After that one simple sentence came out of Nari's mouth, my stomach dropped and my eyes unknowingly widened.
It didn't cross my mind at all that someone else could actually recognize him too.
If it was true that she knew him, she had to know his name, right? And if she knew his name, she had to know exactly who he was. Where he belonged.
Next there was this one perplexes question I was thinking about. How did this knowledge of him affect the verity once he and his "teammates" would escape, she wouldn't be trustworthy?
'Don't you know who he is?' Romeo's words rang in my ears.
But how come this girl knew more than me?
The more I thought about it, the more questions filled my mind. But before I could drown in them, a thin hand appeared in my field of vision.
,,See those two over there?" Nari pointed in the direction where the two thieves were still standing in the corner talking.
,,The one on the right." She kept whispering.
I measured them both with my gaze, and then there was an epiphany for me.
Su-Jin's figure was on the left side, not the right.
,,He is the son of a prominent politician and... was here several times to visit a woman, but it was a long time ago." I listened to her explanation, but my gaze remained fixed on the other guy, who I found out with great relief was not the one the dark-haired girl next to me was talking about.
,,He is far too influential for me to accuse him of such a thing." Nari finished with a disgusted expression while I frowned.
,,Well, if it's really him-"
,,We need to get proof!" I was taken aback by her sudden burst of determination.
,,Can you think of anything?"
Oh, so the courage would be there, but no ideas. Of course.
In theory, we could access our phones, but what would that solve? Take a picture of them? No, it's enough to get footage from security cameras, which won't reveal anything anyway thanks to their masking.
What next?
,,I don't know. How about we try to get the cops here first?" Continuing to mull it over, I spoke it aloud in another whisper.
,,And risk that someone will be killed for real this time? I guess I overestimated you." She instantly responded to my suggestion, which made me feel really dumb after. My sanity had gone somewhere in this situation, and it wasn't going to come back as soon as I found out.
Suddenly the brunette was lifted up by the hem of her t-shirt while at the same time the air was catch in my throat.
Turning my face up, my gaze landed on the remaining third member of the culprits.
,,Someone's having fun here, right?" He held her facing away from him so she wouldn't have a direct close-up view of his face.
My eyes then fell on his dark gloves, which were also worn by the rest of his accomplices.
Alright, so fingerprints could not be another option to obtain some evidence.
Meanwhile, Nari was silent, not even trying to turn to him and just waiting to see what would happen.
Only then did I realize that her gaze was focused on something else. It was focused at two men in black caps approaching us.
Spontaneously, I started looking for something that could save Nari, us, in the worst situation, and in a few seconds I found it. The sharp shards from the broken decorative table were only a few feet away from me.
,,Put her back and come with me." The politician's son, I found out, spoke and gestured with his hand to the place they came from.
Nari was afterwards pushed back to the ground and I immediately made sure she was okay. However, before I could do anything more, I was staggered by a shadow that covered us.
And right after that I felt the unpleasant material of his gloves under my chin, which forced me to raise my face to him so that our eyes could meet.
I tried my best to prevent the warm feeling that began to spread inside my whole body, but it was too pleasant and resistant.
,,You'll slowly get up and come with me."
It took me a few seconds to process his quiet, firm words, but I knew that if I rejected him, Nari would find out something that I don't yet know if I want her to know.
That's why I pushed myself off the ground with my palms and got myself to a standing position.
If I expected him to roughly grab my arm or my hair, it didn't happen. Su-Jin instead begun walking towards the door to the hallway leading to the back entrance, assuming I would follow.
I kept my head down towards the floor, perhaps to avoid the gaze of others, or perhaps not to seem too self-confident about the situation I was in. I wasn't sure.
I planned to say my words in private because I was determined to find out what was actually going on here.
,,Let them go, Su-Jin. All of them." There was no hesitation from me as the door closed behind us.
,,Them?" He repeated as he pulled his mask under his chin, so I finally had the opportunity to see directly into his face.
,,Of course." I said with a hint of incomprehension, but I needed to remain confident. I had to show him that I would stand by my words and that I would not give up.
Su-Jin let out a bitter mocking-sound as he took a few steps closer to me.
,,It's always 'them', isn't it?"
So, and that's when my self-confidence started to disappear a little, despite the fact that I didn't want it that way.
What was he implying?
,,When will it be 'you'? When will you put yourself first? What the hell has to happen for you to finally start thinking about yourself?" He whisper-yelled and his gesticulation of the hands added the appropriate emotion to it.
,,How much more proof do you need to show that it doesn't pay to be good?"
So many questions...
,,This isn't about me-"
,,Of course it is." He cut me off already with a neutral tone in his voice. ,,There are so many more things about you that you cannot even imagine."
,,I can. You've already told me them all." He was shown my reaction as soon as I had the space to express my point of view.
I didn't need to hear anything else from him that would occupy my mind again for a very long time so I selfishly turned to the door and reached for the handle.
Then my chest bumped hard against his as I was suddenly pulled into his snug, warm embrace.
Out of shock, I inhaled sharply and thereby absorbed a strong amount of air that was scented with his natural musk.
Wrong move.
His large hand ran the length of my spine while his other wrapped tightly around my middle part, pulling me closer to him. His left cheekbone was pressed against my jaw on the right side as his breath tickled my neck.
All of this left me feeling that I really meant something to him. That all the moments we spent together meant something to him.
It made me feel so pathetic that I didn't even mind.
,,I'm sorry. I really am." It came out slightly hoarse from him.
And then that moment snapped. The realization that the people lying in fear on the floor of the clinic that had been raided were still there came flooding back. Just as the fact that Su-Jin wasn't one of those people, he was one of the ones that those people were there for, and for which one man nearly bled to death, another was nearly shot, and one woman had at least one rib broken.
After pulling away from him, I made sure there was enough space between us. I also didn't want his close proximity to affect me because I was painfully aware it would really happen.
However, he, almost with a scowl, took me back into his arms again just so he could squeeze me even more.
,,If you think I'm gonna let you go, love, you're so wrong." He spoke again, this time with an unexpected hardness in his voice. As if he was so sure of his words that he didn't admit anything else.
,,Not again."
I'm hallucinating. One of them must have hit me on the head with something heavy and now I'm seeing and hearing things that aren't really there.
That was what was going through my mind until the moment I raised my head and saw the emotion that was perfectly written on his face. This time I could see it clearly.
Fear.
The only thing I couldn't discern was the reason for his fear. And I wanted to know it so much.
,,I'm sorry, Millie. You shouldn't have been involved in this." He was looking straight into my eyes and I couldn't look away. It was funny because most of the time I had a hard time keeping eye contact with a person I was just having a casual conversation with, but looking into his dark irises wasn't the least bit of a problem.
,,I want to know if you're doing this out of compulsion or out of your own conviction." Once the words that I had been thinking about for a while came back to me, I forced my voice to finally start working like before.
,,It's the second one, love." Without hesitation, I was given his answer, which carried much more emotion than was visible on his face.
Like always, Su-Jin's sincerity enveloped everything.
That was the time when I realized that there was no turning back for me. I could only go on and experience a relationship that was based on truth and mutual trust or come to the end where I could be disappointed and let down.
Well anyway, sure enough, I believed that I wanted to go through it, that journey together by Su-Jin's side.
At very least I was justifying my further actions with that.
For the first time, I lifted my arms from their places by my sides and encircled them tightly around his shoulders while I rested my forehead heavily against the crook of his neck.
I could tell by his stiffening that he really didn't expect it from me, neither did I. But it was getting old listening only to my mind... uncommonly I wanted to listen to my heart.
,,Let me hear it all." It may have seemed like an order, but again it was his hands that could assure me instead of words that if it sounded like that to him too, he didn't mind at all because he returned my sudden hug.
I had a need to know everything he was willing to tell me.
,,I will." I felt his nod. ,,But now you have to go back in there."
Yes, that was the reality I had to accept, but I gave myself one more try to convince him because there was a girl waiting outside the door who was putting her trust in me and I wasn't going to let her down.
,,You have to help those people. Let them go, at least the wounded ones." I said again before he had a chance to send me back to the others.
,,It wasn't planned. What happened to those people could have been prevented if-"
,,If we didn't play heroes." I finished for him as I took a few steps away from him again.
I knew there was much more behind the broken things, but the injuries caused by it left me with a sense of anger that Su-Jin recognized right away.
There was so much confusion in my emotions that I lost hope of ever being able to combine them.
,,Soon this will be over." He reacted with sheer determination.
,,Look, I know you're fighting for what you think is right..." I said bluntly, maybe I was too absorbed in the feeling of comfort.
,,... but I'm going to do the exact same thing."