MR. CHOI KNEW HE'D ordered Baekhyun and the others, to under no circumstances contact anyone— neither their mother's to tell them they just drank the world's best cup of coffee in the foreign country or Kim Namjoon to tell him that they had arrived in San Marino safely. But even so, he was worried about the big, scary silence. He was almost about to call his faithful contact in San Marino to ask if his son had arrived and was safer than he'd ever been before. But he couldn't and it made him crazy.
All he could do was trust Baekhyun and the other two. And that was a big struggle within itself.
Jaehyun pressed the damp towel against the wound in his forehead while Chungha waved him in the face with Yeonjun's pink fan which he'd managed to force the teen to lend them. The blood that had been running down the side of his face was almost dried by now, but the pain remained. It felt like he had woken up with the worst hangover ever, which he had only experienced once before in his life. He rarely drank alcohol for that very reason. But having a frying pan slammed to his face, didn't happen too often.
The old lady who was still defensively holding the frying pan high up in the air was screaming hysterically in Italian without making any sense. None of the three leaders for the mission had any idea what she was saying, but Yeonjun, who surprisingly enough knew the language very well— according to himself— was forced to act as an interpreter for their small group of confused individuals.
He was still sitting on his suitcase which he had rolled into the flower shop on and he had a lollipop in his mouth that Chungha gave him when he started complaining about how boring everything was. "She says...she doesn't know where the sheep are." He mumbled, looking at the old lady who was still waving around with her arms, Baekhyun had to duck down to avoid getting the frying pan in his face. "No, wait...forgive me, it got that part wrong. She doesn't know where the girl is. She's out but she says she doesn't know when she'll be back. It's apparently some carnival here— Are you sure this is this the person who's going to save us? Don't you think she seems a little...crazy? "
A smacking sound was heard as he pulled the lollipop out of his mouth so he could point inquiringly at his three guardian angels, with it.
Jaehyun dropped the towel from his forehead and regained his sight which had been blocked for a few minutes. "Ask her if she knows why we're here."
Yeonjun sighed before taking off the large sun hat and glancing at the old lady who'd suddenly become quiet. "Sai chi siamo?"
She lowered her arms that she'd held up in a position similar to a defensive one. She nodded slowly and said: "Ti stavamo aspettando! E ora sei qui!"
Yeonjun slowly turned to the others again and nodded. "They've been expecting us."
"They?" Chungha gave him a confused look.
Yeonjun spun around on his black suitcase and made all the dust follow in his movements which caused the old lady to say something angry and threatening to him, whereupon he just rolled his eyes. "Yes. Apparently, a girl is living here too. Or...I don't know about living." He looked around the narrow space with a disgusted look. "It looks like this place has been empty for decades."
Baekhyun let his feet take him further into the lower floor of the house until he arrived at a balcony. He glanced back at the room the others were in before opening the door and stepping out into the heat. He needed one more cigarette to cope but didn't dare smoke in the house, the likelihood that the old lady would hit him with the frying pan too, was too big for him to take a daring risk. He could feel how the smoke he'd inhaled that day had made his throat completely dry and sore. The only time Yeonjun said something to him during the agonizing hours of traveling, something Baekhyun hadn't been looking forward to the slightest, it was to ask if he'd been diagnosed with cancer yet.
The neighborhood they were in was located on one of the higher places in town, it was uphill wherever you looked. So most of the houses there had balconies on both the first and second floor because the house was on a small cliff. Baekhyun was fascinated by the beautiful view in front of him.
With a sigh, he settled down on the plastic chair which was next to the stairs leading down to a small garden. The cigarette smoke was buzzing around his tired figure and the sound of the old lady screaming in Italian and Jaehyun's annoyed urges for Yeonjun to try to silence her was muted by the closed balcony door.
"Ah lovely, you're here!"
Just when he was about to take another drag from his cigarette, heavy steps made the staircase give away a crackling sound and a bright voice made the hairs on his arms rise. Before he could understand what had interrupted his quiet moment, a young girl stood in front of him with a big sun hat on her head and a basket full of jars with jam.
She took off her sunglasses that had been hiding under the screen of the sun hat and took a good look at Baekhyun, who couldn't hide the smirk on her pink lips. He was in a state of shock. "Mr. Choi was right, you do look a lot like a lost puppy!"
"W-what?"
She took a better grip on the heavy basket before opening the balcony door and stepping into the house. Baekhyun looked down at his cigarette, highly confused before he clumsily got up from the chair with such force that it fell down and managed to roll down the first step before he was able to grab it with one foot and pull it back. The young girl was standing in the middle of the small passage which led to several different rooms and looked at the entrances where the others were. They had yet to notice her arrival, as he stumbled across the threshold and was greeted by the scent of dried flowers again.
"Don't bring the cigarette in here!" The girl mumbled without giving him as much as a single glance, but instead put down the basket in the staircase. "Esmeralda doesn't like the smell of smoke. So please, don't make a mess the first thing you do."
Baekhyun glanced down at the cigarette, smoke still rising. It took him a lot of force, but he still managed to hurry back out onto the balcony and put the cigarette in an ashtray that was placed on the small table beside the plastic chair.
He didn't really know how to describe the feeling in his chest when he came back into the house and saw the beautiful girl in front of him. She'd taken off the big sun hat and Baekhyun could now clearly see her long dark hair and flawless face. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to prevent his mouth from hanging wide open with amazement. He usually didn't feel this pull on his heart and he'd probably only blushed once before in his life.
She turned her attention to his figure standing in the doorway.
"Have you been here long?" She asked with a smile he didn't quite understand.
He understood nothing all about the situation.
An uncertain humming sound left his mouth the second the frightening old lady came out of the main entrance, the frying pan still in a tight grip in her hand. Baekhyun instinctively took a step back which made the young girl laugh with an amused smile. She seemed to understand what had happened during the time she hadn't been home.
She took the frying pan from Esmeralda's hand while saying something to her in Italian, only to receive a tiring shake on the lady's head who then disappeared up the stairs and brought the basket with the jam with her. Suddenly Baekhyun was able to relax, the fear of being beaten with a frying pan disappeared.
Again he stumbled over his own feet as the girl disappeared towards the main entrance where the others were still standing, and he immediately followed. Jaehyun and Chungha were both surprised when they saw the beautiful girl Baekhyun brought back with him. She seemed to be their age, something that surprised Jaehyun. He hadn't expected the reliable contact to be what he now saw before him. Firstly, he'd expected it to be a man and that he would also be a lot older than themselves.
She introduced herself as Sihyeon before showing them upstairs where the apartment itself was located. The bottom floor was Esmeralda's flower shop and they were strictly informed that they weren't allowed to be down there, for several reasons.
"But..." Chungha studied Sihyeon with a surprised look. She was standing outside the bedroom she'd been given, watching as the girl took out new bedding from one of the many wardrobes in the corridor. Yeonjun had not been satisfied with the bedding in the room he'd been given and therefore demanded others. "So you are...Mr. Choi's contact? You're the one he sent us to?"
Sihyeon closed the wardrobe with her foot because her hands were full, gave Chungha a confirmatory smile before continuing her way into Yeonjun's room. The boy himself sat on the narrow bed, occupying himself by turning on the many rings adorning his fingers, looking more bored than ever. She was a little surprised though when he immediately raised to his feet and disappeared from the room after only a small gesture from Sihyeon. Since when did he listen to what people said?
Chungha looked after him for a second before returning her gaze to Sihyeon, who'd begun to remove the bedding that was already there and replaced it with the new ones she had picked out.
"So, are you a member of the gang?" She asked and cleared her throat. She didn't know why, but she felt nervous.
The fact that they had been sent to Sihyeon, out of all people, made the beautiful girl something of a senior in both Chungha's and Baekhyun's eyes. Mr. Choi obviously trusted her more than many of his closest men. He wouldn't send his son to anyone and everyone knew that.
"It depends on who you ask," Sihyeon mumbled as she collected the old bedding in her arms.
Her response made Chungha pull her eyebrows together. Depends on who you ask? She was just about to open her mouth to ask what she meant when Sihyeon flew past her and disappeared down the long corridor. Before she could follow her, Chungha stopped herself in the middle of her movements.
"Something feels weird," Jaehyun said.
He, Chungha, and Baekhyun were gathered in Jaehyun's room and were trying to get a grip on their situation. Even though it was several hours since they had arrived in San Marino, they were still not really sure about what was going on. And the fact that they were not allowed to contact Mr. Choi or anyone else didn't make it any easier for them.
"Why would Mr. Choi send us to...her?" Chungha thought aloud and settled down on the small chair standing next to the open window. The heat was still in the air even though it was late at night. Namjoon had been right, it almost felt like they were on a vacation.
"I don't know," Jaehyun muttered. "He must have a very good reason. He obviously trusts her more than anyone."
"Sihyeon?" Chungha mumbled to herself, biting her lower lip thoughtfully. "Have you ever heard of her before? I'm actually unsure if she's even in the gang! Or is she a secret...member? A mole?"
Baekhyun was silent. He was standing in the corner of the room not knowing what to say. Jaehyun glanced at his figure and frowned thoughtfully. "Baekhyun, what do you think?"
He was startled at the sound of his own name and scratched his neck to play it off, and gave away a humming sound. "I'm not really sure." Chungha couldn't help but roll her eyes. Neither she nor Jaehyun had missed the astonishing looks he'd given Sihyeon the whole time. "But I think we should try to trust her. Mr. Choi didn't send us here without a reason. Maybe she's not allowed... to, I don't know, tell us everything—"
"But that would be weird, I mean we're the ones risking our fucking lives for that kid!" Jaehyun muttered with an angry look on his face.
Baekhyun hated situations like these. Situations where he had no idea what to do. It rarely happened because he never got missions like this one, missions where his boss would cut his throat if he failed. And quite frankly he would always be smart enough to avoid anything leading up to an indication of such a problem. Mr. Choi had told him not to trust anyone at all, and he assumed he also meant Jaehyun, Chungha, and even Sihyeon when he said that. So he had a hard time deciding how to behave around them.
When he lay in his bed later that night, or rather early in the morning, he couldn't help but regret being so grateful to have been assigned this mission. Right now he couldn't understand what it was to be grateful for? He didn't want to admit it, but he was actually scared. Terrified to be exact. Neither he nor the other two knew whether they could trust the so-called contact they had been sent to, or not. And their future didn't look that bright.
When it was five o'clock in the morning, Baekhyun was struck by a dangerous thought. Should he run away? Save himself and leave all this behind? Everyone who worked for Mr. Choi must have thought the same thing at some point? It would be strange if it hadn't happened before Baekhyun. Or was it just him who was being weird?
•
For some reason, it almost seemed like Sihyeon was even more beautiful the next day as if her eyes were sparkling more and her lips had turned even pinker. She was standing on the balcony smoking when Baekhyun came down the stairs with his eyes still slightly closed and sleepy. The others were down in the garden, having breakfast that she'd made before they woke up. Baekhyun stopped in front of the balcony door, staring at Sihyeon's bare back: the dress adorning her body very much open in the back, her hair pulled into a ponytail.
She turned around at the sound of the door being opened with a creaking sound. When she saw Baekhyun's newly awakened figure, she immediately smiled kindly and pressed the cigarette into the empty ashtray. He had to put his hands in the back pockets of his jeans to prevent himself from touching her tanned skin, which almost shone in the morning light.
"Are you hungry?" Sihyeon asked and began backing towards the stairs. Baekhyun followed her like a love-sick puppy, eyes observing how her lips moved. "We wondered when you would wake up. Have you slept well? Was it unbearably hot? I know it may be hard at first but you'll get used to it eventually."
The only thing Baekhyun could do was nod and smile. He didn't know what to say and he didn't trust his voice to be steady enough to not embarrass him.
When they reached the small garden and the small table, a happy Chungha pulled out the empty chair for Baekhyun and pointed happily at all the food. "It's a paradise." She murmured before stuffing her mouth full with apple pie.
Apple pie for breakfast? Baekhyn couldn't help but raise his eyebrows questionably.
Jaehyun sat with one of the hundred crosswords he'd brought with him to San Marino and Yeonjun was drinking his fourth cup of coffee. He had discovered a new addiction. Chungha's big sun hat was yet again placed on the head of the moody teenager, and she wondered if it was his way of trying to hide his very black hair which he obviously disliked strongly.
"I hope you'll enjoy your breakfast." Said Sihyeon and pulled out a new cigarette from the package she held tightly in her hand. She placed it behind her ear and said, "I have a couple of things I need to do, some errands, so I will be away for a few hours. Make yourself at home but stay away from the flower shop!"
When she'd disappeared back into the house and Baekhyun had filled a plate with all delicacies food that appeared in front of him, Jaehyun muttered, "She's weird, don't you think?!"
"I like her!" Baekhyun and Yeonjun said in union.