THE
UNFORGETTABLE MEMORY
Another day has passed. Cherry stares at
the window blankly while her mind is working on something else.
Fifteen years ago
"Help me!" The voice of a small
kid echoes loudly in the deserted alley.
"You're not gonna get away this
time!" The boy snarls.
"Please, don't hurt me! I've never
done anything wrong to you! Please, I beg you." The girl pitifully cries,
wailing loudly.
"Now, you must pay for it!" The
boy immediately flings his fist towards the girl. A hand catches his, holding
it still firmly.
"Quick, get away from here!" The
boy with the rainbow cap shouts at her.
The girl immediately flees, leaving her
life saviour alone behind. As she bolts down the path to the main road, she
hears the sound of a boy being beaten and moaning painfully.
"Don't worry my hero. I'll come back
for you." She immediately calls for help from the people.
Some people come with her to help.
"Wait, where are they?"
The boys are no longer there.
The girl sees something on the floor.
Picking it up closer, she views it carefully. It was not there earlier.
"G. K." That is the only thing
written on the white bloody handkerchief.
***
The girl with the braided locks walks into
the coffee shop frantically.
"Oh my goodness! I am so going to be
dead today!" She glances at her watch and lets out a surprised shriek.
It's eight past half. She is indeed, very really late.
The cheerful face of
SeoHyun greets her at the counter. "Good morning, Lisa!" She said to
her, crisply.
Lisa smiles at her and quickly shuffles her way to the corner of
the shop, into the room of the owner. Praying hard, she knocks on the door with
a smile on her face.
"Come in," a loud husky voice
welcomes her into the room.
Lisa politely smiles at the man.
"Good morning. I'm sorry for being
late, Mr Anderson. Yesterday, I had to do my assignments which are due on tomorrow."
The man puts his pen down on the table. The
look on his face starts to make Lisa crept out.
Mr Anderson is not someone whom you can
call a gentleman, even when he does smile gentlemanly. He, on the other hand,
is completely a bad-ass. He does not care if you do not eat before you work. He
does not care if you are suddenly sick and you have to take a day off work
without a week's prior notice. He does not care if you overslept and of course,
you show up at the workplace a little bit later than what you are supposed to.
In fact, they are exactly what he hates the most; latecomers.
"I don't want to hear any
explanation."
"But - I..."
"There is no 'but'. From this day
onwards, you no longer work here."
He pulls out a white envelope from his
perfectly ironed coat.
"This is your pay for this month. I
cut two days' pay off because you fall sick a few days ago."
She so knew it. He won't even consider it.
He has already decided. And it is final.
***
She gets herself out of the room with a
puppy face.
Looking at her with full interest, Seohyun
asks, "What's wrong, dear?"
Lisa pulls a pouty face. "I just got
fired."
The look of Seohyun's face changes abruptly
from a look of concern to a look of sad. "Oh, I am so sorry to hear that.
I hope that you'll get a better job somewhere."
"It is okay, Seohyun. I hope so." She forces a smile.
They embrace in a tight hug, as if they will never see each other again. Seohyun then gives her something in the package used to pack the pancakes sold at the cafe.
"Please take this, Lisa. I hope this
will do before you are able to look for another job." She smiles sadly.
After a lot of refusal and a while of
coaxing, Lisa finally takes it. "Alright, I'll take it. Thank you so much
for this, Seohyun." She waves goodbye at her.
They then depart.
She walks through the street, feeling empty
and then she sees a sign with some words on it. She comes closer to take a look
at it.
It says "Employees wanted. We need a
young female worker with an interesting appearance. The pay is around $5,000
per month."
"Oh my god! Did it just say $5,000? It is such a huge sum
of money!"
Her heart leaps with joy and excitement. Desperately, she looks
into the window. There is no one inside, but the sign says "OPEN".
So, she decides to take a peek into it.
She pushes the door swiftly and walks
around. There is a room which looks more like a bedroom. A lot of costumes and
outfits that reveal the skin a lot are hung at the wardrobe.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" A
man's voice greets her.
She turns around and sees an older man
around his forties.
He gives her a huge smile and continues. "Oh, you must be coming here for the
job, right?"
She gulps. It gives her shivers, looking at
how he checks on her, from top to bottom.
Mustering every bit of courage that she
has, she replies to his answer. "Yes, I am. So, what is this job all
about?" She asks out of curiosity.
He grins wider, which gives her the
impression of Joker in The Batman movie. "There is nothing tough about
this job. You only have to be a model for the company."
He then shoves a pair of revealing clothes to
her. It is a white dress, with some V cutting at the top and the skirt only
reaches just before the knees.
"I'm sorry, sir. I cannot possibly
wear this. It is too sexy for me."
A look of anger flashes in his eyes.
"Do you really need this job? I hope that you won't regret turning my
offer down. You'll be handsomely paid if you take my offer, I guarantee
you." He looks reassuring about that.
She then nods her head, as a sign that she
accepts his offer.
He smiles at her. "Now, go into the
bathroom and change." He points his finger to the battered looking
bathroom located just at the corner, motioning her to hurry herself up.
She
does as what he has instructed her to.
Minutes later, after she has finished changing
her clothes, she comes out of the bathroom.
He looks at her and grins.
"Perfect", he says.
He then takes some pictures of her, asking
her to do some poses. He even asks her to pose on the bed. She starts to
chicken out. She makes up her mind that after this photo shoot, she is going to
leave this place as soon as possible. After about two hours, they are done with
the photo shoot. He hands her a handful of notes. She then takes her things, rather in a hurry.
However, before she leaves, he starts to
touch her. She screams wildly, as she pulls the door knob to go out. The man
quickly grips her arm and pulls her inside, not in a very gentle manner. He
literally drags her into the bedroom, where she still ends up screaming loudly
to the highest pitch of her voice.
"What's going on over here?" A
man comes in.
"YOU GET OUT OF HERE! This is my
business. It has nothing to do with you." The shop owner bellows back
angrily at him.
The man who has just entered looks at her.
He notices that she is scared and sure enough, tears start to stream down her
cheeks as she asks him for mercy.
He immediately pulls the man and fights him
bravely. He punches and pushes him towards the wall. But the owner is also a
good fighter.
As she remains rooted at the spot, he
shouts at her. "You can just go! I will fight this man!"
She locks eyes with him for a moment and
she quickly takes her things before she leaves the place.
After she pulls out her hand phone out of her bag, her fingers immediately dial on the emergency number to reach the police.
After a few beeps, her heart starts to race. Beads of sweat trail down her face as she waits on. Finally, after waiting for five minutes, which she feels like an eternity, they finally pick up the call.
They
arrive at the place about ten minutes later. Bruised and injured, the owner is
arrested for fraud and scamming.
The police inform her that he is also
suspected of killing seven girls who have actually disappeared after they claim
to their respective family that they are going there for the job. But there is
nothing that the police can do since they do not have any proof to get him
arrested. The bodies are never found.
She shivers when she hears all this. She
lets out a sigh of relief. Luckily, there is nothing bad happened to her. But
what about the boy who has saved her life?
"Oh, my goodness!" She gasps in horror as she sees him lying
on the floor.
He is still conscious, but he can hardly move as his leg is badly
injured. She immediately calls for an ambulance and it arrives not long after
that.
At the hospital
"Thanks for saving my life." He
grins.
"No problem. You did save my life
too."
"What's your name?" He asks her,
with a shy look on his face.
"My name is Cherry Lee Sa Cheong. My
family usually calls me Cherry, but since they have all passed away, I would
prefer if people just call me Lisa." She nods grimly at him.
There is a long awkward silence after she pauses.
"Well, what is yours?" She
attempts to change the mood.
"Mine is Lee Gi Kwang. But you can
call me Gikwang. I am a nice guy, you know."
He then lowers down his face. Few moments
later, he looks up at her from the white bed sheet. "May I call you
Cherry? I am sorry if this burdens you." He blurts out.
She looks at him, without blinking her eyes.
He stares intently at her, not doubt justifying his action. "I
would like to be someone like a brother to you. I want to protect you."
A few weeks later
Cherry watches the blue night sky and
counts the stars. Gikwang is also lying next to her. She suddenly sneezes,
perhaps because of the cold air or because they have been out in the cold night
air for too long, more than three hours.
"I think you are going to get a cold,
Cherry."
"Well, I don't think so. My body is
immune to diseases you know." She smirks at him.
"Yeah right. Trust me, you really are
going to catch a cold." He insists.
Cherry pulls out a handkerchief from her
bag. It is the same handkerchief fifteen years ago. A look of shock falls upon his face when he sees this.
"Where do you get this handkerchief?
Does someone you know give it to you?" he asks.
"No, I found it many, many years ago.
And why are you asking that?"
"Just tell me how you found it, pretty
please?" He persuades her, looking at her with the expression as if he will die if she does not tell him the truth.
And as what we reckon, she tells him every single thing that
happened fifteen years ago, right from the moment she was dragged into the alley till the moment she noticed the handkerchief on the floor.
"Actually, I am the owner of
the handkerchief." He confesses; his face looks dead serious.
There is a look of shock flashed on her face. She
immediately cries.
"Oh, I thought that I'd never see him
again! And the boy saved me again, twice. Thanks Gikwang, for being my knight in the shining armour."
He blushes as he replies, "You are welcome.
Thank you very much to you too because you have also saved my life."
Cherry asks him, looking puzzled with what he has
said just before. "What do you mean by that?" She frowns as her brain rapidly rationalise things that have happened.
"You saved my life when I first saw
you."
As his eyes stare intently into hers, he quickly pulls out a diamond ring from his pocket. "Cherry,
would you be my life partner? Would you allow me to be by your side and protect
you for the rest of my life?" He proposes to her.
As warm tears of happiness flow down her
cold cheeks, Cherry is assured that if she really catches a cold tomorrow,
there will always be a Sun to keep her warm.
