It's three days after Seulgi's first encounter with one of the new tenants. And also the day that her mother returns from the skiing trip. To be honest, she's excited to see her again because one, she missed her, and two, she doesn't have to run errands, concerning the tenants, for her anymore. So imagine Seulgi's surprise when she sees her mother hobble through their front door, leaning on a pair of crutches and her right leg encased in plaster. She nearly screams through the roof.

--

"Ummaaaa!!!" Seulgi is frustrated, so to say the least. She ruffles her hair and stomps her feet after hearing her mother's long and exciting tale of how she stepped up to the challenge of taking on the ski jump to prove herself to her friends but end up with a fractured leg instead.

"What? Aren't you proud of me?"

"Proud of you? For what? For being so reckless? For coming home with a broken leg?  And what about your job?"

"Geez, daughter. You have no chill." She dramatically says. It's actually funny for Seulgi to hear her mom talk like a teenager but now isn't the time to laugh.

"I'm fine. The doctor says I can take the cast off in a month. And about my job... Well, you're just gonna have to fill in for me, right?" She smiles at Seulgi, wiggling her eyebrows at her.

"WHAT?!" Seulgi shouts.

"C'mon. Think of it as learning the family business." She leans back on the couch, comfortably as she watches her daughter throw one of her biggest tantrums yet.

"Mom, what are you saying? I do not have the time to do your job nor do I want to learn the family business!" Family business meant the handful of house rentals they had around the block.

"Busy doing what? You're not even in school." Somehow, it always goes back to Seulgi giving up on her studies.

"Seulgi, it's just going to be cleaning and doing laundry for the new tenants. They're the only ones who requested for housekeeping. That's not so bad. I'll let you keep the payment for the days you'll be working."

Seulgi doesn't care if she can earn a lot of money from working. She's not going to do housekeeping for those girls and nothing will make her want to.

--

Joy is busy. She likes to think that she's busy lounging around the house, her feet up on the arm rest of the couch and her hand rummaging through a bag of chips. She's paying too much attention to the TV show she's watching to notice that the doorbell is ringing until Irene yells at her to answer the door. Lazily, she gets up and opens the door to see who it is.

The smile on her face drops to a frown instantly. It's the girl from next door. The girl who flashed her precious Yeri. The girl who Joy thinks has also flashed Wendy because what else can explain Wendy's reaction after dropping by the girl's house a few days ago?

"Housekeeping," The girl says blankly, holding up a pail laden with cleaning materials in her gloved hands.

"It's you." Joy grinds her teeth and exhales loudly through her nose, trying to be intimidating. She wonders what she should say to start off the confrontation, wanting to give the girl a piece of what is on her mind, but she never gets to say anything more because Irene roughly shoves her to the side, surprisingly not at all shy in the presence of a stranger.

"Hi," Irene says to the girl, ignoring Joy's complaints. "Are you the helper?" The girl just nods.

"Please come in." She steps back to let the girl pass and closes the door before turning to her again. "Before you begin, can I ask you a few questions?" Joy scoffs and walks away, leaving the two by the door.

"About?"

"Well, about yourself. We have to know you because you're working for us. It's a bit of a standard operating procedure, right?" Irene gestures for her to follow and they sit down on the couch in the living room.

Joy protests when Irene grabs the remote control from her and turns the television off but Irene shushes her.

"Let's begin. Tell us your name and age. And what you do."

"I'm Kang Seulgi. 22 years old. I'm a student but... I've decided to stop my studies for now." She looks down on her hands, feeling shy all of a sudden.

"Oh, same age as Wendy unnie." Joy mutters, forgetting to be sulky for a moment.

"I see. Well, I'm Irene. And this is Joy. I assume that you've met Wendy and... well Yeri, too." Joy starts fuming again, glaring at Seulgi.

"Y-yeah,"

"We just have a few requests. Please don't tell anyone that we're staying here."

"And don't take pictures of us and upload it on SNS or whatever." Joy says.

Seulgi just looks at them, clueless. Irene notices and tries not to think how cute the girl is being because she's only met her for the first time and it's not appropriate to crush on someone especially if she only knows three things about her.

"You do know who we are, right?" Irene asks.

"Am I supposed to?" Seulgi replies. Joy nearly shoots through the roof, standing up in shock.

"You don't know who we are? Are you kidding me?"

"Yah, Park Sooyoung. Calm down." Irene says to the younger girl, pulling her to sit on the couch again. "You know what, Seulgi, it doesn't matter. Just please take care to remember our requests. You may begin with your work now." She smiles at her and Seulgi gives her the same dumb expression. Irene still thinks it's cute.

--

Seulgi is just about done with hanging the girls' laundry. After this, she only needs to take out the trash and she's done for the day. Thank god.

Stupid mom. Stupid tenants. Stupid housekeeping duties. Stupid foot. Wait, what foot?

Seulgi stops what she's doing, having just noticed something that looks very much like a foot, lying on the ground next to the trash bins. She cautiously walks towards it and has to stop herself from screaming upon confirming that it is indeed a foot, a bloody one at that. And if there is a foot, then there's also bound to be a body belonging to the said foot, Seulgi thinks.

Something that Irene said drifts from the back of her brain to the forefront and rings in her ears, playing on the loop. Please don't tell anyone that we're staying here. Please don't tell anyone that we're staying here.Please don't tell anyone that we're staying here.

Why would Irene say that to her? Is it because they're hiding from someone? Could it be from the police?

"No way," Seulgi mutters. As if on cue, Wendy appears at the back door, hands stained with red and holding a knife.

Seulgi doesn't think twice when she sprints across the lawn, screaming and arms flailing with only one thing on her mind - survival. She's too young to die.

Wendy just stares at her, not knowing what she did to warrant such a reaction from the girl.

"Wan unnie!" Yeri bounces at her side, oblivious to Seulgi who is now climbing over the fence in her haste to run home, tripping over her own feet and crawling for the door.

"Eo?" Wendy finds it difficult to take her eyes off Seulgi's retreating figure so she can pay attention to Yeri.

"Did you happen to see my foot prop for theater class?"

"Foot prop?"

"Yeah, we're doing our own interpretation of 'Saw' for drama class." Yeri replies, grinning widely at her. "What's that on your hands?"

"Oh, it's tomato juice. I'm making sauce for spaghetti." Wendy explains.

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

A/N: Hi guys! So here's an update as promised. I'll be on break for the next few weeks and that means that I'll get to update more often, probably. LOL. There will be cameos in the next chapter so anticipate it. Thank you to Bakaegyo, heesica10, whitewolf2342, and toncanan for upvoting. Thanks for reading, everyone! Comment if you can. :) - Bluekimchi