Yoseob looks at the finger, then the note. He seems devastated. 

"I don't know, this just isn't Bo Kyung!" He runs his fingers through his long, black, curly hair and sighs.

"Let me look at it," Tae Hyung snatches the finger box out of Yoseob's hands.

He studies the severed finger's bone sticking out.

"Okay, so. . . Blood saturation levels in the surrounding tissues are high; meaning the heart was still beating when they removed the victim's finger. The flesh is pretty fresh too." He shows a little panic in his voice, you don't blame him. Staring at pictures is way different then looking at things up close.

"He's still alive?" You ask, hope filling your voice.

"I think so, but the finger doesn't belong to a male, it's female. The finger is too slim and skinny to be male, also; the fingernail definitely indicates female."

"Okay, so victim's finger is female, that sound anything like Bo Kyung?"

"How old's the girl?" Yoseob asks. Suddenly feeling depressed.

"Judging by the bone structure, I say roughly 18 to 25, give or take," Tae Hyung looks at Yoseob, "you okay?"

He looks ups, and around, realizing that everyone is staring at him. He clears his throat, "yeah, I'm fine. It's just. . . You guys see bones, fingers, victims. I see a scared young woman who's being tortured and held hostage until something worse happens."

What he says is like putting a dagger through your heart. You've never thought of things like that. All you've seen is a case that needs to be solved, you never thought of other people getting hurt. Come on, Je Seok! Don't you ever feel things anymore? You know that things don't affect you as much as your mother's death. Nothing really scares you that much anymore. But you should at least try and feel something.

Still, putting your feelings aside will spare you sorrow. It'll move the case along quicker.

In your spare time, you can go paranoid in trying to find this girl. It will do Yoseob some good knowing that there are people in this world that still care.

You place your hand on his shoulder and squeeze it gently, "that's not all we see, you know? Its just. . . Sitting around and crying about it won't save this girls life."

Yoseob looks at you and does a tight smile, "I know it won't. Sorry I got all worked up," he kisses the side of your head.

Every since you found the Barefoot Clan, more like they found you, well. . . A connection was felt right away. Yoseob started treating you like one of his own. You're grateful for him.

Being without a father hurts. Knowing that he left just because his wife died. He wasn't the only one who lost someone! Why didn't he see that before he just walked away from his children? His living blood that loved and cared for him? Did he think of you and your siblings at all before he left? Did he really think that an undergrad student could hold up several jobs, study until one in the morning, and catch their mother's killer? Your father is smarter than that, or at least you thought he was.

Everyone gets back to work while you and Tae Hyung head to school. After finding the finger, you called Yoseob right away and he told you to bring Tae Hyung with you the next day. Which you did, at five in the morning. Gosh! You went to bed at two thirty finishing your history assignment. Three hours of sleep, You can sense the bags forming under your eyes.

Tae Hyung has probably noticed by now. You were driving your car and closed your eyes. You didn't even realize it until he started smacking your arm and yelling your name, telling you to wake up.

He volunteered to drive this time. You didn't protest. 

It takes a good hour to get drive from the warehouse to school. So you got some sleep on the way.

Tae Hyung nudges your arm when you arrive at school. You check your hair in the mirror and reapply some concealer to hide your dark circles.

"What's up with you?" Tae Hyung asks as the two of you step out of the car.

"What do you mean?" You stagger a little bit, and he catches your arm, steading you before letting go.

"This," he moves his hands up and down; indicating your whole body, "you're almost fell asleep at the wheel this morning, you've put four coats of make-up on since I've seen you, and you're losing your balance? What's up with you?"

You sigh, "I'm sorry if I'm worrying you. I just haven't been able to sleep much these past who weeks. I haven't had time to. I work two jobs every night, I have to finish loads of homework, and to top it off we have to work hours with the Yoseob." You stagger again. Tae Hyung hold onto you this time, "I'm fine. Really," you smile as he releases you. Obviously not buying it.

"No, you're not. Je Seok, you can't keep going on like this. You'll go crazy if you can't sleep."

"Think I don't know that? I know that I need to sleep once and a while, but I just don't have time. There's only so many hours in a day. I use a lot of them very wisely and still don't have time to do everything."

"You don't need to do everything, you know?"

"Yes, I do. I have to keep my family alive, let them know that we aren't going to end up on the street, I have to finish pages and pages of homework that keep me up until one in the morning, not to mention I get up at six and have to go to school at seven. School gets out at four. We have to go work on the case right after on a lot of the days until nine o'clock, and the cycle starts over again without any break." You feel a trickle of sweat fall from the side of your head.

"Why do you push yourself so hard? Don't you have parents to help out?" 

You glare at him in irritation.

His eyes go wide, "right, sorry. Besides your mother. What ever happened to your dad? Doesn't he work to help out around the house? You said you have siblings, why can't they work?"

You swallow hard, "my father left us when Mom died, and my Dongsaengs aren't old enough to work. the oldest is thirteen. No one will hire her."

"You don't know anyone? Any guardians?"

"No, or else I would've asked."

"No one? At all?" He sounds sorry for you.

You sigh, "no one."

"I'm sorry," he swings an arm over your shoulder and plants a kiss on your head. You smile up at him, stopping yourself from passing out.

 

Tae Hyung leads you into the school holding you hand. He always picks the wrong time to be a gentleman.

You plop in your seat when you get to class, Tae Hyung hangs out with his friends, but you can still feel his eyes on you. He has nothing to worry about, you'll be fine. You just need to stop thinking about sleep, it'll run out of your system eventually.

The teacher is always boring in her class discussions. But this time it was like she filled the whole room with chloroform. You're tired as heck!

You had to pinch yourself several times to keep your head off the desk. How does everyone do this?

As if eternities have passed, class finally ends and you stand up too fast. The blood rushes to your head and you have to catch yourself by holding onto the seat. Tae Hyung walks up to you rather too quickly.

"You okay? You look like you're gonna die," at least he's trying to keep things light.

"Thanks, Tae. That means so much to me," you say lazily.

"Sorry. What I meant to say was that you look adorable when you try to keep yourself awake."

You laugh nervously, "you. . . Um, you saw that?"

"Couldn't miss it. You sure you're alright?" He looks at you, those eyes are so hard to lie to.

"Of course. If you want me to show you, I'll go get us sodas," you say.

He giggles, "now we're talking," he plants his lips on yours before you walk away.

You head outside with two thousand won in your hand. Then everything starts to blur.

You stagger to one side and hold yourself up against the wall. As if expected, Tae Hyung's friends come up to you with a bunch of stuff in their hands. Water balloons and what looks like starch. A lot of other people with them.

"Fire!" They call.

You're too weak to fight back. The first balloon breaks against your skull, knocking you back a single step. Then another. Finally the starch comes, flying all over your hair, your clothes, shoes.

The fifth balloon strikes, knocking you to your knees. You don't feel anymore shots being fired. You look up, your vision blurring more, your hearing dying down.

"Je Seok," you turn to see Jimin's lips moving. You're not sure why he's calling your name.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Stay with me, Honey," Tae Hyung grabs your arms, shaking you a little. His voice sounds like its off in the distance. 

Why are you staring at me like that? You try to get out of you. But what comes out is, "Ugh."

"Hang in there!" He yells at you. 

Then nothing.

 

Your eyes are crusted over, making your eyes sting and water. Your breaths are quick and sharp. Your lungs and throat are on fire.

Water.

You push yourself up from where ever you are. Where are you? 

The surface is soft, plush. A Bed? Your eyes are blinded by the lights. What happened?

An arm gently latches on to yours and you flinch a little bit before realizing who it was. Tae Hyung.

His eyes are filled with concern. He sits down next you and craddles you in a hug. 

When he lets go, you look around the room. Bed, window, plant on the nightstand. Yup, this is a hospital. But why are you in here?

All you really remember is being hit by water balloons and then nothing. You don't even realize that Tae Hyung is calling your name until he actually touches you. His eyes stare you down, then reality hits you.

"Why am I here?" You ask, rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

"You passed out, in the middle of the hallway while my so called friends ganked you with water balloons and starch. You okay?"

"My head hurts," it does. It's throbbing. You feel like it will explode. So you place the palm of your hand on your head and wince.

"Careful. You hit your head on the way down, the doc said you have a mild concussion.

"Ah," you whisper, "how long was I out?"

"Two days," he says it like you just won a gold medal.

"What!?" Two days? No.

You swing the sheets off of you and swing your legs over the bed.

"Woah there, speedy. You need to stay in bed," he lightly pushes you back.

"No, I have to get back to my siblings, they're-"

"Already being taken care of," Tae Hyung gets you to lean back on the bed.

"What? Who's taking care of them?" Who could be taking care of them? It can't be Tae Hyung, he's here with you, and you highly doubt he could handle a load of children who do nothing but good off and pull pranks on people. There's no one else that you can think of.

"I called in a favour from Yoseob. He's switching off taking watch with the rest of his men."

Yoseob? Why would he take care of your siblings? He's too busy, how on earth could he and everyone else possibly have time to do that? He would be the last person you would ask for help.

But you guess he is the last person to ask. You've ran out of close people.

"Why is he doing that?" You ask as you let Tae Hyung pull the sheets back on top of you.

"He doesn't mind. He said that if one of his men are offline, then he'd do anything to get them back on track, and that's what he's doing?" He says softly.

"What about the kids? How are they taking this?" 

"Yoseob told them that you'd be out of town for a few days for a field trip and that some of your mother's friends would watch over them until you came back. So they didn't technically lie." Theres that humor again.

"Thank you," you rasp.

"Ooh, you're probably thirsty, here," he pours you some water that's been sitting on the stand and hands it to you.

You chug the whole things, you've never been this thirsty before. Have you really been out for two whole days?

"I'll go tell the nurse that you're awake," he gently presses his lips on your forehead and comes back in with a lady in a pink nurse dress. She smiles so nicely at you and starts asking you question.

"How you feeling?", "Do you feel dizzy?", "Have you eaten anything yet?" 

You answer honestly. Bad, yes, no.

She nods at your responses and tells you not to panic as she takes a sample of blood from you.

"You were sleep deprived. I've been told you haven't had a good sleep in weeks, and judging by how much you slept, I'm guessing that we're right," she takes the needle out of your vein and bandages it with gauze.

"I can't believe this happened. I thought I was fine."

"That happens with a lot of our patience. They say they're fine, and they feel like it too. But they push themselves too far and just can't hang on anymore. I'm going to go and test your blood and be back with you soon. In the meantime, I'm going to send some food in for you."

"No thank you. I'm not very hungry," you announce. The nurse looks at you sympathetically. 

You clutch your stomach as it growls like a lion, "I'll be right back with that food," she smirks and leaves. Bowing to Tae Hyung.

"Thank you!" You call out and hear her laugh down the hall.

Tae Hyung sits down on the bed and you crawl over to him, laying your head in his lap. He rubs your messy hair which use to be a braid. You're not really sure what it is now.

"What are they releasing me?" You ask, looking up at Tae Hyung.

"Once they've finished the blood test."

"Yeah, why did they even take blood? They said that it was just sleep deprive," you snuggle closer.

"Well, they have to be sure. Make sure you don't have something like cancer or something that caused the symptoms."

"Symptoms?" What did happen to you when you went down under?

"You were twitching, cold shudders, talking in your sleep. I'm sure it wasn't anything, but they have to make sure."

"That? I always do that when I sleep, they shouldn't worry about it."

"Well, that's for me to know, and for them to find out."

A nurse walks into your room, this one's an older gal, brown hair tied in a messy ponytail. She brings some food in, and your mouth starts to water like crazy. There's rice, kimchi, black beans. It smells so good.

She places it on a tray and swings it in front of you after getting up from Tae Hyung's lap.

"You guys are so cute together," she says as she leaves the room. You don't bother blushing. You're more worked up about the food, real food. Not just cereal or fast food stuff. Real, cooked food.

You put up the chopsticks and dig in. Chowing down on the black beans first. They're so soft.

Then the rice, and finally the kimchi. It's so good! You finish your water and drink the tea that's been placed on the tray. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand.

Tae Hyung is grinning. You drill him with eyes, what are you looking at, dude? 

Nothing, nothing. He replies with his eyebrows.

"So how long do these blood tests take?" You push the tray away from you.

"Don't know, usually a few hours up to a day. Maybe longer."

"Seriously? I need to get back to work, my bosses are probably going to fire me big time!"

"Hey, calm down. Stressing out too much will give you acid reflex. Lay down."

You do as your told. But that doesn't mean you're fine with any of this. If anything, you're freaking like crazy. You don't know if anyone besides Yoseob knows how to handle children. Maybe even him. He has one son. He never had seven siblings running around, refusing to listen to anything before. 

"You should get some more sleep, you're gonna need it."

"More? I've already had two days. You think I need more?"

"It helps with the head ache."

You sigh and lay you head down on the pillow. Tae Hyung kisses your forehead and says good night. He leaves the room and turns the lights out on the way out. You're stuck by yourself.

It doesn't take too long to fall back a sleep, but the whole time you're thinking of those two days and how big of a gap that puts between Kim Bo Kyung and you.