Chapter 21 - Blackout

"Unnie! Ayeeeee! What do I do ?!" Ye Rim shrieked in despair as she realized that the impatient honking in front of the building was Dr. Kim's, who was waiting for half an hour for her to come down, and she was not even ready yet.

"Aish, what a nasty man!" Eun Ha pulled the curtain to check the scene below. The tall man got out of the car and looked directly at their window, waving frantically. He looked annoyed. "Did not you already say that you got an accident here, and that you wasn't ready? Why can't he just wait like a normal person?"

Ye Rim grabbed a makeup tissue and started taking off her eye makeup, which was a disaster after she almost shoved the applicator into her left eye. It hurt, and the eye was watery and reddened. On top of having to clean the eye to stop the itching and avoid an infection, she needed to redo the makeup!

All day long she had been fumbling around, as if she had two left hands. First, when ironing the shorts and blouse set she wanted to wear at night, she burned the delicate fabric of her blouse. The zipper of the dress she picked next, stuck irreparably. Then the shower's handle popped out onto her hand, and she had to ask to shower in the next-door neighbor's apartment. The pumps chosen to match the next outfit dropped a heel, and she had to change the look once more. A fingernail broke, the bra strap snapped, the hairdryer died, the cell phone sunk into the toilet. And now, she nearly punctured her eye applying makeup.

Eun Ha, who had been casually drawing sketches in the living room, watched over each step of her friend, so to discreetly use any opportunities to make her give up on going out with Dr. Kim.

She swayed her 'pen' to and fro, jinxing things up, but Ye Rim was a very stubborn sort of person. The mascara accident was only on her friend's own overstressed mood, not Eun Ha's direct action: she could not risk hurting Ye Rim trying to stop her from going out. But now she had to find new ways of getting in the way.

"Unnie, call that stupid doctor and tell him I'm coming down soon, and tell him to stop honking that stupid horn of him or we're getting a fine for disturbing our neighbours." Ye Rim asked her friend while she washed her face and tried to cleanse her eye as best as she could.

"Yep." Eun Ha nodded, picked up the cell phone and went back to the window. There he was, tall and casually elegant, walking on the sidewalk rather impatiently, under the streetlight.

The woman used the cell's phone camera zoom to check him further. Zoomed at his striking brows, now furrowed, 'There there, a physiognomist could easily tell you are a psycho. Look at this violent features disguised as "cool bad boy " look! Uhhh, I'm afraid already .' Eun Ha shuddered and noted to herself, remembering the prophecy. She furthered her inspection with the zooming camera: he's got an elegant nose, s.e.xy bow-shaped lips, and a strong jawline to match his fair complexion. ' Omo, Dr. Flamingo is so handsomely s.e.xy, so dangerous… No wonder she's shaken. No, you shouldn't be near Ye Rim. Get away, you bad wolf!'

She dialed the number, which called and was soon answered: "Dr. Kim? This is Ye Rim's friend again. Then it turns out that..."

Concentrating, she swung her wand in the direction of the voltage transformer on the light pole just above his car. The ensuing BOOM! was so loud and sudden that even Eun Ha cringed back from the window. Sparks flew from the transformer.

Dr. Kim also took a reflexive leap back, frightened, and moving away from danger. The sequential clicks of the interconnected circuit breakers rang in the night, and the lights of two blocks of the neighbourhood went off in sequence. As did the building where the girls lived in.

The neighborhood residents' reaction was heard from a distance.

"Oh, my God!" She exclaimed, still watching the man's reactions down in the street. Dr. Kim got into the car quickly. Yes! ' Go back home, go back home and never come back! ' she firmly wished ,when he started the engine. But he just pulled the car away from the pole, and honked again.

"Aish! What a sticky guy! "Eun Ha couldn't even suppress her frustration.

"Why is this going to happen today? How am I going to put on my makeup now ?! "Ye Rim whined, annoyed. But she made up her mind. "Nevermind. I'm going downstairs and tell him I'm not going. I cannot go out like this ... Oh my eye. It's sore. And now this darkness. I'm going to fall off the stairs."

"YES !!!" Eun Ha did not hold back the excited tone after Ye Rim's decision.

"Yes?! Unnie!" Ye Rim did not understand Eun Ha's strange reaction. How could she be happy that she gave up on watching a raved musical, for free?

"I say, '...Yes! You better go downstairs and tell him', won't you? How can you go out this way? At least he goes away at once and stops bothering the neighbors."

"What did he say?"

"Uhn… what did he say? Oh ...!" Eun Ha totally forgot that she had called him to give the message. She looked at the phone in her left hand, and realized it was on, the call in progress. Ye Rim took the phone from her friend's hand and took it to her ear, and said, "He-llo?" Eun Ha was with her ear pressed to the other side of the phone, too.

"Miss," the male voice on the other side was firm and audible. "Tell your friend Ms. Nam that the best for her to do is to come down after making me wait so long. And to bring her bag and a coat. Please... Say that. I am waiting."

Eun Ha was the one who responded, intimidated. "Okay ..." After the call has ended, she looked wide-eyed to her friend, iluminated by the light of the cell phone. "What are you going to do?"

"He won't believe in any excuses. After all he doesn't know yet how unlucky I am. I better go. After all this work, not going out would be a waste." Ye Rim took the bag and a coat, as suggested, and realized that Eun Ha strangely and suddenly shut up.

"What is going on, unnie? Why did you shut up all of a sudden? Are you afraid of being alone here in the dark? Booohoohooo!" She teased her friend.

"I don't have a good feeling on all of this. You should take those signals seriously. It's not a good night. Don't trust him just because he's a doctor and related to someone you know." In the dark, Eun Ha ran to the shoe rack by the door, scrambling the shoes Ye Rim would use with another pair, and helped her to tuck them in. Ye Rim really didn't notice the exchange, just replied to her unnie:

"I don't trust. But if I stop living every time something bad happens to me, Unnie, I'm already beaten. Keep calm, unnie! I'm going to take your cell phone with me, money for a taxi, and for your information I'm still sharp with the self-defense classes Oppa gave me."

"Are you going to leave me here alone in the dark?" Even knowing it was a weak plea, Eun Ha made a tearful voice and clung to her friend's arm. Ye Rim laughed finding it funny, but opened the door, waiting for her unnie to let go of her arm so she could go.

"Unnie, you should use this opportunity to call Kang Dae to protect you in the dark...!" Ye Rim joked again mentioning their hot neighbor, and left in the darkness.

But Eun Ha liked the suggestion. That gave her an idea.

"Uh..."