The Breakout Project - Hwang Hyunjin

✧Chapter 39✧

"Have you spoken to Seungmin?" Jeongin broke the silence after he came back and my problem had got taken care of.

I darted my attention to him and it was like I had been brought out of a nightmare. At first, I blinked, not understanding his words and causing him to raise his eyebrows suspiciously at me. Then, it hit me.

"Oh, Seungmin. No, I haven't. He hasn't called me and it's not like I have his number either."

"I thought you did," Jeongin argued, very much unconvinced. "Is this your way of keeping me out of this? If it is, then I should tell you that I won-"

"No no," I shook my head, disregarding his assumptions. "It's not. Seungmin pretty much smashed my phone against the floor the other day and I lost everything, including my contacts."

"Who saves their contacts in the actual phone?" the youngest huffed and I sat up, giving him an offended look.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get to spend much time with it either way."

I heard Jeongin let out a deep breath and I tilted my head, wondering why he looked so sad all of a sudden.

"Do you think they're alright?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that and honestly, I didn't know if I could. It was safe to say I felt compelled to say 'yes' even though everything pointed towards the contrary. Crushing Jeongin's hopes wouldn't take me anywhere and it would probably plant some black seeds in my own mind as well.

Without a proper reply, I only looked down to my lap, avoiding his gaze. He must have noticed the look on my face for he didn't press.

"How's your mum?" I asked, trying to get the negative thoughts out of my head.

"Hm," Jeongin hummed, "she's fine - already home." Before I could say anything, he spoke again. "I saw the news this morning, they showed Saerim again. You were right, it does look like a fortress. It's going to be hard to get in."

A groan escaped me. I didn't need to hear how impossible this plan was, especially for us.

We could end up dead, by any means. We were messing with dangerous people and God only knows what they keep in the basement of the centre. One of the guards could shoot us by accident or maybe not by accident but completely intentionally. If we snooped around their work they could see us as potential risks and get rid of us.

Was I seriously considering going through all of this?

I needed to sit down and think. After all, I barely knew Choi Yura and I was already shoving myself into all of this mess for her. Why was I being so careless and reckless? I had hardly spent a couple of weeks with her. No matter how hard I tried to think and look for an answer, I couldn't. Was it because it felt like it was the right thing to do? I didn't owe her anything, much less such a life debt.

A normal person would forget about the matter and rest peacefully on their beds, thankful that the interns had finally been caught. Yes, that's what I should be doing. There would be no more random corpses appearing all over the city; no crazy person to stare at me like I was a main dish in the menu.

If I could only close my eyes and pretend none of this actually happened, it would be so much easier. Maybe I should give up. In fact, maybe I should call the cops and tell them what I knew about Seungmin. That way, he would be captured and I would have nothing to fear at all.

They deserved it.

They were killers. Murderers.

If we were to rescue them, they would go out and start killing again.