Eunji’s hands were still coated in Bomi’s blood. After everything that had happened, she couldn’t bring herself to wash them. 

When she had arrived at the hospital, the police were already there to take Seungri into custody. Bomi had immediately been taken to the emergency room, leaving Eunji to sit outside in the waiting room, staring down at her blood-encrusted hands. The hospital had provided Eunji a shirt to wear, since she had taken hers off to stop Bomi’s bleeding wound.

She was still shaking. So much had happened in so little time. She had almost lost her best friend, Yookyung was apparently alive, and for the first time in a while, they had a member of the Shadow Clan to interrogate. It had started when Eunji received an odd text from Bomi three hours ago. It had just been a single word: gorilla. There had been no context whatsoever, but Eunji had immediately recognized it as their codeword for help.

Eunji had dropped everything to go to Bomi’s room, where she found her scarf and Bomi’s phone sitting on her desk. It had very obviously been a message specifically just for Eunji. Bomi had written a message on her phone that at first glance was incomprehensible, but Eunji quickly realized that it had been written in the secret code that she, Bomi, and Yookyung had created when they were children. The second Eunji had deciphered the message and saw that it was an address, Eunji immediately set off to chase after Bomi. It unsettled Eunji, knowing that if she had arrived just a second later, Bomi would probably be dead right now.

Her best friend, dead, just after she had come back into her life. It terrified Eunji more than anything, and she thanked all the gods out there that she wouldn’t have to live through that nightmare.

Eunji’s fingers tightened around the piece of paper in her blood-encrusted hands. She had found it in Bomi’s jacket, and when she had first read it, she nearly crumbled it in her hands. This must have been the message that man had said that Bomi would receive soon, which begged yet another question: what did the Clan want from Bomi? It was obviously a letter from the Shadow Clan and an attempt to lure Bomi out. It had worked, and because of it, Eunji’s best friend was lying on the brink of death. Eunji couldn’t even think about what the Shadow Clan could have had that Bomi would have wanted; she was too worried about the prospect of Bomi’s death.

Eunji heard several frantic footsteps heading her way, and she looked up. Chorong and the others were half-running, half-walking down the hallway, looking extremely alarmed and out of breath. Eunji’s mind was so frazzled that it took her a minute to realize that the tall, blonde woman that came with them was the princess in disguise. Naeun had several different disguises that she cycled through whenever she went out, and tonight she had opted for the blonde wig, fake beauty mark, and overdrawn lips.

Naeun got to Eunji first. “Are you alright? We came as soon as you called.”

“I’m alright,” Eunji said. “A bit shaken up, but otherwise fine.” 

Naeun sat down next to Eunji and gave her a hard look, and suddenly Eunji remembered her conversation with Naeun where the princess had told her about her habit of saying that she was fine. Eunji responded with an apologetic look.

“How about Bomi?” Chorong asked. She looked unusually out of breath.

“In the emergency room as we speak.”

“Was she hurt badly?” Hayoung asked. 

“She was badly beaten and suffered a stab wound in her lower belly. I haven’t heard anything from the doctor yet, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s a fighter.” Eunji said the last part as though she was trying to convince herself that as well.

“What happened, anyways?” Namjoo questioned.

Slowly, Eunji gave her account of what had happened. Her teammates listened carefully. Chorong remained oddly still throughout Eunji’s explanation. When she was done, she handed Chorong the letter she had found and said, “I found this in Bomi’s pocket. Bomi can give a better explanation when she wakes up.”

Chorong didn’t take the letter. Instead, she took Eunji’s hand. “This blood―is it yours?”

“It’s Bomi’s.”

Maybe it was the lighting in the hospital, but Chorong looked a bit pale. She took the letter from Eunji’s hand and read it quickly. When she was done, she let the others read it as well “This must be the message that man had said Bomi would receive.”

Eunji nodded tiredly. “That’s what I was thinking.”

Chorong folded the paper in her hand and squeezed it tightly. She looked like she was holding something back. “You should go wash up.”

“I don’t want to leave, in case the doctor comes out.”

“It won’t take long. Besides, we’ll be here.” Hayoung held out her hand. “I’ll come with you.”

Eunji started to protest, but Naeun gently pushed her forward. “Go. We’ll let you know if the doctor comes out while you’re gone.”

“I’ll come running to you if anything happens,” Namjoo promised. “Now, go. You stink.”

“Yes, your stench is damaging my delicate nose,” Naeun added with a slight smile. 

Eunji looked at Chorong. “You told her?”

Chorong shrugged her shoulders. “It came up in a conversation.”

“I’ll have you know that my nose is not delicate,” said Naeun. “If it was, I wouldn’t be able to be around Hayoung every day.”

Namjoo wrinkled her nose. “I can attest to that. Hayoungie only showered once a week back at the academy.”

“I did not!” Hayoung exclaimed. “I smell like fresh-cut roses on a summer day and you know it!”

Hayoung began to walk away with Eunji in tow, but Eunji stopped and said, “Wait. Namjoo-ah, you’re pretty close with the tech team, right?”

“I’d say so. Sungjae and I have been friends since middle school. Why?”

Eunji took out Seungri’s phone from her pocket. Before she had handed him over to the police, she had taken his phone. She tried to find the video of Yookyung that Bomi had told her about, but his phone was protected with a password. “Can you get him to retrieve a video file from this phone?”

Namjoo took the phone in her hands and studied it. “What’s in it?”

“It’s Seungri’s phone. The Shadow Clan member that we have in custody. Bomi said that Yookyung is alive and the proof is in this phone.” Just saying those words out loud made goosebumps appear on her arm.

It was as though a blizzard had broken through the hospital doors; everyone froze and looked at Eunji with wild eyes full of shock and disbelief.

“Yookyung-unnie is alive?” Namjoo whispered. Of everyone else in the room aside from Eunji, Namjoo had been the closest to Yookyung. Though they hadn’t been incredibly close, they had interacted a fair amount when they were trainees.

“How can that be? Bomi saw her get shot,” Chorong asked tensely.

“We all heard the man in the van claim that he burned all of her teammates,” Hayoung recalled.

“It could have been an empty claim,” Naeun surmised. “Are you sure of this, Eunji?”

Eunji shook her head. “No. I haven’t seen the video yet, but Bomi has.”

“It must have shaken her up badly,” Chorong said. She looked extremely perplexed for someone who had barely known Yookyung. “Will Bomi truly be okay?”

Eunji couldn’t help the pang in her heart. “She will. She’ll bounce back from this. Like I said, she’s a fighter.”

“And you?” Chorong asked. Her beautiful chocolate eyes expressed genuine worry, and for a moment, she looked less like a stern leader and more like a concerned friend. Again, Eunji felt a pang in her heart. This one hurt more than the last.

Eunji hesitated before answering, “I’m a fighter too.”

“If you need some time off, just let me know,” Naeun said softly. 

Eunji nodded and turned to Namjoo, who was turning the phone in her hand and examining it closely. “Can Sungjae and his team get the file?”

“I’m sure they can,” Namjoo replied. “I’ve seen them do it before. I’ll get the phone to them as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” Eunji said. She smiled weakly at the others, then turned around and began walking to the restroom with Hayoung following her.

The restroom was empty, which Eunji was grateful for. She wouldn’t exactly want a stranger to come out from a stall and find her scrubbing blood from her hands.

It took three washes and some furious scrubbing, but after a while, Eunji had finally removed most of Bomi’s blood from her hands. Some still clung stubbornly to the depths of her nails. With a frustrated sigh, Eunji gave up on those ones.

Hayoung leaned against the wall, holding some paper towels and watching Eunji splash water on her face. “Now that you’re not surrounded by a group of people, do you want to talk about it?”

Saying nothing, Eunji leaned over the sink and soaked her hair in the stream of water. The water came away red.

“Are you okay, Unnie?” Hayoung asked. “Emotionally, I mean.”

Eunji shook the water from her hair, then took a towel from Hayoung’s hands and patted her face dry. She stared into the white towel when she was done. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Talk to me. Try to voice your feelings, even if you don’t know what they are.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” Eunji said. “It’s a lot. My best friend almost died. My other best friend might be alive. And Chorong-unnie―,” Eunji trailed off before she could finish her last sentence.

“What about Chorong-unnie?” Hayoung inquired. 

“She’s probably furious at me for leaving without telling her,” Eunji said lamely. Hayoung didn’t look convinced, but the younger woman didn’t force Eunji to elaborate. Eunji continued, “Two people that I love dearly, and I could’ve been standing here right now with both of them gone, one gone and one alive, or both of them alive.”

“Bomi-unnie is alive because of you. You saved her. Yookyung may also still be alive. Aren’t those good things?”

“If Yookyung-ah is truly alive, then that means she’s been alone all this time,” Eunji muttered. She crumbled the towel in her hand. “Who knows what the Shadow Clan has done to her? What atrocities has she suffered? Has she been waiting for us to save her this entire time? Does she think that we’ve forgotten about her?”

“You didn’t know that she was alive. How could you have known? Don’t dwell on what you could have done. Worry about what you should do now instead.”

“What if she’s not the same? What if she’s suffered so much that she can’t even recognize me, Bomi, or her family? God, her family...What are we going to tell them?”

“Unnie…”

“Her family’s going to hate us. They’re going to blame us for abandoning her.” It hurt Eunji just to think about it.

“I’m sure that won’t be the case,” Hayoung said. “If Yookyung turns out to be truly alive, then we’re going to do everything we can to bring her back.”

“It scares me either way,” Eunji murmured. “It’s stupid. I’m scared that this might be a lie and that she’s actually dead, yet I’m also scared to face her after all these years.”

“Unnie, look at me.” Hayoung put her hands on Eunji’s shoulders and gently made Eunji look at her. “Everything will be okay. Do you hear me? Everything will be okay.”

Eunji gripped her fists tightly at her sides. She resisted the urge to look away.

“We will figure this out together. You’re not alone,” Hayoung promised. “Okay?”

Biting her lip, Eunji nodded slowly. Hayoung pulled Eunji into a hug, burying Eunji’s face into her shoulder. Eunji wrapped her arms around Hayoung and held her tightly. Not for the first time, Eunji felt an immense amount of love for the maknae. Hayoung and Eunji had only gotten close a few months ago when Naeun had created the team, and since then, Hayoung had shown nothing but unwavering love and support for all of the members. She cared for them as though she had known them their entire lives.

Eunji knew that it wasn’t just because Hayoung felt obligated to; it was just in her nature to care about everyone. It was in all of her teammate’s natures, even though some of them had different ways of showing it.

When Eunji pulled away, she gave a small smile and said, “You were right.” Hayoung gave her a confused look, and Eunji laughed and playfully pushed Hayoung. “You do smell like fresh-cut roses on a summer day.”