“We’re still not completely clear with what you mean by blindfolds.” I said as Tiffany and I made our way towards the middle of the room.

Mr. Hwang chuckled. “Well you understand the basic meaning behind it: Not being able to see what’s actually there. Now you want to know what it is you can’t see, right?”

We both nodded.

“Where should I start?” Mr. Hwang responded, tapping his chin. “A good place to start would be…” He paused before finally giving his answer. “Taeyeon, your family along with ours” He pointed towards Tiffany “Are in a secret organization whose goal is to protect the people of this world.”

“Protect them from what?” Tiffany asked slowly.

“Anything and everything that could be seen as a threat to humanity…”

It was as if both of us had been thrown into a new world. Most of what Tiffany and I thought we knew seemed to not apply. Nothing had changed physically, but how we perceived the world drastically altered.

“The idea seems simple enough, but what has the organization done to protect the world? I’ve never heard of anything like it.” Tiffany spoke with intrigue in her voice.

“We’ve played a large role in nearly every significant event in history. The reason you’ve never heard of us is because we technically don’t exist.”

“What?!” Tiffany and I exclaimed in unison.

Mr. Hwang laughed once more. “Our job couldn’t be done correctly if our existence was common knowledge, so nobody outside the organization knows we exist, except very important people.”

“By important people, you mean…”

“The pope, royalty, political figures, a few government officials; no one out of the ordinary.” Mr. Hwang spoke casually as he took another bite of his apple.

It surprised us how casually he spoke of these people, as if they were regular citizens. We sat on the information for a bit while Mr. Hwang continued to eat his apple.

“If those people know about the organization, then it must have a name. How else would anyone refer to you?” I asked.

He had said that the organization technically didn’t exist, but there had to be some name that they identified themselves with.

Mr. Hwang paused mid-chew and looked up at the both of us. He abruptly swallowed, which appeared difficult because the food he was eating was still somewhat whole. A groan escaped his mouth as he felt the effects of not properly chewing his food. Afterwards Mr. Hwang looked at the both of and finally spoke:

“We’ve been called many different names over the years… But the one that has stuck with us is: The Liners.”

I looked over, towards Tiffany, to see her reaction to the name: She looked mildly surprised and confused at the same time, just like me.

Couldn’t they think of a better name?

Author’s note: No, no I could not…

As Tiffany and I looked at each other, Mr. Hwang repeated the name. This time, the name held power and rang in our ears for some time.

I wiggled my ear around in order to get the ringing out.

“Why, the Liners?” Tiffany asked

Her father turned to one side of the room and walked away. Within a few minutes, Mr. Hwang returned with an old fashioned chalkboard that had wheels on the bottom. He motioned for us to move closer as he began to draw a white, horizontal line that went directly across the middle of the board. Next, he filled in the space on the bottom with the color green while the top remained black.

“What do you see here?” he asked.

“The colors green and black, with a white line in the middle.” Tiffany responded.

Mr. Hwang nodded “The white line separates the green and the black. The Liners stand between humanity and the vast darkness that resides in the world.”

Tiffany and I stood still for a bit. The name made a lot more sense to us now, and we were finally starting to grasp everything that Mr. Hwang had just told us. Every piece of information he had given us opened up into a thousand more questions, but we each knew that it would be impossible for most of them to be answered in one lifetime.

I have to ask him about my parents.

“Mr. Hwang, where do you and my parents fit into all of this?”

“The Kim and the Hwang families are in the same faction – basically we are apart of a group and do missions together.”

“How do you have the time to go on missions? You’re always on business trips…” Tiffany’s voice trailed off as she realized that she had answered her own question.

“But my father never went on any trips other than coming here with the family.” It baffled me that my father was supposed to be apart of some organization when he spent his days running a restaurant.

Mr. Hwang placed his hand on his chin as he looked downward.

“There are two reasons for that.” He eventually said “For one: Your father is a Headliner, and doesn’t go out in the field unless it is absolutely necessary. The second reason is a bit more complicated to explain.”

“What is a Headliner?”

Mr. Hwang raised three fingers in the air before responding.

“Within the Liners, there a three different levels: A Bottom-Liner is basically a foot soldier. They deal with most of the missions. A Middle-Liner is a generally a squad leader and deals with things like: organization, information, recruitment, and important missions – I am a Middle-Liner. The Headliner is the overall leader of one of the six regions in the world: They do all of the jobs of a Middle-Liner, but to a higher degree. Headliner’s deal more with the political side of things and only go out in the field if it’s absolutely necessary.”

He then pointed at his shirt before continuing.

“You can discern a liner’s rank by the crest they carry. On my shirt is the crest of our region of liners. This line in the middle shows my ranking as a Middle-Liner. Likewise, the line would be at the top for a Headliner or at the bottom for a Bottom-Liner. To go along with the crest of our region, each liner has a family crest…”

Mr. Hwang walked back towards the desk he was previously sitting on, and pulled out a drawer. From the drawer, he retrieved a pink box that was similar to the blue one I had found in the restaurant. He opened the box and allowed a pink mist to disperse before walking over to me and Tiffany.

“There was a mist like that when I opened my box.” I said as Mr. Hwang reached us.

“As there should’ve been – It’s a paralytic mist that I conjured up. If anyone that is not of the DNA I programmed into the mist were to breathe it in, they would instantly become paralyzed for a few days. That’s why I had to open this box away from you.”

Although he had let the mist release before walking over to me, I could still somewhat feel the effects of it: My lungs had tightened, and my movements seemed a bit more stressful.

Mr. Hwang reached into to the box and pulled out the Hwang family crest.

The crest was a combination of the colors green and pink. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the crest was designed to represent flowers: There was green for the stems and had pink petals. The flowers were curved and looped around to form three overlapping hearts. The crest was beautiful in every sense.

“This is our family crest, Miyoung.” He handed the piece to Tiffany who had remained quiet ever since the box was opened.

Something about the crest must have resonated with Tiffany as I saw a small spark when she came into contact with it.

Mr. Hwang reached inside the box once more. This time he pulled out a pink bracer. This bracer was similar to my blue one, except for the fact that: it had curled flowers designed on the sides of it.

“These were your mother’s.” Mr. Hwang said as he now handed the bracer to his daughter.

Tiffany silently grasped the bracer and crest as tears started rolling down her cheeks. Mr. Hwang and I didn’t say a word – we both knew what was going through her head.

Those items are extremely important to her…

…

Tiffany eventually shook her head, and wiped the tears from her face. She gathered herself and rejoined the conversation.

Out of the enormous amount of questions in my head, I was finally able to pinpoint a few that I figured Tiffany’s father would be able to answer at the moment.

“Why is my crest just the regular liner crest? Also, why does this bracer not have any designs on it?”

“Headliners tend to not carry a family crest because it shows favoritism: When you are the leader of a region, the Liners of that region are supposed to become your family. Regarding your other question: That bracer is not your father’s which is why it looks so plain.”

“What? Whose is it then? And what happened to his?”

Mr. Hwang sat back down on his desk before answering.

“That bracer was designed for either you or your brother to use. However, the last time I spoke with your father, he told me that he didn’t want his children to be burdened with this lifestyle. Also, his bracer is currently serving another purpose – the reason for this coincides with why he lived like a regular person.”

“This is going to take some time, isn’t it?”

“It won’t take too long to explain…” Mr. Hwang said with a smile on his face as he walked over and grabbed a pair of chairs.

…

“… During our time in Africa, we came across something that was too dangerous for any man’s hands – even the Liners.”

“Dangerous in what regard? Was it lethal? Or do you mean figuratively?” Tiffany asked, suddenly curious about the item.

“It was a bit of both… so we gathered our most trustworthy allies and sealed the item away. The keys to the seal are the crests of the five families who were involved, but the seal also needed a power source. Your father willingly gave up his bracer to power the seal. But as our plan succeeded, we committed two taboos – One: we withheld important information from the organization, and two: we left our technology unattended.”

“How were you able to seal the object?” I asked. The first thought that came to mind was magic, but I knew it was a silly idea.

“…Magic” Mr. Hwang replied waving his hands in the air

“I KNEW IT!” I ended up jumping out of my chair, causing it to tip over.

“I was joking.” Mr. Hwang said through his laughter.

Tiffany was trying hard to hide her smile. She patted me on the back as I picked up my chair and sat down; my head hanging low at the embarrassment.

Mr. Hwang re-composed himself and carried on:

“No, we had help from one of the engineers. Before you ask – The engineers are the scientist who design and create our bracers. They’re the only ones with the knowledge needed to use and manipulate the rare metals and technology we’ve acquired. There is one engineer for each region, so six in total. The engineer for our region was one of our allies, so he created the container that we held the item in.”

“So what happened next?” Tiffany asked; eager to hear the end of the story.

“Well the item was hidden somewhere – Only Taeyeon’s father knows the location. And all of us involved were required to cut ties with the Liners – Not a proud moment for any of us. Since then we’ve been our separate ways except for some minor communication.”

“That was the last day we were here, wasn’t it?” All of the events I seemed to line up with that day, leading me to the conclusion.

Mr. Hwang nodded.

“We all needed to keep a low profile, so our families had to cut ties. We still monitored everything that was going on, but did not directly intervene. Everything was perfectly fine, until recently…”

“Something changed…” Tiffany stated; already knowing.

“Actually, two things have changed. First of all: The new Headliner of our region is ruining the Liners. His recruits are practically street thugs, there’s no sense of order within the organization, and he’s being manipulated by a powerful family… He’s also most likely behind you parents kidnapping.”

“Why don’t the Headliners from other regions step in and take action?” I asked.

“Well that plays into the second thing that has changed. A group of powerful crime syndicates, now known as: “the Ring” had recently been popping up all over the world, and they have decided to combine their strength to stop us from interfering with their operations. They formed a group of monsters called: The Ten Demons, who have been wreaking havoc on the Liners around the world.”

“Actual monsters?”

“They might as well be. They’ve yet to be defeated or captured by anyone. Countless Liners have died by their hands, so all of the regions have been working in order to take them down.”

…

Tiffany and I sat in silence as we took time to dissect everything we had just been told once more.

“So how does this new Headliner play into my parents kidnapping?”

“Well from what I’ve been able to gather, it appears that both the new Headliner, and the Ring, have somehow found out about Origon – the item we found in Africa. Both sides want the Origon, but neither side knows how to get it so they’re scrambling to try and get it first. Your parents were probably taken off of a hunch.”

“But how do you know it was the Liners?”

“By the way you described them; the kidnappers are most likely new recruits: They didn’t seem too intelligent. I factored out the Ring because we left the Liners before its existence, so there was no chance for them to even know our families exist. Also, from what I heard of the Ten Demon’s work; you would be dead right now had it been the Ring.”

I stared at the ground as I gave the information some thought.

“Okay, so how do Taeyeon and I play into this struggle?” Tiffany asked her father.

“I have a long-term plan to make things stable again, but I don’t want to put you two in danger.”

“Mr. Hwang, you can’t expect us to NOT take part in this.” I retorted as I raised my head.

He smiled once more. “The plan is: To overthrow our region’s Headliner, free your parents, stabilize the region, and then work with the other regions in an attempt to melt the Ring…”

Tiffany and I turned and looked at each other to confirm the other’s approval.

“Where do we start?”

___________________________________________________

Yello