Sohye ran and ran, her head hurt a lot but her feet refused to stop until she finds Yoojung. After miraculously escaping from certain death, the only thing she wants to do now is see a friendly face and forget for a second that she is in the middle of a city infested by people loyal to the parallel government organization that could recognize her and take her back to Yeonjung at any given moment.

She had agreed with Yoojung to meet each other in a square not too far from the nightclub that served as an exit for the east branch’s HQ. It was a dangerous place considering the how close it was to the HQ but Sohye wasn’t thinking about that right now. She just wanted to find her friend and get out of there as fast as they could.

She thought about her stepdad while her feet kept moving without rest. What would he think if he found out that she had escaped the place? Would she really see him again? Was helping Yoojung worth it?

Scratch that, of course it was, she had no doubt about it. Yoojung was her friend and, even if Sohye was actually useless for everything fight-related, she would do everything to assist her dear friends.

Her temple pulsed again and she had to stop for a second to grab her head. After everything that happened with Yewon back in the alley, she had been getting those random pains in the head. She hadn’t stopped to think about what occurred back there but it’s not like it would matter; she was absolutely confused about it to give a proper answer anyways.

Her feet started running again on their own after she felt the pain disappear, she was getting closer and closer to the meeting place.

And she saw her, sitting on a bench.

Yoojung was still donning the clothes she had when she left for the mansion; she still had her backpack too. However, her face, which was now looking down to the grass, was red, dirty and swollen. She didn’t look too good and she had been crying a lot from the looks of it. Sohye knew that, much like her, Yoojung was not only easily scared but also had a tendency to cry often for whichever reason.

Although this time it wasn’t just “whichever” reason. Doyeon was in the hands of a rebel group and they had no idea what they could possibly be doing to her right now.

Yoojung saw her getting close and, with the speed of a bullet, got up from the bench and engulfed Sohye in a hug.

“Oh my god… I was so scared you wouldn’t come… I was…”- Yoojung’s voice cracked and Sohye felt the sadness constrict her chest too as she gave the little girl a pat on the back – “You need to help me, please!”

“Let’s go then, where did you leave the car?” – Sohye nodded at the girl’s pleas, indicating that she was more than willing to help her get Doyeon back. Yoojung finally broke the hug after a couple more seconds and stared right at Sohye as she used her sleeve to wipe out the tears that had managed to escape.

“I ditched the care before I entered Seoul”- Sohye raised an eyebrow at the news – “It was probably being tracked, I can’t afford to get capture if I have to save Doyeon”

It made sense for Sohye, but there was now another problem for them to overcome.

“Then how are we going to travel and get there in time?”- Yoojung looked at her quizzically and Sohye realized that the little girl didn’t know about the assassin team, her nervousness coming back as she now had to give the bad news to her friend - “O-Oh right… you don’t know… Y-Yeonjung is going to send a team of assassins to capture and kill everyone there after your mission failed…”

Yoojung looked down again and Sohye heard her choke back a sob again. She felt bad, she should have been for tactful. The way she said it really showed that they probably had no chance at getting there before the assassins did.

“I-I’m sure we have time!”- She tried to reassure Yoojung as best as she could – “We just need to get moving right now, where is this mansion?”

It seemed to work as Yoojung raised her head, looking a little bit more hopeful.

“South from here, I actually know where we need to go, taking the train will leave us close!”- Yoojung spoke with newfound confidence, which in turn helped Sohye lift up her own spirit. – “We are going to do it Sohye! We are going to save Doyeon!”

Yoojung turned back and started running and Sohye, even with her tired feet, followed suit with a full blown smile on her face.

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The moon stands high in the sky, like a giant watcher that, unlike the sun, sees but doesn’t tell, hiding Sohye and Yoojung’s movements as they walked through the deserted place. They had gotten out of the train about three hours ago and right now they were walking towards the outskirts of the village. Based on what Yoojung had told her, the mansion should be about half an hour from the exit point of the village.

Sohye holds back a yawn, they had been walking A LONG time and she was already getting tired. She was tempted to ask Yoojung to stop to rest at some hotel but she wasn’t brave enough to do it.

That was until she saw Yoojung stifle a yawn herself, which gave her a little more confidence, just the bit she needed.

“We… umm… we should find a place to rest for the night, I think we are both tired.”- Sohye cleared to catch Yoojung’s attention before she spoke, making her case.

“Stop? Now? No way, we are really close”- Yoojung adamantly answered and kept walking.

“What? But… Yoojung, wait, listen!”- Sohye tried to get Yoojung’s attention again but her effort was fruitless – “W-We won’t be useful to Doyeon if we can’t concentrate because of sleep deprivation!”

This succeeded in making Yoojung stop. The short girl turned around, her face looking concerned.

“You are right… we should rest”- She finally agreed, making Sohye smile, a little content with herself. – “But where should we go?”

It didn’t take them that long to find a place, they used Sohye’s phone to look for a hotel and, luckily for them, there was one a few blocks away from them, which not only meant that they wouldn’t have to travel far but also meant that they wouldn’t be getting farther from their objective, which was the mansion.

There was a grumpy, lazy-looking landlord dozing off in the middle of the hall when they entered the place. It smelled weird, a mixture between humidity and cigarette’s smoke that left Sohye pinching her nose as Yoojung reached for her pocket to use the few bills she had left to pay for their accommodations.

The landlord took the money and shooed them off, giving them a rusty old key with a tag that was barely even legible as he went back to his armchair. The girls hurriedly left him to his own business, seeking to escape the bad smell that impregnated the place.

Fortunately for them, the air in the room was cleaner, or at least clean enough so that Sohye wouldn’t have to breathe through . Sohye was eager to go to sleep, although there was a little problem.

She hadn’t packed any clothes in her hurried escape and her clothes weren’t nearly comfortable enough for her to sleep in them.

She would undress to sleep in her underwear, which was the best option for her right now, but Yoojung was in the room.

“Yoojung?”- She called out to the girl who was already inside the bed, looking at the ceiling. – “Could you turn off the lights?”

Yoojung looked at her for a few seconds and said nothing, but turned off the lamp on top of the nightstand. Now the room was pitch black except for a really faint moonlight that came in through the window.

Even in the middle of the darkness, Sohye was sure that the bed was right in front of her, so when she finished undressing the tried to move directly onto it, but, adding to her miscalculations, she ended up kicking her left foot against one of the bed’s legs. Like anyone would expect, she let out a rather ungraceful insult.

She expected to hear Yoojung laugh, but she was only met by silence.

Sohye finally got into bed, covering herself with the bed covers to guard herself against the winter cold. She was about to fall asleep when a voice brought her back from the gates of dreamland.

“Aren’t you worried that your stepdad could arri