Hostage Handbook

Chapter Fifteen | In Your Hands

YEOREUM

It has been over a week since I became Park Yujin, a regular twenty-year-old woman studying at a private New Zealand university.

Park Yujin lives in a townhouse next to a deserted children's playground and leads a nine-to-five routine almost as boring as her name. Her favourite movie is My Fair Lady, and she adores the colour yellow. Though she is brave enough to be fond of a horrendous colour, she is not yet brave enough to find a part-time job.

Hoseok told me I needed to reverse everything before he sent me on the private plane. The plane flew me straight to Dunedin and crashed into the ocean. Song Yeoreum, the only passenger, has been presumed dead.

My legs trembled off the plane when it landed. The feeling of stepping on land outside Jungkook's control felt surreal in a phantasmagorically good way.

Taehyung arranged everything for me even though he warned me I would have to fend for myself. I have a pleasant house to live in, a quiet school to attend, and a bunch of so-called buddies who are too nosy for my paranoia.

The sun in New Zealand is as abundant as summer's blood. But I feel like a fretful rat aimlessly running around this foreign country.

I walk to my townhouse and reach for the keys in my jeans. They are beneath the pocket knife I keep around in case of emergencies.

My extra small male jeans were one of the first belongings I independently acquired in almost a year. When I was hunting for a reasonably priced scented candle, they were on sale in a department store, and I instantly ditched my budget that day for them.

I push the door open to a lingering vanilla scent from the candle I lit last night. Home sweet home, indeed.

A sigh slips through my faint smile. Perhaps, I should start relaxing in my new life. My Fair Lady isn't that bad. I can watch it for Audrey Hepburn.

I lock the door and kick off my sneakers for my home slippers. It is only ten past three in the afternoon, but New Zealand winters are notorious for early sunsets. I have about an hour before I need to prepare my microwave dinner.

I rely on post-it notes to remember doing things these days. Sometimes, I even forget about the existence of post-it notes.

I dash through the corridor and reach for the light switch in the living room. My brain freezes at the familiar presence the illumination reveals.

A shrill buzzing noise rings through my ears that have grown ice cold. I want to run; I want to cry; I want to reach for my pocket knife and put an end to all of this. But I struggle to even breathe.

I feel like someone is holding a sharp blade against me to scrape my flesh away one layer at a time, but I am completely powerless against the torture.

Jungkook looks as if he had prepared a speech, but all the complicated emotions in his eyes diminish into a nebulous look of yearning the moment our eyes meet.

It is not true. It can't be true. I am merely seeing images of my delusion because I have dreaded Jungkook so much in the past week. Yes, this must be the case. It must be.

"Yeoreum," Jungkook utters.

Jungkook braces his arms around me and throws my pocket knife aside. The quiet clatter of the blade shatters my fantasy.

The only thing holding me from the ground is Jungkook's tightening embrace. I feel like I'm about to die.

I genuinely thought that I could escape Jungkook this time. I genuinely did. But fate is a bitch, and here I am, clasped in Jungkook's arms. Again.