HUNTERS || ENHA/LSFM || - A K-pop Ghost Hunting Story

64. Prevent

It told him a message.
A message it told him to give before he went.

To give when the time was right.

...

"Let go of me!"
She struggled against his grip, pulling and flailing around in an act of desperation. Beads of cold sweat ran down her face and stung the wound on the side of her head.
The same wound that she had obtained when pushing over Heesung.
The injury she had sustained was far from superficial. Pain shot around the entire area, and her brows were furrowed from the discomfort.

But, that was the least of her matters.
She tried to tug her arm away once again, but he refused to let go.
But she needed to.
She needed to go. But he was keeping her here.
Kazuha needed her.

Yunjin yelled at him again.
"Jungwon, let me go! What are you doing?!? Kazuha- She- She needs us! We need to go!"

Why?
Why was he stopping her?
He had stopped her from going out to chase after Kazuha and Sakura when they had raced out of the base.
She was right there. Right next to the door.
But he stopped her.

Jungwon shook his head as his head hung down. He pleaded with her.
His arms burned.
His whole body burned.
He begged her to stop.
"I'm sorry... Please, don't go. It's not- Yunjin, please, listen to me-"

"WHY? THERE'S NOTHING TO LISTEN TO! KAZUHA IS OUT THERE WITH SAKURA, JUNGWON! SHE'S IN DANGER! SO, WHY ARE YOU STOPPING ME FROM HELPING HER?!? YOU SHOULD BE HELPING HER TOO, NOT WASTING TIME!" Yunjin fired, completely ablaze.
She was completely desperate and worried. Her hands actively shook, and her legs felt weak with fear.
The only thing giving her strength over her weariness in that moment was her willpower.
But even still, her courage felt like it was waning by the second.

Jungwon shook his head again. It wasn't going to work. Nothing was.
It wasn't worth it.
They just didn't have it. Nothing had gone in their favour.
There were not enough numbers left of them. They were too weak.

Jungwon turned around to the carnage left of the room behind him. He tried to avoid looking at the horrific red dashes and patches upon the walls and the floors. Yet, that ordeal seemed nearly impossible, as it was lurking nearly everywhere he glanced.
That proved his point even more.

There was not enough people to fight, if there had ever been in the first place. The spirit had been one step ahead of them; they were trapped with the unexpected.
And it worried him down to his guts. Both for the present, and the future.

He feared for it.
He had feared that they'd reach their final moments, that the veil of security and being able to resolve all of their problems would at last suffocate them and their lives would reach their ends.
It was not the first time he had contemplated it, but it never seemed to get easier no matter how many times it would run through his head. It was like a scrape of metal upon metal that never dulled, just rusted; it got worse with each passing day, perhaps until his last.

Jungwon turned back to Yunjin.
"It's... it's too late..." he mumbled.

Yunjin stopped for a brief moment to stare into his eyes, her face between a look of suppressed anger, and the other, a look which twisted her brows into a nearly indecipherable emotion; denial.
A hidden denial, as if she herself wanted to push it away, down into the ground and buried in a silver casing bolted shut.

But it was there.
It wasn't confusion.
It was denial.

And she acted fully upon it.
She went up to him, and shoved him with a strike from both of her hands.

Jungwon would've normally been able to take the blow, but the pains in his chest from the collision with Sakura had both stunned and ached him. He himself felt so weak, and his legs buckled under his weight, and he toppled down to the ground.
He felt his chest heave with every breath, and the tendons in his legs felt like they were about to snap. A pain in his chest throbbed, right under his shoulder blades.
Jungwon swore he had felt it snap before, when he had fallen upon the table.

He rest his head down.
The pains.
The pains.
He wanted it to go away. But the best he could do was lie there. He felt too weary to stand up, the effort was just too much for him.

Jungwon panted, gritting his teeth from the discomfort of his body.
Whether Yunjin would choose to run or not while he was down, he could only let it happen.
He needed to gain control of himself again before he could even think about standing, let alone running.

The lights.
They were too bright.
He closed his eyes. He would get up.
Surely he would.
But his body wouldn't let him.

Yunjin retracted her hands, her eyes slightly widened, almost in disbelief.
Why had she just done that? It was a completely unreasonable decision.
Had she just hurt Jungwon?
Surely it a was useless cause.

No.
Surely not.
She knew why, the reason was right in front of her.

Kazuha needed her. Sakura needed her.
They needed her.
And so she needed to go.
It was the right decision. Surely it was.
But it was too late now. It was now or never.

Yunjin turned out the door, and ran out, not uttering another word to anyone inside.

She screamed the names over and over again.

"Sakura, Kazuha!"

And over again.
And again.
Again.

Until her yells were nothing but a whisper in Jungwon's ears. There was nothing he could do. No hopes of chasing after her himself, nor stopping her from the fate that he tried so hard to prevent.
Just like Sakura and Kazuha, she disappeared into the night.