One More Day

De Blue

"Promise me you'll never use this on yourself ever again."

She nodded in response, reassuring him with a smile. He was still reluctant, but it faded away as soon as he gazed into her eyes. He could always tell when she's not being truthful. She's a bad liar. But at that moment he saw that she was being sincere. So he gave back the karambit knife he took from her this morning.

She tucked it securely inside the pocket of her puffer vest.

They've decided to revert back to the original plan. As they promised Si-ho and Do-yun, they will find a way for both of them to live. All they needed to do now is to put up a solid strategy on how to subdue Ok Eul-tae without killing him, to be able to lock him up in the well for good.

As Hwal drew up a map of all the escape routes around the well, Sang-un listened intently with their success in mind. Unlike this morning, she was now determined that all of them will come back home alive so they could have that samgyeopsal family dinner that Do-yun had been preparing for. They will help each other out. No one has to make the sole sacrifice.

However, as they stood side by side in front of his study table, every seemingly unintentional brush of their arms took her back to her conversation with her sister earlier. Si-ho's ridiculous insinuations plagued her mind, making her heart race, dampening her concentration.

"Dammit Si-ho ya!"

Hwal was no different. Do-yun's relentless teasing earlier, to which he had to give up his credit card in exchange for his silence, continued its replay in his already struggling mind.

"Dammit Do-yun ah!"

Although distracted, he could easily put on a poker face. A skill he proudly learned from his stepfather back then, a revered general of the army. A skill that was unfortunately of no use against Do-yun, but he was hopeful would still work on Sang-un.

So he put on his poker face. Pretending that having her this close had no effect on him at all. Pretending that every time her arm unintentionally brushes against his, that his heart doesn't skip a beat and then flutters away at high speed leaving him almost breathless.

He was suddenly embarrassed, suspecting that he might even be blushing right now. If he is though, he could blame it on the state of the art heating system in this house. If she'd notice and point it out, he could say he's not used to it since his house in Gyeonggi-do didn't have its own radiant floor heating. Deflect the topic and talk about how the house back there was so old that it did not meet the building requirements for any kind of modern heating system to be installed. Yada yada yada. He's got his excuses ready.

It was, however, proving to be difficult as time passed. He had already relayed all of his plans. She had no objections. Didn't have that many suggestions, only clarifications. So the core of the conversation did not take long.

How could she? She's never had any desire to harm anyone, even the monsters who were out to kill her. All those times she wounded another, was only to overpower them temporarily, for her to save who she needed to save, and/or to buy time to run away. She never had any intent to kill. It just wasn't in her system.

Trying not to be affected any further, Hwal stepped away from her without a word and went on to crouch over the bottom shelf of his drawer across the room searching for something. Him failing to explain to her what he was doing proved to be a mistake though. Because she ended up following him closely waiting for him to finish what he was about to say earlier before he suddenly went silent. She was now bent over, looking over his shoulder, watching as he scrambled over the contents in his drawer nervously.

"Did she always smell this good? Goodness Dan Hwal, what are you thinking!"

He finally found the small black bag with Dueoksini's poison in it that he was looking for. He quickly tried to get away from her as her subtle sweet rose scent was already playing tricks with the rest of his senses. However, instead of creating that much needed distance between them, he ended up wrapping his arms around her waist.