→ Chapter 024

Mina held the empty cup of water in the palms of her shaking hands. Her back leaned against the wooden countertop, her eyes dancing anywhere and everywhere but Baekhyun who stood opposite her, elbow propped on the high kitchen table. The boy had offered her some water after detaching himself from her sobbing figure, and she didn’t know whether to feel thankful or embarrassed or both.

“Don’t feel awkward,” Baekhyun spoke after a long silence, “This isn’t the first time you cry in front of me, and it isn’t the first time I comfort you either.” He then paused before sighing, “I thought we moved past that already. Right now is the time we start being honest with each other.”

Mina finally gazed at him, eyes red and swollen. “I feel scared, Baekhyun. I barely managed to wrap my head around what happened, what I did—what we did and here I am, going crazy thinking about what tomorrow holds. I feel overwhelmed.”

Baekhyun walked over to her, and only then did she see his bloodshot eyes, his sickly pale face and his wavering lips. He put his hands on her shoulders, getting her full attention, and said, “Trust me, I am too, and we have every right to feel that way. But we don’t have time.

We don’t have time to feel afraid. God knows, we probably won’t live to see tomorrow, or next week, or next month. We’re dealing with Jung Ilhoon here, and he doesn’t waste time. So please, I need you to be strong. I need you to revive the cold, unapologetic, determined Kang Mina and let her take over. I need you to bring back the same girl that the entire school is frightened of, that nobody would dare oppose, and who does everything in her willpower to get what she wants. Remember who you are, Kang. This is the only way you’ll survive.”

Remember who you are, Kang.

The words resonated in her mind a few times while she watched Baekhyun’s steely expression, and then it hit her; he was right. She couldn’t waste time, not now, not when Ilhoon’s men are searching for her and Baekhyun like mad dogs. Kang Mina was—and still is—cold, unapologetic, and determined, and that’s something she still remembered about herself.

“I can try.” She finally breathed out.

Baekhyun squeezed her shoulders and then removed her hands from her, putting them in the pocket of his hoodie. “That’s enough for me.”

Silence filled the room once again, and Mina found herself looking around. Her brows furrowed at the detail she had just noticed and turned to Baekhyun who was deep in thought. “Where’s your uncle? Jeongwoo, is it?”

She also wanted to ask him about his mother. He never mentioned she was living with them, but she could be. However, she decided against it to avoid awkwardness in case it turned out she wasn’t. Slowly but surely, worry seeped into her mind and fear was left at the back, still very much present but overshadowed.

Baekhyun chuckled, “He’s on a business trip and he won’t come back until next week. I wouldn’t have gone to Kodak tonight if he were here.”

She narrowed her eyes at the boy in front of her, “You mean, it’s just you and me inside this mansion, alone? Byun, what if Ilhoon and his men barge in here and kill us both?” She then crossed her arms and frowned even more, “And what about that friend of yours, Luhan? Why didn’t he stay with us at least until the next morning? And why the hell aren’t we calling the police? There’s no way we’re staying here alone without letting at least someone know.”

Baekhyun let out another chuckle, shaking his head, and then said, “I guess the Mina I know is back.” He then straightened his back, gravity washing over his features, “I made Luhan promise he wouldn’t intervene in the I got myself into two years ago, and it certainly won’t change now. We don’t want to drag him into our mess now, don’t we? Also, what will you tell the police? Hey officer, my friend and I broke into this DVD shop at almost midnight—”

Mina rolled her eyes and held her hands up, “Okay, fine, I get your point. What do we do, then?”

“We need to make a plan for tomorrow.” He said, walking over to sit on top of one of the wooden chairs around the table. Mina followed him and sat next to him, attentive. “Ilhoon isn’t in Seoul right now, but some of his men are. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find two of them inside Kodak at this time. He usually locked the shop and that was it. Sometimes, he didn’t even bother locking it except for the basement doors.”

“How do you know all of this?” She asked, leaning on the table. “Do you know him personally?”

“I used to work for him before I flew to America. It was only for a few months, but it was long enough for me to notice that Kodak wasn’t only a DVD shop, but a meth lab, too. He usually brought his clients down the basement to his office to sell them drugs.”

Mina cut him off and asked, taking a second look at the expensive-looking room they were in, “Wait, why would you work for him—or anyone for that matter, when you live in a place like this?”

“I don’t think it’s a good time to tell you why.” He deadpanned. His mouth opened in a tired yawn and was soon covered by the back of his hand.

Mina scoffed, crossing her arms as she turned her whole body to face him. “You’re not serious, are you? Baekhyun, you can’t keep things like that from me when we’re supposed to work together. You know everything about me, from my family background to the reason I broke into Kodak, and I’m not even sure if Byun Baekhyun is your real name. It’s not fair.”

He only sighed. Mina didn’t know if he was annoyed by her words or just simply worn out.

“Let’s have this conversation sometime later. We can’t waste time now. We’re facing a major problem right now and you’re thinking about what, how unfair it is that you know nothing about me? At least listen to the plan I’ve come up with.”

Mina opened to speak but closed it shut the next second. “Go ahead.”

“We have two things we should worry about,” He said and then lifted a finger, “One, my phone that I left at Kodak and that Ilhoon could recognize,” He then lifted a second finger, “And two, the fact that you hurt one of his men.”

Mina felt her heart drop; she remembered how hard she swung the bat at that man’s head and how the blood oozed from the wound. The hit wasn’t strong enough to kill him—if it were, Mina would’ve already dug a hole and buried herself in it from all the guilt pent-up inside her. Yes, she did it to save Baekhyun, and yes, if it weren’t for it they would’ve been dead now, but the act was still against her morals. But again, who was she kidding? She has already abandoned those so-called “morals” long ago when she broke into Kodak. But why does it feel like she did the right thing?

“Mina,” Baekhyun called, waving his hand in front of her blank face, and frowned. “Focus with me, please?”

She blinked a couple of times before murmuring a shameful “sorry”. It was clear to her now; Baekhyun was drowsier than annoyed since another yawn made its way to his lips before he spoke.

“Let’s say the worst scenario happens: Ilhoon’s men find my phone, send it to him, and he recognizes it as mine. It won’t take them long to find that I live at my uncle’s house since he’s the only family I have now. That’s the furthest they can go, I think. So my best shot is to stay at someone’s place until things settle. I will then contact Ilhoon myself and tell him about the tapes to make him cooperate, but it’ll be tricky since we hurt one of his men.”

“I think Chanyeol would be happy to have you stay in for a while, but the kid will annoy you with questions so you better prepare some kind of excuse.” Mina mused, her eyes focused on the small gap between Baekhyun’s knees and hers, and for the first time since yesterday, they softened as she said, “I don’t think I’m in that much trouble here. They don’t know me at all, and even if Ilhoon remembers me as the girl who came for a Seo Taiji album, I don’t think he’ll find me. Remember the first time we saw each other at Kodak? I was wearing a different high school uniform—that of Hansong’s, so I don’t think they’ll find me anywhere soon.”

At her words, Baekhyun’s face brightened up and he smiled, “Oh! I was thinking about sending you to Luhan’s. Nobody from your school knows him so I thought it would be safe for you to stay at his place. But I guess we don’t have to do that anymore and I’ll worry less about you.”

Mina’s head shot up, “Pardon?”

Baekhyun’s cheeks visibly reddened, while his hand found its place massaging at the nape of his neck. “I mean, of course, I’ll worry about you. If you get attacked I’ll feel guilty, you know, since I’m the reason you even hit that man in the first place, and I don’t really deal with the guilt that well.” Mina only narrowed her eyes at him, “Hey, don’t look at me like that. You know that I didn’t mean it— Wait, what did you say?”

Mina gave him a blank look, “What do you mean? I said lots of things.”

Baekhyun shook his head, “No, no, you said something about us seeing each other in Kodak.”

She still couldn’t see his point. “And?”

He moved closer to her, puzzled, “I was meaning to ask you this since the day you told me off for spraying on that building, actually. I remember seeing you in Kodak for the first time, because, honestly, that grey uniform and short hair wasn’t that good of a disguise.” He paused, searching her eyes and then spoke in a low voice, “How did you know it was me that day when I was practically covered from head to toe?”

Mina froze.

Now that she thought about it, Baekhyun was unrecognizable that day she saw him at Kodak. The bottom half of his face was covered in an opaque mask, leaving his eyes . She knew it was him because of the glowing ten on top of his head, but nobody was supposed to know that, especially him. It was embarrassing how she pushed aside a detail like this one. It was even more embarrassing how it has been over a minute and she still hadn’t given a response to the boy scrutinizing her. As if all the tricks she learned in debate class and experience she gathered as a debate club president flew out the window, she finally mumbled, “I just assumed you were since you said you saw me in Kodak.”

Baekhyun didn’t seem to believe that one bit. Crossing his arms, he said, “Sugar, I thought you’d do better than that. Now tell me, how did you know it was me?”

Mina stood up, mirroring his body language, and smirked down at him. “I don’t think it’s a good time to tell you how.” She then lifted a threatening finger and jabbed it at his forehead, emphasizing each word as she hissed, “And don’t call me sugar.”

Baekhyun swayed her finger away, stood on his feet as well and tilted his head as if he were challenging her, “Well, sugar, you sure know how to play the reverse card.”

Their heads were only centimeters apart, their eyes glaring as if it were a competition. Mina was having trouble keeping her head held up high—Baekhyun was at least a hand or two taller than her, but she wasn’t giving up anytime soon.

“You answer my question, and I answer yours.”

“Isn’t that something people usually do in kindergarten?”

“Just because it’s done in kindergarten doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.”

“Okay, then you answer my question first.”

“You know what?” Mina held her hands up in the air, “I’ll be the mature one out of us two and stop because this argument is going nowhere. So, let’s stop wasting time and let’s start thinking about how we’ll get you out of this house before Ilhoon’s men arrive instead.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes, “You’re just saying that to clear out.”

“So what if I am?” Mina spat back.

And with that, she walked away from Baekhyun. Her strut might’ve seemed confident to the boy watching her with disdain, but she wanted to slap herself that same second because how could she, the president of Kyungbock’s award-winning debate club, back out of an argument like that? She could almost feel her insides tingle with guilt and shame. Before she could exit the kitchen, she felt something brush her sides. She took a step back and she felt the same something touch the back of her knees. She whipped her head back in alarm only to find that her braid was completely undone: her dark hair was down, its ends almost reaching her calves. After letting out a deep exhale, she gathered her hair into one side and began braiding it; it was the most dreadful activity of the day, and she dreaded it even more now