→ Chapter 022

Mina shut her eyes when the duct tape came into contact with and the skin around it. A finger pressed against the edges and then retreated, its owner flaunting an egregious smile at the image in front of him: Mina and Baekhyun were tied down to two chairs, which have been behind Ilhoon’s desk, with the backs of their bodies facing each other. Pieces of worn-out rope circled around their abdomen, wrists and ankles, and were attached to the chair’s legs. The two men stood behind Ilhoon’s desk.

“Perfect.” one man murmured to himself, though Mina caught it.

She found it in herself to open her eyes and saw the pride, the repellent cockiness dripping from the way his lips curled upwards and it made her stomach churn uncomfortably. His face was abnormally long and his tresses acted like curtains over his eyes. His hand held the face mask he had snatched away from her a couple of minutes ago, and her toothpick lay broken beside the heel of his shoe. She could see it, now that the men the lights, how his eyes roamed them one more time, appreciating the result of his work. He had been the one to tie them to the chairs, while the other man held his gun to their direction; he seemed like he enjoyed it almost too much and Mina didn’t like it.

She didn’t like him, not one bit.

She didn’t like the fact that he had an innocent one sitting on top of his head even more. Either her sixth sense was glitching because of the pit of fear surging inside her stomach and the carousel of worries in her mind, or he wasn’t the one to actually kill her off.

Mina shuddered, the thought of her dead slowly but surely sinking.

But once she looked at him again and saw that same smile on his face, she forgot about her possible (eventual) death and glared at him. It was condescending and Mina hated being looked down on.

She wanted to stand up, clench her hand into a fist and throw a punch at his jaw. She ached to wipe that smile off his face but she couldn’t. God, she couldn’t even breathe properly and she was counting on fighting the built man in front of her. The bastard had tightened the rope around her abdomen and her skin burned with friction whenever she inhaled too much air. Her fingernails pierced through her palms, and Mina didn’t know if the moisture in her hand was sweat or blood. Her right foot felt as if it didn’t belong to her body anymore; she tried wiggling it but to no avail. It could only be possible that she would lose feeling in her other body parts as well by the end of the night.

(And then she cringed at the mere thought of staying there a whole night.)

The man picked up Baekhyun’s backpack and searched through his belongings. Mina studied him carefully, waiting for him to pluck Ilhoon’s tape and put it somewhere safe.

But it never happened.

Instead, he threw the backpack to the ground and said, “Is this what you filthy kids came here for? An old Seo Taiji and Boys’ album? How ing cute.” He snickered again, throwing his head back.

Mina couldn’t understand. Didn’t Ilhoon tell them? Didn’t they know that the fate of their boss resided in that old album?

She turned her head slightly to the side, stealing a look at Baekhyun, and although she could only see his arm and a part of his leg, she could feel that he was everything she was not: calm, collected and seemed completely unaffected by the men in front of him. That was probably because he didn’t have to face them; his chair was turned to the other side, away from the scornful smile of the man and the gun that belonged to his partner.

“Sweetheart, are you okay?” The man cooed, the nickname tumbling mockingly out of his mouth and snatching her attention from Baekhyun. His eyebrows were exaggeratedly drawn in the middle and his lips sported a fake pout.

God, she was ing exhausted. She did not have the energy to deal with him.

She met the bastard’s eyes and closed her own almost immediately. She prayed inside her head that this was one of the awful nightmares she used to have a while ago, begging herself to jolt awake and find herself in her bedroom. Yet she knew that no matter how much she pleaded, she would find the same pair of prideful eyes boring into hers.

She was right.

“Eunhyuk,” The armed man called, his tone commanding and harsh, “Take it.”

Mina followed the armed man’s line of vision and it fell on her hoodie pocket. Her eyes widened in less than a fraction of a second; he was taking the last bit of hope of surviving…he was taking it away. Eunhyuk turned around the desk and dug his hands inside her pocket. His face was hovering over hers, smelling of something alike cleaning products and burnt plastic. She yearned to move her head back and away from the fetid odor but it was nearly impossible with the chair pressing into it, so she only settled on holding her breath.

Eunhyuk leaned back and returned to his previous position behind Ilhoon’s desk, his gaze cast on the sharp object in his hand and asked, mockery still reigning over his tone, “A pocket knife? Sweetheart, were you counting on this small knife to save you?”

Mina hardened her gaze, the breath she’s been holding escaping angrily.

“What? You don’t think so?” Eunhyuk continued, tilting his head. His fingers played with the weapon and when he didn’t get the result he was hoping for, he walked closer to her and played further with it. His smile stretched into a satisfied smirk when Mina’s eyes narrowed even more.

“You want to get it?” He asked again, dangling the knife right in front of her eyes, swaying it from left to right. Mina involuntarily focused on the movement and it amused Eunhyuk even more. “I want to give it to you…trust me, I really do but that’s no fun.”

Mina watched as he placed the knife on top of Ilhoon’s desk, solely ten or eleven inches away from her. “How do you feel now that your small knife is this close to you…yet so out of your reach? Pretty disappointing, right? Wait a second.”

He drove his hand to the knife and pushed it to the edge. “How about this, sweetheart? Is this a bit better?” Mina clenched her hands at the way he spoke to her, as if she was a play-toy he could distract himself with whenever he wanted. It hurt because her wrists were tied to the chair but it felt good to release some of the built-in tension inside her.

“Eunhyuk!” The name resonated in the room, echoing down the empty dark hallways. Mina snapped her head to the armed man in alarm; his voice was thunderous, even calm and collected Baekhyun jumped at the sound of it. “Go to your desk. I’ll stay with them until Ilhoon comes back.”

The phrase ‘Until Ilhoon comes back’ repeated inside Mina’s head like a mantra to an incurable curse. She couldn’t remember how many days Ilhoon was supposed to be spending outside of Seoul, but she was certain it was more than a week. A knot formed in and it wasn’t as easy for her to swallow as the previous ones.

Eunhyuk’s smile morphed into a frown as he dejectedly left the room and entered the small door. Silence filled the room and she was met with stoic eyes, a scar passing through the lid of the left one. He pulled the knife Eunhyuk had left dangling to the middle of the desk and sat back down, Baekhyun’s backpack sitting right next to his chair.

The first thought that flew into Mina’s mind was how his face didn’t match his voice, that is if she didn’t count the scar on his eyelid. The second thought was how he could kill her in any second if he wanted to and there was nothing that she could do about it.

The same gun that had been pressed to her forehead minutes ago was resting his pocket, its handle dangling dangerously, threatening to fall.

Not only was she exhausted now, she was absolutely petrified.

The armed man must’ve noticed her frantic staring because he raised an eyebrow, and Mina looked down before he could reach down and grab his gun. One wrong look or gesture and it would be over for her, and she did not want it to be over. The green two above his head didn’t appease her worries, making Mina curse at her sixth sense internally. She was supposed to spot a five or a six when she looked at the men, and her finding mere innocent ones and twos frustrated her to no end.

“Maybe,” Mina reasoned inside her head, forcing the knot in to disappear, “maybe we won’t die tonight.”

The more she thought about it, the more it made sense to her: her sixth sense never lied, and maybe the men in front of her weren’t as dangerous as they seemed to be. For a moment, Mina pushed back her worries and turned to glance at Baekhyun for the second time since they were captured. The way she had been tied to the chair made it difficult for her to turn her head all the way, so she only caught sight of his arm and hand, perfectly still compared to her shaking ones.

She wondered what went on inside his head, what kind of thoughts were swirling, occupying his mind. Was he forming a plan to escape? Was he just as afraid as she was? Did he regret coming to this damned place just as much as she did?

She didn’t want to admit it to herself in the beginning; she was here to expose Jung Ilhoon and avenge her father after all. But the more time passed, and the more she watched Eunhyuk disrespect her without fighting back, the more regret seeped into her drop by drop.

She shouldn’t have been here. She should’ve listened to Seulgi, to herself, and to her morals. But she didn’t, and now she had to suffer the consequences. Mina felt her nose tingle and soon the teardrops forming in her eyes rolled down. She hated being there, and the fact that she was the only one to blame for her situation made it even worse.

The weight of the man’s stare sunk in long after a couple of teardrops touched the surface of her hoodie, reminding her that she wasn’t in her bedroom. Mina compelled herself to stop crying, lifting her chin up to face the seam-filled ceiling. Her breathing was erratic along with her thundering heartbeat. The duct tape on suffocated her, making it even harder to breathe, and she hated it.

A thumb grazed her own in a tick, once and then twice. Mina paid it no mind at first, too busy pressing her lips together to stop the hiccups escaping . But then she felt the finger draw soothing patterns over her skin; the movement slowed her breathing and soon matched it, each gentle and tender. Before she knew it, Baekhyun was holding her hand and her crying had stopped.

She remembered the time he had hugged her in the middle of the street and guided her out of her panic attack; she would’ve thanked him then if she wasn’t so doubtful of him (and if he wasn’t such a jerk to her). She would’ve done the same too now, except it was as if they were back at square one: Baekhyun was a mysterious, unknown character and Mina feared him.

He broke into Kodak with the same intentions as her: stealing Ilhoon’s tape, but what for exactly? Why would he, of all people, try to take it? The questions arose even more from the first time she met him. She didn’t know if she could trust him now, or ever again. But then certain words resurfaced in her mind: ‘What’s coming is terrible and the only way you’re getting out of it alive is to help each other. There’s no other way.’

That’s what Seulgi had said when warning her about her aura. She dismissed the weight of Seulgi’s words and it hit her in the face; she wasn’t going to commit the same mistake twice. She had to trust Baekhyun to get out of here.

Mina sighed and squeezed Baekhyun’s hand thankfully, in a way to reassure him that she was okay –that they were going to be okay. Baekhyun returned the gesture and let go of her, the warmth of his hand leaving hers.

She turned her head to glance at the man sitting calmly in Ilhoon’s desk, his fingers playing with the edge of a folder atop the table. Her eyes focused automatically at the gun in his pocket; she never knew how much an object could affect a person.

Mina would’ve kept staring at the weapon if something didn’t catch her attention. She widened her eyes slightly at the feeling of her loose foot against the leg of the chair. She made sure the man wasn’t looking at her and then sneakily peered down at her leg: the rope around her right ankle was almost untied, and she could wiggle her foot out of it if she tried. She took her eyes off of her new discovery, trying not to bring the man’s attention and eventually ruin her plan.

A surge of hope staggered her senses, a small reminder that they could escape. The plan appeared right before her eyes: she would twist her foot out of her sneakers, and since her leg wasn’t tied to the chair, she would stretch it out forward and grab the pocket knife with her toes if given enough tries. She would then bend her knee so her hand could catch it and cut the rope around Baekhyun’s wrists. He would do the same for the rest of his roped limbs and hers too.

It could work: she had taken three months of gymnastics before dropping off freshman year and the desk was low enough to ease the process. However, she wasn’t sure if the man would leave the desk. He didn’t show any sign of tiredness, and if it went on that way, then she wouldn’t have the chance to even try without him shooting her.

She also didn’t know what they would do after: run away? Call the police? But it didn’t matter; this was a life or death situation, and she was desp