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The RiverThe dark night’s gleaming moon was soon accompanied by the streetlights bordering the undamaged roads, and the people were already shedding tears of joy and busying themselves with their now working phones.
“Mommy!”, the little girl from earlier called out tearfully as she ran towards a woman within the crowd.
“Thank you!”
“You saved us!”
“We’re free!”
“At last, we can be free!”
Several compliments dispersed through the suddenly humid air, and they simply watched as the child scrambled away, while the rest of the civilians split into groups and embraced their loved ones. It was a sight worth remembering – their faces of sheer relief and hope, their eyes glowing with pure light.
“We… We did it?” Soobin let out a soft chuckle as he felt his heart calm down gradually. He breathed out heavily as he felt a sudden warmth within his hand, so he turned to his side to see Yeonjun smiling at him softly.
“You guys did it! You actually did!” It was Wooyoung now, throwing himself over Yeosang and Changbin, all the while flashing a giddy smile towards Yeonjun. He then began spitting out compliments to cheer up the team.
Meanwhile, Haseul rushed forward with the two nurses from earlier, letting them check on the injured squad. She then stepped aside to let three other people approach the team with worrying eyes.
“Oh, dear!”
Kai and Beomgyu shrieked as they found themselves engulfed by their mothers, only to relax in their warm embrace, feeling loved and cared for. They needed this – the affection of their mothers after an arduous battle that drained them out completely.
“Is everyone alright?” A monotonous voice asked.
Yeonjun stifled a frown and nodded, “Yes. We’re fine, dad.” A part of him was still angry as he recalled his friends’ discussion about his father, but a major part of him was overwhelmed with an unfamiliar feeling of affection at the sight of his father looking at him with fond eyes. He knew his father wasn’t a villain despite his strong exterior and attitude, but he couldn’t shrug off the accusations either.
“Dad, can we talk? I have something I need to talk to you about.”
Mr. Choi simply nodded and gestured towards the mansion that was now fairly visible under the radiance of the streetlights, the windows illuminated by the lights from the inside of the house. “The barrier still hasn’t fallen apart, so it would be a wise decision if all of us wait inside.”
It didn’t take too long for all of the team to waddle and limp across the roads to enter the mansion, most of the civilians following them, while others walked back to some of the nearby houses that they belonged in – within the barrier – that weren’t destroyed by the machine, thanks to the fortunate but mysterious change of route of the equally mysterious machine of destruction.
Inside the mansion, under the shimmering chandelier and within the living room enclosed by the adorned walls, the squad remained seated by the couches, playing with the shredded strands of the carpet covered in dust and dirt. Surrounding them were the other citizens, whispering and gossiping while they waited for help to arrive, their eyes shifting every once in a while to look at the fading barrier.
Further to a corner, Yeonjun confronted his father with a scowl.
“I know what you did. I know what you and mom did, and I just want you to know that I’m d-disappointed in both of you.” He didn’t even realise how stupid he must’ve sounded, how weak he sounded even though he tried to appear strong. “I get to decide my own life, okay? Y-You don’t do that! You don’t get to choose who I am supposed to marry and what career I want to go through with, and you don’t harm someone intentionally and then try and make up for your cruelty by paying for their treatment, just to get on their good side. You don’t play with someone’s life like that.”
His voice was laced with malice and rage, and his clenched teeth and fists held him back from letting out a furious scream. As much as he hoped for his sudden accusation to be false, as much as he hoped for his father to shake his head and tell him that he had it all wrong, as much as he hoped that his father wasn’t such a heartless, avaricious being, he felt his heart stop when he saw the way his father’s eyes widened with realisation.
That was all that he needed to know that his friends were right all along.
“Yeonjun, you don’t-”
“No, save it. I’m grown enough to know how life works, how you and your rich people handle things, but I’m just disgusted that my own father would do something like that. I’m disgusted that you dragged mother into this.” He hoped that his mother wasn’t willingly a part of this, not wanting to be the child of two parents who had no sense of humanity within them.
“Yeonjun, listen to me. I am your father.”
“Are you though? It’s just a title, a label. You are nothing like a-”
“Did Soobin tell you?”
Yeonjun groaned, annoyed at how his father constantly interrupted him. “What? Are you going to create a plan to make my best friend’s life miserable too? He didn’t know any of this, okay? My friends and I had to find out the hard way. I can just call up the police and show them the evidence and-”
He heard a chorus of distant screams, the sound of whirring blades and engines, which caused him to walk away and run out of the mansion to see the commotion outside. Only then did he notice that the barrier had finally diminished into nothingness, the world outside now clear to his eyes.
There were cameras and flashlights, reporters already capturing the images of the desolate and destructed area, while
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