Chapter 116: The Storm (Part 2)

With her stretched-out arm, Sana proceeds to grasp Jin's other shoulder, her fingers clutching and holding him alarmingly tight as if he was going anywhere from here, and with the scampering draft of sea breeze fanning past the chill on Jin's neck, Jin cautiously tries to draw a step back.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck oddly rising as his wary amethyst eyes were fixed on Sana's face. For a brief moment, he was astonished and charmed by her wide and friendly smile.

But in rare cases, there was something inside him that felt off.

It was not because of what he heard but rather the discomfiting distance between them that had put his mind on edge, albeit the news had completely struck his heart to excitement.

But it was a matter of time for him to disregard his emotions.

Hiro.

He misses him greatly, and at this moment, his anxious and tired body only longs to seek his pacifying warmth. He longs to see his soft gullible smile and smell the bewildering fragrance of his masculine pheromones.

He pinches a small part of his skin between his thumb and forefinger, accidentally scuffing against his sensitive flesh with his nails while keeping his wits together.

He discreetly winces in silence and lowers his hand beside his thigh before he forces himself to wear a smile on his lips and shifts his attention to the car from the far distance.

He must see him.

Sana took a smooth step forward, moving away from the shade. Her pale and slender figure was now bathed under the sun as she extended and offered her hand to him.

Her plunging set of clear eyes was gazing at him intently with an unknown hint of warning.

She was waiting—waiting for him.

Jin figured out that the weather was starting to boil, although he was absolutely fine with the suit he was wearing. He felt less cold with the thick material on, but unfortunately, that was not the same case for Sana.

It began to bother him after witnessing how she was resisting in all ways possible to not squint her eyes against the blinding sun.

What more horrible torture can atop that?

He was left with no other choice but to step forth and slowly accept her hand as support. What could he possibly do but to acknowledge her help?

The corners of his lips bent to a wry frown. That's what he's only good at.

Receiving help.

A true damsel in distress.

That's how people have been viewing him.

Bitterness spread across the back of his tongue. What a burden must he have been?

As his fingertips brushed against the center of her palm, Sana swiftly enclosed and wrapped her fingers around his hand. He pithily flinches in his place as she grasps him tightly before dragging him in the car's direction at moderate speed.

And he wasn't surprised that he was effortless to drag around like a piece of paper. His lips thinned, wincing a bit from the tightness he felt in Sana's grip around him.

How is she so strong?

"Was he waiting for me?" He asks when they were near the parked car. Just a few meters more.

"Yes. I believe he has been."

He brings his head down, and a subtle smile smudges across his lips followed by a hushed chuckle, depicting Hiro's sulking face in his head.

He misses him . . . and he wants to see him.

Moving his head to the side, he could still see Shun Ahjussi talking to someone before he saw his ginormous build freezing and then flinching, and since the distance between them was massive Ahjussi sized nothing more than a baby chick in his sight.

It was odd that somehow their eyes met.

Jin casually waved at him though he couldn't see his face very well because of the continuously growing distance between them.

"Oh, come now. Let us hurry," whispers Sana at his side.

Jin typically nods his head without looking at her.

Why is Shun Ahjussi running?

"And believe me," Sana said in a brass whisper, and there goes her wide and eerie smile once again that brought an unknown and unsettling feeling inside him.

"The master has been waiting long enough." She continues and unlocks the car door. They had arrived behind the stocked cargo, and Jin placed a hand above his chest, discreetly panting from the distance they walked.

Glancing back at the bench where he used to sit, he only realized how tiringly far it was.

"Go now!"

Jin blinked his eyes twice after hearing her yelling, yet nothing but Hiro's gummy smile was clogging his head full to notice how a hand roughly pushed his back inside the car.

"Ah."

He painfully stumbles inside the spacious and flat surface of the car. His knees hurt from the impact, and his palms were pulsing from scraping against a rough material.

He gasps, his vision shortly turning black from the impact. He breathes out and immediately looks around upon recovering.

What's this? Where is he?

There was no such thing as a backseat . . . there was no Hiro either.

He confusedly turned his head to look behind him. A loud and deafening sound of something continuously popping tragically deafened his ears. He crumpled his body into a ball, shrinking, and covered both of his ears with his hands.

What . . . what is happening?!

His pupils shook, and his heart sank when an eerie silence followed beneath the ringing sound in his ears. Lying down in the empty back seat, eyes unusually wide and body trembling, Jin stared at Sana's figure by the door.

Her lips parted with no words coming out.

That's when his eyes fixed on the dripping redness from her forehead.

A cold chill stroked his already frozen body.

One . . . two . . . three . . . four. There were four holes in them.

Her fingers stiffly loosened their hold against the car door as her body falls backward—slumping hard against the searing and soiled ground of the private port.

Lifeless and pale.

He turns paler.

The door slammed and banged close on its own. Its loud impact momentarily deafened his ears once again before the car zoomed forth, causing his body to move towards a certain direction and bump his head quite hard against the windshield.

He looks around further in panic.

No Hiro was waiting for him, but a silhouette of two huge men in the front seats.

A sense of déjà vu flashes through him. His lips part and his entire body hardens.

His quivering amethyst eyes lock with the stranger. From the corner of his eyes, he notices a dark object in his hand. He can smell the strong and foreign scent of crackling powder inside the car. He coughs hard, feeling his lungs contracting in pain.

Hearing him, the other man maneuvering the steering wheel turned his head back in his direction. A taunting smile spreads across his lips before he swiftly extends his hand and sprays a substance directly on his nose.

Before he could even react to the pain in his nostrils, Jin felt his sight slowly turning into a blur. After a few seconds of helpless horror, his consciousness starts to drift farther and farther away from him, and before the odd sleepiness took him, he muttered a name.

"Hiro . . ."