Miran was in much worse condition following the second concussion than she had been before.  She had virtually no recollection of anything that had happened after the bus stop through to about four in the morning, and she got even less sleep.

At seven, when the nurses were beginning to do their rounds and she was sitting up groggily, wondering if somebody had added alcohol shots to whatever medication she’d been given when she was admitted to hospital, she discovered that the damage to her head had been severe but wouldn’t be lasting, and the doctors had had to glue it back together.  She had a bandage wrapped around her head and the concussion would likely last a good while.  Somebody had left her flowers and a hastily scribbled card that read get well soon – hope it isn’t too serious.  Sorry I couldn’t stay followed by P.S. I have your gun.  The handwriting looked familiar, but Miran was not in a condition to spent much time trying to work out who it was.

The answer didn’t take long in coming, though, because the nurse who came round with the breakfast list a few minutes later informed her that she had a visitor.

“We wouldn’t normally let somebody in so early, but it seemed urgent,” she said.  “Same charming young man who dropped you off yesterday with the flowers.”

Moments later, Kyungsoo was striding into the ward.  He was wearing a long black coat that offset his dark hair, and he looked absolutely exhausted.  The nurse shut the curtains around them for some privacy, causing Miran to sit up straighter in alarm, and Kyungsoo sat in the chair beside the bed.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and the sound of his voice tripped something in Miran’s memory.  She lunged forward, gripping hold of his coat, and pulled it open.  He’d been there yesterday.

“What are you doing?” he demanded as she attacked his tie, pulling it off and ing the first few buttons of his shirt.  His hands clamped around her wrists.  “Miran.”

For a moment, they stayed like that, Miran half out of the bed with her wrists ensnared and her boss leaning back in his chair as far as he could, their gazes locked.

Then Miran’s gaze dropped to his right shoulder.  It seemed perfectly mobile, and he appeared not to be in pain, not to mention that the grip from his right hand on her left wrist was incredibly strong.  There was no way that was possible if she’d shot him in the shoulder.  And she knew she had shot her attacker in the shoulder.  That much she did remember.

Frowning, she sat back, and he cautiously let go of her wrists again.  Miran was sure she remembered his voice, though.  He’d called her name, if she remembered correctly, and—

Her face flared red with embarrassment.

“Oh,” she mumbled.  “You were at the bus stop.  I’m so sorry, sir.”

If anything, he just looked more confused.  “What has that got to do with my clothes?”

Miran looked down at the tie that she was still holding in her hands.  He glanced from it to his shoulder, where she’d been looking before, and then, with a sigh, shrugged the coat down to his elbows and ed his shirt so that he could push it off his shoulders.  Miran peeked up and went even redder at the sight of pale, toned flesh.

Kyungsoo’s next question really didn’t help matters.

“Is this what you wanted to see?” he asked, his tone neutral.  Trying to control her flaming face, Miran nodded.  Neither shoulder had an injury, and both, when he pulled his shirt and then his coat back on, looked completely functional and mobile.  It never went amiss to be certain.

Kyungsoo held out his hand for his tie, which she duly handed over.  “I came to ask what happened.  You were so confused yesterday all we could get out of you was somebody punched you in the head.  There was blood everywhere.  It took quite a while to calm the commuters down and convince them you weren’t about to die on us.”

“I got jumped,” Miran said.  “I was coming back from the mall and this hooded man came running up behind me with a knife.”  Her ear throbbed a little with the memory.  That reminded her of her clothes and she immediately looked about for them.  “Oh – my shopping bags – I think I brought them—”

Kyungsoo placed a hand on her wrist.  “Worry about that later.  A hooded man jumped you with a knife.”

Brought back to the task at hand, Miran closed her eyes, trying to think back.

“Why did he attack you?” Kyungsoo asked.  “Was he drunk?  After money?”

“I don’t think so.  I got away and knocked the knife away and ran for it and he just came after me and knocked me down and started laying into my head while I was pinned on the ground.  I wasn’t able to throw him off, so I shot him in the shoulder.  He ran after that.”

Kyungsoo slumped back in the chair with what looked like relief.  “Thank God I insisted you got a gun,” he mumbled.

“And the nurse said all the damage was on top of my previous head injury,” Miran remembered.  There had been something medically important to do with that that she didn’t quite understand, something about compounding previous trauma and longer healing times and being lucky, but it was beyond her current state.

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows drew together, a little perplexed.  “He deliberately hit you on the head where you were already injured?”

“With a knuckleduster,” Miran confirmed.

“How did he know about your head injury?”

It wasn’t something Miran had thought about, but now Kyungsoo mentioned it, it was unsettling.  He rubbed a hand briskly over his face.

“This isn’t good,” he muttered.  “This really isn’t good.”

“Um, sir?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think he was deliberately targeting me?  He didn’t try to steal anything, I don’t think.”

Kyungsoo gazed at the hospital blanket for a long moment.  “He attacked you,” he said slowly, “for no apparent reason.  With a knife.  And went after you without the knife when you got free, repeatedly hitting you on the head when you were already injured, and only backed off when you pulled a gun on him.”  He exhaled slowly, almost whistling.  “Looks likely.  If he wasn’t trying to kill you, he was either trying to scare you or incapacitate you.”

Miran shivered.  Did that mean she was getting close?

“It does… look… like you’ve struck a nerve somewhere,” Kyungsoo said hesitantly.

“Did this happen to you?”

“Did what happen to me?”

“Did you get attacked when…?”

“No, my suspect got killed.”  Kyungsoo pulled a face.  “We’re dealing with two different people, Miran.  I was chasing down Yerim, who appears to have been an underling of whoever the mole is and the mole killed her when I got too close, probably because she had compromising information.  You are going right after the head honcho.  It’s a completely different ball game.”

“Oh.”  Miran fiddled with her bandage.  “Yeah, I guess so.”

Kyungsoo gave her a bleak smile.  “It’s probably too late to say this, but please be careful.  We can’t afford to lose you.”

Miran nodded tiredly.  “How come you were even in the area?”

“I stopped by to visit Minji.”  Kyungsoo grimaced.  “She and Hyeri are confined on the same ward.  There are visitor records and everything available downstairs.  Anyway, I have to get going now, but I’ll drop by after work—”

Miran swung her legs out of bed as he got to his feet, but Kyungsoo turned a stern gaze on her.

“Rest,” he said firmly.

“But what if they come after me in here?” Miran asked.  “I’m sort of defenceless—”

He reached under his jacket and pressed her pistol back into her hand.

“Seriously,” he said.  “Rest.  And I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who knows you’re here, unless you’ve told somebody.  You should be safe.”

It wasn’t quite enough to put Miran at ease, but she did as she was told.  Initially.

By midday, she was too antsy to stay in bed.  Miran had always been a fairly active person to begin with, and she was not used to lying in bed when she was awake, and definitely not used to having nothing to do.  It really didn’t help that the nurses were barely around and there was nobody else in the ward, so she didn’t have anybody to talk to.  Her head was also beginning