Vector || An Ryeji Adventure

Debrief

Ryujin and Yeji returned from lunch. Yeji seemed tense, but Ryujin assumed it was simply nerves as the wedding was next week.

"Can we talk?" Yeji asked, leading to the couch in the living room of the dorm. The other three girls were out of the country on endorsement business: Lia in Milan, and Yuna and Chaeryeong in Paris.

Ryujin smiled weakly. "Ok, now I'm a bit nervous. When your fiance says a week before your wedding that you need to talk, it's a bit... terrifying."

Yeji forced a smile. "I'm not breaking off the wedding, baby. What I have to say is something I wished I could have told you earlier, but I couldn't." She paused. "I need to ask you a big favor. I need you to believe what I am about to tell you 100%. You can ask questions later. I have to get this out."

"Ok, I'm really scared now," Ryujin said, her voice cracking. "Tell me. Please."

Yeji took Ryujin's hands and looked into her eyes intensely. She held her breath for a moment. "Ryujin, two years ago I was recruited and trained by MI6, Britain's intelligence agency, to be an assassin."

Ryujin's face had absolutely no expression. "This is what I'm just supposed to... to... believe? This is ridiculous." Her voice grew louder. "This is what I'm just supposed to believe? You scare the death out of me by telling me we have some big thing to discuss, a week before our wedding, by the way, and then you tell me this stupid story?"

"It's not a story, Ryujin. I wish it was. But it's real. It happened."

"Prove it."

"I'm not sure how... I'm in a world so full of secrets, and there's so much I can't say." Her eyes grew wet. "I didn't know what to do. How do you have this conversation? Would you have even married me?"

"I want proof, Yeji. You have to give me something."

Then Yeji took off her shoes and socks. "I didn't get these from a bike accident -"

Ryujin crossed her arms. "So that's two lies, now."

"I got these cuts during my training in Scotland. That's what I was doing while you guys were doing solo stuff. I spent six months there. That's why I was out of touch."

"I want to believe you, but -"

Yeji jumped up and pulled off her sweater, standing in front of Ryujin wearing only pants and her bra. Slowly she turned around. She had just returned from the Upstream Color mission, and she was covered in purplish-black bruises and scrapes.

Tears streamed down Ryujin's cheeks. "How? Why... why you?"

"I was at the end of my rope. I never told you guys, but I was working hard just to not quit. MI6 had been monitoring me. These people prey on you when you're weak. I was someone desperate who wanted to be someone else. That's when they reached out. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I could make a difference, I told myself. I could protect the world – the ultimate unnie."

"What can you tell me about your job?"

"I can't tell you much, sweetheart. It's for your own protection. If I'm ever captured, I could be interrogated, and they don't need to think that you know the same information they're trying to get out of me."

"WHAT?" Ryujin shouted. "You mean, like TORTURED?"

Yeji let out a deep breath. "Yes. I'm afraid that's a risk of the job."

Ryujin jumped to her feet. "You're going to quit, right? I mean, once we're married you'll stop doing this? I can't... I can't sleep wondering if you're alive or dead, or captured, or being tortured! Plus you made a commitment to all of us to stay and help make Itzy better and better, and -"

"I'm quitting the ministry. Just like that. I'm going to notify my handler right after the wedding. I'm not sure what retiring from MI6 look likes, but I don't want it to complicate things in the next week. Please, Ryujin, please look at me like you do when you're in love, not like this."

Ryujin looked into her eyes and smiled. There was kindness there, but not love.

"One thing you need to understand is that I'm really, really good at this, and I've taken out the worst people you can imagine, like human traffickers, terrorists, and violent paramilitary organizations. The world is safer because of what I've done. You wouldn't be living in the same world as you are if I didn't take these missions."

"An assassin? How many people have you killed, Yeji?"

"That's not the point!"

"How many!?!"

Yeji let out a long breath and looked at the floor. "About 80, I think."

Ryujin leapt from the couch and staggered backwards.

"You would have been in danger if I told you," Yeji said.

"I'm going for a walk," Ryujin barked, and walked quickly out of the door. She slammed it so hard the pictures on the wall rattled.

Yeji buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

. . . . .

Hours passed, but Ryujin didn't return. Yeji became more and more frantic. She logged into Ryujin's cell phone account and tried "find my phone" but it wasn't showing the phone as being on, let alone lost

Her fear of losing her relationship with Ryujin was gradually replaced by the paranoia that was part of her MI6 work. How could Ryujin be abducted or... taken only minutes after Yeji told her her true identity?

She called Ryujin's parents but she wasn't there. The Seoul police hadn't brought anyone in matching that description. Neither had the hospitals.

Yeji was losing her mind, almost paralyzed with fear. And a growing well of rage. Then her phone rang.

"Vector, Ryujin has been taken. We're working on the 'who' part right now. I'm coming to your location and will be there in three hours. Do not do anything. You risk making this worse."

Yeji screamed and flipped the kitchen table over.

Mercy. Justice. Peace. These were just things for her to go through on her way to saving Ryujin.

Then, downstairs, she heard something scrape against the front door. She grabbed a kitchen knife and tiptoed to the landing. No one was there, but a white envelope had been slid under the door.