This chapter take place between Chapter 24 and Chapter 25.

 

 

Thud. Thud. Thud.

 

 

The pulsation has continued for some time. Even with engines roaring beneath them as she to the midnight highway. Her ears rang relentlessly. That foreign pressure or whatever in her ear. It stops. And there's the tapping again. Moonbyul lets out a frustrated groan. The wind beat between the sides of her helmet and goggles. Her intention to scratch her ear was quickly forgotten as the arms encircling her waist tightened.

 

"I am hungry." A sure sign for Moonbyul to speed up and save some time. Perhaps the feeling was mutual. -- As the blue helicopter parks right in front of the 24-hour market, Moonbyul leans back against the railing, folding her arms as she pretends to yawn, swallowing several times, contorting her facial muscles in that weird way three more times, and then again. Impact. Impact. Impact. Moonbyul takes a deep breath and focuses on the market. Just beyond the glass door, the woman she is fighting for with all her might seems to be busy near the ramyun stall, lost in a large selection of ramyun. When she got to the hot water dispenser, Moonbyul was about to step in at any moment. But she seemed to pull herself together, paid at the register, and the glass of the door slid back, revealing a glittering expression. The pure excitement in those eyes let Moonbyul comment without thinking. "So happy just for a bowl of Ramyun?"

 

 

"It is warm. Touch it. Your hands felt so cold earlier." Hyejin squeezed it out as Moonbyul put her hands under the paper bowl. It warms the skin. "Can you tell me what you were doing earlier? You do this all the time," she mimicked the yawn and frown Moonbyul had made earlier with such accuracy that she elicited a giggle from the latter. "Have you finally gone mad? Do you want me to take you to the nearest hospital?" Moonbyul let out another giggle in response to the light joke. "My left ear. It keeps throbbing ..." Her hand was about to dig into the ear reflexively before another hand stopped her in place. "Don't do that." Hyejin scolded. "Come here." -- Moonbyul didn't know how she found herself on the bench now, head sideways directly on Hyejin's lap. The light of the phone pointed at her while Hyejin examined her ear thoroughly for a good minute. "Nothing here." Hyejin growled. "Should I get an ear drop from the market? It won't take long." Moonbyul quickly shook his head and jerked upward, almost robotically. "It'll pass. Better eat your ramyun before it gets mushy." The moment passes for some time as night falls. Between Hyejin's insistence that she take a bite, Moonbyul drinks in the view of the night and the peace it offers. She calms down and makes no promises for tomorrow. The flashing lampposts. Ramyeon's food in the middle of nowhere. "All that big talk, and you still haven't looked me in the eye."