The Other Side of Ellise

"Is that DT just a team member?" he asked Ellise, who is walking beside him entering Madame Bae's residence.

"Why do you ask?" she asked back, letting go of his arm and walked ahead of him.

"Well, for starter he looked at me like he is thinking of breaking my face when I stand too close to you," he said, grinning.

"You know that much, and yet you deliberately did it," she said smirking at her older brother. "Tell Madame Bae I don't want to be disturb, I won't eat and sleep first."

She turned around the corner before reaching the living room, leaving her brother on his own to face Madame Bae.

She is now feeling the lack of sleep on her body and the tiredness caused by using her eyes for a long period of time. She forgot to put on her protective glasses so she spend coding Nina's works without her eyeglasses and now she is suffering the result.

When she reached her room, she didn't bother to turn on the lights, she just dropped her backpack on the floor, kicked off her shoes, and dove in her bed, and pulled the blanket over her head.

She extended her arm on her right side bed table and tried to search for the air conditioning remote. She found it on her first try, the house helper that is tasked to clean her room now knows all her quirky habits.

She aims the remote to the air conditioner and at once she hears a soft hum that the aircon is now running. She throws the remote and slides herself under the weighted blanket but she's having a hard time falling asleep, because of someone.

Ellise feels the heaviness of the weighted blanket on top of her. In a normal situation it would lull her to sleep, but not today. Despite the tiredness and lack of sleep for two days straight, still she can't find sleep. And it's all because of DT!

She tosses and turns in bed with the thought of what does DT wants from her, why does he act like he's ... pursuing her?

"No, that's impossible." She shook her head in disbelief. She never thought that DT would mess up her rational thinking to the point that she would talk to herself in a loud voice. She was busy having a one-on-one debate with herself when she noticed someone was on the other side of her bedroom door.

She suddenly stiffened when she heard her bedroom door clicked, indicating that someone opened her door.

She finds her heart jumping on her chest. A shadow of memory she can't clearly put her finger on, flashes in her mind. It disappears before she can look into it. And her heart palpitating doesn't help either.

A soft careful footstep approaches her bed. Ellise's is now agape trying to breathe through her mouth.

She feels her sweat pooled at the back of her neck. Her hands are shaking.

The footsteps stop next to her bed. Ellise didn't dare to move or even breathe.

"Darling."

Ellise heard the familiar soft sing-song voice of Madame Bae. She felt a heavy weight lifted from her chest.

She peeks out of the blanket with just her eyes seen.

"Please don't enter my room without knocking, especially when I'm sleeping. " She said in a cold tone that made Madame Bae' perfectly shaped eyebrows raised in confusion.

"Darling, I apologized for entering your room. It's just that your aunt Joy is in the living room."

Ellise lied back on her bed, staring at the ceiling, still trying to steady her heartbeat. She heard what Madame Bae said but she didn't react.

"What should I tell you, aunt?"

"You can tell her, I am already asleep," she said in a flat tone.

"Okay, then." she bent over and kissed her head.

Ellise flinched when Madame Bae dropped a kiss on the crown of her head. She felt Madame Bae's puzzled look, but she pretended that she isn't aware of her bewilderment.

Madame Bae walked to the door when she stopped in the middle of the room like she remembers something and said, "How about the boy who introduced himself as DT, what should I tell him?"

Ellise upon hearing Madame Bae saying the name DT, her body snapped out of the bed like there was a spring on her back. She throws the heavy blanket away from her. She blinks her eyes on the waiting Madame Bae's.

"What should I tell the boy, sweetie?"

"Tell him to wait. I'm going down," she said with her voice shaking. Could it be from the flashes of some buried painful memories according to her psychologist, or it could be the excitement that DT never fails to bring.

What could be the reason for him to come back? she thought thinking of all the possible scenarios in her mind before she starts moving.

She yawns as she stretches her arms above her head before she gets down from her bed. Her feet automatically search for the bedroom sleepers that the helper always put on the right side of her bed because that's the side where she gets off her bed.

She walked to the bathroom with her eyes closed while she is having an internal dialogue with herself about all the possible reasons why DT came back.

She already got in touch with someone to do a background check on DT and what happened since the night she left Shanghai, but the detective she hired hasn't come back with her with any news yet. She mentally put a note to follow up with him.

Ellise pulled some tattered band t-shirt from her closet and put it on after she brushed and washed her face. She didn't touch her hair, which is now oily for not being washed for two days. She grimaced in disgust, then decided in a hurry to put up her hair in a bun.

She wants to see DT again.

She sighed in disappointment. How could she still be so enamored with a guy who has another girl in his heart.

The thought of it turned her jolly mood into a sullen one in just a snap of a finger. She looked at her reflection in the sink mirror before she got out of the bathroom. She murmured to herself. "You look so ugly."