By the time Youngmi could collect herself and scram for her clinic, the murk of the night had already drained out— paving way for the amber-tinged rays to establish their hegemony for the next few couples of hours. The balmy morning sun had soon surfaced too, though quite contrary to the conventions, preferred to stay impassive towards Youngmi throughout.

But impassive tends to be a neutral connotation, and the celestial body was acting rather rancorously towards her.

Because it was sweltering hot that forenoon for some reasons.

Youngmi— still intent on closing the distance between her clinic and herself as soon as possible— perfunctorily took off the cardigan that had started to prick her arms, and fastened it around her waist as she continued to jog down the pavement. Once her line of sight had finally aligned with the structure of her destination, she hunched down, resting her hands on her knees as she attempted at focusing on her erratic breaths.

When Youngmi's phone screen had displayed the alert message that informed her of almost half of her money being transferred to someone whom she did not even recall paying, the female's ability to control her jitters evanesced into thin air too. Even a retrospection could not convince her of her involvement in such a momentous transaction in the early hours of that day. In all possibilities, the likelihood of her sending millions of Won to a stranger was completely out of question.

She had never been too fond of such perilous ventures anyway.

However, she could not afford to fritter away much of her time either. Mulling over the fortunes that she had already lost would not compensate her in any respect. The best she could do at the moment was to protect whatever assets that she was now left with. And in order to achieve that, the need to bolt for her workplace, right then, was as ineluctable as ever— for her office also retained a copy of all of her important documents.

Gazing vacantly at the closed-shut glass doors for some time, Youngmi eventually proceeded in the direction. She was then permitted the access after a thorough bio-metric identification— the technology to render which, the electronic sensor at the entrance was equipped with. Rushing headlong, she did not spare a glance at anywhere but the oak door that sturdily fortified the ingress to her chamber. Youngmi exhaled in relief when, at last, she could gird the metallic door knob with her grip. In a jiffy, she had charged into her personally customized forbidden city, lunging for the safe that preserved the records that she had partaken in the search of.

A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips when she noticed that all of them were intact, and that she was somehow saved from being put into sheer jeopardy. Youngmi fetched every single one of those papers, arranging them in a file before pressing the latter against her chest— probably to safeguard the apparent vulnerables. She rotated on her heels, preparing to head back home and wash up swiftly so as to begin the workday on time, but was rather compelled to stop dead in her tracks when she saw something unprecedented.

The widest wall of the waiting area was obscured by a set of words that were graffitied in bright red. Words as sinister as the impression that they were emitting.

"It's payback time." Youngmi mumbled under her breath as she skimmed over the scribbling that fanned out on the entire facet of the light grey wall.

A shudder traveled down her spine as she staggered backwards. Youngmi's eyes were on stalks— simultaneously being packed with tears— with a hand that had started to tremble in an unruly manner too, portraying her as someone who was currently undergoing an immense credibility gap.

 And she was, for what else was to be expected from her when she had been caught unawares?

Without any second thought, Youngmi dialed in Ewan's number, initiating when the call had finally gotten connected, "Ewan, I'm sorry if I woke you up from sleep but I need you right now. Right here with me. I'm at the clinic, please be quick."

"I'll be there, don't worry." A calm reply from Ewan's side was what Youngmi had been seeking all along.

A voice that could comfort her that the circumstance was just exaggerated and that it was not as serious as it appeared. No wonder why she felt shielded from all kinds of hazards while in his embrace— a man who was not any better than an outsider just a few weeks back. But something about him was so gravitating that he resembled home for her.

Ewan was everything that Youngmi had ever wished for.

Meanwhile the female was occupied realizing how she must have been born under a lucky star to have a person like Ewan beside her, a pair of arms enveloped her in an affectionate modus operandi. The contact was so abrupt that Youngmi could not take into account the face of her alleged well-wisher. But when she did lift her head up to verify who it was, her heart swelled with every kind of ecstatic sentiment. Hesitation seemed like simply subsiding away as she surrendered herself to the man, eagerly wrapping her arms around him.

Judging by how Ewan had made his presence available for Youngmi on such a short notice, his mental composure must have hit the skids too when the female had asked of him so helplessly. The first query that he rolled out was along the same lines, after all.

 "What happened? You look so pale, is everything alright?" He switched the two sides of his palms alternately on Youngmi's forehead, brushing away the wayward strands of her hair at the same time.

Youngmi could not conceive exactly when the tears had succeeded at overwhelming her that she broke down, sniffling as she responded, "My bank account was hacked into and half of my money is gone. I made a run for here to check if the rest of my paperwork was all right, only to come across that threat on the wall." Ewan pivoted his neck when she beckoned at the wall behind him.

"What did I ever do to anyone to face a situation like this? Why would someone want to take revenge from me when I've never even considered hurting anyone? Heck, I don't even perform life-threatening surgeries to accidentally end up with a dead patient. I don't understand why would someone go to such lengths even if they meant it as a joke." She continued to ramble, crying into Ewan's shirt as he consolingly rubbed her back.

"Everything's alright, Youngmi. There isn't a single loss inflicted upon you that can't be redeemed. Have faith, it'll all be set right. I'll make sure of that. You trust me, right?" Ewan whispered, tightening his grasp on the female.

"I trust you, yes, and I know that everything will be set straight. But for that, I think calling the police before the evidence remains of no use should be the first thing to do right now." Youngmi commented, beginning to fetch her phone the very next instant.

"What? No!" Ewan exclaimed, fumbling to resume with the right words when Youngmi stared at him in disbelief, "T—that's not how you deal with criminals."

"You aren't making any sense—" Youngmi objected, only to be interrupted by the same man again.

"Youngmi, listen to me. You're failing to analyse the situation," Ewan affirmed, boring his gaze into the addressed one's as he picked up, "The perpetrators here are surely resourceful, or how do you believe they entered into your clinic without you even getting a hint? I mean, the security system installed there isn't just for display purposes. Am I wrong? You tell me." Youngmi flapped her eyelids in bewilderment, wondering at the same as to where must the man be leading the conversation this way.

"See, by reporting them to the police, you'll only be provoking them. And then what are the chances that they won't break into your house just like how they did here? The police will issue a lookout notice as soon as an FIR is registered against them, and the offenders here will get to know about it, one day or another. Let me ask you then, do you still wanna dig your own grave? You don't look like one who'd act on impulse, Doc." He finished, and Youngmi pursed her lips in contemplation.

"Who must be these people, Ewan, who are so bent on harming me?" She croaked out, fresh tears sprouting in the corners of her eyes.

"I have no idea. Maybe someone who holds a grudge against you?" Ewan insinuated, but Youngmi could not interpret whatsoever.

"A grudge develops because of a reason, Ewan, and I don't remember hurting someone to such an extent— Oh my God..." Her voice faltered as she slowly began to get the drift.

▪️

a/n

hiya ppl! nothing much to tell y'all this time except for me rapidly falling into the seventeen hole despite being a carat since 2016. like,, WHY NOW?! 😵😭😔😡🤪i'm binging their content like crazy as if i've got nothing else to do wth😩 tho i shouldn't whine so much when i'm in fact liking it lol. anyway, what do you think youngmi realized towards the end of the chapter? i'd really like to hear from those who are still reading. thank you so much for not abandoning the book, like i always say. do vote and comment! <3