Chapter 2.2

Chapter 2.2

When she received Kwon Yeonwoo’s picture from Jung-in, Haewon had thought he was a sheltered young master. The bright, smiling face in the photo had seemed particularly innocent.

She’d concluded that, unlike her, he was the type to have grown up showered with love, an unblemished flower. So he believed the world was beautiful, traveled abroad alone, and was consequently kidnapped by bad guys, deceived by malice disguised as goodwill.

But the face she met in person was neither an innocent young master nor a flower.

A strong heart that didn’t even flinch when a knife dug into his neck… She had been told he was a twenty-seven-year-old university student, but his actions were closer to those of a seasoned agent.

And what about those muscles on his exposed upper body?

Haewon’s gaze swept over Yeonwoo’s well-defined torso. These weren’t the superficial muscles young men cultivated to show off. These were clearly muscles honed over a long period of training.

…What exactly is he?

“What are you looking at? Impressed?”

She looked at Kwon Yeonwoo expressionlessly. Despite his handsome face, his voice was rather low, and his cheeky tone had an unrefined edge.

Haewon superimposed the grave and dignified face of President Kwon Ildo onto his. As soon as she thought they didn’t resemble each other at all, Kwon Yeonwoo spoke.

“I don’t look like him, do I? Everyone says that.”

“…Were you drugged?”

She scanned the empty syringes scattered around him and the injection marks on Kwon Yeonwoo’s arm. Only then did his somewhat erratic behavior begin to make partial sense. Haewon lightly waved a hand in front of his eyes.

“Is your vision clear? Can you walk?”

“Haha.”

Kwon Yeonwoo suddenly burst into laughter. He shook his shoulders with mirth, then stood up. He was so tall that Haewon, who was over 170cm, had to crane her neck significantly to look at him.

“Is it that obvious? The world’s all rainbow-colored right now, it’s driving me crazy.”

She looked around. Empty syringes were also scattered around the fallen people. It seemed drugs had been continuously injected to incapacitate the hostages. The side effect… was it removing clothes? Almost all of them were naked.

It wasn’t a pleasant sight, so she turned her gaze away from the naked people with a disgruntled expression.

“Where are your clothes?”

“Beats me.”

Haewon had no choice but to strip the jacket off a man lying nearby and offer it to Yeonwoo.

“At least wear this.”

“Why? Is my body ugly? I put a lot of effort into it.”

He was still giving cheeky answers. Haewon, who had been scrutinizing Yeonwoo to gauge his drug intoxication, replied blankly.

“Then go out just like that.”

There was no time to linger here. Every second counted. Haewon left Yeonwoo and checked outside the window. The support team didn’t seem to have arrived yet. Holding her pistol, she watched the front and made a call.

Before the dial tone even finished, Team Leader Min Hyunseok’s voice came through.

[What happened?]

“Echo One is safe. But the support team seems to be very late.”

[The support team can’t enter Myawaddy right now due to Myanmar’s civil war. The rebels mistook our personnel for government forces and attacked. So, they’ve pulled back and are on standby.]

“…”

It was a rather frustrating situation. To think Ha Gyuho was the only one she could rely on here.

Haewon glanced around the hotel room and said, “First, you’ll need to request an investigation from the authorities. There are quite a few other Koreans here besides Echo One.”

[Understood. I’ll find a way to get in, somehow.]

“We’ll head to the safe house and wait there.”

She hung up and turned around. Kwon Yeonwoo, wearing a suit jacket over his bare torso, was stretching. His movements seemed surprisingly light.

He looked fine on the surface, but she couldn’t be sure of his actual condition. Haewon asked in a stiff voice.

“We need to escape here. Can you run? Is the world still rainbow-colored?”

Yeonwoo curved the corner of his lips into a smirk.

“It’s all rainbow, so I’m enjoying life for the first time in a while.”

Veins popped on Haewon’s hand gripping the gun. His smirking face irritated her. Did he find this situation amusing?

“Just answer whether you can run or not.”

“I’m fine. At least I won’t be a burden, will I?”

He gestured towards the bed, then lowered his voice, subtly.

“I’m more than capable of rolling around on that bed for a while.”

Ha. Haewon let out a low, mirthless laugh. His words were all fragmented, and the content was crude. Was he looking down on her because she was a female agent?

Haewon silently stared at his slick face for a moment, then took a step closer to him.

Click—! In an instant, she cocked her gun, and its barrel, swift as a blink, pressed against Yeonwoo’s left chest beneath his jacket.

“…!”

Kwon Yeonwoo’s smile instantly vanished from his face. Haewon looked directly into his pupils and said.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Just know that if I feel you’re a burden, you’ll be the first one I discard.”