Icy-Shock (Completed)

23. Treasured Memories

Heartina...

I felt really uncomfortable of his closeness. I looked up at a sky and saw a lot of stars. Then suddenly I saw a shooting star moving on the dark pitch black sky. I remembered my mom telling me to make a wish whenever I saw a shooting star. I made a wish immediately. My wish was to go back to my family soon after solving the case successfully and I also wished Choi Young could be with me as a best friend forever.

I looked at him and he was staring at me with curious eyes. I have noticed him staring at me a lot of times and usually when I looked up at him, he would stare in the opposite direction. But today, though I looked at him, he continued to stare at me with great interest. An alarm went off in my heart indicating a warning to be careful of him. I usually had a bad opinion about men and did not trust them at all. So, I just decided to interact with him so he would not stare at me.

"Young", I said and he nodded and so I continued.

"What do you think about the murderer? From the first, I think the murderer is a young lady of almost my age. Today, you chased the murderer. Do you think the murderer is a lady too?"

He thought for a while. "I am not sure... because the murderer was all covered with black dress and a hood hiding all the hair...but, you cannot judge with hair here, because, both men and women have long hair in Macau. The speed of the murderer was amazing and the murderer just disappeared out of thin air in dark of the night. The murderer had clearly exposed only the eye and they were in an odd ice blue colour. The murderer had a very rare eye colour and I think we must identify him or her only with the eye", he said thoughtfully.

"Choi Young, will you tell today's events to Hwang Tae Kyung?"

"Of course. That is the first work tomorrow".

"Then, if you tell him this, he will know I am not the criminal and may allow me to go back to Seoul. Wouldn't he Young? Then, I will meet my parents and I can go back to my normal life...Yeah! Jolly!!"

Choi Young looked sad and asked me, "Will you not miss me, Heartina?"

I looked back at him and all the smile vanished from my face as he had a worried expression.

"Sure, I will miss you. I am really thankful to God for giving me a best friend like you. I wish you could be my best friend forever. Also, that was my wish to the shooting star today", I smiled.

"Am I your best friend?" he asked.

"Yes. You are my one and only best friend. I had no best friends in my high school at all".

"Why?"

"It was because I was a transfer student there. I kept changing schools and so I did not have any friends at all".

"You would have had a boyfriend at least. Didn't you?" he asked in an eager, sarcastic tone.

My face became red as I did not have a boyfriend in my life at all. I did not understand love at all and have not got close to anyone.

"No Young. I don't have a boyfriend."

"Now or ever?"

"Never ever in my life till this very moment", I blushed.

"What about you?" I asked him and I saw his face going red.

"I don't like girls at all Heartina".

"Why? And how come you speak to me? Am I not a girl?" I asked in a furious, but mocking tone.

"Well, I had a girl yell at me on my first day to school and from that moment, I thought all girls yell and stopped speaking to girls. There were girls who gave me gifts which I rejected and there were few that proposed to me shamelessly. If I speak to a girl, it means she is my patient or my relative"

"Do you remember their names, the names of the girls who liked you?" I asked.

"I don't remember all of them. But there was one girl named Cho See Zay. She proposed to me on Valentine's Day and as usual I rejected her. According to my friends, she was the best of all the girls in the college. She was exactly like a doll. As I rejected her, she became furious and set her 5 pet Doberman dogs after me. They started chasing and I had to run for my life. They chased me for about 3 miles and finally I contacted my security guards from a telephone public booth and then they came from home and helped me out. Till that I was hiding in a public bath, a place where I had not been before. It was a narrow escape".

I laughed so hard that tears filled my eyes. "What did your parents say?"

"They tightened my security and from the next day I had security guards all around me. They stood out of the classroom where I had my lessons. They sat and ate with me at lunch. They even followed me to the bathroom. Urgh!!"

I laughed again and he joined in too.

"Young, I am neither your patient nor your relative. Then why do you speak to me so freely if you hate girls that much?"

His expression changed immediately. I had caught him off guard. He thought for a while before answering. I felt as though he was thinking hard to find an excuse. Then after thinking for a while, he answered me,

"You are Kim Ji Won's model and Kim Ji Won was my friend. After his demise, you were helpless and you were in my building so...I felt really sorry for you and I decided to help you", he said avoiding my eyes.

"You are lying, Young", I teased.

"No I am not", he said and checked the time which was 2:00 am by now. Without another word, he removed his coat from my shoulders and put it on. I shivered and asked if I could walk back. He nodded and I tried to stand up. I stood up but my balance was so poor and so he put his arm on my waist and I limped into the hospital room slowly. He bid me good night and was about to move to the next room when I said,

"Young, be careful. Keep your eyes open. This place is not safe for you", I said in a concerned tone.

He nodded and left. That night, I woke up due to pain as I turned to the other side in my sleep to find a hooded figure sitting in the chair next to my bed and looking at me with concern. Jerking upright, I switched on the light and found no one. It should have been my imagination, I thought and dozed off.