"Mind if I borrow this beautiful lady from you guys?" Alice asked and winked at them.
"Hey Alice! Good morning." Guo Xiaolan stood up and greeted her.
"Good morning everyone, Good morning Iris, Xiaoxiao, Meimei, Zhenie, Ronger and Marie." Alice intimately greeted the girls.
"Have you eaten already?" Yun Mei asked.
"Yeah! I did. Food here is amazing! I kind of wanted to hire your chef to serve me good food for a night." Alice joked but it was more of a compliment.
"That's good to hear." Yun Mei said in relief.
Kim Eunji somehow got Alice's message and stood up from her seat. She gulped the last drop of her fruit shake and placed it back to her table.
"I think it's a yes?" Kim Eunji only nodded shortly and let Alice to wrap her arm around her.
Iris was about to stand up but she had not finished her food yet so Kim Eunji said, "Finished your food first. Call Derek and Darren and asked them to meet me in the parking lot on the time that I'll text you."
Iris could only gulp and nod her head. She knew Kim Eunji already knew that they were hiding something from her. She could only gulp as she clenched her fist.
"Are you okay?" Guo Xiaolan asked her. Iris could only smile to them and said, "Yeah. I'm fine. I'm just a little bit tired." Iris replied.
Meanwhile...
"Are you okay?" Alice asked as she saw Kim Eunji's complexion turning to pale.
"I'm okay." Kim Eunji stubbornly insisted.
"Clearly you aren't." Alice knew this as she had seen this episodes of hers a couple of times. Especially when she's extremely pressured at work and when stressed about something or someone.
"Look at you." Alice started to nag at her.
"Now look at me." Kim Eunji said in sarcasm.
"Huh! Stop fooling around will you?" Alice did not smile or laugh with her joke as Kim Eunji's state was not good.
"I thought you were trying to start singing the lyrics of a song." Kim Eunji refuted.
Before they could even walk further, Kim Eunji started to puke.
Alice could only pat her back and rub it gently. All the passers by also looked at her with a worried look on their faces. A female student even offered her unopened bottled water for Kim Eunji to drink.
"Thank you." Alice said her thanks and uncapped the bottle then gave it to Kim Eunji who had just finished throwing up.
"Geez! You smell gross! Here." Alice then gave the water to Kim Eunji.
"Now what?" Alice asked as she looked at Kim Eunji who was now also looking at her.
"I'm fine. I just needed to rest. To sleep it off." Kim Eunji replied.
"Clearly, you looked like passing out. Come. Let's get inside my RV."
Minutes later, they reached her RV and got in.
Alice gave Kim Eunji pain meds since she saw that she was pinching the space in between her brows earlier.
"You're clearly not okay EL. Don't be stubborn and keep me worrying. Do you have trouble sleeping? I'll call Dr. Roland for you." Alice called her EL since it was the name she's used to.
"No need. Uncle must be very busy tending patients right now. And I don't know where the hell he is right now. I don't want to disturb him over some trivial matters." She sincerely expressed which made Alice to worry even more.
"Anyways, I'm more interested to know about you and Magnus. What's going on between you both?" Kim Eunji asked trying her best to divert the topic.
"There's nothing going on between us. It was just a mistake. A big mistake on my part."
"Mistake? How and what do you mean?" Kim Eunji suddenly became curious.
"The both of us...we...kind of shared a passionate night together. And things got awkward afterwards." Alice confessed but she could not stop a tear from dropping from her eyes.
Kim Eunji watched as Alice secretly wiped the tear off from her face and waited for the latter to continue
"Hey...it's fine." Kim Eunji said as she tapped the latter's back as she encouraged.
"So, when did this night happened?"
"One and a half months ago." Alice honestly answered.
"What's wrong with that? Both of you are single right? The last time I've heard, Magnus broke up with his long-time girlfriend for some reason he didn't want to share." Kim Eunji thought how it could be a big problem when both of them were single. Unless Magnus only treated Alice as a friend.
"He did. That's because of what happened between us. He felt guilty for what he did. He felt like he cheated on Claire because of me." Alice confessed.
"He wanted to make things right between us because of what happened but I didn't want for him to. I didn't want him to be bound to me just because of that stupid night that should have not happened between us in the first place. And besides, I only treated him as a big brother."
"And besides, call me stupid but I don't think I'm straight. I kind of swing both ways."
Kim Eunji was not shocked by it since ever since day one, Alice had been acting differently.
"I know. I could feel it. I caught you many times... I don't know...trying to check me out?"
Alice blushed hard with her eyes widened. She wanted to dig a hole and hide inside there.
"I'm sorry. Geez! I felt like a pervert when you said that." Alice felt like she's the biggest idiot in the world.
"No worries. You're not a pervert. You were just curious." Kim Eunji nonchalantly replied.
"Wait. Why do I feel like things were much bigger than what I see?"
"Well I just found out recently that Claire was still not over with Magnus and Magnus felt the same way, too. So they reconciled. Also, managing the newly opened branch was just an alibi by my Dad. It's not the main reason why he sent me here. He actually wanted me to marry some random guy here." She confessed.
"Random? I think you're exaggerating." Kim Eunji refuted.
"No. Dad meant it. I'm supposed to meet him this weekend. But I don't want to. Now I'm thinking on how should I make the man to disagree with the marriage as well."
"Then...that's a big problem that only you could solve. You said you're attracted to both genders. Why don't you try and give the two of you a shot? Like there's no harm if you'd get to know the man first. Unless there's someone special in your heart right now." Kim Eunji advised.
"If you're still really against the idea even after you met him, then convince him to be on the same page just like you do." Kim Eunji continued.
"Gosh! Why do I feel like fate is playing some tricks with me?" Alice emotionally plopped herself on the bed.
"How about you?" Alice asked after a moment of silence.
"Hmm?" Kim Eunji raised her brews acting as of she didn't understand what Kim Alice was saying.
"Well…is it your man? Tell me. Is he your boyfriend or somehow your fiancé?" Of course there's no way she would expect the answer to be way more than that.
"My husband." Kim Eunji honestly said which made Alice's eyes to widen in shock.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Hands still in her mouth as she still tried to recover from shock.
"Do I look like I'm playing around?" Kim Eunji sounded annoyed by her reaction.
"N-no! Definitely not! I was just-" Alice pause as she tried to find the right words to say. She was shocked to say the least.
"Well, everything went crazy on my end this couple of weeks. I got into an accident which made me lose on year of memory and got involved with this man whom I know I should be careful to be with but he was just this persistent and caring that slowly and surely...Hek! In just a short amount of time, I found myself slowly falling in love with him. He made me believe that everything's okay as long as we have each other.
But now, he's nowhere to be found. I want to look for him but I can't since I'm not allowed to go out of the school yet." Kim Eunji poured her frustration.
"Nowhere to be found? Why? Where did he go?" Alice was confused.
"He said he'll be in a business trip for a week in New Zealand but he didn't text me after Tuesday. I tried to track him but I can't. I felt helpless. I mean...am I acting like a clingy wife or am I just over reacting? I don't know anymore. I had this gut feeling that something was off but I can't exactly pinpoint as to what." Kim Eunji broke down and Alice immediately rushed and hugged her for comfort.
"Shhh!" She tried to coax her as she gently rub her back. She didn't say anything as she had found no words that she knew could lessen the pain and worries that Kim Eunji was feeling at the moment.
Alice could not bare to imagine the anxiety that Kim Eunji was feeling at the moment.
Alice let Kim Eunji to pour it all out in in her cry. After a couple of minutes, she could feel that Kim Eunji's breathing had evened out.
Kim Eunji doze off to sleep because of exhaustion.
"Good grief." Alice had no choice but to help the latter to lay down on her sofa. She placed two pillows on her back and took a blanket from her bed and draped it around her body.
She went to one of Kim Euji's suitcases and took a pair of clean clothes for her to wear when she woke up. She placed it on her bed and left a note there.
She decided to let Kim Eunji to have a rest first.
When she went out of the RV, Guo Xiaolan, Iris and the rest were camping outside. They've heard from the students that Kim Eunji had thrown up earlier.
"How's she?" Iris worriedly asked.
"She's sleeping. She's clearly stressed about something but don't worry, she'll be fine." Alice reassured.
"Shouldn't we bring her to the infirmary? We don't want to disturb you from your work." Fu Rong asked her.
"Thanks girls but I'm more than happy to serve her." Alice shortly explained.
"If you're willing to watch over her…given that you girls didn't have any activities for school, here's the key. Kindly return it to me if our sleeping beauty finally wakes up and decided to leave." She simply instructed and left them in disbelief.
"You girls should go. I'll watch over EJ." Iris told them but the girls were hesitant to leave.
"EJ would be very thankful for your concern but please she would not be happy if she had become a bother in your daily routine." Iris explained. During a short time that she's with Kim Eunji, she could already tell the latter's attitude.
Kim Eunji didn't want to be a bother to anyone.
"Nope. We had attended the same routine every year. Ditching it now won't matter. And besides, we have a valid reason to do so. After all, we didn't want to lose the Ace of this school."
Iris' eyes widened in shock. "How did--"
"How did we know? Well, we're not dumb to not stick the pieces together. First, her secret identity. Her IU card and the way you treated her. Also, the school director had told me that a special student would be under my care. And since this student wanted to have a simple or the so-called low-key life, we should treat her normally. But don't worry. We mean no harm and we didn't have any motives." Guo Xiaolan defended her group.
"Yeah. We didn't mean any harm. We just wanted to be her friends. She's cool and we liked her a lot. She's different from everyone else." Wen Zhen explained.
"But please don't tell her that we knew. We don't want her to be upset." Yun Mei pleaded.
"I don't think she'll be upset. But okay. I'll keep it."
The girls decided to take turns in watching over Kim Eunji until she woke up.
After three hours of falling asleep, Kim Eunji who was sleeping on the couch was frowning and huge beads cold sweat formed on her forehead. She was grounding her teeth together as she tossed and turn.
Darren and Derek also came to check on her. However, just like Iris, their mouth were closed.
Since the couch was not that spacious, Kim Eunji fell off on the floor. Good thing the floor was well-carpeted therefore it minimized the impact of her fall. Because of this, Kim Eunji woke up and found herself drenched in cold sweats.
Her heart was also beating so fast.
Because they've heard that a heavy object fell off inside, Iris and Guo Xiaolan decided to get open the RV and checked on what was going on.
They saw Kim Eunji sitting at the foot of the couch with her hand on her chest as if she was trying to calm herself down.
"Are u okay?" Iris came closer to help her stand up.
They give Eunji a glass of water for her to drink and Kim Eunji gulped it all down.
When she regained her composure, Kim Eunji looked at Iris and seriously said, "Tell the two that I'll well meet at the parking lot two hours from now."
Iris could hear the urgency in Kim Eunji's tone. Iris had no other choice but to obey. She had to.
"As you wish EJ." Kim Eunji said and pulled Guo Xiaolan out of the RV.
It was clear from the latter's expression that she wanted to ask something but decided not to since it was unrelated to her.