Chapter Text
Don't you think it's time to go back?
Wendy paused and bent down to pick up the paper airplane which landed two inches from her feet. It was pale blue, the color of her eyes, and also her favorite color. The paper was blue, and once she undid the folds, eight words were scribbled there in neat handwriting.
"What is it?"
Seulgi peeked from behind, ebony hair draped over Wendy's shoulder when she tilted her head. Wendy turned her head, slightly, then shrugged to answer Seulgi's question.
"I have no idea."
Seulgi had been sitting at the bus stop for about fifteen minutes now. She checked her phone once again, then sighed at the low battery notification on the top corner of the screen. Giving up with the rectangle gadget, the girl shoved it into the pocket of her handbag, then stared at the busy road before her eyes.
This little town by the sea was indeed small. There were no big malls or luxurious buildings. The supermarket was thirty minutes by bus or driving, but the farmer's market was always an easy choice. The school there was only until high school, no college or higher education was provided, and the nearest university was in the City H, sixty kilometers via winding roads by the cliff and sea.
Her little town wasn’t crowded on usual days but today was Friday, almost twilight at the time. Seulgi could easily see the swarm of people packed the road, glowing in the dying sunlight. Workers of small offices and governor institutions, high school students coming home from their supplementary lesson. Workers again. So many workers, Seulgi thought.
She was one of them.
Seulgi worked as a civil servant at the town tax administration office. This year was her second year, and all she felt was severe boredom. Mundane paperwork and inputting data, all day long staring at the computer screen in contrast with her previous job at the seaweed factory.
Still, this was better.
Friday evening was a little comfort for Seulgi’s tiring week.
Sitting in a cheap bar, three bottles of soju or glasses of beer. Pork belly barbeque and spicy coated chicken. A good company to exchange the talk about her day.
Wendy.
Seulgi’s eyes found a petite figure in an ivory blouse and long black pants. Her brownie hair was blown by the dry wind behind her. She took her pace in long strides, Seulgi thought it was cute yet elegant, as if she was hopping her way towards Seulgi.
“Hi! You’re early?”
Seulgi smiled at her greeting. Wendy brushed a few strands of hair fell over her porcelain face, then took a seat next to Seulgi.
“I always get off the office around this time. It’s not that I’m early, you’re just late.”
Her friend laughed upon hearing her answer. Wendy’s laughter was another thing that made Seulgi like the day like this. She laughed as if she sang, the sound of her laughter alone was a melodious song to Seulgi’s ears.
They sat for a moment before Seulgi got up. “Let’s go,” she said.
Wendy reached out her hands to Seulgi who rolled her eyes at Wendy’s action. Sighing but not complaining, Seulgi took the hands and pulled Wendy until she got into a standing position.
“Soju and samgyeopsal?” The brunette asked. Seulgi thought for a while, then nodded.
“Okay,” she replied shortly. But there was a faint smile grazed on her lips.
Seven years of friendship, Seulgi counted. They were seventeen when they first met. It was a cold winter day, a dry one. Snow didn’t touch this town for as long as Seulgi could remember. Bustling crowds seconds before class began, the sound of footsteps in the corridor. The homeroom teacher entered the class with books in her arms, a girl trailed behind her.
The teacher introduced the girl as Wendy Shon. In a short time, Wendy had already owned the entire class's attention. Her strange pale skin. Her silvery blonde hair. Her sky blue irises. All about Wendy Shon screamed unusualness.
She said she moved to this town from the Big City and stayed with an aunt here. Said the city made her sick.
Now Wendy was sitting across her, tongs in her hand, flipping pork belly on the grill. The air was stuffy, smoke and the scent of liquor, the dying haze of the night. People’s noisy chatters wrapped around them. Seulgi drank her soju, studied the girl in front of her. Wendy’s hair was no longer blonde. In the second year of high school, she dyed it black, then dark brown, so that she wouldn’t stand out among the townspeople. But her skin was still pale as ever, the color in her eyes was washing out.
“What?” Wendy’s sudden question broke Seulgi’s wandering mind. She put back her glass onto the table and blinked her eyes. An amusement flashed on Wendy’s face.
“You look at me like you never saw me.”
Seulgi shrugged, a smile spread across her face. She picked up chopsticks and reached for a strip of grilled meat.
“Nothing,” she said. “Your boss still on vacation?”
Wendy frowned at Seulgi’s question. “Why do you ask?”
Seulgi pressed her lips together, then answered, “Your office hasn’t submitted their tax report.”
Wendy choked on the smoke from the grilling plate. Seulgi offered her a glass of water, which she drank quickly. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before replying.
“How could I know about the administration. I am in market research, Seulgi.”
“I’m not even close with the boss,” Wendy muttered in annoyance.
“I’m just telling you,” Seulgi said quietly.
“Yes, yes. Thank you. But I think it would be much more effective if you just send our office a notice.” Wendy threw her hands up, defeated.
Seulgi didn’t say anything, and Wendy continued to devour her food. Seulgi kept drinking, her first bottle of soju had finished. For a while, they didn’t talk. It wasn’t complete silence, but for Seulgi it was a quiet moment, enough for her to think.
She tended to think a lot. Wendy would sometimes become annoyed with her habit. Even when they were together, Seulgi was the quiet one, the one who spent a great time swimming in her own pool of mind. It calmed her, the thought. She loved it when nobody could go through her mind, that her mind was her own to see.
Wendy was the opposite of her. In their earlier days, Seulgi thought Wendy was just like her because she didn’t talk a lot. Maybe it was due to her extreme appearance, or her popularity that Wendy looked shy, especially to strangers.
One day after school ended, Seulgi coincidentally ran into Wendy at the tofu shop. The sky was a color of murky water, the cold breeze blew from the raging ocean. That day, the rain was hammering into the ground. Wendy didn’t have an umbrella with her, and Seulgi, Seulgi who had planted a fascination toward the new girl since the first time, timidly offered to share her umbrella.
Seulgi walked Wendy until they reach her aunt’s house, which is a cubic brick building in a small alleyway. She invited Seulgi in, which Seulgi declined in excuse of coming home late. The next day though, when Wendy asked her to her house, Seulgi accepted.
They started to hang out often since then.
The sound of an aluminum cup colliding with the floor snapped Seulgi’s attention back to the present. She lifted her eyes from her own glass and found Wendy froze in front of her, hand hung in the air.
Cold needles started pricking her spine, Seulgi’s gaze wavering at the sight of her friend who looked like she didn’t understand what just happened. Seulgi got up from her stool and rushed to Wendy’s side.
“Wen? You alright?”
Wendy’s breath was ragged, her body was shaking when Seulgi touched her. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, beads of sweat fell from her left temple.
“I’m… okay. I’m okay.” Wendy’s voice was raspy, but it sounded rather stable. “Just a little bit dizzy. No worries, Seulgi.” She smiled, trying to assure Seulgi.
Seulgi worried for Wendy. It wasn’t the first time Wendy suddenly went strange like that. Seulgi had seen Wendy almost faint so many times. She also often dropped things and fell suddenly. Seulgi mentioned this to Wendy several times, but her friend only brushed it off with an amused smile.
“You look pale,” Seulgi told her. Wendy let out a weak laugh.
“Seulgi, I am always pale.”
“You’re not well, Wen. You need to see a doctor,” Seulgi tried to persuade her friend.
“It’s nothing. It’s just my usual headache. Will get better after I took medicine.” Wendy shook her head. But when she caught Seulgi’s suspicious face, she added: “It’s an ordinary headache, I swear.”
“It looked nothing ordinary to me,” Seulgi snapped. Her lips pressed into a grim line.
“Ssh, people are looking,” Wendy whispered. Seulgi pulled back from Wendy and looked around. True to Wendy’s words, the people in the bbq house stared at them with curious eyes. Seulgi turned to Wendy and let out a tired sigh.
“Let’s go home. I’ll go with you.”
“I’m okay now,” Wendy smiled. Seulgi threw her a sharp glare.
“No. I don’t want you freaking people out if you suddenly collapsed.”
Wendy let out a muffled laugh. “Okay.”
She pulled a bill of ten thousand won and gestured for Seulgi to pay for their drink. Seulgi took it and walked to the counter. She could hear Wendy whisper a thank you behind her.
Fall was around the corner.
The air was a mix of salt and leftover summer rain, the sun was soft through layers of grey clouds. The temperature began to crawl down, down the creek of cliffs, and hide under caves at the beach. People started to ditch their cut-off shorts and tank top, preferring to wrap themselves in worn-out sweaters that smell like home.
It was Seulgi’s favorite time of the year.
Wendy used to say that fall is the most boring season. It didn’t bring excitement like summer, not exactly festive as winter, and absolutely not as romantic as spring. Seulgi also thought so.
For her, fall was rather melancholy. Like a moody teenager, the longing and the sadness. The sudden burst of joy. Seulgi liked the taste of bitterness in fall, the sound of the quiet hum of the fallen leaves.
Fall was time for remembrance.
Years later, Seulgi found out that this year’s fall was also her fated time, the one she would never ever forget in her lifetime.
It began with a strange Tuesday afternoon after office hours. Wendy joined her in her walk to go home, which was quite an unusual occurrence. On normal days, Wendy’s working hours were shorter than Seulgi’s, so they couldn’t go home together except for Fridays. Seulgi should have been able to tell at that time, that something out of her mind was bound to happen.
Wendy was bright and talking happily walking next to her. She told Seulgi about the high probability of shop product expansion based on customer demand. Seulgi listened to her, really, however, her eyes were set on the end of her shiny oxford shoes. The pavement was a sullen pattern of tiles, scrapped beneath their heels, the tiny grasses sprung from the creaks of the concrete.
Then the airplane. The paper airplane.
It was blue, the color so familiar to Seulgi. It reminded her of Wendy’s washed-out irises, the kind of blue in the winter ocean. Seulgi stopped her feet in a sudden motion, a flash of confusion entered her head.
It shouldn’t bother her. Why would it? It was just a paper. Maybe trashed out by the passerby. Probably some kind of kid’s play, sent it off from his window.
“What’s wrong?”
Wendy was already two meters ahead of her, looking over her shoulders with questioning eyes.
Seulgi didn’t answer. She decided that it was nothing anyway. But Wendy had stepped back, now standing slightly in front of Seulgi. She caught Seulgi’s attention on the blue paper and raised her eyebrows.
“Seriously, Seulgi?” Even though she rolled her eyes, Wendy finally bent down to pick up the paper airplane, studied it for some moment before unfolding it.
“What is it?”
Seulgi peeked from behind, ebony hair draped over Wendy’s shoulder when she tilted her head. Wendy turned her head, slightly, so that her face was facing Seulgi and their noses almost touched.
There’s a skip on Seulgi’s heartbeat, a moment, then she pulled back.
Wendy shrugged to answer Seulgi’s question.
“I have no idea,” she said. Wendy handed the crumpled paper to Seulgi, and she smoothed the rough folds. Her eyes traced the neat handwriting in black ink.
Don’t you think it’s time to go back?
“Some people actually still think that sending messages by paper airplane is a thing,” Wendy commented in amusement.
Seulgi didn’t let go of her sight on the handwriting. Suddenly she felt nauseous. Wendy chuckled like it was funny, but there was something else in her voice. Seulgi could sense it beneath her tinkling laughter; uneasiness, worry, fear.
Seulgi had a bad feeling about this.
She hated that Wendy tried so hard to hide it from her. Hated it that over these years, Seulgi developed a habit of being suspicious of Wendy. Wendy never told her about her past, her life before this town and Seulgi. She painted Wendy in her mind, piece by piece from the days they spent together. It was a blurred picture with missing parts all over.
Seulgi truly hated it, but she didn’t voice it out to Wendy.
“Seulgi, hurry up! We’re missing the bus.”
Wendy stomped her feet on the ground, impatient. She reached for the paper in Seulgi’s hands and crumpled it in her fist. Seulgi lifted her eyes and let Wendy hold her hand, pulling her running along to the bus stop.
It was when Seulgi saw her.
The uncalculated one, the unanticipated one.
The nightmare and the missing piece.
She was sitting under the shade of the bus stop, sunlight kissed her rose petal hair. Her eyes were sharp on Seulgi and Wendy who came with ragged breaths after running. Wendy was the first one who noticed her, gave her a small nod, and asked the girl in red hair to shift so that she could sit down. Instead, the girl stood up. Wendy smiled at her and muttered thank you, then signaled Seulgi to sit beside her.
Seulgi sat down, but she quietly observed the girl. Standing like that, she was tall. Way much taller than Seulgi or Wendy. Her coat was draped over her mid-length dress, black stockings wrapped her long legs, ended in a pair of ankle boots Seulgi had seen in fashion magazines.
She was beautiful.
The girl stepped in front of them, and for a moment Seulgi thought she would speak to them. Perhaps asking about direction, because everything about her was foreign as if she didn’t belong in their world.
But she held out her hand, reached out for Wendy’s face. Her long fingers brushed Wendy’s hair lightly and Seulgi felt the urgency to slap them away. Wendy just stared at her, awkwardly, shifted her position to avoid her touch.
“It’s been a long time,” she murmured. Her voice sounded so sad, heavy with longing and regret.
“Uh, I’m sorry but, who are you?”
Her soft hazel eyes suddenly turned hard, and the next moment she was laughing with a mocking tone.
“Of course, you don’t know. You don’t know anything, don’t you? You don’t even know your name,” she spat out. “Ah! Wendy! Yes, you don’t know your name so you made it up, didn’t you? Sneaky little thing.” Her words were venomous, and this time Seulgi could no longer keep her mouth shut.
“Get lost.”
The girl glanced at Seulgi, her eyes studied carefully the hard lines on Seulgi’s face. Seulgi’s jaws shut tighter under her examining stare, her blood was boiling in her veins. This bitch didn’t have any right to talk like that to Wendy. Seulgi’s admiration for her vanished in an instant.
“You get lost. I don’t have anything to do with you.”
Seulgi was angry. The girl said it without a trace of annoyance. Just a flat tone, like Seulgi, was an insect, a mere dust particle floating around. She was about to explode when Wendy stood up and pulled her to her feet.
“Let’s go, Seulgi. This girl is crazy.”
Seulgi heaved out a breath. She threw a side-eye stare at the girl as they walked out of the bus stop. For short seconds, Seulgi could glimpse hurt and sadness slipping back into the girl’s eyes, her face softened.
“You are Four Two Eight. We call you Blue.” The girl’s voice wasn’t loud, just enough to reach Seulgi’s ears. Enough to stop Wendy’s steps and turned her into a frozen statue.
Seulgi spun around.
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about?”
She clenched her fists, feeling the nails dug into soft skin. Her voice was shaking from anger, her whole body trembled. Four two eight? Blue? What the hell. Is she crazy or what?
The girl didn’t even spare a glance in Seulgi’s direction. Her hazel eyes only looked at Wendy like Wendy was the only thing she could see, like everything else didn’t matter and Wendy was the center of gravitational force that pulled her. Seulgi hated that eyes. Hated the sadness and hunger which was pulsing there. It was like watching a sad movie, and Seulgi despised the way it wrenched her heart and made her want to swear and cry.
But Wendy was still a statue. From the corner of her eyes, Seulgi could see the shaking of Wendy’s small shoulder. She cast a glare at the stranger, then wrapped one of her arms around Wendy’s back.
“Are you okay? You are shaking,” she whispered into Wendy’s ear.
Wendy shook her head. Her temples were wet from sweat, and her face was colorless as the moon on a pale January night. She took a step forward, but it seemed that her legs are too weak. Then, suddenly she collapsed in Seulgi’s arm.
“Wendy!”
Seulgi felt like her heart was about to fall. However, Wendy didn't faint, and her breath came out rapidly as she tried to stand up.
“Can you walk?” Seulgi asked again.
Wendy nodded. She closed her eyelids and breathed slowly, trying to stop her trembles. Seulgi guided her to walk, step by step, back to the seat under the bus stop. When they passed the girl, she looked stricken. Her red burgundy lips parted and there was fear in her eyes. With wide steps, she trailed behind them.
“When did this start?” She asked abruptly once Wendy sat down.
Seulgi shot her a dagger stare, but she didn’t seem to notice. Instead, the girl kneeled in front of Wendy and reached for Wendy’s hand. The girl then put two fingers on Wendy’s inner wrist. For a moment, both Seulgi and Wendy were too surprised to react. The two of them fell into silence, observing the girl in her concentrating state, watching the lines start to appear above her eyebrows.
Suddenly she looked up. Her gaze was soft and filled with concern as she studied Wendy’s face. Seulgi felt like someone just punched on her stomach, or like a thousand thorns were shoved into her gut, she didn’t know. She felt sick, sick and nauseous, when she looked at them. For some reason she couldn’t explain, Seulgi just wanted to run so that she didn’t need to witness the girl’s sweet stare at Wendy.
“When did this all start?” The girl asked again, now with more pressure.
Wendy opened her mouth, but then glanced over to Seulgi who sat next to her. Seulgi didn’t know how to respond, honestly. In the end, she only gave her a nod.
“I don’t know. A year. Two. I’m not sure.” Wendy closed her eyes and shook her head.
The girl put her face onto her palms and sighed quietly. She stayed like that for a minute, then run her fingers through her hair.
“Come back with me,” she said finally.
Wendy shook her head at a speed of light.
“You shouldn’t leave in the first place.” Her voice was sharp, accusing in contrast to her tired eyes.
Seulgi couldn’t bear this anymore. She didn’t like it that she felt like she was being left out of this conversation. This girl was a stranger. Wendy didn’t even know her. How could she speak like that? As if Wendy belonged to her.
“She won’t go anywhere.” Before thinking much, Seulgi found herself speaking. Now both of them shifted their gaze onto her. Wendy’s stare was warm; a smile in her eyes, a sign of gratitude. But the girl’s stare was steel cold, and –Seulgi felt sick again upon recognizing it— sympathy.
“I don’t know who you are, but it would be better if you refrain yourself from this matter. Corona’s well-being is my priority, and she needs to come with me.” She spoke with such an elegance that made Seulgi stunned for a while.
“That’s my line. Who the hell are you and what are you doing suddenly being all familiar with Wendy?”
The girl suddenly laughed like crazy, like Seulgi’s question was the funniest joke she ever heard. She stood up and crossed her arms in front of her chest, looking down at Seulgi with an amused gaze.
“Suddenly being all familiar, is it? You’re wrong. It’s true, you don’t know anything about me. So how’s about this? You shut your ugly mouth up and let me talk to Blue so I can save you from heartbreak later,” she snapped out, poisons dripping all over her words.
“You don’t talk like that to Seulgi.” Wendy’s voice was quiet, but it was a stern one. The kind that made you just stop whatever you were doing.
“No. You don’t talk like that to me ,” she said to Wendy in an icy cold tone.
“I won’t go back. You better leave.” Wendy’s words were a muted sound of ocean wind. She turned her head so that she wouldn’t face the girl.
The girl heaved a miffed sigh.
“You don’t even try to hide your disgust of me.”
Wendy remained silent and Seulgi started to her felt uneasy with this situation. Where the hell is the bus? Why doesn’t it come faster? Why is this afternoon so quiet? Where are the people? She wanted to escape this weird drama as soon as possible. She didn’t want to face this crazy girl anymore. There was something so wrong about the model-look-alike girl. Not only her gibberish talk, but also her attachment to Wendy. The softness and warmth that lingered in her gaze; the concern about Wendy’s condition. Seulgi knew it all, so she did understand, thus she restrained herself from punching her. But she was unsure about their past and it made her restless.
She pulled out her phone and was about to call the taxi when the girl suddenly flared up.
“You’re gonna die! You’re dying!” She screamed, her hands gripped Wendy’s shoulders tightly, and shook them in a rapid movement. Wendy still didn’t look at her. She was facing Seulgi, but her eyes were closed and Seulgi could see tears rolling down her cheeks.
Seulgi couldn’t stay still anymore. She stood up and slapped the girl across her face, and pulled her hands off of Wendy. She could hear Wendy’s muffled cry, and it made her angrier. Then she saw the girl’s bleary eyes and it made her feel a pang of guilt she didn’t suppose to feel.
The girl didn't even flinch. She only let out a sardonic laugh, her stare stabbed Seulgi in the throat.
“That’s right. Let’s do it if that’s what you want. Let’s see if in your last breath you’ll remember me and my offer to fix you.” The girl’s voice was trembling with anger, desperate words were falling from her lips.
Seulgi hissed to her.
“Shut up. Don’t you see Wendy is not well? Don’t you have any ability to considerat….” Her words were cut by a loud banging sound of something crashing on the metal seat. Seulgi turned around. The soft autumnal light peeked through the green-tinted fiberglass shade, illuminated the last breath of the day, and everything seemed like a slow-motion scene in the movie.
Wendy was lying there on the bus stop seat, unconscious.
Seulgi leaned her back on the white wall of the hospital and felt the sharp smell of disinfectant stabbing her nostrils. Her head was throbbing, her heart was sinking. They –she and the girl— had brought Wendy to the hospital’s emergency room where they put numerous tubes and tools on her. Now, they –the medic, doctor, whatever— had wheeled her to the other room to take a scan or photo or… Seulgi just didn’t understand. She remained in the corridor of the hospital, sitting on the waiting chair, feeling her energy was sucked dry.
The girl sat next to her, but they didn’t speak to each other. Seulgi snuck a glance at her, studied her perfectly lined side profile. She looked serious typing something on her phone, and when she was silent like this, Seulgi could almost admire her again.
Her mind went back to Wendy and the throbbing in her head became even more severe. What is it, Wendy? You’re sick and didn’t tell me anything. Always brush me off every time I touch the subject. What is it? Seulgi was afraid, so afraid that she might lose Wendy. She didn’t want to lose anyone again. It was enough for her family to leave her alone. Not Wendy too, not Wendy too.
Before knowing it, Seulgi had already murmured that forgotten prayer in her mind.
“She will wake up.”
The girl’s voice broke the silence of the hospital’s corridor. Seulgi questioned her with her eyes, but the girl averted her gaze.
“But she won’t last very long. The symptoms had started roughly two years ago, so right now she must be in the last stage,” she paused, then added between her sighs, “It would be hard for total recovery. Almost nihil with conventional medicine.”
Seulgi took all her words with a blank stare. How… why? How could she know it? Wendy never went to any doctor, any hospital. So, how?
She let out a dry laugh, then coughed.
“ Conventional medicine ,” she murmured quietly, but Seulgi could catch her mocking tone. It was strange, that Seulgi thought she was accustomed to her mocking now. She just met her two hours ago but Seulgi guessed that was because the girl only threw mocking words at her.
“You sound like you know much,” Seulgi commented. She was curious, but she decided to hide her curiosity, masking it with a flat tone.
The girl dug something from her branded handbag, a paper–business card?—and handed it to Seulgi. Seulgi squinted her eyes, and read the name printed in stylish, bold font.
Dr. Joy Park
Clinical Laboratory of D-Project
CNH National Institute for Disease Prevention
Seulgi's jaw dropped. She stared at the girl wide-eyed, like looking for confirmation. Doctor? Laboratory? What is this? She never heard about this National Institute for Disease Prevention before. What is her relationship with Wendy? Millions of questions jostled in her head, raced with the thought of dread; the nightmares.