"I know what happened between you and your therapist is completely your business," Said Jihoon from the other side of Luna's door. He had been staring at her expectantly ever since her session and he finally spoke up,
"Then stop asking!" She shouted back. She would've told him if it were just post-trauma things or stress. But this was serious, memory problems! If they were over protective before, they'd exhibit smother nature behavior now.
"But atleast tell me a little bit! Was it helpful? Did she say you're completely fine? Or did she prescribe any medicines? You'd need to tell me that so that I can get them for you."
"There are no medicines, now leave me alone."
"I'll tell you a little about my session if you tell me about yours." He tried again.
"No, thank you. I can imagine you both discovering how you're such a workaholic." She pulled out her notepad from her bag to start listing lost memories.
"Actually, we talked about Mom."
Luna stared at the door with an open mouth.
"Shit." She cursed under her breath and opened the door, "Im sorry."
He leaned against the wall, "Yeah you might think that Im going just because of you but Iv realized that Im not completely content with my life and I have some complains that no one can solve, so I thought that there should at least be a person who could just listen." He said it calmly and she thought that perhaps talking about it with the therapist might have started helping him already.
At least one of them came out relaxed.
"You know Im here for you." She offered and could hear metal clanging sounds coming from the kitchen downstairs.
"I know." He ruffled her hair with a smile, "But you have burdens of your own. I'll tell you when you've completely healed yourself."
She nodded, "Okay." More sounds came from the kitchen of a glass falling and breaking and cupboards opening and closing loudly.
"What is the maid cooking, other than producing an instrumental with the utensils??" She said.
"That's Min."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, and dad's in my study, in an online meeting."
"I always knew they'd take over our house but I didn't know it would be this soon." She joked and he loosened his tie with a tired glance towards the stairs, "Well they originally came to know about your session but when I told them that you didn't want to talk about it, they decided to stay for dinner and Min offered to make it because you know how she is always trying to prove her worth to dad. Alright Im gonna go take a shower." He turned to leave but stopped when he heard Min call out Luna.
"What?" Luna couldn't keep the annoyance out of her voice.
"Be sure to shower and get dressed properly, I invited the Lees over."
"You what? Why would you do that?"
Jihoon also stood at the top of the stairs and shouted, "What are you playing at, Min?"
"Nothing. They are your neighbors and we should treat them so they can be of help to you both in emergencies."
☾
Frustrated that she couldn't get to the list making right away, she took off her clothes with annoyance in every action and got under the icy cold shower.
Her homework still loomed over her as she had so far come up with nothing. Tracing bad memories was easy, they gave her an uneasiness that she could follow but as she focused more on it, she kept losing her train of thought. As if her brain purposefully derailed her.
But the splash of cold water on her face suddenly brought back the day of her release from juvie.
That was a bad day for me, she thought. And tried to remember the details but all that came to her mind was the relentless rain and the locked door.
Without turning the tap off she ran out into her room and picked up her phone.
Water droplets fell around her creating a mess but she didn't care as she pressed on Mark's contact, calling him.
"Moon." His voice was a mixture of surprise and glee. Rolling her eyes she spoke curtly, "I need you to check something for me."
"If I do, will you forgive me?"
"What?" She scoffed, "No, we're done for good, Mark. There's nothing salvageable between us anymore."
He stayed silent on the other side so she spoke up, "I could've asked Bertrum to contact Mrs. Dean but that would take more time, thats why I called you."
"Is it.. about Storm?"
She sighed, "No. He's yours now. I have nothing to do with him."
She was surprised he suppressed the urge to talk about her dognapping Storm all this time, perhaps Haemin was right after all and Mark really did think that he had no right to ask for his dog back.
"So?"
"The clothes that I was wearing on the day I was released form juvie, they were wet so I left them at your house." She said the next part while cringing at it, "So, I need you to check what they were."
"What do you mean? What do I check about them? That they're still there?"
"No.." she wrapped an arm around her now cold body, "I need you to check what they were, skirt or jeans, shirt or sweater top and their colors."
"Uh I think it was a bright colored top and white shorts."
Not all black? She thought miserably to herself.
"Can you please confirm?"
"Yeah okay." It seemed like he was no longer interested in talking to her, "I'll text you."
She felt the same way.
Completing her bath, she stood in front of the fogged up mirror and without thinking she made an angry swipe across it. Facing the girl in the mirror.
And as always it wasn't her reflection. But it wasnt the thirteen year old from Le Caprice either.
It perplexed her to see herself with a shorter and rougher hair cut, like she had when she first got to juvie.
She had done what any outcast did, chopped her hair off. And with a razor at that.
"You stupid brain stop hallucinating." She muttered to herself and screwing her eyes shut she shook her head.
When she looked again, the image had not changed. The girl's eyes were bloodshot and gaunt. Dark shadows underneath along with red lines on both cheeks as if mildly scratched.
She remembered it being a nervous tick before the hand clenching.
She glanced down and saw that she was wearing a peach colored full sleeve shirt with a paper plane drawn on it, it was Jade's. And as she looked at it, she immediately thought to herself , what the hell happened?
One of the sleeves was entirely torn off and bunched in one of her fists. On her arms were fresh bruises that would look disastrous the next day and despite the raven shade of her hair, she could still see the dried blood on the left side of her head.
Immediately Luna raised her hand to her head and felt for something, anything. There was something that felt like a cut but she wasn't sure.
It looked like she was attacked by an animal and with a gasp she realized that one of Frea's bitches must've done this to her, they were heartless assaulters.
But why? She could remember only one fight with them and that one only went till hair pulling and then Molly stopped them. When did this happen?
Tears stung her eyes and with her head hung low she stalked out of the bathroom.
She picked up the notepad and the pen which suddenly felt heavy in her hand and slowly noted down another missing memory.
"Coward." She gritted at herself, "You go charging in to save a friend but you're not brave enough to face the memory of it? You've lost it, you've gone insane."
"Luna." Jihoon knocked on the door startling her, "Who are you talking to?"
She hastily wiped her tears and cleared her throat, "Uh no one, Im just watching a video on the internet."
"Oh okay, well get ready and come down, the guests just arrived."
Already?
"Isn't it too early for a dinner party?"
"You have a night shift at Myungga tonight right? You yourself eat early so I told Min and she invited both the families here early."
Oh right.
"Both the families?"
"Yeah." He replied, "The Kims are here too but thank goodness they only brought their younger son, I cannot stand Hyuck at home too."
Luna's eyes widened, Hyun was here.. and SO WAS HAEMIN.
He didn't know Hyun and her had settled things and were buddies now.
Shit.
This is going to be an un-peaceful dinner.