Her teammates were burning. They were screaming, trying to crawl away from the fire, as the flames consumed their bodies. As much as Bomi tried to move, she could not. Some invisible force was holding her down, forcing her to watch all of her teammates disintegrate into ashes.

All of them except Yookyung.

Yookyung was alive.

Abruptly, reality crashed back down onto Bomi. Her eyelids fluttered open, and through her blurry vision, she saw no flames. Just white walls. She blinked her eyes a few times, trying to dispel the dreariness, and eventually her vision cleared up, revealing a large room with several neat rows of beds. 

“Bbom-ah?”

Bomi turned and saw Eunji seated next to her bed, watching her with worried eyes. She had dark bags under her eyes and she looked very tired.

“Where am I?” Bomi asked groggily. She tried sitting up, but a sharp pain exploded in her lower belly and forced her down. She looked down at her body and found it covered in bandages and bruises. Suddenly, it all came crashing back to her. The warehouse. Seungri. The knife in her belly. Yookyung.

Yookyung.

“Yookyung is alive!” Bomi gasped. The mere thought of her friend’s name dissipated the fog in her mind, and she looked at Eunji with a much sharper gaze. “Eunji-ah, the Shadow Clan has Yookyung.”

Bomi had expected a slightly more urgent response from Eunji, but her friend simply gripped her hand and said, “You told me. The tech team is trying to extract the file right now.”

“We have to move right away. We don’t know when they’ll suddenly decide that she’s not useful anymore.”

“Bbom-ah,” Eunji tried speaking, but the thought of Yookyung in danger had Bomi’s mind in shambles.

“Does the team know? Does Chorong-unnie know?”

“Bbom-ah,” Eunji said again.

“Will they help us? They have to, don’t they? What does Princess Naeun think?”

“Bomi-unnie,” Eunji said for the final time. This time, Bomi did stop. Eunji never said her name like that, and when she did, it was usually something serious.

“I’m sorry,” Bomi murmured guiltily. “I got too carried away.”

“It’s alright, I understand. I want to get her back as much as you do.” Eunji squeezed Bomi’s hand lightly. “But we can’t get our hopes up too high. The video might be fake or the person in it might have been someone else.”

No matter how much Bomi hated to admit it, Eunji was right. Seungri had only flashed the video in front of her eyes for a few seconds. It had been enough for Bomi to immediately recognize the woman in the video, but the more Bomi thought about it, the more she began to doubt herself.  Bomi bit her lip and conceded, “You’re right.”

“We will figure this out,” Eunji said. She sounded a bit sad. “Anyways, how are you feeling? You’ve been out for five days.”

Bomi did a double-take, her eyes widening in surprise. “Five days?”

“Yes, five days. We were beginning to get worried.”

It was still difficult to register that she had been unconscious for five days, but then again, her injuries had nearly been fatal. “Do I look like an oversized grape again?”

“I’d go for an oversized plum.”

“Then I feel like an oversized plum that’s been dropped down a flight of stairs, stepped on, and smashed.” That was as accurate as she could put it. It hurt to do the simplest things, like turning her head or even breathing, so she tried her best to remain still, paralyzed by her own pain.

“Don’t forget sliced up,” Eunji added, staring at Bomi’s belly. “I’m glad you’re okay though.”

“‘Okay’ is stretching it. ‘Alive’ is more like it.”

“I’m glad you’re alive, then.” There was genuine gratification in Eunji’s voice, and, with a wave of guilt, Bomi realized that Eunji had been worried sick about her. Bomi had told Chorong that she wouldn’t hurt Eunji anymore, and she had broken that promise less than a week later.

“I’m sorry that I left without telling you. Thank you for saving me, Eunji-ah. I owe you my life.”

“I’ve saved your life two times now. You owe me two lives.”

“Alright, I owe you this life and the one after,” Bomi vowed.

“Deal,” Eunji said. “Now, could you tell me what happened?”

Bomi leaned back into her pillow and shut her eyes momentarily, drawing up the memory of the nightmare she had lived through. She told Eunji everything, from the mysterious letter, to Seungri showing her the video of Yookyung, and finally to her fending off a dozen men. Her friend remained still, but it was a deadly kind of still. Eunji’s hand tightened around Bomi’s when she told her about Yookyung and even tighter when she told her about how Seungri had stabbed her. When she finished, Bomi smiled wanly and said, “I’m glad you still remember our secret codes.”

“I could never forget,” Eunji smiled and rubbed Bomi’s hand.

Bomi wanted to say that she could never forget either, but the words were trapped in . As she stared at her friend and took in her tired eyes, messily tied hair, and hands gently caressing Bomi’s, Bomi found herself unable to do anything but stare. 

Eunji had gone through so much for Bomi; if there was ever a perfect example of a friend, it would be Eunji. Even after everything that had happened, Eunji had never left Bomi’s side. 

But Bomi had left hers. Despite what Eunji had said about moving forward, Bomi could never forgive herself for what she did. She woke up with the guilt every day, and although it was slowly lessening, she knew that it would never leave her. She would move forward, yes, but now without the shadow of her guilt following her around.

Bomi tightened her fingers around Eunji’s. 

Never again. 

She would never leave Eunji’s side ever again.

“What were you thinking?” Chorong demanded the moment she stepped through the infirmary doors. She strode purposefully towards Bomi and stopped by the side of her bed.

“Well, hello to you too,” Bomi said coolly. “I’m feeling fine, by the way. A little bruised and cut up, but fine nonetheless.”

“What were you thinking?” Chorong demanded again. 

“That depends on what you already know.” Eunji had left a while ago, leaving Bomi to sit in her bed with nothing to do for three hours. Namjoo, Hayoung, and Naeun had all come to visit her for a few minutes, but this was her first time seeing Chorong since the night she snuck out.

Chorong, who she had been so scared to never see again when she had been on the brink of death.

“Was it because you thought that you’d find your One-Eyed Man waiting for you in that warehouse?”

Bomi tensed. “What?”

“I know about your mission to find that One-Eyed Man from the Shadow Clan. Did you go because you thought that this would have been your chance to finally avenge your teammates?”

“No!” Bomi exclaimed, and she was surprised that she actually meant it. Despite those years of hunting down that man and literally going to bed every night with his face burning in her mind, he had not played a role in her decision to go to the warehouse. Not a major one, anyways. “I didn’t go because of that. I mean, yes, a part of me was hoping that he would be there, but that’s not why I went.”

Chorong furrowed her brows, but she didn’t press anymore on that topic. “Eunji told me what you told her. Why didn’t you tell the rest of the team?”

“They threatened to kill you guys if I told anyone about it.”

“So you just told Eunji, as though they wouldn’t kill her too?” Chorong looked genuinely upset, and Bomi couldn’t blame her. Bomi had made a handful of mistakes that night, and there was no one else to blame but herself.

“I made a mistake, I know,” Bomi said. “But at least now we have a Shadow Clan member to interrogate.”

“At what cost? You could have died! Eunji could have died trying to save you!”

“I know!” Bomi snapped. “Don’t you think that I know what could have happened to her? What do you think I’ve been sitting here thinking about for the past three hours?”

“Why didn’t you tell the rest of us? If you told Eunji, you could have told us too. What, was Eunji supposed to be your one sacrifice? Better one than all of us, is that what you thought?”

“Of course not!” Bomi cried, bolting up in her bed. Her cheeks became red hot with anger. “Don’t you ever assume that again. Don’t you ever assume that I would just toss away my best friend’s life like that.”

“Is that not what you did? The Shadow Clan threatened to kill your teammates if you told anyone about the meeting, and instead of telling the rest of us, you chose to just tell Eunji. Tell me how that’s any different.”

Bomi hated that she couldn’t come up with a valid reason. Everything Chorong had said made sense, even though it was definitely not what Bomi had intended to do.

“Do you not trust us?” Chorong asked, and Bomi thought that she sounded a bit more sad than angry. For the first time, Bomi noticed how tired the leader looked. Chorong usually always looked so composed, but the Chorong in front of her had heavy bags under her eyes and slightly unkempt hair.

“No, no,” Bomi shook her head. “I do. I do trust you guys. It’s just…”

Bomi trailed off, but Chorong urged her to continue, “What?”

“I was just…”

“You were what?”

“I was scared to lose you!” The words exploded past Bomi’s lips before she could catch them. Chorong paused and just stared at Bomi, her lips slightly agape. It seemed as though her answer had surprised Chorong just as much as it had surprised Bomi. 

“I was scared to lose you guys,” Bomi said again, this time much quieter. “The Shadow Clan had said that they’d kill you if I involved the team, and that scared me.”

Chorong started to say something, but she stopped, like she was struggling to find her words. When she finally spoke, she asked tightly, “So why did you tell Eunji?”

“I wanted you to know that I wasn’t running away,” Bomi muttered.

Again, Chorong hesitated. “You could have done that another way.”

“I know!” Bomi replied exasperatedly. “I know. I didn’t want to tell you guys directly, because I knew that I would be directly going against what the letter said. I thought that if I could send Eunji a message using our secret code, then I could indirectly tell her what was going on. It’s messy, I know, and I shouldn’t have been so hasty, but it happened, alright? I can’t go back in time to stop myself.”

“No,” Chorong said. She looked sideways. “You certainly can’t.”

“I’m sorry, Unnie,” Bomi said. “I was scared. I admit that. I was scared to lose the people that I care about again. That’s also why I kept running away in the beginning.”

Chorong returned her gaze to Bomi and replied in a small voice, “I know.”

Bomi almost smiled. She tried reaching for Chorong’s hand, but Chorong took a step back. She gave Bomi a hard look. “You were scared to lose the people that you care about. But what about the people that care about you?”

Bomi stared up at the leader, unsure of what to say. 

“Don’t you think that they’d be scared to lose you too?” Chorong asked, then she turned around before Bomi could even part her lips and walked out of the infirmary.