a higher power must have had their hands in playing with the realm of time and space alike in this dingy basement, you are certain of it. you do not think you would be able to stay conscious for this long, and being a practising surgeon, you are much too aware of the extent of a human’s physical capabilities. how are you still awake? you do not know.

try as hard as you might though, there is no stopping the steady flow of blood coursing out of the untreated wound on your neck. and you are afraid that the cloth you are holding onto the cut is getting too damp with your blood for your liking.

yet, here you are sitting, fully conscious, and perhaps even angry, glaring your eyes at the man who took you away.

he does not shy away from your glare. rather, he looks quite impressed if the shine in his eyes is any sort of tell. “things getting fuzzy?”

“no,” you croak, fixing your grip on the cloth and placing more pressure on the bleeding cut. “i was thinking you didn’t give me a sterilised piece of cloth to keep this wound properly shut. you can only imagine how upset i am.”

“as you can see,” he waves his arm around, slow, making sure you are following him. “this here ain’t no luxury of a hospital your lover has.”

“your henchman might be blind, but i’m not, i can tell what's what,” you say, blinking your eyes a little. they are getting teary and you could only guess how red the whites really are from all this futile effort of staying awake, but you really can’t afford to lose your consciousness now. not now. “why did you kill him?”

the chair he is on scrapes backwards, making a freakishly sharp sound that rings in your ear, too loud for comfort, not that you currently have any. “if i knew you would be asking so many pointless questions instead of answering mine, i would have cut your tongue off.”

“then why haven’t you done it?”

he chuckles, his broad, heavy shoulders shaking along.

“if you had a need for me to be quiet, you would have shut me up a long time ago.” you continue slowly.

“just save your energy, lady.” he warns, before leaning back on his chair again, watching you closely.

it is not until you start slumping on your chair, perhaps an hour or so later since you last said anything, that he starts to speak again.

“he was going against an explicit order i gave not to touch you.”

you look up towards him, failing to hide your surprise as you let out a small gasp.

he harrumphs, switching his attention to the door. “i may not be a man of high honour, but i still would not do something so foul,” there is an irregular tapping of fingers on a surface. he is drumming on the back of the chair now, still not looking at you. “the two of you are so similar that it is starting to scare me.”

you heave yourself up again as much as you could, your arm placing pressure on the wound is now beyond stiff. “i don’t think i…”

“seulgi has always been a fighter,” he starts, his tone is proud, like that of a father voicing his adoration to his daughter, and you do not understand it in the slightest. “too smart for her own good, too,” at this, he draws a small pause, standing up and going further away from where you are sitting, heading into the dark. “perhaps that is why you are drawn towards her, and she to you.”

gathering the track of his footsteps becomes much more difficult when he starts walking around the empty basement, and the echoes are throwing off your guesses on where exactly he is.

“she is also a genius,” he says, now his voice comes from somewhere to your right, and you immediately turn your head towards that area, feeling a chill running down your spine at his following words. “absorbs all of the skills she needed as a ruthless hitman like a sponge.”

a whole lot of questions are running through your mind right now, all rushing to be answered, and some of them are. this man’s ties with seulgi had to be as a colleague, no, a mentor, most probably, from her previous clan. you remember it well, seulgi’s words sound just as clear as day as it plays in your mind like a spotless copy of a music record, how she had been in another group of mob before she was hired by yerim’s father after a failed assassination attempt.

so it would mean that this man, and his group of mobsters, are some of the men jailed during the government crackdown on organised crime, made possible during the… you don’t know the exact time, but it had to be at least a few presidential terms ago, as sooyoung had said.

“did you have to exert revenge this way?” you question, using a gentle voice, one that you typically employ when you are talking to your patients. “revenge, it's… where is the end of it? it muddles your mind of any logical thoughts, and you could never live your best life with it still around…”

his footsteps take one last pause, making a distinct screeching sound on the cemented floor.

“isn’t it enough that you are hurt the first time? after that, even if you only remember it even once, it would mean you are hurt twice. a hundred, then you are hurt a hundred times. should you think of it daily, that would mean you are hurt every single day,” you remove the cloth covering your wound, wanting to rest your overworked arm. “if you want to throw the fire that kept you burning all this time... back to the person who hurt you, you would have to keep it burning on your own flesh, in your own heart, for as long as it would take...”

“i don’t care if i end up burning myself to death.” he says in his reply. his voice is unchanged. determined.

“it does not have to be that way,” you try one last time. “you should seek for forgiveness. haven’t the law given you one, now that you are walking as a free man again? a pardon? isn’t that enough? now, i-- i know this is hard, and… i may speak this for the both of us… but we should look for forgiveness from ourselves.”

he does not listen to you.

-----

you end up losing your consciousness after all. sometimes biology and its nature really , you think. it would have been great if your body could replace the blood cells flowing out from your body as quickly as you would lose them, but that would probably make you some sort of unnatural, superhero like being, and it is evident that you are not one.

what wake you up are none other than loud noises coming from outside (no, upstairs?) of the basement. a physical struggle, you realise after taking all of the sounds in - slamming, crashes, yelling, moans, pained moans - now they are all somewhat familiar to you. this time around, you could only beg that you are not losing it.

the boss seems unperturbed on his chair. what is etched on his face is simply that - a smile. and just like everything else he has written in this cunning plan of his, you do not know what it means. he meets your widened eyes when he turns his attention towards you. “she’s here.”

and then for several minutes, it is silent.

what follows that long period of silence is a solid crack, then a single popping sound rings out, and because you have trained your ears to follow whatever clues are thrown to you in the last few hours of being trapped in this basement, you are able to immediately pinpoint where the sound comes from.

you do not know what it is, but as soon as you hear a small, hissing sound, you have already taken in a deep breath, and your eyes are shut as tightly as humanly possible.

sure enough, as seconds go by, you hear a sort of gas being pressurised into the basement room, getting louder every second, and then there is a loud thud, made by something, no, someone, falling on the floor.

you think it is the boss. or you surely hope it is. thinking of any other possibilities scares you.

your heart is beating faster as you rely only on your hearing, and the footsteps approaching you are silent.

there can only be one person in the whole world that you know of, who prowls like that.

you gasp when you feel something being put on around your face.

“breathe, juhyun.” she says, and immediately, you sag in relief on the stiff chair.

“seulgi.” you do not mean to cry, you really don’t. but she is here, god, she is here. she has come for you.

"open your eyes." she removes your hand from the wound you have suffered on your neck, and that is when exactly you open your teary eyes to see her, through round, glassy sights of some kind. a gas mask, you quickly realise later.

however, the sight that greets you is not the seulgi that you have always known and love, no, this is a completely different seulgi. one full of wrath, and though difficult to really see, she is also failing to hide a little bit of fear.

from your very own experience, those gathered together never did produce a result that you could confidently say would be the best out of many combinations of emotions.

you need to try to calm her. your voice seems to bound back when spoken to the gas mask, and you can only hope she could actually hear you. "you're late."

"he didn't make it easy to find you." she says, her voice brittled, and her eyes just as teary as yours. it is not obvious, and you could only make it out from what little of her eyes are visible under the gas mask she is also wearing. she is scared, too. once she is sure she has secured the gas mask over your face, she rushes to cut the ropes tying you down, before moving to wrap the wound under your jaw with (thank goodness) a sterilised bandage.

she stands up, and you follow her movement dazedly. somehow she looks a lot taller. you don’t know why until you manage to closely study the attire she is in. she is in a full tactical style uniform - a bulletproof vest, a belt carrying many a kit around her waist including her sidearm, and a pair of combat boots to round the look.

if you hadn’t been just bound to a chair and bleeding to the point of losing your consciousness, you would have complimented her.

seulgi walks back into the visibly large puffing of gas, one that you think has a paralysing effect, and with an audible snap of her fingers, the gas clears out, and ceases to block your view, or continue disabling the boss. soon enough, you see the both of them and more. a few men dressed similarly to seulgi are lined up inside the room, covering the only exit out of the basement, pointing their guns towards the one dangerous threat.

“get up, old man,” seulgi demands after she takes out his gun out of its hidden holster in his jacket and throwing it away. one of seulgi’s men secures it in an instant. she then rolls his body with a swift kick, and you have never heard her voice lined with malice like that. “the gas can’t have you knocked out so easily like this.”

there is nothing moving for a few moments, it is still in the basement room. but that is before he starts cracking up, slowly getting up to sit with his legs crossed, not quite minding the amount of guns aimed at him. “using a sleeping gas, kid? that’s a cowardly move.”

seulgi draws her sidearm and aims it towards him. “so is taking someone i love.”

under the gun's aim, he sends a strange look towards you. “i realised i made a huge mistake when she kicked one of my men on his balls when he tried to make a move on her.”

the safety of the pistol is released, and your eyes widen. the fact that it was initially aimed towards the man with its safety on says more than you could possibly ask for. seulgi does not want to kill this man, whoever he really is.

she has her back turned to you, but you already know how she would look. how dangerous a glare her sharp, fox eyes would wear.

“seulgi, no,” you urgently call as you shakily get to your feet. seulgi’s men watch you stumble closely, but they do not move. she does not turn to look at you either as you would like her to when you called out to her. your spinning head does not provide any help in your effort to reach her. you gently rest your hand on her gun arm when you finally get to her with much effort. she trembles slightly under your touch. “my love, please look at me.”

she does, but you can tell just how difficult it is for her to do so, afraid that a second of her attention brought away from your kidnapper would be the end of you.

“he killed his own men when he tried to force himself on me.” you try to argue, and she takes your words in slowly, in seconds, her eyes are being rid of animosity, and the beam of her kindness eventually finds its own way to materialise there as a welcomed replacement. your hand follows along when she drops her aim, placing the pistol back to the safety of its holster.

"i don't think you want to kill this man." you finish softly, squeezing her arm in assurance.

seulgi signals something with her hand, and again, one of seulgi’s companion moves to cuff the 'old man', securing his arms behind him. he does not pull any sort of struggle.

"i don't." she says as she looks at you once she is certain that he no longer pose to be a threat. she takes this moment to remove her gas mask, and helps you do the same.

"that bastard kim has made you soft," he grumbles lowly. "have you forgotten everything i thought you? you were one of the best i've ever trained."

your eyebrows are raised in shock. as you had guessed, the old man turns out to be seulgi's mentor after all.

"if this had been twelve years ago, i would have chosen to grovel for you to forgive me, teacher. but it is not," seulgi replies in disdain. "i'm not the same. the world is not the same. you need to change too to fit in."

"hmph. forget fitting in. for twelve years i rot in the prison i only thought of seeking the answer for your betrayal. you dared going against the code--"

"it no longer exists!" seulgi cuts his words with a roar that rings around in an echo around the dingy basement, surprising you. "none of us can be considered traitors for something that is less than a shell of all its former glory. we are not bound by those oaths anymore."

"it's all i had." he says in reply, his tone weak and broken.

seulgi takes in a deep breath. "please, sir. you know i sent the attorneys to fight for your earlier release for a reason. i'm not asking for much, teacher. you've been given a second chance at life. you must find a way to make the most of it," she pauses, her hands are wound around your waist, looking to steady you. "you've always liked fishing. there's an old cottage lying at a remote fishing village in the south. i'll make arrangements to get you settled there."

"i knew it was you," he laughs heartily, now aware of the one responsible for his release. "but you want me to have a new start? at my age?"

"you may find this laughable, sir, but i do respect you. if it weren't for you--” she lets out a small sigh. “you saved me from dying of starvation in the cold streets. i got you released to pay my debt to you. i don't want to kill you."

"my dear child, this is more insulting than merciful to me." his argument seems to silence seulgi, and you figure these two must have shared quite the bond before all of these loses and betrayal.

"please, teacher-- i-" seulgi tries, begging, almost, her voice cracking.

“i thought that i had to do something for what you've done, betraying the clan for the kim family... but i see that there's nothing that could be done now for what's already in the past,” he grunts, biting something inside his mouth and looking at you pointedly with a meaningful smirk etched on his face. "at least i know now of your reasoning... you've grown a heart, seulgi."

you remove seulgi's arm that is wrapped protectively around your waist the second he starts seizing.

you are at his side as soon as he drops to the cold floor. but it is far too late, as the foam bubbles quickly form inside and around his mouth the moment you want to check his breathing, and then the tremors around his body, sudden as they are, finally still. you look behind you to seulgi, and shakes your head slowly, not keen on moving your injured neck by much. "cyanide poisoning. extremely high in dosage. took him in mere seconds. he… he must have had the pill ready all this time."

"a last stand... stupid as it is, he didn't want to be saved," she lets out a long, dry heave, signalling for her men to go away. "leave us. sort out all of the bodies outside."

"yes, ma'am." one of them answers dutifully.

you find yourself standing again, looking at her worriedly. with a sigh, you walk carefully towards her, enveloping her in an embrace. “are you alright?”

“i should be the one asking you that question.” she replies with a soft chuckle, sounding a little lost too as she lays her head on your shoulder. her body rests on you, easy and warm.

you keep her tightly in your arms for a long while after that.

-----

“you know.” her voice quips softly from behind you.

you turn to face her, careful not to strain your neck, noting the gentle smile on her face. you too, allow a small smile to grace your lips in return.

“i had a doctor who insists i stay on my bed and rest up before.”

“did you really?” you ask, feigning ignorance as you watch her settle beside you on your favourite bench outside of the hospital.

“yes, and she was pretty adamant about it.”

“oh no, whatever am i to do now?”

she wraps her arm around your back and gently pulls you closer to her, resting your head on her shoulder. “i was thinking you could um, listen to her advice, maybe?”

"i have no excuse. i wanted to get some fresh air." and this is true. being on that dingy basement took some toll on your lungs, and you really wished to inhale pure, clean air again.

you feel gentle kisses being planted on the crown of your hair. "i see."

the two of you sit in a comfortable silence afterwards. she keeps you warm when the wind blows chillingly, pulling you closer to her.

you have your eyes closed and resting when she breaks the silence. "i was really scared."

opening your eyes, you search for her gaze, and at the end of it, much to your surprise, is ladened with tears. you shift to get out of her hold, and you turn towards her in concern. "seulgi, why are you crying?"

"i just can't-" she gasps, her fingers busy thumbing away her tears. then they move to caress your neck, wrapped in thick gauze to cover the deep cut you suffered. "i just can't help it. i really thought i lost you."

"i'm here." you say, your voice small.

her body shakes slightly in your arms. "i don't know what i would do if i lose you."

you cup her jaw to make her look at you. "you're not going to lose me. i'm not going anywhere. i'm here, see? i'm by your side."

and you plan to keep that promise for as long as you can.

-----

she spends the night with you wrapped in her arms, her cheeks dry of any tears. both of you are sharing your hospital bed, much to your doctor's chagrin, but you don't want her to be anywhere else.

-----