The Hooker Next Street || Jikook

☆72. Tick-Tock Tick-Tock☆

☆A/N: The MOST requested surprise is revealed in the end of the chapter☆

⚠️ Warning: Depiction of Mature content ahead.

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Lixue stepped out of the car once Detective Chan opened the door for her.

She stepped into the Wacko.

At night, eye-catching neon signs, colorful people wearing colorful makeup. Young boys and girls with makeup and beautiful hair, leaned on the dirty walls, calling whoever passed them by.

Lixue's facial expressions were hard to tell, she was expressionless with a tensed frown. As if he wasn't willing to admit or compare Detective Chan's paintings resembling this place.

Lixue watched those beautiful bodies wearing too little clothes and those old-fashioned men treating them like animals, dragging them away inside the clubs by their hair or skin. Lixue walked into the street, watching all the antique shops mixed with smoke and lights as she walked by.

She clutched onto her coat's collar while looking around, as if all the laughs, painful sighs, music... everything came onto her in a single blur where her mind stopped registering everything. And then there was no sound at all, just horrible faces filled with lust and teary eyes.

"Don't feel so sorry for them, the one you are looking for knows how to be a bitch and fight back. You will find him in one piece" Chan assured and Lixue went back to earth. But she just looked at him as Chan offered her a hand to lead her the way.

"You mean... the boy you painted... he is one of..." Lixue started but couldn't complete her sentence as she suddenly clutched onto her heart with an aching frown.

"Mrs. Park? Are you okay?" Chan asked, being stressed all of the sudden.

"Please, don't be here, Jimin... please, don't be here... don't meet me here..." She whispered to herself as she began sobbing, looking away with a sigh and tears falling down her glistening eyes. "I can feel you aren't here..."

"Are you okay?" Chan kept asking while raising her hands to hold her but he didn't. Trying to console her without touching her, because nobody touches Mayor Korain's wife. That thing was clear.

"I want to go back home" Lixue mumbled while wiping her tears. "I want to go back to Korain" She insisted like a child as she gulped down, sobbing.

"Okay, he might kill me if I will take you in this condition, you need to calm down and tell me why you wanted to see that boy?" Chan suggested while opening the door of his car for her.

"Because... he could be my Jim... but he can't be. He obviously lied about the chain thing, Korain was right. I don't want to stay here for any second" She practically talked to herself while sitting into the car and Chan nodded while abruptly reaching for the driver's seat after closing the door for Lixue.

Not getting a single thing she told him.

But Lixue's teary eyes kept tracing those pretty colorful faces, as if she hoped for Jimin to be seen just for a slight second. Just a glimpse and she would do anything to have him back but she wasn't ready to admit how insane her fault was.

It was all her fault. How irresponsible she was to not voice her opinion out sooner that she used to feel Jimin alive. It was her fault. She kept trying to believe what everyone else told her but always failed to admit that Jimin was dead.

She failed for a reason. Her baby needed her.

What did she do to him? Why she couldn't fight for him? How she will be able to forgive herself if one day Jimin will walk up to her from this crowd of dirt. What if this guy she met in the hotel could be him?