‘A Dangerous Flight’

-This is the 3102 train bound for Busan entering the platform. Passengers, please step back behind the yellow line.

An announcement echoed across the Seoul Station platform.

Hanna, who had pulled her zip-up hood inside her coat all the way down to the bridge of her nose, frantically ran down the stairs, pushing through the bustling crowd.

“Ah, seriously.”

People bumped by her vented their irritation one after another, but Hanna had no room to care.

She only quickened her pace to avoid missing the train.

-The train is departing shortly.

Fortunately, making it onto the train by a hair, Hanna moved through the narrow aisle while busily rolling her eyes beneath her hood.

“12A… 12A…”

Before long, finding her seat number that she had been muttering the whole time, she sat down and buried her head low once more.

While dense high-rise buildings and an eight-lane elevated highway passed rapidly outside the window of the train leaving the platform, her gaze remained fixed entirely on the toes of her dirty sneakers resting on the footrest.

How did things turn out like this? Is this right? Is it really okay to do this, Yeji…?

While the train sped away from Seoul, Hanna, who kept questioning herself endlessly, tightly hugged the luxury bag that did not match her shabby appearance.

Biting her molars hard to swallow the surging tears, a single hot tear eventually rolled down her puffed cheek.

Right on time, the train entered a tunnel.

Taking advantage of the pitch darkness, Hanna ruthlessly wiped her eyes with her coat sleeve, which was heavily scented with perfume, when she suddenly froze upon facing her own reflection in the window.

Over her face, swollen completely from crying so much, her image from last night overlapped, and past events flashed by rapidly.

Beyond the man’s broad shoulders, Hanna’s eyes, catching the blue light, trembled violently.

The moment the tears hanging precariously in those eyes dropped, the man who had been pinning her body down hesitated and stepped back.

[You f*cking…!]

Nam Juyeol—he fumbled around his flank and dropped his bloodshot gaze.

Hanna, raising her body, leaned against the table and followed his gaze a step late.

[Ugh… F*ck…]

The area around his flank, which he was pressing as if clutching it, could be seen turning darkly wet. Before long, Hanna’s eyes widened to their limits as they chased the dark red blood crawling and oozing between his fingers.

It was because the sculpting scissors held in her hand were captured within her tightly constricted pupils.

[H-How…]

Only after facing the scissor blades drenched thick with red blood did Hanna realize that she had stabbed him.

The sound of tearing flesh and the sensation of digging in had not been an illusion.

[Hey, Kim Hanna…]

Juyeol’s voice buzzed in her ears. It felt as if the ground she stood on was shaking, and her vision blinked like a broken screen.

The floral foam broken and crushed from the scuffle with Juyeol, the messily overturned buckets, and the colorful bouquets. And the bright blue pills rolling around here and there…

Hanna’s frantically wandering eyes stopped at a single cornflower, freezing blue, lying on the messy floor. No, to be precise, her gaze was fixed on the thin syringe lying right next to it.

Looking at the red-stained needle tip, the horrifying sensation that had dug into her tender flesh seemed to revive all over again.

Her hair standing on end, Hanna dropped the scissors held in her hand and hurriedly wrapped her hands around her own neck.

Crash! At that moment, a loud noise struck her ears.

When she turned her head, Juyeol was sitting slumped on the floor along with an overturned iron shelf.

[This is how you repay my f*cking grace…]

Not even able to steady his body properly, for some reason, he began to laugh, his shoulders shaking. Soon, lifting only his bloodshot eyes, he stared at Hanna with a murderous look as if to tear her to death.

[If you really don’t want to f*cking die…]

She could guess what he was trying to say. Even without his words, she knew she had to call someone or an ambulance.

However, clutching her throbbing neck even tighter, Hanna chose to pass Juyeol and escape that room.

[F*ck! Kim Hanna!]

Juyeol’s screaming voice chased after her fiercely, but she did not look back. Gritting her teeth, she ran only looking ahead.

After leaving the building hanging an exterior signboard that read and running until she was breathless up to her chin, the place she arrived at, ridiculously enough, was her lodging.

Beep, beep, beep. Opening the front door and entering her room straight away, Hanna dragged out a heavy suitcase from inside the wardrobe.

It had already been nearly a year since she entered , and during that time, the luggage she hadn’t unpacked spilled out in a heap through the hastily opened zipper gap.

They were all things important enough that she wanted to pack every single one if she could. But in the midst of running away, such greed was a luxury.

Kneeling down on the floor, Hanna first picked up a small box where she had gathered cash and a pair of flat shoes she had received as a gift from her mother long ago from among the messily tangled luggage.

And after grabbing just the family photo… Where is it?

In fact, the reason Hanna didn’t flee immediately and explicitly ran all the way here was precisely because of that photo. The only remaining photo of her mother left in the world… Fearing it might wear out from checking it too often, she had kept the frame tucked between a thick sweater, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Even if she left other things behind, that was something she could absolutely never leave.

While Hanna rummaged through the piled luggage one by one, the cheap wall clock ticked as if to urge her.

[Sob. Mom…]

Just when the frantic Hanna finally began to sob and tried to search inside the wardrobe, the sound of the door lock echoed.

Hanna, instantly stopping her breath, slowly turned her head toward the open bedroom door.

[Hanna! Kim Hanna!]

The familiar voice that rushed into the dead-silent house was fortunately Seo Yeji, her old friend and roommate with whom she shared the fifteen-pyeong two-room apartment.

[Yeji…]

Looking at Yeji’s paper-white face as she panted for breath, it seemed she had already come after learning everything Hanna had done.

It meant it was too late now. Everything was over.

[What do I do, Yeji… What do I do…]

Hanna, plumping her bottom down, muttered with a vacant face.

Is Nam Juyeol dead? If he’s dead, no. What if he’s alive?

Whether he was dead or alive, she would never be safe.

Hanna, who had personally experienced how ruthless was, couldn’t possibly not know her clearly fixed end.

Maybe the photo of her mother was just an excuse. Maybe she already knew it was a meaningless act anyway…

While the self-abandoning Hanna only dropped tears, Yeji, who ran into her own room opposite, returned after grabbing a coat and a bag from inside the closet.

Subsequently throwing the coat to Hanna first, she spoke while rummaging through her jacket pocket.

[That’s why I told you to pack a luggage bag ahead of time because you never know what will happen immediately in this line of work!]

Yeji shoved a business card she found in her pocket into the bag she had brought, and forcibly grabbed and pulled up the arm of Hanna, who was sitting slumped.

[How long are you going to sit there crying like an idiot? Wake up and go quickly!]

[I-I’ll just turn myself in.]

[Turn yourself in? Do you think there’s any cop who hasn’t taken Nam Juyeol’s drugs? I guarantee you, you won’t even get to see the inside of a holding cell before you’re brought right in front of Nam Juyeol. Then what happens next? Don’t you know what will happen!?]

Yeji shouted, roughly pushing Hanna, whom she had dragged out, toward the entryway.

For some reason, the woman saying those words looked even more terrified. And with good reason, she had known Juyeol for much longer. Naturally, she also knew his cruel and brutal nature better than anyone.

Yeji, who didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if Hanna were caught by him, hurriedly thrust the bag, which she had even packed her own cell phone into, into Hanna’s arms and continued her words.

[I’ll divert their attention and contact you, so just hide somewhere for now.]

[No, I won’t go alone. Let’s go together!]

However, Hanna stubborned, grabbing the wrists of Yeji, whose hands were pushing her shoulders away.

That the two of them were alumni and that Yeji explicitly protected Hanna was a fact Nam Juyeol completely knew.

[If I run away, Boss Nam will catch you first. You will be in danger!]

Hanna could not possibly go alone, knowing that she would face a terrible fate instead of her.

[Nam Juyeol can absolutely never touch me.]

But Yeji assured her, wiping away the bloodstains left on Hanna’s hands.

[I’m saying this because I have a corner to rely on. So just listen to me, Hanna.]

Lies. When she was just an isolated soul with nowhere to lean in the whole wide world, just like herself… It was clearly a lie. Hanna, biting her lips tight, shook her head violently once more as if she absolutely hated being alone.

[Anyway, you’re just too kind…]

Just as Yeji eventually let out a helpless, bitter laugh, a large shadow suddenly rushed over the two of them.

[Hanna…]

The voice of Yeji, who discovered a man entering through the front door that had been opened first, sank low.

At the same time, struck on the back of her neck, Hanna’s body went limp helplessly.

I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t collapse like this…

Hanna tried to hold on using all her strength, but her fading vision eventually submerged into darkness, and the barely audible voice drifted distantly away.