Chapter 31 (2/2)

All six of them planned to hang out together to begin with at that time. It was around 2 pm when he texted Ban Yeo Ryung. The texted contained that he would have sent the messages to Donnie as well.

However, he did not text her. He decided that once she got up she would text her back. With this thought in mind, he sent a message to Ban Yeo Ryung but not to Ham Donnie.

From 2 pm to 10 pm, when they found Ham Donnie in front of Jooin’s house, Kwon Eun Hyung did not text her for the next eight hours, not even a phone call. As if… as if he had forgotten her existence.

Then, Yoo Chun Young opened his mouth and addressed what’s inside Kwon Eun Hyung’s mind until that time.

“We were supposed to hang out together, but is it possible to only forget texting her?”

“… It was not only you.” Kwon Eun Hyung barely detached his lips and replied but soon remained silent.

The bright sunlight slowly increased the temperature within the room, but the silence burrowed between them chilled the atmosphere into an endless burst of coldness. As the frostiness permeating upon the air dominated every nook and cranny where they were standing on, they both felt an invisible hand caressing their spines.

While looking at the dark shadow hanging under the desk, Kwon Eun Hyung recalled his memories of what Ham Donnie went through that day.

If he remembered correctly, the family living next door changed all of a sudden. All of the phone numbers saved in her phone did not exist or it belonged to a stranger. The areas where their homes stood turned into dust as if their properties never existed. He could barely imagine what would it feel to go through all these in real life.

Yoo Chun Young and Kwon Eun Hyung, on the other hand, experienced something similar and smaller to what she withstood that day. They totally blacked out of her existence while she was undergoing that situation. They were not even aware of the fact at that time; things just went so seamlessly…

Then Kwon Eun Hyung raised his head when he Yoo Chun Young’s voice. Yoo Chun Young’s face reflected dazzling white rays making his pale face look like a glass doll.

Only his lips were red; however, they were surprisingly trembling.

When their eyes met, Yoo Chun Young spat out his words abruptly.

“It scares me.”

“…”

It was the first time he heard Yoo Chun Young expressing his fear out loud with such seriousness in his face. Kwon Eun Hyung startled was startled when he remembered how Yoo Chun Young did not even flinch an eyelash when they were watching horror movies and the like.

Yoo Chun Young’s blue-black lashes bent downward while it trembled as he murmured with his eyes closed.

“Rather than the fact that she could vanish away overnight, both of us did not even recognize that fact that she was completely removed from our memory the following day… was even scarier.”

“…”

“If contact numbers were still on her phone, but it belongs to no one, in other words, we could also see the name ‘Ham Donnie’ on our phones. The problem is what if we couldn’t remember anything about her even after seeing her name? Soon, when we would browse our contacts to make a call and find that her number doesn’t exist, would we simply delete it? Would that mean the last fragment of her existence in this world would vanish as well?”

“Geez.”

A hollowed smile ran across Kwon Eun Hyung’s face.

It was exactly what he said. What if they hadn’t found Ham Donnie in front of Jooin’s house? How long would they cease to remember her?

The time of her oblivion could have persisted for over 8 hours and would last for a day, a week, or even years.

They were speechless for a while. The fact that the surreal things could happen beyond their perceptions whirled around their minds and rendered them speechless. Yoo Chun Young remained seated on the computer chair and as his silence continued with his pale face.

Then Kwon Eun Hyung arose from his seat as he noticed that the rain had stopped.

He said to Yoo Chun Young who was looking at him in wonder, “Let’s go meet Donnie.”

“…”

“As soon as she finished speaking, she just ended the call even though I didn’t even say a word. Maybe she’s crying in her room alone now.”

Eun Hyung’s words made Yoo Chun Young rise from his seat. Afterward, he wore the jacket he took off last night.

It was around 11 in the night yesterday when Yoo Chun Young broke into Kwon Eun Hyung’s house. The fact that he was staying awake meant he was up all night playing video games. Yoo Chun Young would never be wide awake around this time of the day unless he was up all night playing.

Both stepped out of the house with their bed hairs. The clock was pointing at 9 in the morning already.