“You do not hold my morality hostage!”

11:25 pm. Saturday. Hyejin Ahn detested bars; alcohol impaired a man’s judgement almost as much as a woman. Striking out into town in a poncho and loafers wasn’t her definition of a good time. 

“Good evening to you, too.” Kyungsoo Do, local elementary school teacher, braved her accusations with a smug smile. He was in high spirits, ecstatic he was not the one giving chase this time. The plan to lure her to Moo Mama’s bar wasn’t his idea. 

A text reading “15 min moo mama late and i say we regularly engage in - mr do” was written by the guffawing woman at his side: Moonbyul Yi. This explains how Kyungsoo suddenly knew her cell number. What remained a mystery was why Moonbyul staged a mutiny against her.

Sobriety long gone, the mechanic spun in her swivel chair. “I told you Hwasa would come. There’s nothing we gentlewomen value more than our reputations.” Her drunken ramblings were borderline rule-breaking. 

Shaking sense into Moonbyul’s sinking shoulders, Hwasa suggested, “You need to go to the bathroom.” 

“I need to go to the bathroom?” Moonbyul questioned. Glazed eyes blinked slowly, lids heavy. They almost failed to reopen when she suddenly shot up, shouting, “Fire in the hole!”

Hwasa had half-a-mind to drag Moonbyul home kicking and screaming; the melancholic mechanic’s shanty about a love to last a thousand years, and a thousand more, assuaged her anger. Oh Sehun continued to rob his lover blind from the grave. How many more months would Moonbyul mourn the motley man?

Saving the scolding for a sober Sunday, Hwasa watched Moonbyul twiddle her thumbs beneath the bathroom’s faucet. Nothing was coming out. “What are you doing, honey?” Hwasa turned the handle, brusquely pondering as water gushed across the porcelain bowl, “Is playing matchmaker so fun?”

“He’s nice.” The compliment is empty; her deadlights are distant on her horizon of smudged eyeshadow. 

“You’re drunk.”

Unlike Mrs. Byun, Moonbyul was no lightweight. Alcohol went in one end and disappeared into the “black sea of her soul” — as she once jokingly said. Hwasa guessed she had a hogshead worth before she tempted Mr. Do with the honey thighs wet dreams are made of. “I’m just a teensy bit,” squeezing a teensy space between her index finger and thumb, Moonbyul giggled, “squiffy.” 

Drinking is something Sehun Oh ritually performed on Saturday nights. “Want to come?” he’d offer, knowing full well she didn’t. “A bar is the best place to meet nice people with ill intentions.” According to him, Moonbyul lacked the street smarts to survive the night.

“We’re weighing anchor, Mr. Do.” Hwasa escorts a tumbling Moonbyul towards the exit. He reaches for her arm, falling short. Glasses clinked, drunkards guffawed, a thunderclap rocked the ship as lightning yearned to be the morning sun. 

“I’ll help,” Kyungsoo said, voice steady against the heaven’s grumbling. 

Adamantly playing her role, Moonbyul whistled, “Who are we if we rebuff a young stallion’s offer? Gentlewomen? I think not!” 

Hwasa is at her rope’s end; a gentlewoman can only suffer so much. Eager to escape the public eye, she eagerly agreed, “Please do.”

Driving through the storm too foolhardy a venture, the three take quarter at Starry’s Auto Shop & Body two blocks down the street. Moonbyul locked herself in the bathroom. Minutes passed. Marooned by circumstances on the same, awkward island, Hwasa and Kyungsoo stood yards apart.

Feeling unnecessarily guilty, Kyungsoo spoke first. “Miss Yi and I met by chance.” The comment sparked a string of other insignificant dialogue. An onlooker would give fervent testament to their incompatibility: a peasant and a pirate. 

“I didn’t ask.”

“How’s work?”

“Well enough.”

“Where’s Daron?”

“The Byuns'.”

“Why don’t you like me?”

“Though extremely likable, not everyone must fall to their knees when you say sit.”

“They do for you.” But it was their unexpected privacy that descended Kyungsoo into piracy; who was the peasant after all? “I do for you.” 

The lights flicker on. Off. Police sirens zoom by, red and blue glaring between blinds pulled shut. Hwasa felt her morality wobbling. Kyungsoo could make the blind woman see. 

At this point, any line he dropped would swim. Butterfly. Backstroke. Dog paddle. He chose freestyle.

“Sehun Oh is still missing; the police are chasing their ‘eaten by wolves’ theory. Morbid, wouldn’t you say?” She didn’t say anything. “I drunk dialed your house phone the night he disappeared — admittedly not my shiniest moment. Guess who answered?”

“Who?” She played it cool.

“Daron. Home alone. Even during a downpour you wouldn’t entertain the notion. Unless you had no choice but to help a friend in need. A friend whose babysitting services are otherwise life-saving.”

Dead men tell no tales; it’s the live ones women have to keep an eye out for.

“How do you like my theory?”

The mutineer wasn’t kept waiting for a response Hwasa didn’t have. Poking her head from the bathroom door, Moonbyul smartly interrupted, “Mr. Do, I’ve got this thing.” A pregnant pause before, “This thing I do when I’ve had one. Too many.” Long clothes go flinging across the room; the sailor is preparing to set sail.

Bringing their parley to an end, Kyungsoo showed that smug smile. “See you Monday, Miss Ahn.”

His looming figure disappeared behind a jingling bell, and Moonbyul nodded to herself. “He’s nice.”

“You’re drunk,” Hwasa argued. “And .” For the following handful of hours, Hwasa chased a Moonbyul round the store, shouting, “Put some clothes on, honey!” It's a small comfort that helps them survive the stormy night.

A/N: Dun dun dun! Looks like we've got another detective on the case of the missing Sehun Oh!