Interlude
She sat in the hotel lobby, her fingers digging into her palms, her nails pressing so hard they left red crescents in her skin. It’d been more than a day since the girls disappeared, but time had lost its meaning. The minutes stretched and dragged, every second filled with a silence that was never there. A specific kind of quiet she wasn’t used to.
And Park could still see them. Laughing as they climbed into the man’s boat, relief written across their faces at the thought of a shortcut back to the hotel. They had waved and grinned and... She had waved back, smiling without a second thought.
And then they were gone.
Swallowed whole by the sea... and it was all her fault.
The police had moved fast. Search boats, helicopters, officers flooding the docks and questioning every fisherman within miles. But there was nothing. Not a single clue. Just a stretch of the endless ocean, nothing but the unmoving blue.
Then the families arrived.
Sana’s mother reached her first, stumbling forward like her legs might give out. Her hand clamped onto Park’s wrist, her grip too tight, too desperate. “Where is she?” Her voice was cracked, hoarse, like she’d spent hours screaming on her way here. “My daughter!” she cried “Where is she?”
Park opened her mouth, ready to answer like she always did, but this time, the words refused to come.
How was she supposed to answer that? How was she supposed to look these parents in the eyes and tell them she didn’t know? That they were just gone.
More families followed, each one searching the lobby like their daughters might suddenly appear from around a corner. Nayeon’s mother clutched her youngest, whispering soft words against her hair—words meant more for herself than for the girl in her arms. Jihyo’s father stood stiff but not tall, his face a mask of control, aimed towards his wife, but his hands gave him away. They trembled where they rested on his knees, fingers curled against the fabric, threathening to tear it apart.
So she forced herself to breathe—to stand tall—to bear the weight of their grief, even as it crushed her inside.
She was supposed to protect them. To keep them safe. And now? Now she had no one to guard, no one to care for... Now she had nothing to give except for her empty words. For her fake blunt apologies.
The hotel lobby had once been full of life—tourists coming and going, laughter spilling from the bar, the faint hum of conversations blending together. Now— and right after she got there—it felt like a waiting room for bad news, for a nightmare that was barely starting.
Park swallowed hard, her own guilt sitting like lead, and tasting just like it. She couldn’t fall apart. She didn’t deserve it. Not when she had been the reason, not when their parents needed something—someone—to hold on to. But as she looked around, taking in the raw fear on each face, the prayers echoing and bouncing of the walls, she realized she had nothing left to offer.
No answers. No hope. Just... nothing.
/////////
But the hours dragged on, with more families, and relatives and close friends arriving, each carrying a grief of their own, a different kind of hope. The hotel lobby was no longer just a waiting area—it’d become a place to share the devastation, where people clung to each other, trying to find solace in a situation that offered none.
And by the second day, the hotel had closed its doors to the public, turning itself into a sanctuary a temporary home for the families.
Outside, the world was watching. Reporters swarmed the entrance, their cameras and microphones aimed like weapons, their faces a mix of forced sympathy and hungry curiosity. The disappearance had become an international story, drawing crowds of people who held vigils, lit candles, whispered prayers into the wind.
Hope flickered in their eyes as she looked though the window, but Park couldn’t bear to look a second longer. She refused to talk to the media, she wasn’t ready to turn this tragedy into a spectacle. So she stayed inside, close to the families, trying to be a steady presence in a storm none of them could escape.
She watched as Jihyo’s mother sat with her head in her hands, her entire body trembling as her husband wrapped an arm around her, holding her together because she was moments from breaking again. Mina’s father sat in the corner, his hands gripping his wife’s, his gaze distant, as if looking at the doors might make his daughter walk though it.
The police had set up a command center in one of the conference rooms, they were searching tirelessly—checking the islands nearby, scanning the endless blue sea—but every update came back the same.
Nothing.
And it didn’t help to have the eyes of the world pressing on them. Questioning every decision, their every move
Park could see it in their faces, the exhaustion, the frustration, the growing fear that every passing hour made finding them less likely.
And then there was Kaito.
The pieces were coming together now, each new revelation hitting like a blow to the chest. A man drowning in grief, lost in the pain of losing his mother and best friend. He had found solace in others like him, a group that just like him, had made a terrible decision—a farewell feast, an end to their suffering.
But Kaito had never made it to that farewell. Instead, he had taken the girls and vanished, leaving his friends behind. Hiding in shame and silence, until now.
Park listened, her breath shallow, her stomach twisting. The darkness of it all sank deep into her bones. How had she missed this? How had she let them step onto that boat? The guilt was unbearable, suffocating. She’d been responsible for them, and now she was standing in a hotel room that was empty of their laughter, only filled with their grieving families, unable to give them anything other than excuses.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to stand straight, to keep going. But instead, the same questions kept looping endlessly in her mind.
How could she have let this happen?
/////////
On the third day, they came in waves. Fans, strangers, people who had never met the girls but felt their absence like a hole in the world. They lit more candles, laid down flowers, pressed trembling notes against the walls of the hotel... they were desperate to cling onto something as well.
She saw them holding hands, signing softly to their songs, praying through the tears just like the rest of them were. Their faces almost reflected the same grief, almost the same desperation as the families inside, and though it was real, she couldn’t help but feel how shallow their pain was.
/////////
By the fifth day, the hotel lobby had morphed into something between a refuge and a graveyard for their shattered hope. Park felt herself breaking over and over again, watching parents sit together, gripping each other’s hands, speaking in murmurs that barely cut through the thick silence.
Tzuyu’s mother sat with her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles had turned white, her lips moving in whispers, her face hollowed out by an agony too deep to name. She barely looked up, barely moved, barely blinked.
Not even a ghost looked as dead.
/////////
On the seventh day, the police called another meeting, summoning the families to the conference room.
Park moved with them, her steps heavy, her hands shaking, dread curling around her spine like a vice. The room was thick with the weight of waiting, the air full of hushed sobs, of empty prayers. Parents clung to each other, siblings sat frozen, drained of color, drained of everything but the gnawing fear of what was coming.
The lead detective stood at the front, his face grim, the heavy news pressing into his shoulders. He hesitated, took a breath, his voice breaking at the edges. “We... we found something.”
A silence so sharp it cut through bone. Every breath held, every heart clenched between hope and horror.
“The boat. It’s empty.”
Her ears ringed, and for a second she forgot she was even there.
The words crashed over them like a wave, drowning out the quiet, dragging them under. She felt her stomach drop, her chest tighten like something inside her was collapsing in on itself. Around her, the families shattered. The quiet sobs broke into wails, raw, piercing, clawing at the walls, at the air, at the unbearable reality pressing down on them.
A mother fell to her knees, her screams cutting through the room like a blade. Fathers sank into chairs, their heads in their hands, shoulders shaking with the grief. Siblings holding each other, their faces blank with a terror they had no words for.
Park couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Her hands were clenched so tightly in her lap she could barely feel them. She could still see them. Laughing, climbing into the boat, waving.Trusting her to bring them home.
The detective tried to say something else, but his words were drowned out, swallowed by the storm of noise around him. “We won’t stop searching. We have teams everywhere, in the air, on the sea... we won’t give up. This is just a step closer.”
But the words were useless.
A father rose, his voice shaking, as he pointed his finger at her. “You should have stopped them! You shouldn’t have let them go!”
Park flinched but didn’t look up. She couldn’t. The guilt was too heavy, pressing down on her, suffocating. She wanted to apologize, to fall to her knees, to beg for forgiveness. But what good would it do? What words could change the fact that they were gone?
Swallowed by the sea. And all that was left was the silence they left behind.
/////////
Outside, the fans kept their vigil, their candles flickering against the dark, their voices rising in a choir of their songs. The world had come together for a second, bound by grief and hope. But for Park, there was only silence. The unbearable, endless silence that stretched between her and the people she had failed.
She sat among the shattered families, picking at her nails until the red showed up, her breath slow, measured—holding in everything that threatened to spill over. Some part of her was drifting with them, lost to the waves, held captive by the last, fading echoes of their voice.
There was barely any air left in the hotel conference room, it was heavy with something unspoken. The lead detective’s phone rang, breaking through the noise like a warning. He stepped out of the room for a moment, his face down, his exhaustion palpable. Park saw the look on his face before he left—blank, nearly hopeless. When he returned minutes later, his expression had darkened further, his shoulders weighed down even more than before.
“They... we managed to track the signals from their phones,” he began, his voice quiet, hesitant, like he didn’t want to strip away the last strands of hope. “All of them pinged in the middle of the ocean... we’re deploying men to the area now. Divers. We should have news soon.”
The parents leaned forward, barely breathing.
The detective swallowed, glancing down for a moment before continuing. “The only phone that didn’t show up was... Mina’s its last location was at the airport.”
He kept explaining, reading out of the notes his colleagues handed him, explaining the detailed search they made at the airport too, the empty seats, the places they had combed through in vain. But Mina’s parents weren’t listening anymore. The moment he had said her name, they had latched onto it, their grief sharpening transforming into purpose.
Without hesitation, they stood. Rushing to the sliver of possibility that something, anything, of their daughter was close, was tangible, was real.
Park watched them go, knowing the truth they weren’t ready to face. The phone was nothing more than an echo, a remnant of a life that was slipping further from their reach. It was likely buried in the endless halls of the airport, misplaced, lost. Gone. But she understood why they tried. She´d cling to anything of them too if she could.
She imagined them moving, running through the crowds, searching every row of seats, every shadowed corner, fingers trembling as they reached for something that would never be enough.
And so hours later, they returned empty-handed, their eyes hollow, stripped bare. They only crossed the entrance to collapse right on the ground.
“My baby,” she cried “Please, bring me my baby back!”
Park felt the words and shared with the wails of agony. She glanced around the room at the others, at the way they waited for something—anything—to hold onto.
But she knew the truth.
No matter how many signals they traced, no matter how many searches they ran, it would never be enough. Not until they brought the girls home.
And some part of her wondered if, by then, there would be anything left of them to bring back at all.