Defence

5

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Closing the door behind her Yoona stepped out of the suffocating office. Her mind was swarming with doubt and too many questions she didn’t want to answer. Instead of taking her car to head to a restaurant or whatever for lunch she hit the road and began heading up north where most of the expensive homes were.

There had been a large debate 10 years ago after detectives had reported that Victoria could never be traced. They suggested a funeral with an empty coffin for the girl that may have died under the hands of violent men. Her parents refused. Thinking of that now, Yoona felt glad that they’d decided against the funeral. If there were a tombstone with her best friend’s name engraved on it Yoona knew she would have gone after those detectives.

A small laugh escaped her mouth before she found herself staring in through the black gates. Every so often she found herself venturing around the neighborhood on purpose. Though time may have moved on and many years had passed Yoona still felt as if a big part of her were still wandering the past.

Donghae…she’d met him in high school and lost touch after graduation, found each other in university again, and began dating 2 years ago. It had been infatuation. They’d garnered so much interest. A CEO and a Deputy Sheriff, very interesting labels for them.

“What a perfect couple.”

“A handsome man, a beautiful woman. Just perfect.”

“The Lord really created two perfect lovers.”

“I admire them. Their lives must be so perfect.”

Perfect. Perfect was a fake word in Yoona’s world. Perfect girls weren’t real, real girls weren’t perfect.

There had been one night when she’d tried telling him about Victoria, but all words had failed her, then they got into an argument. It was useless. Only her family knew, only Victoria’s family knew, and the only other individual who knew was her Chief.

She promised herself there and then that she’d try to piece everything together by the time she returned to Seoul. As for now she believed that she and Donghae needed a break from each other.

“Yoona?”

A car beeped its horn so loudly that Yoona’s ear deafened for a minute.

“Yoona.” the voice called again.

She turned and found Mrs. Kim at the black door.

A few minutes later she found herself sitting at the white ornate table in the middle of the large kitchen. The wooden counters with the white countertop ran around the wall with many plates and cooking seasonings atop it. She remembered sitting there with Victoria eating snacks after school chatting away about how they hated homework, who was cute, who was not, and what they wanted to do when they grew up. Yoona wanted to be a make-up artist and Victoria wanted to be a model. Reality had ended things for them so differently that she didn’t understand why things had to be the way they had to be.

“Eat up,” Mrs. Kim set a bowl of warm soup in front of her and added a side dish of rice and kimchi just in case she wasn’t full.

“Thank you.” Yoona thanked.

Mrs. Kim smiled and sat down beside her.

Yoona picked up her spoon and took a taste of the soup then smiled, “It’s delicious!!”

Mrs. Kim smiled, “It’s good to hear.”

Yoona ate some more, taking some rice, some kimchi, and returned to the soup before she stopped. She suddenly didn’t feel so well. Turning to Mrs. Kim, who she knew had been staring at her the whole time, Yoona couldn’t help but give her a helpless smile.