Im Nayoung was having a really, REALLY, bad day so far. For starters, her head felt like it was about to burst, she had been having the worst kind of headache since she woke up and it felt like it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, regardless of how many meds she took. She was a cop, sitting in her desk, going through the never-ending pile of paperwork that belong to each of her assigned cases, but she wasn’t just your average, run off the mill, cop, she was part of the special forces brigade, tasked with some of the most dangerous missions and investigations there were.

It still wasn’t as exciting as people claimed it to be, they just give her a bigger weapon for the missions she goes on and that’s basically it. Obviously, along with that come the extra training she received in both shooting and three different kinds of martial arts, she knows how to use anything from a simple pistol to the heaviest of sniper rifles. But even with all that extra training, she has to sit and fill forms just like any other normal policeman in the station AND she had a boss to answer too and that seriously was beginning to look like the worst part of it.

Because, speaking of the devil, he was walking right to her desk.

“Im, we have to talk” – And Nayoung knows by his tone that he will say something that she will not like

“What is the matter boss?”- She replies blandly, without looking at him directly, she doesn’t want to know what comes next.

“It’s about your investigation…”- He sighs – “They want it closed”

Ah, right, she knew it from the start, you see, Nayoung was amidst a very, very, very serious case, she had been working nonstop for almost a year now, disregarding sleep, social life, and all those things normal people would consider essential but that, for her, don’t even come close to sharing a primordial spot on the priorities list.

What is this investigation about? Simple, she wants to uncover a mafia-like circle that holds important positions on the government. She has been trying to do so for the past eight months, gathering information from all kinds of sources, sometimes nicely and sometimes not so much, and now his boss just marches up to her and says that she will have to shut it down? Ridiculous.

“Not a chance”- She says stoically, although she doubts she will be able to convince him of letting her continue, those “superiors” of him, they probably share connections to the circle, and they noticed that she has been steadily getting close to finding some important names.

“Listen, there’s nothing I can do about it”- He said, unfazed by her attitude – “Orders come from above” - Bull, straight unbelievable bull.

Nayoung starts feeling the headache coming back and tries to calm herself before answering, she is usually stoic most of the time, and that has earned the nickname “Stone Nayoung” among her peers inside the station. She looks at her desk and starts opening the second drawer of the left side, there are some aspirins there and she absolutely needs some before she lets the pain get the best of her and starts hurling insults at her boss for something he isn’t even responsible about.

She grabs one and takes it along a zip of her already cold morning coffee, she looks at her watch, 2:34 p.m. Only two hours and a half to go home, she looks up again, her boss is still there, looking like he was waiting for an answer that will rid him of the responsibility of having to inform his superiors of Nayoung’s rebellious act.

-“I’m not stopping”-

However, Nayoung wasn’t giving up on the case, not a chance, she values her own time and she will absolutely not throw away eight months of her life to the trash bin. Even if she has to proceed to fill LOADS of paperwork that no person should have to touch if they wish to remain sane, she would. She knew why the investigation was being shut down and her ego wouldn’t let her drop it.

-“Then I’m erasing it from the files, I’m shutting it down personally from the main server, you won’t have access to those files anymore”- Says her boss as he turns back on her and starts walking to his office

That caught her off guard, was he that scared of his superiors? She remained shocked a couple of seconds and got up as fast as lightning to pursue her boss.

“You can’t do this to me! You are clearly siding with them! You are following their instructions and letting them remain unquestioned!”- She yells, for once she doesn’t care about her surroundings, if he stops her from accessing the main fails on the multiple suspects of the case then she’s done for, she won’t have anything to continue.

Her boss stops walking before entering his office, looks back and beckons her to get close

“Listen, I know how much this means to you, but you have to stop before they resort to other methods, believe me, I sympathize with your cause fully, this country is rotten to its core and we are just puppets of the system, you can’t fight against it, it’s like trying to swim up a waterfall.”- He whispers all of it, as if he was afraid someone would hear them – “There are other ways to fight them, but if you continue doing it like this you’ll just bring harm to yourself, besides, ever since you started working on this you haven’t been taking care of yourself properly, or do you think the migraine you’ve been suffering is just something that came alone?

Nayoung was certainly taken aback, she knew she hadn’t paid as much attention to friends and family as she had before this, but still, ridding the government of parasites was first! She didn’t need time for herself nor for her friends! As an agent at the service of the society it was her outmost priority.

-“I don’t care about the best way, you can’t deny me the access to those files” – She gave the explanation no importance, she didn’t care about what her boss thought, all that mattered was the case.

Her boss didn’t say anything, he just turned back and closed the door on her face, and that was it.

“You son of a…. OPEN THIS DOOR! NOW! YOU CAN’T DENY ME THE ACCESS, IT’S…”- She started screaming and bashing the door.

“Nayoung, please stop” – She turned back to see who had talked, it was Sejeong, her friend and the boss assistant, secretary, whatever, she just knew she was in charge of who entered the office and who didn’t, and in the middle of a crisis like this one, it was the best chance Nayoung had at getting in.

“Get me inside his office, NOW!”- She knew she could be really scary whenever she wanted, and the fact that that side of her didn’t really come out often made it even more intimidating and hard to deal with.

“Umm…. I’m not allowed to, would you please stop screaming?”

Bull, why did everyone insist on lying to her straight to her face when they have been working together for almost 4 years now.

“I swear to whatever is up there that if you don’t GET ME INSIDE THAT OFFICE THIS VERY SECOND I’LL…”

“Easy there”- Another intrusion, just what she wanted -“Leave this to me babe, I’ll make sure Nayoung stops drilling your beautiful ears with her high pitched lady screams”

The mood suddenly does a 180° and everything is silent, Sejeong mutters a thank you followed by her huge eye smile and Nayoung just stares at the newcomer.

That was Chungha, Nayoung’s partner and best friend, or so she thought, they didn’t talk as much nowadays because of what Chungha liked to call “Nayoungie’s obsession” and now that she thinks about it, they haven’t even gone out for a cup of coffee or anything like that for almost two whole months already.

“Hey girl, would you mind turning your voice down a little? Some of us want to sleep instead of work, and you just ed up my beauty nap, I should kick your sorry for that”- Chungha says with a big grin plastered on her face, Nayoung can’t really say she didn’t miss the constant chatter that ensued whenever they were together.

“You wouldn’t be able even if you tried your hardest”- She answers back with a taunt of her own and can’t help but smile as well, she really did miss this kind of interactions.

“Oh? Is that a dare? Do you seriously want to hit the ring with me after you stopped training three months ago?”- She says while walking closer to Sejeong and circling her waist with her arm, receiving a giggle and a peck on the cheek in return.

“Yah! Leave that for later you two!”- Nayoung gets awkward, she has always disliked the way her best friend displayed public affection so easily. Nayoung hadn’t had a relationship since her high school years, and even then it ended up really bad so she stopped trying right away.

“Hey, we are going out after work for a couple of drinks, are you in? We haven’t had the chance to talk for a really long time…”- Chungha offers and it feels more like a chance to revive their friendship than just something that came out of the blue.

She was about to open to say something when Sejeong quickly added

“Please do come Nayoung, for real, we haven’t seen each other outside of work for what it feels like ages”

“And, just between us three, that case is really ing you up”- Chungha says frankly, and that quickly brings the mood, that was kind of bearable, down in an instant.

Sejeong frowns as soon as Chungha finishes the sentence and elbows her in the stomach.

“What?! Why would you hit me for? It’s true! Or am I lying? Am I, Nayoung?”- Nayoung can’t answer that, she knows it’s true that she has been neglecting her friends, so she just answers the first question.

“I guess I can join you for a drink after work, not that I have anything interesting to do when I get home now that my case was closed” – She watched Chungha and Sejeong smile and felt at least a little bit better, maybe her boss was right, and she should drop the investigation now that she had a chance…

The rest of the day went by relatively calmly while she was waiting the end of her working shift, in the meantime Chungha asked for a hand. She needed to sort some papers and Nayoung certainly wasn’t in the mood for it, but she agreed nonetheless. She owed her a favor for getting information on Nayoung’s recently closed case by not “entirely legal” means a couple of months ago, and Nayoung wanted that debt settled as soon as possible, she didn’t like owing anything to anyone, not even her own partner and one of her best friends.

They were the ace duo of the force back in the day, trained by the best to be the best… Well, maybe not the very best like no one ever was, but Nayoung liked to think that they were unstoppable when they were paired up together, maybe this was just her ego talking right now, she knew she had a problem containing it, but then again, she didn’t care.

As soon as they finished organizing the files and cleaning up their desks they went out to find Sejeong waiting for them. Chungha suggested a bar not too far away from the police station and since neither Sejeong nor Nayoung had a better idea, they started walking while chatting about trivial stuff from time to time.

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By the time Nayoung finally gets home the watch on her wrist marks 9 p.m. She is soaked wet because, oh joy, it started to rain really heavily and she forgot to take her umbrella when she exited the apartment in the morning. After getting inside and waving her hair a bit to get rid of the excess of water she started jogging and sped through the stairs grumbling at the heavens because the lift that was in perfect condition this morning was now out of order, and that meant she had to walk through ten floors to reach her apartment.

She bid farewell to Chungha almost half an hour ago, Sejeong left early saying something about having to take care of some stuff. Both Chungha and Nayoung paid no mind to it, after all, that gave them some time alone to catch up on things. Maybe Sejeong did it on purpose, knowing that Chungha really wanted to be alone with Nayoung for a moment, if it was that, then Nayoung is really thankful for that gesture.

She was tired, hell, that was a serious understatement, she was spent both physically and psychologically and she just wanted to rest, her head felt like it was going to explode at any minute and she couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t that the outing with Chungha and Sejeong ended up badly, on the contrary, Nayoung got the opportunity to relax a little, get rid of some stress by talking about nothing in particular with her friends. That was until the headaches assaulted her again and she realized she had forgotten her aspirins in the police station. Today just wasn’t her day, she had set her mind on taking her meds and just going to sleep, she could take a bath tomorrow for all she cared. When she finally got to the tenth floor and entered her apartment, she closed the door and started to go through the wall looking for the light switch. Found it and switched it on…

And off…

And on…

And off again…

There was no power, fantastic, she was seriously seething, it seemed that it wasn’t enough her boss decided to shut down her investigation without a fight because he was scared less of the people in power or that she couldn’t even fully enjoy talking with Chungha after such a long time because of this utterly annoying headache, the world was out to with her and she was about to punch her poor innocent wall into submission in retaliation for her ty luck when she noticed something.

Something was off, once her eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room she could see it clearly, somebody had been there before her. It was a minuscule detail, something that would go unnoticed for more than 90% of the world’s population, but not for Im Nayoung. One of her books in the library was slightly more out of the shelf than the rest, Nayoung walked to it and picked it up, it wasn’t a book per se, it was a folder, the one that had all the data she gathered for the investigation she had been conducting until now. Nayoung was beginning to feel uncomfortable, did anyone break into her house? More importantly, was that person still there? The only other person that had a key to her apartment was Chungha, and they were together the whole evening, then again, there were no signs of neither a door nor a window being forcibly opened, maybe it was just Nayoung's imagination, she was really stressed after the whole morning ordeal and she was being paranoid over a tilted folder.

All those thoughts evaporated when she heard a sound coming from the kitchen area.

Her hand started moving to the gun on her belt until she heard a sound she knew very well, a pistol safety being removed, from behind. Nayoung froze in place.

“Tssk, why do they always put a hit on the pretty ones?”

Nayoung turns to face the intruder in less than a second, it was a girl with long brown hair that reached her torso, gun in hand, probably in her twenties, looks really slim, dressed entirely in black clothing consisting of a t-shirt and some jeans, and Nayoung can’t help but immediately thinks this is the first good thing that happened in the whole day

The universe sent her a scrawny thief as a punching bag and she was about to enjoy this more than she should.

“Drop your gun and kick it to me”- It’s the first thing the brunette says, and Nayoung follows her instructions, she will play along for now, just to make this fun. As soon as the girl grabs Nayoung’s gun she throws it to the kitchen, which had its door open for some reason, forget that, the intruder probably opened it when she came.

“Now, I believe it’s time for introductions, my name is…”

Nayoung doesn’t waste time talking as she grabs the girl’s hand, who looks surprised, with her left hand and overpowers her grip to make her aim to the right, all while twisting down the girl’s wrist down with her right one to put pressure on the ligaments, this seems to work as the intruder lets go of the gun while hissing in pain. Now with the gun in her possession, Nayoung aims directly to the girl’s knee…

BANG…

It’s what the text of the red flag that came out of the gun said.

Nayoung is baffled, she keeps her gaze fixated on the toy gun in her hand until she hears a laugh that sounds almost maniacal, she looks at the laughing girl with a mixture of fury and disbelief, what was she? Twelve? How do you enter someone’s house armed with a ing toy gun, have the disgrace to meet a spec ops officer and expect to walk out ALIVE?!

She loses it, Nayoung is officially mad with rage, before the girl has a moment to recover from the laughter she launches a direct punch to her head and it connects with the brunette’s cheek, this stuns the girl and leaves her dazzled, but Nayoung is far from over, she spins around her back to send a kick that would have hit the intruder’s stomach had she not recollected herself for a last second dodge, instead, Nayoung brings her leg down to the ground to regain equilibrium and follows with a left low kick which was, again, dodged, although this time more easily.

The thief was not fighting back and Nayoung realized that as soon as she recovered from the low kick, she left her entire left side exposed which would have resulted in an easy hit by her opponent. Nayoung waited for a couple of seconds, she had disregarded technique and stance when she attacked and that could’ve costed her life, hopefully, it seems the intruder didn’t know how to fight, or at least that’s what she believed.

Once she had calmed herself, she raised her guard again, this time she would be more careful. She proceeded then to launch a series of punches.

Right fist to the face, deflected.

Left fist to the face, dodged.

Right hook to the ribs, blocked,

Right chop to the neck, dodged.

Nayoung wanted to remain calm, she really did, but this was getting on her nerves really fast, how comes this scrawny was dodging and blocking all her attacks? She was one of the best fighters in the force, unparalleled, and it wasn’t possible that abandoning training for 3 months led to her losing against an unprepared opponent.

She kept throwing punches until the thief dodged her last left hook. She then feinted a kick to the girl’s groin, she was sure the would drop her guard to block low, and she was right, the intruder formed an X with both her arms to catch the kick that never came, Nayoung used the momentum to trace an arc around the defense, turned a simple front kick into a roundhouse kick that, with the brute force Nayoung put into it, should at least break a couple of ribs.

However Nayoung had underestimated her opponent, the moment the roundhouse was supposed to connect with the girl’s side, she felt an immense amount of pain in her foot. Nayoung then realized the thief had raised her left elbow to meet the kick head on.

Nayoung remembered the times that that had happened to her, she was able to list them with only the fingers of one hand, but still, the pain that comes from kicking an elbow is unbelievably crippling, she doesn’t know the technicalities behind it and she never bothered to look for them, she only knew that it hurt A LOT.

She backed up against the wall showering the intruder with insults, she was livid right now, she wanted to beat the crap out of her but that didn’t seem to be working at all. She bit her lower lip in pain and still failed to suppress a whimper.

“OH. MY. GOD. That sounded really cute just now! You’re cute!” – The intruder said as she started walking to her, who the hell was this girl?! She came into her house, threatened her with a toy gun, crippled her foot and then called her cute.  She must be insane.

When the brunette gets too close for comfort Nayoung closes the rest of the distance and lunges at her with a sidekick, this time with considerably less force than the last because of the pain, but it manages to connect and it sends the thief a few steps back thus, giving her time to look around for a weapon. She sees her Bō staff lying next to the library, perfect, she limps to it and grabs it under the amused eyes of the thief, who giggles when she turns back to face her.

“Who are you and why are you here?”- She started spinning her Bō with both hands at a moderate speed to intimidate the thief into staying where she was and it seemed to work, the brunette remained there like a statue although she didn’t look afraid at all…

“Oh, so NOW you want to talk, after you tried to break my ribs for the eleventh time in a row…”- Was she being taunted? Nayoung couldn’t care less about that by now, she needed time to think about getting away, as she had, by now, admitted to herself that she was at a disadvantage when it came to fighting skills.

“Answer my question”- She is agitated, tired, and her feet is still throbbing in pain.

“You are no fun, I’m Jieqiong, Zhou Jieqiong” – She was introducing herself as if they were on a bar on friendly terms, ridiculous. – “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

Nayoung was about to speak, tell her to off or something, when her migraine kicked into action again, the debilitating pain makes her stop spinning the Bō, which almost drops to the floor had Nayoung not had an iron grip on it.

The intruder, Jieqiong, looked confused for a moment and started walking closer to her again.

Even if the migraine suddenly appearing was something bad by itself, this was a golden chance, the girl dropped her guard and was an easy target right now, and that was enough for Nayoung to recompose herself thanks to the natural rush of adrenaline, quickly spin the staff on her right hand to gain momentum, and er punch Jieqiong right in the face. She didn’t stop there, after hitting her right cheek, Nayoung kept going full circle and delivered a hit right in the left side of the girl’s thorax, then spun herself and hit the center of Jieqiong Torso with the other end of the staff, which sent the latter stumbling against the wall.

That must have been enough to knock her out, she had put all the strength she had left into those three hits, if the first one didn’t knock her unconscious already then the other two must have done the trick, right?

She was about to sprint to her direction for another quick frontal hit to her head to ensue her success when Jieqiong, who had remained unmoving against the wall, suddenly recovered and moved back to her original position with surprising speed and, before Nayoung had time to assume a defensive stance, lifted her feet to the air creating an ellipse, almost doing the splits and brought the hammer kick down with lightning fast speed.

It took Nayoung half a second to lift the Bō to cover herself and then both collided.

The staff broke in two pieces and Nayoung was sent first to the floor, speechless, what was that? Such a strong hit, to be able to break her hickory Bō staff without even trying, she was really dumbfounded, how much strength did this dirty thief really have? This absolutely wasn’t a normal theft for sure, there’s no way a street rat had this much force or could dodge blows from a highly trained official.

-“Who are you? - Was the only thing that came out of Nayoung’s mouth as she got up.

-“Shush, now it’s time to take a little nap” – Jieqiong answered menacingly with a creepy grin stuck on her face.

-“Who are you…? – She repeated again before a chop hit her neck and everything went black.

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When Nayoung wakes up, she realizes immediately that she is bound to one of her chairs by the hands, the world starts spinning around her the moment she lifts her head so she is forced to keep it down, she has no strength left and as soon as she regains control of her body she starts to feel pain in multiple parts of it, her feet, for starters, looks swollen, she must have overworked it after she hit the girl’s elbow when fighting. And let’s not talk about the horrible headache she is suffering right now.

She was about to try and lift her head again when she hears conversation coming from the living room next to where she is now, which would be her bedroom, but she can’t be sure a hundred percent, it’s pitch black in there right now.

She forces herself to sit upright and tries to pay more attention to the exchange happening on the other room, she can make out two voices clearly enough, but the sound is muffled by the walls either way.

 “You have to kill her, pinky”- This was a voice she did not recognize

“I don’t understand, wasn’t this supposed to scare her into giving up the investigation?”- That voice she did recognize, it was Jieqiong, the dirty thief.

“Where did you get that from? Chief said very clearly that she wanted her gone”- Well, this wasn’t looking too good for her right now.

Nayoung started moving her hands, she needs to get out of there as fast as possible and maybe, just maybe, if she can untie herself she will be able to exit through the window? It is the only chance she has, although it’s not going to be pretty seeing as she lives on the tenth floor of the apartment complex. Nayoung kept struggling against the rope and noticed that it was starting to untie.

“The hell? Who tied this thing?”-She mutters silently- “This is too easy, better step up their knot tying game for their next hit, huh?”- She smirked, she would be able to escape anyways, she was trained for this kind of things, but the knots being this weakly tied sure helps.

She ended up freeing her right hand first, but decided to pause for a moment to listen to the conversation again.

“Then why would he go through all the pain of contacting the other seniors and tell them to order a restriction on her access to the case files? It just sounds stupid” – That was Jieqiong again, Nayoung regretted not having cameras on the apartment, filming this kind of confession could help her not only reopen the investigation, but speed it up considerably, that is, of course, if she managed to get out of this one without dying in the process.

“Well, duh, he said we needed to make it look like a suicide, why would you kill yourself if your life is all fine and dandy? That was so people believe the media tomorrow when the newspapers write about a poor little cop that was mentally unstable and killed herself after they shut down the investigation she had been working on for the last year” – Just delightful, it seems her boss was right and they did know all her movements, who would have thought they would plan it so masterfully?

“Do I really have to kill her? I didn’t prepare myself for this”

“You’ve been training almost your whole life to kill on command, how can you say that?” – Oh cool, they had sent an assassin to take her out, marvelous, that explains everything.

“Well, you are right, but still, this time is different!” – An assassin with feelings? Well that is certainly interesting.

“Gosh pinky just grab your gun and shoot her, it ain’t that hard!”- Just like the how it goes in the movies.

“But Minky, you…” – With imperfect timing, Nayoung’s phone starts to ring, jeez, way to speed up her death.

“Aw ”- The insult escapes Nayoung’s lips involuntarily as she moves her hands back to the position she woke up in just as Jieqiong entered the room with the phone in her hands. Although Jieqiong notices that she is wide awake by now, it’s clear that she missed the hands movement and Nayoung can only be truly grateful for that to the heavens.

“Answer it”- She says, this time without any hint of playfulness she might have had when they were fighting. She then presses the green button and puts the cellphone in Nayoung’s ear

“Hello…?”- Nayoung says warily, she doesn’t know what time it is so she can’t say for sure if she has to sound angry or sleepy to make a convincing act.

“Oh Nayoungie, it’s me, Chungha!”

“Oh… hey”- It’s the only thing Nayoung can say, she certainly doesn’t know how to react.

“So, I know it’s pretty late to be calling you right now, but Sejeong has been pushing me to try and get us closer, just like back in the day, right?”- She knows Chungha is nervous, like a high schooler trying to ask out her crush, it shows in her voice. Sejeong must be listening to them.

She hums to give Chungha the approbation to continue.

“So I’ve been wondering, now that they shut down your case, I’ve been working on this drug cartel for a couple of months, pretty exciting huh? And I just thought that you might want to get in the fun, I can talk to our boss and arrange for you to get access to the files I’m working with right now, and who knows, we might be able to go to go all in in a raid to their main base… we just have to locate it first, ha…”

Nayoung would actually be really happy of what Chungha is offering her right now, if only she didn’t have two crazed assassins on her house about to kill her, which is bound to bring her mood down by a lot.

“Yeah, I’m in… But let’s talk about this tomorrow, right now I’m feeling really tired”

“Oh yeah, right, sorry for waking you up! See you tomorrow then” – Chungha really sounded happy with this.

Jieqiong then closes shut her phone before she has a chance to say goodbye, quite rudely for Nayoung’s taste, and sits right in front of her. That’s when Nayoung realizes she has a gun in her hand, a REAL one this time, and it doesn’t look like her own weapon.

“So…”- Nayoung was about to speak up when the headache hits her again and makes her grumble, she had been ignoring it until now but it seems little bastard does not like to be ignored at all.         -“Do… do you have an aspirin or something?”

Then Jieqiong starts laughing a little, Nayoung guesses that it is kind of humorous, there she is, asking for an aspirin, when she was about to be killed. She joins in and laughs a little bit too, man, at least she’ll die with one last bad joke under her belt.

“Can’t believe the sent me to take care of a top notch police officer on my first hit”- Huh? That’s unexpected.

“Excuse me, but didn’t you say something along the lines of “shame they always put a hit on the pretty ones” or something? How come this is your first assassination attempt then?”- Nayoung was confused beyond imagination right now.

“That’s… ehmm… it’s just that…. I just wanted to sound cool, okay?!” – She yells the last part, as if she was confessing something really embarrassing.

“I’m baffled, you truly are a child after all”

“Shut up!”- She can see that Jieqiong got really red and flustered even in the darkness of the room, she would have to be blind not to notice.

Silence falls again inside the room for a good couple of minutes. Nayoung just keeps thinking and rethinking possible plans of escape, was the second girl outside still? Or had she left? She couldn’t risk it, then again, the window plan was going to be a lot more dangerous now that there was somebody that could push her to her death from the inside, unless she managed to incapacitate Jieqiong enough time to get out and somehow get to the ground floor from there in seconds, it was just plain impossible at the moment.

“I have to make it look like a suicide” – Jieqiong speaks up, hesitation evident in her eyes.

“You don’t have too”- Maybe Nayoung can talk her out of it? She just wishes she had practiced a little bit more her social skills along her life.

“Yes I do, it’s you or me, they don’t take kindly to rebels” – Should she pretend to be shocked? Why do all the evil mafia-like groups have the same rules? It’s bizarrely amusing.

“You could let me go and I’ll get out of the city forever or something” – She guesses what comes next, failure…

“Failure pays the same price as treachery in our ranks… I’m sorry.” – Nayoung hates this world and all the clichés that it entails.

Jieqiong stands up from the chair and points the gun at her head, Nayoung has to do something and fast, she was free from both hands at this point, but with Jieqiong reflexes she wasn’t sure she could make a single move before a bullet goes right through her skull. Then something came up

She was sure this was a stupid idea, but hey, when facing death any idea, regardless of how stupid it may seem, is valuable.

“Huh?”- She looks behind Jieqiong pretending to see something, or more specifically, someone- “I think your mate wants to talk to you…”

“What? Minky I thought you had left already….”- Bingo, Jieqiong lowers the gun and turns back, giving enough time to Nayoung to headbutt her right in the nape, although it seems that was a double edge sword, because the hit not only leaves Jieqiong stunned, it also leaves Nayoung with the pain of the headache multiplied by ten, a side effect that was not desirable in the least.

Nayoung ends up recovering faster than Jieqiong and tries to disarm her the same way she did when Jieqiong had the toy gun

“That won’t work twice, sorry” – Jieqiong counters her grab by uppercutting Nayoung in the chin, a punch that sends her back to the chair, which almost ends up breaking under the force of the weight.

Nayoung stands up again rather quickly just as Jieqiong walks up to her and aims the gun at her head again. However, this time Nayoung reacts faster, she kicks the gun out of Jieqiong’s grasp and follows with a crescent kick to her face. It connects and Nayoung wastes no time in rushing to grab the gun on the floor.

Just as she grabs it and tries to turn back she feels two hands circling her waist, she stops in bewilderment for a moment and that makes Jieqiong able to lift her weight on a German supplex which sends both of them crashing to the floor.

Everything is fuzzy for Nayoung after that, she feels the gun still in her hand but her vision is blurry and she can’t find a target, she drags herself to a wall, she still can’t see clearly so she tries closing her eyes and blinking a few times, when she opens them again she sees Jieqiong standing up, ready to charge straight at her, so she raises the gun, maybe she can scare her into remaining still.

It doesn’t work, it never does, not in the movies and not in the real world either it seems.

Jieqiong breaks into a sprint  

Nayoung holds the trigger tightly, for the first time in a while, she doesn’t know what to do.

So she shoots…

It was supposed to be a warning shot, but it hit Jieqiong right through the shoulder. The latter comes to a stop and looks at hole in her black t-shirt that was now turning into some kind of sick brownish color, only to look back at Nayoung and start moving again, this time walking.

Nayoung was really scared, scratch that, she was terrified, she didn’t mean to shoot her and even though she did the girl was still moving, coming to get her, she was going to die after all…

But suddenly, just when Nayoung had accepted death and was welcoming it into her arms, Jieqiong fell to the floor, unconscious.

Nayoung released a puff of air she didn’t know she was holding and deflated like a balloon, the thought of dying was really stressful, but now the situation was a little bit better if you were to look at it with complete optimism. She had an unconscious assassin in her house and she was not in a perfect shape herself, her head was hurting like a , her feet was hurting like a , her entire body was hurting like a , but hey, she was not dead.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

She stood up and remained there, thinking for a couple of minutes, she had no other option but to ask Chungha for aid, but how was she going to travel to her house with an unconscious person?

She looked around for her cellphone and saw it on her nightstand, just where Jieqiong left it after she finished talking to Chungha less than half an hour ago. She searched her contact list looking for Chungha’s name and called it. She looks at the alarm clock in her bed, 3:12 A.M. Maybe she was awake still.

“Hello?...”- She hears Chungha’s grumpy voice

“Who is it babe?”- And Sejeong’s too, great, now Nayoung has to live with the memory of probably ruining the mood for the other couple. As far as Nayoung knew, they didn’t live together.

“Chungha, it’s me, Nayoung…”- Seriousness filled her voice

“What’s the matter?”- She sounds worried now, and she should be, Nayoung is about to occupy her house with a wounded assassin woman.

“I need your help with something…”- She says before asking her to come pick her up from her complex. This was going to be a long night indeed.

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“This is so ed up…” – Chungha looked astonished

“You don’t have to tell me that”

Here they were, Chungha and Nayoung, chatting in the living room of Chungha’s house and trying to come up with a plan, so far, they had nothing. Sejeong took an injured Jieqiong into the guest room as soon as Nayoung entered the house and left them talking about the whole series of events that had happened since Nayoung got to her apartment.

“And what do you plan on doing with her? It’s obvious she was sent by those shady groups you were messing with.”- That was a good question followed by a complete redundant remark that added nothing to the table.

“I’m going to take her to the hospital first thing in the morning, then I’m going to trial her for attempted murder, it’s the right thing to do”- Nayoung sighed, she didn’t want to think about that now, she just wanted a good eight hours sleep

“Are you listening to yourself? She will be out of the station in the next 48 hours, maybe even as little as 24, you don’t have anything on her other than the break in” – Chungha got a little too emotional for her taste, unlike Nayoung, she often let her emotions get the best of her, although she can remain pretty cold when she wants too.

“What are you saying? She tried to murder me” – And there goes Nayoung stating the obvious too, she swears it was the lack of sleep talking this time.

“She had a ing toy gun for Christ sake, how are you gonna prove she tried to murder you?” – Chungha kept raising her voice even more, she was visibly more affected by the thought of Nayoung dying than the own Nayoung was, of course that didn’t mean Nayoung wasn’t scared of whatever was going to happen to her, she was, she just didn’t show it.

“Then what about the gun I shot her with? That isn’t mine”

“It may not be yours, but it’s the same model we use, and yours is nowhere to be found, how do you expect them to believe you?”- , she was right, in the end they will probably conclude that it isn’t Nayoung’s weapon, but it would really be a hassle to prove so

“Listen”- Chungha kept talking - “I know this is not legal and all, but we could keep her here, force her to talk and get names of people that are related to this mess”- To be fair, Nayoung had pondered the idea, it was against her moral principles, yeah, but it would make things easier for her.

“I’m not going to keep her a hostage, Chungha…” -

“It’s everything you wanted since you started the whole investigation, concrete proof, now you have means to get it and you chicken out?”

Nayoung was about to answer that in a not so friendly manner when Sejeong, who had come back to the room, cleared her voice to catch both girls attention.

“I’ve already bandaged her, I believe she will be fine since the bullet went right through her right shoulder.”- She stopped for a moment to gather air – “She is unconscious right now but I’ve taken the freedom to cuff her so she doesn’t try to escape, hope you don’t mind me doing that”

“No, not at all, can I go in right now?”- Nayoung just wants to check the cuffs mainly to make sure Jieqiong had no chance to escape once she wakes up.

“Go ahead, I’m going right back to sleep, there is an extra bed in the guest room so I’ve prepared it for you, good night”- she says that to Nayoung, blows a kiss to Chungha, and enters the main room leaving the cop partners alone again.

“I’m going to remain here in the lobby, go ahead and look at how the thief is doing, whistle if you need anything” – Chungha said without even looking at Nayoung, she looked really worried and she seemed to be thinking about the whole situation while looking to nowhere in particular.

“Thanks”- And with a court nod, Nayoung went directly into the room.

It wasn’t a big room, just big enough to hold two beds, their respective nightstands, a couple of pot plants and pictures of Chungha’s childhood.

The room was fairly well lit, it had a roof light that was turned off and a couple of lights on top of the nightstands. Only one was right now, but it was enough for Nayoung to see Jieqiong clearly.

The first thing she notices is the cuff on her left wrist tied to one of the nightstand legs, Nayoung inspects the thing and finally deems it heavy enough to be able to considerably hinder Jieqiong chances at escaping.

The second thing she notices are the bandages Jieqiong has on her right shoulder, from the looks of it, it had already stopped bleeding profusely like it was before. Even so, Nayoung thinks she will probably need to change them tomorrow.

The last thing she notices is Jieqiong’s face, and she sure takes her time admiring it, she hadn’t paid attention to it before and that was understandable, she was fighting for her life. But now that she had a closer look, she could tell the girl was pretty much a goddess in terms of beauty standards, she had milky white skin and it seemed she took perfect care of it, and honestly, that makes Nayoung get a little bit jealous of her looks.

Nayoung realized that she was too close and had been staring a little bit too much, of course, Jieqiong was asleep right now, but Im Nayoung couldn’t help but get flustered anyways, the girl that was sleeping in front of her broke into her house and tried to kill her and yet here she was admiring her features in silence.

Her headache returns yet again and thankfully stops her from going down that train of thoughts, she seriously needed to sleep. She turned around to exit the room

“Chungha! Do you have an aspirin?” – She asked as she closed the door behind her, unaware that Jieqiong was watching her intensely with a small smile resting on her lips.

“You are cute”

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2 days have passed since Nayoung left Jieqiong at Chungha’s place, she spent most of her time with her, trying to get some answers out of the woman, but so far her approach met utter silence. Besides, she was beginning to feel bad about having her against her will there, she was an assassin, she knew it, but something inside Nayoung insistently advocated in favor of Jieqiong’s right to remain free until trial.

Nayoung looked at the watch on her wrist, her shift would end in approximately ten minutes so she hurried up cleaning her desk, by the time she finished and started heading to the exit she heard a couple of voices approaching.

It was her boss and Sejeong, both looked deep in their conversation and didn’t notice Nayoung was right there, not that being ignored mattered to her at all, the less time she had to spend there at the station meant more time she could spend interrogating Jieqiong.

She watched them go inside the boss office and Nayoung could feel something was off as Sejeong turned to close the big double doors, she looked upset, angry even, but that quickly changed once she spotted Nayoung, her frown was replaced by a smile as she waved a bit before closing the doors with a loud THUD.

She brushed it off as something minor, maybe Sejeong was just having a hard time dealing with their boss, who was known for being quite bothersome.

Nayoung started walking again, she planned on going to her apartment, spend a little time there, read a book or something and then, like she had been doing for the past two days, go to Chungha’s and start the interrogation all over again.

This was shaping out be another dull, repetitive and boring day.

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She arrived at Chungha’s house at 8 p.m. sharp, she was usually there a couple of hours earlier, but she fell asleep while reading and overslept. She marched to the porch and took out the key she had for her partner’s house, they both made copies of their respective keys close to a year ago to give each other, just in case something like this happened.

When she entered she found Chungha laying on the couch with somebody above her, pinning her down, and the worst possible scenario came to mind in an instant. She rushed to the side of the couch and got the assailant off of her friend by pushing it to the other side of the couch, the unknown attacker ended up falling on the floor while a very loud and feminine “EEK” followed by a cry could be heard.

When she looked back at Chungha to check up on her she noticed that the latter was looking at her with an expression of pure annoyance, and that’s when she realized that the “intruder” she had pushed off the couch was no other than Sejeong.

“Oh…”- was the only thing she could mutter, everything made sense now, she had interrupted her best friend making out with her girlfriend and pushed the latter to the floor. She would be bothered too if that happened to her, honestly.

Nayoung walked, red as a tomato and without muttering a single word, to the guest room. She was never good at expressing herself and that included saying sorry and apologizing, so she hopes Chungha remembers that and doesn’t rip her head off of her shoulders when she comes out of the room.

When she closes the door in a rush she hears a giggle, she turns back to find Jieqiong laughing while meddling with her cuffs, Nayoung scoffs at her.

 “You won’t be getting away from here anytime soon, so I would stop messing with the handcuffs if I were you”

“Did you seriously push your partner’s girlfriend while they were making out?”- Where did that come from? Did she hear everything?

“What? I mean… it’s not like I… That wasn’t my intention and I certainly do not need to explain myself to you”- Nayoung got embarrassed really fast and opted for what she believed was a cool answer.

“Did I tell you that you are cute when you pout or get embarrassed? I believe I did… Ah right! I remember, when you made that rookie mistake and hit my elbow with your feet, you were whimpering like a baby! So adorable!”- There she goes again! Why does she insists on flirting with Nayoung everytime she tries to get some information out of her? It’s infuriating and it bothers her to no end. Besides, the “rookie mistake” part wounded Nayoung’s ego.

“Shut up for Christ’s sake, you should be arrested for what you have done, we keep you here as a sign of goodwill and yet you refuse to cooperate with us” – She lashed out, tired of hearing the other girl ramble. The question that led to a flirty remark had been a norm for the entirety of their conversations for the last two days

“You must be fun at parties”- Jieqiong looked dejected, as if she thought Nayoung would finally respond to her advances this time -“I already told you, I don’t know anything about the circle, I was only trained to kill when they asked me too, you are really dense you know that?”

“I don’t care, I know you are hiding something from me”- They were having the same conversation they had every day since the hit, and it always ended up in silence.

Silence

Nayoung knew she would not get anything more out of Jieqiong, she was preparing herself to leave when the other girl surprised her by actually continuing the conversation.

“Well, actually I am…”- she giggled, but I wasn’t one of those lively giggles Nayoung was accustomed to, it sounded sad, charged with negative emotions -“The next time they send somebody for you they are going to kill me too”

“What are you talking about?”- That caught Nayoung off guard, she didn’t know if she was supposed to feel surprised by what Jieqiong was saying or truly frightened.

“Exactly what I said, I told you our bosses don’t accept failure, they are going to kill me too, I know they exist and since I’m not reliable anymore they will kill me to avoid any possible leaks of information…”

“Why didn’t you say that sooner? We can protect you if you are willing to tell us what you know in front of the court, Chungha and I are two of the best fighters in the whole area, unmatched, I can… I mean we, we can keep you safe.”

“I, a fresh recruit that finished my training just recently, could handle you, one of the ‘best fighters in the force’, easily”- she said in a somewhat mocking tone – “What makes you think you even stand a chance against a veteran assassin?”- She was right, if they sent people after them that were even better than Jieqiong was then Nayoung knew she had no chance at beating one of them head on, maybe if she teamed up with Chungha on a two against one fight they would have the upper hand.

Nayoung was deep in thought until a sniffle broke her concentration and brought her back to earth, Jieqiong, the girl that had broken into her house, administered her a beating and pointed a gun to her head was now crying disconsolately.

Nayoung didn’t know what she was supposed to do, did she have to comfort her? Jieqiong looked not a day older than 17, how was such a little girl deprived of her innocence at such a young age? Why was she in this position? Nayoung was mad at the world.

She curses her lack of social skills again and ultimately ends up deciding to just leave the room, she was about to do that when she felt her hand being tugged quite strongly by the girl in the bed. Nayoung looked back to her with a mix of confusion and compassion in her eyes.

“Please stay, just for a little while… I don’t want to be alone right now” – Jieqiong pleads with tears still in her eyes, Nayoung obliges and sits again but doesn’t exactly know why she does it and, frankly, she doesn’t question herself the cause anyways.

They stayed like that for a couple of minutes in complete silence, except for the occasional sniffles and snorts. Jieqiong was still grabbing Nayoung’s hand tightly.

“You know what? I used to be afraid of the dark when I was a child…”- Jieqiong starts narrating a story and Nayoung listens at ease, they soon find themselves talking about nothing important in particular, just idle chatter and for a moment Nayoung forgets about everything going bad and disregards the fact that they were strangers to each other. For the first time, Nayoung relishes the present a little.

By the time the story ended, both are soundly asleep, with their fingers still intertwined.

This time the headache never came.

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Nayoung jolts up suddenly as she hears a crash and some grunts coming from the living room. She lowers her gaze and watches Jieqiong still sleeping before detaching her hand from hers, the guest room was pitch black so she deduced that it was close to or just past midnight. Something had happened outside and Nayoung intended to find out what it was.

She opens the door just a bit and stealthily pokes her head inside the room, what she sees looks very much like the scene she witnessed when she entered Chungha’s house this evening. Only this time, Chungha was being pinned down against the wall with blood running down her lips by somebody that was totally not Sejeong.

“Where are those two?”- Nayoung finds the voice awfully familiar

“Screw… you…”- , Chungha was being chocked. Nayoung blames herself for idling around as she stops wasting time and jumps straight into action, tackling the assailant out of Chungha but failing to send her to the ground. She assumed a defensive stance once the assassin regained their position, prepared for anything the other threw at her.

This time the thief was masked, not that it mattered anyways. Chungha was now at her side, apparently fuming mad and ready for a fight. Nayoung hand instinctively went to her holster.

Where was Jieqiong’s gun? She was sure she had it on her when she arrived at Chungha’s house.

Nayoung forgets about the weapon and looks at the intruder again as they were starting to move their hands up.

Both Chungha and Nayoung tensed, if the assassin carried a gun it was over for them, but instead of looking for a gun, it removed the mask it was wearing. It was a woman.

“There you are, kitty, you’ve been troublesome for us, I’m here to correct that”- Nayoung recognized the voice now, it was the woman that was talking with Jieqiong at her apartment three days ago.

“You were with Jieqiong when she tried to kill me”

“Yes I was, name is Minkyeong, Minky for short, and I’ve come to take both hers and your life tonight”- this Minky girl deadpanned

“Unarmed? Do you want to die that much, miss?”- Chungha interjected before Nayoung had the chance to answer. It was true though, this people never carried firearms around, did they?

Minkyeong didn’t answer the taunt, she laughed instead.

Nayoung looks at Chungha and they instantly know what to do, it seems their ability to understand each other movements wasn’t rusted at all.

Chungha moves quickly, getting close and personal with Minkyeong as she throws a punch to her stomach. Minky sidesteps to the right to dodge but instead gets hit by a sidekick from Nayoung. She goes back a few meters while clutching her belly.

Nayoung utters a small giggle, maybe they had a chance to take her out after all. Trained assassin her .

Minky starts laughing again as she wipes blood out of her face.

“Well, well, well, I wasn’t prepared for that, seems this is going to be a challenge after all”

Nayoung isn’t too keen on wasting more time, she taps Chungha on the shoulder before advancing a few meters, spinning around and aiming a tornado kick to Minky’s head. She was actually counting on the assassin to dodge her kick, because Chungha was right behind Nayoung waiting to uppercut Minkyeong as soon as she moved out of the way of the kick.

It worked again, Minky was sent straight to the ground all while grabbing her head. She was no match for their teamwork, Nayoung used the time they had to walk up to Chungha with her hand up, waiting for a high five.

Chungha grinned and high-five’d her, they were really unmatched after all, Nayoung was dying inside to tell Jieqiong of the beating they were giving to her “highly trained” companion, and she was going to rub it all over her face. That would teach her not to underestimate Nayoung.

Or so she thought…

“Well, playtime is over kids, now I’m pulling out the stops”- was this supposed to be threatening? Nayoung was already way up on her high horse too notice the look Minkyeong was giving her.

Minkyeong lunged at them with her own tornado kick, it certainly caught Nayoung off guard, but Chungha had never stopped paying attention to the girl. She moved Nayoung out of the way to block the hit with her right arm.

Even though the block was successful, Chungha didn’t expect it to be followed by a spinning hook kick aimed at her face. She barely had time to move back before getting hit, but she managed to do so and move out of harm’s way.

Nayoung stepped in front of Chungha while the latter regained her breath. She threw a front kick at the attacker to make her back off. That didn’t happen, instead Minkyeong ended up grabbing her feet with both her hands at an unbelievable speed as she twisted it with enough force to make Nayoung lose balance. She fell to the ground with a dry thud before she felt a kick to the ribs that knocked off the air from the lungs.

“Not so funny now, is it? - The assassin taunted her seconds before she was side kicked by Chungha to prevent her from kicking Nayoung again.

She got up again with Chungha’s help as she regained her breath, they both knew they had to put an end to this as soon as possible and stop playing around unless they wanted the intruder to get even more serious. 

They went in both at the same moment this time, Chungha aimed a hammer kick to Minkyeong’s head while Nayoung went for a low kick.

Neither did connect as Minkyeong stopped both with each arm before using her right leg to hook Nayoung in the face following right after with a roundhouse to Chungha’s face. Both were stunned momentarily but resumed the assault at the same time, with excellent coordination, this time Chungha went upfront and tried to connect some punches while Nayoung positioned herself behind Minkyeong and prepared her own hammer kick. The assassin made no effort to move out of the way of the attacks, or so it seemed.

As if she had been waiting for them to get close enough to be unable to stop their attacks at will, Minkyeong side stepped out of the way with godlike speed as Nayoung and Chungha crashed into each other. It could have been fatal had Chungha not raised her hands at the last second to ward off Nayoung’s strike.

Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, Minkyeong got closer to Chungha and sent a roundhouse kick right in the gut before grabbing her by the neck and throwing the most likely unconscious Chungha to a nearby wall.

“Well, now that that’s off the way…”

Nayoung regretted believing even for a second that they could face off against this… thing, superhuman, monster, whatever it was.

Still, she wasn’t giving up.

“Spoiler alert, I’m about to kick your to hell and back.”- Maybe the assassin could be intimidated with cheesy action movies one-liners?

“Good, good… I like it when they play rough with me”- Holy , Nayoung wasn’t expecting that at all.

Minkyeong senses the confusion in Nayoung eyes and takes it as an indicator to attack, she throws a side kick to Nayoung’s stomach followed by a spinning hook kick to her face.

Nayoung manages to block the first kick but cannot match the assassin’s speed at all and gets hit by the second kick and tumbles back a few meters, before she has time to regain her footing she sees another kick coming her way and rolls out of the way to dodge it.

She lands next to Chungha and looks at her partner, contrary to what she expected, she was conscious, but looked like she was out of this world.

To her bad luck, Minkyeong doesn’t leave her anymore time to think as she rushes at her with a flurry of punches, she manages to deflect the first two that were aimed at a her face and neck but fails at blocking a third blow aimed for her torso.

She was about to fall to the ground when she feels a pair of arms grab her by the collar of her shirt and the next moment she feels herself flying until she smashes her head against the door to the guest room. Leaving her on the floor, dizzy and feeling nauseous.

The difference of skill between this woman and Jieqiong was totally something to be taken into account. Nayoung had had no chance to break the relentless offensive Minkyeong threw at her and had to rely on playing defensive the whole time, and even then it wasn’t enough.

Minkyeong was an unstoppable force and Nayoung certainly wasn’t an immovable object.

“Now, kitty, enough playing around, time to die.”

She feels a pair of hands grab her by the neck and push her against the wall, she tries to kick Minkyeong to make her drop her but its futile, Nayoung has no strength left and she starts suffocating, her head starts spinning more so than it already was and she feels lightheaded. She was about to lose her consciousness when suddenly her lungs fill with air again and the only thing she hears before wholly regaining her vision are curses.

When she reopens her eyes she sees a broken vase and lots of dirt in the floor near where she was, she feels a pair of hands trying to lift her up, it was Chungha.

The assassin was now on the other end of the living room, stumbling around the furniture while screaming bloody murder, she looks back for a moment before speaking with a guttural voice.

“You will regret this es, I’ll be back”- She says before hopping out of a broken window, probably the one that she broke to get into the house on the first place.

“Are you alright?”- Chungha asks as she leans on the wall.

“My head is hurting a lot right now, I think I’m bleeding, but nothing to mayor. I should go to a hospital tomorrow anyways.”

“Same, I don’t think I broke anything, but I should go regardless.” – Chungha looked like right now – “That sure gave us a whole lot of trouble, good thing I always carry my vase, specially designed to take out es, around”

They both laughed together with last strand of strength they had, then silence reigned again.

“How could they possibly have known we have the other girl here?”- Chungha raises a valid point - “We brought her in at 4 a.m. and there was nobody on the street at the time, only Sejeong, you and I know we have her here”

“They are a mafia circle, they are bound to have eyes and ears everywhere, for sure”

“Fair enough”- Chungha accepts that explanation without thinking too much about it – “Listen, you should go and get some sleep, Sejeong left before midnight to go to her house but I’ll leave her a message to tell the boss that we were assaulted by some thugs and cannot go to work today.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep too?”

“I’ve been worse than this, I can stay awake for a couple of hours, once you get up I’ll go to sleep, just like what we used to do on the field.”- Both reminisced a little about past times in silence.

After a few minutes Nayoung got up from the floor, said goodbye to Chungha and decided that sleep really sounded like a good plan right now. She entered the guest room only to find a Jieqiong that was wide awake, sitting at the border of the bed and looking straight at her.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” – Nayoung wasn’t in the mood to humor the girl and didn’t have the energy to get mad at her either.

“I could have helped you know”

“We took care of the problem, no need for you to intervene”

“More like the problem took care of you, but suit yourself”

Nayoung thought about the future for a second, there were probably going to be other attempts at her life, she needed all the allies she could get. She sat on the bed next to Jieqiong’s and looked at the girl, scrutinized her, and felt bold enough to do what she was about to.

“What are you doing?”- Jieqiong went beet red when Nayoung practically threw herself all over her.

“Remain still for a second”- Nayoung remained oblivious to their predicament as she was trying to reach the cuffs.

Their faces were close, too close. A click could be heard and that snapped Jieqiong’s attention directly to her cuffs

“There you go, you are free to move now”- Nayoung said as she returned to her original position –“Just please don’t backstab me as soon as I go to sleep”- she emitted a dry laugh.

“Why did you do that?”- Jieqiong rubbed her right wrist, it felt nice to leave behind the pressure exerted by the metal cuffs.

“I want to keep you close”- Nayoung uttered without thinking, realized what she had said and quickly added – “I mean, if something were to happen to you I would lose my chance at uncovering the mafia group, that’s it, nothing more, don’t start thinking about weird things...”- she was really embarrassed now.

Jieqiong laughs heartily for the first time in a while as she proceeded to tease Nayoung about her slip up, which in turn makes her become even more flustered.

“Stop it! I didn’t mean anything by it! Shut up!”- Nayoung had resorted to covering her face with a pillow so she didn’t have to meet Jieqiong’s stares.

Silence came again, but unlike the rest of the silences they had, this one wasn’t awkward at all, until Jieqiong decided to bring the little good mood they gathered down in an instant.

“I knew something like this would happen, they sent a highly trained assassin, they really want us dead”- She sounded like she was about to cry again – “Minkyeong has ten times the skill I possess, she was probably just toying with you and your partner the entire time, making you think you were capable of taking her on, only to crush your hopes afterwards… she loves to do that a lot”

Nayoung didn’t want to have to watch her cry again, she tells herself that it was because she’d rather not have to deal with that situation, she would never admit to herself that she actually cares about the girl. She looked so helpless in her current condition, and Nayoung had always hated the feeling of helplessness, she then instinctively reaches to grab Jieqiong’s hand.

“It didn’t seem like that when she hopped of a window to escape, if she truly was toying with us the entire time she would have finished the job”- She says that more to herself and her wounded pride than to Jieqiong – “We can work together, she will not stand a chance against us three the next time she comes, I told you I was going to protect you and I intend on keeping that promise”

Nayoung sees a couple of tears coming out of Jieqiong’s eyes before she brushes them away and looks at her with a lovely smile on her lips.

“You know, even though I know that isn’t true, even though I know we aren’t safe, you make me feel protected, thanks” – She hugs Nayoung tightly and the latter doesn’t actually know how to respond to that display of affection, so she ends up awkwardly Jieqiong’s hair until the she falls asleep.

Nayoung spends the rest of night thinking about things that she could’ve said to Jieqiong after that sudden confession, she racks her brains again and again looking for something that would have been cool to say, but ends up dismissing the idea and trying to go to sleep.

Either way, saying that she the headaches didn’t come as regularly as before when she was with her was not something romantic regardless of the way you looked at it…

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“Nayoung, please, you have to wake up” – A voice echoes

“Come on, get up!”- It gets closer

“IM NAYOUNG! GET UP RIGHT NOW!”- A voices screams and it almost breaks Nayoung’s ear

“I’m up, I’m up, what do you want?”- Nayoung jolts awake and rubs her ear a little, she looks at Chungha sitting right next to her, looking absolutely terrified, and instantly knows something bad happened.

“You have to leave this place”- What was that? Did she hear it correctly?

“I have to leave, why? What happened? – Nayoung was beyond confused right now.

“Sejeong called me a few minutes ago, they found our boss dead in his office this morning…”

“And what does that have to do with me?”

“Your gun, Nayoung, they found your gun with your fingerprints in that office too”- Holy crap, how in the world did her gun get there? They obviously killed her boss and tried to blame her for it – “He was killed about 18 hours ago, you were at the station at that time, please tell me it wasn’t you…”

“What are you saying, of course it wasn’t me, why would I kill him?”- Nayoung was hurt of Chungha’s disbelief, she was her friend and she knew Nayoung would never do something like that.

“Sejeong told me they were going to send people to look for you in your apartment”

“Then what’s the problem? They don’t know I’m here, why do I have to leave?”

“Stop being stubborn, if they don’t find you there where do you think they are going to look next?!”- She was getting emotional.

“I know of a place we can go to”- This time it was Jieqiong the one who talked, Chungha looked at her and realized that she was standing near them without he handcuffs in her wrist.

“The hell? Why are you uncuffed?”- Chungha was about to pounce on Jieqiong had Nayoung not grabbed her hand in time

“Easy, easy, it was me, I uncuffed her yesterday and I’m alive, relax.”- They stared at each other, explaining themselves with their eyes, and after a couple of seconds Chungha relaxed her stance, breathed, and went back to normal.

“Well then, where is this place you are talking about? I don’t trust you” – She had turned to Jieqiong expecting an answer.

“It’s in the suburbs of the city, it’s an old, abandoned house, police officers don’t get close to that area, they never did because they never cared about the poor.”- Jieqiong said that with a hint of venom in her voice, maybe she knew something Nayoung didn’t? Although it was true that the station often didn’t bother to send manpower to guard the poorer parts of the city.

“What are you implying you little ?”- This seemed to have struck a nerve on Chungha’s body, and Nayoung opted to intervene before things got even more heated.

“Hey, easy, both of you, relax, we have no time for this, let’s move as quickly as possible”

“Are you seriously letting her take you to a place you don’t know?”

“Yes, Chungha, we are in the same boat right now, and I trust her”- It was true, after all, they wanted both of them dead.

“Whatever” – Chungha dismissed whatever Nayoung was about to say, but quickly added – “But please, be careful, I’m going to try and sort this out, I know you didn’t kill that man and I’ll prove it”

She hugged Nayoung and they remained that way for a good couple of minutes before they heard Jieqiong clearing her voice.

“Can we please go now, I’d rather not waste anymore time…”- If Nayoung didn’t know any better she’d think Jieqiong was jealous.

Nayoung muttered her goodbyes to Chungha and followed Jieqiong out, they were going to take a cab to the entrance of the suburbs and walk to the house from there.

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It took less than an hour for them to get to the old house, Nayoung didn’t expect much to be honest, but this was way beyond what she imagined. The old wooden house had clearly seen better days, it was almost destroyed, burnt in some places, rotten in others and the roof looked like it would come crashing down as soon as a drop of water landed on it.

It was the best they had either way, she followed a silent Jieqiong to the porch, or what was left of it, and waited while the girl crouched and started looking for something behind a couple of dead plants.

“Here it is”- Jieqiong had a key in her hands – “Let’s go inside so we can plan our next move”

Nayoung enters the house after Jieqiong, there are no lights but the sunlight that comes from the destroyed windows is enough for her to see the inside. It looks as bad as the outside. Nayoung stops thinking as soon as she feels a zap in her mind, she was having another headache, fantastic, just when she was starting to miss them.

She wasn’t going to pay any mind to the interior of the house when something caught her eyes. It was a photo, a family photo to be exact, of three. There was the mother, the father and…

“I’m sorry I made you come here, I just wanted to visit this place one more time before we die…”- Jieqiong spoke up and seeing that Nayoung wasn’t interrupting she continued – “Five years ago they killed my fathers over some debt they had and took me in for training when I was little, I ended up being the payment. I haven’t come back here since that moment.”

“Jieqiong I’m so sorry…”- Nayoung at comforting people and she knows it, but at least she tries.

“It’s okay, I was too little so I don’t remember, or feel, anything”- She still sounded really sad, she was crying again.

“But we are not going to die here, they want us gone but I refuse to give up, I’ll show you, we will get away from here and I will work to expose them to the best of my abilities”- Nayoung sincerely wanted to uplift Jieqiong’s spirit, she was sure they were going to make it out alive of this predicament –“ So don’t go saying that we will die because we won’t, I’ll make sure of it, I’m going to protect you Jieqiong.”

Jieqiong stopped crying to laugh a little, this made Nayoung’s heart flutter a bit, she couldn’t even begin to understand why someone, anyone, would put such an innocent child through the scarring memory of killing another human being, even Nayoung, stone Nayoung, wasn’t as unmoved as people thought she was when she had to take another life.

Nayoung was brought back to earth when she felt Jieqiong hugging her, she was awkward to her touch still, but this time she tried to at least reciprocate the hug by circling Jieqiong’s waist with her hands.

“Thank you, for taking care of me, and for everything else”- Jieqiong said

Then Jieqiong kissed her.

It was a long kiss, or at least Nayoung thought it was, because she remained paralyzed for almost the whole duration of it, only at the end did she feel her own body answering to her orders to kiss back. Her headache completely disappearing after that.

When Jieqiong broke the kiss Nayoung was expecting an awkward atmosphere to set in, she didn’t know what she was going to say after it ended and that terrified her. She curses for a third time her lack of social skills.

She didn’t need to say anything, however, because Jieqiong started talking as soon as the kiss ended.

“You don’t understand Nayoung, this isn’t about you, the circle is bigger than you thought, judges, politicians, senators, other officers like you, your landlord, your mailman, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, could be in it, especially if they hold some kind of power over the masses. You can’t win against them, not when the president of the country is part of the whole organization… If they want us dead, believe me, we will die.”

Nayoung was taken aback, was the president really a part of this? What exactly did Jieqiong know?

“They are everywhere, and they are coming here right now, we can’t escape from them, I just wanted to die where my parents died, I’m sorry I brought you here”- Jieqiong finishes.

Nayoung feels anger raising within her body, this is insane, Jieqiong must be talking gibberish or she must be trying to scare her for some sort of sick and twisted joke. She was about to burst and answer Jieqiong when she heard a single knock on the door.

“It’s them…”- Jieqiong sounded devoid of emotion.

Nayoung gets closer to the door really slowly, there wasn’t any way she could see to the outside from there unless she opened it. And she did.

It was Sejeong. With her eye smile ever present.

Nayoung breathes a sigh of relief, hell, she had been scared less for a moment

“See Jieqiong? It’s just Sejeong, Chungha’s girlfriend, Chungha must have sent her to check up on us.”- Nayoung laughed in relief until she saw Jieqiong pale, unmoving. - “What’s the problem?”- She did not understand why Jieqiong was acting the way she was right now.

“I didn’t tell your partner the address of this house.”

She was right. Nayoung turned back to Sejeong, who had not said a word since she entered the house.

“Please, tell her that CH sent you to check up on us so she can stop worrying”

Sejeong pulls out a gun and Nayoung, instinctively, stands up in front of Jieqiong.

“Why do you have a gun? You aren’t allowed to use one, drop that right now Sejeong!”

Sejeong started laughing, her eye smile still present.

“This gun is yours Nayoungie...”

“Why do you have it then?”

“Let’s just say I’ve had it since that fight you had in your apartment”

Then it comes back to Nayoung, there was a sound in the kitchen when she entered her apartment, but Jieqiong was behind her at the time. Minkyeong must have come to Chungha’s house because Sejeong told her too. Lastly, she probably was the one that left Nayoung’s gun in the scene of the crime after killing her own boss yesterday. Everything was perfect for Nayoung to get accused of killing him for revenge on closing her case. It was a perfect plan that had been put in motion ever since Nayoung made a scene at the police station.

“Why? What are you going to do to us now?”

“You see, unlike our dearie Jieqiong here, I don’t carry a toy gun around.”

 The only thing you could hear from the front of the house was the occasional dog bark. The whole neighborhood was entirely silent and deserted at that point, then a shot was heard, but everything still remained silent after that.

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Chungha arrived at the scene of the crime after one of her colleagues called her, saying that she should come and see something for herself. What it was she didn’t know, she just knows that it seemed to be urgent.

She got down of the police car and started walking closer to the old wooden house, it was really worn down so Chungha wasn’t surprised that this abandoned looking house was the main place for a murder or something. She took a look at the address and realized it was the one Jieqiong brought Nayoung to, that was enough for her to race inside, fearing the worst.

Yes, she had overhead them when they were about to get into the cab, she had even called Sejeong to ask for her to check up on them, since she had been trying to find enough proof of Nayoung’s innocence.

When she entered the house and got past the tape the other officers had set up to keep away curious eyes she found something that broke her.

It was Sejeong, with a bullet hole in the middle of her head, unmoving, looking lifeless.

Dead.

She could already see the headlines tomorrow, Nayoung disappearance and Sejeong death would both be in it.

She fought back tears, Sejeong was right, Nayoung had become insane, she probably even killed their boss and lied to her without batting an eye. Sejeong told her she saw her following her boss to his office after her shift had ended and Chungha didn’t believe her, now she felt like crap. Maybe that wouldn’t have happened if Chungha had sold Nayoung to the police in the first place, maybe then her Sejeong would still be alive.

Her tears started to come down freely after that thought, she couldn’t hold them back anymore.

She had lost both her friend and her girlfriend in the same day.

She knew the stress probably turned Nayoung mad, her investigation was closed and she was being hunted by a mafia circle, that was bound to strain her mind sooner than later. Chungha blamed herself, she should have sought for help, but she didn’t.

Either way, it was too late now, Nayoung had killed her girlfriend, she had descended into madness as a whole and Chungha swore on her life that she was going to find her.

And kill her with her own two hands.

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Here it is, I hope you all like it, I didn't proofread it yet so it might have a lot of grammar mistakes. I'm going to be correcting those Tomorrow.

Feel free to leave any criticism towards the story or anything you want to tell me about my way of writing.

This was supposed to end differently, At first napink was supposed to die, but since this site is already full of napink angst i allowed myself to tweak the ending a little. I'll probably update with the other ending + Chungha vs Minkyeong first fight Tomorrow, either way i have something to continue from if I ever want to write a sequel or you guys demand it enough

I also want to know what you guys think i should write about next genre-wise. I was thinking horror or maybe something like RPG fantasy. Both are good for me since they rely heavily on atmosphere and descriptions, things I need to improve in when writing in english. I'll decide it based on the comments but i might just link my Twitter when i update tomorrow and create a poll there.

I also want to know what you think about the little romance i could add to the story, since it's one of my weaknesess ( I straight up At writing romance lol) so any advice or constructive criticism is welcome.

Lastly, i hope you enjoyed the story, thanks for reading.