Meeting Jinnie again was a dream I was so afraid would never come true. It had been so long; more than ten years, and in that ten years, anything could have happened. But I held on to that thin ray of hope, hoping that my friend would be alright, that she would survive without giving in.

When I saw her in the hospital, the emotion that first hit me was rage. She was willing to see Sungmin, see Leeteuk, see everyone else, but not me. Sometimes I wondered whether that omega had a heart. To disappear just like that from my life, leaving me to pick up after her mess… Had she ever thought that I would be a mess too?

But that moment when our eyes locked, it was as though everything was clear. Jinnie had turned away in shame; I knew she didn't know how to face me, especially not with that bracelet hiding the marks. And my heart… simply broke.

The anger wiped clean in that instant, I found myself hugging her next, repeating “it's okay, it's okay”, “you're back”. It's okay because you're back.

Whatever yelling and screaming I had envisioned became silent crying in our embrace, leaving only gratitude, happiness, heartache…

I had wanted to talk to her more, but she insisted that she had to go, that her boss only gave her two hours out. She didn't reveal her workplace, not that she needed to, because I knew everything from the look on her face and that bracelet. I didn't want to let go of her; I would have dug out all my savings and pulled whatever strings I could pull to redeem her freedom and keep her with us, but at that moment, those words wouldn't leave my mouth. I couldn't voice it, couldn't bear to break that silent agreement between us not to mention a word of her current “occupation”, and I had let her go with her phone number and a promise that she would answer my call and meet me again.

But even with her phone number, something inside me stopped me from punching those numbers into the phone. In the end, Jinnie was the first one to call me instead. It was surprising initially – I wasn't expecting her to contact me, but when she started asking about Kyuhyun, everything made sense. For that dumb pup, Jinnie could give up anything and everything.

Regardless, I mustered my courage to ask her to visit the next day and she agreed. We finally touched on what seemed to be the taboo topic, though Jinnie was reluctant to discuss more. She had tried to escape, and the dumb pups couldn't have come at a better timing.

To be honest, half of me was afraid that pushing Kyuhyun like that would just make him snap and hurt Jinnie further. But somehow, I had the confidence that he wouldn’t, and I wanted more than anything for them to acknowledge those unspoken words, clear those silly assumptions and stop hurting each other.

The relief that overcame me when Jinnie relented and Kyuhyun told Doojoon to pay the money was so overwhelming the tears came. I knew those two were far from complete forgiveness, but what was clear was that they still loved each other very much. And this was their first step to having each other in their lives again.

For me, aside from the possibility of never seeing Kyuhyun hurt himself again because of that unfortunate inciden