52. Searching for Mom

The next day, I woke up around the afternoon and resumed my training with Mr. Kartein, who showed no leniency whatsoever. By the evening when I was finally done with the hellish training I saw Jiwoo sitting on the stairs looking stressed while looking at his phone

"It's strange..."

"What is?", Kayden asked.

"Well... Our mom hasn't been contacting me lately. Normally she would contact me once a month but she hasn't been talking to me for 3 days now."

"Calm down. Stuff like that happens all the time", Kartein said scratching his ear.

"About that... Mom hasn't missed her texts once in the last 5 years I've lived apart from her."

"Now that you mentioned, she used to text me frequently when I was in Australia but I haven't heard from her for some time..."

"Just hold on a little more. She might text you later today, you never know", Kartein assured.

"I'll wait patiently", said Jiwoo.

"But hyung... I miss Mom... Can we not visit her?", I asked. We need to hurry up if we wanna save mum!

"Hmm... A surprise visit doesn't sound that bad."

The next day when Jiwoo didn't receive any answer from mom he got worried. Kayden suggested that we pay her a visit to see if she was doing fine. So that evening we asked Jisuk, Subin and Wooin to take care of the cats and Mago while Jiwoo and I were away. After a long flight, we reached where mom was supposed to be staying. But the door was locked.

"What should we do? It doesn't seem like anybody's in there", said Jiwoo.

"We should just open the door ourselves. Lift me up", Kayden ordered

"Roger that", saying that my older twin picked Kayden up with lots of struggle and I had to hold back my laughter.

Kayden opened the door with his nail and even though I knew it was about to happen I was still surprised. Will I be able to do that as well? Probably not.

The apartment was empty and it didn't look like anyone lived there. I held Jiwoo's cold hand to comfort him and said, "Hyung, mom is fine. Let's visit her workplace, hmm?"

"You should do that", Kayden stated and my brother nodded in response. 

~~

"Kang Yujung is not here."

"What?" Jiwoo questioned, "Then do you know where I might be able to find her?"

"Kang Yujung is not on our executive's list", said the lady. I stood behind Jiwoo as I noticed men with black glasses passing by. They looked like they were some security guard or something. Kayden and Kartein weren't with us so I needed to be extra alert at times like this.

"There's no way, I'm sure she told me that she works here..."

"Excuse me sir", said a muscular voice from behind. It was a man in a grey suit and black glasses. "I just happened to overhear but, did you come here to find Professor Kang Yujung?"

"Yes..."

"How might you know her...?", he continued to question.

"She's our mother", I said.

"Ah, so you were her sons. Please follow me I will let you meet the Professor."

"Rally?", Jiwoo asked, feeling relieved that there was some lead to find our mother. "But didn't she just say that she doesn't work here..."

"Your mom is working at the company with classified information so our formalities with her are quite complicated."

He told us that he would take us to where our mom was working and sounded very convincing. Jiwoo and I followed behind the men in suits. I gently held Jiwoo's cold hand and whispered, "Don't let your guard down." His expression changed to a serious one and nodded in response. We got seated in the car with Jiwoo sitting in between a suit guy and me.

After hours of driving in a desert-like place with Jiwoo's anxiety increasing, he asked, "Sir, are you sure are you going to where mom is at?"

"Yes."

"How much longer do you think it will take? You told us that we were going to arrive soon a long time ago."

"How tiresome. Let's start silencing them now."

Just as the man beside Jiwoo was about to inject him, he moved to the side to avoid him and attacked him with a single punch which sent him flying outside the running car. In surprise, the grey-suit man stopped the car and Jiwoo and I got out first, ready to fight even though I knew he wasn't much of a threat.

"You're awakened...", he growled.

Jiwoo defeated the gunman effortlessly. The man in the grey suit stated, "You're really good at this."

"Hey, do you really know anything about our mother?", Jiwoo inquired.

"What?"

"I'm asking if you know our mom. Also, why did you bring us all the way here if you were in to do something like this?"

"Haha... This is why I despise dealing with the awakeners. They're able to maintain their composure in even the most extreme situations..."

"Just so you know, this is certainly not even close to the 'most extreme situations' which you speak of", I say folding my arms near my chest.

"You awakeners always do as you please. All because you people discover that you have some power, you spoiled bastards think the world is wrapped around your finger. I bet you don't even see normal civilians as people anymore... On top of that... If you possess such frightening skills at such a tender age, I can only imagine how easy the world might look for you. Don't worry I'll keep your life intact since you still have a lot left to learn. But... IT'S GOING TO HURT!" He attacked Jiwoo and me but this time I raised up my shield and his punches weren't really that strong from that of a normal human.

I dismissed the shield and Jiwoo went to punch the man's jaw but the man blocked him.

"Where are you affiliated with? Just who or what was able to raise someone like you?"

He then placed something on his neck and his body got bigger like that of Dale's. "I bet I look real pitiful to you, don't I? But I bet you know that I've hunted numerous individuals like you in this 'pitiful state'." He said in an evil tone. 

"Why didn't I realise that you had an inferiority complex?", I said sighing before he launched at me, fuming with anger.