Let Me Protect You (Sahyo)

Chapter 21.1

t/w: blood, violence

"jihyo-ssiiiiiiii"

"i know you're still at the centre but text me when you're leaving! i'll heat up the breakfast"

Sana turned off the low heat she had put on her beef stew, unlooping the apron hanging from her neck. The time on the clock read 6:59am, which meant that Jihyo was probably in her last few reps of her training session.

Sana 's fists found her eyes, trying but failing to rub away the grogginess clouding her vision. The handwritten recipe for the stew that was on the fridge before was somewhere in the mess on the stovetop, and so she haphazardly packed the place until she retrieved that piece of paper.

It was still perhaps about half an hour before her Jihyo was going to be home, so she figured it would be alright to take a nap while she could. She kicked her feet up on the couch, after having dragged the comforter from the bedroom over, and closed her eyes.

"Sana -ssi? Sana -ssi!"

"...Go... away."

"Sana -ssi, it's us, are you okay?"

She shot right up. Ya, shit. She fumbled for her phone in the heap of comforters pooled around her hips, the time on her lockscreen screaming back in her face. How the fuck did she fall asleep for more than an hour?

"Jihyo-ah your kids are here." Sana yelled into the house, annoyance and confusion filling her when she remembered the uneaten pot of stew still sitting on the stove, and the fact that Jihyo didn't wake her up.

"Sana -ssi, were you still sleeping? Neither you or Jihyo -sunbaenim answered our calls, you're going to be late." Kihyun questioned when Sana unlocked the door for them, following behind her like a mother hen.

Jihyo didn't answer their calls either? She held up a hand that told them to wait, heading quickly to the bedroom. It was empty, and so was the ensuite bathroom. The other rooms of the house were unoccupied too, and with every room that she checked, the more she felt the odd feeling in her gut rise up her throat.

The junior guards were calling out to her, puzzled by her behaviour.

Finally, she returned to the middle of the living room where they were awkwardly standing around.

"I can't find Jihyo ." She said plainly, hands clenched on her hips.

"What do you mean? Did she go out? Does she know what time it is?" Heekyung took out her own phone with an impatient huff, pulling up her senior's contact.

"Wait, I'll call." Sana interrupted. There wasn't a single reply to her earlier messages when she glanced at the top status of her phone before dialling. "Jihyo was supposed to be back by seven-thirty, she went out to train at 6."

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"This is what you are going to do."

There was a sharp, cold blade leaning precariously against the delicate skin of her neck. A cloth of sorts was wrapped around her head and squeezing her eyes shut, but she didn't need to see to know that she should not move even a hair with that knife on her.

"You are going to talk to Sana like normal, lie if you must, but if you say anything wrong," the gruff voice continued, and the blade dug even more into her skin to drive his point. She could hear some rustling, before Sana 's voice sounded out, loud and clear.

"Ji? Where the hell are you?" God, it felt like months since she heard Sana 's voice, relief washing through her when she realised that it meant that Sana was safe.