There was something going on, Mina wasn’t sure what it was, she couldn’t seem to put a finger on it, but she could feel it. But she didn’t mind because it wasn’t really much of a bad thing. It was just a sudden shift, and she would call herself stupid if she didn’t notice it so quickly.
In the mornings, she would see extra pairs of shoes that were terribly kept under the shoe racks. Sana would come out of her room in the morning with a sickening huge smile on her face and it was obvious that she was definitely seeing someone. Especially with the amount of love bites that were scattered at the back of her neck going all the way to her shoulders. She did a horrible job of hiding them underneath her shirt or cardigan.
Plus she smelled like perfume and Mina knew that it was someone else's because she knew what was Sana's perfume. So it was either, Sana found a fuck buddy and was trying her best to hide her inside her room; or that Sana and Tzuyu got back together, because her best friend was not the type to just sleep with whoever when she was trying to get over a heart break.
Did Mina want to ask her about it? Yes, of course. She was dying to know the juicy details of her evening sexcapades and she at least wants to be happy for Sana that she was picking herself up again by getting laid so much.
But was Mina ready to find out if it really was with Tzuyu or not? No, she really wasn’t. Mina would like to believe that Sana wasn't the type to just slept on her feelings overnight and woke up completely different the next day.
Mina can’t remember how long it had been since the last time she saw Chaeyoung. She tried her best to drown herself in work and maybe doing exercises at home in front of her television.
She even looked at train tickets to Seoul and started looking for another decent two bedroom apartment for her and Sana to move into. As guilty it made her feel, she couldn’t help but have that silent urge to move out and go somewhere else. Anywhere but here.
Though, as much as she hated it, a part of her didn’t want to let go of Chaeyoung yet. There was a tug in her heart whenever her mind wandered again and her thoughts were shrouded by the image of the faded bleached hair, the smell of fresh wood and strawberries, and that mole that sat perfectly at the bottom of Chaeyoung's lip.
Her life shouldn’t be like this. She had always been a good girl from the beginning. Sure, the majority of the time she spent as a kid was in the confines of her home, playing by herself or allowing her older brother to play with her.
Her parents were always busy, they weren’t rich so they both had to work jobs during the day and sometimes even more than eight hours if they wanted the overtime pay. It was usually just her and her brother, and she was lucky enough to be left alone for most parts of her growing up stages.
She was fine where she was. She liked the ordinary, boring life. Sometimes she tend to feed any fantasies by the stories from her video games or by anime, and that was enough for her. Sure, meeting Sana was the one thing that she allowed to spice things up in her life. She liked having her and her friends around because despite the change in her dynamic, she was still allowed to be herself.
So there wasn’t much going on with herself up until the day she found that taxi, almost died from a crash and ended up in the lair of a mafia group. Then realizing the gut-wrenching feeling of slowly falling in love with the group’s leader that eventually ended up to be insincere.
She would laugh at herself sometimes when she would think about it. Being so worried about being ultimately deceived by them through bribery or any form of crime she could think of. But the only thing that made her stupid was that she let her emotions take the best of her and realized that she was the biggest traitor in her life.
Mina wanted to be freed by all of this. For now, the stalking has ceased. She didn’t feel like someone was following her anymore and Nayeon had made a great effort to not talk about Dahyun whenever they hang out. They knew Mina was still sensitive about Chaeyoung’s confession. Knowing that she was trying to battle the feelings she had for the gang leader herself and they knew they couldn’t do much about it aside from offering support.
Maybe if Mina closed her eyes, she would wake up in an alternative universe where she was in a beautiful home in a quiet town and she had Chaeyoung sleeping soundly next to her, and they lived a peaceful life.
But each time she wakes up, it was the same thing. The same reality. The same situation.
Deep down, she wanted to believe in Chaeyoung again. She wanted to believe she was special to the mafia boss. She wanted to believe in her love. But not when she was this scared.
“Where are you?” Mina asked over the phone as she was sitting in the bus to go home. “Are we ordering in or are we gonna go out to buy dinner?”
Sana hummed over the line. “We could make dinner? I think there are still some ingredients left in the fridge.”
“Are you home?”
There was a long pause and then Sana stammered a bit. “Y-yeah I’m home.”
Mina raised her brow. “Okay?” She couldn’t shake the feeling that Sana didn’t want her to know where she was, maybe she was with mystery lover or whoever was at the apartment. But Mina was in no mood to pry out any information from her roommate. She was really tired from work, and she just wanted to sink into the comfort of her bed.
“Take care okay? I’ll be here when you get home,” Sana said before they both said their goodbyes.
Mina laid back on the seat and sighed. She felt like a mess. Both physically and emotionally. As much as she didn’t want to remind herself of it, but ever since the encounter with the prostitute, Mina had been feeling discouraged and more conscious about how she looked.
She didn’t care about that before, it only mattered to her if she looked decent for the occasion. She usually let Sana or Momo doll her up whenever they decide to go out to party but never by her own efforts.
Then when Chaeyoung said she was beautiful, all the more she felt like she needed to do something about her appearance. But Chaeyoung would tell her it didn’t matter because she would still be beautiful.
Now she didn’t even know if that was true or not. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to let Chaeyoung’s words get the better of her.
God. She really was a mess.
When the bus stopped at her usual drop off, she dragged herself out from her seat and exited. The sun was already setting, and Mina had half the mind to just skip dinner, lay in her bed and sleep throughout the night. She was even contemplating if she should interact with Sana, even with that, she didn’t have the energy for and that made her feel a bit guilty.
As she started her walk back to the apartment, she noticed a man trailing behind her. She took a glance back at him, but he wasn’t wearing anything out of the ordinary. So that made Mina shrug it off. It had been a while since the Dong Sok were following her and after the confrontation with Chaeyoung, she hasn’t seen any of them around.
It made her feel relieved because she didn’t have to worry about them anymore. But she still couldn’t feel comfortable when people would follow behind her.
And it did make her uncomfortable when he would take the same turns she did. Even making an obscure one just to see if he would take a different path. But he was still right behind her. Her heartbeat was picking up and she knew that it wouldn’t be a good idea if she ran, her heels were killing her at that moment, and he might be able to catch up with her if she did try to make a run for it.
So, as much as possible, she remained calm. She reached for the pepper spray and her keys inside her purse and held them tight as she finally arrived at the apartment building. Before she ascended the stairs, she looked back to check if he was still there but to her relief, he wasn’t.
She let out a long breath and started her walk towards her apartment. These were moments she wished she could hate Chaeyoung for making her so paranoid about a lot of things but deep down inside, she didn’t hate her. In fact, she felt like what she did that night in the park was unnecessary but the uncomfortable feelings she had about being followed by the Dong Sok was too much and she didn’t know how long she could take it.
“Sana, I’m home,” she called out when she entered her apartment but realized that Sana wasn’t in the living room. She sighed again and took off her heels and hung up her keys and purse.
Right when she was about to close the door, something was holding it open. She turned her head sharply at it and almost stumbled back when she saw a hand and suddenly the door swung open. The man that was trailing behind her earlier rushed in to enter and grabbed her.
She tried to shout but he immediately placed a hand over her mouth, and he was holding up a knife. “If you shout, I will cut you,” he whispered harshly. She felt herself squirm when his arm slithered around her waist and tried to drag her away from the door. But she resisted and managed to break away from him.
“Sana!!”
In a blur, another unidentified man entered her apartment and rushed towards her. Mina tried to run away from them but stumbled on her footing and fell back. She tried to crawl away, but the two men were fast and managed to get a hold of her, one was pinning her down while the other took out a piece of cloth and tied it around her mouth to keep her quiet.
As the men were tying her they were whispering amongst themselves, something along the lines of knocking her out to already getting a taste of her. One of the men took off the mask that was covering his face and tried to dip his head towards her. Mina closed her eyes and started crying, trying her best to resist and kick these men away but they were too strong, and she couldn’t get them to go away.
Suddenly, she felt someone rush in and grabbed the man that was hovering over her. Mina tried to fixate her vision and saw two tall women.
Tzuyu’s face appeared in front of her. “Sana, grab her.” Tzuyu picked her up from the floor, but one of the men grabbed the knife that was on the floor and quickly jabbed her with it, Tzuyu noticed it immediately and dodged it in time, swinging Mina away from it and dropping her.
“Mina, I’m here,” Sana said quickly as she dragged her away, holding her tight and then untangling the cloth that was around her mouth.
Tzuyu instinctively tackled the assailant, disarming his weapon and making sure he was down. But the man was quick to fight back, standing back up and landing a few hits to Tzuyu, making Sana flinch. Tzuyu was able to recover and fought back. Throwing precise punches on his face and then one straight to his throat. When she was able to, the man staggered, and she swiftly wrestled him on the floor to flip him over and brought his hands towards his back.
Before Mina could notice, the other woman that was inside the room threw the partner on the ground and immediately pointed a gun at him.
“Stay down.” Mina gasped when she saw Chaeryeong standing there, in a bullet proof vest and a radio mic on top of her shoulder. She quickly pressed the button to speak through the radio, still pointing the gun down at both men. “We have them, clear the area.”
“Chaeryeong?” Mina managed to say out loud.
The neighbor spared them a glance and then she looked back at the assailants. “It’s going to be okay Miss Myoui.” Then she grabbed handcuffs from the back of her pants and quickly handed them to Tzuyu. “You know how to work this thing right?”
“I’m not dumb, Lee. I can work handcuffs.” Tzuyu scoffed as she took them from her, already securing it on the other man’s wrists.
“You know Chaeryeong?” Sana asked Tzuyu, still holding onto Mina tightly.
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