His Match

Chapter 33 - A Bomb Surprise

A couple days after, I attented the "party", if you want to call it one, where Han-Seok was bidding off office space inside Babel Tower. To think about it made me sick. All those spineless wannabes trying to overbid each other with little "favours" to Han-Seok. Disgusting and pathetic. That was all I could think about as I was sitting there, watching the sh*t show unfold.
All of a sudden someone familiar caught my eye. It was a guy, I was sure I've seen before. But where? My train of thought was interrupted as I felt eyes on me. It was Han-Seo, who slightly shook his head at me, looked over at that guy and back at me. What was going on?
My focus shifted from Han-Seo to another guy walking in, pushing a huge cake in front of him.

He looked familiar too and I even knew who it was that time: One of Mrs. Choi's former "Crystal Balls". They were working for Vincenzo then. So he was planning something. Why did no one tell me? I glared at Han-Seo, who just looked at me apologetically.
Suddenly the guy with the cake got all the attention in the room, as he ripped open his jacket and revealed a bomb strapped to his body underneath.

He told everyone they should tear up their contracts and cut ties with Babel Group. Of course no one listened at first, because who cares if he blew himself up, right? Plus, everyone thought it was just a bad joke. Until he said that there was also a bomb in the cake, which would blow up the whole entire room.
As people heard this, they were panicking and of course tried to run outside. Like I said: Tried. Naturally the doors were locked. Again I looked at Han-Seo to get him to give me anything about what was going on, but he didn't even look at me.
People were still trying to open the doors and begging to be let out. Then a countdown appeared on the huge screen on the wall at the front of the room. The guy repeated once more, that the room would blow up, k*lling everyone in it. Now even I started to panic a little.
The only thing the people had to do was rip up their contracts, eat them and announce who they were, while looking straight into the camera. He pointed at the corner to the right of the screen. Why didn't I see it before?
When they still didn't listen to him, he took out a detonator and pushed the button, which resulted in him exploding like a watermelon hitting the ground, after being thrown from a roof top. The room was dead silent. You could have heard a pin drop.
And then like ants, these little b*tches started scrambling over each other, doing what they were told. I shifted my gaze over to Han-Seok, unable to tell if he also panicked or if he was just downright p*ssed. Probably both.
One after another ripped up their contracts but the countdown still continued with no sign of stopping. The panic that I felt increased with the numbers going down: My breath quickened, cold sweat broke out all over my body, my heart was racing. Maybe Vincenzo never had the intention of letting me choose sides. Maybe he chose for me. And what easier way to get rid of me, than blow me up, just when I started to put all of my trust in him. When it came to Han-Seo, he would do anything to stop his brother and get rid of him once and for all. Even if it meant that he would d*e in the process.
With all these intrusive thoughts running through my head, I walked over to him and grabbed his arm.
"You have to let me out. Now."
"What?" He was confused by my fear, because it was so unlike me. "Su-Mi, calm down."
"No! Let me out! Now! Let me out!" I was going completely crazy at that point and started to hit his chest. "Let me out! Let me the f*ck out!" I couldn't think clearly anymore as I got hit by a full blown panic attack. The room started spinning around me and I began hyperventilating.
"Su-Mi! Calm down! It's gonna be fine!" I could barely hear his soothing words, too consumed by the fear of the supposedly impendable doom, that was upon me. All I heard were people screaming. All I saw was the countdown approaching zero with, what seemed like, insane speed. All I knew was, that I had to get out of there. Like, right. F*cking. Then.
As only a couple seconds were left, I heard a clicking sound behind me. The doors! I was making a bee line for them, as soon as I saw the first people spill out off the room. But someone held me back. "Let me go! The f*cking clock is ticking! Let me the f*ck go!"
"Su-Mi, you need to calm down! You're just gonna get hurt if you try to get out during all this chaos!"
"Better hurt than dead, Han-Seo!" I looked back at the countdown ...

But it was too late. It had reached zero.

But nothing happened. My eyes kept darting between the numbers of the countdown and the cake. Still nothing, while I remained staring at the cake. Waiting. Suddenly it burst open and a spray of liquid was emitted.
"Are you f*cking kidding me?!" I ran over to the cake and kicked the serving trolley it was on. "Are! You! F*cking! Kidding! Me?!" I spun around, stalked over to Han-Seo and punched him in the face. My next destination was Jipuragi, positive that I would find Vincenzo there.
I completely forgot about Han-Seok, who observed the interaction beween me and his brother with growing interest. And to this day I could kick myself in the face for being this incompetent and embarrassing myself like that.

As I arrived at Geumga Plaza I went straight to the office of Jipuragi and up to Vincenzo. I didn't even give him an opportunity to speak before I also punched him square in the face.
"Ya! What do you think you're doing?" Cha-Young suddenly appeared right next to me and tried to push me back.
"It's ok", Vincenzo said, while wiping the blood off his nose. "She has a right to be upset."
"I have a right to be upset? Are you f*cking kidding me?! I thought I was going to die!"
"You didn't tell her?", Cha-Young asked Vincenzo, seemingly surprised.
"No! He didn't tell me! What am I even risking my life for, huh? If you pull something like that again don't expect me to back you up anymore."