009.

               Jongin had put another layer of invisible wall between them. He didn’t talk to Naeun if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. He’d asked Tian to do most of his chores. He pulled every gaze away from Naeun as if there was something big, disgusting on her face. She had to check her face in the mirror for the first few times until she read the room. It was like they were back being on square on.

               Jieun stopped visiting the apartment for a few months. She was always in the headquarter, plotting and working the hardest that Naeun had ever seen. She was always caught up in her work that Chanyeol had to personally message Naeun to ask if Jieun and Jongin was avoiding him. What he didn’t know was Jieun had successfully burned Huang’s business premises and made them earn millions of dollars of loss. Jieun said that the Huang was “ing” pissed. That was where Jongin stepped in: he made sure that every premises of Father were protected and didn’t get jumped by the enemy. He had done a lot of things in making sure they were up and running. A lot of the effort resulted in broken noses, doors slamming, and purple faces. They were never Jongin’s though. He always managed to get out of the scene with his perfect face.

               This also resulted a lot of paperwork to deal with. Naeun had spent weeks of sleepless nights and when she managed to catch one, it was an accidental overslept and folders and papers were laid around her bed sheet. She’d salivated on several papers unintentionally and hid them in between the folders, hoping that Jongin didn’t notice the spot. So far, Jongin hadn’t ask anything of that matter and kept making her do worse, and worse amount of paper works each week.

               Tian consistently walked into the apartment with a dark eye. His role as Jongin’s bodyguard also extended to secure the buildings he owned. He had to beat up people – bad people. Sometimes his luck ran out and caught a few punches, but he always managed to get things done. Naeun knew this because Jongin had always nodded at his presence and patted his shoulder a few times. But this time, his entrance led to Naeun’s sprint to the refrigerator.

               He was limping and his left eye wasn’t just swelling, but his sclera had streaks of red patch. But he didn’t seem to realize he had walked in with a bloody eye because he greeted her in routine manner, “Sup, Naeun.”

               Naeun looked at him in disbelief. She had found the ice bag and was shoving parts of ice cubes into the cloth. “Sit, Tian.”

               “Calm down, Naeun. No pressure.” He sat on the chair, facing the kitchen counter.

               Naeun closed the lid of the ice bag and shoved it on Tian’s left eye. He grunted in response, jumping a little on his chair for the sudden pressure on his wounded eye. Naeun was glaring upon him. “What happened?”

               Tian waved in dismissal. “Oh, same old routine.”

               “Your eye is bleeding!”

               “It’s not as bad as it seems,” Tian replied. “It only hurts when I blink – if I can blink my left eye. And when you shove an ice bag onto my eyes.” He emphasized on the last sentence.

               “What happened?” Naeun lowered her tone. She was a lot more serious.

               Tian looked around and leaned onto the counter before he could lower his voice. “Where’s boss?”

               “Out. Running.” The sight of Jongin’s back closing the door with his usual running clothes this morning suddenly came into the forefront of her mind. He’d left almost an hour ago – he should be back anytime now. Whatever Tian was going to say, he needed to say it fast.

               Tian exhaled. “I found a traitor in the main building on Itaewon.” Naeun held her breath. This wasn’t good at all.

               “Do you know who is it?”

               Despite his black eye, he managed to widened his eyes. “The manager associate of the building.”

               This can only mean one thing: The Kim wasn’t as safe as she thought. “That high of a position and he is still working for the Huang?”

               Tian nodded. “And that wasn’t the worst part—” Naeun leaned into Tian and he whispered the hanging words on her ears clearly. “—I found C4s on his office. Loads of them. He was trying to blow the building up when I caught him tampering the lobby.”

               Naeun didn’t realize she had held her breath. She let out a shaky breath. Her heart was thumping against her ribs, bellowing to jump out onto the ceramic counter. Naeun and Tian had pulled from their gapless position. Naeun was still looking at Tian, loss of words. It struck to her that the Huangs was not out of move. They were always bidding their time – finding the right moment to struck the Kims at the most abrupt time.

               “Did—Did Boss know? Did Jieun know?”

               “They all know last night. They held emergency meeting just last night.”

               She didn’t know that Jongin left the building last night. He didn’t call on her, or tell her that he was leaving to the headquarter. It was her duty to know if her boss was leaving anywhere. Jongin made sure she was in probation and she was to be at his sight anytime possible. She didn’t realize that the rule was made only for Naeun alone. This made her notice her stance in the Kim structural hierarchy. She was their prisoner, only to abide to Father, Alan, and Jongin.

               She was all theirs.

               The invisible manacles felt tighter on her wrists as if reminding her that she was always been a prisoner – a pawn. It was only because of how Jieun treated her that she decided to grow out from the notion and acted like she was a part of this, but she was never resembling to Jieun – or Alan – or Erika – or Tian. Her faith and beliefs were sold by money. It was undeniably different than voluntarily join the Kims and everyone seemed to notice this but Naeun. Once again, Naeun had to remind herself that she was bought and not a voluntary member of the Kims.

               She reached her right shoulder, tracing the sigil planted onto her skin. This is her manacles. “Oh. I didn’t realize Boss was leaving last night.”

               “I’m sure you’re asleep,” He patted the eye bag gently on his wounded eye. “He just didn’t want to bother you.”

               She didn’t sleep last night until three AM. She did listened music on her earphone, but she would know if he yelled. She would know if he knocked on her door and told him that something urgent was happening in the headquarter. She’d appreciate the heads up.

               Her train of thoughts broke away when another bang at the door startled the pair. Jongin had rushed into the apartment. He was panting and sweaty. His disheveled hair was half wet and he had beads of sweats on his forehead, threatening to fall down onto his eyebrows and when they do, they would halt because his eyebrows were thick enough to held them in place. His arms were muscular – Naeun didn’t know why she was paying attention to this.

               He took his air pods off and looked at the two in unease. He paced fast across the kitchen as he broke out the news. His voice was urgent. “We need to get to the headquarter right now.”

               He was already clinging to the doorknob of his room when Naeun took up the courage to ask, “Is something wrong, sir?”

               He turned to Naeun, for the first time in a while held his gaze. Naeun found his eyes were slightly wavering of trepidation and fear. “Father was shot.” Tian and Naeun was loss at words. They were just staring at Jongin, astounded by his words. After a few seconds, Jongin continued. “We need to go to the headquarter. Now.”

               He closed the door with another loud bang.

               All hell broke loose.

               The headquarter was on fire. Security was everywhere. When they went into the building, security was flanking the garden with guns ready. It was worse when they got into the front door. People were half running everywhere and they were shouting at their phone. Jongin, Tian, and Naeun had to shove people to get to the second floor where Father’s office laid. Jongin asked Tian to stay outside and helped manage the security to report back to Jongin. He didn’t say anything to Naeun but beckoned his head inside before he stepped in first.

               It was even more chaos when they went inside. Everyone – even people Naeun never met – was inside, yelling at each other. Jieun was leaning next to the door when she hugged Naeun as she walked inside. She looked like she hadn’t slept for months. The eyebags were hanging visibly on both of her eyes. She didn’t even style her hair, which meant that this situation was that appalling. She only gave Naeun a tight smile.

               Jongin stepped in to the middle of the room. Suho was sitting on Father’s chair. Erika was next to him, standing and staring at Naeun. She was wearing a dark dress that flowed just above her knee. She looked ready for a funeral. Naeun caught her gaze and Erika nodded her head once as a greeting. Naeun replied with a rueful smile. It was the most fitting response at this present moment.

               Jongin was saying something to Suho for a while before he turned his heels to the rest of the crowd.

               “Father is shot and you all have the nerve to fill his office with nonsense?” Jongin’s words rang, striking everyone with trepidation. There was a foreboding quiet following his question. The people that were shouting stepped back to the walls of the room. Jongin’s dominance was like an old magic – suffocating and compelling.

               Suho took advantage of this quiet and spoke, his tone was trying to extort Jongin’s dominance into him. The dominance shifted as Jongin shared his space, but Jongin still held most of it. “My brother is right—” Suho and Jongin stared at each other. Jongin broke away. “This is something that we don’t condone and we need to do something about this attack.”

               “What are you proposing, The Eldest?” Someone asked.

               Erika stepped in. “We are proposing a silence on our part—”

               The room erupted in disagreements. They were a lot of cursing. Erika tapped her fingers against the desk in impatience. Suho hit the table hard with his hands and the crowd died down. He was now half-standing, looking around the room with displeasure. He made a face in disgust. The revulsion successfully made the air around the room tightened. It made Naeun small. Father must have trained both of the brothers well because they knew how to handle their own kind. “You all disgust me. You don’t even wait for my wife to finish talking.”

               Erika took a big breath as if preserving something on . “As I was saying, this is not an accidental matter. This is definitely planned – well-thought, even – to attack Father as he was taking out trash in front of his house. The perpetrator ran away before our security ran into the tree he was hiding—”

               Naeun whispered to Jieun. “He hid on a tree?”

               Jieun nodded. “He’s lucky he got a good vantage point. He’s meters away from Father, Naeun.” Jieun made sure she enunciated the news clearly. “He is sniped.”

               Naeun didn’t know what to say. Father was given the best, well-structured, and tight security of all the Kims. He was supposed to be untouchable. All of the Kims, even Alan, was confident on Father’s safety. Now, they were proven wrong by their cockiness. Father was touched and the rest was not ready of this situation. The way that they handled Father situation was too emotional and less structured—like everyone didn’t know what to do. They were never prepared for this occasion.

               Now: the hierarchy shifted to Suho as the first-line to the throne. Suho seemed to know what he was doing because he looked equitably in his place. Erika was equally convenient in her place. She definitely dressed in occasion – as a High Lady. She made sure she looked like shared the same throne. Jongin remained as The Right Arm. Alan was now the counselor of Suho. His job was to maintain Suho position while Father was away. Jieun was still counted on the table as their strategist.

               Not long after Erika and Suho ended their overview of their plan, the crowd dispersed by leaving the room. All that left was the inner circle of the Kims. The higher ups. It wasn’t Naeun place to stand. She was about to leave the room when Erika called to her. “Naeun. You can stay.”

               Alan looked at her, confusion was written in big letters on his forehead but he was quick to leveled his impression. Jongin’s head snapped back on Naeun as if he forgot that she existed. He moved swiftly to give Naeun space. She stood in front of the table, in between of Naeun and Jongin. Erika and Suho was in the opposite side of the table while Alan stood next to Naeun.

               Suho spoke, “Right. Since we all have gathered. The culprit left a letter for us.”

               Erika took out a crumpled paper from her fist. She opened the paper and laid it on the table. The room was silent as they tried to read the message. Naeun squinted. It was written in such a strange writing with randomized capital letters and bad shapes of letters. There rested series of letters in a strange writing:

               Zhǔzi dEmANDs TaLK. 1300. ChUNG FoOD ExPReSS. ITAEWON.

               Zhǔzi DeMANds The RiGHT ArM aND HiS SeCRETaRY. HaN NaEUN.

               Naeun’s mind travelled vacant. She felt her heart dropped down onto the table and rolled on it as she read the last dot. She couldn’t feel the floor. She tried to shape her words – voiced it. The curiosity, the immense panic, the unforeseen. She wanted to ask why … but she couldn’t form anything on . gaped, trying to speak, but all it betrayed was a shaky breath. She recognized her uneven breaths under her skin. The words in her eyes were spinning, then the table started to spin – then the rest of the room. She felt a warm hand atop her back, but that was it.

               Everything was dark.