185 The Group Chat
Jung-Hwa immediately took out his phone and started climbing down the stairs. His attention was on his phone, so he almost tripped on the last stair of that floor.
“What are you doing? Do you want to injure your leg like Ritti?” shouted Young-Chul.
“Sorry! Was trying to make the group chat,” replied Jung-Hwa.
“Do it after we reach home, idiot. And don’t keep thinking about it while driving too, keep your focus on road,” Young-Chul slapped the back of Jung-Hwa’s head.
“Sorry, Hyung,” apologised Jung-Hwa and closed his phone. They both walked up to their car and Jung-Hwa drove the car to the ASD mansion.
“Did you drop her off?” asked Korain as soon as they entered the house.
“Yes,” replied Young-Chul and went to his room. Jung-Hwa jumped on the couch next to Thae who was watching TV while munching on sweets. Jung-Hwa grabbed a few sweets and dumped them in his mouth. Korain was busy in the kitchen while others were in their room.
After a few minutes, Young-Chul came to the living room after changing his clothes. He saw Jung-Hwa sitting on the couch munching on sweets and laughing at the TV. He slapped the back of his head and asked, “weren’t you going to make a group?”
“Oh, right! I totally forgot. Let me ask Choi-ssi first,” said Jung-Hwa and took out his phone.
.....
“What group?” asked Thae.
“I just want to make a group with all of us and the Rencontre team minus Seong-ssi in it,” replied Jung-Hwa.
“But we already have a group, just add Ritti and Jae to it,” said Thae.
“You really don’t think sometimes, do you?” asked Jung-Hwa.
“What?” asked Thae innocently.
“He means that we need a separate group if we want something to discuss among us, no one else needs to know or wants that information,” explained Korain.
“Ohh!” exclaimed Thae.
“What did Choi-ssi say?” asked Young-Chul while measuring rice to put it into the rice cooker.
“He says – you kids make a group and keep me out of it. I don’t want you good morning or good night messages,” Jung-Hwa read the message he received from Chung-Ho.
“Ha-ha,” laughed Korain. “Choi-ssi is always straight to the point.”
Within seconds Jung-Hwa created a group and named it ‘RASD’. R from the first letter of rencontre and rest from ASD. After he added everyone to the group, he sent a message to the group. “Hi!”
Dae was frantically checking Nivritti’s phone for the video she got from the restaurant that the manager told him about. “Did he tell me a lie? But I paid so much money to him. I will kill him. I WILL KILL HIM,” shouted Dae.
He was again checking every folder in her phone. Suddenly a notification appeared on her screen. JJ from RASD, “Hi!”
“JJ? She calls June, JJ. June and Nivritti message each other?” Dae kept thinking. “Wait! If I don’t have the video, I can still send this message to ‘missmatch’ and tell her that June is having an affair with someone in the script department. They work with each other every day, they see each other every day, she even gave him a gift and today she gave him chocolates. That too will create a problem and Nivritti will have to leave the company,” smirked Dae over his evil plan.
Thae excitedly picked up his phone and messaged, “Hi!”
Dae again saw a message from someone named TK. He recognised him as Thae.
Korain too picked up his phone and replied, “Hello!”
Again Dae saw a message from SK.
Young-Chul rolled his eyes and messaged, “Hello!”
“Woah! Ohh! What?” everyone present in the living room started hooting and teasing Young-Chul.
“You never send messages, Young,” Korain patted Young-Chul on his back and smiled at him.
“She will again scream at me if I don’t reply,” Young-Chul smiled faintly.
“He too is scared of her,” gasped Jung-Hwa.
“Shut up!” shouted Young-Chul.
Dae again saw a message from MY. “One by one every member of ASD is replying. What is this?” thought Dae.
“Why have we made this group?” Kyung-Soo messaged in the group.
“Where is he?” asked Jung-Hwa.
“In his room,” replied Korain.
“He couldn’t come down and ask this. He had to send a message, oh, so lazy!!” commented Jung-Hwa. He then typed on his phone, “so we can talk about MY hyung health here. Now, we can post it here, and everyone can read it. No need to send his medical report to Ritti separately.”
Dae kept reading all the messages as they kept appearing in the notification.
“Medical report? What are they talking about?” He dragged the notification down and pressed on the messages. He thought that app would open, and he could read all her messages but to his shock, the lock screen of the app appeared before him.
“She keeps her messaging app locked? What is she hiding here?” he asked. He knew the code, so he immediately punched in the number, but the screen just shook, and a message appeared, “wrong password. Try again.”
Jeong-Eun replied, “ohh! Nice idea. Wah! Girls are here too.”
“Great work, JJ!” messaged Him-Chan at last. They kept waiting for the girls to message but neither Ritti nor Jae-Hwa messaged in the group.
Jae-Hwa was still in shock after Dae’s touch, and she kept scrubbing her thighs while in the shower to get rid of the sensation. Whereas Nivritti’s phone was in Dae’s hands making him angrier as it refused to unlock.
“What?” Dae immediately checked his phone where he saved her passcode. It was 20482048. After double-checking the code, he again pressed the code in her number, but the message was the same that it was the wrong password.
“Maybe it’s just four numbers,” he contemplated. He pressed 2048, again the app refused to open. “Let me try something else,” he thought and pressed every combination of 2, 0, 4, and 8 he could think of. But the app never budged.
He clenched the phone tightly in his fists and groaned loudly in frustration. “What the hell is happening to me? Why can’t I win with this girl? Either she is prepared for every disaster and is very cunning or she is extremely lucky. Ahhh…”
With as much force he could apply, he threw her phone at the wall in front of him. The phone’s corner hit the wall. The plaster of the wall came out with the impact and the phone fell to the ground with a thud.
Even after destroying her phone, he was not satisfied, screaming like a maniac, he kept jumping on her phone. The glass of the phone kept crunching under the pressure. After he let go of his anger, he grabbed her phone from the ground and dumped it in a garbage can.
Now he had to take care of ‘missmatch’. He didn’t want her to message him back calling him names. He composed a message lying that he was a fan and just wanted her to reply to him. He was sorry that he lied but he was happy that she messaged him back and was sorry to waste her time. He immediately deleted his anonymous account.
Grunting and shouting he moved towards his house. He opened the messaging app on his phone and sent an apology to Jae-Hwa. “I feel like you were uncomfortable in my car. Sorry if I did anything to make you feel like this. I would never do anything to make anyone feel uneasy, please forgive me if I was in wrong.”
After reading his messages, she thought for a few hours, “maybe he was just being friendly. He didn’t mean anything by that. He is married and everyone knows he loves his wife.” After Jae-Hwa was feeling okay, she too messaged the group saying, “Hi! Thank you for adding me.”
But there was no message from Nivritti. ASD had their dinner together and Jae-Hwa again messaged in the group, “Ritti! Are you okay? How’s your leg?” Again, there was no reply.
Kyung-Soo was getting worried about her, “everyone has replied once. Why is she not replying?”
“Maybe she is busy,” replied Thae stuffing his face with food.
All had their dinner and retired for the night. But Young-Chul couldn’t sleep. He didn’t receive his good night from Nivritti.
Jae-Hwa again messaged, “where are you Ritti? Why are you not replying?”
All the boys opened their doors at the same time and looked at each other. Young-Chul was ready to go out. He was wearing a hoodie and jeans.
“Why are you dressed like this?” asked Korain.
“She has not sent a good night message to me. Something is wrong,” Young-Chul was breathing heavily.
“But you guys dropped her off at her house,” said Korain.
“Hyung! I don’t know. All I know is she always sends me a goodnight message. I want my message. She berated everyone for sending reports about me, now it’s her turn,” shouted Young-Chul and started walking out of the house.
“I will drive you,” shouted Kyung-Soo and ran towards him. He grabbed his car key and walked with Young-Chul.