Chapter Eighteen: The Link

                “Why are they locking us up?” Dong-woo said, breaking the silence. What happened was, they were all brought in a camera-installed cell inside the station and were left there, still with cuffs on their hands.

                “They really didn’t tell,” Sung-yeol said.

                “Shh! Shut up!” Jung-won who was on the opposite side of the cell suddenly interrupted before turning to Myung-soo, “Is your toy royal army soldier still around? I have to change his batteries and turn him into a walkie-talkie.” Jung-won glanced to the cameras installed in every side of the cell.

                Myung-soo looked around before saying, “Nope, I dropped mine somewhere when they cuffed us. Surely Ho-won will get mad. On second thought, why don’t you just imagine that you have it on your hands.” Jung-won looked at him seriously, and he slightly nodded in response.

                Jung-won hugged her knees and bowed her head, while Myung-soo stood up and circled his arms around Sung-jong’s head. “Ah, I’m still so sleepy,” Myung-soo said before burying his head to Sung-jong. “Don’t react, but she’s talking to Ho-won hyung,” Myung-soo muttered on his ear. “She couldn’t explain it directly, so hyung will have to help us.”

                Myung-soo became quiet for a little while before whispering, “Jung-won said that we should not talk about our plan to find Angel, nor what we saw in our sleep. They know about my connection to hyung, and apparently the people outside thinks that we are a potential threat to national security.”

                “I have to tell Dong-woo about this. You tell what you know to Sung-yeol, but act as if you’re talking about something funny. Now react and shrug me off,” Myung-soo quietly said. After a few moments, Sung-jong suddenly said, “Yah! You’re too heavy! Will you just go to Dong-woo!”

                “Yah! From now on I don’t love you anymore!” Myung-soo said with fake sobs before standing up and clinging to Dong-woo. Sung-jong started whispering to Sung-yeol and after a while they broke into laughter.

                “Yeah! I think Myung-soo looks ridiculous too!” Sung-yeol said out loud.

                “Yah! Stop talking about me!” Myung-soo said before burying his head back to the crook of Dong-woo’s neck. “We have to get out of here right away,” Myung-soo muttered on his ears, “he seriously needs our help.”

                “Myung-soo, I think we should just wait first,” Dong-woo muttered back. “In our situation right now, I think there’s nothing we can do. How about you? Do you have a plan?” Myung-soo really didn’t have a plan. In fact everything that happened that day wasn’t planned. His meeting with his father, his visit to the police station, their visit to the underground facility, all just came up a few moments before they were put into action. None was really carefully planned.

                An hour passed, but not a single person from the station came to free them. Suddenly two police officers came in with blankets and food on their hand. “Ma’am, we’re really sorry. The General called and told us not to release you until he gets to talk to you,” one officer said, “the kids ,on the other hand, will only be released once their parents or guardians come to fetch them.”

                “We’ll at least they didn’t really hold us here with nothing,” Sung-yeol said which gained him a look from his friends. “I’m just saying!” he said before taking a plate of what the police brought them.

                “When will be the general’s arrival?” Jung-won asked the officer.

                “The general is expected to arrive tonight, but he might arrive late so we decided to provide everyone with blankets and dinner.”

                “Aren’t you scared that you might be sanctioned for being nice to me?” Jung-won said. The officers looked at each other before one of them said, “we believe we had done nothing wrong. If other people would be there and would be spending the night, we would do the same.”

                “Very good officer,” Jung-won said with a hint of smile in her lips, “Thank you.”

                “We already called the parents. Mrs. Jang said she’ll be right over. Mrs. Kim will be coming from the countryside so she might arrive late. Mrs. Lee will have to excuse herself from work but she would probably be here any minute now. Please wait for your parents,” the officer said before leaving.

                “Oh crap,” Sung-yeol said, “why does mom had to know? What are we going to do?”

                “Don’t worry hyung,” Sung-jong said, “we just visited a friend in the police station and napped for a while. They actually have no reason to take us in.”

                “I wish mom wouldn’t come,” Dong-woo muttered, “if she does, I’m gonna have to leave you alone, and I can’t do that.”

                “It’s alright Dong-woo, you’ve already done a lot of things for me,” Myung-soo said after a deep breath.  After a while, Mrs. Jang arrived, and Dong-woo was sent home. “Once you got out, call me right away,” he told Myung-soo before leaving.

                It was already 1 in the morning when Mrs. Lee arrived. Sung-yeol’s mother came and took the two home. Before they left the cell, Sung-jong spoke though, “Hyung, stay here, and look after Myung-soo for me.”

                “Yah! Myung-soo can manage! Don’t leave me here!” Sung-yeol said, but of course, he wasn’t talking to him. He was talking to his hyung.

                “Myung-soo, you have to sleep,” Jung-won said. Myung-soo was still wide awake in spite of the time. “Surely your mother won’t like it if she finds you with huge dark circles on your eyes.”

                “I can’t really sleep anywhere except on my bed,” Myung-soo said, “but you’re right. Mom wouldn’t like that.”

                “May I borrow your walkie-talkie again?” Jung-won said, and the angel beside Myung-soo moved close to her.

                “It’s lying beside you,” Myung-soo said before lying on his back, “you haven’t returned it yet.”

                “If ever the general arrives before your mother, pretend that you are asleep. He’s quite scary looking and might intimidate you, so you don’t really have to meet him,” was Jung-won’s relayed message, and since she couldn’t see Ho-won, Myung-soo couldn’t ask her the reason why. I guess I have to trust her when she says that. Myung-soo didn’t really have to pretend. He almost felt sleep creeping into him, if not because of the noise of clinking metals when a police officer opened the cell.

                “Ma’am, the general is waiting for you,” Myung-soo heard the officer say, “and he insists to see Mr. Kim.” Why would he want to see me?

                “The boy is asleep,” Jung-won said.

                “I already told that to the general, but he insisted that he wanted to see the boy,” the officer said. After a few moments, Myung-soo felt a gentle tap on his arm. “Myung-soo, wake up. The general wants to meet you,” Jung-won told him. Nothing wrong could happen with talking to the highest ranking soldier, right? If there’s anything I should feel, I should feel safer around him.

                A tall, muscled uniformed man stood up from the seat where Jung-won as supposed to be sitting as soon as Jung-won and Myung-soo came in the room. “Oh, Agent Jung-won, it’s really good to see you early in the morning,” he said after Jung-won saluted to him.

                “It is good to see you too, General,” Jung-won then turned to Myung-soo and said, “Myung-soo, this is the General of the Armed Forces, General Won Bin.”

                “It is a pleasure to meet you Sir,” Myung-soo said after a polite bow.

                “Jung-won, I heard you were planning to reinvestigate a case, am I correct?” The general suddenly said which was rude, on Myung-soo’s part.

                “Yes Sir,” Jung-won said, “the case is continuous, since the family of the victim haven’t pulled the case off, but then I thought it would be better to look closely to other things. I was actually considering making contact with the criminal, since ever since the incident in the hospital, we haven’t heard his part of the story.”

                “And what are you expecting to find out?” the general asked.

                “The real reason why he did the crime,” Jung-won said.

                “But it was already proven that he did the crime, so why do you still want to find out the real reason?” the general said.

                “Because… I want to understand the victim,” she said. Myung-soo looked at her, startled. “I want to understand why he wanted to pull off the case when his mother didn’t want to. I want to understand why is it that it was so easy for him to forgive the criminal.”

                “And this child is the victim?” the general said.

                “Yes sir,” Jung-won said.

                “You have already forgiven… the criminal?” Myung-soo nodded to the general hastily, who in return chuckled to his response. “This is the reason why some criminals still go around freely on the outside world. Tell me, what is your name again?”

                Myung-soo looked at him coldly, “Kim, Kim Myung-soo.” He could see that the general had paid attention to him this time, as his brows turn up when he heard his name.

                “Say that again, M-Myung-soo?” The general said.

                “Yes Sir,” Myung-soo said. “Why sir? Did you already hear my name from somewhere else? Perhaps from another person or… from a dream?” The general looked at him with his piercing eyes, and he didn’t back down as he returned the gaze, as if trying to read each other’s minds. Suddenly, he spoke.

                “Agent Jung-won, give me all the information that you needed and I’ll tell my team to conduct the interrogation. You can’t have direct contact with the criminal as of the moment.” The general said before fixing the things over the table.

                “Sir, does that mean the previous report that Kim Angel is all a hoax?” Jung-won said which made the general freeze.

                “I’m sure that fraudulent report didn’t come from my team,” the general said. Both Jung-won and Myung-soo was left puzzled after that, but there was one thing Myung-soo was sure that Jung-won had no idea about – that the general was the uniformed man he saw inside the underground research facility.

A/N: Hello:) Let me thank all of you who are reading this fic. Your views and support really inspire me a lot!