Chris Go, or traditionally Go Chris, came awake with a start. Sleepy and confused, he tried to focus his mind to detect the reason of his sudden wakefulness. Silence was expected at this hour of the night, barring the muted sound of infrequent traffic from the street below, which barely reached the spacious two level penthouse apartment in the poshest district of Seoul. He glanced at his phone to confirm that he had not lost track of time. Nope, he had not. It was 1-30 AM, a mere 3 hours since he had come back after his part time job at the nearby grocery store, hoping to finish the chapter on early childhood behavioral problems. He had no idea when he had fallen asleep over his open book. He looked at the book and grimaced at the wet spot on the page that his drool had caused. He cursed and vainly swiped at the spot with a tissue that he found in his pocket. The college librarian was finicky about the condition the books were returned in and he loathed to get disgusted looks from the unsmiling ahjumma. He shook his head to clear his sleep addled mind and considered traipsing outside his room to make a cup of tea or coffee. He got up, stretched and scratched the top of his head in a gesture that was uncannily similar to another family member. Chris carefully opened to door to his room, trying to keep any noise to the minimum. He stepped outside in the corridor and then heard a distinctive shuffling sound that came from the direction of the kitchen. He groaned and said a prayer hoping that his guess would be proven wrong as he walked hurriedly towards the kitchen.

The vaulting great room was lit up like a Christmas tree. The seating area consisting of two large sized sofa sets that were littered with clothes, just like he had observed when he had come back home. But he had simply sighed in exasperation, turned off the lights and had proceeded to his room to study. He had reasoned that the clothes were not going anywhere and he could gather those in the morning since his first class was scheduled after noon. He did feel bad for a moment that common people like he, would give an arm and a leg to have even one of these pieces of garment in their closet and yet, here they were, carelessly thrown in every corner. A Gucci leather jacket, a Versace scarf, a Tom Ford shirt, a pair of Diesel jeans, an Armani jacket and a Louis Vuitton satchel that he had missed before. The noise from the kitchen, tucked away in one corner of the great room, separated by stylish open shelves caught his attention and he half-heartedly trudged on, all his hopes of a mistaken assumption dashed to bits. He rounded the shelves and saw a taller man, dressed in a pair of cotton, whimsical Minions printed pajamas and a velvet, wine red smoking jacket poring over the counter, with his back to him. He noticed that as if the strange combination of night attire was not enough, the man was also barefoot. He looked around on the floor but couldn’t spy the discarded slippers. He was irritated beyond measure for he knew that the marble floors of the centrally air-conditioned apartment were always cold.

“Hyung! Where are your slippers?” He barked at the velvet covered broad back. He waited with his arms crossed across his chest, ready to give a piece of his mind. But there was no response, verbal or otherwise. Curious, Chris stepped forward and noticed the Bose noise-cancelling headphones that were peeking from around the head, which was topped with a mop of professionally designed and executed hair color in a shade of burgundy brown, only the tips frosted with a shadow of gold. Stepping closer, Chris lightly tapped on the velvet covered right shoulder. What ensued was so over the top that had they not been in real life, it would be considered as a classic scene of some slapstick comedy act on celluloid.

The startled man jerked off his hand with an exaggerated move, like he was trying to shake off a spider, causing Chris to take a couple of steps back, equally spooked. He turned around in a flash and stood flush against the counter, trying to steady himself by gripping the countertop. His eyes were blown wide and cheeks were flushed. He was breathing hard and looked ready to have a heart attack. Others would have laughed at his overreaction but Chris knew differently. He was immediately concerned. He waited for him to catch his breath, his irritation forgotten and now, overcome with a concern that he was trying to camouflage with an even tone that he had to fake.

“It’s me, hyung. I am sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

The man snatched the headphone off his head, a little calmer but clearly annoyed, which showed in his voice as he yelled.

“Yah! Why are you walking around at the dead of the night like a ghost? Why are you not asleep? Don’t you have college tomorrow?”

Chris raised a challenging eyebrow, not the least bit perturbed by the taller man’s raised voice.

“May I ask the same of you? Why are you not sleeping? Do you not have a shoot tomorrow? At 8 AM? Which means that you have to leave at 6 AM?”

The taller man relaxed and even looked a little guilty as he mumbled, “I couldn’t sleep.”

Chris quickly looked around and bit his tongue. All the signs were there. The baking sheet was on the kitchen island, the sack of flour sat on the counter, next to an oversized mixing bowl, with a beater stuck in it. Right next to it lay a bag of chocolate chips, its contents spilling out on the granite surface. If there was any doubt, it was put to rest by the loud ding of the oven, which threw the taller man into a frenzy of activity. He ran towards the oven door and yanked the door open, only to recoil from the intense heat that met his bent body.

Chris yelled from the background, “Careful! Mittens! Turn off the oven first!”

The man looked up wide eyed at Chris, as if this was the best piece of advice that he had ever heard and mumbled, “Yes! Yes! That would be perfect!”

He started pulling open the drawers, without bothering to close them when he apparently didn’t find what he was looking for in them. Within half a minute, all the drawers and the doors to all the cabinets stood open. The man stood in the center of the kitchen, next to the kitchen island, visibly agitated, still mumbling as he scratched his head just like Chris did, “Where did it go? It was right here. I swear, I have seen it somewhere.”

Chris was trying to keep himself from jumping in. But he took a look around and saw the open drawers and cupboards and the oven door that was hanging open with the heat still belching from its belly as a batch of cookies sat inside it and decided it was time to intervene. He pulled up a bar stool to the kitchen island and brushed off the specks of flour from the seat.

“Sit here hyung. I will find it……for you.” He softened the sentence consciously.

The taller man obediently plopped down on the stool, not really resting though as his long legs shook in a clear sign impatience and his eyes darted about the kitchen trying to locate the oven mitts. His beautiful (yes, beautiful, according to many surveys in many magazines) and fair face was marred by a frown and those cherry hued lips (always slightly chapped, a signature look according to his fans) were clamped around a thumb that he was biting in frustration. Chris, on the other hand, calmly set about to restore order in the now disorganized kitchen. He turned off the oven and surreptitiously removed the oven mitts from under the Dutch oven that sat unused on the stove top (and he thanked God that it was not in use). He grabbed the slightly over done batch of cookies, leaving it to cool on a rack that he found in an overhead cabinet. He heard a gasp from behind him.

“I knew it! I knew it was somewhere here! I had seen it. In fact I had used it to put the first batch in……ohh! Ohh! Are those burnt? Aisshhh! Yah! Is it all burnt? Throw it away then. I will make another batch. This time I will bake it perfectly…like the ones that ahjhussi sells at his café. Man, I don’t know what he does or how he does it….but those cookies are MAGIC!” He finished with a dreamy look in his eyes.

Chris smiled indulgently at his hyung, “Don’t short sell yourself, hyung. I love your cookies. They are the best! Better than the cookies the grocery store sells in those fancy boxes.”

The man snapped his fingers like an idea that he had forgotten had suddenly surfaced and all but leapt up from the stool. He reached out and grabbed Chris’ wrist and pulled him along behind him as he turned around and marched out of the kitchen. Chris could barely keep up with his long strides as he was half dragged towards whatever had taken his hyung’s fancy.

“Hyung, wait…..where are we going? And no, I am not going out driving with you at this hour. Absolutely not! Out of the question! Don’t even think about it! I am not going to be an unwilling participant in a one man drag race down the streets of Seoul.” Chris couldn’t keep the shiver of fear that went down his spine at the memory of that ill-advised ‘experiment’.

The man stopped in front of the den/office/library door that was half open and pushed his way, only to almost stumble on a pile of something in the darkness. Chris caught him before he ended up on his face and fumbled on the wall to switch on the lights. What he saw only dismayed him further. There were piles of photographs on the floor, black and white, colored, Polaroids, slides and various albums, barely filled, almost filled, halfway filled, brand new and only a couple that were fully filled. They were the oldest, much handled and showing signs of it.

The man looked proudly at the mess that was on the floor and started to explain in an enthusiastic voice, “See, I thought, I would finally take a crack at it. I decided to change the system. Now, each album will have the entire family’s pictures…..from various stages in life…for each one of us. I will have it completed in no time. Just a couple of nights and it will all be sorted and done. Do you see the green one over there? That would be yours. I wanted to finish that first but then I thought the youngest one’s would be the easiest, so I started working on that pink one. Isn’t that cute? ” He picked up the pink album and pointed out, “See, it’s her favorite…Minnie Mouse, on the cover. And her pictures are just as sweet. She is the prettiest girl that I have ever seen. Don’t you think so?”

Chris nodded with his head bowed. He was close to tears. He had seen this same mess for the last seven months, from the time that he had moved in from his college dorm. Each time his hyung would go on and on about finishing these albums and they are soon forgotten till a night……or two……or more…of sleeplessness. The pattern sadly remained the same. The midnight baking, the chocolate chip cookies, the albums, the loud music piped right into his ears and sometimes even more dangerous pursuits. A kind of thumbing one’s nose at the elusive sleep that skirted the weary man like a pariah. God knows, he needed sleep! He was the most hardworking man that Chris had ever known. And he worked incessantly.  TV shows, movies, commercials, short films, photo shoots, layouts, ramp shows, promotional appearances and whatever else his agency could market him for, for a handsome fee. And they had no dearth of takers. They loved him. The cameras loved him, the audiences loved him, the fashion designers loved him, the companies loved him and Chris, hated it all. They didn’t care for him. If they did, they would stop and ask questions, look into his life away from the glitz and glamor, insisted on him taking rest. But they were all star-struck, selfish and shallow.

Chris leaned on the door frame and gazed affectionately over the man, who was now sitting cross legged on the carpeted floor and sorting impatiently for the next picture that was going to go into the next slot in the album held open in his lap. Chris noticed the slight tremor in his hand as the long and graceful fingers hovered over the mass of photographs undecidedly. He slowly eased out of the room when it was apparent that the man had forgotten about his presence. He came back to the kitchen and sat on the stool that was previously occupied by his elder brother. He rested his elbows on the cold granite counter and covered his face with his palms in a gesture of helplessness that he dared not show in front of his hyung. He kept repeating in his mind, “There has to be a better way than this. This can’t go on forever. But it could be worse. Lord knows……it could be worse…….much worse! Thank you, God, for watching over him.” He looked over to the counter and saw the now cooled cookies. He got up and grabbed himself a small plate and served himself a couple. The rest he trashed. He knew that his hyung wouldn’t touch it. No matter how many times he baked it, it never turned out like the Magic cookies that he reminisced about. Chris didn’t have the so called Magic cookies of the lore, so he had no idea what high standards his hyung was chasing. He quickly organized the kitchen into a semblance of order before he opened the fridge and poured a cup of milk. He laid the plate of cookies and the cup of milk on a tray and made his way back to the den. He found his brother still in the same place but this time sifting through a box of documents impatiently. He was apparently looking for something and was clearly upset.  Chris sat down next to the door and leaned against the wall.

“What are you looking for, hyung?” He asked, if only to distract him from getting worked up.

The taller man looked up with a vacant expression, “I can’t find my birth certificate!”

Chris didn’t even blink or ask the obvious questions. He just wanted him to stop getting frantic over something he wouldn’t remember in the morning. He pointed to the cookies on the tray.

“Do you want to try a piece?” He asked with the patience of a parent, who was trying to manage a moody child. And it worked! The older man looked longingly at the cookies, almost wistfully and slowly shook his head. Chris knew that it was not because of his strict diet regimen but because he knew that he would be disappointed as soon as he tasted it. He would then wax eloquent about the Magic cookies of Mr. Lee. But he looked on with expectant eyes as Chris bit into a cookie with the concentration of a food critic. He chewed it slowly, looked at the half eaten cookie in his hand as if observing the texture of the food and carefully took a second bit, fully aware that his hyung was watching him with rapt attention. Though the older brother was the actor in the family, for dramatic effect, he slowly shook his head as he eyed the leftover piece of cookie in his fingers.

“Ummm…..well….definitely not inedible…..though the edges are a little overdone….but I like it crispy. In fact, it is……”he watched his hyung’s tensed face and slowly pronounced his verdict like they do at the award ceremonies, “quite delicious!” He smiled impishly as he saw his brother’s face darken as he caught on that his younger brother was toying with him.

“Yah!” He swatted at Chris’ leg with a heavy album, “No respect for your elders! Shame on you! Be grateful for being able to taste my cooking. Do you know how many people would kill to taste those cookies? I can bloody well market those as part of my fan merchandise product line!”

Chris was not the least bit hurt from the light attack on his leg. But he was happy. He was able to engage his hyung and draw him out of his thrall. He dissolved into laughter, which in turn offended his older brother more. He jumped up when he saw the older man setting aside the mess of photographs and albums. He knew a chase was in the offing and he was ready for it. With a very age inappropriate shriek Chris bolted out of the room and ran into the great room. He ran around the sofas only twice, trying only mildly, to evade his outstretched hands. He allowed himself to be caught and collapsed on the plush carpet, dragging his brother down with him in a wrestler’s pile. He grappled with him with lightly but kept his tight grip on him. Only half a minute into their wrestling match, he called out, “I surrender! I surrender! Hyung, I am winded! My chest hurts.”

His older brother immediately sat up, removing the weight of his body off the prostrate younger man. His concerned voice asked, “Are you alright? Did I hurt you? Aishh! I am so sorry, child. I didn’t mean to. I am so sorry!” His hand soothed his younger sibling’s chest in a not so effective but well intentioned gesture of caring. Chris’ chest truly hurt now. Not from any injury but because his heart welled over for this man he was proud to call his brother. He was the most generous, caring and responsible young man. He wanted to be his greatest champion just like he was his and his other siblings’. But he knew that between his studies, ambitions and his duties towards his parents, he would be torn at times. He wanted somebody, whose only objective would be to look after his hyung. At least, for the time being, till he finished college and decided how he was going to balance all of it. Right now he needed help. Even if it was paid help. But paid help are not reliable or trustworthy, which is why he had sacrificed the fun aspect of his college life to look after his brother by moving into his house, even though he knew that he could never invite anybody from college into that plush apartment. Neither did he have friends for people tend to ask a whole lot of questions about their friends’ life. Only one of his academic counsellors knew who he was and the why he had chosen that particular field of study. He decided to talk to him at college about his predicament.

“Hyung, I am fine. I am fine. I just need to rest for a while.” Chris grabbed the hand on his chest and lightly tugged, “Lie down next to me. Too late to sleep for either of us but at least, close your eyes and rest for a bit.” The note of plea in his voice seemed to work and after a moment’s hesitation the older man lay down next to him. Chris reached for the nearest throw cushions on the sofa and grabbed a couple. He inserted one under his own head and nudged his hyung’s head so that he could have one too. In the budding dawn of a busy day, two brothers lay down side by side, with a racing heart in one and a racing mind in the other. Chris stole a look at his brother’s face in repose and noted that the pallor on his face was magnified by the ashen sky that was overtaking the huge windows of the great room. He stealthily placed his fingers around his older brother’s wrist, focusing on the pulse that he could feel, mentally counting those off. He was slightly relieved to see that his hyung’s heart rate was higher than normal but not worrisome. He sighed in relief and closed his eyes. It seemed only a minute before the wristwatch on the younger man beeped to indicate that it was 5 AM already. But it was the older man who jumped to his feet, seemingly full of energy even after a sleepless night.

He looked at his younger brother, who had fallen asleep after all and proclaimed in his mind, “Don’t worry, kid! I am invincible. I am Go Nam Soon!”

In another part of the town, the humongous mall was lifeless in the early hours of the morning like a sleeping monster. The shops were closed, the empty atrium and passageways that wind around the shops lay cold and silent. The escalators were frozen from the night before. The merchandise were still visible, the window displays colorful and creative, ready to attract shoppers to peep inside in search of their dream. It could be an outfit or a toy or a miracle cure for their beauty problem or simply a few hours away from their real life problems. In this vast expanse of nothingness, echoed the sound of boot clad footsteps, strong, measured and rhythmic, like the military march. Keeping time with the footsteps was the clanking of a bunch of keys. It was a daily symphony that nobody that visited that mall ever heard. The man who owned those boots and carried that heavy bunch of keys reached the mall before even the first shopper stepped inside and called it a night after the last shopper left.

Though they say that men in uniforms are especially attractive, this man would be the first one to scoff at such nonsense. He wore his uniform as a matter of convenience so that he didn’t have to stand in front of his little closet and waste his time over what to wear to work. He liked being in the army for the same reason. Everybody wore the same clothes. No vanity was allowed. The focus was entirely on personal development and team achievement. He was well groomed though. Shaving necessities, soap, shampoo and deodorant were found on his bathroom shelf, next to the plastic glass that held his toothbrush and toothpaste. He still kept his hair short though not military style. He abhorred men’s usage of jewelry and wore the same watch that was bought with his first pay years ago. On his off days he wore one of his two pairs of jeans and chose a polo from his stack of 5, all in various shades of blue, without any graphic or monograms. His height and sharp features were attractive enough for many women but he barely looked at any. He was in his elements among men. He knew how to command them, respect them or work with them. Women were far more complicated creatures and left him baffled and slightly uncomfortable.

A man of easy gracefulness that hinted at hidden sensuousness, that he himself was not aware of, he walked the entire length and breadth of the mall, systematically going from one entrance to the other, personally checking, documenting and turning on the escalators. This was something he could have easily designated to somebody else but after the previous Security Chief was sacked when a child got caught in an escalator and he was promoted to that position, instead of celebrating, he had sat down and drafted a whole new set of safety measures that very night. He had decided that he couldn’t trust anybody else with that responsibility. He was haunted by the image of the bloody, unconscious child that he had resuscitated before the paramedics had arrived to take over. The child’s mother had sued the mall owner and had settled for an undisclosed sum. He had merely nodded when the Mall manager had mentioned that to him in the passing. He was a quiet man and the people who worked with him had learnt to respect him for it. He hated gossip, chit chat and back biting. These he considered a woman’s prerogative and he led a team of all men. Whenever he needed a woman security person to frisk a suspected female shop lifter, he called for the police and specifically asked for a female officer.

He returned to his office after 45 minutes, a dingy, windowless backroom that was furnished with a beaten up metal desk and two folding visitors chairs. His own chair was a worn out faux leather swivel chair that squeaked with every move. He didn’t care. These were irrelevant to the job he was entrusted with. He spent most of his work day outside his office, making rounds, riding with the mall patrol and training new recruits, which was often, because being mall a security officer was not an attractive career and people left all the time. He bid them best of luck and appointed new ones with equal dispassion. He only came into his office, if he needed to oversee an ‘investigation’. A troublemaking teen, a suspected shop lifter, a group of brawling teenage girls, a lovers’ spat that got out of hand, an amorous couple discovered in the bathroom and reported, all were within his jurisdiction till he decided to make that all important call and involved the local police. Most of the time, people knew that they were better off agreeing to his resolution because no matter what, it was not officially recorded as an offense till the police got involved. He neither chided them nor judged them openly. He only served them with a fair and practical solution. Fine, restitution, helping out the mall janitorial service (by way of community service), guardian call and worst case scenario, banning them from the mall, these were the ‘punishments’ that he handed out to the miscreants that crossed his path.

His all-male stuff were in awe of the man they called the Chief. Even the police officers on the beat, who infrequently worked with him on certain cases, referred to him as the Chief. He did not inspire or encourage familiarity. He believed that professionalism required a certain distance to be maintained in the work sphere with everybody. And one steely look from him was enough to deter any overenthusiastic brown-nose. He was fair and objective in his treatment when it came to his team and sometimes…… just sometimes……kind. He did not approve of people swapping shifts willy-nilly. He believed that job came first. Yes, family was important but the job was more important to support that family. So vacation days were rationed strictly and the man himself never took a sick day or personal day. Those who got their vacation requests turned down, had been known to comment that he was a robot with a mechanical clock for a heart. But once in a while he would prove them wrong and leave them astounded. Like today.

The call came over the intercom that a child had gone missing in the mall. A five year old boy had left his grandmother’s side and could not be located. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he listened gravely to the nervous voice of the sales associate at one of the anchor stores. But outwardly, he was deathly calm. His deep baritone and even tone betrayed none of the dread that he felt in his heart.

“First and foremost, lock down your store and look for him again. I will deal with the entire mall. Call me back in 10 minutes.” He grabbed his wireless radio and put out a call to his entire team to run to the four exits and keep an eye out for an unaccompanied child or a child possibly being taken. They were told to question any man or woman with a five year old boy stepping outside. Then he mentally ran the list of things to do in case the child was not found within the next 10 minutes and checked his flashlight. Being satisfied with his preparedness he waited by the phone, ready to deal with a positive or negative answer. And negative it was. The child was not found within the store.

He ordered a full lockdown and grabbed the PA system. His booming voice filled the corridors, nooks and crannies of the stores and even the bathrooms, announcing that a child had gone missing. People were asked to cooperate and keep an eye out. It was neither a festive season nor a weekend so the crowd in the mall was minimal around noon. It took him less than a couple of minutes to run at full speed down the corridors to reach the store where the child was last seen. People stepped aside, respecting his uniform and his considerable stature. He did not relish dealing with hysterical women and he was confronted with three. There was even a larger number of them forming a circle around them, gawking and whispering as he tried to calm down, in turn, the store manager, the sale associate and the grandmother to elicit necessary information. The child was the ahjumma’s daughter’s stepson. She had brought him to the mall to buy him some new outfits as her daughter was busy at work. She had chosen a few outfits while he was left at the coloring table that was a big draw at the children’s store. When she had come back to the coloring station to take him to the fitting room, she couldn’t find him.

He asked for a picture and the ahjumma called her daughter to get one. In the meanwhile, he initiated phase 2 of the operation. He had, over the last year, chosen and trained one or two retail associates from each store, who were trained as volunteer search and rescue personnel. Upon being deployed, they were to search their own shop and then their respective mall wing thoroughly. His team was to sweep through the common areas, clearing each corner, alcove, broom closet, electrical room and the bathrooms. He joined his team after calling the local precinct to notify them. It was only after he had unlocked, cleared and locked three electrical rooms that he heard one his team members call for him, to the men’s bathroom.

He ran towards the bathroom, hoping against hope that no e had violated the child and left him injured or worse, dead. He ran inside the bathroom to see one of the new recruits standing in front of the handicapped stall, looking helpless. He spoke up as soon as he saw him, “Chief, I found him. He is in there. But he wouldn’t let me touch him. He wouldn’t come out on his own either. He is curled up into a ball and hiding behind the commode.”

Uncertain himself and not entirely relieved, the Chief softly approached the stall and peeped in. Yes, true to the man’s words, there was a little ball of red t–shirt and blue denim hiding behind the commode. He feared that the child’s aversion to an adult man’s touch and strange behavior did not bear well, given his assumption. On an instinct, he dropped to a crouch and approached the child in a crawl, speaking cajolingly.

“Hi kid! Are you the world famous Jin Ah? Because if you are, I would love to have an autograph from you. You shut down the entire mall! Yes, you are that important! Perhaps this would be a good time to take advantage of your fame and make a trip to the arcade in the atrium. You can play as many games as you would like. Tell you what….I will play with you. What’s your favorite game?” He sat down at a distance but closer than before and apparently in no hurry. The child withdrew further into a ball and scooted closer to the furthest corner. He did not see any outward sign of disheveled clothing or injury but molestation cases are more about mental trauma than physical.

“Well, your grandma is distraught. Your mother, I am sure, is equally upset. Why don’t you just go see them? They are crying their eyes out.” The recruit looked on amazed at the man that he had barely ever heard speak so sweetly or behave so considerately. He nodded his head in acknowledgement when the Chief turned to him and mouthed wordlessly along with minimum, but on point, hand gestures to notify everybody to lift the lock down. The new guy stepped out to convey the message over his radio.

The child whimpered and sobbed, still not looking at the adult. “I can’t go see them. I am…so…dirty.”

The Chief looked up sharply, narrowing his eyes at the mention of the euphemism that he had often heard in context of ual abuse wrought upon a child. He wanted to snatch him up and hold him close. No child should ever have to go through such awful situations. But he did slide closer to the child, trying to be as subtle as possible. Only when he was within a foot of the child did he smell it. A strong pungent smell that assaulted his senses. The smell of urine. It was a bathroom stall but this was more than the vague smell that one encounters in a public restroom. He looked over the child quizzically and had a thought. What if it was actually something simpler? He cleared his throat and tried to phrase his question carefully, “Jin Ah, did you have….urm…may be….you know…a ‘bathroom’ accident?”

The sobbing became louder and more intense. The Chief tried not to smile but he was finally relieved and felt the pressure lift off his chest. The child spoke between sobs, laying out his misery in broad details. “I wanted to go even when I was in the car. But I am meeting the new grandma only for the second time and I knew she couldn’t come into the men’s room. I thought I could do it alone. I do it at home. But I couldn’t climb on the seat. And I tried….but…I couldn’t control….I really tried! Now, all my clothes are dirty. I am dirty. I don’t want to see anybody ever, not my new mom…not my new grandma….and dad would be so ashamed of me. Babies have accidents. I am not a baby anymore. I can never go home.”

The adult quickly swallowed the smile as a tearstained little face finally looked at him with beseeching eyes. He looked down and pretended to ponder on the little boy’s big problem. He spoke with the seriousness that he reserved for his monthly meeting as he proposed, “I have an idea that might put a lid on it forever and you can go home, never to mention to it anybody. Deal?”

In short order, the recruit was sent to the much relieved grandma, who was being treated for nervous exhaustion at the shop, to retrieve one of the outfits that she had picked out and was told that the child had somehow fallen into a big garbage can and was covered in filth. The Chief had stood guard outside the closed door of the stall as the child was allowed to clean himself with wet tissues because he wanted to give him a chance to salvage his hurt ‘little man’ pride. The clothes were handed to him with respect, through the little crack in the door and he dressed himself, even if he was missing few things like shoes, socks and underwear. The Chief had then personally collected all the discarded clothes and tied those up in a trash bag. He had even double-bagged it to keep the stench from getting out. Finally, satisfied with his arrangement and the ruse, he had carried the child in his arm to the grandma. Upon being told the story again, thankfully, the grandma had refused to take home the soiled clothes. The store was so grateful for the entire fiasco to be over with a happy ending that they happily gifted the child new socks and a pair of shoes. Crisis averted, everybody laughed, smiled and thanked God and the men, who had found him. But the child missed the tall man who had become his confidante and he was disappointed when he couldn’t see him again before going home. He knew that he would never forget his kindness.

The Chief shrugged off the respectful congratulatory words and merely addressed each and every one of his men with the same words, “You have worked hard.” Repetitive as those words were, he left them in no doubt that he meant them each time. The men knew their Chief so they expected very little else. Only towards the close of the day, the Chief came out and handed them a modest amount of cash so that they could go out and celebrate at a pojangmacha. That was unusual, for the Chief generally drilled it into them that every crisis averted, every problem solved, every fight they broke up was their job, for which they drew a salary. He thought that it was unnecessary to celebrate a job well done because….well….it was a job. He looked at his job the same way and the lack of high-fives and congratulatory handshakes was part of his management style. And similarly, it was expected that he would decline their invitation to join them in the revelry. The men always asked and he always refused and they had got used to it, neither party taking offense at the sad parody of an offer of friendship.

But one thing, sometimes, did rankle with him. On his way back to his spartanly furnished one bedroom apartment in one of the modest, middle class areas of the city, he did miss someone to come home to. For a modest, practical and no-nonsense man, he had an extremely unusual ambition, which had nothing to do with his professional life. He didn’t care if he spent the rest of his life at the same job, working with the same faces and doing the same things. But every evening he wanted to go back to someone he loved passionately. He wanted to fall in love……the deeply, madly, send-a-tingle-down-your-back, turn-your-world-topsy-turvy kind of love. He had no idea how to achieve that and he firmly believed that you cannot go search of that kind of love. It is something that happens, once in a lifetime, if you are really lucky and patient. He did not want to settle for a marriage of understanding and mutual support. He wanted the fireworks and the fire that would burn for the rest of his life. He imagined that it would be a slow pulse that would take hold behind his eyes and travel down to his core and not the other way around. So, he never really missed the female company that men of his age craved and go on the hunt for. He was a patient man and he waited for that moment when love would force him to step out of his placid life and change it forever.

Entering his apartment, he the cellphone that he kept turned off while he was on the job and he expected everybody else in his team to do the same. It was an unnecessary distraction and he really wasn’t expecting any call today or, for that matter, any other day, any time soon. So, he was a little curious to see a voicemail waiting for him. He retrieved the voicemail as he started warming the pot of soup and put the measured rice in the rice cooker. Then, he sat down on his bed and called the number from where the voicemail had come. He wasn’t disappointed when the cheery male voice answered at the other end.

“Hello Comrade! How does it go?”

He smiled a little, caught up in his infectious energy, “I am well, Captain. Thank you. Is everything alright with you?”

The other male chuckled, “I am fine. But I have a request for you. Say, how much love do you have for your present job? And what would you say, if I tell you that I have a wonderful and, might I add, a much better paid, gig for you?”

He was quiet for a moment. As much as he had immense respect and admiration for the older man, he was not fond of changes and definitely not on a whim, without a careful study of pros and cons involved.