Jessica was only 200 meters inside the forest when all the sudden, a thunder-like sound boomed across the sky above her. Her body gave a start and she looked up immediately, searching for a reason. Gray clouds were expected, but all she saw beyond the crowns of the tall trees was blue, clear sky.
She shrugged it off and continued pedaling into the forest. The English man and his family were expecting her in about fifteen minutes. They had called in earlier, asking why they couldn't use the mini sauna system in their house. There was an introduction of how to turn on the oven, but it was in Korean and obviously unintelligible for the foreigners. Jessica would drop by and explain it to them first, then cycle to House 030 to fix the electricity for Sooyoung afterwards.
Arriving at a crossroad that looked like a Y, she took a left turn to the north-west and dodged a branch that almost slapped her in the face just in time. Exhaling in relief, she reminded herself to watch out for it later. She would have to come back here and take the other road to get to House 030.
Jessica kept cycling and cycling, oblivious to the thunderclouds a few kilometers away that were approaching her from the east. What she did not see either was a car passing by the Y, taking the right turn to head towards House 030 in high speed. Because the moment the car appeared, the trees had already devoured her figure behind their shadows, and neither she nor the driver had a chance to see the other.
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Yuri shifted her eyes from left to right, then from right to left, then looked into the rearview mirror before staring at the empty road in front again. Jessica only had a lead of ten minutes, and she hadn't been driving slowly, so why was she still not able to see the blonde on the bike? Yuri tried to remember if Jessica had said anything about where she was going, but the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced the girl mentioned and pointed at House 030 on the map earlier. She was sure her memory didn't fail her.
The uneasy feeling inside her grew with time as there was still no sight of Jessica.
Yuri looked up to the sky. It was still blue. Jessica most certainly still had no idea that a thunderstorm was coming and was cycling deeper into the forest. But thunderclouds moved way faster than people think they could. The deeper Jessica was inside the forest, the less would she be aware of the gray lumps in the sky. But the rain would still drip on her as wet as if she was outside.
Besides that, Yuri was even more concerned by the fact that Jessica had astraphobia. Thunder sounds combined with lighting and fierce rain was equivalent to an army of living cucumbers.
"Come on…" she took a right turn, knowing that House 030 was only another five minutes away. "Where are you?"
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Jessica exited the house and climbed on her bike. She waved to the kids standing by the window before cycling off. The smile remained on her lips as she thought about the happy family with the generous couple and their cute kids. Apparently, she was only doing badly with babies. Children who were a little older seemed to see a lovely unnie in her.
She listened to the funny jingling sound of the tip in her pocket as her bike hopped on the bumpy wooded trail. She remembered how Yuri was extremely good with both babies and little children. While Jessica kept distance and was awkward around a kid who didn't like her, Yuri would disregard the child's poor judgment and approach it with even more laughter, hugs, kisses, silly faces—until eventually, the kid fell in love with her.
Sometimes, Jessica couldn't help but to feel jealous. Not of Yuri's ability to win a kid's heart, but of the kid who received so much love. She knew full well that this act she couldn't control was a pretty childish one. And she would have felt bad if she actually had done something mean out of jealousy. But she never did. So, she felt it was okay to be jealous.
