Chapter 2 - Light up the sky : 11 years ago

It was an incredibly strange phenomenon to feel yourself behave in a way that was absolutely unfamiliar to you . To be wound tightly inside of yourself with no truce outlet or recoil . To be hopelessly devoid of a counter attack , a trump card or something , anything to ,at the very least , catapult you back in the present moment .This moment where you needed to fight off the king Piranha .

He just wouldn’t stop , he wouldn’t quit . The verbal ammunition kept spewing vehemently out of Tyler Kwon’s mouth . She just stood there half listening to him unleash his deft and calculated stream of attacks on her and all she could think to do was to breathe . Her own personal lack of verbal retorts left her concentrating squarely on his smarmy , smug face and her breath.

The palms of both her hands started to itch as she fought off the urge to slap him .

No .

That wasn’t her style . She hits others with rhetorical accuracy . With her words and with her brain . Not with her hands . Though in that very moment her desire to hit him was almost binding .

Jessica shifted her eyes and crossed her arms as his voice registered in her ears again . She had tuned him out after the first sling of insults . She could feel her legs start to tremble and instantly wanted to cure herself more than him in that moment . That wasn’t her , this wasn’t Jessica Jung .

She was not the type of person to stay silent when another person viciously attacked her or her character . She was too strong for that .

Too powerful , too capable .

She’d been through too much and had come out on the other side a borderline unbreakable being . Who was this woman that inhabited her body ? Where was her fight , her depth , her fortitude ? Had it escaped her without her knowledge ? Had all of the hysteria of the past couple months bleed her of her sovereignty and majesty ?

But yet , there she stood . Only the remnants of her backbone holding her up as Tyler continued his vicious and gruesome attack on her character . It was something he said specifically that had made her shut down . Actually , it was something he said that brought back a memory that had frozen her in her tracks . He had drudged up a old memory that she had buried so deeply in her mind , that she hadn’t recalled in years .

“ What the hell is going on ? “

Tyler’s eerie gaze left her as he looked towards the door of her office , where the voice was coming from . Jessica felt the subtle weight that had settled in her chest , lift at the sound of his voice .  She didn’t even look at him , but felt him swiftly approaching them with deliberate and steady strides .

“ Oh look , it’s you , “ Tyler lamented mockingly at Kris. “ So nice of you to join us , I always like to indulge the second in command as well . The trusty yet inferior sidekick . “

Kris had a retort for that . He actually had a serval but once he had gotten close enough , the look on Jessica’s face coupled with her body language stopped him dead in his tracks . He felt the anger rise in his throat as he angled his body in front of herself , putting half of himself in between her and Tyler .

Kris’s face gleaned with uncertainty , his eyebrows knitted together as he quickly surveyed her face . He wasn’t accustomed to see her like this as Jessica rarely shows her emotions or a glimpse of sadness . Jessica has been brought up this way  since she was little .

He felt something twist deep in his gut , something wasn’t right . “ What did he say to you ? “ Kris asked her hurriedly , trying to catch her eyes but she was fixated on Tyler . He didn’t even wait for the answer that wasn’t coming . He turned his shoulders and gave Tyler a look thats should've turned him to stone , “ What did you say to her ? “

“ Who  me ? “ Tyler asked , feigning shock and slight moral outrage at the insinuation he had done something wrong , “ I didn’t say anything , we were simply reminiscing .”

“ Reminiscing my  , you…”

Kris’s mere presence and the faint smell of his cologne was enough to bring Jessica of the entrapment of past memories that she had hoped to never recall . She managed to shoot Tyler a look comparable to seismic daggers . Kris’s attention rapidly turned back to Jessica as he tried to disengage the almost impenetrable fixation she had on Tyler . <