CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Reunion

Unlike Sunny, Taeyeon easily accepted the nanorobots, and it was time to leave. Jessica surreptitiously amassed a first aid kit from the clinic, and packed some food from the apartment.

Meanwhile, Taeyeon went to YG's warehouse, and stole a case of ammo. She also took one of the bullpups she hated so much. Then, she went outside of Hongdae and hijacked a Kia from a group of North Korean soldiers, before driving it back to the apartment to pick Jessica up. That was all it took to leave YG. 

"Are you sure you don't wanna say anything to Yuri?" she asked.

Jessica hesitated. Her eyes became watery, and she blinked and her eyes were clear. "Yes. Let's just go."

Taeyeon nodded, then shifted the gear into drive and stepped on the gas. The car wheeled around and bumbled off. She had wanted to at least say something to Daesung, even Jiyong. In other circumstances, they could've stayed friends.

Once they got out of Seoul, Taeyeon floored it. Just like the time she sped to Daejeon with Yoona, the concrete freeway was broken up, and it hadn't changed much since then. 

Jessica was nodding off but struggling to keep her eyes open. Taeyeon kept a hand on the wheel and patted her leg. "Take a nap."

Jessica shook away her sleep and stifled a silent yawn. "No, it's not a good time to sleep."

"It's really fine."

"Let's just talk, and I won't feel sleepy," Jessica said. "Why do you think Dr. Seo wants us to go to Daejeon?"

"I hope that it's about Hyoyeon. She promised me she'd find a cure for Hyo. So if it's good news, I hope it is about her, or else, hope it's not about her."

"Is Hyoyeon one of the subjects who rejected the serums?"

"Yeah. Dr. Seo attributed it to high testosterone levels. Hyo got paralyzed. I went to visit her once. She's constantly suffering because of it. So I really hope that it's good news when I get there. I'm like looking forward to it now."

"I'm not saying that this is going to happen, but it sounds like you're gonna be really disappointed if Dr. Seo didn't ask us over for good news."

"Yeah. My stomach's feeling all funny."

"Are you sure it's not because you had a light breakfast?"

Taeyeon's stomach rumbled. She scowled. "Don't remind me."

"It's okay, we have lots of food." Jessica unwrapped a kimbap and put a piece into Taeyeon's mouth. "You're hungry, so eat."

Taeyeon grinned, chewed and swallowed. She opened again and made a noise.

"You're like a dog."

"A puppy. A cute as puppy. Don't deny it."

"If you're a puppy, no one would ever want you as a pet. They'd go bankrupt trying to raise you." And Jessica waited like she'd delivered a punchline.

Taeyeon took a while. "Your jokes are cold, Owner Jung. Hear that? That's me laughing and no one can hear it."

"Oh yeah? Wow, this kimbap looks so delicious I'll just eat the whole thing by myself."

"Jung!"

She enjoyed chilling like this, with her eyes on the road- mostly, sometimes on Jung Jessica- and far from the usual worries. It was such a drag to think of crappy things. She was tired of mulling. She wanted to talk with Jessica, find out more about her, instead of worrying that she'd let slip about Soojung.

Taeyeon knew that Jessica had every right to now. She knew that she was disrespecting Jessica, Soojung, and their parents, but she couldn't tell the truth. But I have to protect Jessica for now. I promised to bring her home. It was a paper thin argument, diluted and weak, yet corporeal enough to justify her actions to herself. Yeah, just lie to yourself like this, you idiot. Basically, Jessica was going to hate her and she couldn't handle that. Any high-minded motives were secondary.

Taeyeon heaved a big sigh.

"You must be tired," Jessica said. We can take turns at the wheel. You just have to give me directions."

"It's okay."

There was an awkward stretch. Jessica hummed a little, and sang a few English songs under her breath, but neither of them sustained conversation for long.

They reached the hospital while the sun was still glaring from above. Taeyeon drove past it without pause before stopping at an abandoned building further down. Jessica got off the car and went to the hospital first to find Dr. Seo. As the main military hospital, Daejeon Hospital might be on the look out for Firefly's Kim Taeyeon, so Taeyeon stayed in the car.

She cracked her knuckles and fidgeted with the steering wheel. 

Finally, Jessica turned around the corner into view, with Dr. Seo following closely behind.

"Hello, uh, Corporal Kim," Dr. Seo said when she got into the passenger seat. Jessica stayed outside the car as Dr. Seo would be divulging confidential information.

"Hi."

"I'm so glad you could make it on such short notice. Are you well now?"

"Yes, thanks for supplying us with what we needed."

"I'm glad I was able to. Especially with both batches of nanorobots. The spy that stole the serums for the North Koreans almost took everything I made."

"Oh, I thought they duplicated it."

"In five years with my samples as reference, perhaps," Dr. Seo said with a faint smile.

Taeyeon smirked. Maybe they could be friends. "Is it the same formula as the one you started us with?"

"Fundamentally, they are the same, but with some small stability improvements. My priority with the Chimera serums was to find a cure, and more recently, to find a quick-acting counter-agent. You may not know this, but it is not hard to discomfort someone enhanced by the serums. You could, for example, ingest any readily available hormonal pill, and be adversely affected because of how coordinated your hormone levels must be."

Taeyeon nodded with a blank expression.

"It is, however, hard to force someone to take such a pill during battle. Besides, even a strong pill will take at least fifteen minutes to paralyze a soldier."

"Too slow." Team Firefly missions had averaged that amount of time and took out whole platoons of enemy soldiers.

"I shared your sentiments," Dr. Seo said, looking glad that Taeyeon was following. "So I set about for a fast-acting formula that would act in less than a minute. I wanted to disperse the poison like a smoke bomb, so the dosage had to be small enough that inhaling it would be lethal. This was difficult because it had to, in layman terms, screw with your hormones precisely without affecting our regular soldiers."

"And you found it?" Taeyeon asked. Maybe Dr. Seo had asked her here to warn her about new toys that the military police could use against her. A nice gesture, even though she had hoped for news about Hyoyeon.

Dr. Seo shook her head. "I did not, but I stumbled upon something better. As I said earlier, I have been trying to no avail to find a cure for Staff Sergeant Kim. I tried everything, but nothing worked. Trying to find a Chimera anti-body, though, gave me my eureka moment."

Taeyeon's eyes widened. "Seriously?"

"I administered the cure a week ago, and the results have met my expectations. Staff Sergeant Kim is already lucid and has also accepted the Chimera serums. The formula's not perfect, but I expect there will be a higher success rate for female participants if we ever run the Chimera program again, which I'm unlikely to consent to."

She struggled to understand what Dr. Seo was saying, and it finally clicked. "Hyoyeon's recovered now? And she'll be a Firefly too?"

"Well, yes, that is what I said."

"She's fine now?"

"Yes. Her body is currently restoring its original physical state."

A quick laugh escaped from Taeyeon as she flung her arms around Dr. Seo. "Thank you so much, doc."

Dr. Seo pulled back awkwardly and looked down, but she couldn't hide her own smile. "You're welcome. Once Staff Sergeant Kim is done with her physical therapy, which would be a few more days as her genetic enhancements make up for lost time, I can arrange a meeting for you, if you like."

"Of course, I want to meet her. How is the security at the hospital like?"

"I'll make sure it's safe for you and Miss Jung," Dr. Seo said. "One other thing, Corporal Kim. I just wanted to apologize again for all the trouble I caused you."

"No, I've come to terms with being like this... Thank you so, so much for saving Hyoyeon. Holy , thank you so ing much. You're a genius, doc. A genius!"

Jessica knocked on the side window. Dr. Seo wound the window down. "Are you guys still discussing confidential stuff? Because it sure doesn't seem like it."

"Were you eavesdropping, Foreigner Jung?" Taeyeon smiled.

"I can't help it if you shout from a non-sound proof car. Still, I couldn't hear you clearly."

"Hyoyeon is OK!" Taeyeon couldn't keep her voice down. She couldn't stop laughing. She whooped and hugged Dr. Seo, even if the doctor turned a darker shade of red. She could wait a thousand days in this abandoned backlot so long as Hyoyeon was fine.

Dr. Seo went back to Daejeon Hospital, arranged for Taeyeon and Jessica to hide out in a private ward, which had two beds and an attached bathroom. Dr. Seo brought them food and water, and they were not seen by anyone else.

On the fourth day of their stay, Hyoyeon was ready, so she went to their ward to meet them. That was amazing to Taeyeon, Hyoyeon walking on her own two feet to meet them.

When the door opened, and Taeyeon saw who it was, her breath was taken away. It became hard to swallow. "Hyo."

Hyoyeon looked just as she remembered, not that awful, scary figure trapped on a hospital bed. The only thing that had really changed were her eyes, which looked like they had seen a thousand years past.

"Hey, Taeng," Hyoyeon said, with her easy grin. "So they tell me it's almost been a year since we were in Sokcho, but it feels like when I woke up, it was only a day since we rescued Sooyoung and made it back to base. It's strange."

Taeyeon stood up and walked to Hyoyeon. They hugged, and Taeyeon held on tight, feeling tears well up in her eyes. She was relieved that Hyoyeon didn't remember her ordeal.

Hyoyeon chuckled. "I missed you too."

"Ha, you just said that only a few days have passed for you," Taeyeon said. They let go of each other, and Taeyeon gestured. "This is Jessica Jung, a U.S. Navy Corpsman. Jessica, this is Kim Hyoyeon, my staff sergeant from my original military team before I joined the Fireflies."

"It's nice to meet you." Jessica bowed slightly with a smile.

"Same." Hyoyeon turned back to Taeyeon. "While it's good to see you and your new friend, I have a lot of questions, like why are you here? As in, why are you not on the field, why are you with a foreign soldier, why are you hiding in a private ward. Joohyun here didn't give me much detail other than that I should ask you for myself. I think we have a long, serious talk coming, and it's coming right now."

Taeyeon looked at Dr. Seo, or Joohyun, and nodded in thanks. Then she stepped back so that she was also facing Jessica. "Could Hyoyeon and I have some privacy?"

She made sure that the door shut tight and locked it after Dr. Seo and Jessica left. Hyoyeon sat on one of the visitor arm chairs in the corner of the ward and waved at her to sit down too. "Explain yourself."

She took her time making her way to the side of the closer bed and sitting on it. "Since that time in Sokcho, out of the various candidates, three of us made it through the Chimera experiment, and we became Team Firefly. It was Sooyoung, me, and some army kid, Im Yoona. I was able to serve well during this time."

"I heard."

So Dr. Seo had told Hyoyeon about the good things. "That went on for several months. Then, something happened, and I got put in solitary. And then... well, Jessica helped me escape and I defected that way. For the past two months or so I was in Hongdae with a civilian military outfit."

Hyoyeon nodded, saying nothing for a while. "I can guess and whatever, but I'd rather if you got a bit more specific, Taeng."

She stared at the floor. "I... So, Jessica got paired with Team Firefly for a few months. During that time, we kind of were into each other," she said. Hyoyeon knew she liked girls. "We got found out."

"Ah."

"Yeah, the commanding officer, Major Lee, didn't take it too well. In solitary, I had to take some anti-gay pills and I was supposed to join an all-male platoon after my release."

"Ah."

"And I don't know if the Major ordered it, or if our guards are just sick, but," Taeyeon felt tears spill down her cheeks, "I couldn't stop him. He just did what he wanted."

"Taeng."

"So I left."

"I see."

And then I killed him. Sooner or later, when Hyoyeon went back to the military, she would hear the rumors and put two and two together. "After a few weeks, I went back to Seongnam and killed him."

"You what?"

I crushed his brain and cut his off. I tried to put it in his mouth but I couldn't bring myself to. But I did what I did. "I killed him"

"You killed a Major?"

"No, I was talking about the guard in solitary."

"Oh."

"I stole the clothes that he was wearing and infiltrated the barracks. I found a North Korean spy within our ranks, a Sergeant called Kang Hodong, and killed him."

"A spy? How did that happen? How were you involved with him?"

"We ran into some bad coincidences. Seemed like there was a spy. When I was out, I thought about who it could be. Relayed it to Sooyoung and she confirmed I should go ahead and get rid of him."

"Ah, good work then."

Taeyeon looked up. "Good work?" She stood up. "Good work? Is that all you're going to say?"

Hyoyeon stayed in her seat. "What did you expect?"

"You... I know I've disappointed you."

"What were you thinking? What kind of person have you become? Have you killed so many people that you treat it like the solution to every problem now? You shouldn't have taken justice into your own hands," Hyoyeon said. 

Taeyeon couldn't help but take a step back. She had asked for it, but she hadn't expected how much it would hurt.

"Is that what you thought I'd say? That you shouldn't have done it?" Hyoyeon stood up, and Taeyeon stepped back again. "Yeah, you shouldn't have. There are official channels that you should've used even if history says that such incidents are always swept under the rug. You should've just stuck yourself with a bunch of men who were just told to induct you into normalcy or some such bull. And just take more of those pills until you go crazy and put a gun in your mouth."

"I..."

"You know that you were wrong already, so that's good enough for me. You shouldn't have done it, sure, but you had to do it. If I'd been around, I would probably beat- what did you say his name was again- I would beat his and bury him in his own . Literally I would make him take enough s to fill a grave and then bury him in it."

Taeyeon bit her lower lip. To keep from laughing. And crying.

"Come here," Hyoyeon said. Taeyeon let Hyoyeon pull her into a hug, and started shaking. "You must have had a hard time, being by yourself. I hope Sooyoung, Im Yoona, and Jessica helped you, and as your sunbae and your friend I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

 "I really missed you."

There was a knock on the door. Taeyeon stepped away from Hyoyeon and turned away to wipe her eyes as the door opened.

"Good afternoon."

Taeyeon froze. That voice wasn't Jessica's or Dr. Seo's. No one else was supposed to enter. She kept her back to the door.

"How can I help you?" Hyoyeon asked.

"Ah, the front desk just received this package. It's for this ward's Kim Hyoyeon and K-k-kim Taeyeon."

Taeyeon turned around. She saw the nurse flinch. Sunny wasn't joking about the rumors circulating in the military. She hung back, feeling ashamed, as Hyoyeon went forward to take the package. The nurse bid a hasty retreat. Hyoyeon unwound the string binding the manila envelope and slipped out a matte eight-inch tablet. She raised an eyebrow at Taeyeon, who shrugged.

The door opened again. Jessica and Dr. Seo entered.

"We had an unexpected guest," Hyoyeon said. "What kind of security guys are you?"

"That's why we're not security guys," Jessica said.

"She said the package was for Corporal Kim," Dr. Seo said, "it seems like Seongnam knows that you've been here for a while and has no problem with it, so I let her go."

"I like you two. You're forgiven," Hyoyeon said. She pressed the power button. The screen lit up to an app with a passphrase and an encrypted input box below it. "Ah, I know this."

She tapped a long, unreadable password and another passphrase pair popped up. She passed the tablet to Taeyeon, who didn't take it. "I think you know everything I know, and I don't know everything you know. We're not exactly of equal rank."

"That is true," Hyoyeon said with a laugh. "I wasn't thinking. I do know this and you don't. Wow don't I sound like such an ." 

She completed the second passphrase, and the app opened to a fullscreen video message that started playing automatically.

Dr. Seo and the both of them immediately recognized the broad jawed man with grey-streaked hair, cropped and gelled. It was Sooyoung's father, General Choi.

A/N: Onwards! Thanks for the feedback last chapter. How was this one?