Chapter 141 - Girlfriend for One Night

Running aimlessly, Ji Hyeon wiped the tears from her face, thinking of the poor boy being attacked by Dae Won back there. But panic drove her. Blurry lights danced in front of her when she saw the cars drive by at full speed. One more look back, and she saw her stalker coming down the street quickly, towards her.

She couldn't wait for the cars to stop, and impatient drivers honked when she ran across the two lanes of the avenue. One more block and she would be in the park. Police officers usually patrol parks, she knew. She would be able to save herself if she got there, therefore. She would find a patrol and ask help for the delivery boy, and when they arrived at the police station, she'd tell them everything. That's all Ji Hyeon thought when she crossed another block running.

At one point she looked back, but didn't see Dae Won.

Did he give up chasing her?

Had the cameras scare him away, maybe?

Arriving at the park, with her spleen hurting a lot because of the forced exercise, Ji Hyeon saw people walking away from her. She must have looked like a beggar or something, behaving oddly and with dirty, sweaty clothes; greasy hair partially covering her face.

Pausing to breathe, she looked again and didn't see Dae Won approaching. Dodging people, she looked for less busy paths, and crossed the park woods with quick steps, to reach the other side of the park. 

But there were many paths within the woods, and it wasn't as small as she remembered. 

Was she lost?

"Calm down, Ji Hyeon. Get out of the woods, you'll find the police soon. Just don't panic. The way out of this is close. It's close, "she repeated to herself aloud.

Ji Hyeon walked a little further, her heart startled at every different noise she heard. Then she started hearing nearby voices again. She decided to leave the trail and go toward the voices.

Not far from the trees, she saw a couple from behind, in the outdoor gym. There were only them around, and they were side by side on two outdoor elliptical equipment. The girl had a beautiful body and followed the instructions of the man in sports clothes, laughing. He said,

"It's like I'm saying. Now, do the same thing in the classroom, when I..."

The voice.

She would never mistake that voice. Jun.

That was Jun Hyeon, her brother, along with Ye Rim. The back, the arms, the way he moves his head. It was Jun!

She took two steps forward, without taking her eyes off him. Ji Hyeon couldn't breathe with happiness.

'I can't believe it, I found my twin! Jun! JUN!'

Then he felt a tug on her neck. Dae Won wrapped his arm around her neck while pulling her back. She tried to struggle and grabbed his arms, but she had no strength against him. 

"JUN!" she tried to call, but Dae Won's hand muffled her cry for help.

°°°

Ye Rim didn't have time to understand what had happened. Jun Hyeon Oppa was at her side explaining something about tap dancing, and in the next moment, he had choked and gasped for air. She abandoned what she was doing and went to help him, but the surgeon resolved the situation on his own. 

"Omo, what happened?"

"I don't know. I felt like choking!" he said, without looking at her. Perhaps he was ashamed. But who keeps his cool when trying to expel a foreign body from the throat? A little embarrassed, she took his water bottle to make him drink some,

"These things happen outdoors," she commented while he did so. "Probably some tiny insect or leaf has entered your throat," she was sure it had been that.

But now he continued to rub his chest insistently, while looking everywhere, uneasy.

"Oppa? What's it? What are you looking for? Are you still feeling unwell?"

Taking a deep breath, he replied, "Didn't you hear someone calling my name?"

She tried to remember. Well, maybe she heard something, but they were out in the open, the sounds could come from all sides. At that moment, a frightening thought came to Ye Rim's mind, 'Perhaps he is hallucinating. What if he is schizophrenic?'

"Can't you be confused by the sounds, Oppa?"

He didn't seem to be listening. He went towards the woods, slowly, as if looking for something. Ye Rim worried and went after him,

"Didn't you hear, Ye Rim?"

"Hear your name?"

"Yes. The worst, it was as if ... It was my sister's voice. It felt like Ji Hyeon calling me."

"Oppa ..." Ye Rim wrapped her arms around him, in a sudden and tight embrace. He looked so bleak, knowing he was sounding crazy! She wanted to say that being disturbed was natural, because he was stirring up memories of the past. But Ye Rim didn't have the courage to say things like that on a moment like that. She also had a bad impression of that night. Suddenly, the place already seemed strange and threatening, and they, very distant from the rest of the people.

"I'm looking crazy, aren't I? Hearing my sister's voice everywhere."

"Oppa. Let's leave the class for another day, okay?" she rubbed his shoulders, pulling away enough to look him in the eye. 

He had bloodshot eyes and pale, horrible color. He was a total mess. She had to do something for Jun Hyeon,

Ye Rim looked at him again, "Come on, I'm going to take you home. We'll not deny that you're not well today. Just come, will you? Let me take care of that today."

Jun Hyeon just followed her in silence. He gave his apartment address without asking questions and said nothing when she got out of the car and escorted him to the elevator. The trip there had been in absolute silence. Ye Rim was often uncomfortable with the frightening silence, and wondering if she should say anything to break the dark mood. But then she figured he might need that silence to think about it.

"Do you want to come in?" he asked in a strange way. Ye Rim already knew that he wanted to be alone. But her intuition said that it would be idiotic to leave him alone today,

"Of course! Didn't I say I would take care of you tonight, Oppa?" 

He shrugged and opened the door, letting her in. Ye Rim was delighted with the apartment. It showed Jun Hyeon's love for jazz and tap dancing, and it was very elegant and masculine,

"Take a shower. I'll see what's in the kitchen to fix something for you," she announced, keeping an imperative yet cheerful tone.

"What are you, after all, Ye Rim?" he asked, following her to the kitchen door. She had already opened the refrigerator. The singer wouldn't normally do that, but she would go over all common sense and education to make Jun Hyeon more comfortable and make him forget that pain,

"What am I? What are you talking about?" she hadn't told him she was a bad cook, of course. And to be honest, she didn't even know how to cook asparagus and several of those things in his fridge. But she grabbed some random things with a confident expression, so he could find no reason in her hesitations to send her away tonight.

"I think these are not a 'friend''s assignments. You are acting like a 'girlfriend'!" he didn't smile, however, when he said that.

But she wasn't going to fall into any traps tonight,

"Don't friends do that?"

He shook his head.

"Forget it, Oppa. I'll stay here until you feel better. And if this is a girlfriend thing ... Well, consider that for tonight I am your girlfriend, if that gives me the right to stay and take care of you in your apartment," she flashed a smile, trying to keep confident. 

He stared at her for a while, and Ye Rim could see that his mind worked on things to say, but then Jun Hyeon shrugged and said,

"Okay. Right now I thought of several stupid things to say, but I just have to grab your heartfelt gift of generosity with both hands. I'm going to take a shower to eat your dinner."

When he left her in the kitchen, she sighed. She would have liked it if the doctor was in the mood to say 'stupid things'. But things had been so strange, earlier in the park!

A little later, they had dinner with something she made and also something that Ye Rim had found ready in the fridge, and drank soju. They had a light talk, about tap dancing, and Ye Rim kept chattering about the style and his favorite artists for a while, while drinking a little more,

"I'm getting sleepy, Ye Rim. And you still look good! You have great resistance to alcohol!" he confessed, pulling her hands away and placing his head on her lap. Alcohol made him good-natured and talkative, she remembered.

She didn't push him away. Ye Rim just stroked her hair, like his 'girlfriend for one night'. She knew his approach was not sensual, but because he felt sad and alone. 

"I haven't been sleeping well, Ye Rim. I have been having recurring dreams, and this is driving me crazy ..." Jun Hyeon confessed, while receiving Ye Rim's patient pat, head on her lap.

"Tell me," she encouraged him. 

The doctor told about his dreams about the fire, and a bas.e.m.e.nt,

"It really doesn't make sense. It's not part of my memory, because I didn't enter the house during the fire. Not even the house had a bas.e.m.e.nt. No house I lived in had a bas.e.m.e.nt."

Ye Rim pondered a little and suggested,

"There's no point in the same message coming up repeatedly if it wasn't important. It is something important that you are missing!"

"I feel like yes. I feel it and go crazy."

Ye Rim was playing with Jun Hyeon's hair and pondering,

"Oppa, why don't you really look for a professional, or even more than one, who can help you analyze this dream? I heard that there are professionals who can help you with something called 'conscious dreams'. There must be something in the bas.e.m.e.nt of your dream that you need to discover, Oppa. Perhaps something very important about this whole tragedy. What do you think about this?"

But he didn't answer, he was sleeping.