There are Many Flowers in Seoul

Chapter Seventeen

How long had it been?

Days?

Weeks?

Months?

It was more like an hour, and Tae-won had settled himself in one of the plastic chairs, his head tilted back and his eyes closed, patiently waiting for a rescue he was certain would come. He was, after all, a big-shot celebrity. People were going to miss him if he didn't reappear. Rose wasn't quite so sure a full-scale rescue operation would be mounted for someone with such a terrible personality. As such, she hadn't left her spot. Knelt in the filthy gravel without a care for the state of her jeans, she continued to beat her fist against the wooden door. Her voice was hoarse from shouting for help and tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Every time they threatened to fall she took a sharp breath through her nose and blinked them back, too stubborn to let her feelings show.

Even if she didn't, it was obvious to anyone that she was starting to lose hope.

Naturally, she would be missed. Yuta and Hitomi would notice her absence once they searched the building and checked back at the apartment, but what would they do about it?

Would they call the police?

Her parents?

Would they assume that she'd run out into Seoul and had been snatched off the street or mugged in an alley?

Their minds would flit between every terrible possibility before they settled on the idea that she might be stuck on a rooftop with one of the biggest idiots of all time; an idiot who hadn't even apologised for kicking the door stop out of the way in the first place.

Defeated, Rose rested her forehead against the door and pressed her palm to the peeling paint. No matter how much she wanted to hear Yuta's voice from the other side, or willed them to find her, it wasn't going to make a heroic saviour materialise.

'Given up?' Tae-won asked without opening his eyes. 'You were giving me a headache.'

'Doesn't this bother you?' Rose shot back at him. 'Don't you want to go back?'

'My manager will look for me.'

'And you think he'll look up here?' she countered. 'He'll just think you went home.'

Tae-won shrugged. 'It won't rain tonight. We can stay up here until morning.'

'It's cold,' Rose complained. 'And I don't like being stuck anywhere.'

'Take it easy, Japan. Someone will open that door.'

The way Rose's luck was going, she highly doubted it. Besides, she really wasn't a fan of being isolated in one location without any sign of an exit. Like a restless animal in a cage, she was soon on her feet, and began prowling around the rooftop in search of a way back down. The buildings were packed tightly together, but she was hardly athletic, and didn't want to take a flying leap over onto the neighbouring block only to find that she was just as trapped there as she was on the studio. If they'd been in a television drama a passing helicopter full of Tae-won's wealthy friends would drop down and four handsome men would climb out and tell her that they'd been worried about her, but real life wasn't like that.

And – you know – she totally didn't watch those sorts of shows.

As she peered over the ledge and took in the distance between their position and the ground, Rose couldn't help but feel queasy. She wasn't as bad with heights as her mother, but the prospect of falling into the street and turning into a Jackson Pollock painting on the sidewalk didn't appeal. Tracing the ledge with her fingertips, Rose circled the rooftop, looking for anything at all which might catch someone's attention or convey them to the ground safely. Her sore knuckles bumped against a rusted, flaking metal pole which, upon further inspection, proved to be a fire escape ladder. It passed between the windows on the next floor down and ended in the alley below, and Rose wondered if she could knock on the glass to gain someone's attention and direct them to the roof.