As her fingers grasped at nothing, Su-Jin's hands began to shake violently. A feeling of cold dread took hold of her, turning her entire body rigid.
'It's gone! It's gone!' She desperately thought to herself.
She looked down and, with a look of horror, confirmed the alarming truth.
The necklace holding the ring was indeed gone.
Su-Jin's mind was in a frenzy, trying to think of places where she might have dropped it. But all her attempts came back empty.
As if sensing her friend's trouble, Yeon-Ah turned to Su-Jin.
"Is something the matter? You look very pale."
"I… I think I lost it."
Su-Jin spoke very quietly. Her eyes were staring straight ahead, but focused on nothing in particular. She felt her heart beating rapidly, almost jumping out of her chest. In a split second her throat went dry, making speech difficult.
"Lost what?" Yeon-Ah asked, confusion written all over her face.
"My necklace. I am sure I had it this morning when I arrived here, but now it's gone."
"Did you take it off somewhere?"
"No, I never take it off." Su-Jin shook her head, then added in a panicked whisper. "Yeon-Ah, I am sorry, but I am going to try and find it. I'll be back later, ok?"
Jumping to her feet, Su-Jin left the table in a hurry, without looking back.
As though he was on high alert, Ji-Won's eyes immediately caught her movement. His eyes quietly followed Su-Jin as she quitted the room. A small crease appeared between his eyebrows and he lowered his glass, slowly placing it back on the table.
Ji-Won wanted to ask Yeon-Ah what happened, but a second later he decided against it.
There were two reasons for that.
Firstly, the woman was sitting too far away from him. Consequently, addressing her any questions in that circumstance would have surely attracted attention. Ji-Won wanted to avoid that as much as possible, so he had to reconsider.
Secondly, it wasn't even his business what Su-Jin did or where she went. She wasn't a child that needed his supervision, nor was she his girlfriend for him to worry so much about her actions.
With these thoughts battling inside his mind, Ji-Won ultimately resolved to sit down quietly and enjoy his drink.
Seo-Jun, who in the meantime had left to get himself another drink from the bar, was just then returning. He sat down next to Ji-Won and casually glanced around.
"I see we are one person short." Seo-Jun remarked in a low voice so only Ji-Won could hear. Afterwards, he added slightly louder. "Miss Lee, where is Miss Park? When I left a little while ago she was still here."
"Ah, Su-Jin went outside for a bit. She…" Yeon-Ah hesitated. "She lost something."
"What did she lose that was so important? She even left during a party in order to search for it." Seo-Jun asked in amazement.
"Uhm, she said it was a necklace." Yeon-Ah replied with a small smile.
At this, Ji-Won's thoughts got rattled and he couldn't pretend that he didn't care anymore.
His head snapped in Yeon-Ah's direction, his eyes narrowing slightly. He knew very well what necklace Yeon-Ah was referring to. It was most surely the one he had seen that night at the restaurant, the one holding the ring.
If that was indeed so, then the object was important enough for Su-Jin to go wandering about the forest in the middle of the night searching for it. Something told Ji-Won that she wouldn't rest until she found it.
Finishing the rest of his drink in one go, Ji-Won finally got up to his feet. He ignored Seo-Jun's curious gazes and slowly made his way out into the inn's lobby.
Then, he hesitated in front of the stairs for a moment, before turning around and heading towards the entrance.
~~~
During this time, Su-Jin had gone through the entire room, searching everywhere she could think of, but with no success. The ring was nowhere to be found, either in the bathroom or in any of her clothes.
Feeling the cold panic spreading inside her chest, Su-Jin crumbled on the floor. She took a few shallow breaths, stifling the sob that threatened to escape through her lips.
Then, just as she was beginning to feel even more scared, a thread of hope unexpectedly entered her mind.
'What if the necklace had somehow fallen off and is now somewhere in the grass?'
She had been outside almost the entire day, running around in the field.
So, wouldn't that make her guess quite plausible?
Clinging to this thought like a drowning man holding onto a lifeline, Su-Jin sprang to her feet and ran out of the room.
In just a minute, she was bursting through the front doors of the hotel like a gust of wind, hurrying down the slope towards the field.
It was getting dark outside, the sky taking on a darker shade of blue. A few twinkling stars were already visible, forewarning the quick approach of nightfall.
Su-Jin ignored everything around her.
At that point, her thoughts were focused solely on reaching the field and finding her ring.
Half of her was already despairing, saying how futile this whole thing was, how impossible it would be to find something so small in such a large open space. Not to mention the fact that light was dimming fast, making it difficult for her to even see where she was stepping.
A few minutes later, Su-Jin was entering the field where the competitions had taken place. The space was cleared, all traces of the event gone.
Taking a deep breath, Su-Jin stepped onto the grass, walking slowly and keeping her eyes lowered.
It was very difficult to see anything properly, thus, she soon had to take out her phone and use it as a flashlight.
'This is exactly like searching for a needle in a haystack. It will probably take me an entire night to go through this large field. Ah, if only the moon was up.' She thought morosely.
Several minutes later Su-Jin was on the other side of the field, bent down and with her phone in hand. The light shone brightly over the grass, giving Su-Jin a small hope that she might actually have a chance in finding her precious ring.
It was an arduous activity, though, and her back was beginning to ache.
Just when she was thinking of taking a short break to straighten her back, Su-Jin saw something move straight ahead.