[-]

  Being sharp like he usually is, Jiyong immediately understood Dara's suspicions.

  "Noona goes to an ahjussi who writes when she send letters to our auntie that lives in Gukhwa." Doodoong said loudly, getting their attention.

  "Do you know where he is?" Jiyong asked. 

  The child shook his head. 

  "We can start by asking her neighbours." Dara offered, stuffing the two letters into her pocket in a hurry before grabbing a cooked corn that is served on a plate nearby, stuffing it into Doodoong's hands.

  "Wait for Dara Noona here alright?" She cooed, and as soon as Doodoong started munching on the treat, she left the room quickly.

  Jiyong tagged tightly behind her, pausing where the child is, and gave his head two awkward pats.

  Their search was mostly futile. All of the people that lived around the small hut that belonged to the siblings had no idea who and where the letter writer lives. Even though Jiyong had his black mask that covered the lower part of his face, people recognises his crimson red hair which was met with reactions of shock and amazment at the sight of him.

  "No, I've never heard of such a man." An ahjumma waved Dara away, her small, beady eyes stuck on the Ice Lord, who was lingering some distance behind her. Before Dara could ask more, the door was shut unceremmoniously in her face.

  She grumbled. "I'm not some salesman..." She was, back at home, where she would spend the 10 working hours she has in the office trying to call up clients and promote products even though she had a pretty decent diploma in chemistry. This is just the way life works somehow.

  "That leaves one house left." Jiyong commented, and Dara sighed sadly in aknoledgement. Above them, the sky is already fully dark with stars littered across it. She thought most certainly someone wouldve known who the letter writter is. She didn't knew it would've taken them this long.

  She knocked on the last door in this neighborhood. It was a dark one, built from cheap wood. Ocassionally, the owl or some wild beast would growl and hoot in the distance, adding to the already noisy melody of the crickets. Jiyong leaned against the wooden pillar, his eyes training across the shabby house to rest on a peeling couplet that was written and stuck at the side of the door. It's weird, how nobody in this village knows any letter writers. How would the writer make his living without any business like this? Jiyong pondered silently, his eyes stuck on the couplet. 

  Upon Dara's second series of knocks the door creaked open to revealed a man in his early fifties. 

  "What do you want?" He asked bluntly, his voice low as he stared at the two with suspicion and distrust.

  "You happen to know any letter writers around here?" Jiyong asked back, slightly surprised that the man didn't seem at all shocked at him, the Ice Lord's appearance at his front doors.

  The man stared at them for a moment and grunted, opening the doors wide enough for them to pass through before hobbling back into the house.

  Dara gasped, turning her round, surprised eyes to Jiyong. She had almost given up any hope that she'll be able to get any leads in this neighborhood today. Hurriedly, she followed the man inside the house. Jiyong frowned at the sudden turn of events, sparing that same , neatly written couplet another look before entering the hut.

  The small house had a musty and moist feeling to it. It was dark, allowing few sunlight to pass through, and was lit up by a simple, thick purple candle. Dara sat herself on one of the worn out couch that held evidences of being moth-bitten at some parts while Jiyong remained standing. The man re-emerged with an old kettle pot and three teacups which Dara politely declined.

  "Why are you looking for the letter writer, young lady?" The man asked, pouring himself a cup of tea. 

  "I'm looking for this girl who left home around a month ago... She left behind a letter that says that she'll be getting married somewhere else and left her younger brother with us. I was wondering if the one that wrote her letter has any leads or clues to where she is." Dara said earnestly.

  Jiyong glanced around the house. There's nothing special to it. His eyes fell on a yellowish note that's stuck on the wall which are scribbled with reminders of when to take medications and frowned. 

  "I can tell you where the letter writer works, but I think the woman that you are talking about is simply just seeking for a better life." The man said.

  "It can't be, my maiden that came looking for her this morning went miss-" Dara opened to counter him but was interupted by a loud crash that seemed to came from nowhere, followed by a loud, muffled but frustrated yell. Jiyong turned around immediately, his eyes alert.

  "I apologise. My young son is playing downstairs... If you would just give me a moment...." He murmured,  getting to his feet.

 
  The man hobbled out of view and into the small kitchen before pulling the door to the cellar open on the floor once he made sure the couple was out of sight. Silently, he descended down the stairs with nothing but a flickering candle to shield him from the engulfing darkness. But he knew his way. He continued down, not sparing a glance to one of small, tight chambers until he had reached the end of the darkness.

  "Junsoo." The man cooed. "Stop hiding, come out."

  There was a small shuffle behind and the aged man spun around immediately, where a face was caught immediately in the light.

  "Appa." The face whined. "My bride doesn't want to play with me." 

  "Shh." The man hushed, pulling the fringe off the child's sweaty forehead. "Appa has some guests upstairs. They are looking for Junsoo's bride. You have to be very, very quiet so that they won't find you, understand?"

  The child nodded. 

  "Good boy." 

  Jiyong stared at the man's retreating back, his eyebrows knitted tightly together. There just seems to be something wrong. Why does this man knows the letter writer while everyone doesn't? Dara rocked herself back and forth slightly on the couch. The sudden noise had scared her, and there's just a weird uneasiness that's nibbling at her. But this man is the only one who knows where is the person they are looking for. He's the only lead they have now. She has to find where Jisoo is. 

  Behind her, Jiyong's eyes widened in realisation.

  Dara felt Jiyong's fingers entwined around hers before she was pulled up from that seat. 

  "Let's get out of here." Jiyong said quietly, turning to leave with her but was stopped by a confused Dara that was rooted to the ground.  

  "Why? We can't just go now, he said that he knows-" Dara blabbered, but was cut across by Jiyong.

  "We're coming back, but with more people." He said in a low voice. 

  In the kitchen, unnoticed by them, the man who is shutting the cellar door froze. Leaving the cellar lock alone, he straightened up silently and plucked a knife from the kitchen top without a noise.

  "I don't get it, he's not-" Dara stuttered.

  "Not dangerous?" Jiyong whispered. "Dara, he's not going to tell you where the letter writer is. He's the letter writer."

  Catching Dara's still equally perplexed expression, Jiyong pulled her to the wall where the yellowish memo was stuck on. 

  "Look at the font." He said. Dara whipped the two letters from her pocket and widened her eyes.

  "And the couplet stuck outside their front door. It's all the same. We need to search this house."

  Dara stared at Jiyong with fearful eyes before she screamed. Jiyong reacted quickly, pulling Dara away from her shoulders before side stepping himself away from the spot just milimetres from where he now stood where a knife slashed through the air. Dara covered and stuck herself close to the wall as the letter writer growled and charged towards Jiyong again. Easily, Jiyong grasped his attacker's knife-wielding wrist and twisted it, another hand blocking the punches and struggles that the yelping man is putting up. 

  The letter writer's hand loosened and the knife clanged to the ground, where Jiyong swiftly kicked it away. The man snarled, grabbing a ceremic bowl on the shelve nearby and flinging it towards Jiyong, who ducked. Dara let out another shriek and clamped her eyelids shut as it shattered into a million pieces on the wall beside her. Violence. She felt her breath hitched and she squeezed her eyes tighter as her hands started to get clammy, her chest constricting painfully. Her breath becomes shorter and-

  "Cover your ears." She hears Jiyong growl beside her, and she quickly pressed her shaking arms to her ears, efficiently blocking out part of the struggling that's happening infront of her. Breathing got easier and the threat of blacking out from the induced-asthma like she did that night of the massacre ebbed away. All she could hear is muffled grunts and thuds, but that doesn't calm the crazy beating in her chest.

  The man hurled something again and Jiyong caught it, throwing it aside beside landing a kick on the man's guts that send him to the floor with a dull thud. The letter writer groaned, his fingers weakly climbing to the knife that laid some distance away. Spotting that, Jiyong hissed before snatching up the knife.

  He pulled out his own leather belt and sliced it into half with just a flick of the knife and roped his attacker's hands and feet tightly together, immobilising him. Straightening him, the Ice Lord narrowed his eyes at the man before turning his glance to Dara, who was still shaking lightly with her eyes closed and her hands over her ears.

  Gingerly, he peeled her hands away. She opened her eyes slowly and the bound attacker greets her vision first before Jiyong, who was almost unscratched. She let out a muffled cry of relief before throwing her arms around him.

  But she lets go, and Jiyong turned to the direction she was looking at, to see a scared pair of eyes peeking from the kitchen.

  "Don't hurt my child." The letter writer said, with his mouth full of blood.

  Only except that his child wasn't a child at all. It was a fully grown man, slightly around Jiyong's age, who remained crouching in the kitchen, having made his way up from the cellar.

  Jiyong untied the belt around the letter writer's legs and yanked him up, forcing him to walk to the kitchen.

  The crouching man in the kitchen gaze was fleeting, as if he was in his own world. He was muttering in a series of unknown phrases to himself, twisting his hands together.

  "He's...." Dara began in shock.

  "Intellectually disabled." The letter writer said, "It's not his fault."

  At the Ice Lord's pressing, the letter writer had confessed. His son, Junsoo, was born mentally handicapped, and his father had locked him at home to prevent him from running out. Since then, he had taken a liking and crush to Doodoong's Noona, who often visited to request for the writer's help in writing letters to her aunt who lived away from the Fire City. One day, after a failed attempt to get his crush to stay and play with him, Junsoo hit her over the head in frustration, causing the girl to pass out. Afraid that the authorities would be alerted, the letter writer had hid the girl in the cellar, shackled but alive, as a playmate for his son as well as to keep her quiet and his son safe. To avoid suspicion, he had no choice but to fake the letter about her leaving home on her own will. He had thought that everything was resolved until he heard this morning, while he was out, that there was a maiden who was looking for the girl. 

  "Where is she?" Jiyong demanded, and the man glanced the door of the cellar. 

  Dara pryed it open and Jiyong made the hand-tied writer lead them down. The way down to the cellar was dark and it smelled foul and nauseating. The writer stopped in his tracks and nodded towards the left.

  A muffled cry made Dara gasp and she immediately pushed past the writer and knelt beside a roped up Jisoo, who was shaking silently, her eyes wide with fear and streaming with tears. Dara ripped away the gag in and the rope binding her hand and she erupted into loud cries while holding Dara tightly.