"What should we do? We can't bring Yonsan back till tomorrow!" I walked around aimlessly, feeling hopeless. Deep down in my thoughts, I regretted making that promise.
"Calm down Karu. We can talk about that in the morning. It's already 3 am." Bomyu lowered his eyelids.
"I am sleepy too." Paikek hugged his dolphin toy, Tootmuyu [툳무유], in his bed.
At that moment, I felt like Paikek and Bomyu were giving up, so I turned my face to Seanyung, noticing that he was looking out from the window covered with rain droplets. Two of the remaining stars in the sky were barely visible.
"Fine... we can do it tomorrow. But promise me that we will." I sighed as I laid on my bed, putting my blue blanket over my body.
"Alright, promise." Bomyu replied in a low tone.
I closed my eyes but I couldn't sleep as there were so many negative thoughts in my mind. Maybe it was the feeling of regret or was it fear.
Eventually, the sun rose at the end of the night that I didn't sleep at all. The light of the dawning sun was entering through the windows onto my bed and the wall next to it. The enlightening light wasn't just beautiful, it made our bedroom warm, away from the cold.
I got out of my bed, wore my slippers and opened the white dyed bathroom door. Our bathroom was a little cute place, with its yellow parquet walls and blue floor. The mirror on the left had a white frame covered with very small flowers. The corners of my eyes looked slightly bloody, and my lips looked remarkably dehydrated in the mirror. I curled a corner of my mouth up a little bit. My dimples were visible when I smiled, even though it was a fake one.
My hand reached the toothbrush on the side of the sink and brushed my teeth. Then, I had a warm shower. The water vapour covered all around the bathroom while I was in the shower. After that, I wore my bathrobe, dried my hair with my hair drier. My bangs were getting longer, but I couldn't care.
The mirror on the wall was coated by the steam. Once, I tried to wipe it off, I noted that some letters started to appear on the mirror, like someone was writing on it by their fingers.
It was saying "It will make you think you're worthless."
Those lines were very familiar, as it reminded me of the song of the ghost at the Komorebi cafe.
The letters kept appearing; "I am watching you. But I should warn you."
"Warn me about what?" Words came out of my mouth.
The letters disappeared unexpectedly, the mirror was again covered with water vapour.
"Are you the ghost at the Komorebi cafe?" I continued to ask although I knew that it was gone.
However, three letters appeared consecutively on the mirror "y", "e" and "s", which confirmed that it was the ghost I met before.
Subsequently, she started drawing some circles onto the mirror, forming a sketch of a panda.
"A panda?"
"You know who that is." The sentence came up soon.
"Karuma panda." I realised, looking into the blurry mirror.
Immediately, a faded figure of the ghost indistinctively seen behind me in the mirror. She was smiling.
I looked back, seeing no one around me. It was gone.
Shortly, I got out of the bathroom, seeing that Seanyung, Bomyu and Paikek having breakfast on the dining table.
"Would you like to join?" Paikek grinned as he offered me a chair.
"Sure." I took my seat and started eating the rice with eggs and tofu sandwich.
"Do you like it?" Bomyu wondered.
"Yeah it's delicious! Who made it?"
"Me of course." Paikek chirped, as he blinked.
"Wow, you have great skills." I got amazed.
"I am good at everything don't you know." Paikek chuckled.
"Let's go. We have things to do." Suddenly, Seanyung got up, with a serious expression, he wore his jacket.
"Oh?" Bomyu sighed.
"We need to go back to the book store." Seanyung beseeched.
"He is right! Let's go." I hurriedly wore my jacket and white converse shoes.
All of a sudden, someone knocked on our door. We got confused because nobody ever visited us.
"Is it the Karuma Panda?" Paikek hid behind Tootmuyu.
"Karuma Panda does not knock on doors." Seanyung sighed as he opened the door.
"I thought you needed me." The old lady Mrs Marleigh was at the door.
"How did you know?" Seanyung's eyes widened but internally he was so happy, we were all happy that she came for us.
"Won't you invite me in?" She smiled, contracting the wrinkles on her face.
"Sure, Mrs Marleigh, come in please." Seanyung let her in, his eyes were still wide.
Mrs Marleight put her brown bag onto the table and sat on the couch.
"Would you like any cookies?" Paikek offered.
"No thanks, darling."
"We need your help." I put in, as I wanted to find Yonsan as soon as possible.
"I know, Karu. Don't panic! Magic will never fail good people!" She heartwarmingly smiled.
The way she smiled comforted me, I smiled back, grabbed the book on the table and handed it to her. When she got the book, she blew on the star symbol on the book's green cover.
"This book conserves great powers that nothing in existence can understand." Mrs Marleigh spoke, her eyes closed while putting her three fingers on the book.
"How do we make it open a portal?" I asked as I sat next to her.
"A portal to where?" Mrs Marleigh questioned as she continued; "There are infinite magical universes with infinite possibilities around us. We can't find which one."
"Then how we gonna find Yonsan?" I bawled as I put my hands on my face., hiding my teary eyes.
"I am so sorry." Mrs Marleigh hugged me to ease my sadness.
"Wait. Isn't there any information which portals the book opened before?" Paikek wondered.
Mrs Marleigh stared into Paikek's eyes as the corners of her mouth curled up, increasing the number of wrinkles on her face.
"That's right." She kept smiling as she opened the book, and put her hand into the middle of the empty page.
She closed her eyes as she meditated. I also put my hand on the corner of the page. Then Paikek, Bomyu, and Seanyung put their hands on mine. We all closed our eyes as we kept meditating.
"Open your eyes." Mrs Marleigh urged instantly.
Once I opened my eyes, the only change I saw on the book was that there was two words on the book; first one was "Forever", and the other "Together".
"Forever Together?" I got puzzled, as I was expecting a list of portals it opened before.
"Wait a minute." Seanyung took his phone out from his pocket. When he unlocked his phone, there was one single notification on the lock screen. It was from the group chat called Forever Together.