Midori's POV
It wasn't long before we were all ready (in the sense that we looked the part, I was still looking for the mentality). Soon, Yoon, Yona, and I were making our way onto the deck.
While Yoon and I spoke quietly about the plan, a shadow loomed over me. Yoon stopped talking, and I turned to face Hak in slight annoyance, "Why? It's slightly cold out, the least you could do is let me bask in the sun's rays." There was a thick silence between the two of us. Poor Yoon couldn't really move with the unnatural silence that was between the two of us.
"Can I talk to you for a moment?"
Though his demeanor was slightly relaxed, the animosity in his voice promised anger, so I put up a brave face and followed him off the boat and away far enough so that those on it would not be able to see or hear us.
"Hak -!" He moved closer to me, his emotional control slightly breaking as he backed me into a tree. The silence hadn't lessened in the slightest, rather it became more prominent as time passed, "Ha -!" His fist slammed into the tree beside my head. In my over-emotional state, I let out a very high pitched 'scream' of sorts.
My eyes widened, and it was all I could do to keep from crying.
~~~~~
Hak's POV (A/N: OHOHO, I haven't done this in a while)
Midori's scream had been a surprise. Usually, she'd never show her intimidation, but today seemed to be different.
I froze. What was I doing?
My sister - who had already gone through so much - was staring at me as if I was a monster. I didn't want to scare her, I just . . . "M-Midori - "
Gasping for air, she whimpered, "I - I . . . Y-yona will be f-fine!" I tried to place my hand on her shoulder to calm her down but "N-n-n-no worries! I - I can han-handle it!" She was shaking.
Taking a step forward, I try to calm her down, "Midor-!"
"E-Everything will go g-great, you'll see!" She shakily moved back towards the boat - keeping her eyes locked on me, "B-but, y-you know, I-I have to get b-back - so we can-can head out! S-s-s-so, I - I am going b-back. S-s-s-see you!"
I was stuck to the ground watching Midori, my sister, flee from the scene - away from me. When I could no longer see her, I felt my knees lock.
I hit the ground, my hands clenched into fists as I realized what had just happened.
1) I just scared Midori.
It wasn't even like a jump-scare, a well-natured scare! I betrayed whatever trust we had built up over the years! And just because her past was a secret! What kind of brother am I?
2) Midori is now even more on edge.
She already seemed unstable!
What have I done?!
~~~~~
Midori's POV
As I arrived back to the boat, Yona and Yoon were already descending onto dry land.
"Midori!" Yoon yelled at me. I took a deep breath and looked up, a fake smile adorning my face. I waved as the two came closer to me.
Yona threw her arms around me as she finally reached me, "I was wondering where you had gone!"
I held her close and then released her, facing my two companions, "Sorry, sorry! Hak just had some . . . encouraging words of advice for me." Yoon, who had been there with me when I left with Hak, looked slightly alarmed - he must have felt the anger radiating off of Hak as well.
He did not bring up that, but there was a sympathetic look thrown my way before Yona looped her arm through my own, "Let's go!"
"You're oddly excited to be walking into human trafficking," I spoke dryly - trying to break the tension in the air.
~~~~~
"So you say you want to work here?" The man in charge here spoke, taking in our full appearance.
I fiddled with my earrings while putting on a shy smile, "We heard this was the best place for a girl to find a job."
This man looked the three of us up and down, from me to Yoon (as Yona was between us). I had to place my other hand behind my back to hide my tightly clenched fist from him. There was a moment of silence as he looked 'assessed' the three of us, and I began to get slightly worried. Just as I thought we were home-free, his eyes came back to me with high scrutiny, "Are you from here?"
It was common knowledge between those who worked for Kumuji that I was not born in Awa, but nevertheless, I spoke with confidence, "I was born and raised here - I'm the daughter of a lowly fisherman who recently got injured at sea."
I didn't look at my companions to get their reactions, but I could feel the air lighten.
Well, until he spoke up again, "I'd like to ask you some more questions, in private." My eyes slightly widened, but I kept up my smile. "As for you two," he said addressing Yona and Yoon, "you can wait in that room over there."
Yoon, blessed yoon, spoke up whilst taking Yona by the arm, "Of course, thank you." Our eyes met for a brief moment as I mouthed, Cut all ties with me, Now. "And it was wonderful meeting you, I hope you get a job here."
I nodded, speaking shakily, "Good luck to the both of you as well."
~~~~~
"Right through here, ma'am," said the man who had greeted my original group earlier. I honestly cannot believe that I managed to already get myself separated from the others.
"Of course," as the atmosphere got more morose, so did I, trying to play off of the feeling.
Man lead me into a room with a chair, and before he left me, he had asked me to sit there, so, I sat.
~~~~~
The room was literally anything but light. There was no form of light so to speak of, but as I had been sitting here for over a half hour(by my calculations, anyway), my eyes had more-or-less adjusted.
But, of course, life hates me, so there was no real surprise in the door opening and light blinding me momentarily. Although it was only a moment, that was all my assailants needed because I was held to the chair by a number of people before a drug-doused cloth was shoved over my nose and mouth, effectively knocking me out.
As I faded into another - slightly familiar - form of darkness, I recall these words that made my blood run cold, "Good work boys, this one'll be so happy to see me."
________________________________________________________________________________
Soooooo, I'm sorry I have just got to updating.
I am happy to see that many people seem to love this story - which is great because I love it too. I am hoping that I will be able to update more often, but as it is mid semester in college for me as a computer science major . . . it's going to be a little hard.
Either way, I have so many plans for this book, some of you are getting at some of the more complex parts that I plan to add to this book.
This here is a complex part, and it requires mostly creative license from me as the following scenes are not going to be from the manga (or anime - as we haven't reached the end of that yet). I will be following the manga - sort of - but I may diverge slightly after this arc - just as a fair warning.
HOWEVER, I do want to recommend reading the manga - especially for this book - as I am writing this to correlate with what is happening. In the future, when I diverge a bit, I will not write what is going on word for word from the manga. I do like to get creative, and that is what I personally think that makes works like this so great, so while things I may allude to or slightly touch on in the future will be within the story, just don't expect me to rewrite the whole story straight from the manga. I'm just warning you now, because there will be things like spoilers from the manga - as I don't have a defining stopping point for this book yet.
So, yeah, I have big plans for this book, but updates may be sparse. When May rolls around (that's the end of my spring semester), then it'll be more likely that updates will come more frequently.
I hear y'all, I do. Thanks for being so supportive!!!
~Ashley