chapter eighteen (*edited 2021)

She was back in the penthouse. She hadn’t been paying attention to where the door was leading, but soon she recognized the doors, though she had always been on the other side.

J.Seph all but threw her through the doorway. On hindsight, maybe struggling the entire way—including stomping none too gently on his feet—wasn’t the best idea. It wasn’t like Somin would have managed to get away—she was only delaying the inevitable, and irritating J.Seph in the process.

He left her there for hours—the rest of the night passed, and Somin stayed on the floor, everything aching, including her head. She wanted to look at the phone, but she wasn’t sure how secure the penthouse was about her own privacy—she doubted she had much.

She drifted in and out of sleep, but then, as the sky began changing from grey to blue, she heard the door open and immediately snapped to attention.

J.Seph was just as irritated as he had been when he had left her yesterday. “You know, I thought you’d appreciate all of this—I promised, didn’t I, that you’d see Matthew again?” He closed the door behind him. “And instead of just seeing each other, I let you be together for over a week. There would have been other ways to get what I need—I didn’t have to do any of this.”

He was right, he had done so much for her, but here she was being so uncooperative—no, no no no. He was wrong. Somin fought back the urge to stay curled up on the floor and forced herself to stand up. “Then why did you? If you didn’t have to do any of this—then—then why the hell did you?”

He raised his eyebrows, his grin somewhat amused. He still looked amused—he always looked amused. After killing Lee that first day, after killing Youngji, after kill—no, after hurting Jiwoo because Jiwoo can’t be dead . . . and forcing Somin to be the one to hurt her . . . he still managed to be amused. Somin could feel her hands trembling, but rather than fear it was out of anger. J.Seph was bad. He has always been bad.

“You’re just like Matthew—you never understand, even if the answer has been spelled out for you.” His smile widened, but it stopped reaching his eyes. “He needs to stop trying to break Sangchul Medical. Unfortunate, that you were caught in the crossfire, but I suppose it was for the best. Now even as he tries breaking my partnership, I’ll be breaking him. By using you.”

He reached out, as if to grab Somin’s arm, but Somin swatted it away and stepped back. If J.Seph was bad, then what did that make Somin? Somin was helping him, wasn’t she? Even if she tried to justify it, saying it was for Matthew . . . was it really okay?

“I . . . am done.” He quirked an eyebrow. Somin took a deep breath. “I’m not helping you. Not anymore. I’m not going to help you keep ruining people’s lives, including mine. You can’t do that.”

“And who says I can’t?” J.Seph asked, taking another step closer.

This time, Somin stood her ground and prayed that she wouldn’t faint as she looked him straight in the eyes. J.Seph had always been the bad guy . . . even before she was kidnapped. “You knew me, didn’t you?”

There—a spark of confusion. “What?”

“You knew me. From that car accident four years ago.”

And there, in his eyes, was a hint of what Somin dared to think was disbelief. Somin couldn’t revel in her victory for long, though, because then his smirk was back, and she felt goosebumps raise on her arms. The silence in the room as neither of them spoke was almost deafening.

“Not bad. Not bad at all,” J.Seph says, a hint of praise in his voice. “You’re proving to be worth the headache of leaving you alive the first time. I think I even prefer you to Matthew.” Then he tilted his head. “Remember anything else?”

“S-sorry, what?” Somin managed to say in her confusion.

He took another step closer. “What else do you remember?”

Somin considered stepping back, but no—she needed to hold her ground. “Why does that matter?”

“I need to see if you know too much.” His smirk widened. “Jiwoo did say you called to tell Matthew something. What exactly did you tell him?”

“Nothing.” She regretted it now—if she was going to end up back here anyway, then helping the investigation was the least she could have done. But Matthew’s safety . . . she held back a sigh. There was no winning, was there?

J.Seph raised an eyebrow. “But you were going to tell him something, weren’t you? What was that?”

And then it clicked. J.Seph had covered his tracks so well—even Matthew had told her that there was practically no direct connection to him from anything. Then why would his name have been on the witness list . . . unless he didn’t know about it?

She could have been overthinking it, overcomplicating it, but her gut told her to not divulge that information.

“Nothing, really.”

But Somin had stayed silent a moment too long.

“Is it wrong that I don’t believe you?”

Don’t panic. Breathe. Breathe. “Really, it was nothing—I’d just—I’d been acting really weird, and I didn’t know if he noticed something was off—”

You’re talking too fast. This explanation is too convoluted.

“—I just wanted to avoid misunderstandings.”

And when J.Seph’s eyes narrowed, Somin knew she had screwed up. Her only comfort came from the fact that he was still kind of smiling. No, why was she comforted at all?

“All right. You’re done helping me, is that what you said?”

She didn’t know if she was supposed to nod.

“Then I suppose you wouldn’t mind helping yourself, am I right?” He began walking away, looking at his phone, but Somin still didn’t find it any easier to breathe. “Or more specifically, your boyfriend.”

Somin froze. Matthew. J.Seph could still hurt him. She couldn’t go on a rebellious streak just because of Jiwoo and the morals of helping someone evil—she had to consider Matthew, and how J.Seph could still hurt him—could always hurt him. She was so selfish. “What . . . do you mean?” she asked slowly.

When he turned around, his smile was full of mischief, much like a child’s when pulling a prank. “Let’s see if you can find him before he’s killed.” He took something out of his pocket and tossed it at her, and Somin instinctively stepped away, letting it hit the ground rather than catching it. She heard J.Seph sigh as she bent to pick up—keys. They were keys.

Car keys.

“The car’s in the garage. I’m not sure when the drinks will be served, but he really shouldn’t be drinking them.”

Somin stared at the keys in her hands, not comprehending.

J.Seph repeated, “The car’s in the garage. The guards will you there. If you want to save him, you’ll find him in time.”

.

.

.

.

“Done,” Jae announced, closing his file with a loud thud and pushing his chair back from the desk. He grinned when he realized everyone was glaring at him, and that he had even made Jiwoo jump slightly with his outburst. “I’ll go turn this in to Director Park.”

“Which one did you finish?” Kevin asked as he looked at the other files on his own desk.

“Youngji’s,” said Jae as he picked up the file and started toward the door. “Don’t worry—you already did two of ’em right? I can take Ahn’s next.”

“Actually—” But the door had already closed behind Jae. Kevin sighed.

“Something about Ahn?” Matthew asked.

Kevin shrugged. “His file can’t be written up yet. We still need to investigate to confirm the data about his identity as Mawang, because we got the tip anonymously. And I’ve done some research” —sounds of rapid typing— “tracing him to a bar in the city. Went there a lot, particularly in the days before his death . . .”

“So you need someone to check it out?”

“Yeah, and other than Jae.” He sighed again. “The last time I took him to investigate someone he practically started analyzing the situation out loud, right in front of the guy. Needless to say, he should be left behind the scenes. Anyways,” he said, looking back to his computer, “I’ve gotten permission to access the security cams, and Ahn always interacted with the same bartender. Get to that bartender, and I think we’ll have something on Mawang.”

Matthew pushed himself back from his desk and stretched his arms out. “Is it open now?” When Kevin nodded, Matthew stood up. “I guess I’ll—”

“I don’t know if today will work, though. I still have to finish writing formal reports for some of the older cases that we pushed aside to deal with this . . . I won’t be able to go with you, and with Ahn’s reputation I wouldn’t recommend going alone. We don’t know if the bartender is as risky as—”

Jiwoo cleared to interrupt. Slowly, she stood up, and glancing between Kevin and Matthew, said, “What am I, chopped liver?”

Matthew had to hold back a laugh; even Kevin smiled. But then they were serious again, because Jiwoo’s glare had a way of dampening the mood. “You’ve already been hurt,” Matthew said. “And if anything escalates there, then—”

“Then you’ll need more than a researcher to defend your .” Not bothering with further argument, Jiwoo grabbed her bag, her keys rattling as she picked them up. “I’m coming with you.”

“This is it?” Matthew said as they came to a stop in front of the entrance.

“It’s the address Kevin sent, isn’t it?” Jiwoo craned her neck to see beyond the line and the bouncer, but it was too dark. “It doesn’t look like much.”

“Not a place I’d expect a drug dealer to frequent.” Matthew glanced at the line again, and then back to Jiwoo. “Let’s head in.”

It was hard to notice from the outside because the hall leading into the main room was dark and relatively unlit, but as soon the door opened to the center of the bar they were able to see why Ahn had chosen this bar. It was a western-style bar, and personal tastes aside, it looked rather high end and expensive—neon lights in varying shades of blue, purple, and pink; sleek, steel bar stools under a long chrome table. The lights were reflecting off of everything, creating a psychedelic aura. On the far end was a small stage setup up with a disco ball and karaoke machine, already being used by people that were far from sober.

Jiwoo whistled. “Damn.”

Matthew nodded. “And it’s only the evening.”

“We have the picture of the bartender, right?”

“Yep,” he said, rummaging through his pocket. He pulled out a small piece of paper, a printout of the clearest screen capture from the security feed. Though his facial features were still somewhat questionable from the image quality, his hair was noticeably light despite the black and white picture. Jiwoo had immediately decided that he was blond.

“That’s how my hair looks in black and white pictures,” she had explained.

There weren’t any open spots around the main bar anyway, so they took a small table in the corner that still had a view of the bartenders. After ordering a few shots to look normal—they couldn’t drink on the job, but they also couldn’t just sit there at an empty table without drawing attention to themselves—they furtively kept the bar in the periphery of their vision.

A hostess came with their drinks and then left, but there was still no sign of that bartender. Jiwoo drummed her fingers against the table. “How do you drink without getting drunk?” When Matthew raised a questioning eyebrow, she said, “We look strange since we’re not talking. People usually come here to talk, don’t they?”

“And drink.”

Jiwoo rolled her eyes. “And drink. But we can’t do that without compromising the investigation, so” —resting her chin on her hand, as if this were a normal conversation— “how do you drink without getting drunk?”

Matthew looked at their drinks thoughtfully. “You . . . don’t?”

She laughed. “Wrong. It’s not perfect, but there are some ways.” She pushed her glass to the middle of the table. “First, add a lot of ice, even though drinks are usually served cold. Then if you have to drink, drink slowly to give the ice time to melt, so that the drink is too diluted to do much harm.”

“That wouldn’t work in a Korean bar, would it? You don’t drink soju with ice.”

“Like I said, it’s not perfect. Western bars like this are better.” She swirled the glass around, the ice she had ordered clinking against the sides. “They might look at you funny, but hey—you look like a foreigner anyway. And as soon as they hear your name they won’t really question what you do anymore.” She laughed again as Matthew rolled his eyes.

“Any other tips?”

Jiwoo all but dropped her glass onto the table, and some of the alcohol sloshed over the sides. “Spill. A lot. In addition to not drinking as much since you’re spilling it all, you also look more drunk than you are. Combine these with A+ acting, and you're good to go.” She glanced back at the bar. “How often do they change shifts?”

Matthew mentally pulled up the email Kevin had sent with all the information. “Every six hours. But this bartender showed up during all the shifts—whenever Ahn was there, really.”

“So he probably won’t come out again unless it’s someone like Ahn, will he?” Her phone started ringing, then, and she fumbled to answer it.

Meanwhile, Matthew nodded slowly. “I’ll . . . ask about Ahn. Say that I know him or something,” he said, standing up. Jiwoo nodded as she answered the call.

But when he got to the bar, a blond bartender was already waiting for him. Hair tied in a low ponytail and face framed with large, rimless circle glasses, he greeted Matthew with a bow. “Welcome,” he said. “Friend of Ahn Hyunsuk?”

Matthew was immediately suspicious. “. . . Yes.”

“Then what is his true name?”

Matthew blinked—once, twice, before it hit him. “Mawang.”

The bartender bowed again. “Please, have a seat. I will bring your drinks out shortly.”

Still taken aback, Matthew walked back to the table, where Jiwoo was already done with the call and was watching Matthew carefully. “What was that?”

“He was already there when I walked up. He asked for Ahn’s pseudonym, and said he’ll bring drinks shortly.” He caught Jiwoo’s expression—she was frowning, now looking at the bar. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

A few minutes passed—it felt slow, but it had only been a little over five minutes—until the bartender emerged again from the employees only door at the corner of the bar, holding a plate of drinks. As he approached, he made eye contact with Matthew and gave a courtesy smile.

“There he is,” Matthew said, and Jiwoo turned to look.

When he arrived at their table, he set the plate down at the center, setting the new drinks down and putting the drinks they had previously ordered back on the plate. “I will remove these, and then we can talk. Please, have a drink. It is on the house.”

Both Matthew and Jiwoo bowed slightly in thanks, and watched as the man walked away. Jiwoo picked up the glass first. “Would he notice if we spilled these?”

“I think he would. He works—worked—with Ahn, remember? He was probably a connection too, and in that case he’d have to be careful with details.”

Jiwoo nodded, setting the glass back down.

Matthew wasn’t an avid drinker, despite the drinking culture in South Korea. But he had to admit—this drink looked interesting, with it’s bright blue color. It seemed to be a western thing; he wouldn’t have known, though, since he didn’t typically go to western-style bars.

Then the man returned, and he pulled up another stool to their table. “You are a friend of Ahn, yes?”

With a confirming glance at each other, both of them nodded. “Yes,” Matthew said, “we worked at Sangchul Medical together.”

“Ah, then you have heard of his passing?”

This time with grim expressions, they nodded again.

“I am glad he has sent another in his place, as a way for business to continue growing,” the man started, looking pointedly at Matthew.

Matthew smiled, and when the man took a second to glance back at the rest of the bar, he looked at Jiwoo, brows slightly furrowed. Where is this going?

Jiwoo lifted her shoulders slightly, not noticeable if one wasn’t looking. Can’t tell.

Then the man returned his attention to their table. “It was a brilliant step. To celebrate this continuation, we must have a toast.” It was only when he lifted his own glass that Matthew realized he had brought another drink for himself. When neither Matthew nor Jiwoo reacted, the man looked pointedly at their drinks, then back to them. “A toast,” he repeated, gesturing with his glass.

“Of course,” Jiwoo said quickly, covering up for their late reaction. She lifted her glass to the center, and Matthew did the same.

“To the growth of a successful business,” the man said as the glasses clinked together, and then he took a sip of his drink as he continued watching Matthew and Jiwoo.

Matthew put the glass to his lips, curious as to how it would taste. After all, he had never tried a drink that looked like this one before.

And then the glass was knocked out of his hands, shattering as it hit the ground. Matthew reactively stood up and stepped back, knocking the stool over in the process.

“Don’t drink it, I’m sorry, I love you, run!” said a very, very familiar voice. The two hands shoved him farther away from the table, and the familiar brunette hair passed in front of him, nearly jumping over the mess of the broken glass in her haste to get away.

Matthew stood frozen for exactly one second, a disbelieving whisper of “Somin” slipping through as shock overpowered common sense, before he whirled around to see her retreating figure. “Somin!”

Barely noticing how Jiwoo was also standing, shocked and staring at the scattered remains of her own glass, he ran after her as she disappeared through the entrance door. He was faster, but she had already gotten a head start—and he was disoriented.

Somin.

Somin was here.

The door had already closed behind her by the time he reached it, and his heart dropped when he saw that she wasn’t in the hall either. By the time he skidded to a stop at the curbside, eyes darting around and neck almost snapping with how quickly he was turning around looking for her, she was already gone.

And there was a woman’s scream, followed by a burst of pain in his shoulder.

.

.

.

.

Somin could not remember driving that quickly in her entire licensed life. It was probably unsafe, in hindsight, that she immediately started the engine upon reaching the car since she had still been disoriented from the blindfold the guards had used to get her to the parking garage, but if she didn’t get to Matthew in time then driving safe was useless anyway.

She had to find Matthew.

J.Seph hadn’t said it out loud, but if she was caught then all bets would be off on Matthew’s safety—so she had to avoid detection. Somin huffed as she turned out of the parking garage. She was an interior designer, not a police officer. It felt oddly ironic.

She also hadn’t gone to work in so long—

Not the time, idiot.

Somin breathed out, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. “Right,” she said out loud. “Find Matthew.”

J.Seph had said drinks—but Matthew didn’t usually drink, and even if he did he wouldn’t take time off work to do so in the middle of the evening. That probably meant it was for an investigation . . .

Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t notice the car in front of her slowing to a stop at the light until the last second. She reacted on instinct and slammed on the brakes.

The snapped in place as it held her back despite the sudden stop. “,” she muttered—the seatbelt had dug into her side, and she felt the cell phone pressing painfully into her hip—

The cell phone.

She could call Jiwoo. If it was an investigation, then Jiwoo would at least know where Matthew was—

Somin turned into the next spot she found with parking—a small shopping complex, with a few department stores and what looked like a bar.

She vaguely realized that, if only she had the option, she could probably head home now. She mentally made a note to remember where the parking garage was. That way, if she somehow got out again, she could try to help the investigators trace J.Seph’s location—but then she shot the idea down. With how far the guards had taken her around in the blindfold, she couldn’t even tell if they had still been in the same building in that set of complexes. Nevertheless, even if the investigators had the location, they still wouldn’t be able to do anything—there was nothing concrete proving him to be J.Seph.

The name Kim Taehyung rang in her head, and Somin resisted the urge to slam her head against the steering wheel in frustration.

As soon as she parked, Somin snapped the seatbelt off and moved to take the phone out—but then froze. She didn’t know if the car was bugged or anything, and she knew that if J.Seph found out she had a phone, then escape down the line would be impossible.

Instead, she stepped out of the car and, locking it, walked into one of the department stores in the complex and headed straight for the bathrooms. There, Somin took out the phone and studied it for a few seconds. It was an old phone, but nothing as old as the phone she had used to call J.Seph at the coffee shop—this was an old iPhone . . . the 4? 4S? Somin quickly turned it on as she walked into one of the bathroom stalls.

Once it was powered on, Somin went to the phone app. Thankfully, there were only two numbers loaded on there—the one of the special investigations unit at the police station, and the other labeled “Jiwoo NEW”. Taking a deep breath, Somin selected Jiwoo’s new number and hit call.

The phone rang two, three times before Jiwoo picked up. “Hello?” she said, confusion evident in her voice.

Somin knew she could explain at a later time, if everything worked out. “Jiwoo, where are you?”

“What?”

“I’ll explain later, I don’t have time,” Somin said, hoping the desperation was conveyed by her tone. “Is Matthew with you?”

Jiwoo cleared . “Yeah.”

“Where are you?”

“A bar downtown—Blue Moon. Wait, I’ll text you the address—”

Somin was tapping her foot with nervousness at this point. She could tell Jiwoo not to drink anything, but that would draw suspicion to her and she didn’t want Matthew to raise his guard against her—or worse, for J.Seph to know that Jiwoo was helping her. Or would Jiwoo tell J.Seph? Was this cell phone another one of J.Seph’s tests? A chill went down her spine at that thought, but then the phone vibrated to signal an incoming message, and Somin pushed that alarming possibility out of her mind. She copied and pasted the address into the maps application.

Her eyes widened. It was a couple meters away.

Religion wasn’t a big part of her life, but Somin thanked anyone that was listening.

“Thanks,” she said quickly to Jiwoo before hanging up. Taking another look at the map to memorize her location relative to the bar, she put the phone on airplane mode as she remembered Jiwoo telling her to; and then, putting the phone in her bra for safekeeping, she ran. Out of the bathroom, out of the department store, down the sidewalk—narrowly missing a couple walking toward her—and around the corner. The bouncer looked distracted as he tried settling down a man making a fuss at the entrance—without hesitation, Somin ran past him into the bar, hoping security wouldn’t get to her before she got to Matthew.

As soon as she got inside she had to blink a few times to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. Even before she could clearly see, though, she was scanning the entire room, and to avoid being caught immediately by security she began walking around the edge of the room, her eyes looking for one person only.

She was on the other side of the room from the entrance when she finally caught sight of Matthew. He was with Jiwoo at a table in the corner she had hurriedly walked past. Her breath caught as she considered the possibility that she had been seen—Matthew would never let her leave—but no, he was listening to another man, whose uniform indicated that he was a bartender. The man raised his glass for what Somin could easily see was a toast.

“I’m not sure when the drinks will be served, but he really shouldn’t be drinking them.”

Somin ran.

And before she knew it, she had reached the table, and without thinking she knocked the glasses away from both Jiwoo and Matthew, then jumped back as the glasses clattered and cracked, shards flying across the floor. Both of them were too stunned to pay attention to her quite already—but the bartender had stood up, backing away, and was staring at her in a way that made her skin crawl.

She had to leave.

Somin never really had a chance to think about what her last words would be—no, these weren’t going to be her last words because she would get out of this. But right then, at the moment, all she could say in a garbled rush with her words running into each other was: “Don’t drink it, I’m sorry, I love you, run!”

But the last part was directed more at herself, because the bartender was reaching into his apron and Somin’s memory of Jiwoo reaching into her pocket resurfaced in a flash. She couldn’t stay, as much as she wanted to—she had to leave. She had to run. She’d saved Matthew, and now she had to keep it that way.

The adrenaline made it feel like it had been forever since the glasses had broken because her brain was noticing every detail, but barely a few seconds had actually passed. In the next second, she was hopping over the mess she had made, and made a beeline for the exit.

She heard him calling after him just as the door to the first hall closed behind her—but she couldn’t look back, because it was too tempting to just stay.

It was the same bouncer from earlier, but he could care less who was leaving—he had enough to deal with while taking care of who was entering.

But by following her Matthew would look around the parking lot—look for any leaving vehicles. She couldn’t go to her car yet. So she ran back to the line, and hiding behind a group of girls that already seemed rather tipsy, she peeked through them to watch as Matthew appeared barely a second later, breathing heavily as he glanced down both ways of the street and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Somin felt her heart breaking just imagining his trail of thoughts—this was cruel. This was another level of cruel, and Somin knew it was her fault.

Suddenly, there was a sound of a scream—a scream that she’d heard just yesterday. Somin had barely snapped her head up to find the source before there was a loud crack, like a single firework—a familiar sound that she placed immediately—and, to her horror, Matthew staggered forward from the force of the gunshot.

A circle of red grew on the back of his shoulder, a stark contrast to his grey button-up shirt.

Somin moved to clasp her hand over to stifle a scream, but someone else beat her to it.

“It wasn’t a coincidence that the bar was this close,” he whispered softly, and Somin knew it would be useless to scream even when he dropped his hand to her neck. To anyone else, it would have looked like they were just a touchy couple. “If only you’d stayed in line, this wouldn’t have had to happen.”

And then he was pulling her back around the other side of the bar to get to the car—a crowd was forming around where Matthew had collapsed—Jiwoo was shouting out instructions and people were screaming. The bouncer had given up on his job.

“Now, once we get back,” J.Seph started, all but dragging Somin away from the scene. “We can discuss what exactly you were planning to tell Matthew, shall we?”

um hello ... so that wasn't too triggering but the actual chapter with more trigger warnings will probably be the next one. beware.