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Her body tensed and muscles recoiled in the wake of consciousness. It took her a moment to adjust to the harsh lighting dragged on by the ceiling's fluorescence, but she knew exactly where she was.
The scratch of the hospital gown and the cold shivers sent down her spine against the cardboard-stiff bed was an all too familiar feeling. It made her stomach turn. The dry of her throat and the copper taste of her own blood left in her mouth for what could've been days—
There was nothing Ottavia hated more...
No. She shut her eyes and saw a mix of orange-red behind her lids against the brightly lit room. Forced her tight jaw to unclench and relieve the panic settled in her lungs, working her mind to remember— Ottavia doesn't exist anymore.
Every breath she took into her lungs belonged to Eunbyul now.
Hong Eunbyul.
Hong... Hong Yuchan's second daughter.
She cursed at the wretched memory. Painstaking in the way she suddenly remembered the last of his breath as it brushed against her bloodsoaked cheek.
Her grip wrung the thin blanket over her legs on the hospital bed. Taken back to how she had clung to him in desperation. Until the light in his eyes faded, and the beat of his heart fell silent under the pressure of her palm over his dying chest.
"Fucking dammit..."
Desolation, vast and empty, dripped down the walls of the meager room and rose up from the cold floor to slither over her body. The feeling squeezed her like a snake to its prey, suffocating her before it ate her up whole.
Nothing she could do while it spit her back out with the imminent grief; knowing he was gone. Dead.
A suffered cry threatened to rip the knotted of her vocal chords into shreds. But she swallowed the overwhelming anguish and took in a sharp breath instead, focusing on the turn of the door's handle open from the outside.
A nurse opened the door to her room and waved in a man.
Eunbyul blinked the blur from her tears away and watched as Junwoo stepped foot inside. With a quick bow of his head, he thanked the heart-eyed nurse with a charming smile as she backed out and closed the door again.
His eyes finally turned to look at her, but she didn't give him the time to react. Junwoo stood tall at the foot of the small hospital bed and simply stared back.
Her paleness was tinged with an even more sickly shade under the unflattering hospital lights. But despite the sunken skin that hollowed her cheeks from having survived on nothing but I.V. fluids for days, her grip was strong as she reached for the power outlet down at her bedside and unplugged the monitoring system.
Junwoo glanced back at the door behind him, but no one else rushed in to put a stop to her. She simply went ahead and pulled off the string of cables and the clear nasal tubing from her face.
"How long?" She looked at him and asked, voice hoarse but unwavering. All calm and still in the eye of the storm.
And oh, what storm she brewed inside from the looks of her.
Hanseok swallowed, cold sweat brimming his forehead and the palms of his hands. A reminder that he was human after all. Or at the very least, when it came to her, he was. So he believed it when his chest tightened ever so slightly at the hurt pooled in her dismal eyes.
This wasn't the way he wanted it to be. But his plans had taken a turn for the worse because of Seunhyuk's idiot decision to drop her out of the Babel case.
Eunbyul had been so difficult to keep as it was. He couldn't let her slip away without retaliating.
He couldn't stand to watch her growing indifference towards everything that he had worked so hard to build. Not when she was just starting to confide in him as a partner, too.
So when Choi Myunghee came up with a way to deal with this obstacle, he didn't see any reason to stop her.
Killing the Jipuragi lawyer was not the way he planned to go about it. But it managed to strike a chord in Eunbyul's heart the same.
Hanseok hadn't wanted her anger, but anger was better than nothing.
Anger could still be molded by his hands, unlike her indifference, and made into something just for him. All for him.
"Five days," he finally breathed and rounded the foot of the bed to stand at her side. "You've been in and out for almost a week," he admitted.
More out that in, Eunbyul didn't remember any of the other times she'd come to before right now. She sat up and tried to adjust to the loss of time. To the loss of...
"Hong Yuchan."
His name slipped through her chapped lips, trembling with grief or maybe hurt or most likely fear or— It didn't matter how she chose to describe it. She knew what it felt like; to love a father and then lose him without warning.
Hell.
It all felt like hell. Back then or right now, whether it had been Ottavia or it was Eunbyul, the girl that tried fighting off the tears. Her fate was still the same and there was no way to escape this precise, soul-gnawing feeling beneath her freezing skin.
"Hong Yuchan is dead..." She didn't need him or anyone to come in and tell her what she already knew all too well. "You were right, I should've listened."
He shook his head and blinked with welled tears in his eyes. They were just a reflection of what he saw in her pained expression, but he tried anyway.
"None of that matters now," his hand reached out and cradled her cheek. Thumb pressed softly over the malnourished bone there as she held his gaze.
A glassiness to the look in her eyes that refused to break, and he couldn't help but wonder what it would take for her to finally give in.
Hanseok wondered what it would feel like if he were in her place.
If the heart that was threatening to shatter behind those dark and widened eyes, were his own. Because even if he knew he wasn't capable of this, watching her trying to hold back tears made him curious.
Her pain intrigued him. Caused something indescribable to lump at the very back of his throat.
And he wanted more of whatever it was that she managed to provoke.
"Just cry," he whispered to her.
He was gentle on the outside. Almost begging with the way he leaned in closer and dragged the warmth of his fingers across her cold skin, "Eunbyul, please, cry."
He was hungry and selfish for the feel of it, and she was so weak and drained against his hold that it didn't take much for her to listen.
Her tears burned with hurt, with rage, with a whirlwind of emotions that suffocated her lungs. They stained his shirt and he only brought her in closer against his chest when her cries neared sobs.
Eunbyul clung to Junwoo, to the feel of his arms and the sound of his breathing. She allowed herself this single moment and emptied every bit of her suffering into his offered up heart. He could keep it all if he wanted it.
But the anger... The anger stayed with her. She was going to need it burning with a searing ruthlessness, for what she had planned.
· • -- ٠ ✤ ٠ -- • ·
It was too bright of a day for Eunbyul to be kneeling down at Hong Yuchan's grave.
The gray stone stared back at her as she squinted her eyes. It took her a second to adjust to the sunlit glint across the sleek marble, her chest tightening but she swore to herself no more tears. Instead, the two dates under his name marked with a definitive line between them, had her wishing she'd brought roses rather than lilies.
Spiked thorns against the tender flesh of her palms would've been more fitting.
It wasn't fair that she was the one to feel the delicate satin of their white petals pressed against the soiled ground, when it should've been him getting hit with the heat of the sun rays on his back.
It was all wrong. The air in her lungs was too sweet. The cooing of flying pigeons above was too chipper. The hand Junwoo placed on her shoulder was too kind. And it just wasn't fair.
It just wasn't fair, when she was the one that made the mistake, but he had been the good soul to pay.
· • -- ٠ ✤ ٠ -- • ·
She couldn't bear to meet the faces of anyone after visiting the cemetery.
The car ride with Junwoo had been filled with heavy silence, only grateful that he hadn't pushed his efforts further, and dropped her off at the plaza without so much as uttering a single condolence.
The last thing she needed right now was pity.
Eunbyul walked through the halls unnoticed, catching a glimpse of her reflection from the closed down beauty salon's glass panes before she turned the corner. All too frail and bony, she'd lost a considerable amount of weight, and the nasty scar that ran near the hairline at the right side of her temple... She was definitely reminiscent of a ghostly spectre.
Her unpleasant appearance hurried the pace of her soundless steps as she crossed the stretch of another hall, before pulling the hood of her jacket over her head.
The once homely sense at the sight of the other tenants' establishments, now warped the atmosphere hostile with the absence of Jipuragi's most beloved lawyer.
She swallowed at the unwelcome feeling burrowed in the pit of her stomach, turning the lock off from the book café and slipping past the door unseen.
Her return was far from a win. No need to disturb them with the news that she was back, not when she knew it had all been her fault. Eunbyul couldn't bring herself to face anyone before she figured out a way to make amends.
Hong Yuchan's dying wish to burn Babel down was her only chance to set things right by him and Chayoung, and her found family at Geumga Plaza. It was the least she could do for having caused them so much pain. For having been such a selfish coward.
· • -- ٠ ✤ ٠ -- • ·
Although she tried to keep herself caged in the solitude of her P.I. office, the moment Chayoung realized Eunbyul was out of the hospital, all of them had come together to drag her out of that self-induced misery.
In no more than twenty minutes, Chayoung was threatening to kick down the door and Eunbyul had no choice than to let her in. The ravenhead didn't speak a word, but just being able to see her was enough for Chayoung to calm down before she left her alone again.
With the commotion her sister had caused, it was no surprise when the other several knocks at her office door followed shortly after. And although they had insisted, she was still not capable of seeing their sad expressions so her door remained closed to them.
It hadn't been until she received an earful from Cheolwook and Yeojin at the other side of her door, that Eunbyul finally compromised and left the door ajar for them to come inside.
She refused to leave her desk, but as the days passed she had noted them all taken turns in order not to leave her completely alone.
Abbot Jeokkha and Monk Chaesin had accompanied her early mornings in comfortable silence. They made themselves useful by organizing her piled up case files with discretion, dusting off her bookshelves, and even made runs of copies for her.
Once the time for breakfast neared, Eunbyul had been prepared to simply brew some coffee and go through her days on energy bars and cereal. No time to be wasted when all her focus needed to be on formulating the perfect plan to destroy Babel Group.
However, Mr. Nam had been quick to appear at her door next.
"I know you must not have much of an appetite, but even some toast and strawberry jam is better than nothing."
He placed the small tray of fresh and still warm toast, strawberry jam, and a glass of iced americano on her desk and turned around. Careful as to not interrupt her working, he had almost forgotten and stopped to also let her know before leaving, "And don't worry about Luna and Panfilo, Byulnie, I am taking very good care of them."
Eunbyul couldn't bring herself to even crack an appreciative smile for fear of bursting into tears, so she had just offered a slow blink of her eyes his way. Back to reading the information on her computer screen, while she had tried to fight off the bittersweet pang of her heart.
Still, the small bites of her toast had made their way down through the knot in her throat with the help of the iced americano.
"It's almost four," Mrs. Kwak had carefully announced during lunch time as she stepped into the office with a bundle of tupperware in her hands. "Here's some bibimbap and hearty side dishes to help you regain your strength, Eunbyul-ah."
The single mother hadn't waited for an answer, simply understanding that she wasn't ready to do anything but slave away in her mysterious investigations. The emptied out dishes when she came back a few hours later had been more than enough, before she sent Chef Toto to take care of her dinner.
"I used my grandmother's secret recipe," Chef Toto had been quick to explain when his newly hired assistant and him stepped inside. She couldn't help but eye the Chicken Alfredo pasta dish with a curious arch of her eyebrow.
"I told him to hold back on the garlic since you don't really like it," Giseok let out before he remembered to address her more formally, "Investigator Hong." His undercover ruse needed to work for as long as the mafia consigliere still remained hospitalized.
Enubyul nodded and said nothing more, allowing Toto to set the dish on the corner of her desk before they left. Although, she had to admit that Chicken Alfredo alone almost cured all her affliction and single-handedly tamed her inner demons.
Unfortunately, she had too many of them for that to be possible. And just when she had come to terms with the fact that sleep would be out of the question, Mr. Tak and Larry stopped by her door in the middle of the night.
Each time, the laundromat's owner had brought some of his special tea to fight off her insomnia, while the studio's dance teacher made a quick run to the local pharmacy and brought her an assortment of pain relief patches for her still healing muscle aches.
Even Miri had put aside her preferred selection of haunting and grim piano music, and played the keys with something gentle, soft, and angelic. A calming and hopeful lullaby just for Eunbyul's ears, as she finally caved in after three arduous days and crashed on the small couch in her office.
A blanket placed over her sleeping frame, when Youngho came in at last and stopped her from shivering in the dark.
· • -- ٠ ✤ ٠ -- • ·
Even with all the support from them, Eunbyul was driving herself mad as she spent all her energy and still came up with a flawed plan.
Nine days had passed since Hong Yuchan's death and she was still cooped up in her office, only fragments of a scheme that no matter how hard she tried, it just wasn't good enough.
Or maybe, it was time to consider the obvious; her. It was her that just wasn't good enough to take down Babel and Wusang.
Eunbyul laughed, agonizing and delirious. The sound wasn't her but the longer it reverberated around the small room, the more familiar it became. Taking a couple steps away from her desk, she stopped before she let herself go unhinged, and stared at the chessboard displayed on her office's coffee table.
She searched for a notion of stability and found it in the silver-and-gold set of its chess pieces, still arranged in place from the last game Hong Yuchan had tried to teach her.
She always sucked at the stupid game. Lost herself to impatience when things didn't go the way she'd foreseen. But now she understood; she had been playing the pieces all wrong.
Her plan of attack wasn't the problem. Simply the roles she assigned, which were completely misplaced. One in particular, that screamed to be fixed.
Eunbyul came closer and picked up the Queen.
The silver ran cool against the skin of her palm but the heft of it didn't feel right in her hand. The ruthlessness which the Queen demanded, she had. But she turned a blind eye to the freedom she lacked.
She couldn't make the moves that needed to be taken and that's why her plan didn't work. She was better fit for a leader, not a martyr. Someone who made the rules and set out the orders, because they were that important. Because if they failed—if she failed, it meant the fall of everyone else. Not just herself.
Eunbyul despised herself for thinking and realizing it, but the answer was clear. The very thing her mother had trained her for... What she always feared to become, and now... God, irony really was a funny son of a bitch, wasn't he?
Her fingers moved towards the chessboard again.
She interchanged the Queen in her hold for the tallest of all. A deep breath trying to settle the rancor ignited from within that part of her heart, which still clung to the absolute hatred of the fact.
But if she wanted to get back at Babel and Wusang, she couldn't be the one to bear the consequences of it all. Not while she still had people to protect, to care for. To someday build a future with.
The Queen didn't belong to her.
It belonged to someone who could move freely and in any direction. Someone who shared the same ruthlessness that she couldn't afford. And she knew perfectly well who this needed to be.
So from this moment on, she would be King. And Vincenzo Cassano, her most powerful piece.
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... END OF ACT ONE ...