JAYWALK : Beating the Red Light

Next week came and it’s Sakura’s last week in serving her “sentence.” As much as she craves going back into action, she’s already getting the hang of the work in traffic control. She realized whatever department you belong in the police force, you all serve and protect the same people. It’s also nice to come back to the low ranks where one first started as it makes one reminisce and realize how far one has come to achieve where they are today. Add on to that the chaotic things she experienced during her duty. She’ll definitely miss the kids’ San tokki singing. What about Eunbi-ssaem? Let’s see.

Sakura’s day is unexpectedly smooth. Everything seemed right and there was no traffic. She even saw Kwon Eunbi walking relaxingly on the sidewalk and waiting patiently to walk through the crosswalk.

“Good morning Sakura-ssi!” Kwon Eunbi greeted her cheerfully.

“Good morning, Eunbi-ssi.” Sakura greeted her back. “You seem earlier than usual,” she added.

Eunbi chuckled. “Well, I’m a teacher, so I should set a good example to the kids.” The light turned green for the pedestrians. “I’ll get going now. Have a great day, Sakura-ssi.”

“You too, Eunbi-ssi.”

Eunbi’s class is very lively and enthusiastic today.

Eunbi sat down on a stool and said, “Okay kids! Sit and settle down on the floor because we will have your favorite...” 

The kids raised their hands up in delight. “Storytelling!”

Eunbi chuckled at the kids’ excitement. Eunbi readied the story she’ll read today and two hand puppets for the main characters.

“Are you all ready?”

“YEEESSSS!!!”

“Here is, The Princess and the Knight.” As soon as Eunbi started saying the title, the kids paid more attention to her. She also showed a princess on her right hand and a knight on the other.

“The princess has been living in the tower for soooo many years because she was taken away by a hu~ge dragon! RAWWWRR!” Eunbi imitated a dragon and made a scary face.

“AHHHHHHH!!!” The kids were easily scared. Eunbi continued her story.

“But behold! I, the white knight, shall come to your rescue!” Eunbi held out her hand wearing a knight hand puppet. She played with her hands while holding a dragon plushie and a knight making them fight together. The kids are cheering for the knight to win. When Eunbi dropped the dragon plushie to the floor, the kids clapped their hands and shouted, "HOORAY!"

"The princess and the knight then lived happily ever after. The end." Eunbi finished it with the princess and knight puppets put close together.

"Eunbi seonsaengnimmm!" A girl raised her hand.

"Yes?" Eunbi responded as she removed the puppets off her hands.

"Omma said that I'm a princess. Would I also have my own knight?"

Eunbi smiled genuinely at her. "Of course, Naeun-ah! In our life, I believe we all have that person who is our knight. Someone who will protect us no matter what!" Upon hearing Eunbi's answer, the girls' eyes sparkled as they thought about their own image of a knight.

"Does Eunbi seonsaengnim have a knight?" A boy asked next. Eunbi thought about it and was about to answer when—

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Sakura is having a great time being on the street. The traffic has been flowing smoothly without problems. This is such a great way to end my demotion. She thought her day could last like this when she suddenly heard static on her walkie-talkie.

“All available Criminal Division Units please deploy to Jangneul-gu Hyegeol-ro 2-gil 319-dong 927-ho! A prisoner has escaped Jangneul Police Station and has taken hostage over—”

“Eunbi-ssi’s school.” Upon realizing the address she heard from her walkie-talkie, Sakura started to dash towards the direction of the kindergarten school.

“YAH! ARE YOU CRAZY!?” Some drivers yelled at her as she ran through the crosswalk just when the traffic lights went green.

“SAKURA-SSI!!!” Minseok saw Sakura running away and called for her name as she left her post unattended but there is something much more important than that.

The same notice was repeated again in her walkie-talkie and wondered why no one is taking the case.

“Where the hell is Chang’s team!” She asked angrily through gritted teeth. She took her walkie-talkie and talked through it. “Miyawaki Sakura of Team B taking on the case!” She stopped talking through it and didn’t mind what the person from the Emergency Control Center was saying. She took her phone and called her subordinates.

“Yena, Yujin! We’re gonna take the case over Hyegeol-ro!”

Yujin answered through the phone, “But Captain you’re currently—”

Yena cut off Yujin. “Roger that Captain!” The call ended and Sakura started to run at her fastest to the school. She was able to reach it in 15 minutes.

She scouted the surroundings for any accomplices that might not have been noticed by the CCTV cameras the Emergency Control Center is monitoring. She peeked from the gate and saw the hostage-taker looking through the window. She immediately moved away from the gate to hide and decided to circle the area. She came back to the entrance gate and saw Yena's car driving towards her slowly.

"No one moves!" Sakura heard the hostage-taker shout.

Yena went out of the car with Yujin following her behind. They gave Sakura a salute.

"Captain." They both addressed Sakura as they waited for her orders.

"Let's wait for back-up and observe him for a while." Sakura turned the mic of her walkie-talkie to communicate to the Emergency Control Center.

"Emergency Control? Miyawaki Sakura here. Any information on the suspect?"

The teller chuckled. "I was actually talking to you about it when you cut your comms off. Anyway, the suspect is a prisoner who escaped just an hour ago and his name is Lee Myeongjin. 35 years old. A 5-year convict sentenced with 10 years imprisonment for committing several fraudulent crimes against small and big businesses.”

Sakura hummed. “Do we have the motive for his escape?” As she was having a conversation with Emergency Control, patrol cars have arrived on the scene and are on stand-by for Sakura’s orders.

The Emergency Control respondent answered, “We are still looking for it.”

“Tsk. I think we should just ask him that. It’ll get scarier for the kids if we prolong this situation.” She didn’t turn her mic off and immediately turned to her fellow policemen waiting for her.

“Today’s situation is a hostage-taking being committed by prisoner Lee Myeongjin who just escaped prison. Motives are still unknown. I want 5 people to remain here on the main entrance on standby while I negotiate with the hostage-taker. The rest will surround and secure the perimeter. Please proceed with caution, and be alert for any attempted escape on any other exits available. So far the only exit I’ve seen while checking the perimeter was a small gate on the other side of the school.” She looked at the backup she had and nodded her head. “Let’s start rolling!”

“Yes Ma’am!” The policemen immediately acted according to Sakura’s orders. She got a megaphone out of Yena’s car and turned it on.

“Mr. Lee!” Sakura yelled through the megaphone. The curtains of the room were swept to the side and his face finally got revealed.

Lee Myeongjin’s face got pale upon seeing the police outside of the kindergarten; he turned harshly back to his hostages and yelled. “Who called the police? Huh!?” He looked around each of their faces. The kids stuck closer to each other when their eyes met his. He stopped and stared at one of the teachers who looked visibly more nervous than anyone else. “Is it you?” He slowly walked towards the teacher. It was Wendy who was able to sneak in a phone call when he just barged into their school. Wendy shivered from fear and was backing away when someone went between them and faced Lee Myeongjin.

“P-please don’t hurt her. I did it!” Eunbi suddenly shouted.

“Wha-what are you saying, Eunbi!?” Wendy hissed. “Don’t lie to him!”

“Shut up, Unnie. I really did it. You don’t need to protect me.” Eunbi answered back.

Lee Myeongjin clicked his tongue. “Tch. Whatever.” He suddenly grabbed Eunbi by her arm and pulled her up, making her yelp from shock and pain. He wrapped his arm around her neck and held her tightly. The kids shouted in protest as they saw that their teacher was in danger.

“Shut up!” The kids immediately quieted down and whimpered silently. Wendy gathered them together and they all held onto each other to help each other calm down.

Myeongjin faced the window which showed Eunbi trapped in his arm. Upon seeing it, Sakura gets more alarmed as she gets more cautious in dealing with him. Eunbi is squinting her eyes in pain because of Myeongjin's tight strangle on her.

"Stop doing that Myeongjin-ssi or you'd get a longer sentence for using violence!"

"I will not hesitate to do something to her if you don't fulfill my request!" He answered as he tightened his arm around Eunbi's neck. Eunbi started tapping Myeongjin's arm to let loose a bit but didn't continue as her eyes met Myeongjin's threatening glare at her.

"What do you want, Myeongjin-ssi!"

"Give back my daughter and wife!!!"

Sakura furrowed her brows and spoke on her comms. "Emergency Control. Any updates on his family, over?"

"Yes, Sakura-ssi. He's been divorced from his wife since his sentence started. His kid doesn't even visit him either. They've been moving around a lot so we're still doing our best to trace them."

“We are already on it, and we’re trying our best to get a hold of them!” Sakura answered through the megaphone. “Can we talk for a while, Lee Myeongjin-ssi?” Sakura asked cautiously.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Lee Myeongjin answered back. He’s not giving in to any attempts of Sakura’s persuasion.

“Yes, but, can we do it without trying to strangle anyone?” Sakura asked again calmly.

It seemed that Lee Myeongjin would comply, but he tightened his hold on his hostage. Eunbi felt more breathless as her airway was getting narrower.

"Okay! Okay! I won't ask that again Lee Myeongjin-ssi. But, can you loosen your hold on her?"

Lee Myeongjin just shrugged and indeed did what Sakura asked him to. Sakura looked at Eunbi with worry who’s clearly in pain because of Lee Myeongjin.

“It seems that he doesn’t have any accomplices,” Yujin said as she came back from observing the whole perimeter while Sakura was talking to the suspect. Sakura only gave her a nod to acknowledge Yujin’s newly gathered information.

“There’s no one except him. What should we do now, Cap?” Yena asked, awaiting orders from Sakura.

“He might do something if we just barged in—”

“Hey! You said you’d bring me my wife and child, where the hell are they!?” Lee Myeongjin shouted angrily.

“We are contacting them already!” Sakura answered. “Ask Ms. Kang from the Emergency Control Center if they’ve got a hold of the wife already,” she ordered Yujin away from the megaphone.

“The ex-wife doesn’t have an active phone number registered to her. It seemed that she cut off connections from anyone. His daughter was once a student in this kindergarten but only studied here for a short time.” Yujin reported back after talking to Ms. Kang.

“So that’s the motive for taking this school hostage,” Sakura concluded.

“AHHHHHHHH!” The police outside suddenly heard a yell from the kindergarten.

"Let go of Eunbi-ssaem!!!"

"Yonggi!" Sakura saw Yonggi being held by his back collar and lifted up by Lee Myeongjin. She aimed for Myeongjin’s back and shot but failed. The glass broke which she used as an opportunity and ran towards it. She jumped right into it and pounced him, tackling him down. Eunbi broke off from his hold and went to Yonggi who fell down to the floor.

Lee Myeongjin pushed Sakura away from him and stood up. Sakura did the same, and they engaged in a fistfight. Lee elbowed Sakura on her chin, almost knocking her out. He suddenly ran and grabbed Eunbi from behind and held her again.

“Ahh!” Eunbi yelped from shock and started to fight back.

"Eunbi-ssaem!" Yonggi shouted for his teacher's name once again and attempted to run on her aid but was taken away by Wendy.

“Argh!” Eunbi finally did what she should’ve done earlier. She bit Lee’s arm which made him yank her body away from him which caused her to stumble towards the wall making her feel disoriented of her surroundings immediately.

"You woman—" Lee pointed the gun at her. "Where is my kid!" He yelled accusingly at Eunbi and fired a shot but…

Sakura shielded Eunbi from the bullet and instead hit her shoulder. She endured the pain slowly intensifying and ran towards Lee. She shouted, "You will never know!" and punched him with all her strength.

Lee Myeongjin fell down as if in slow-mo. After that, Yena ordered the patrollers to help the children get out. The other policemen who were just outside of the school entered to help subdue the criminal. When medical help arrived, Yujin guided them to help the kids, and the teacher and her captain who got injured.

"Sakura-ssi!" Eunbi rushed to Sakura who fell down on the floor shortly after Lee did. She lifted Sakura in her arms and laid her head on her lap. She kept on patting Sakura's cheek gently to wake her up.

"Eunbi-ssi..." was all Sakura had to say before losing consciousness.

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A/N: I don't know what I'm writing ksjdhfkajs but it'll get better in the upcoming parts ^^ And I think that "princess and the knight" story was trash haha. It was obviously written without substance or anything. I was thinking Sakura would catch Eunbi when she falls by the end of this chapter, but I figured, Sakura's done that once already (though the way she caught her was not very chivalrous), so let Eunbi do it on Sakura. Anyways...

Belated Happy Valentine's Day! I'm generally in a good mood for the day but I will never ever get over feeling bitter with AFF's new interface of the mobile app after its update. :D

Till the next read, everyone!

I cannot take the Sakura drought anymore T^T sAkUraAAAAAAAAAAA