I slept for roughly an hour, then switched off with Hakyeon, and although he claimed he was wide awake, within moments he is snoring on my shoulder. I take the opportunity to start devising plans to avoid capture and certain death, though not much looked promising.

As I’m wrapped up in imagining how exactly Godzilla would terrorize the city to cause an opportunity for our escape, my eyes catch on a colorful object sticking out of a handbag, which is sitting on the lap of a knocked out woman a few rows ahead of us, and it gives me an idea.

The object, a lighter, is nearly falling out the bag, and the woman looks like she may even be drooling, she’s so conked out. I don’t like the idea of stealing, but when one is facing a life or death situation, I feel like she won’t miss her $1.27 lighter too much. I push Hakyeon off my shoulder so I can stand up.

“Whereya goin…?” He asks sleepily.

“To the restroom.” I hush him.

“But you already went…” He mumbles, eyes still closed.

“Need I remind you, I didn’t actually use the restroom when I went.” I whisper.

“Oh yeah.” A little smirk creeps onto his lips, and I roll my eyes, but he’s already snoring again, head resting against his seat. I shuffle past him into the aisle, realizing that since the woman is in front of us, I’ll have to use the restroom at the front of the plane...and pass the exact dude I need to avoid at all costs. Great.

I start walking slowly down the aisle, using my peripheral vision to keep an eye on the lighter. As I pass the woman, I make a small show of stumbling slightly, and when my hand reaches down to her armrest to steady myself, I use a couple fingers to grab onto the lighter, and flick it into my sleeve. Even though there was no turbulence, nobody seemed suspicious or even aware that I had stumbled, and I keep walking toward the front of the plane, trying to look as natural as possible. I don’t look back until I get to my destination and close the door behind me. Inside the restroom I pull the lighter out of my sleeve, elated that I pulled it off, and breathe a sigh of relief. Now for phase two.

I decide to make sure the lighter isn’t empty, and to figure out which material burns better, so I try lighting a couple. The paper towel burns for a moment then seems to go out, so I drop it into the hole that airplanes call a toilet. The toilet paper burns easily, but quickly. The piece in my hand envelopes in fire and, startled, I drop that one as well.

I try once more, ending in another failed attempt being thrown in the toilet. I keep going until I’m satisfied with the results by using both the toilet paper - to keep the fire strong - and paper towels - to keep it burning. I put my supplies in my pockets and ready myself to exit the restroom when I smell something awfully strange.

And by awfully strange, I mean strange, and awful. I turn around and I’m surprised, to say the least, to see a small plume of smoke inexplicably rising out of the toilet. The trail of smoke is widening every second, and I start to feel a heat rising in the room. In a panic I leave, closing the door behind me, and rushing back to my seat.

Along the way my eyes meet with the man in the suit’s. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me, so I know that he was aware of our presence prior to this moment. The corner of his mouth turns up in the most imperceptible, yet vile smirk a person can manage. I want to feel anger, but I have other things to focus on right now, so I ignore him and walk back to my seat.

Poking Hakyeon awake, I brace myself as I see wisps of smoke trailing the top of the plane toward smoke detectors.

“What, what is it?” He says, sitting up and blinking his eyes.

“I’m not sure how to say this but I uh...may have…” His attention is on me now, confusion and worry furrowing his brow.

“You what…?” He asks.

BEEP BEEP BEEP.    BEEP BEEP BEEP.    BEEP BEEP BEEP.

The fire alarms go off.

“I may have set the plane on fire.” I conclude, speaking quietly. Hakyeon stares at me, incredulous.

As the cabin fills with loud voices, shouts of concern and panic, a few employees rush to the source to contain the fire. The front of the plane is starting to swirl with smoke, and the oxygen masks are released from the ceiling. Amidst the chaos you can hear the pilot attempting to advise everyone to put their masks on and buckle their seatbelts, that they would be making an emergency landing in about ten minutes.

The fire is quickly contained, but the panic and angry shouts from passengers continues. The plane lands in Des Moines, Iowa, less than ten minutes later. Everyone is ushered off the plane as quickly as possible, and we have to hope that the impromptu landing didn’t give Mr. Black Suit enough time to contact his coworkers and have them ready for us when we exit the plane. He doesn’t move from his seat the entire time the plane is filing out, and Hakyeon and I quickly grab our stuff, (which consists solely of Wonshik’s bag), and try to push our way out to stay amidst the crowd. The moment we pass his seat however, I can feel his evil gaze boring into me, and I swear I can feel a slight pressure against my neck, but when I look behind me, he’s sitting calmly, not having moved an inch. Suspiciously we shuffle past, and don’t allow ourselves a sigh of relief until we reach the gate only to find police, and no suited men waiting to take us away.

The passengers of the flight are supposedly going to be detained until the fire case is solved, one officer is saying. Hakyeon looks at me, and we slowly sink into the background, until we find an opportunity to sneak out and into the crowded airport.

“They’re a lot easier to get away from than the guys we’re running from,” Hakyeon remarks, making me laugh.

“It’s almost sad to think that I’m getting so used to this ‘escaping’ business, that I didn’t even blink twice about running away from the actual police.” I smile at Hakyeon, joking, but his smile fades as he looks at me, and that look from before, sadness? Guilt? Washes across his face.

“Anyway, let’s get going. We’re still a two hour flight from DC, and more than half a day’s driving. At this point we might as well try either hitchhiking, or see if there’s a train we can catch that’ll take us there.” Hakyeon suggests.

We get some travel pamphlets from nearby airport agents, and find that there is indeed a train we can catch that will take us to DC.
    “It’s expensive though! Nearly $200 each!” I exclaim when I open the pamphlet. Hakyeon looks at me, smug, and I roll my eyes.

“I know I know, don’t worry about money. I do wish you would tell me where you get these unlimited funds of yours from…” I mutter, but he only chuckles, leaving my wish unresolved.

We catch a taxi to get to the train station, and on the ride there I tug off my scarf to give myself some air in the unusually warm Autumn day. After pulling my hair into a ponytail, I can feel Hakyeon’s eyes on my neck, still populated with discoloration from the night before.

Wonshik… I yearn to see him again. Hakyeon and I are so far away now, and we have no way to get a hold of him. It’s been less than a day, but the night we spent together seems years ago now, and so far out of my reach. Reality caught up with us, and now we have separate jobs to do before we can be together again. I sigh, and Hakyeon brings me out of my thoughts.

“What’s on your neck?” He asks bluntly. I blush brightly.

“I thought you kn...I mean, they’re...well…” I stutter, unsure how to explain something I was sure he already knew, but he shakes his head.

“No, on the back of your neck. It looks like a mole, but… I could have sworn it wasn’t there before.” I reach up to touch my neck, and sure enough, there is a bump about the size of my pinky fingernail there. It feels smooth and metallic, and I panic for a moment, worried that I won’t be able to get it off.

“What is it?!”

“Hold on, calm down.” Hakyeon says, trying to soothe me, as he slides across the middle seat to sit next to me. He puts his hands around my neck, cupping it, a little more intimately than necessary, and my throat can’t help but dry out nervously from the touch.

“Look, it was just stuck on. Nothing to worry about, it came right off.” He says, holding up the tiny disk for me to see.

“I think it must be some sort of a tracker. They must have been banking on the chance that neither of us would notice it until too late.” He continues. His other hand drops from my neck and he slides back to his seat, and I despise myself for being disappointed at the empty space between us. I decide to replace my scarf, despite the heat. Hakyeon acts like he doesn’t notice.

A little later we arrive at the train station. Placing the tracker on the car’s window, Hakyeon tells the taxi driver that he’ll pay him an obscene amount of cash if he’ll drive as far away from the station as he can. As the driver speeds off, we get our train tickets and finally board the train.

“You know it’s like a day’s trip, right?” Hakyeon says as we settle into our seats.

“That’s fine. I can entertain myself. And I think that this time, maybe, we’ll be able to have some peace during our ride.” I respond.

“Agreed.”

Hello friends! 오랜만이에오. I've finally come back to continue my story, and hopefully some of you are still around to enjoy it. :D 

Here's a shorter chapter to get things moving. 

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