Sanctuary

Ten. (In My Veins)

Nothing goes as planned, everything will break
People say goodbye in their own special way
Oh you're in my veins and I cannot get you out
Oh you're all I taste at night inside of my mouth

Thirty-three hours.

The last time she saw him was thirty-three hours ago. They were in Niels Hoffman's office at the academy, and he hadn't said a single word directly to her. For a man who is honest to a fault, Ri Jeong-hyeok is remarkably adept at pretense, especially when he's intent on protecting her. He can be indifferent, his eyes hard as flint, betraying no emotion. Her mind understands it well enough, but her heart irrationally hurts at his ability to shut her out.

Thirty-three hours.

It isn't such a long time, she muses. She spent the last three years pining for him. That's more than twenty-six thousand hours without him, without knowing anything about his life or if she would ever see him again. Still, somehow these thirty-three feel longer, fraught with uncertainty and the unexpected pain of having the promise of five more days with him bleed away slowly, without him. They're down to just under four days now, and her stomach roils with desperation. He's not here yet, and she hasn't heard from him since yesterday evening, when he sent her a terse message that he was on calls with North Korean authorities. It was the first night they spent apart since their reunion last week.

It's Tuesday afternoon, and she can't stop obsessing over time and numbers. She's not sure whether this profound emptiness is her missing him or her fear of another never-ending separation. This one, she knows, will be infinitely harder. The first time around she hadn't known the feel of Jeong-hyeok's mouth on every part of her body. She hadn't been privy to the way his full lips part on a sharp breath as he succumbs to pleasure. She hadn't learned the practiced patience and finesse of his strong hands and those capable pianist fingers. She hadn't loved him as deeply, as intimately.

A shuffle across the room pulls her back to the present.

"Do my parents know?" Park Min-ji asks from the antique, wooden rocking chair in the corner of the living room. The small one-bedroom corner unit on the third floor of a six-story building in Beatenberg doesn't get much of the afternoon sun, and the furniture it came with is shabby at best. One of Mister Kim's men had paid for it in cash yesterday. Min-ji treats it like a luxurious mansion or like her vessel to freedom. Either way, Se-ri finds it strangely endearing, and she came here this afternoon – against Ri Jeong-hyeok's advice – to check in on their unlikely charge. Despite everything, she's glad she decided to help Min-ji. The violinist is brimming with so much hope for her new life that she can hardly contain herself. The energy is almost contagious.

"Not yet, I don't think so," Se-ri answers finally. Somehow the long silences between them stretch comfortably, almost like they're kindred spirits, caught in the same chaotic maelstrom. "They'll probably find out by Thursday. The authorities start to lose hope of finding missing persons after seventy-two hours."

Min-ji nods, and for a moment, she looks crestfallen. "We're four girls," she says, as if that should make her disappearance less devastating for her parents. She tugs the sleeves of her black sweater over her hands, and it makes her seem so much younger. "I'm the second eldest. Middle children always get a little bit lost in the madness."

She hums an acknowledgment. "I'm sure they'll still mourn and miss you terribly." Ri Jeong-hyeok had assumed the same about her family when they'd first met. He'd been right – at least partially.

"Eomoni will be the saddest," she murmurs, tears welling in her eyes. She rubs them away roughly and looks outside the small window. There isn't much to see beyond the building across the street, so it only takes her a few seconds to come back to the room. "Do you have siblings? Are you the youngest?" she deflects.