Chapter 60 – The Morning They Realized JJ Was Gone
6:02 AM — Manila
Keifer Watson never missed his morning calls with JJ anymore.
Never.
No matter how busy meetings became.
No matter how exhausted he was.
No matter how late he slept.
6AM belonged to her.
Always.
---
This morning—
the call didn't connect.
Keifer frowned slightly at his screen.
Calling Wifey ❤️
Then—
Switched off.
His brows furrowed immediately.
Again.
Same result.
Switched off.
---
That uncomfortable feeling started instantly in his chest.
Sharp.
Wrong.
JJ almost never turned her phone off.
Especially not after everything that happened recently.
Keifer sat up straighter in bed immediately.
Called again.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
---
By the fifth failed call—
panic had already started crawling into his veins.
So he called Percy.
---
Percy
The phone connected after seven rings.
"...if this is not about death," Percy mumbled sleepily, "I will personally murder you because ruining my beauty sleep damages my handsome face—"
"CHECK ON JJ."
Silence.
Percy blinked awake immediately hearing Keifer's voice.
Not annoyed.
Panicked.
Real panic.
"What happened?"
"Her phone's off."
"…and?"
"PERCY."
That tone.
That tone made Percy sit up instantly.
---
Something was wrong.
Really wrong.
---
Percy got out of bed immediately.
"Okay okay—I'm checking."
The line stayed connected.
Percy walked fast toward JJ's room.
Still half asleep.
Still hoping this was nothing.
Then he knocked.
"Baby sistah?"
No answer.
---
He opened the door.
And froze.
The bed untouched.
Cold.
Empty.
---
"…JJ?"
Nothing.
---
Percy's heartbeat dropped violently.
He checked bathroom.
Balcony.
Closet.
Nothing.
"Aries!" he shouted instantly.
---
The Mansion Wakes Up
Within minutes—
the entire Fernandez mansion was awake.
Aries searching every room.
Tita Gemma panicking.
Angelo already checking security systems downstairs with terrifying calm.
Percy calling JJ repeatedly.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Switched off.
Every time.
---
Keifer was already driving there himself.
Fast.
Too fast.
Hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
His chest felt tight.
His instincts screaming.
Because something inside him already knew.
---
By the time Keifer reached the mansion—
everyone looked terrified.
---
"Where is she?" he demanded immediately walking inside.
No one answered.
Because nobody knew.
---
Percy looked pale.
Actually pale.
"She's gone."
Those two words hit like a gunshot.
---
"No," Keifer snapped immediately.
Like rejecting reality itself.
"No."
---
Aries looked furious.
Not loud furious.
The dangerous kind.
"We checked everywhere."
Angelo spoke next.
"The CCTV system was shut down around midnight."
That made the room colder instantly.
---
Keifer's breathing became uneven.
"No one saw her leave?"
Silence.
No one did.
---
JJ's Room
They all entered JJ's room together.
And suddenly—
the emptiness became unbearable.
Because her room still looked like her.
Messy blanket.
Books.
Random snacks.
Chaos.
Life.
But something important was missing.
Her.
---
Then Percy noticed the desk.
And stopped breathing.
"…letters."
Everyone turned.
---
Several envelopes rested there carefully.
Different names written shakily across them.
Percy.
Aries.
Angelo.
Tita Gemma.
Section E.
The girls.
And—
Keifer.
The biggest one.
---
The room went silent immediately.
Because everyone understood what letters meant.
Goodbye.
---
Keifer walked toward the desk slowly.
Like approaching something dangerous.
His hands trembled slightly while picking up the envelope with his name.
Some parts of the handwriting looked messy.
Blurred slightly.
Like tears hit the paper while she wrote it.
And suddenly—
his chest hurt so badly he almost couldn't breathe.
---
"No…"
The word came out broken.
Small.
Unlike him completely.
---
Percy grabbed his own letter with shaking hands.
Then immediately looked away.
Because suddenly he couldn't handle seeing her handwriting.
Not now.
---
Aries stood frozen.
Completely frozen.
Holding his envelope like it might explode.
His little sister.
Gone.
Again.
---
Tita Gemma started crying quietly first.
Then harder.
Angelo closed his eyes briefly.
Jaw tight enough to crack.
Even he looked shaken now.
---
Section E Arrives
Word spread fast.
Too fast.
Within less than an hour—
Section E arrived.
Cin first.
Then Yuri.
Felix.
David.
Rory.
Eman.
Calix.
Denzel.
Endrix.
The girls too.
Freya.
Mica.
Grace.
Rakhi.
Ella.
---
None of them were prepared for the atmosphere inside the mansion.
Or for the letters.
---
Cin stared at the envelope labeled Section E for a long moment.
Then looked around desperately.
"…this isn't funny anymore."
No one answered.
Because nobody could pretend this was one of JJ's dramatic stunts.
Not with goodbye letters sitting there.
---
Grace started crying first.
Then Mica.
Then Rakhi quietly.
Freya looked stunned.
Yuri unusually silent.
Denzel clenched his fists hard.
Felix sat down slowly like his legs stopped working.
---
And Cin—
the loudest among them—
suddenly looked like a child again.
"She wouldn't leave us…"
His voice cracked horribly.
"…right?"
No one could answer him.
---
Keifer Breaks
Keifer still stood near the desk.
JJ's letter in his hands.
Unopened.
Because he was scared.
Terrified.
Because once he opened it—
everything would become real.
---
His eyes moved slowly around the room.
Then landed on something else.
Her phone.
Turned off.
Left behind intentionally.
---
That shattered him completely.
Because JJ loved her phone.
Loved annoying everyone through it.
Loved calling him randomly.
Loved taking stupid photos.
She would never leave it accidentally.
Never.
---
Which meant—
she planned this.
Carefully.
---
Keifer suddenly grabbed the edge of the desk hard enough to shake it slightly.
Everyone looked at him immediately.
His breathing uneven now.
Eyes red.
Completely terrified beneath the anger.
---
"She was sick," he whispered brokenly.
And that sentence destroyed the room further.
Because everyone already knew what sickness meant now.
What fear meant.
What goodbye could mean.
---
Then quietly—
so quietly it almost didn't sound like Keifer at all—
he whispered:
"…she left because she thinks she's dying."
Silence crashed into everyone instantly.
And suddenly—
every single person in that room realized the same horrifying thing:
JJ didn't disappear because she stopped loving them.
She disappeared because she loved them too much to let them watch her die.
---
Keifer Breaks Quietly
Keifer had survived things most people never could.
Blood.
Death.
Betrayal.
Watching his mother die in his arms.
Fighting monsters wearing his own last name.
Growing up too fast.
Becoming strong because weakness was never an option.
But this—
this was different.
Because for the first time in years—
Keifer Watson was terrified in a way strength couldn't fix.
---
JJ was gone.
Not angry-gone.
Not dramatic-gone.
Gone in the way people disappear when they've already decided they don't belong in this world anymore.
And that thought was slowly killing him from inside.
---
He sat alone in JJ's room while everyone else searched downstairs desperately.
Calls.
Contacts.
Airport security.
Cameras.
Anything.
Everything.
Chaos echoed faintly through the mansion.
But Keifer stayed there.
Still holding her letter.
Still unable to open it.
Because he knew the moment he read it—
he would hear goodbye in her voice forever.
---
His eyes moved slowly around her room again.
And every single thing hurt.
The snacks she hid badly.
The hoodie she stole from him months ago.
The messy bookshelf.
Her tiny moon stickers on the wall.
The blanket she always wrapped herself into like a burrito.
Her existence was everywhere.
Except beside him.
---
Keifer leaned forward slowly.
Elbows on knees.
Hands trembling slightly.
And for the first time since Serina's funeral—
he genuinely felt lost.
---
"Wifey…"
The word broke halfway out.
Because suddenly it sounded stupid.
Painfully stupid.
He used to say it just to annoy her.
To make her blush angrily.
To hear her call him "gago" afterward.
And now—
he would give up everything just to hear her insult him one more time.
---
His mutya.
His jewel.
His loud chaotic impossible girl.
Gone.
---
Keifer looked toward the desk again.
The letters sat there like tiny bombs waiting to destroy everyone completely.
Especially his.
The biggest one.
Of course she wrote him the biggest one.
Because JJ loved loudly even while leaving.
---
His chest tightened violently thinking about last night.
The balcony.
Her soft smile.
The way she looked at him too carefully.
Like memorizing him.
He should've known.
God—
he should've known.
---
"You lied to me…"
His voice cracked completely this time.
Because she promised nothing would happen.
Promised.
And Keifer believed her.
Like an idiot.
---
The room door burst open suddenly.
Endrix entered fast with Yuri behind him.
Both looked tense.
"We tried tracing her phone," Endrix said immediately.
Keifer stood up instantly.
"Where is she?"
Endrix's expression changed slightly.
Not hopeful.
Worse.
---
"We found the signal."
Silence.
Then:
"…it's here."
---
Keifer frowned sharply.
"What?"
---
Yuri walked toward the desk drawer slowly.
Opened it.
And there—
beneath some papers—
lay JJ's phone.
Turned off.
Abandoned.
---
Silence filled the room instantly.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
---
Keifer stared at the phone blankly.
Then suddenly laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes heartbreak becomes too big for normal reactions.
---
"She left it…"
His voice sounded hollow now.
"She really left it…"
---
Yuri looked away quietly.
Because all of them understood what this meant.
JJ didn't want to be found.
Not accidentally.
Not eventually.
Not at all.
---
Keifer walked slowly toward the drawer.
Picked up the phone carefully.
Like touching something sacred.
Or dangerous.
Or both.
---
Then his thumb brushed against the screen softly.
And memories attacked instantly.
Her random selfies.
Her stupid voice notes.
Her midnight spam.
Her food photos.
Her messages saying:
"BUY ME FOOD OR I LEAVE YOU."
"Keifer ur ugly today."
"Wifey privileges means I get your hoodie."
---
His breathing became uneven again.
Because her entire existence lived inside this small object.
And she left it behind willingly.
Like cutting herself away from them on purpose.
---
Percy appeared at the doorway quietly then.
Eyes red already.
For once—
no jokes.
No dramatic screaming.
Nothing.
He looked at the phone in Keifer's hand.
And immediately understood.
---
"She doesn't want us finding her…"
That sentence shattered something inside Keifer completely.
---
"No."
The answer came instantly.
Sharp.
Dangerous.
Desperate.
"No."
---
Everyone looked at him.
And for the first time—
they saw it clearly.
Keifer Watson was breaking apart.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
But in the terrifying silent way strong people do when they lose the one person holding their soul together.
---
He gripped the phone tighter.
Jaw trembling slightly now.
"She thinks she's alone in this."
His voice lowered dangerously.
"She thinks she can disappear and just… die somewhere without me?"
---
Percy looked down immediately.
Because hearing that hurt too much.
---
Keifer's eyes slowly filled despite how hard he fought it.
"She's my future."
The confession slipped out brokenly.
Raw.
Real.
"I already chose her."
Silence.
---
"My wife."
Another crack in his voice.
"My home."
His breathing shook.
"My mutya…"
Then finally—
so quietly it almost killed the room—
"My JJ."
---
And suddenly—
Keifer sat back down on the edge of her bed holding the abandoned phone against his forehead while the truth destroyed him completely:
Somewhere out there—
the girl he loved more than life itself was sick, alone, terrified…
…and trying her hardest to disappear before he could save her.