It was past midnight. You could hear the clock ticking so clearly that it started getting annoying at one point. The dead silence was the killer of your sleep. You were wide awake, staring at the ceiling. You do not realise that you've been tearing up all this time until you change your posture, sleep on your side and the wet pillow case touches your face. You blink harder to let out all the water pooled in your eyes and immediately wipe your eyes and the side of your face through which the tears rolled down to the cloth.
You sit up and lean to the wall attached to your bed. Looking at your asleep brother, you consider him lucky. The vibe and energy outside your room has taken over your room too now. The familiar silence was the traitor which sneaked it in.
You get off your bed and grab your phone with earphones and your overcoat. Slowly and silently opening your room door, you step into the hallway. Closing the door with similar care, you walk into the living room and spot your father fallen asleep on the couch. Just like you expected. You walk over to him, grab the rug folded on the couch and spread it across your father, not letting him sleep in the cold.
You then walk to your parent's bedroom. Opening the door slowly, you feel satisfied seeing your mother asleep in her bed, under the covers. The lamplight falling on her face reveals the stressed wrinkles on her face which let you know that she fell asleep crying her eyes out.
Lastly, closing the main door of the house and pressing your eyes shut in horror after listening to the jingle tune of door locking, you hope your father did not wake up hearing that. You stand outside the door for half a minute with your ear on it, making sure no one woke up.
Travelling downstairs, you walk towards the huge entrance of the apartment. Avoiding eye contact with the night guard, you escape the building.
Hitting the road, walking towards nowhere with music playing in your ears, just breathing in the freedom you start wandering around the neighborhood, taking turns you've never taken and watching the silent streets you've been through.
You just want to graduate very soon, get a job and move out for once with your brother. You even want to take away all the parental rights from your parents and become Yeonhan's legal guardian. You don't anymore want to go back home not knowing how the atmosphere would be in there. One day it's so bright that it looks like you guys are a family straight out of a fairytale and the next day it feels like you are living your ugliest nightmare from which you want to wake up but the devil of the dark has its hands tied around you. It's terrifying and terrorizing not knowing what kind of a night you will be spending at your own house.
When you were younger, you used to think of never getting married. You stopped believing in love and the term 'family'. It all only belonged in the scripted movies and dramas. It's a privilege in real life. But later on after growing up, you saw that not every family has a scene like yours. Whatever is happening is abnormal and that the normal exists. Your aim is to create that normal for yourself and your brother.
You want to get married, give yourself that. Have a husband who works in the day and comes home to you and your kids in the evening with a bright ear to ear smile on his face because of being back to his sweet home and family. You want to support him by running a business from home while you take care of the toddlers. You want to go out at the weekends with your family to the parks, the amusement parks, the movies, the fancy family restaurants and do everything possible which makes you and your family happy, together.
You want to cherish the normality and togetherness for once in your life.
You aren't asking for something perfect. You want to fight with your husband but not because of being extremely insecure and unreasonable by accusing him of having an affair or him calling you a crazy bitch or you complaining of having to live an ordinary life because of the irreversible decisions he made years ago but upon leaving the wet towel on the bed, upon drinking with his friends and coming home late, upon unnecessarily leaving the lights on which might result into a thick electricity bill and upon forgetting your wedding anniversary. You want imperfections but not abnormalities which would shatter your life regularly.
While you take a walk, your eyes keep filling up with tears and drying out in a continuous cycle while you think of being stronger to survive this phase of your life.
You just need someone or something that would give you the love you always resented. Things are temporary, feelings are temporary and so are people but just like you don't want to lose your parents to old age or at the inevitable end of one's life, you don't want to fall in love with someone not trusting them with being there for you, with you forever just for them to leave.
Some disturbing events in your life have given you major trust issues. It is one of the major reasons why you indulge yourself into doing multiple part time jobs. They also become the excuse to throw towards your friends when they ask to hang out or make plans for great weekend trips. Another major reason is that you want to collect as much money as you can to become financially stable when you finally move out. Your parent's think you are at the school library studying while you actually go and hustle for some money.
That's how much you hate living the life your parents gave you. Sometimes you even think of how much peace the afterlife would have. You've thought of ending your only life several times but there are two reasons you haven't done it yet. First would be Yeonhan and second would be you being fainthearted.
"I am begging you. Please let me go. I swear I won't betray you again. I-"
Your attention is suddenly snatched after hearing a man scream. The screams immediately trigger you and the pupil in your eyes widens sensing the extreme fear and shakiness in the man's voice. Just in the next second, the man appears in front of a dark alley, stumbling on his wounded feet and scrambling on the ground. Before you could register what was happening, his voice suddenly is cut off and the familiar calmness takes over. Just after his body falls flat on the ground and after the flickering light of the damaged street light hits his face, you notice his skin torn deeply on his forehead from which blood had started flowing out.
He was shot in the forehead.
Your eyes slowly start to widen, looking at the man while standing on your frozen feet with your hands locked and dug into your coat's pocket. The music is still playing in your earphones but it feels like it's just being played in the back of your head, in the background.
While you were taking your time processing that a man was just killed in front of you, someone follows the dead man's way out of the alley holding a gun from which a faint yet clearly visible smoke was erupting followed by a foul smell of burnt gunpowder escaping out of the holes of the silencer.
He is standing just a few inches away from you, unaware of your presence. The dark alley, the continuously blacking out of the streetlight and the total black outfit of the man holding a gun was perfectly camouflaging his existence at the place. The way he was dressed in black tights, black t-shirt, a black leather jacket, a black cap, the way he walked, the way he moved, his body language, his confidence, his stillness, his quietness and his stance when he held the gun he just fired, screamed that he didn't kill someone for the first time. He seemed so normal after doing such an abnormal act.
The man lowers his gun and slowly walks towards the dead body, kicking him in ribs to check whether or not he was dead. Being satisfied after knowing that the person laying on the road isn't alive anymore, he exhales aggressively but just then something catches his attention.
Your shadow.
Your shadow fell right beside his foot. Realizing someone witnessed the murder, his head instantly snaps at you, making you have an eye contact with him.
RUN
RUN
RUN Y/N
He is now suddenly aware of your presence. Noticing someone standing there as a witness of the heinous act he just did, he turns towards you with his clenched jaw and the hand which was holding the gun without wasting a second goes up in your direction. It's then when you finally come to your senses and listen to the screams in your head asking you to run for your life. They make you realize that you were going to get killed right here too. With that hitting you, you couldn't help but take a step back.
"Don't!" "Don't you dare" the guy orders with sternness while glaring at you fiercely.
More than the scene of him pointing a gun at you, his sharp stare and feral tone sends shivers down your spine.
With every step of his, he was getting closer to you and trying to get a clearer look of you. While he did that, you noticed something black on the hand he was holding the gun with, peeking out of his jacket's sleeve.
Tattoos?
Your gaze fixes at his inked hand, taking note of every stroke drawn on his skin, subconsciously.
"Look, I won't tell anyone. Just-Just let me go" you stutter with every inch of yours pbeing frightened under your skin.
"Just shut up and stand there" he commands again in the same tone.
He was just two steps away when he fastened his pace and lowered his gun only after getting hold of you. His hand harshly and roughly grabs your arm and effortlessly successfully slams you to the wall nearby. With a gun in his one hand and now your neck in his other, he stands in front of you, tall and scary.
As soon as he takes control over you, he starts looking up and down your face with a frown. While he gets a clearer look of you, you do the same. Finally being exposed to the face under that cap, you notice his dark and evil doe eyes, sleekly curved bridge of the nose, the well proportioned rosy but dry lips and the mole under it on the chin. You know you have registered this face very well in your head that you are never ever going to forget it.
"You?"
His grip on your neck loosens after taking a good look at you.
He knows you?
HE KNOWS YOU?
Just when you discover that he knows about your existence beforehand, your attention is again caught by the flickering lights which shine into your eyes and that sparks an idea into your head. Your escape strategy. You need one moment, that one chance which will help you make your way out alive.
"Jungkook!" "Where are you?"
A loud voice comes from the alley your potential assassin walked out from. Hearing the voice, both of you look in its direction and at the same time the light fortunately goes back into the blind mode. That. That was your chance of escaping, taking advantage of the dark.
You instantly with all your energy and force, push him away by his chest and run for your life.
"Hey you!" the guy growls at you and right in the next second you feel something brushing against the side of your torso leaving the spot burning.
That disturbs your pace but you don't stop at it and keep running. He obviously runs behind you to get you but something inside you just boosted your energy up making you run faster to stay alive. It was the thought of Yeonhan being left alone with your dreadful parents. You had to live for him.
After a few minutes of running away from the threat, you check if anyone is still following and fail to spot anyone. The streets were now bright and everything was clearly visible. Seeing no one behind you, you slow down in your tracks to catch a breath. You slow down and then let yourself pause by throwing your weight on a car parked there. You fall to the ground in immense pain.
Your hand proceeds towards the place where it was unbearably burning. Feeling something wet on your fingers, you take a look at it and discover your hand and the side of your torso covered in red liquid. Covered in your blood.
He shot you.