Derick W J Tan

Tiffany sat down on the chairs outside Yoona’s ward and bent over, burying her face into her hands.

Her tears began to flow freely again. The thought of Ixy dying was unbearable let alone the thought of her causing his death. That Gordon must have asked the other specimen to stop Ixy, and she sort of expected that because who else would be able to stand in Ixy’s way? But never did she consider the fact that the other specimen would try and kill him for breaking the pact.

She could remember his exact words.

“Be thankful that your girlfriend came. Last thing I want to do now is kill you and make a pretty girl like her cry.”

If she hadn’t decided to chase after him or had arrived a second too late, that other specimen would have killed Ixy. And the thought of that clenched her heart so tightly that she felt like she was suffocating. Tiffany quickly got up and ran as far away as she could from Yoona’s ward – because Ixy was sleeping in there as well – bursting through the doors to the stairway where she finally broke down in tears and wails.

The bandages around her hands were soaked with tears, dampening the cloth a faded red and causing the scratches and cuts on her palm to sting a little. A pitiful amount of pain compared to the one she was suffering inside her heart. She just couldn’t get that image out of her head. That image of Ixy laying there on the ground with his shirt covered in blood – motionless. All she could do was curl up behind the door, burying her face into her knees and cry… and cry…

I need to tell someone, she realized after some time, remembering how Ixy always told her that the best way to cure a pain felt in the heart was to share it with someone.

So she fumbled for her phone, flipping it open to dial Tae Yeon’s–

–the battery was flat.

It was already flat when she wanted to call an ambulance for Ixy, which was why she had to run out to the nearest payphone instead.

“Stupid phone…” she murmured, choked with tears, and was about to toss it away when she remembered the first time she got it.

Not surprisingly, the phone was a gift from Ixy and he had the exact same model but a different colour of course. But the phone wasn’t as special as you may think. It wasn’t bought with Ixy’s first paycheque and the phone wasn’t won through some silly ‘Couples Contest’. The phone was just an ordinary phone that he bought from a shop, with ordinary money that he earned from performing piano pieces in bars and clubs.

But it was a phone that Ixy gave her.

And that was enough reason for her to treasure it deeply.

Tiffany kept the phone back into her pocket, smiling a little now, comforted by the memories of all the things that Ixy had given to or done for her. But it was those memories that made her treasure him so much, which brought back all the pain when she remembered how he nearly died. And as corny as it sounds, a world without Ixy was simply a world not worth living in.

But just as she was about to break down again, she smelled smoke, and was shocked to see someone sitting at the staircase staring at her. It was the doctor who sent the security guards away when they were chasing after Ixy, and she was also the doctor who treated Ixy when he was brought in. Judging by how little her cigarette had left to burn, Tiffany realized that the doctor must had been sitting there staring at her the entire time.

Creepy.

“You’re…” Tiffany started to say after she quickly wiped her eyes. All the crying had made her voice croaky. “You’re not allowed to smoke in here…”

She really didn’t know what else to say.

“I know,” said the doctor.

But she continued to smoke and even lighted a new one when she was finished with the one she had. Tiffany thought of getting up and going somewhere else but since she needed someone to talk to, why not talk to her?

“Thanks for taking care of my friend.”

“There’s no need for thanks,” she said before taking a puff. “I’m paid to do it.”

The smoke was really smelly and the doctor didn’t seem like she was the least bit curious why she was crying there the entire time, so Tiffany bowed a little and got up to leave.

“They’re not like ordinary guys.”

Tiffany stopped and look at her.

“Who?” she then asked when the doctor showed no sign of explaining herself.

“Who else?”

Tiffany scratched her head and started to think really hard before she realized who, but that would mean that this doctor knew who Ixy really was.

“You… know?” Tiffany asked.

Doctor Rivera nodded.

“And I know you know as well which is why I’m telling that they’re not like ordinary guys.”

Tiffany, the singer in that popular girl duo famous for her super sweet eye-smiles sat back down on the floor, but was still too much of a bimbo to know that sitting in front of a door was a bad idea, whether or not it swung in or out.

“What do you mean?” she asked with a cough.

Rivera sighed and put out her cigarette before spreading the ashes thinly over the floor so that the old cleaner would just sweep it up thinking that it was dust.

“The four of them,” meaning the four specimens of Project M.I.G.H.T. “are manipulated through many ways when they were under the project. Fear, pain and sometimes rewards. But the one key thing that their handlers used was ‘love’. When I say He, do you know who I’m referring to?”

Thankfully the girl nodded, so she didn’t have to explain who the man behind the entire Project was, and how no one could explain why there weren’t a single record of his name within the entire Project.

“Good. Now, He used love to manipulate the four of them, or at least the three of them since the Project was shut down shortly after the fourth was created. Using love, He managed to make the three of them do anything he wanted them to, and he had their utmost loyalty because of that. But when the three of them were finally convinced that He was just using love to make use of them, that betrayal was so big that it crippled the three of them emotionally.”

The girl was staring blankly at her.

Rivera snapped her fingers a couple of times. “Hey, are you following?”

“Yea… I think… When you say the three of them, you mean Ixy too right?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, then yeah I’m following.”

Bimbo.

“Now even though the three of them have managed to overcome that betrayal, their mind and body is still scarred by it. They may be able to love others now like how Ixion loves you and the friends that he have, but if you really want to love him, you can’t expect him to realize it like any other ordinary guy. And you can’t expect him to trust it so easily.”

The girl had that blank stare again.

Now she was sure that the bimbo was lost.

“Basically what I’m trying to say is that Ixion is not an average guy. He’s different. He’s very different. You need to tell him that you love him in order for him to realize it. And you are really going to have to prove to him that your love for him is real.”

Tiffany looked away when she felt embarrassed all of a sudden. The thought of telling him was just downright frightening. She had seen too many dramas to know that if a girl told a guy that she loved him, and if that guy didn’t felt the same way, their relationship would forever be destroyed.

It was too much of a risk to tell Ixy how she felt about him. That was why she never mentioned it to anyone all these years. She was happy with what she had with Ixy and Ixy was the glue that held their entire web of friendship together.

No… There was no way she would put all that she had right now on the line just so–

“–It’s worth the risk.”

Tiffany looked up and saw the doctor getting up, dusting her pants.

“Trust me. It’s worth the risk,” she said. There was a change in her tone. The doctor sounded a lot more… solemn or serious now. “And if he doesn’t feel the same way about you, you’re gonna want to regret telling him than regret never letting him know when you had the chance.”

The doctor paused for a moment, her eyes embedded with a distant look like an old memory was playing back in her head.

“It’s worth the risk…” she said softly before she left, heading upstairs.

Tiffany sat where she was for the next thirty minutes, thinking and weighing the pros and cons of telling Ixy how she felt about him. She wanted to tell him and she wished that he would feel the same way as well so that they can be together, start dating, and someday get married. But she was afraid that–

“–No,” she told herself. “I can’t be afraid anymore. I can’t wait anymore. I need to tell him.”

The doctor was right. Thinking back, if Ixy had died in the police station, Tiffany knew she would regret for the rest of her life for not telling him how she felt. For too long she had kept her feelings to herself. She needed to tell him.

“I want to tell him.”

Confident and determined, Tiffany got up, swung the door open and was about to rush out when a girl outside stood in her way. She got quite startled at first when she saw the girl right outside the door – most horror films involved little girls and a dark, lonely corridor in the hospital. But she wasn’t frightened because this girl was the prettiest girl Tiffany had ever met.

She had perfect features like that of an angel.

- Chapter 26 (Unnie…)