CHAPTER 17: BEFORE THE STORM

They say that you see your whole life as a film before your eyes before you die. I didn’t. The moment I heard the sound of the gun getting loaded and the older hunter telling me to die, I closed my eyes tightly and held Wonwoo’s hand. At least we were together. I didn’t have the guts to open my eyes to look at him for the last time but I tried to imagine the boy’s face in my mind, remembering every detail. I love you, I thought in my head.

“Wait”, I heard a soft voice say all of a sudden. “He’s right. How are we any better than that doctor?”

I slowly opened my eyes, still feeling the panic rising. It was the younger hunter. I knew it. He hadn’t been able to hide the fear in his eyes earlier. He had lowered his gun and looked at his older partner.

“That’s bull”, the older hunter snorted and rolled his eyes. “It’s kill or get killed.”

The man aimed his gun at us again, this time really preparing to pull the trigger. My eyes widened in shock before closing tightly again. Then I heard the first gunshot and the sound of someone falling down. I let out a loud cry, shaking in panic. My eyes opened as a reflex and before I could start screaming I got confused. I stared in front of me. There was a body lying on the floor, but it wasn’t Wonwoo nor his friends. It was the older hunter that had refused to spare us.

The younger hunter stood there, breathing heavily and shaking a little bit. His gun was still aimed at the man who laid down on the floor, dead. “Kill or get killed”, he whispered.

I feel like all four of us stared at the young hunter, not sure whether we should ask is he was all right or run away. He just saved our lives but he was still holding a gun and his task, after all, was to kill us.

“I’m not going to kill you”, he said and dropped his gun to the floor. “You managed to escape. That means there is hope for us others too.”

Wonwoo’s eyes narrowed a little bit. “Can we really trust you?”

The boy looked down, looking quite vulnerable.

“He just shot the other guy to save us”, Mingyu pointed out. “I think we can trust him.”

“It could be a trap”, Wonwoo pointed out.

“Or not. He killed his partner. He’s as much of a runaway as we are now”, Mingyu said.

“Are you all right?” I asked as the others were almost arguing whether to trust him or not.

The boy raised his eyes and looked at me. He looked like a child even though he probably was close to me in age. He had some dirt on his face and his black hair was in a mess. His clothes were similar to all the other hunters’ - black from head to toes, the outfit actually reminded me of a ninja of some sort.

“I think I’m okay”, he said quietly and blinked his eyes.

“What’s your name?” I asked. I tried to calm the boy down. He was obviously shocked.

“Kwon Soonyoung”, he replied immediately.

“Well, Soonyoung”, Vernon joined the conversation. “Since you’re a runaway like us now, what should we do to that body?”

After we had wrapped the hunter’s body in a carpet and dragged the body to another empty, abandoned apartment in the building, we called the police anonymously, telling we were university students who had gone into the abandoned building to drink and have fun and then found the body. Then we made sure to take the gun with us and went through Wonwoo’s clothes, getting rid of the tracking device by flushing it down the toilet. Now we were ready to flee the scene. We quickly left the building. Even if we could’ve said it was for self protection, if our faces were seen in the social media or news, the hunters would find us quickly. Besides,we were runaways already. We had to hide. So we did. Mingyu suggested we’d go to his place and after making sure it was all right, we decided to go. There was no other option anyway. Soonyoung had no place to go, Vernon still lived with his parents, and Wonwoo’s parents’ apartment would soon be under investigation.

As we arrived at the boy’s apartment, which was relatively small but still fine for us, the other boys surrounded Soonyoung, sat him down on a sofa and started asking him questions. I felt bad for the boy but it was true that he was our source of information right now. He had gotten the hunter training, he had worked for Dr. Choi for a while. He knew things we didn’t.

“How many hunters are there?” Mingyu asked.

Soonyoung thought for a second. “Since I’m out of the picture and sunbae is dead... I think there is ten.”

Wonwoo blinked. “Ten? So... few. I thought there were a lot of hunters all around the city.”

“I think that’s what Dr. Choi wants all the drifters to think. But in the end, not many drifters give in. More have died than have become hunters.”

A sad silence fell upon us. We were all probably thinking about all the innocent people that had died. Just because of a gene. I sighed and buried my face into my hands. I felt Wonwoo place his hand on my back, rubbing it gently.

Then the silence was broken by a growling stomach. We all glanced at each other and managed to laugh a little bit. We really hadn’t eaten anything after breakfast and it was already dark outside.

“I think we should eat something”, I stated.

Mingyu ordered us a big serving of fried chicken and Coca Cola. As we were waiting, I watched Wonwoo and Mingyu getting immersed in a conversation and Vernon drifting off, taking a nap on the sofa. Soonyoung, anyhow, was still sitting down, looking tense and extremely nervous. I walked up to him and sat down next to the boy. I wasn’t exactly the type of person to comfort others but this poor boy looked like a scared puppy.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked.

The boy looked at me. “I am. It’s just... I killed a person.”

“Calm down”, I said and put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s scary. It has to be. But try to think it this way. You saved us. That hunter would’ve killed us. And since you hesitated, you would’ve gotten punished as well.”

He sighed with a nod. “Yes. I know that. I just have to believe it.”

I flashed the boy a encouraging smile and patted his shoulder before getting up. Just in time with the doorbell ringing and a male voice saying the delivery had arrived. Chicken was here!

Even if we were all a bit shocked by today’s events, we sure had an appetite. We ate a lot, we didn’t leave one drumstick of a chicken untouched. As we finished our dinner, we were just lying down on the floor, stomachs full, sighing deeply. Mingyu let out a burp and had Vernon play punching him in the chest. The atmosphere was getting more relaxed. We weren’t safe, not at all, but at least we were more safe now than we had been in Wonwoo’s parents’ apartment. Dr. Choi had told me that Sunhwa had been his personal spy. I had never told Sunhwa about Mingyu or Vernon. Finding this apartment would be harder than finding the previous place - especially now that they didn’t have a tracking device helping them. Now we’d really have to stay inside - if we were to leave the apartment, we’d have to disguise ourselves somehow.

“But actually”, Vernon started at some point. “We actually have the advantage now.”

Wonwoo raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“The last thing Seungcheol knows is that he commanded the hunters to kill us. He probably thinks we’re dead”, Vernon explained. “He probably hasn’t realized it yet that his hunters haven’t returned home.”

Soonyoung nodded. “That’s actually true. Even if we’re forced to be hunters, we do have some freedom. Like searching for other drifters.”

“That’s great!” Mingyu stated. “Now we have to come up with a real plan.”

As the others talked, my thought returned to Seungcheol at the apartment’s door before leaving. I hadn’t had time to think of it much back then, but now... I could remember the sad expression he had on his face. Maybe - just maybe, there might have even been tears in his eyes. He really seemed sincerely apologetic when he said that ‘sorry’.

“I think...” I started. “I think Seungcheol is weak.”

Mingyu snorted. “Yes. It was pretty easy to knock him down yesterday.”

“I don’t mean that”, I said quickly. “I mean mentally. He sounded truly sincere earlier when he apologized. Maybe we could be able to make him turn his back on his father.”

I glanced at Wonwoo who nodded slowly. “That could be possible.”

I was about to continue talking as I heard quiet sniffs. I turned to look at the source of the sounds and noticed Vernon had fallen asleep on the floor. I blinked and couldn’t hold back a smile. The others noticed him too and Mingyu let out a frustrated groan. “Guess who has to drag him up from there...”

“Maybe we should continue talking tomorrow. For now, let’s go to sleep”, Wonwoo said.

After Mingyu laid a two-person floor bed onto the living room’s floor and with the help of Wonwoo carried Vernon to the bedroom and onto Mingyu’s bed, we started preparing to sleep. Soonyoung got to sleep on the sofa, and since Mingyu was comfortable and gotten used to sharing a bed with Vernon, the floor bed was left for me and Wonwoo.

As the lights were switched off, we buried ourselves under the blanket and as I felt Wonwoo’s arms around me, I felt a hundred times safer. I was able to fall asleep quickly.

“Alright, so this is the plan”, Mingyu started as we were gathered around the small kitchen table the next morning. We had gotten our morning coffee and some breakfast, and the boys had come up with a plan of some sort. “We’ll call Seungcheol and meet with him. Then we’ll make it so that he can’t leave and try to make him turn his back on his father. Doesn’t sound too hard, right?”

“But where will we meet him?” I asked. “We can’t call him here, this is the last safe place for us right now.”

Mingyu seemed to think hard to come up with a place so Wonwoo spoke instead of him. “We should go back to my parents’ apartment for this. In the end, that’s where we were supposed to be killed.”

Soonyoung nodded slowly. “I can call him there. I think I’m the one he trusts the most out of this group.”

Wonwoo nodded. “Right.”

It took us half an hour to return to the apartment. Luckily there were no police around - they had probably just picked up the body of the hunter and since the whole building seemed abandoned, they probably hadn’t bothered to isolate the area. We looked around us carefully as we lurked inside the apartment building. We didn’t want to be seen.

As we arrived, Soonyoung called Seungcheol, saying the operation had failed. He said his sunbae had been killed and he was badly injured but had managed to keep me as a prisoner - and that I was injured too. This suggestion came from Wonwoo. We both knew Seungcheol had some sort of a soft spot for me. He had acted like he was obsessed with me earlier - for an example, the time I had escaped his car by jumping off.

As Soonyoung ended the call, he let out a sigh. “Success. He said he’ll be in here in 15 minutes since he’s at his university.”

I felt a twitch in my stomach when Soonyoung mentioned the university. Yes. When we got to know each other and became close friends, that’s what he was - a normal medical student, wanting to become a great doctor and own the hospital after his father. I kind of missed those times. He was the only reason my days were bright and happy during the time I was working my off and suffering from the insomnia. I shook my head. No, I couldn’t think like this. Seungcheol had betrayed me. Besides, it was his father who had been poisoning me all the time - and Seungcheol knew it all along.

As Wonwoo, Mingyu and Vernon hid in the bathroom, I walked in the bedroom and from the door watched Soonyoung hiding his gun behind his back, waiting for Seungcheol. He wouldn’t hurt him unless he had to. The gun was just to scare him. I felt my heart beating faster as I heard footsteps from the hallway.

“Kwon Soonyoung?” I heard Seungcheol’s voice. “Where are you?”

“Here...” Soonyoung said quietly from the living room. He tried to sound weak so that he could get the boy into the living room.

I heard Seungcheol walking to the room. “What happened to you? Where’s the body? Where are the others? And where is Dami?”

I almost choked as I heard the boy call my name. The sincere worry in his voice almost scared me. So he didn’t actually want me dead.

“The girl is in the bedroom”, Soonyoung said.

Seungcheol didn’t listen anymore, he had already rushed towards the bedroom. As he opened the door I was on my position, sitting in the corner of the room, head resting against my knees. The boy seemed to stop at the door and look at me for a second before he approached me.

“Dami.”

I slowly raised my head and looked up at the boy. I frowned and looked away. I wasn’t the best actress there was but I could do this. I had to succeed. I bit my lip as the boy knelt in front of me. “What happened?”

“Why do you care? Last thing I remember was you making the hunters point their guns at me”, I snapped at him, glaring at the boy.

He sighed and grabbed my shoulders. “But the others are gone now. I could just say they’re dead. I could arrange a life for you. Not in Seoul, my dad is obsessed with finding you and Wonwoo. But I could take you to Busan and make you the happiest woman alive there.”

“Seungcheol”, I cried out. “You’re sick. Your father is not the one who’s obsessed. It’s you.”

It’s you. Those were the words. That was the sign for Soonyoung. In a matter or seconds he appeared at the door of the bedroom, aiming his gun at Seungcheol. “Freeze and put your hands up. Stay in your place and let Dami go.”

Seungcheol looked more shocked and upset than ever. He just stared at me, like I’d have betrayed him.

“I made hunters aim their guns at you? Right now you’re not any better.”

Oh, yes I am.

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Hello! Since I've been a lazy bastard and enjoyed my holiday without writing a lot I decided to do a double update. I still have a little over a month left before I officially become a university student so I'll try to write a lot before that haha.