to leave the family is wrong…very wrong! But why now…? When I can’t even speak…

Jiyeon’s phone suddenly beeps, but Jiyeon has too much on her mind that she doesn’t look at the text message sent to her. Her phone beeps again, this time Jiyeon realises it was her phone. She took it out and after looking at the sender reading ‘Hyomin’ she puts her phone away. They must be really worried about me, I better go out. Calm down…calm down…

After feeling that she has calmed down, she takes a few steps towards the exit when her phone beeps again. Jiyeon, unable to stand with the beeping noise anymore, decides to reply Hyomin. When she opens up the three messages, she gets a shock.

Turn around

(First message)

TURN AROUND

(Second message)

You think you can just leave like that!?

(Third message)

Feeling something is wrong, Jiyeon runs over to the door and tries to open it. Locked. Locked from outside. Out of fear, she starts to bang the door.

“It’s no use,” the person from within the cubicle speaks. “Shall we have a conversation unlike last time?”

“Adbfyejn,” Jiyeon tried to say something but ended up making weird sounds.

“Oh dear, still can’t speak can you?” The person, still hiding in the cubicle, begins to laugh.

Jiyeon doesn’t know what to do, and there are just too many things to think about. Why am I being tortured by everything around me? Jiyeon said to herself.

“You must be asking yourself why this is happening to you. It’s your entire fault, your selfishness landed you in the ‘to be haunted’ list. You can’t blame anyone else except you.”

Jiyeon was listening closely, but nothing seems to enter her brain. She didn’t understand anything that person said, nor could she focus anymore. She grabs onto the door handle as her vision begins to be unstable. Then she smells the familiar scent…the scent that could take her life.

“The Astiotine should be reaching to you now, I’m sorry our conversation couldn’t last long. I really can’t communicate with someone who can’t even speak.” The person laughs even more.

Jiyeon’s vision got more fuzzy, and her breathing become more heavy. She starts to cough, and slowly slides down the door, her hand leaving the handle.

Suddenly a loud bang to the door is heard and the person quickly says, “we’ll meet again,” before running out of the cubicle and to the back door. Jiyeon continued to cough terribly, until she fainted.

----------

Tae Hee and Soyeon were powerwalking down the corridor, but when they were going to turn the corner, they accidentally bumped into someone, and shortly after, a loud bang was heard. They said their apologies and quickly turned the corner to see Hyomin lying on the floor with a big bruise on her forehead.

“Are you alright, Hyomin?” Tae Hee asked while running to her aid only to find her unconscious. Soyeon on the other hand, was trying to open the door to the toilets.

“Madam Hee, I can’t open this door, something must’ve happened to Jiyeon!”

“Run back, and tell the Se7en and Han Byul to come…oh and also call the ambulance,” Tae Hee instructed and Soyeon ran back instantly. Tae Hee took a few steps back before running in to kick the door. After only one kick, the door opened, but since Jiyeon was right behind the door, Jiyeon was kicked to the opposite wall.

“Jiyeon!” Tae Hee screamed and ran towards her. At this time, Soyeon brought the two officers and they tried to settle the situation.

Soyeon ran over to Hyomin, “Where are the pills to Jiyeon’s sickness?!” After getting no answer, Soyeon tries to find it herself by searching through the pockets of Hyomin’s clothes. She took around a minute before using great force to get the pills out of a pocket on the jeans Hyomin is wearing.

Soyeon then ran over to Jiyeon and was about to give her some pills when she realised she doesn’t know the quantity, how much to give to Jiyeon. So Soyeon runs back over to Hyomin and shaking her and shouting.

“Hyomin! How much pills should Jiyeon take?” Hyomin was half conscious, but managed to raise two fingers up. Soyeon took two tablets out of the small plastic bag and ran over to Jiyeon, quickly feeding her the pills.

“Errr, ma’am. Sorry to disturb you right now, but we have some urgent news.” Han Byul reluctantly said when she saw Tae Hee and Jiyeon together.

“What is it?”

“We found the third body. San from LIQUID.”

----------

Song Joongki stood up from his chair and grabbed the clipboard before going to visit a patient’s room. He walked to the room 403, and there lay Hyomin and Jiyeon, on separate beds. At the same time, T-ara rushed in and they crowded around Jiyeon’s bed, crying and weeping.

“Excuse, can you all please move aside?” Joongki asked sternly. The T-ara members slowly shifted onto one side of the bed, leaving the other side for the doctor. Joongki uses his equipment and does a minor check on Jiyeon.

“How is she?” Soyeon asked with great concern.

“She’s in a very fragile state, the Astiotine is making her weaker by the day, she needs to stay clear of Astiotine, and that is very important. However, her voice is recovering from the Astiotine.”

“Huh? We don’t quite get it” T-ara said in unison.

“The Astiotine is a very unique substance. To make a long story short, every time Jiyeon is exposed to Astiotine, the Astiotine already in stuck on reacts to it and it sublimes from a solid to a gas. Every time a little bit of Astiotine sublimes, it slowly uncovers a bit from the voice box, making it able to talk again after a long period of time.”

“Then why couldn’t you do this treatment to Jiyeon?” Eunjung asked with concern.

“It is extremely dangerous, Jiyeon is…is…wondrously lucky. Then I shall be gone to check on another patient, please let them rest.” T-ara nodded before Joongki departs off to the next room. If it wasn’t just the right timing, Tae Hee, Han Byul and Se7en walks in to visit.

“Hello. I am Ma’am Hee, and these two are my officers, Han Byul and Se7en.” Tae Hee introduced.

“Hello” T-ara said in unison.

“We’re very sorry for the incident that happened today. We are trying to investigate what went wrong in our security.” Tae Hee apologised before having a teary eye seeing Jiyeon lying in bed unconscious. They began talking awkwardly, and tried to discuss about how they could help Jiyeon.

“By the way Ma’am Hee, you really look like Jiyeon. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were actually her daughter!” Hwayoung joked and started laughing.

“Yeh, I would start laughing” Qri joined in.

“Hush! We are in public talking to the police, please be polite.” Soyeon sternly told the members and faced Tae Hee. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s no big deal, anyway, let’s continue talking about the case.”

“There was probably no fault in your security system…the thing haunting Jiyeon is a ghost.” Boram randomly spoke up after being quiet most of the time they were in a discussion. The T-ara members began having a think and slowly started to agree at the idea.

“We are still investigating, but we are 80% sure it’s a human act. We found traces of evidence that the person doing all these unlawful acts came in and exited through the emergency exit. However, we don’t understand how the person knew when Jiyeon was in the bathroom and where the emergency exits were.” Se7en finished explaining and T-ara was in deep thought.

“We’ll need more investigation,” Tae Hee finally stated. “We will assure Jiyeon’s safety until this case is truly over.”

*          *          *

Author's Note: Another chapter is again finished! However, it may take a bit longer for the next chapter cause I need to finish this review asap. Thanks for your continuous support! Comment please also ^^