third!
s*ckerpunch!
The dockyard is cold, empty. Towering boats sit all around me, their usually crowded decks devoid of any movement. They look like hollow husks of their lively daytime selves. In the distance, I can spot a brightly lit marina sailing on the choppy black waters, faint samba music audible even from here. My eyes scan the grounds, searching for figures standing in the darkness-
And then I spot her.
Sora is cowering on the damp cement ground of the dockyards, her head between her hands. A group of hooded men surround her. Their guns are directed straight at her head.
“Did you think you could get away?” a man asks her in an amused, singsongy voice. He is wearing a black face mask printed with some sort of design that I cannot see fully in the darkness.
“J-Just let me go,” Sora squeaks. “I don’t want it anymore, I don’t-,”
“Nuh uh uh. We had a deal.” The man bends down so that his eyes are parallel to hers. “Hey, sweetheart. There’s an easy way you can get out of this situation, and it’ll be pretty enjoyable for you, too-,”
And then I step out of the shadows, wrap one of the guards in a headlock and swing my legs up, slamming my foot into another man’s jaw. Three of the men turn, whipping their guns out of their holsters, but I am faster; I whip my knife across one of their stomachs while jabbing my elbow in another man’s solar plexus. Both of them fall back, and I use the third man as leverage to knock all of them to the ground. I turn, about to attack the man speaking previously, before he a gun to Sora’s head.
“Watch out,” he says. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Let her go,” I tell him in a low voice. Sora is gaping up at me in shock. Blood is trickling down her face from a wound on her head.
“I don’t think so.” The man shoves Sora towards two of the guards who remain standing. “I want to know more about you instead.”
“I’m no one,” I retort. “Let her go. Or else you’ll have hell to pay.”
“Hell to pay, huh?” He strides towards me, his eyes curved in amusement. “You know, if this wasn’t coming from a girl who took out five of my best men in one go, I wouldn’t be interested at all.”
As he is moving towards me, I can make out the details of his face clearer. Messy blond hair tucked under a purple snapback, a ratty baseball jacket-
The design on his face mask is into clear relief.
It is a skull of a bunny.
Himchan.
.
“So tell me about yourself," he says, a sneer twisting his lips. "I’ve never seen you around before. Who would a pretty girl like you kill for?"
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere, dickwad.”
“Dickwad. Ha. It’s been a while since someone’s had the balls to call me that.”
Suddenly, he freezes. I can see something dawn in his eyes.
“Wait a minute. Wait a ing minute. I recognize that voice.” He slowly walks towards me. “That outfit. That mask. The fact that you didn’t kill my men... or draw a gun...,”
I clench my fists by my side.
“You’re Kim ing Lia.” Himchan scoffs in utter disbelief. “Holy ing . No way.”
“Take a picture, why don’t you,” I snarl.
“This is unreal.” He slowly approaches me. “You disappeared off the face of the Earth three years ago after you slaughtered ZE:A. Do you know how many people have been searching for you?”
My insides burn and I know exactly who he is talking about. “I don’t give a . Let my friend go.”
“Whoa! You have friends now? I’m proud! I was so worried about you back then, you know. It’s not healthy for a teenage girl to have an obsession with hunting down her parents’ murderers-,”
“Shut the up, Himchan,” I growl, my eyes darting to Sora’s fearful expression.
Himchan sneers. “Aw. Why so mean, Lia? We haven’t seen each other in ages. And you really want to start being nice to me.”
“Why? I could take you down without a sweat.”
“No.” He sticks his face in mine. “Because I know something you don’t.”
I narrow my eyes, refusing to back down. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a shame you left so quickly all those years ago. Otherwise I would’ve told you.”
In a flash, I whip out my knife and press the flat of its blade against Himchan’s Adam’s apple. “Start talking.”
He tsks! “Always so confrontational. Well, I was running a mission, you know, taking care of a gang leader who’d gotten a little... unruly. I was cleaning up the mess I’d made when I happened upon an old bingo book.”
“I don’t see where you’re going with this.”
“There were names in there from years ago,” Himchan muses. “It was pretty interesting to see who wanted who dead. Like a history of the hatred of- ah.” He grimaces as I press my knife deeper into his skin. “Anyway, guess whose names I saw in the book?”
“Whose?” I ask in a terse voice.
“Your parents’.”
And at that moment, the entire world seems to stop spinning.
“Which means that they weren’t just killed in a random act of street violence like you thought,” Himchan continues, his look of satisfaction growing as he sees how shell-shocked I look. “Someone wanted them killed. ZE:A was just the gang that took the job.”
“That’s impossible,” I utter, finally finding my voice. “My dad was a janitor. My mom worked at a ing bakery. Why would someone pay that much money to get them crossed off?”
“Dunno.” Himchan gives me a bright smile. “I guess it’s your job to find out, right?”
“When did you find out about this?”
“Fairly recently. I’d say... less than a year ago?”
“And you didn’t-,” I grit my teeth. Of course he wouldn’t tell me. He couldn’t. My social worker made sure all of my old personal information was wiped, my contact lines cut off. No one could ever find me again.
“This has truly been an eventful night.” Himchan turns to Sora, who looks like she is in a state of absolute shock. “You can leave. Consider it a thank-you for allowing me to meet Lia here.” Himchan snaps his fingers and nonchalantly strolls to the Jeep parked in the center of the lot. The guards rouse the men who are collapsed on the ground and haul them away by their arms.
I simply stare after them, a dumbfounded expression on my face. My feet feel like they are frozen to the ground.
Before Himchan leaves, he turns around and throws me a cheeky grin.
“I suppose I’ll be seeing you around,” he says. “You know where to find me.”
He hops into the car before I can respond and peels away.
I stare after him. My entire body feels numb.
And that is when I collapse to my knees.
“Hyo,” Sora breathes, rushing over to me. “Oh my god. I- are you okay?”
I simply stare back at her, my mouth slightly agape.
“Hyo. . We need to leave.” Sora wraps one of my arms around her shoulder, and hauls me back to a car that is sitting in the lot.
“Here,” she says gently, unlocking the door, and I dazedly take a seat inside. Sora begins driving back to our dorms. One of her hands is resting on mine. I can see her sneaking surreptitious looks at me every few minutes.
“Hyo, you don’t have to answer me,” Sora finally says, breaking the silence. Her voice is like a life preserver in the sea of tumultuous chaos I am drowning in. I take a deep, staggering breath, clenching her hand tightly. “What was Himchan talking about? Why was he calling you Lia? How do you know him-,”
“Stop,” I whisper.
A guilty look crosses her face. “Sorry.” She rubs circles over my hand with her thumb. It reminds me of what Joonmyeon does for me every time I’m nervous or stressed about something. Those soothing circles. The playful ruffling of my hair. The “Calm down, Charlie Brown. You’ll be fine.”
That’s when I lose it. A sob escapes my lips, and within a few moments I am full-out bawling. Sora looks at me, alarmed. “Oh my god, Hyo,” she murmurs. “I’m so sorry. I’m so freaking sorry. Holy crap... I-,”
“I thought I was done,” I whimper, hugging my knees to my chest. “I thought I was ing done.”
Sora does not say anything. The only noise in the air is the hum of the car engine.
We are walking back to our dorm, Sora’s arm gingerly wrapped around my shoulders, when I hear an angry voice hiss, “What the hell happened?”
We turn around. Joonmyeon is storming towards us in formal attire, his black tie loosened and the top three buttons of his shirt undone. He looks absolutely agitated as he gazes down at my weak form.
“I get here and she isn’t in her dorm, she’s not picking up my calls, and no one knows where she is. Did you take her somewhere?” Joonmyeon demands, glaring at Sora. “Did you give her something?”
“No,” I say, quickly shaking my head. “Nothing like that happened. I- I was going to the convenience store to buy some gummy bears and ramen and stuff, but someone jumped me. I was almost mugged- I would’ve been mugged, if Sora hadn’t been there.”
Joonmyeon’s fierce expression melts into one of guilty dismay. “Oh. I’m sorry, Sora.”
“It’s nothing,” Sora utters faintly.
“I can’t believe it,” Joonmyeon says, shaking his head. He wraps his arms around me and gives me a long, warm hug and I swear I almost start crying again. “Thank god nothing happened to you. Thank you so much, Sora. If something had happened to you, Hyo... I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
“Yeah, it was pretty scary,” I mumble into his chest.
“What is wrong with campus security? This is the third time an incident like this has happened this month. Do you know how the person who attacked you looked like?”
“It all happened so fast. I just saw a blur of black.”
“Oh, no.” He rests his temple on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“Did you bring back dessert?”
A small smile appears on his lips, and he holds up a gray plastic bag. “I ordered everything single dessert off the menu for you.”
My jaw drops. “You didn’t.”
“I did. My family was horrified that I spent 100,000 won on dessert.”
“100,000 won?! What the ? What kind of expensive restaurant did you go to? ing rich people, goddammit-,”
“I told you it was a fancy place! Come on, let’s go. I bought a new washing machine for my apartment that you absolutely have to see.”
I grin, beginning to open my mouth to bite back a snarky comment about how exciting that sounds-
When all the events that transpired tonight hit me once more.
See, this is why I love being with Joonmyeon. He sweeps me up in all his positivity and corny jokes and happiness and makes me forget about everything.
But I can’t afford to forget right now.
“Can I take a raincheck?” I ask, wincing. “Sorry, I’m just kind of tired right now.”
His eyes slightly widen. “Oh, god, yeah, sorry, I should’ve known-,”
“No, no, it’s fine-,”
“Sorry, yeah.” Joonmyeon coughs awkwardly. “Uh, just... call me if you need anything, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Okay. I’ll, uh, see you later.”
“Alright. Bye.”
While he is walking away, I yell, “Don’t eat any of the desserts!”
Joonmyeon laughs. “No promises.”
The moment I get inside, my cheery expression disappears. Sora is anxiously watching me.
“Sit down.” I tell her in a low voice. “Now.”
A/N: revised
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