To say that her co-workers were nosy was an understatement; they were literally walking, breathing, living examples of nosy.  If you opened a dictionary and went to the word nosy, you would find a picture of all them. All of the officers had hovered over Hyejin to see who the flowers had come from.  It was almost surprising none of them had opened the envelope before she got there.

“Wheein?”

“The singer?”

“Oh my daughter is a huge fan!  My wife likes her too actually…”

“She’s so hot!”

“And y!”

“She was the one who almost got kidnapped!”

“Hyejinie saved her though.”

“Ahn is a lucky --”

All of the voices started to get louder the more someone commented and Hyejin was trying to hold back a scream.  Luckily for her, she wasn’t the only one annoyed by everyone in the department. The voice of Sergeant Park made everyone except Hyejin jump — she simply sighed in relief.

“What are all of you doing?!  Get back to work!” Sergeant Park’s voice boomed with authority despite the woman’s short stature.  Salutes toward the sergeant came left and right before everyone scattered to do their duties for the day.

Hyejin folded the card and placed it inside the envelope before turning around to come face to face with the sergeant.  She held her breath for a moment unsure of what the sergeant was going to say.

“Officer Ahn, you can place the bouquet in my office but make sure to take it with you at the end of your shift.”

Hyejin let out the breath she was holding and saluted the sergeant.  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

As Hyejin made her way towards Sergeant Park’s office she heard the older woman whisper, “Good job Hyejin.”

“Why are you smiling like that?  Thinking of someone?” Donghoon’s question caught Hyejin by surprise.  They were patrolling the streets of Hongdae like they did every day and so far it had been a quiet uneventful drive.

“Huh? Oh...no...just what Sergeant Park said to me.” Hyejin replied looking back at her partner.

“What did she say?” He asked out of curiosity.

“Good job Hyejin.” Hyejin answered.

“Woah, really?  She must be really proud of you.  She doesn’t generally compliment anyone unless they’ve done something really big and important.” Donghoon explained.  Since being in the department and working under Sergeant Park, he had heard her compliment someone just twice.

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by the radio in their police car.  Dispatch was calling for the presence of a couple of officers in one of the nearby streets.  Donghoon and Hyejin eyed each other for a second before he answered the dispatch operator. The sirens of their police car went off and he started going faster in the direction of the accident.

People had gathered around the accident when they arrived a couple of minutes later.  The bigger of the two vehicles, a family van, had been turned upside down from the impact.  Donghoon pulled onto the side of the street a few meters away from the accident.

“Hyejin, go on ahead.  I’m going to check to make sure ambulances and the fire department are on their way.” He said to his partner and she nodded her head before getting out of the patrol car.

She quickly made her way past the crowd that had gathered and she could see the smaller car with its front completely destroyed and facing a different direction from the van.  The witnesses at the scene were shouting at her to check the driver of the smaller car, and others to help those trapped in the flipped over van.

Everything became a blur.  Hyejin felt like the entire scene was crashing on top of her and everyone needed to be rescued from their vehicles.  She was one person — one lone officer against everything happening. It was the sound of a little girl’s voice that made her react finally and she headed towards the van and got down on the ground to look inside the shattered windows.

“Help!  Help me!  Mommy! Daddy!”