→ Chapter 023

►Summary of past events: 

Kang Mina is a student who has the ability to measure how dangerous people are from a scale of 0 to 10. A normal child is a 1, while a man with an assault rifle might be a 7. But today, the unassuming cheerful new kid at school, Byun Baekhyun, measures a 10, and she tries to unwrap the mystery that is his truth. She starts to meet him everywhere: behind buildings and inside DVD stores of which the owner is the suspected murderer of her father that she swears to catch by finding the missing tapes of the night's crime. Some things lead to another and a feud starts between the two: threatening, fighting, and secrets of each other laid out in the main hallway for the students to see. Before it can escalate to something more, Baekhyun and Mina agree on a truce. Something along the lines of friendship happens: they work on a photography project and Mina stands against Irene and Sehun to defend him. However, it's when they both meet each other while breaking in Kodak that they realize they have to work together to stay alive. They do, in the end, but some questions remain unanswered.

The small pool of blood pouring out under Yesung’s head stung Mina’s memory; it was the last thing she saw before she opened the door and ran upstairs with Baekhyun on her tail after all. Had she killed the man? She wasn’t sure. The only thing she was sure of was the awful amount of time she would need to forget the horrible sight. Hell, she could even take a break to vomit her guts out in the corner if her life wasn’t at stake. Her hand gripped the wooden bat as she dashed up the stairs. Everything around her was a complete blur with exception of the door at the other end of the staircase. She wanted to get out of this damned place as fast as possible. Baekhyun, however, with his backpack hanging loosely from his shoulder and his sneakers not banging against the floor as Mina’s do, didn’t seem in much of a rush. Little did she know that Baekhyun was only trying to grasp what happened back in the basement, the fact that he almost died sending his head in a messy overflow of thoughts. His eyes peered at the ground, blanking to pull him out of his daydream (or rather nightmare) every now and then.

“How did you do it?” He said in between ragged breaths, “How did you come out of there before he saw you? I thought you were already done for?”

Mina turned for a split second to meet his eyes, “I hid in the closet. He thought we both escaped so he didn’t even bother looking. I took the baseball bat I saw in the room before and waited.”

Baekhyun only hummed in response, but it seemed as if a bell rung, waking him up from his dazed state just as Mina opened the small room’s door that leads into the store. As if on cue, they both kneeled and closed their mouths to minimize noise. Eunhyuk was still out there, alive and very much able to kill them both if he wanted to. And that thought, Mina reached her hand into her pocket to feel up her small pocket knife, reassuring herself that it was still there. Baekhyun motioned her to give him his backpack, knowing how the bat in her hand was heavy enough, and so she did.

The smell of old DVDs filled their senses as they navigated through the store and in between the shelves. She normally didn’t like the odor, but after she lived her worst nightmare encircled by cleaning products and antifreeze, she learned to appreciate it. Baekhyun took the lead as they neared the exit, his eyes roaming around the empty streets; he can never be too sure the coast is clear when the enemy could be watching them from behind or worse, right above their heads.

Mina lifted her head too, searching for any sign of life, her ears perking up to catch any suspicious sounds but to no avail. After long minutes of scrutinizing their entourage, they regained their standing position. They bust open the door and sprinted out of Kodak.

It was a moment of victory, relief and absolute fright at the same time. They did it; they finally escaped the hellish place but there was no guarantee someone wasn’t chasing them down the street or trailing behind in the shadows. Mina wanted to turn her head back but she was too frightened to even tear her eyes from Baekhyun’s back.

What time could it be? She didn’t know and she didn’t bother to think about it. She didn’t think, at all; her legs moved on their own. Baekhyun was a few steps ahead of her as they turned and went around every empty alleyway, every stranded building and closed store. She wondered how she could keep up with his inhumane speed but wasn’t it obvious? Fear can make her do anything. She could ignore the lingering pain on her abdomen and wrists, the cold wind clashing with the warm sweat covering her neck, face and hands and the bat dragging her fingers down every passing second.

Baekhyun made an abrupt stop as they reached the end of a dark street. A fetid smell overwhelmed her senses and she stopped as well: a huge trash bin occupied the space under a tree. What followed was a big empty field that led to nowhere, or at least that’s what Mina thought; she’s never been in this area of Seoul before. Under the lamplight, he stood, hands on his knees and back bending as he heaved, not before throwing his backpack on the ground. Mina looked at him in alarm and then turned around for the first time since they left Kodak. She could already see the mischievous smile of Eunhyuk, taunting them in a way that will urge her to lash at him, or maybe it’s the adrenaline filling her senses that’s right, telling her she would only crumble down in fear and put her hands above her head.

But he wasn’t there.

“We should’ve lost him a long time ago…if he was behind us in the first place.” Baekhyun spoke in between ragged breaths, his face still hidden under his bangs, while Mina let out a long sigh of relief. If it weren’t for the deafening silence, she wouldn’t have heard him at all. He finally lifted his head and extended his hand, “Give me my phone.”

Mina threw the bat on the ground, crawled and rummaged through Baekhyun’s backpack, finding everything from leftover snacks to empty spray cans and used paper as well as a filming camera yet his phone was nowhere to be found. She moved a little closer to the lamplight so she could see, her eyes following her fingers as they dig through the junk in Baekhyun’s backpack and spat, “Why the hell did you bring so much ?”

Baekhyun jumped at the tone of her voice, wondering why she would snap at him so suddenly like that, “Why do you care? It’s not like it’s heavy for me or anything…if you don’t feel like looking for my phone just give me the bag I’ll do it.”

Little did he know the raise of her voice wasn’t that of anger or of annoyance; her hands started to shake slightly as she bit on her lip repeatedly, her brows scrunched in a straight line and her chest heaving up and down, “Baekhyun, I can’t find your phone.”

He stopped.

“What do you mean?”

“Your phone…it’s not there.”

Baekhyun bolted from his previous position and snatched the backpack from Mina’s hands, his own hunting through the clutter of random things, cursing silently at himself for not emptying the bag before coming to Kodak. He did so right after, watching as his belongings fall onto the ground, the echoes of his spray cans overflowing the atmosphere. His eyes widened in horror at the realization that he might’ve dropped his phone in the DVD store, the only thing he wasn’t supposed to do tonight. How stupid could he be?

He shot Mina a look that made her heart stop. She shook her head, “No, don’t even think about that Byun.” She tilted her head in desperation, tears welling in her eyes, “We can’t go back, please, don’t make me go there again. Please, I’m begging you.”

“We have to.”

Mina stood up and lost herself right after, “No, we don’t. You can’t make me go through all of the we just went through. It was hell, Baekhyun! So what if they find that damned phone, huh? They wouldn’t know it’s you, nor they will know that I’m involved. The scene ends and we both go back home and act like nothing ever happened.”

She could see as his face hardened with each word she uttered, “We both know that’s not true. I don’t know how you found out about the tapes, but it’s obvious we both came for them, and we wanted them for a reason. I don’t know what yours is, but leaving my phone out there isn’t going to let me fulfill mine. If he finds it, then it’s the end for both of us.”

“How can he even know that it’s yours?” Mina asked in disbelief.

Baekhyun closed his eyes for a brief moment, contemplating whether to tell her the truth or run back to Kodak for his life. “Ilhoon knows…he knows that it belongs to me. If he finds it, he’ll know that I’m here and he’ll check every nook and cranny of this city to find me next.”

Mina couldn’t understand, “Can you speak clearly? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Does he know you? How the hell will he recognize your phone? Why would he want to find you? What’s going on?”

Baekhyun opened his mouth to speak then closed it. “Right now is not the time for you to play mysterious, Byun.” Mina glared at him, though her pleading eyes said otherwise, “Tell me, I can help you.”

“I can’t trust you enough to tell you some things, or at least not yet, just as how you’re not ready to tell me some things. I don’t even know what—”

“I came here for my father.” Mina admitted, “As I told you before, video files were missing from the computer in the house he was killed in, and what better place to hide them than Kodak? Ilhoon was smart enough to put them in unsuspected DVDs. He was watched, monitored and still is. Those tapes hold the key to my father’s case and undeniable proof that it was Ilhoon who murdered him, I’m sure. I’ll make sure the whole world sees. That’s why I came here tonight.” She let out a hasty breath, “I answered your questions, now answer mine.”

She scrutinized Baekhyun from head to toe, from how he frowned at the ground to the way his feet played with the small rocks next to his sneakers, and gulped down the knot forming in . She laid out her whole plan for him to see, she confided in him like in nobody else, she trusted him and yet he didn’t trust her.

“Come on, Byun.” She whispered at a last attempt to make him talk.

“That just makes it worse.” He finally spoke.

“What is?”

“You telling me this.”

Mina threw her hands in the air in frustration, “There he goes again… what’s with you and speaking in code words?” She turned around, exasperated at his antics, catching him right as he grabbed his backpack from the ground and turned his heels to leave. She wanted to scream at him but it would be reckless since they were in plain nighttime and pretty much nowhere, so she ran up to him instead.

“Baekhyun! Hey, hey, slow down.” Mina growled as she shoved him back, but stopped as soon as she saw pure fear, terror spilling out his eyes onto his shaking lips and to finally land on his sweating hand. The cold stone façade he tried to keep before crumbled down in no time. She didn’t know what took over her at the second, but her hand leaned to hold his. He glanced down and pulled his hand from her grasp as soon as possible.

“I’m scared.” He told her, though that’s a detail she already knew. “You don’t know what they can do if Ilhoon finds out. I’m scared for me, scared for what can happen and if I leave that phone back there I will bear the consequences.”

“How do you even know them?” She asked, yet he kept silence. “Look, I understand you don’t trust me enough to answer my questions. But can you please trust me just for once and at least stay?” She stepped closer to him and pleaded, “I saved you once. I can’t do it one more time.”

Baekhyun opened his mouth to speak but Mina rushed to interrupt him, irritated, “What makes you think, for even a second, that you will make it out of there alive? So what if they find your phone, and I don’t know how the they’ll know it’s you, who you are and where you live using it—at least you have a chance of staying alive.”

“You know what?” She drove her hand into her front pocket and held out a few pennies, “I think I’ve seen a phone booth right before we made this turn. Let’s go call someone before you do something stupid.”

Baekhyun stared at the coins in her palm for a long minute, sighed and took them watching as a small victory smile crept into Mina’s face. They both walked to the booth in tranquility until the booth came in sight. Underneath the shadows and the moonlight, it looked black a second and dark blue the next. The way it hid beside the tall buildings brought a sense of loneliness around it, yet it was comforting at the same time. That’s what Mina felt, at least, while she was squeezed inside with Baekhyun trying to dial some number in the darkness. She didn’t know who he would call, but she was praying inside it wasn’t someone she knew. She couldn’t afford telling anyone what happened to her, not even her closest friends, not even Chanyeol or Seulgi. She was ashamed, because she had done something completely against her ideals and what she stands for; she broke the law, something she had promised herself to never do especially after her father died. She was also afraid that telling them meant getting them into her mess, and she would protect them at all costs.

“It’s Baekhyun.” The boy spoke quietly into the phone. Mina could hear a little too loud voice on the other end, though she didn’t manage to discern what it was saying. She moved a bit closer to listen to the conversation.

Baekhyun shook his head, holding the tip of his nose with his index finger and thumb, waves of regret washing over his features as the person at the other end of the line threw indecipherable words at him.

“I will tell you everything once you get here.” He sighed for the nth time, “I never asked you for a favor until today—” The voice raised and Baekhyun rolled his eyes, “tonight, so please shut up and bring your to the empty field behind the Gyori buildings—” He brought the phone farther from his ear, almost flinching, “I said I will tell you everything once you’re here so hurry up before they find us.”

And with that, he hung up. He huffed, running his fingers through his raven locks and looking everywhere but Mina. He left the phone booth and she followed him, questioning whether she should ask him who he called or not. The wind blew lightly in their direction, playing with the dull leaves and plastic bags on the streets. It was ge