"...Prosecutor oppa... it's your turn, now."

Yongguk cradled Yonghee protectively in his arms, swaying her back and forth as he crooned her a melancholy lullaby. Yonghee sobbed furiously into the front of his shirt, staining the red dye of the cloth with her clear, salty tears. Apprehension twisted a knot in Yongguk's stomach, and he winced pitifully at the scorn dancing across Yonghee's frightened pair of eyes. "I'm sorry I wasn't here to save you again," he whispered into her tangled hair. He kissed the crown of her head affectionately, tucking her securely into the comfort of her bed. "I knew I should've gone straight home; I should've just bailed on practice... Oppa is really sorry, Yonghee-ah," Yongguke whimpered, running a careful hand through the knots of her dark locks.

"You promised," she croaked through a sea of tears. "You promised it wouldn't happen again!"
"I'm sorry -- I promise you for sure this time, Yonghee.. it seriously won't happen again.. I swear it to you on my life; Abeoji won't touch you ever again."
Slowly, Yongguk interlocked his pinkie finger with Yonghee's petite finger and pressed his thumb to hers. "On my life, Yonghee -- I swear I will protect you. You won't get hurt anymore."

Yonghee scoffed to herself bitterly, gritting her teeth as she rotated her jaw at the bitter recollection of flashbacks; they poured endlessly into her mind, racking her brains with a twinging sensation masked with a dogmatic revere for vengeance. "You sick liar," she growled to herself. She crossed her legs, examining the floral wallpaper encasing the walls around her, eyes falling over the vintage furniture of the cramped apartment compound. She sighed heavily, resting her back up against the cushion of the loveseat with a profuse solemnity overtaking her stoic visage.

"This is going to be our new place," Yongguk announced happily. He burst through the doors of the apartment room and chuckled, dragging in the pre-teen Yonghee through the doors. "It's not much.. but my friend, Himchan, and his mother are lending it to us for as long as we need it. The only things we need to pay for are our own necessities -- they've got the bills handled, so we should be set."
"Oppa --"

Yongguk smiled, instantaneously brushing away Yonghee's worries and protests; gently, he wrapped her small body into his muscular arms, turning her so she faced the living area. "It's great, isn't it? You've always wanted to experience living alone, so here it is... well, you've got me, but I'll be a fly on the wall. I promise, it'll be like I'm not even there to bother you."

He flashed his signature gummy smile and giggled boyishly as he stared down at his profound younger. "Just enjoy yourself, Yonghee," he told her reassuringly. "Abeoji won't find us -- he's not going to hurt you anymore. Trust oppa, araseo?"

"You sick, lying bastard," Yonghee remarked pathetically. She scoffed under her breath and crossed her arms, twirling the dagger in between her slender fingers. "How stupid are you?" she grunted. Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes, cascading down her cheeks and streaking a long black trail of ink down as it flowed. Her mascara ran slowly down her blushing cheeks alongside her mascara as more and more tears flowed from her eyelids. Her lips began to quiver as she held herself. "How could you lie to me like that?" she whispered.

"So this is where you two were hiding out? Yonghee... Appa is so disappointed. Don't you love me? Why would you run away? Should I have to claim you again? Don't you realize you can't escape me? I love you, Yonghee --"
"Stop!" Yonghee held her schoolbag protectively over her chest, cowering against the door as her father approached her tauntingly from the living room; she pressed her back up against the wooden surface of the door , pressing her knees together as she slid her back down. In the corner, she sat, trembling with an increasing trepidation running through her warm veins. "Leave," she begged the aging man desperately.

He glowered down at her, extending his hand to grip the locks of her shoulder-length hair. "You've grown up to become a beautiful young woman," he murmured with a hint of lust. His eyes were animalistic as they grazed her curvaceous features; they hungrily traveled down her collar bones, and down her arms and exposed legs, waltzing over her frail body like she was a piece of meat. "I should punish you, Yonghee; you've really hurt Appa's feelings."
"Aniya! Andwae! Please, don't!"

Buttons popped off as he grasped the front of her shirt. 
The zipper of her skirt flew down.
And she was back to where she began -- at square one; as a victim.

Yonghee rose from her seat, growling inwardly to herself. She bit her lip, retracting a minute amount of blood as her sharp teeth sunk into the sensitive skin of her lips. She choked on her stifled sobs; her appearance was drastic. Her makeup was ruined as well as her expression. What was suppoesd to be a grand finale became a one of a nightmare. Yonghee's eyes shifted to the door as she heard the lock click.

"Where have you been?"

Yongguk looked up with an unfamiliar ferocity in his eye. A mischievious glint passed through Yonghee's irises as she scanned his distressed form, heaving as he glowered down at her elegant decorations. "Where are you going?" he breathed.
"Nowhere."

Yonghee blinked at him once, before smiling sadly to herself. In her lonesome, she wallowed herself in her fears and drowned herself in her worries and concerns; she remained still as Yongguk glued himself to his current spot. He watched her carefully with utmost meticulation, scanning her actions with a precise sincerity. "Why are you dressed up?"
"It's for the finale," she whispered, bringing the knife in her hand into view. "The last image you'll have of me, Bang Yongguk, is one of utmost remembrance. A beautified soul that has been morphed into something drastically ugly.. my make-up's already ruined, too," she whispered. "Ah..." She sighed quietly, smirking contemptuously as she looked up at Yongguk from behind her long eyelashes.

He shared a glance with her, ignoring her ruined make-up; he looked past her smeared mascara and past her streaked eyeliner and focused solely on her eyes. His gaze softened as he deciphered a hidden emotion behind them -- nostalgia. "Ugly?" he whispered with a subtle disbelief leaking into his voice. "Ani.. You're Bang Yonghee," he told her, "one of the most beautiful girls alive."

He found himself growing nostalgic as well, seeing her draped in the same, long back dress she used to dress herself in when she was a child; the same heels she wore to enunciate her princess fantasies -- the dress that once belonged to their mother, as well as the shoes; the jewelry that hung around her neck and wrist once belonged to their mother as well -- their mother, whom is now long gone.

"You look just like Umma," Yongguk told her gently. He smiled nostalgically. "Even the dress is a perfect fit now.. does time really pass by that fast?"

"Oppa, look at me!"

Yongguk shuffled to his sister's bedroom, only to find her in an oversized evening gown. Large earrings hung from her ears as a long necklace embroidered with diamonds hung limply around her neck. The silver bracelet around her wrist threatened to fly off with every flick of her hand. He smiled, though, as he glanced at her. "What are you doing, Yonghee?"

The young ten year old giggled like the small schoolgirl she was and gave Yongguk a flamboyant twirl. "Don't I look like a princess?"
"A very beautiful one," Yongguk announced grandly. "You look just like umma."

WIth this, Yonghee's young, adolescent eyes brightened as she smiled radiantly up at her elder. "Really!?"
"You two could be identical twins!"

"Protect me? Beautiful? Look just like umma?" Yonghee scoffed, shaking her head as she gripped the knife tighter. Yongguk's eyes fell upon the fatal weapon, and he stood alert with his back erect and fists clenched, ready to flee or fight. "How could you lie so cleanly?" Yonghee demanded through gritted teeth. She clenched her jaw and rolled her small hands into fists. She trembled with a great ferocity coursing through her bloodstream, biting down on her lip as more tears threatened to fall. "You're a liar.. a dirty, bastard of a liar."

Yongguk's eyesbrows furrowed, tongue ready to object, when Yonghee glared furiously at him; he shrinked back a few steps from the sudden change of emotion. "He touched me, he me, he molested me -- you told me it wouldn't happen again! You said you'd protect me, oppa!" Yonghee cried outrageously. "You said he wouldn't find us; you said I'd be okay!"
"Yonghee --"
"He hurt me, and you still had the audacity to promise me that it wouldn't happen again. Lie after lie, after lie, after LIE!" Yonghee screeched, wailing as tears flooded down her dampened cheeks. "You're just one of them. You deserve the same thing as all of them; I trusted you!" she screamed ferociously. "I trusted you.."

"Don't --"

"I can't hurt you," Yonghee whispered suddenly. "When I look at you, no matter how much I want to launch myself at you and tear your face off, I can't find myself to do it; I can't do you in like I did with that sick ert." Yongguk's eyes softened at hearing this proclaimation. He recomposed his posture and took three steps forward, closing the vast distance between him and Yonghee. 
"Yonghee.. don't hurt me. Don't hurt anymore people."
"You're going to suffer. You're going to be in pain, oppa," Yonghee promised defiantly. "You're going to experience the exact same pain I did... Hapjeong-dong, Mapo-gu," she recited gently. "One... but that one isn't going to be you."

Yongguk knitted his eyebrows with a penetrating confusion.

"It's not going to be the ahjumma next door or the ahjusshi who works at the laundromat three doors down. It's not going to be your rookie partner, nor is it going to be any other dirty man," Yonghee declared. "I'm going to make sure you suffer.. but it'll be a pain you will never forget -- you will never let this go," she whispered. "Never.. ever.. ever."

The confident look in her eye twinkled, making its debut for the first time that night after being masked behind a doleful anger all night.
"Who, then, Yonghee? Who's your final victim? If not some random, innocent citizen, then.. who?" Yongguk whispered worriedly.
She smiled woefully, raising the weapon in hand. She gave it one last twirl before holding it in front of her, eyes set on the reflection she saw of herself in the blade. "Then.. me."