Yeohwa the Autonomous City was located at the most eastern island a half an hour ferry ride away from the mainland. As one of the most prosperous city in South Korea, the island was granted a full independence in economy and politic by the government after successfully funded itself from the industrial sectors and a world renowned gambling site, helping the country to create ten thousand job vacancies every year by its high evolving demand for automobile. The fast growing city attracted both local and foreign tourists, and Yeohwa answered the challenge by improving its entertainment sectors such as building amusement parks, private beaches and exclusive service hotels. The place was soon crowded with people from all around the world. A lot of them chose to stay. Hoping to find better lives in Yeohwa, the island was more than overpopulated with so many races and ethnics in just ten years time.

With so many people in a tiny island, Yeohwa had the highest crime rate and was famous for its Four Families. They had control of 80% business in the island, keeping the city alive but they were also believed to be responsible to every crime happened in the place. From drug dealing, weapon smuggling to human trafficking. Although it had become a widely open secret that these families were doing dirty business under the table, no one could touch them. With so much wealth in hand, they could buy the right protection from the right parties.

Thus Yeohwa had a special police unit formed to counter these underground business dealing families and to reduce the spiking crime rate known as the Organized Crime Investigation Unit, moving under the direct order of the Governor with unlimited mandate that went over to the President himself.

A 30 year old woman named Lee Dahae was the head of the investigation. She had only three persons she reports to and it was the Director of OCI, the Governor and eventually the President. Though she mostly talked to the Director and let him do all the rest. Dahae was feared and respected in the city. Rising to her stature in such young age and a very short time had earned her so many enemies even in her own unit, making her a bit of an anti-social person. No one could get over the wall she created herself and the only person she was actually close to lived in a rural part of the city, in an old manor abandoned by its owner after bankruptcy. It was a special girl and a mysterious one who slept past noon and woke up when the sun was about to set. But that day, the girl would be bothered because Dahae had come to the manor very early in the morning.

Clutching a bag of bagels and a cup of coffee in one hand, she walked to the top floor of the old manor and opened a door to a bedroom – the only place where everything was new. On the bed, lied a petite girl wearing only tank top and a very short denim pants. After pulling the blinds on the window open, Dahae threw the bagel on the bed.

The petite girl writhed in annoyance and growled. “Oh, God, sunlight.”

“Wake up, Ungnyeo. The sun is awake.”

“It’s because the sun is awake that I have to sleep, Unnie,” the girl buried her face on the pillow. “What are you doing here so early?”

“Bringing you breakfast,” Dahae pulled the blanket that covered half of the girl’s body. “You should be thankful.”

The Ungnyeo sat up and ruffled her hair. “That’s not like you. You never come here early in the morning to just bring me breakfast.”

Dahae smiled and watched Taeyeon reached for the bagel.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Coffee. Black. Just how you like it.”

“Um,” Taeyeon cringed after tasted the coffee. “You don’t have milk?”

“Milk?”

“Yeah. Hot white… vanilla milk….”

“Of course not,” then she sat on a chair and crossed her legs. “Why did you keep doing that, Taeyeon?”

“Doing what?” Taeyeon started on her bagel.

“Telling your name to those criminals.”

Taeyeon shrugged. “They need to know my name. That’s why I’m doing this in the first place.”

“I told you that that is not how you bring them down. It only makes you a vigilante which the governor hates. He’s instructing the police to catch you. It brings me trouble.”

Taeyeon put the bag of bagel on the bedside table. “Unnie, I can’t just barge into the Four Families’ houses and wreck havoc there, can I? I have to lure them out, do the crime themselves and you said you will catch them red handedly when that happens, right?”

“Then stay with the Ungnyeo name.”

“The Ungnyeo has no identity. They can’t find the Ungnyeo. Kim Taeyeon, however, they can track down pretty easily.”

“Exactly my point. You don’t want them tracking you down. As the Ungnyeo you can freely breaking their business like you did last night. But as Taeyeon….”

“No, Unnie,” Taeyeon shook her head, “I need them to know my name. My real, full name. Besides, I don’t like the name Ungnyeo. So heavy.”

Dahae sighed. “You’re putting everyone you know in danger. And you get who I mean when I said that.”

“I have no one,” said Taeyeon.

The woman stood up, heading to the door. “There’s a rumor about the Families getting together. I don’t know when but this I’m sure: when they meet, you are the main subject.”

Taeyeon rubbed her sleepy eyes, nodding to Dahae’s words.

“There will be a lot of heat coming, Taeyeon.”

Taeyeon looked at Dahae. “Just do me a favor and keep an eye on her, Unnie.”

“Sure,” Dahae opened the door but before she walked out, she turned around. “Go get a new outfit if you don’t like the Ungnyeo name. Replace that bear with… I don’t know, a parrot?”

“Just go away, Unnie,” Taeyeon smiled.

**

“There was once a tiger and a bear lived together in a cave and prayed to the divine king of Hwanung to be made human. Hwanung heard their prayers and gave them 20 cloves of garlic, a bundle of mugwort and ordered them to stay out of the sunlight and eat only this food for 100 days. Due to hunger, the tiger left the cave after roughly 20 days, but the bear remained inside. After 21 days, she was transformed into a woman. Ungnyeo was the mother of Dangun who would go on to found the nation of Korea.”

“What?!” Yoona scoffed.

She was in the National University of Yeohwa library with her friend, Seohyun, reading a book about Korean mythology. “It’s what it says in the book.”

“You’re saying that this Ungnyeo that has been catching all these criminals is a deity?”

“I’m just reading what you told me to read, Unnie. I don’t know,” Seohyun put the book down on the table.

“Though it explains how the girl has so much strength.”

“What do you mean?”

“This Ungnyeo girl is said to have thrown a huge crate of guns into a window and smashed through a thick wall. It’s like hearing the story of Hulk, I tell you. I don’t get how this girl can be that strong. I mean if it’s really a girl.”

Seohyun nodded. “I see. Why Ungnyeo, though? Does she look like a bear?”

“A friend in the station said that she has this bear badge on her outfit. But no one can really confirm that because only one criminal who had seen her directly. And that criminal is in jail. I can’t get to him without a level 3 permit. I am still far even from a level 1 permit,” Yoona whined.

“So you’re doing individual investigation instead?”

“Yes. So, one thing I know is that the Ungnyeo’s name starts with Kim…. Do you know how many Kims in Yeohwa’s police database, Seohyun? More than 2,000 people!”

Seohyun laughed. “It’s always a pleasure seeing you getting worked up because of your job, Unnie. Although I have to ask is it okay to share such information to an innocent civilian like me?”

Yoona gasped. “Oh, crap. You heard nothing, Hyunnie. Absolutely nothing.”

Seohyun laughed again. “Well, I have class to teach. You enjoy your work, Unnie.”

“Yeah. Say hello to your students for me.”

Seohyun waved goodbye at Yoona and the latter girl sighed. She stayed in the library for another ten minutes before deciding to return to the police station. When she stood up, she bumped the chair where Seohyun was sitting and something fell off of it.

It was a sketchbook with a cartoon character on it. It was definitely Seohyun’s considering her huge interest in Japanese animation. Yoona picked the book and shuffled through the pages. Seohyun had kept herself busy drawing all kinds of characters in it and one picture piqued Yoona’s interest. It was a detailed design of a robot. Yoona smiled at how big of a maniac her friend was before shoving the sketchbook into her bag.

**

Hwang Tiffany counted every tick of the clock’s hand from her desk. She had only one thing to do that day which was to write an article for Daily Encounters corner in a magazine called Voices of Yeohwa where she worked. The corner told the daily lives of Yeohwa’s citizens and Tiffany never had any difficulty writing them down because everything in the city was so mesmerizingly interesting for her. She wrote about an old lady that made her dolls collection married to one another and then about the people a taxi driver meets every day for the previous editions of the magazine. Both articles received positive responds that her editor told her to make it a permanent corner.  

That month was different, though. Tiffany had lost her passion in writing ever since a small tragedy struck her life. When the person she had loved with all of her heart decided to break all ties and left her. Although Tiffany had vowed not to drown in the disappointment, she could not lie to herself that the person took away a huge chunk of her soul when she left.

“I can’t see you anymore. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. We’re nothing but strangers now,” said a girl named Kim Taeyeon, a girl Tiffany loved so much for the past three years.

Tiffany stretched her body and sighed. The clock almost struck at three in the afternoon and since she had no idea to write anything that day, she decided to go home. When she was packing her stuff, her phone beeped.

A message came and it was from her date last night. It brought smile to her face when she read it.

“So my friend told me there’s a devastatingly great horror movie playing and I’m dying to see it but I’m too scared to watch it alone. So if you’re free tonight, would you accompany this coward?”

Tiffany returned the message quickly, “I’m free now.”

And the reply was just as fast. “Be there in twenty.”

**

The day was cold so Taeyeon had to zip her jacket up to her chin as she strolled along the edge of a building’s rooftop. What Dahae said worried her. Taeyeon knew that telling the bad guys her name would impact to people close to her; that was why she burnt every bridge before she decided to become a vigilante. But still, if Dahae was right, the only person she cared enough to die in this world would be in danger.

With that thought in mind, Taeyeon was casually leaping from a rooftop to another, going to a building in the middle of the city with huge letters saying Voices of Yeohwa on top of it. Taeyeon stood on the rooftop of a building across it, looking down to the street where the main entrance was located.

The girl she was thinking of probably still working at this hour and she would wait for her until she was done. To her surprise, the person she was waiting for came out two hours earlier than expected.

“Oh,” Taeyeon leaned forward to get a better look.

**

Tiffany put her hands in her pockets as soon as she came out the building. A smile formed in her face when her eyes caught the image of a man in blue blazers waiting for her. The man waved at her.

“Hey,” he said. “You’re early.”

Tiffany walked closer to the man. “Yeah, I don’t feel like working. You?”

“Ditched them. I need to take a break,” the man shrugged. “So? The theatre?”

“Sure,” Tiffany nodded and then the man offered his arm. Tiffany let out an awkward chuckle. After a few seconds of hesitation, she took the offer. Tiffany put her hand on the man’s arm as they walked to the nearby theatre.

**

Taeyeon almost fell off the building when she saw Tiffany hugging the man’s arm.

“Yah!” she shouted and then jumped down the rooftop to a nearby alley. Putting her hoodie on, she followed Tiffany along the road.

The man was handsome, Taeyeon would give him that, but Tiffany deserved someone better than that. He was tall, far taller than Taeyeon, and athletic. He seemed like an ideal man for every girl but Taeyeon had the feeling that he was not enough for Tiffany. But then again, no one was worthy enough for Tiffany.

The couple talked along the way, laughing at times because apparently, the man was quite humorous. It ticked Taeyeon off and she was stomping as she followed the two.

“So I wondered, why did he get a tomato tattoo? He should’ve picked pineapple instead, at least it has thorns,” he said.

Tiffany laughed. “Why is your boss so random?”

“I don’t know. Most of the time I don’t know what he’s thinking. Maybe that tattoo is a symbol of one of the Four Families.”

“Ooh, that’s interesting,” Tiffany said.

They stopped at a red light and had to wait for the traffic. When she stood there holding the man’s arm, she saw a figure was standing behind them from a window across the street. Tiffany knew the figure, she knew it too well. Although her vision was torn between the running cars, she was sure that the figure behind her was someone that left her and broke her heart.

Tiffany turned her body around and there she was. Standing a few meters away in a black jacket with a hoodie. When the girl saw Tiffany, she panicked and ran away.

“Wait!” Tiffany yelled.

“What?” the man was surprised.

“Excuse me for a moment!” Tiffany ran after the girl.

“Crap! Crap! Crap!” Taeyeon’s heart was pounding hard. She turned into an alley in a hurry and then she jumped up, kicking a wall beside her and climbed up the nearest building.

Tiffany followed her to the alley. She saw Taeyeon hopping up to the rooftop. “Tae-, ah!” she slipped on a pebble and fell on the frozen concrete. Grunting in pain, Tiffany sat up. Her palms were scratched from the fall.

Taeyeon suddenly dropped in front of her with a worried look on her face. “Tiffany…. You okay?”

Tiffany looked at Taeyeon in anger and when the latter girl offered her a hand to help her up, she slapped it. “I’m fine!”

Taeyeon reeled back. “Sorry.”

Tiffany stood up, brushing the dust off her pants. “Are you following me?”

Taeyeon bit her lower lip.

“You said you don’t want to see me anymore and you’re stalking me now? What do you really want?!”

“I’m – I’m sorry.”

“I’m on a date right now. So back off and don’t follow me!”

Taeyeon felt her spine was shaking. “Right,” she said as she walked to the entrance of the alley. “Sorry. Again.”

Tiffany glared at Taeyeon as she took a turn. Then, the man she left at the red light came running. “Tiffany? What happened?”

“Nothing,” said Tiffany. She took the man’s arm and hugged it, leading him out of the alley. They were back at the pavement, going straight to the theatre.

“Why did you run?”

“Nothing,” said Tiffany. When they reached the red light again, she turned her head around. Far at the distance, she could still see Taeyeon’s black jacket, walking away from her.  

“Stupid Taeyeon,” she said and unconsciously, she hugged the man’s arm tighter in anger.

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