North - South

Fried chicken/1

"How about Yoon Se-ri?" The former pianist tried to sound nonchalant while questioning his friends.

Again, he was keeping himself at safe distance from Se-ri for a couple of days. Even if his reasons were now different from the last time he had done it – and could be reassumed in a certain number of hand hearts that that brat had given to a certain friend -. Anyway, he was back to the phase where most of his clothes were at Ju-meok's place and this latter was his principal source of news about the woman. Plus, it wasn't as if he really cared, he just wanted to know if she was alive and hadn't set fire to his home.

"She's fine. She asked about you yesterday, you know? Maybe you should..." the named timidly tried to encourage him. Something was happening, he could feel it, even if he couldn't say what.

"I don't have time now," Jeong Hyeok drily cut him short.

"And what about Man-b..." Kwang-beom rushed to ask, partially because he had intercepted his need to switch to another topic, partially out of sincere interest. They loved Mu Hyeok. He had always been considered the older brother of all of them and finding him was and would have always been their first concern.

"Still nothing. But I have to see someone today, I hope it will help."

The place was unusual, and unusual was an understatement. While waiting for the black sedan with the unmistakable plate number to appear, Jeong Hyeok unconsciously stroked the yellow envelope he was keeping inside his pocket. The last one, the one which contained Mu Hyeok's hair.

There were times when he could feel it, as if it was material, the whole weight of his life burdening on his shoulders, having them slumped, making him sigh. After days of uncommon hope for that small trace, it had turned out that Man-bok was nowhere to be found. And Kang's smile, when they had met on the corridor of the Ministry on that morning, had seemed even more triumphant and challenging. Again, the yellow envelopes were his only clue.

And as if the deception wasn't enough, that sudden request. General Ko, Dan's uncle, asking him to meet in a place where no one could have seen them together. So, apparently, he was officially a paria, now. Even being seen with him was compromising, as if the Ri's fate was sealed.

It was a villa in the suburbs of the capital, one that the State Security Department used for events which weren't for the general public to know. With no electricity at all, and closed windows from where no ray of light could penetrate. Besides, it was afternoon, and it got dark early, in winter. 

And the situation was already awkward like that, but when he entered the room filled with a dim torch light, his interlocutor and old family friend decided to make it even more embarrassing by spatting out a thread of stuttering apologies.

"I'm sorry I had to ask you to meet here. You know, the situation is... It's not about you..."

"Let's see where no one can see us from now on, it would compromise your position, I understand," Jeong Hyeok cut him off, not really eager to receive his pitiful attempts to package it with unsuccessfully cheerful lies.

"Thank you, Jeong Hyeok dong-mu," the man produced an unwanted – and even more humiliating because of it – relieved sigh. "So, this is the name you need for me to check? Jung Man-bok?" He asked while reading a small note that Jeong Hyeok had prepared for him. General Ko was a good man, his heart was pure and his loyalty endless, yet it couldn't be said that his career had to be attributed to a special cleverness more than to his family's songbun.