Letters to Hae

Chapter 18

 Rachel's POV

Rachel fell back into life and routine very quickly. The flight home was non-eventful and she hugged and kissed Diane at Sydney airport before they both headed out into different directions.

Life was now predictable. 6.30am start, followed by a shower, suited up and in the car for work by 7am. Teach all day. Home by 5.30pm. Eat, check SuJu updates on SNS, sleep, and repeat.

The only time she could talk to herself without being distracted, was in the car on the way to work and on the way home. "yes, I miss him... No, you can't just message him... Yes, I'll send him a letter for this month... No, you can't just hop on a plan to see him! Yes, that night was lovely... No, you can't just order him to come visit... Yes, I can try to find tickets for SuJu concerts but no... I probably won't speak the language... yes, it could be dangerous doing it on my own". On and on the battles in her head forged on. She decided that she would look up the tickets and hotels and check prices.... Her bank account was showing a low number.... but she pardoned herself by saying "I am getting paid next week".

"Somehow, don't ask me - I found ticket to go to SuJu concert in south America!!!" she posted on her Instagram account. She took a photo of the ticket, only showing the date and venue. She quickly followed-up that post with "where do I stay that's close to the Movistar Arena, Santiago de Chile, Chile?" yep, she was definitely excited. Luckily, she had enough annual leave days built up to take holidays otherwise she would be going nowhere.

A lovely follower replied back to her post with a hotel name. The follower gave a great review of the hotel. She was quick to look up reviews and prices. "oh wow, that's expensive... geez I'd have to sell a kidney for a bed" she took a few days to work out her budget and convince herself that the hotel was the right choice. She didn't want to risk it by booking a hotel far away from the venue or take the risk of it being a dodgy hotel. Yep should would need to secure the booking fast in case she missed out. "South America here I come" she told herself as her family rolled their eyes at the thought of her travelling again.

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Little strange things had been happening of late. She gained a few more Instagram followers in the last month or so, and they were liking and commenting on her posts. Odd, considering she didn't know them personally she thought, but even more odd is her posts and profile contain no pictures of herself. She received a direct message two days ago asking her why she was so quite on her SNS but chose not to reply. Now she received an odd email. It didn't appear to be junk mail – just odd. She couldn't work out who it was from. The email address didn't look familiar and there was no mention of a name in the email address. Very strange. And no signature. "who sends an email without signing it?" she wondered. She figured if that person wanted to 'catch-up' soon they would call her or message her on her phone. She let the odd email slip out of her mind. She was now preparing for her trip. She was getting excited. She just wasn't sure how she would let him know that she was there. She couldn't put that kind of information in her letters in case someone from his company saw the details or the plan. She decided to chance it and just leave it to the universe. She also prayed a lot that this trip wouldn't be a waste of time.

She headed down to the post office and pulled the red lever on the post box to drop her next letter into. She numbered all her letters and this one was number 9. Yep 12 months of letters. One each month, missing a few in between. To the same address. To the same Lee Dong Hae. And never a reply back. But she hoped he would read those letters personally and not his agency or manager. She never got to ask him if he received any her past letters. "note to self – ask him next time!!!". Thinking about her Singapore trip, she realised that she never got to ask him how he knew her name was Rachel or how he knew she was at the pool that fateful night. She definitely surmised that she can be air-headed sometimes.