[credit: http://itsbap.com/post/166735244524]

Only Daehyun was home when it happened.

Himchan and Junhong were out handling some business, and Daehyun and Nara were sitting in front of a laptop at the coffee table in the living room, going through some accounts. It felt like any other day.

“…these 100 kilos landed last week, and Jinyoung signed off on them. He managed to distribute most of it to the dealers and as of last night, Apgujeong logged a record high profit, you see…” He paused when Nara winced, turning to her. “Are you okay?”

Nara nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. My tummy is just hurting a little.” She pointed at another figure on the screen. “Why have Itaewon’s numbers fallen, though?”

“The police have been stepping up patrols lately because…” he stopped talking again as Nara clutched her stomach, groaning. “Oh my God. Is this what I think it is? What kind of pain is it?”

Nara gritted her teeth as another wave of pain hit her. “I don’t think so. It’s too early. I think it’s just…” Then, another sharp pain caused her to gasp and grab Daehyun’s arm. “Is it?”

Daehyun bolted to his feet in an instant. “I’ll grab the bag and call the hospital. Can you walk?”

Nara nodded, standing slowly with the support of the couch. She slowly moved towards the door, clutching her tummy. Daehyun zipped around the living room, grabbing the hospital bag that was thankfully already packed, and he was dialing the hospital with one hand. Then, he was beside her, holding on to her so she could lean on him for support. After he ensured that there was a bed waiting for Nara upon her arrival at the hospital, he quickly dialed Himchan’s number and told him to meet them directly at the hospital. With his experience in operating efficiently under high pressure, he did all these before they reached the car, upon which he threw the bag into the back seat and buckled Nara in before getting into the driver’s seat.

“Hang in there,” he told Nara. “Just keep taking deep breaths. I’ll be there in a few, okay?”

Nara nodded, focusing on breathing like she’d learnt in her pre-natal classes. She was glad that she had Daehyun beside her. In fact, Himchan and Junhong had also been strong pillars of support for her throughout her entire pregnancy. She couldn’t imagine how people survived their pregnancies with one husband when she could only keep her head above water with three. Although it wasn’t how she’d imagined things to be, she wouldn’t change a thing about the whole process.

They got to the hospital quickly, as Daehyun had promised, and within minutes, she was being wheeled to the operating room. They’d opted for a c-section when the doctor offered it as an alternative, seeing as Nara wasn’t in good health and her pregnancy had been a difficult one. Laying on her back and watching the ceiling lights pass her, Nara suddenly felt fear grip her. What if it hurt? What if something went wrong? What if something happened to her baby?

She looked around her, and found comfort when she saw three faces that were looking back down at her. Junhong had turned paler than usual, in contrast to Daehyun, whose eyes were gleaming with excitement. Himchan looked entirely devoid of emotion. However, when the panic revealed itself on her face, Himchan was the first one to grip her hand tightly, comfortingly.

“It’s going to be fine,” he assured her. “We’ll be waiting here for you.”

Nara nodded. That was enough solace for her, for now. They’d done so much for her over the last nine months. Now, she had to do this alone.

She exhaled as the doors of the operating theatre closed, shutting out her friends.

That morning, when Yongguk opened the door to take out the trash that had been piling up in his home, he was startled by a series of loud barks. Before he could even process where the sound had come from, something dashed past his feet and into his apartment. Instinctively, he stepped back, allowing the door to swing shut. Turning around to face his living room, he realized that a small, fluffy brown toy poodle had invaded his home and was now excitedly running around his couch.

Setting down his bags of trash, Yongguk opened his front door again and surveyed the corridor outside his home, looking for the dog’s owner. However, the corridor was empty and quiet. He stepped back into his own apartment again, puzzled. He crouched, and the dog bounded up to him, yapping excitedly.

He picked up the dog, trying to see if there was anything written on its thin red collar. “Where did you come from, puppy?” he asked. His hands touched a thin, bone-shaped metal tag, which he tried to read. The word ‘Tigger’ was engraved on one side, presumably the name of the dog. Seeing the name that coincidentally meant so much to him brought a subconscious smile to his face. He flipped the tag over, hoping to find an address, but there was none. Realizing that Yongguk wasn’t going to play with it, Tigger started squirming, and Yongguk released the dog, which quickly dashed away to explore its new environment.

Yongguk sighed as he stood, pondering his next move. He decided that he was going to let the dog remain in his apartment for the time being and take out the trash. Maybe on his way out, he’d look around to see if there were any posters seeking a lost dog. After depositing the trash in the collection zone of his apartment building, he took a stroll around the park in front of the building for the first time in months. Finding no luck, he returned to his apartment.

When he returned, Tigger was waiting by the couch for him, sitting and panting excitedly with its tongue hanging out as if Yongguk was its owner. Yongguk stared at it for a moment, wondering why this dog was so friendly with strangers.

“Are you going to live here now?” he asked the dog.

Tigger just continued panting, wagging its tail happily.

Reluctantly, Yongguk sat down on his couch, and the dog immediately jumped up, hopping into his lap and trying to him. He chuckled. It was funny how the first contact he’d had with a living thing in days was with a dog whose origin was unknown. It wasn’t too bad. It was a lot less stressful than interacting with humans.

And that was how he spent the whole afternoon playing with a lost dog.

Himchan couldn’t lie; when he’d imagined seeing Nara and Yongguk’s child in person, he’d imagined himself to be fighting his anger and revulsion. He’d imagined that he would have to rationalize with himself in order not to take his hatred of the child’s father out on the baby. He’d imagined that he would have many conflicting feelings, and he’d warned himself repeatedly that he needed to control his emotions in front of Nara.

What he hadn’t expected was the mix of love and wonder he was feeling as he held the child in his arms. Looking down at the sleeping baby, so innocent and fragile and small, he was so overwhelmed with emotions that he couldn’t describe that it almost felt like he could cry. His heart had never felt so full in his entire life.

Beside him, Daehyun was also peering down at the child in awe. “Are you done? Can I hold him now?” He looked over at Nara’s sleeping figure. “If she wakes up first, she might not let me carry him.”

Reluctantly, he transferred the baby into Daehyun’s arms. Daehyun’s whole face lit up as he cooed at the child, and Himchan wondered if he’d looked like this too. They must look so absurd to the nurses that had just brought the baby into Nara’s hospital ward.

Daehyun bounced the child gently in his arms, looking at Junhong. “Do you want to hold him too?”

Junhong shook his head vehemently. “I shouldn’t. I might hurt him.”

“Just be gentle,” Daehyun assured him, holding out the baby. “And watch his head.”

Junhong held his arms out the same way he’d seen his hyungs do, holding his breath as the baby was passed to him. He cradled the child close to his body, afraid he would drop him. “He’s so tiny.”

“Nara didn’t feed him enough,” Daehyun complained. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure our little prince is well-fed now that he’s out.”

A nurse approached Himchan. “Are you the baby’s father? Would you like to fill out the birth registration forms now?”

Himchan nodded, still slightly dazed. She’d called him a ‘father’. That’s what he was now. It didn’t feel real. Grasping the pen that had been offered to him, he looked at the first blank on the papers.

‘Father’.

He was a father now.

He wrote down his and Nara’s aliases, before coming to the name of the child. His heart swelled as he wrote down ‘Kim Ho Won’, the name that they’d all decided on together after poring over books and books of baby names and their meanings. ‘Ho’ to symbolize goodness, as well as the ferocity of the tiger, and ‘Won’ to symbolize the importance of his origin and his birthright. Put together, his name summed up their hopes for him to take on the world fiercely and confidently, and to one day sit on the throne that his grandfather and his mother had left for him.

This child would now be the motivation driving them to take back everything they owned and reign over Seoul’s underworld again. They would give their lives to protecting him, and making sure he would be able to have the world beneath his feet.

Of course, there was a nagging question at the back of his mind. Himchan wondered if the legacy that they were going to leave him was something good. He’d seen how much it’d damaged Nara, and naturally, he was worried if his son would fit into the world that they lived in. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a choice. According to the rules of the underworld, succession of gang leadership was determined by bloodline, which meant that it was his birthright, as much as it had been Nara’s. The only exception was in the case of death, which was why when someone wanted to take down the leader of a gang, they slaughtered his whole family.

Just the thought alone made Himchan’s blood boil.

He would spend the rest of his life making sure that never happened. Not to his wife, and not to his son. He was going to protect them with everything he had.

Yongguk was feeding the puppy when someone knocked on his door. He didn’t know anyone who would visit him, so it was with curiosity that he approached the entrance to his apartment. When he pulled open the door, his neighbor, the one who’d spoken to him on the balcony, was outside.

“Hi, neighbor,” Sleepy said with a slight incline of his head. “Sorry to bother you, but my dog ran away today, and my daughter won’t stop crying. Have you by any chance seen a dog pass by? It’s a brown poodle, and it looks a bit stupid.”

Yongguk’s eyes widened in surprise, and he let out a small laugh as he held up the small bag of dog biscuits in his hand. “Oh, that’s your dog? I was thinking that I was going to have to raise it.” He stepped aside to invite Sleepy in. “He’s in the kitchen.”

“Oh, thank God,” Sleepy said as he stepped inside. “I thought I’d have to go out and buy another dog. My daughter’s four, and she can’t understand why I can’t magically make her dog reappear.” They both entered the kitchen and Sleepy threw up his arms dramatically when he saw the puppy. “Tigger, you dumb dog! This isn’t your house!”

Tigger barked excitedly when it saw its owner and ran up to Sleepy, jumping at his legs.

“I’m so sorry,” Sleepy said, ignoring the dog’s excitement. “I hope he didn’t bother you too much.”

Yongguk shook his head. “Not really. He kept me company all day, actually.”

“You like dogs?” Sleepy asked.

Yongguk nodded. “Yeah, but it’s hard to raise one when I live alone and have to work.” He paused thoughtfully after he said that. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been to work in a long time. He wondered if his suspension had even ended.

Sleepy must have been thinking the same thing, because he cocked his head curiously. He lived right next door and rarely saw Yongguk leave his apartment. “If you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for a living?”

Yongguk scratched the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed. “I’m, uh… I’m with the police force.”

“Oh!” Sleepy exclaimed in surprise, bowing quickly. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t know.”

Yongguk reached out to stop him. “It’s okay. I’ve just been… on a break. For a while.”

There was a moment of silence, and Sleepy was no doubt thinking about what he’d witnessed on the balcony. “My daughter idolizes policemen,” Sleepy said casually. “My wife was robbed the other day and was injured quite badly. She’s in the hospital now, which is why nobody was home to look after this stupid dog. A guy on a motorcycle came up beside her and snatched her purse. She didn’t let go immediately, and was dragged for a few meters, so her whole body’s all scratched and bruised now. My daughter was across the road when it happened, and apparently, this heroic policeman ajusshi came out of nowhere and flying tackled the guy off his bike.” Sleepy laughed. “I don’t know, she may have been exaggerating, but when she sees a policeman now, it’s as if she’s seeing an idol group member. Imagine if she knew you found her dog and took care of it for her.”

Yongguk bowed his head with a small, sheepish smile. “I’m not a hero. I definitely have never flying tackled anyone off a bike.”

“Hey, every law enforcer is important,” Sleepy said. “There are those that are cracking big cases and catching murderers and all that, but even the ones that patrol our streets are important. I mean, sure, that one police officer wasn’t able to prevent my wife from getting hurt, but just by making sure the robber didn’t get away, he was letting other potential robbers know to think twice before doing anything. He could have prevented another crime from happening and kept us civilians safe for another day.”

Yongguk almost wanted to laugh. Did Sleepy think that he was depressed because he was a low-ranking officer? The reality couldn’t have been further from the truth. Although Sleepy didn’t know a thing about Yongguk and probably would never be able to imagine what had really gone on in his career as a police officer, Yongguk appreciated that his neighbor was trying to make him feel better about himself. It had been a long time since someone cared about him, even in this casual, off-handed way.

“Hey, if you’re not doing anything now, do you want to come to my house?” Sleepy suggested. “My daughter would love if you brought her dog back. And also, I just got back from work and I haven’t made dinner. It would be a great help if you could help me look after her for a bit.”

Yongguk hesitated, biting his lip. He wasn’t so sure. He was getting used to being a recluse, and Sleepy barging into his life like that was already a bit much for him. Was he really ready to start doing friendly things like playing with a neighbor’s kid?

“Come on, you can’t help a neighbor out?”

“It’s not that,” Yongguk said. “It’s just… I’m not fun.”

Sleepy laughed as he bent down to pick up Tigger. “You don’t need to worry about that. See this dog? It’s so friendly and just runs off with any stranger. My daughter’s like that too. You’ll get along just fine. I’ll even make you dinner. What do you say?”

Yongguk shoved his hands into his pockets. It was a huge step. He could already feel his anxiety starting to rear its ugly head. Then, he looked at Sleepy’s expectant expression, and the dog, which was wagging its tail at him. Clearly, both his daughter and their dog got their over-friendliness from him. Sleepy’s personality was the exact opposite of his. But maybe he needed something different.

Considering his current reality, different was good. Right?

Swallowing the lump that was creeping up his throat, he nodded.

“Sure. I’ll come.”

Jongup was buzzing with excitement when he went to the outdoor exercise area that day. He smiled and waved as he passed several inmates that he recognized, and a couple of them discreetly pressed this month’s protection money into his hands, away from the watchful eyes of the wardens. When the last chain-link fence swung open and the warm sunlight greeted him, he immediately held a hand up to shield his eyes from the blinding light. He scanned the field briefly. Then, spotting Youngjae resting on a bench at their usual spot, the one blind spot that the overlapping CCTV cameras couldn’t reach, he bounded over excitedly. They were housed in different wings, and this was the only time they got to interact with each other.

“Hyung!” he exclaimed, raising his arms in celebration. “Nara noona gave birth today! Howon has arrived!”

Youngjae sat up with a grin, putting down the bible that he was holding and pretending to read. “Really? How did you know?”

“Chaejin got to call Insoo hyung today, and he told him,” Jongup said. “He says they’ll send us a picture through the mail.”

Despite not being able to be in direct contact with the rest of their family, they had their ways to pass messages to each other. Chaejin, Jongup’s cellmate, was part of the Black Dragon, and Insoo, another gang member, was in contact with Himchan. Whereas Jongup and Youngjae were high-security inmates, meaning all their calls and mail were screened, Chaejin was a level 2, which meant that he had as much privacy as a known gang member could have.

“Assa!” Youngjae cheered. “Can’t wait to see our little prince. Do you think he’ll look like Nara?”

Jongup frowned, in deep thought. “What if he looks like Yongguk hyung? Do you think Himchan hyung will be angry?”

Youngjae paused at the realization. “He probably would. But he’ll get over it. As heartless as he is, he wouldn’t bear a grudge against a kid.”

Jongup nodded. “I guess. Anyway, I just collected some more money for this month.” He took out the stack of bills from his pocket and counted out half, passing it to Youngjae.

Youngjae slipped the money quickly into his own pocket. “You didn’t get any trouble, did you?”

Jongup shook his head. “After you cracked that guy’s head open in the shower, they’ve all been cooperative.”

Youngjae smirked. He was surprised that no Red Eagle had ratted him out yet. When the eyewitnesses were questioned, everyone insisted the guy had hurt himself. They either took the no-snitching rule way too seriously, or they were scared. “He had it coming. Those Red Eagles think they can run all over us just because of what happened outside? No way. We’re going to take over this ing prison, and when we get out, we’re going to take back our turf again.”

“What are you going to do with your money?” Jongup asked innocently. “Are you going to buy cigarettes or dirty magazines?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Youngjae chided. “You should stop behaving like you belong here. I’m going to buy some religious books so I can get released early. I’m not going to wait for you if you get stuck here. Tch, dirty magazines.”

“I was just asking,” Jongup said defensively. “I’m going to get Insoo hyung to buy some toys so he can send them to Howon.”

“That’s actually a good idea,” Youngjae gasped, in awe. He pulled out the stack of bills that Jongup had just passed him and put it back in Jongup’s pocket. “Count me in.”

Jongup beamed at the compliment. “I’m going to buy the best gifts, so he doesn’t forget that he has two more uncles that he can’t meet yet.”

Youngjae grinned. “I’m going to be Howon’s favorite uncle.”

Author's note:

is goin' down in the next part...

This was the last chapter that we'll be looking at the past. We're heading back to present time, where Who Are You Tonight? ended off. Are you guys ready?

xx.