A/N: Well hello everyone! Sorry for the delay. We still have school sometimes even for those who aspire higher education, which kinda . Anyway, I enjoyed writing this one and felt I had to be very careful with it at the same time.

Chapter IV

Meeting Old Faces, Walking Old Places

For the first time since she was a little girl, Soojung woke up at midnight gasping.

She blinks at Amber’s suddenly unfamiliar ceiling as she eased out a breath as calmly as she could.

She was sure she did not have a very nice dream, and when a dream was not very nice, it only meant one thing: the dream was about her father.

She gulps down the bitterness and attempts to shut her eyes close once more, but in the end, the needle forcing itself into her chest pushed her to get herself a glass of water instead.

‘Stupid, old man,’ she mutters under her breath as she pulls herself up from the makeshift bed on the bedroom floor and heads for Amber’s kitchen.

But a dark figure standing just by the apartment window down the small hallway made her breath hitch and her feet pause just as she landed a toe on the floor.

She almost thought it was one of her attackers until she realized the familiarity of the long dark hair cascading down the figure’s back. It was Jinri.

‘Jinri?’

Soojung squints as Jinri moves to turn to her, allowing the light from the peeking moon to pour into the hallway.

‘Why aren’t you sleeping?’

Jinri, for a second, looked like she had notes somewhere above her head as her eyes went up.

‘Sleep?’ she repeats the word.

Soojung sighs through a smile as she shrugs the question off with a wave of a hand and walks over to the puzzled foreigner. She settles herself beside Jinri and looks out to see what the other girl probably had been looking at.

‘Sleep?’ Jinri repeats, making Soojung turn to her.

Soojung bites her lip to keep herself from laughing. Jinri had tilted her head low and closed her eyes to gesture her understanding of the word “sleep”. She immediately shakes her head to shrug the feeling away at the realization that she had been keeping herself from smiling and laughing because of Jinri a few significant times this day.

‘Yes, sleep,’ Soojung says as she clears and looks back out the window – no longer interested in what Jinri might have been looking at.

‘Yes. Oac,’ Jinri said, nodding.

For a good two minutes, the two shared the peace that settled between them, but as soon as the clouds kept the two girls from seeing the light of the moon and the sky rumbled clearly even from the other side of the window, Jinri almost automatically looks down at the wrist of Soojung’s hand that hung undisturbed on her side.

Soojung noticed. On her periphery, she could see the foreigner look at her hands and arms with her brow furrowed ever so slightly. Was it worry? She was not sure. The only clear thing in her situation at the moment was the other girl who called herself her father’s “friend”.

Soojung lifts her hand, fingers clenched and wrist held up towards Jinri.

‘I’m alright, see?’ she says with a small smile.

Jinri, looking half startled and half confused for a second, blinks at Soojung before finally returning the smile she was offered.

This was the first time Soojung had seen Jinri smile since they met this afternoon, and in the same moment, the former allows the warmth in her belly to just sit there and be fed to her nerves until she could not anymore deny Jinri a smile that made her eyes curve.

Soojung did not know many things about Jinri and she desperately wanted answers, but for now, in this peaceful moment they shared, she pushed the part of her that connected Jinri to her father away. Perhaps, for different reasons, in a different manner, she would one day touch that less than liked topic without feeling hatred in her heart.

Perhaps.

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‘I saw you leave your sleeping mat last night.’

Soojung inhales deep enough for Amber to notice her gesture of “preparedness” for whatever the linguist was about to say.

Amber narrows her eyes at the reflection of her bestfriend on the rearview mirror before speaking up, ‘what did you do to Jinri?’

Soojung sighs in clear annoyance, ‘for the last time, Amber, I went out to drink water. Idiot.’

Amber hissed.

‘Watch the road, Amber,’ Soojung says almost nonchalantly as she noticed Jinri looking out the car window like a child trying to remember the road to her school. ‘I don’t want you trashing the family car.’

Amber, on the other hand, notices Soojung glancing over at the curious Jinri. Of course, she did not want to let this moment pass.

‘And you watch what—Jinri?’

‘That’s it!’

The next moment Soojung drops a heavy foot at the flooring below the backseat, the trio found themselves struggling for their lives individually as Soojung outstretched her arms to keep the life out of Amber’s throat, Jinri trying to hold back the angry girl, and Amber attempting to keep them all from dying.

After nearly half an hour of successfully avoiding steam traffic police and the occasional lower class migrants running through streets for scraps, they finally made it out of Amber’s neighborhood and into the wider roads of the upscale blocks.

‘Is this it?’

‘Yes, pull over by the curb.’

The sight of officers and construction workers rehabilitating a damaged part of the community a couple of blocks down made Soojung hesitate to get out of the car. She never had the time to look back and see the damage inflicted by Jinri’s encounter with the other five strangers.

The entire east wall of the building was scraped off.

‘Wow—‘ Amber gapes at the sight ‘—Jinri lifted that building’s wall?’

Jinri was silent, and Soojung, even with the existing knot in her belly, felt a stronger fiber in her gravitate her towards Mr. Kwon’s Law Office.

Now was definitely the time to get answers—

More than ever.

Soojung pushes the car door open, and Amber and Jinri watch her walk towards the tallest edifice on their left.

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Amber clucks her tongue at her reflection as she cringed at the reddened marks around her neck.

‘She’s so violent, don’t you think?’

Jinri only responds with a low hum – one that made something in Amber’s belly twitch.

Amber moves to focus the rearview mirror enough for her to see the other girl who now looked being inside the car did not give her enough room to breathe. The linguist finally turns to look at Jinri directly.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Tyhkan,’ Jinri answers breathlessly.

‘What?’

Amber reaches for Jinri only to have her hand gripped by cold and trembling fingers.

‘Tyhkan, Amber!’ Jinri repeats as her glare pierces right through Amber’s confused bubble and darts all the way to her conscious—

Amber’s eyes widen.

‘D—Danger?’

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‘C—Come in.’

Soojung’s brow furrows as she notices the hitch in the lawyer’s voice. The knot made inside her was now very noticeable. She lifts her hand to touch the doorknob anyway, but as soon as she makes contact with the metal object—

She muffles a groan at the familiar heat spreading through her wrist, and in only a matter of seconds, the burn shot up towards the veins in her neck and her eyes.

‘Not now!’ Soojung hisses.

‘W—Who’s there—‘ the hitch in Mr. Kwon’s voice was still there, even with the pain starting to take a hold of Soojung, she was sure it was there ‘—Miss Jung! Miss Jung help m—’

As Soojung’s senses swirled, the sound of a loud thud followed by footsteps echoed distinctly crisp from the other side of the door.

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‘Jinri? Hey!’

Amber frantically gets out of the car and hurries to get to Jinri who was now whipping around like she was in the water and out of breath.

‘Hey! What’s the matter!’

The linguist reaches out to touch Jinri but immediately draws her hand back at the other’s girl’s now burning skin.

‘Ow! How is this happening!’

‘S—Soo—‘

‘What?’

Jinri holds her hands before her, making her now reddened and bulging nerves visible to both herself and Amber.

‘S—Soojung!’ Jinri struggled to say as she shut her eyes close and clenched both her fists as if waiting for something to hit her. ‘Cra haatc sa!’

Amber’s eyes widened in horror as every nerve on Jinri’s face bulged bright red as if she burned from within, and in the next second, only the ache was left in Amber’s senses as Jinri screamed and disappeared right before her eyes with a bright clap.

Smoke rose from where Jinri had been sitting.

‘Great Sol Invictus,’ Amber mutters, dumbfounded.

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The door swung open, and by then Soojung was on the floor and was struggling to make sense out of her surroundings that now bled with color and indistinguishable noise.

‘Hm, no bodyguard today?’ came a gruff but familiar voice.

Soojung held both sides of her head to desperately shut out the sounds suddenly echoing and surrounding her as the figure towering above her spoke.

The fire inside her still burned and every second she spent unsure and afraid about the strange figure only made her nerves explode.

‘Are you truly what we are looking for?’ spoke the figure once more as a hand reaches out to Soojung.

Soojung, on the other hand, struggled to move out of the figure’s reach, but the pain rendered her helpless and significantly immobile. Her vision continued to swim in and out of clarity, and as it did, the image of the dark clad figure and four like him zoomed in and out of her aching skull.

But amidst the fear, the pain and the confusion, echoed the sound of Jinri’s voice calling out to her. She shut her eyes close to focus her senses on that only distinguishable sound and find solace in it.

Like every other sound surrounding her, Jinri’s voice bounced and swum within her skull. Soojung chased it; sought to make it clearer, more distinct—

—and as soon as it sounded clearer, the pain was gone and she opens her eyes to the warmth of Jinri pulling her into her crouched form.

‘Soojung!’

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‘Soojung!’

Jinri could still feel her skull throb at the pain of being put together right in front of Soojung, but she wasted no time as she caught the other girl in her arms before she completely fell to the floor. She staggered to keep herself up as she unleashed the same shrill sound she did at the alley and pinned every single person in the room to the floor without contact.

The apparent leader of the figures groaned with hate as he struggled out of the force that kept him on the floor.

‘I knew it!’ he growled and Jinri nearly stumbled backwards with surprise at his ability to physically fight back.

Jinri motioned a fist to the floor, making the ground shudder as she added weight to the force pinning the dark figures, and as she moves to stumble out of the room to the hallway with Soojung in her arms, she could hear the gruff sound of the dark leader’s laughter.

‘E femm veht oui, Choi.’ [I will find you, Choi.]

Jinri’s eyes widened and she froze right on her step. Where she had stopped, there was now a wall separating her and Soojung from the dark clad figures.

‘Nih, nih, nih, Meddma Jinri.’ [Run, run, run, Little Jinri.]

Jinri gulped as she juggled her thoughts for any memory of this man who apparently knew her name and how to speak her language.

‘Ev drana ec yhodrehk ouin vydran luimt hajan maynh yht ybbynahdmo luimt hud daylr oui—‘ [If there is anything your father could never learn and apparently could not teach you—]

‘Dryd ec du hajan pa duu dnicdehk—‘ [That is to never be too trusting—]

Jinri’s fist tightened at the sound of the same shrill sound that she herself could produce, alarm in every single fiber of her being now.

‘—hud vun uha caluht!’ [—not for one second!]

Jinri jumped out of the way in time as the wall that had once kept her safe from dark figure blew right where she had stood seconds ago. She immediately punches her way through the floor, bringing her down to the lower floor of the building and momentarily stopping the man after them with the shrill sound of her power.

She could hear him growl in anger from upstairs even as she hurried to get herself and Soojung out of the building. Seeing as it was an endless hallway ahead of her, she quickens her pace even more and readies her shoulder for the impact it will receive upon hitting the end wall ahead.

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Amber paced back and forth in beside the car as she struggled to rationalize what had happened.

‘What to do when a girl disappears into thin air?’ she mutters to herself as she continued to pace about. ‘I guess Soojung might know why this happened. Wait—Soojung will kill me!’

Amber groaned.

‘Too many questions!’ she huffed and leaned on the car, defeated, ‘if only the both of them were here then—‘

—and before she could finish her statement, something bursts out of the wall of Mr. Kwon’s Law Office and plummets right in front of Amber, depressing the ground into rubble and ash.

Amber did not even have time to scream. She blinks and as soon as she spots Jinri through the dust that floated, she queaks, ‘Jinri! What is—Soojung!’

Jinri cringed as her knee wobbled at her attempt to take a step, yet she persisted and limped to the car with Soojung still in her arms.

‘What is going on!’ Amber asked, desperate for answers.

‘Ku. Vyn,’ Jinri says between hisses as she puts Soojung on the backseat.

‘Go?’ Amber, albeit confused made her way to the driver’s seat. ‘Go where?’

‘Vyn,’ was what Jinri answered her with as she settled herself beside Soojung’s unconscious form.

‘Far?’

‘Oac, vyn. Rinno, Amber. Rinno!’

‘Great Suns! What’s the rush!’

Just then, a very angry figure clad in black, blows another wall of the office up and skids out of the rubble.

‘E femm kad oui Meddma Jinri!’ he screams.

‘Well, I guess that explains everything—‘ Amber looks at the figure from the rearview mirror dumbfounded.

‘—Amber!’

‘Great, Sun!’ Amber screamed as she lets her numb hands bring the engine to life and speeds out of the figure’s range.

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‘When we both learn each other’s languages, you have to explain everything to me!’ Amber says, nerves still numb as she catches sight of figure from the rearview mirror. ‘Damn it! Why do combustion engines have to be so damn slow!’

Jinri heard none of Amber’s rambling as she holds Soojung up in her arms – an attempt to wake the other girl.

‘Soojung.’

Soojung groans, eyes trying to open.

‘Jinri?’

‘Soojung, fyga ib,’ Jinri tries once more.

‘I don’t know what this can do, but Jinri needs you to wake up, brat!’

Jinri sighs in frustration and looks around the car until an idea hits her.

‘Amber—’ she calls out to the frantic driver ‘—Nasaspan? Vyn bmyla?’

‘What? Why are you asking me to translate now!’

‘Rinno, Amber! Nasaspan. Vyn bmyla!’

‘Alright! Alright! Um—‘ Amber sharply skids the car for a turn as she led the figure tailing towards the open road ‘—Nasaspan is—um—remember! And vyn bmyla? Um—far—far—‘

Another sharp turn.

‘Oh, come on!’ Amber lets out a relieved breath as she narrowly misses a pedestrian. ‘Vyn bmyla. A far place! Vyn bmyla is a far place!’

Jinri nods and quickly returns her attention to Soojung.

‘Soojung. Remember—‘ she brings a hand to Soojung’s chin, gently bringing the other girl to look at her ‘—far place. Remember a far place.’

Soojung continues to fight to stay awake and at one point she looked as if she nodded at Jinri.

Jinri smiled in relief.

‘I’m here, Soojung,’ she whispers to the weakened girl as she holds her very close and felt the heat seethe through the other girl’s clothes to her own skin.

Jinri shut her eyes as she waited, and the last she could remember was the seething burn and Amber’s pained screams drowning in the background.

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In the midst of the overwhelming pain, the unclear vision, and her fleeting understanding of everything happening around her, Soojung was not sure if she was blurring reality from her dreams.

At the point of burning her own insides and moving in and out of consciousness, she remembers seeing an aged image of her father, peering down at her, and before she succumbed completely to darkness, she could still feel being held safely in Jinri’s arms.

‘Soojung?’

Soojung does not remember ever feeling her eyelids being this heavy before. She blinks them open and sees a very worried Jinri staring at her closely. It took a moment for her to realize that her entire body ached and was still in Jinri’s arms.

She looked around, briefly taking in the interior of the family car, Amber’s seemingly sleeping figure still on the wheel, and Jinri’s furrowed brows.

‘Jinri?’

She sees Jinri’s features break into a smile and Soojung could already feel herself being pulled into a tighter embrace.

Albeit feeling as if every muscle and tissue in her body had been torn then put together again, she regardless feels her lips curve into a smile.

Soojung felt completely pulled back into reality at the contact. Her body felt heavy, but at this moment her heart was light as the memory of today’s events sped back, including the ones that drew themselves in her subconscious.

Soojung brings a hand to her second-time savior’s back and pats it gingerly.

‘I’m alright, Jinri.’