The Afterlife

18) The Afterlife

"These, Yoon Jeonghan, are our reminder of the atrocities Kim Sihyeon and her father had committed; they have been living their lives like deities among the rest of an unvaluable race of us, so it is our responsibility to teach them how insignificant they really are."

In seven years time, it seemed like Yoohyeon could never forget what she had heard, perhaps because she played it over and over again, endless times until it was all she knew, all she was about.

Seven years ago, when they were first recruited for Sihyeon's team, Yoohyeon did not expect the first of her encounters with said team to be so terrible; she was excited, indeed, for there was no better job than that of her dreams and by the side of the girl she loved most, yet it all somewhat withered with the little knowledge she had.

On that very day, Yoohyeon had intended to meet Minji on their only day off after a month of work. The colors of the day seemed just her type, and she breathed life with a bliss, filling her lungs with a comforting air as she waited for Minji to show up.

She could not deny, for years, the guilt that came with feeling excited for seeing Jeonghan show up first, one that just faded away as she figured he was not there to be alone, and certainly not to see her; they were colleagues, after all, and good ones at that - or so she believed.

Yoohyeon had not known much about Kim Namjoon, and she did not suspect him for a significant foe until she saw clear files from their office on the table that joined Jeonghan and Namjoon.

It was easy to see that they were no random files, because Yoohyeon had looked through them multiple times that they became family, and perhaps that was the only reason Yoohyeon sorely forgot about her meeting with Minji and followed after Jeonghan and Namjoon that day.

She told Sihyeon that she only started recording their conversation when Sihyeon's name popped up, and although she did not understand much, she thought it only right to keep what they said documented and give it to Sihyeon shall it be of use before anything was to go wrong.

Jeonghan and Namjoon shared their conversation in a columbarium, then, and Yoohyeon said that even though she had no idea whom they were there for, the rage in their voices was enough proof of their intentions.

The record played in the office two times, and silence followed clear after. It was only Yoohyeon's explanation of why she had not spoken earlier that filled the room around them, but there was no more.

Jeonghan had suspected Yoohyeon's different behaviour, and it was easy for him to figure she had seen him when she avoided his eyes religiously since that day; it was not only a threatening text message that he used, but Yoohyeon swore that he had pushed her against doors multiple times and that his hands almost squeezed life out of her a time or two.

It was not incomprehensible; Sihyeon could not say so. Betrayal was easy to perceive, and so it was also easy to comprehend. It was not daring, clear, but once it showed up, it almost felt like a rehearsed play with a little plot twist to trigger a genuine audience response.

Sihyeon, also, could have had more to say about it, excpet her phone rang with a number she hated to see.

It was the number she had saved on her phone for years but never really used, and it took her a few seconds to read the name over and over, making sure her eyes understood what the word 'reception' meant.

It was the hospital, and Sihyeon spared not a heart beat to find her own feet and sprint where the gates stood waiting for her arrival; she did not even struggle with how hard it was to breathe when she had run for about twenty minutes, but she struggled more with how her heart was speaking loudly to her in her ears, promising to stop if she was not to find the person they both needed helplessly.