For Yerin, to lift someone of her girlfriend’s built was not a bit herculean. But it was different when she tried carrying her out of the mainframe room. Her courage was adulterated by a nagging fear as she prepared to see the thick film of blood that SinB collected between her and the floor. Yerin would have liked, even savored, the possibility of entering a room that reeked of SinB’s scent. Love has been so elusive for her that the return of an intimate, almost-severed relationship has caused her to crave for the faintest signs of affection she never imagined she’d desire. But this, no matter how visceral and personal the smell was, wasn’t SinB’s scent she had hoped would fill her senses, because it was a scent of her girlfriend’s life weaving in and out of her body. It smelled of despair and infinite loneliness.

The mere sight of the SinB losing her lucidity battered Yerin’s courage. ‘Don’t die on me,’ was all that she could think of as her mind was peppered with mental snapshots of her father and brother, crimson-drenched, murdered by the same syndicate that now has also threatened to take SinB away from her. With all the lividity and grief fighting inside her, she was willing to carry on incapacitating anyone who dared to slow her down from saving SinB.

After she saw from her scope the stream of blood from both the younger assassin’s legs, she decidedly carried her guns with her and vacated her post. Sowon would be the last person to make her return despite her respect for the leader who only showed her insurmountable consideration and support throughout the years. Because SinB isn’t just a teammate or a client, she is her purpose and reason; she is her consolation for all the misfortunes that hell shoved into her life, and her only reward for enduring them. It didn’t matter to her if she lived or not, Yerin was just determined to be beside SinB in that very moment when she needed her to be. SinB was hers, and that was reason enough to risk her life to save her.

Yuju was wary, waiting vigilantly by the ground floor entrance. From the way Yerin insisted that she stayed put where she was, she was sure to expect the older girl to appear any second as she wasn’t an awful stretch away from the building. She knew exactly that Yerin would not think twice to run in and personally save SinB, for she too would have come down to a similar volition if Umji was the one inside and unable to help herself.

Yuju was the quickest sprinter, but with Yerin’s unflinching resolve, not even lightning could overtake her flight to the fourth floor. Because as soon as Umji paved the way through the exit doors, Yerin started climbing skillfully, three, maybe even four steps a single stride, creating the least noise while compulsively sinking in bullets into the arms and legs of Academy security who were out of luck treading the same emergency exit stairway when the tandem passed.

Yerin is a seasoned assassin, ambidextrous and adept, and the hint of apathy in her manners would make one presume her to be unsympathetic and nonchalant to a scene of bloodshed. But she was not murderous, not even remotely merciless. True that she could decisively kill anyone with a single twitch of a finger, but she would commit this only in the effort to protect a more favored life. Hence, she only shot the unfortunate Academy trainees in the limbs to be infirm enough and incapable of cocking a gun and, much less, pursuing a chase.

With an occasional cursing from shot men, the two’s course to the fourth level was quiet and systematic until Eunha’s voice boomed off all their audio feed.

“OH MY GOD. SINB’S DOWN. YERIN!!! SINB’S DOWN!!!” Her cry was followed by another wave of wayward bullet exchange.

She knew very well with the blood gushing out and the panic that was waiting to implode within SinB, that it would only take a few minutes until she lost her consciousness. One need not acquaintance with clinical knowledge but only common sense to infer on the gravity of SinB’s condition. But in spite of that certainty, Yerin’s heart fell riotous, screaming retribution inside her chest making her strides spring faster and more distanced that it became impossible for Yuju to equal her speed or even tailgate.

With only a heavy fire-proof door separating her from the core of hell, Yerin was quick to reload her guns, dropping unemptied magazines that eventually bounced off the floor through the spaces between the stairs’ metal rails. She exited onto the hallway, her ears deaf to Sowon’s vehement negation, warning her that security personnel were to aim at her as soon as she peered through the door. But that was in itself the very cue for Yerin to move out of the security of the thick barricade because it meant that more men were nearing SinB’s location and it was anything but a thought she would be even a tad glad to welcome.

After her gun gandered out of the fire exit, three men instantaneously plunged face down onto the corridor lined by gray, splatter-marred carpeting. And as soon as the door shut close behind her, Yuju was pulling it ajar again. Curving to the entrance of the mainframe room, Yerin was literally welcomed by a heaping of hemorrhaging bodies, some wriggling to escape from the weight of either a wheezing or a twitching person above.

Whoever raised a gun at SinB, Yerin enfeebled by the arm and leg. But Eunha did not share the same leniency for she was gripped by grudge from that day a fatal shot by an Academy hitman detained her in her almost-deathbed not long ago. She fired at anyone who endangered SinB, incautious of the body part she hit as long as the bullet caused one to drop and unable of strike back. She fired, completely inconsiderate of the subtle reality that she and those dying gunmen once shared the same victimized lives as syndicate members.

Yerin had to leap past the half-perished men to reach the inside of the room. And the very moment she saw SinB on the ground, her tears started distorting the pitiful figure that laid helpless in front of her. SinB fell on her back, with limbs in uncomfortable flexion, and on one hand rested the familiar tablet, blemished with her own blood. It felt as if death glared at her, smirking to a resolute triumph. But her love, like SinB’s, is stubborn beyond the Reaper’s grasp, that she instantly snapped to concentration locating the girl’s wounds once she dropped knees first beside her.

“SinB… SINB!” Her name echoed as Yerin fought the urge to wipe off the spatter of blood that drew flaw onto SinB’s face. But even with the yelling, she continued to lay in silence, void of any discernible reaction.

Yuju was quick to follow inside after rendering four more men debilitated across the decrepit halls of the fourth floor’s east wing. Without letting her eyes wander off the door entrance, she managed to slid into the mainframe hardware the tablet which has started to run a program cipher only Umji would understand.

“The closet it closed!” Yuju pushed the enclosure shut until the locking mechanism bit clearly to ensure the tablet was well-hidden until the mission was over. “Are we good to go?”

“Affirmative. The prompt is running. I’m changing closet code. You need to get out of there now!” Umji’s voice cut through all the indistinct noise from everyone’s feed. Still concealed in her post, she was alternating between checking the programs’ progress and overseeing the CCTV monitors. She has taken all the responsibility after Sowon lost coherence and composure when Eunha’s location started receiving a rain of blind shots from an amateurish sniper running surveillance at the rooftop.

“Eonnie, you need to hurry.” Yuju reminded as she brashly rolled and forced the bodies aside to create more passage for Yerin to traipse out of the door because she sure will be carrying SinB even if she woke to her calling.

“I’M FINE! I’M FINE! IT’S JUST FLESH WOUND! BUT I CAN’T GET BACK TO MY GUN! YOU NEED TO MOVE NOW!!” Eunha yelled, her voice miserably failing to hide the pain while immobilizing a bloody arm.

“Eunha! Keep cover! I’m coming up!”

“NO! DON’T COME UP!” She responded as quickly as Sowon’s words resounded in her ears. “I’m okay—”

“Babe! No—”

“I said, I’m okay! If I see your face here, I swear you’ll be sleeping on the couch alone for a month! Just keep an eye on surveillance! Damn it! Where’s backup?!”

“They are on their way! Yerin, you need to get out of there now!”

“SINB! SHE NEEDS BLOOD! EONNIE, GET THE ING AMBULANCE HERE NOW! SINB! WAKE UP! SINB!” Yerin, no matter how sharp her memory was, would never remember the times she called out SinB’s name, sternly but pleading as though her voice could pull her out of death’s route.

While fastening a kernmantle rope that served as tourniquet around the girl’s legs just above her wounds, Yerin went back and forth wiping her own tears to ensuring a pulse greeted her fingers that slid at a precise angle across the side of SinB’s neck. Anger rose inside her as her hands trembly performed first aid on the injuries she only blamed herself for not being able to prevent. She lashed around them tightly as if she could constrict the passage through which her girlfriend’s life would try to escape her body.

“SinB, stay with me.”

“Ye… rin…”

In a heartbeat, a torrent of hope jetted through Yerin’s veins when she saw SinB’s lips flutter to a weak smile.

“You have wounds on your legs. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

SinB barely managed to shake her head as she squeezed Yerin’s hand that automatically found hers.

“Stay awake for me. I’ll carry you. But as soon as I get you up, you have to hold onto me as tightly as you can. Do you understand?” Yerin’s words rolled out calmly as she squatted over SinB to lift her up by the torso. Placing her strong arms under SinB’s limp body, she couldn’t resist stealing an assuring peck on her lips like there was not a time in the future she could do it again. “I love you.”

“I lo…” SinB could only sigh the rest of her response.

“Yuju-yah!” As soon as she was able to lift SinB up with a forceful tug under the girl’s arms, Yerin bore all her weight with a firm hug as it was impossible for the other girl to hold herself up with her wounded extremities. “Hurry! The ropes.”

Yuju did not need instructions to know what she had to do and collected the ropes that Yerin wound around SinB’s knees. Ready to swing the girl’s injured legs up, her eyes darted toward the Yerin’s to confirm an assured go. They both thought that it would have been convenient for Yerin to piggyback or cradle SinB up if not for the piece of glass on her thigh that had to be ensured unmoving.

“Stay awake for me, okay? Yuju will pull your knees up and I’ll lift you higher. It will be painful, just hold onto me tightly.”

SinB instantly grimaced when her arms latched tighter around Yerin’s neck.

“There’s only thirty percent left to completely taking over the Academy’s system. The mission is almost over.” Umji declared but in such a tone almost contrasting a success. “Please get out of there safely, eonnie.”

“GO NOW! HURRY!” Eunha insisted, her determination unhindered by the stubborn attempt of the Academy sniper to take her down. It was unmistakable through her now muffled feed that she was crouched down to dodge the bullets that kept reaching the thick cement pillars that aid her hiding.

“Yuju, on three.”

“Got it.”

“Love, stay with me… Three!”

SinB nearly submitted to another syncopal spell when Yerin lifted her higher, carefully by the back of her thighs while Yuju pulled the ropes up forcing SinB’s knees to bend forward and be raised beyond Yerin’s hips. She continued to bring both cords up until she could assure that the girl’s thighs were anchored by the curve of the other’s waist. Certain that SinB was positioned with her injuries safe from unnecessary contact, Yuju tugged the ropes, each end laced around the other knee to secure her legs won’t drop from the unavoidable race they would have to run to get out.

Yerin carried her girlfriend in front of her while managing to still hold a gun in one hand. The makeshift suspension that would secure SinB’s legs from dropping to the floor wasn’t foolproof, neither the least painful, but her fairly controlled bleeding didn’t warrant time for either girl to come up with a safer alternative.

When she moved toward the door, another wave of worry rushed through her as she saw the trickling of blood across the floor. It was thick and heavy like the distinctive fall of raindrops that signal a storm. The only thing that consoled her was the feel of SinB’s wheezy breath on her neck and her grip that stayed unremitting around her.

But before they were able to completely exit the room, the sight of a falling body past the shattered window halted their steps. It was the sniper that located Eunha.

“WHO’S FIRING AT THE SNIPERS?! I SAID TAKE COVER!”

“Eonnie, it’s not me! I’m already on my way to your location! I’m almost there!”

“I just thought you’d appreciate some help.”

“EUNSEO??” It was Eunha who instantly recognized the voice.

“Yerin, I’ll skin you alive if my best friend doesn’t get out of there breathing.”

“I’d rather be dead anyway if SinB died. But thanks for the encouragement. We’re moving! Umji! I need an elevator! We can’t take the stairs!”

“Eonnie! The center elevators are occupied and I locked them! You have to take the freight lift to ground floor! It’s the safest way.”

“BUT THAT’S ON THE OTHER SIDE!”

“Sowon-eonnie, we don’t have any other route. At least, nothing faster.”

“Are we clear to move??”

“Hallway is clear but there’s movement on both east and west fire exits.”

“I can’t lock the west exit! It shares the lock of the freight elevator!” Sowon immediately pulled Umji to the switchboard as soon as she reached the control room.

“Yuju, be ready for cover.”

Yerin ran across the length of the hallway, paced with caution to keep SinB’s legs from being forced to a movement. Despite Umji seizing control over the building security, making their safe trek toward the opposite end virtually guaranteed, Yerin was at no point assured for their lives. Especially that her own arms were now damp with SinB’s blood, her concern for her almost drove her to panic.

But halfway to their destination, Yerin slowed down to a thought that almost eluded her memory. It weighed her steps down, the thought that wasn’t part of the mission, an ulterior agenda that slipped through the cracks.

“Umji, where is the pres—”

“YERIN! THERE’S A GUY AT THE WEST FIRE EXIT!”

“Yuju-yah, engage as you please.”

“Copy.”

“I can see backup closing in! I’m going down. I’ll meet you by the back door!” Eunha asserted while dismantling her sniper set up.

“THE GUY IS UNARMED!”

Both Yuju and Yerin’s guns were tentatively pointing at the man who appeared in their midst. He froze with only half of his figure bulging out of the exit’s threshold, seemingly staggered and unsuspecting while struggling to prevent his body from being crushed by the force of the closing door. The middle-aged man in suit was alone, unthreatening and carrying nothing for his defense.

“Back off or I’ll shoot!” Yuju warned as her free hand impatiently pressed the elevator buttons.

But the man, heedless to Yuju’s threat, remained motionless. His eyes were wide and focused on SinB almost as if shaken by the macabre state of the young girl whose back, soiled and bloody, was against him.

“HE’S NOT CARRYING ANYTHING! JUST GET ON THE LIFT!”

“Eonnie, come on!” Yuju exclaimed after firing at a security personnel who emerged unwarily from one of the rooms.

After another careful stride by Yerin toward the parting elevator car doors, the man’s voice resonated through the hallway and the half-open west fire exit. The mere voice arrested Yerin’s movements, but the name he cried out made all her muscles stiffen to a revived familiar anger.

“Eunbi-yah…”

Feedback from Eunha’s damaged mic and Sowon’s yelling dominated the audio but Yerin did not miss Umji’s voice that failed to get trampled in the chaotic exchange.

“It’s her father…”

“GET ON THE DAMN LIFT, YERIN!! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?”

“EONNIE! LET’S GO!” Yuju insisted. With her foot pushed forward to bar the return of the stubborn doors, she leaned lightly against the lift’s COP panel as she kept one gun pointed at the man and the other toward the end of the hallway they have run away from.

But Yerin was still like the man whose gaze was unwaveringly locked on SinB. As her mind fell unreceptive to all the yelling from her earpiece, her grip tightened around her girlfriend’s torso as though she was sure that the man has planned to lunge at them and steal her from her arms.

In those few seconds, she could have torn him down and knocked him lifeless, but there was something out of kilter in his behavior that restrained Yerin from submitting immediately to a brutal murder. The way the founder called out his daughter’s name, and his eyes, they were not unapologetic like what Yerin has expected to see. He appeared meek, remorseful and resolved not to attack, that for a moment she thought it wasn't truly SinB’s father.

From the monitor, Umji could see that Yerin started trembling as she fought to keep her finger steady on the trigger. If only the pistol was malleable, with the fist she made around it, her nails no matter how well-trimmed would have burrowed deeply into the metal. She held it as if she was strangling someone or something to its death. She was on the brink of making a critical decision.

“EONNIE! DON’T DO IT!” Just by how Yerin’s bloody knuckles swelled against her taut skin, Umji knew she was seconds away from jumping off rationality and becoming merciless.

From the cold look on her eyes, one would know she had no sympathy to spare for him. To kill SinB’s father was, for many years, everything she has lived and probably would die for. It was the load that slowed her down from escaping the building; it was her agenda that got stifled off the plan.

“YERIN! WHAT THE HELL—” Sowon realized, halfway through her nagging, Yerin’s reason for her consistent defiance.

“YERIN-EONNIE, DON’T DO IT! DO NOT TREAD THE PATH OF THE PEOPLE WHO CROSSED YOU! THAT’S NOT WHO YOU ARE!”

Everyone who was seeing the manner Yerin held onto her gun would know that she was decided to pull the trigger. It was only Umji’s voice that served as a linchpin that kept Yerin’s principles and actions from detaching from being an integral whole.

“You murdered my family...” With her teeth gritting from the protracted resentment, the words clumped and stumbled before they came out. The single tear that ran down Yerin’s face was disturbingly hot. It was scalding her conscience.

“EONNIE! DON’T! IF YOU KILL HIM, HE WON’T SUFFER AT ALL FOR ALL THAT HE’S DONE! DON’T DO IT!”

“You destroyed my family without batting an eye.”

“LET HIM PAY A HEFTIER PRICE! IT ISN’T WORTH TO TAKE HIS LIFE! EONNIE! PLEASE!”

But she would have pulled it; she wouldn’t have continued listening however Umji reasoned and phrased her argument, if not for SinB’s arms suddenly dropping off her shoulders. It was the only thing that changed Yerin’s mind. She knew SinB’s body was an imaginary hour glass, every drop of her blood was her life wasting away.

The change in Yerin’s expression was a relief for Umji until the realization that SinB was dying jolted everyone back to panic. “EONNIE! GET OUT OF THERE!”

“No. No. SINB, NO!” Yerin instantly retracted her arm to catch SinB’s body which started to slide further to one side. Seeing SinB’s face surrender to a greater pallor, she hurriedly backed into the elevator while impinging the dread and despair that wanted to takeover.

“FOR MY FATHER…” Through the gap between the rejoining doors, Yerin shot him on his left shin, at a precise spot to ensure a fracture that would rob him of all possibilities of fleeing.

“…This, for SinB.” Another sound of a bullet plowing through an old man’s flesh resounded before he was completely out of sight. From the shut doors of the descending elevator, they could still hear the man ceaselessly call out his daughter’s name. It lasted a few seconds until only the sound of sirens permeated the lift’s metal panels.

Eunha and Eunseo were in their midst the moment the doors opened. The pitiful sight of SinB, blood dripping from her dangled feet, drove the two instantly into mixed apprehension and fury.

“THE AMBULANCE IS OUTSIDE!” Eunseo looked away from the elevator and continued squaring the ground floor for academy trainees.

“We’re packing up. Backup are inside the building to check for any more threats until the hack is completed.”

“We’re at eighty-eight percent. Police are en route. We’ll meet you at the hospital!”

***

‘You never know what you have until it’s gone.’ That stock phrase isn’t always true, because in my case, I knew exactly what I had and all the reasons why I didn’t want to lose it. I did not want to lose SinB. She may seem like a nuisance sometimes with her childish demeanor and her embarrassing innocence, but she is the most charming nuisance one could ever have. She is the warmest and the most comfortable inconvenience. She is the loveliest burden I’d never protest to be weighed down by.

I knew what I didn’t want to lose. And when you know what’s being taken away from you, you can foretell the pain and regret its absence will cause you. So, you become brave to fight or, in its impossibility, plead and bargain. You begin to stoop low and take even the cheapest shot, without shame and reservation. You begin to believe in anything that offered salvation, even the most unviable and superstitious. You begin to make imaginary sacrifices, even push your dreams and your desires back to nonexistence. You start having faith in things, entities and events you’ve never acknowledged being conceivable before. Because in the midst of desperation, the heart overlooks the mind’s reasons, like hope defies even the glaring manifestation of an opposing certainty.

And at my most awaited turning point, before denying myself of that shot I’ve prepared all my life to take, I made a bargain- SinB’s life for sparing her father’s. The love I had for her was willing to throw away the thirteen years I’ve spent plotting the end of the Academy’s founder. Vengeance became meaningless; I wanted SinB more than anything.

Even when all color started to abandon her skin, I refused to believe that she would succumb to death that way. She would have detested to a dramatic but pointless death. Besides, SinB is the most stubborn person, like a stain you will never be able to wash or scrub off. And so, even when she laid limp on the gurney, I refused to surrender my hope like I know she’d refuse to abandon our promise.

In all those minutes in that ambulance, as hope and despair brawled within me, I held her. Her cold, unresponsive fingers, I kept weaved with mine. My mind was blank as if my thoughts rolled off with my tears. I kept calling her name but her lips did not move to a smile anymore.

I only released my grasp when the emergency room staff started circling around her, poking her vein to tether another IV line and attaching more electrodes onto her chest. It was a horrendous scene but I did not flinch like SinB hadn’t, even to that gruesome amount of pain.

“I WILL NOT INTERFERE! JUST PLEASE LET ME STAY!”

The nurses only retreated from hauling me out of the curtains when I raised my gun at them. I couldn’t have left SinB in that state; if she had died in that bed, my conscience wouldn’t bear the thought of her dying alone in the company of strangers. I remained in that trauma room when they cut her pants open to examine her wounds. And I was also there when the monitors broke into a loud beeping frenzy.

She arrested again. I lost count of the times her heart stopped in her lifetime. And although I trusted that SinB’s love knew no mortality, I began wondering how strong a heart should be to be able to cheat on death one more time. The Reaper must be as stubborn as her.

I stood there through the whole course of the CPR and I saw when she quivered to the electric shock. I stayed beside her through every drop of blood and fluid from the IV bags. If that had been the last time I could be with her with both of us alive, no matter how terrifying and heart-rending, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss a single second of it.

Umji and Yuju remained with me, always a foot behind as if they were expecting the sight to cause all consciousness to leave me. But it wasn’t the first time seeing SinB’s life hang by a delicate thread. The situation, likewise, wasn’t something we didn’t prepare for nor couldn’t have foreseen. But then again, none of these realities offered even a wee bit of comfort. At that moment, nothing really did.

“From what the monitors are showing, looks like she’s out of immediate danger. We’ll know more once the anesthesia wears off.” That was the surgeon’s assertion while handing me a transparent plastic bag of SinB’s clothes that were stiffened by blood. “It seems to me that you knew a lot about trauma first aid.”

I wasn’t sure about that, but I knew just enough to save her.

It felt like a lifetime and a day before we found repose in the stillness of that hospital suite. Boss JD and Eunseo sat quietly across me and held SinB’s other hand, their countenance b with worry. Sowon and Eunha were inseparable to a point where their bodies became indistinguishable from one corner of the room. Yuju and Umji, though occasionally absorbed in each other’s embrace, proceeded with the mission through the culmination of the digital breach. They continued to update everyone of its progress, even with mixed hesitation and eagerness.

“We’re at eighty-five percent to completely depleting the Academy’s bank accounts. Anonymous donations to charities are underway. Companies, families and other Academy casualties will also receive a hefty sum. The syndicate will be bankrupt in minutes.”

“The video we uploaded to expose the Academy’s extortion and murders has reached almost every social media site and digital news entity. It’s also being broadcasted in all major TV channels. The rest of the evidence we’ve collected has already been delivered to our liaisons in the police department and the Ministry of Justice.”

“The founder is being treated in the hospital, with police in every corner. He will be in custody once he’s cleared to discharge. The other officials are now being pursued. Even if they succeeded to hide, without resources, the Academy is paralyzed.”

“Also, I have swiped off the CCTV footages from the start of the mission; none of it will get into hands of the police. If we’ve missed anything, our asset within the department will expunge it.”

“It’s finally over.”

In spite of the mission’s outcome, we couldn’t make ourselves celebrate. We were still saddled by qualms of incertitude. Waiting for SinB to come off of the sedatives felt as though we were in a movie house that played a slow-motion horror movie in gapless repeat. I didn’t realize until then how agonizing it was seeing SinB in that pitiful prostration up-close. If only sharing one’s life could translate into something more literal, she would have had half of mine by then.

I understood why Sowon glued herself on that chair while waiting for Eunha to recover from her prolonged slumber. She didn’t want to miss that moment when Eunha opened her eyes; she had to be the first to be there. I understood too why no amount of assurance from the doctor could allay her worries. Because only the sight of Eunha rising to consciousness was guarantee that she didn’t lose her, that she still had her, at least in that waking moment.

I too didn’t want to miss that instance. Even when I had to move away from the bed, I didn’t lose sight of SinB, like I was afraid that she’d die if I did. So, I was inconsolable, from the second they wheeled her out of the ER. Only after receiving two units of blood and two bags of saline that she became stable enough to be brought to the operating theatre. And it took four hours before they could clear her out of the post-anesthesia care unit and be transported to a step-down floor. It was almost six hours that I couldn’t be beside her.

“SinB, I didn’t think a hospital bed was what you had in mind when you said you wanted to do it with Yerin-eonnie somewhere else!” Eunha approached while adjusting the sling they fixed around her left arm after she recovered from the anesthesia. There was probably still a trace of hypnotic in Eunha’s blood because she wouldn’t have joked about SinB’s condition while everyone else commiserated or was quiet.

And besides, she was on a heavy dose of pain medication, because the flesh wound she claimed to have was from a bullet that spiked through her brachial artery and missed her bone by a millimeter. The copious bleeding was just concealed by her thick racer jacket but she too collapsed a few minutes after she boarded the ambulance. She held it in, the pain and panic, until everyone was safely fleeing from the location. Eunha fought off every inch of her fear. If there was anyone who actually salvaged SinB’s life, it was her, her courage and determination to protect her.

“Then enough with the sleeping! You lazy ! Don’t make Yerin-eonnie wait here! Why are you like this?? Do you think this is funny?! Do you like so much, the feeling of dying?! Don’t you know how difficult it is to be waiting for you to wake up?? I killed for you, SinB! I killed so many! So, enough of this! STAND THE UP RIGHT NOW!” Then she started pushing and pulling SinB’s arm like she was kneading a dough, only that she was more careful. “I SAID, STAND THE FU-”

“Babe. Babe. Eunha! Enough. You better sit. She’ll wake up soon, just calm down. Your wound might reopen.”

If I did not bar her, Sowon would have taken her out of the room. Even if she had to restrain her, I still did not want her or anyone out of my sight. The screaming stopped but she started crying and sank back into Sowon’s arms.  At that point, I didn’t know if it was the residual anesthesia or it was the trauma Eunha had suppressed to get through the mission.

It must have been hard for her. Eunha was never trained for combat as rigorous as I and the others have. She knew how to work the guns and had more than a decent shooting accuracy, but she was not used to using such force and brutality before that night. She always worked on-site, acquiring information, using her personality and way with words to complete a task. She wasn’t used to bloodshed like I was; she didn’t have enough reasons to make the sight of death a casual occurrence.

The night grew deeper and only Umji’s laptop and the lamp from the night stand lit the entire room. I was drowning in darkness listening to everyone’s exhaustion. Their breaths mingled with the heater’s soft rumbling and the sporadic beeping of the cardiac monitor.

I just held her hand. And with the faint light behind me, I studied every line, scar and crease and the pale outline of her veins. The slow-motion movie went on while I waited for sleep to subdue my worries. And when I felt the lightheadedness, I leaned closer to her, throwing an arm across her body and laced my fingers with her other hand. If anyone saw me, they’d think I was holding her down the bed or I was protecting a precious property from being taken away. Maybe I was, unconsciously weighing her down so life won’t escape her while I surrender to fatigue.

“Miss. Miss. You’re crushing my arm.” I woke up to those words as her arm writhed out from underneath my chest. Everyone heard her and they rushed in.

“I. Ah. SinB?”

“I don’t know who you are but, miss, your chest is so soft. What’s your name?”

I couldn’t answer after that. I don’t know if I should have slapped her back to her memories or ran to the nurses’ station to retrieve one of the staff.

“I’m just kidding, Yer— OUCH!”

I didn’t slap her, but Eunha did.

“What on earth!” Eunha blurted before giving SinB a kiss on the forehead.

“How are you? Are you in pain? Sowon-eonnie, please get the doctor.”

“Yennie-yah, I’m okay. My chest is just a little sore and I feel my legs are being crushed right now. But that’s good, right? I can feel the pain and I can move them. You, how are you? Did you get hurt?”

“No, I’m alright. Sinb, I missed you. You scared me.”

“I missed you too. I'm sorry, Yerin-ah. I know we promised to walk out of the building together. I’m sorry you had to carry me out.”

“It’s okay. It’s enough that you’re alive. I love you, SinB. Thank you for waking up.”

"I love you too, you know I can't just leave you like that."

“Ha! You’re lucky, they didn’t have to cut off your limbs.”

“AH! There you are! I miss you too, Umji-yah! So, did you get it on with Yuju-eonnie already?!”

“God… Even death is incapable of subduing your raucous libido.”

“HA! I missed that! I miss hearing words I will never understand! I knew it! They couldn’t even handle you down there!”

“Yeah, I was spewed back to mortality. It seems like Lucifer knew I’d suffer more in your presence than in hell.”

“Nah… I think it’s just because you didn’t even have a soul they could burn.”

“I guess that’s why we’re friends.”

“Wait. Did we finish the mission?? Did we take down the Academy??”

“We did. Every won, jeon, we drained out of the syndicate. Police are already hunting the officials down.”

I was afraid she would ask about her father. I wouldn’t have known what to answer if she did. But she didn’t. She got lost in the excitement of seeing that everyone was around, safe and happy. It was what she wanted, a life free from the ghost of the Academy.

“But seriously though, Yennie-yah...” In the midst of the commotion from her waking, her gaze suddenly shifted back to me. “… When we were escaping, I was in and out of consciousness, but all I could think of was ‘I won’t see them again if I die, I must not die.’”

“Awww… How did you become sappy all of a sudden?”

“You almost died and you were still thinking about us?”

“No! Not you, guys! I was thinking about not seeing Yerin’s s! Because she said, the night before the mission—”

“Oh my god, even after a third chance to live, you’re still gross.”

“Well, can you blame me?! She was running and she carried me in front of her! Of course, you know, there was contact—”

“Is there a way they could defibrillate her brain too??”

“I think that's called ETC or something.”

“Sowon-eonnie, it's ECT.”

“Whatever, Umji-yah. Go back to hell!”

I didn’t mind if she embarrassed the two of us. I was happy. I was sure, my SinB's back.