Ayeon was stretched out on Jaehyun’s couch, dressed in one of his sweaters and a pair of sweatpants that made her feel cocooned in a type of warmth that she didn’t want to acknowledge. She was spending a lazy morning consisting of her scrolling through her phone, keeping up to date on the fallout from last night while the news played softly in the background.

She didn’t have any angry texts demanding she come down to the precinct, so she took it as a good sign.

“We have allowed the leadership of corruption run this city for too long. How are people of this great city supposed to feel safe when they can’t even trust police enforcement?”

Ayeon glanced up, watching the press conference that was playing on loop.

“Kim Byung-Ho is looking good for interim Commissioner.” Jaehyun mumbled as he leaned against the couch, watching from over her shoulder.

Ayeon chewed on her lip, looking up at him, “He’s always been big on transparency and accountability. I can’t imagine the mayor saying no to putting his name forward.”

“Could be good for this city.” Jaehyun quipped, pushing himself off before walking to his kitchen.

She hummed, glancing back at her phone, scanning the comments, there were a few directed about Mina, questioning her credibility, her past with other newspapers, and some hateful ones probably fuelled by the loyalty of political supporters who rallied behind the mayor who had shown the Commissioner support when he was elected.

It was a relief that nothing about Mina scratched past that, most of the anger was directed to the Commissioner, demanding a statement that he had still yet to put out. There was nothing that struck as a red flag. His name was trending on all portals and social networks, Mina’s article had hits that were growing past tens of thousands and hurtling towards the hundreds. She was sure that Mina was probably fielding hundreds of phone calls and emails from people who wanted a statement.

A burst of pride bloomed in her chest at the thought of how far Mina had come. How her name would be etched next to journalists of her caliber breaking stories that changed the blueprint of the city and how it was run.

Her phone buzzed and a text from Johnny popped up. She clicked it, her brows raising.

Johnny: Mina’s safe, nothing happened, she’s still at your place.

“Huh.” She mumbled, switching back to the news.

“What?” Jaehyun called from the kitchen.

She shook her head, “Johnny texted me, said that Mina’s fine.”

“And that’s weird because?”

She smiled slightly, “Because he texted me at 9AM when he told me that he was only going to stay until like 2AM. He camped out the entire night.”

-----

It wasn’t until Jinah called her phone, that she felt inclined to get off Jaehyun’s couch.

“Why the hell did that little brat Mina just open the door to your apartment to let us in? Why is she in your apartment? Did she break in? She ran out of here like she broke in.”

She had tried convincing Jaehyun to come with her under the guise of brunch, but he snorted and said that just because he and Jinah were working on their friendship didn’t mean he wanted to be in the path of her wrath when Ayeon came clean.

“You’re a traitor.” She hissed, shoving Soya’s dress and the rest of her things into a bag.

He just grinned, leaning against the door frame, watching her storm away from his apartment dressed in his clothes.

-----

“You…she…but wait…you were helping her?!” Jinah screamed after Ayeon finished filling her and Soya in on the events of the last few weeks.

Soya already had her laptop open, the shock had worn off quickly for her, “We’ll probably need to prepare for libel suits and they might try to come at her for illegally obtaining financial documents but we could spin it. I’m also not entirely against flat out lying about how she got access to those.”

Jinah stared at her girlfriend, her jaw dropped, “How are you moving on so fast?! Mina has been a giant thorn in my since the day she stormed into our precinct causing a scene.” She turned and glared at Ayeon, “And what about you? She did all that about Lucas and the podcast!? What about that?”

“You sound hysterical.” Soya mumbled, her fingers flying over her keyboard, “You never sound hysterical.”

Ayeon fought off a smile, “She quit before it aired, that’s why it ended up failing, her editor didn’t have any of the research she collected. She came to me about this corruption stuff. She wanted to expose the hazing happening and then…you know how the rabbit hole works.”

“ing hell. This is insane. The precinct is in utter chaos because of her stunt.” Jinah breathed out. Her eyes widened, “No wonder you agreed to go. Oh my god. I can’t know any of this. I have a billion meetings over the next few days to figure out how the precinct is going to recover from this. People might ask me questions that I can’t know the answer to.”

Ayeon gave her an apologetic look, “I know this puts you in a hard place. It’s partially why telling you guys was so hard. I know this might jeopardize your career. Who knows what changes the interim Commissioner might make.  If it’s about transparency, the cuts might start with leadership.”

“Yeah.” Jinah said quietly, causing Soya to look up with a frown. No matter the reason why Jinah began a cop, it was something that she was good at, she was a leader, she had the power to bring change. Losing her would be a bigger blow to the city and the police force than losing their Commissioner, “I’m not really sure what’s going to happen next.”  

She quickly smiled brightly, only causing Soya’s frown to grow, “Maybe it’s time for a change of scenery, I never liked those old men anyways.”

-----

The thing about bad things that make them hurt so much more is that whenever you think back to them, you always think about the hours before the bad thing happened.

You think about the mundane activities that you carried on with, oblivious to the way your life was about to change forever in a few short hours and minutes. You think back to those moments and nearly explode with frustration, wishing you could grab your past-self by the shoulders and shake them in warning of what was about to happen.

You think about how you did groceries before the car accident. You think about how you were cleaning the house before the police came. You think about how you were walking the dog before the hospital called. You think about how you were painting your nails before you got that email.

You think, you fixate, you obsess over the unassuming moments because those are your last memories of peace.

The thing about bad things is that you never know it’s a bad thing until the very second that it’s too late.

She was in front of Jaehyun’s store, an hour before it was closing when the bad thing happened.

After spending half the day at her apartment strategizing with Soya to come up with the best way to protect Mina legally, she finally was able to get of the house. Part of her should have seen it coming, for the bomb that Mina had exploded, it was too silent, the internal frenzy of the police force shouldn’t have meant that dangerous people forgot who was at the root of all their problems.

And who needed to be extinguished.

It was idiotic of her to allow herself to be lulled into a false sense of security where things were going their way; where they were winning.

She had her messages open after sending a text to Jinah and avoiding Taeil and Doyoung’s messages asking her what she saw at the Commissioner’s Ball. She was about to exit the app when she noticed that Mina’s name was listed fifth.

That didn’t make sense.

She texted Johnny, Jinah and had two unread messages from Taeil and Doyoung. That was four people. She rarely texted Mina. They always spoke face to face.

Why the hell was she the fifth most recent person she texted?

Opening the text chain, she scanned it, her concern growing when she read the last messages they exchanged.

Me: Hey, you okay?

Mina: Yeah, a bit overwhelmed but okay.

Me: Let’s meet. We need to go over our game plan.

Mina: Sure. By the alley? Tomorrow at 8? I have some errands and research to do.

Me: Perfect

She sent these messages in the middle of the night last night when she was at Jaehyun’s place. Her hand began to shake.

She must’ve out.

Panic crawled up as she ran, she hadn’t had a blackout for months, she thought she was fixed, she thought it wouldn’t be a liability anymore. She thought things had gone back to normal.

Ayeon closed her eyes and tried to remember last night. She remembered talking to Jaehyun on his touch, leaning against his arm. She remembered taking her make up off in his bathroom and him handing her his clothes to change into. She remembered being insanely tired and falling asleep right away, her phone next to her head.

The rest was a blur.

She didn’t remember if she woke up in the middle night to send Mina a message. Maybe she did. Maybe she was worried because she wasn’t staying with Mina. She had felt guilty of leaving her alone. She did this to Jinah all the time, waking up in the middle of the night with a new direction for a case, or to Soya, she’d wake up at odd hours, asking her if she wanted to grab breakfast in the morning.

But she always remembered those moments.

The moments where a swatch of time went missing with texts she didn’t remember sending was when she out. She checked her phone and felt sick.

8:45PM

There was no way she was still waiting for her, right?

She hit Mina’s contact and called her number, her phone shaking against her ear as it rang over and over again with no answer.

Hey, you reached Mina’s phone, I can’t come to th—

Ayeon hung up and felt dread grow up her stomach. She lifted her head and stared into Jaehyun’s store, her mind racing. He stepped out from the back and noticed her by the door. His smile faded when he saw the colour drain from her face.

Mina’s face was everywhere and she was barely two blocks away from the precinct where she angered hundreds of people, some incredibly powerful. When her phone started ringing again, her heart jumped as Mina’s name flashed on her screen.

“Hello? Mina are you okay?” Her voice sounded alien to her own ears, taking a pitch higher than she was used to. There was nothing on the other end aside from shuffling and scratching. Ayeon ran her fingers through her hair nervously.

“Mi—”

She froze, the hair on the back of her neck rising when a sound so distinctly like a cross between a scream and a gasp sliced through the air before the line went dead.  

“!” Ayeon screamed before she bolted down the street towards the alley where Mina had once kept her waiting 2 hours.

How could she let this happen?

-----

Mina wondered if this was how everyone felt like when they were dying.

The cold didn’t even chill her anymore, in fact, she grazed her fingers against the blade that was wedged below her belly button, it actually felt pleasantly warm. A buzzing heat that expanded across her abdomen.

Why she wasn’t more scared?

She was pretty sure she was about to die.

Mina forced her eyes to stay open, staring at the masked man, dressed in black that stood over her. She tried to remember everything she could about him, from his stature to his height, but then again, from the floor, everyone seemed taller.

He crouched down to pull the blade out of her, but before he could stand again, she garbled in pain, swinging her arm out to grab the mask around his mouth and pull it off. Her hand flopped next to her unceremoniously as she stared at his face, his mask hanging off of one ear.

His eyes widened in panic and she squinted, trying to commit it to memory. He looked familiar, but a name didn’t jump out, she couldn’t figure out how she knew him. He quickly pulled the mask back over his face, rage filling his eyes before holding the knife over his head.  But just as he was about to swing down, a flurry of footsteps charged towards them and she barely rolled her neck over before she made out Ayeon’s figure careening towards him.

Oh, thank god. She thought before letting her eyes close.

-----

Rage wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the feeling her body produced when she saw Mina.

Her mind blurred, replacing Mina with images of Lucas and Haerin, flickering between the two like a skipping film, before it defaulted back to Mina whose hand was over the bloodied wound. This was her fault. She wasn’t fighting with precision or technique that she was trained with. She fought with emotion; her punches messy but painful. Her swings frantic but landing.

But he was steady on his feet and had a knife.

Her back hit the brick wall when he kicked her back by the stomach, digging viciously into her shoulders as she fought the knife away, pushing it by the hilt, horror etching across her features when the tip of the blade was suspended between her eyes. She could feel her arms burning and hysteria rising as Mina continued to lay lifelessly next to her feet.

It was getting closer. And she didn’t think she could last much longer.

Cutting her losses, Ayeon turned her head to the side, letting the blade press against her