Sasaeng Sister [In big roles: Sunghoon, Lee Know, skz, Ateez, Jungkook]

Chapter 28

I apologized for making the chauffeur wait. 

He had sat idly in the Rolls Royce for nearly five hours.

"Don't worry. It's my job," he said, starting the car. 

I still wanted to explain what had caused the delay. 

"It became a police case. Hari got caught breaking into a patient's room."

The chauffeur adjusted the rearview mirror. 

"I'm sorry you failed to keep her out of trouble."

"I didn't fail. I wanted her to get caught." 

His forehead creased. 

"Oh... congratulations then." 

He wore sunglasses, making it difficult to discern if he was being ironic again. His voice remained as monotonic as before, but the corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly, hinting at his satisfaction with Hari's capture. 

As I contemplated his hard-to-read demeanor, my phone chimed. It was an alarm set to remind me of a therapy session.

I didn't feel like talking to anyone right after delivering an exhaustive witness statement, but Ae Ri had agreed to end my sessions if I attended all the meetings she had paid for in advance.

And so, with a reluctant sigh, I gave my chauffeur the address to the therapist's office. 

I had visited the place every week since the abduction. There were seven therapists or counselors operating within the building, so it was common for multiple clients to have appointments simultaneously, and we had to wait together in a lobby.

I opted for a chair in the corner of the waiting area, hoping to distance myself from the other clients. 

A woman who held hands with a middle schooler observed me from the corner of her eye. Her lingering glances filled me with self-consciousness. I thought I looked fairly average, but she watched me as though I was someone particularly pitiable. 

Maybe my anxiety showed. 

I always felt uneasy before a session because I knew I would have to think about the abduction again and recall what had happened back then. 

Every few minutes, I checked the time, eagerly waiting for the digits on my phone to show 4:30 p.m., the scheduled start time for my session.

It struck me that Lucas hadn't seen my message. 

I dialed his number, only to hear the same recording from yesterday, indicating that his voicemail was full. 

Cold sweat prickled on my forehead.

My heart pounded as I hesitated, my finger hovering over the emergency number. 

There was no reason to make the call. If Lucas had gone missing, his company would have alerted the police, and the authorities would have checked his call history, discovering my calls and messages. They should have contacted me by now. 

Additionally, Lucas didn't want anyone to know about our conversation from last night, and there was no way to explain his disappearance without divulging the entire story. 

Moreover, there were people around me, their curious glances fixed upon me. 

I tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs refused to cooperate. It felt as though I had developed severe asthma within seconds. 

My chest hurt. 

I reminded myself that what I experienced was just a panic attack, but my stubborn mind didn't believe it.