Jiyong's Diary
"What do you mean by trouble?" Kim Suzy asked. She was worried. "What? Dara's missing?"
She tried to lower her voice but the mention of Dara's name snapped me out back to my senses.I was frozen. Dara was missing.
"Hold on, I can't hear you." Suzy covered the mouth piece of her phone and turned towards us. "May I be excuse? I need to take this. It's urgent."
"Sure honey." I heard her mom said.
Suzy nodded back and rose from her seat. She headed for the girl's toilet. What happened to Dara? Why's she gone missing? I needed to know the details. My foot was already tapping on the marble floor. I started biting my nails. I knew it was kind of childish but old habits don't die easily. I rose to my seat but Dad pulled me back.
"Where do you think you're going?" Dad whispered.
"I need to go to the toilet." I answered.
I yanked myself free from my father and headed to the toilet. I waited for Suzy to come out from the Ladies' room. What's taking her so long? I was getting impatient so I went inside. Some of the women shrieked and started throwing me their hair brushes but I didn't care.
"Get out!" I shouted.
I saw Suzy got out from one of the cubicles. She was still holding her phone. She seemed surprised to see me inside because the moment she saw me, she flinched. Some of the women just stared at me, confused to see a guy like me inside.
"I said, get out!" I screamed again this time, louder.
All the women left. Suzy started sneaking behind me but I blocked her way with my leg.
"And where do you think you're going?" I advanced on her. She pulled back.
"P-pervert!" she exclaimed.
I dropped my gaze and started laughing. I heard someone approaching but I kicked the door and locked it. The woman started pounding at the door but I ignored it and turned to Suzy.
"Was that Lee Jinyoung on the phone earlier?" I started. "What happened to Dara?"
Suzy stared at me for a long time then heaved a very long sigh. She leaned against the counter, her shoulders slumped.
"Why do you even care?" I was surprised to hear how confident Suzy sounded. "I thought you're the one who abandoned her? I heard the whole story from WooNickhun. Back when you were in middle school, you started ignoring them, why?"
I was taken aback. I wasn't expecting to be interrogated like this.
"I didn't abandon them." I finally answered. "I was just angry."
I saw Suzy shifted. She looked at me expectantly. Clearly she wanted a more detailed explanation.
"I heard something back then." I knew I looked pathetic at that time but I couldn't help myself from feeling that way. "I wish I didn't hear it so that nothing would've change and we could still be friends like we used to."
(Two Years Ago)
I was looking for Nickhun and Dara. I went to their classroom but they were not there. I guessed I was too early so I decided to wait for them outside their classroom. After a couple of minutes I saw Soram and Boram, the twins who happened to be Nickhun's and Dara's classmates. They were talking. It took me a moment to realize that they were actually talking about my friends.
"I heard they were dating." Boram whispered.
"No way!"Soram exclaimed. "How can you say so?"
"Duh! Isn't it obvious?" Boram rested her hand on her hip. "They're always together and you can see in the way Nickhun takes care of her. He treats her like a princess, I'm so jealous!"
"I think you're right." Soram said. "I think they're an item now. I even heard Dara admitting she likes him."
I heard them talked something more but I wasn't listening. Their voices became muffled. I was consumed with so much hate and jealousy that I left. I couldn't bring myself to accept what I just heard. I thought it was going well between me and Dara, I thought Nickhun was okay with it but why did this happen? I felt betrayed.
(Present)
I waited for Suzy to laugh at me but I heard nothing except for her steady breathing. I looked at her and saw her staring at me but not looking at me. She was in a trance. I cleared my throat and she was in her self again.
She cleared her throat too. "Sorry, I was thinking."
"About what?" I asked.
"Well I thought it was kind of childish." She said. "I mean you could've asked them before giving them the cold treatment. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the girls were just lying back then?"
Of course I thought of that before but a part of me was still jealous. Even before it all happened, I was already jealous of Nickhun. He was so natural, and Dara seemed to like him a lot.
"Tell me what happened to Dara." I insisted. They were more pounding on the door.
"She was missing." Suzy answered. "Jinyoung called and told me she ran off with some guy. They already sent the police to look for her. They were worried sick."
"A guy?" I was furious. "What do you mean she ran off with a guy? Dara wouldn't do that, especially with a guy. She might have been taken by force."
Suzy shook her head. "That's not what I heard from Jinyoung. He told me Dara ran off and a guy helped her and took her with his bike."
"We have to find her." I stormed out of the room.
"Wait!" I heard Suzy shouted behind.
The women who were pounding at the door earlier gave way as soon as we passed them, confused to see a boy and a girl alone inside a bathroom. I could hear Suzy saying something from behind but it was muffled with all the noises around the restaurant.
"Hey!" Suzy grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. "Where are you going?"
"Didn't you hear me? I'll go look for Dara." I said.
"But your dad, he'll never agree to it." Suzy had a point. My dad would never let me leave the restaurant, not with a special occasion going on. It was a time that one of his goals would go according to his plan. Now, he was a step closer of achieving his true ambition.
I looked at Suzy and I thought of an idea how to get out of there. Suzy might have read my mind since she recoiled.
"Oh no you don't!" She exclaimed but I just smiled at her.
We went back to our seat with our parents asking why we took so long. We shrugged and started eating our dessert.
"Mr. and Mrs. Kim, if you don't mind, could I take Suzy for a walk?" I looked back at Suzy who instinctively shrank from her seat. "I really wanted her to see the Minstrel Show tonight. If we leave right now, we might catch the final show."
Mr. and Mrs. Kim studied me. Dad seemed surprised to find me proposing the idea. Why wouldn't he? A moment ago, I was so against with the idea of marrying Suzy.
"Why not?" I heard Dad said. "It's their chance to catch up with each other. I'm sure Jiyong can take care of Suzy." He looked at me and nodded.
I looked at Suzy's parents who were still debating whether to allow their daughter to go with me. I glimpsed at Suzy but she was trying to avoid my look. I kicked her shin under the table and she yelped from the sudden pain. Her parents stared at her.
"I-I'd love to go." She finally said.
"Okay, fine." Mr. Kim said. "You may go."
"But Jiyong-ah, I need my daughter back before midnight." Mrs. Kim smiled sweetly.
I smiled back. "Of course. She'll be home in no time." Dara will be home in no time.
"Could you fasten your seat belt please?" I heard Suzy. She was shifting uncomfortably in her seat beside me "I don't want to die especially with you behind the wheel."
I smirked. "I almost forgot how annoying you are."
"And I almost forgot what an idiot you are." She countered. "So, where would we start looking for Dara? Do you have any idea where could she been hiding?"
"I don't know." I answered bluntly. "Dara have been a prisoner her whole life. If she's out there, she'll definitely explore any place she finds. Did you get the documents from Jinyoung?"
Suzy reached out something from behind. It was a brown envelope. She removed the contents from the envelope and spread it across her lap.
"Yep. It was all in here." She picked an image of a bike parked in front of the convenience store near Dara's house. "Do you think it was the very same bike which Dara rode together with that guy?"
"It was the only bike near the incident so maybe." I answered.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Suzy flipped another image. It was a map with a number of big red dots across it.
"What's the meaning of this?" Suzy asked.
I turned momentarily and back again to the road. "It's a map showing the sightings of the said bike. The GPS system who manufactured the said bike couldn't identify the owner even if it's for a security reason. They refused to reveal the owner of the said bike."
"Which means?"
I sighed. "Which means the owner of this bike is not just any ordinary, random person. He might have a connection with the government or any huge organization that the manufacturer couldn't reveal its buyer's profile so what I did was to hack on our company's private satellite to track down the bike with the same plate number. The dots over there were the latest sightings of the said bike."
"You mean, if we start looking in the places here on the map, we'll eventually find Dara."
I glanced back. "Good job. For an annoying girl like you, you can really catch on things fast."
She didn't answer. She just rolled her eyes and turned to the map. We traveled the night and navigated with the help of the map as our guide but there was no sign of Dara.
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