Khao's Pov:

I woke up seeing First in one corner of the room. He'd looked so different... Stressed even. As if he hadn't slept all night.

I tried to get up but immediately felt a bursting pain down my stomach that had me groaning. First rushed back to me to help lie back down. "Hey, don't. You just went through the surgery a few hours ago!" First yelled.

I didn't remember exactly what happened. But I could remember seeing First's face right in front of me before I lost consciousness. That was the most beautiful sight ever. "Are you okay, First?" I asked, getting my head up a little bit.

First walked up to me and sat beside my pillow. "Tung... I'm okay. You're the one who got shot," He murmured and rubbed his fingers on my hair. I didn't believe him. I knew I was the one who got shot but he couldn't possibly be okay seeing me get shot. I knew that. Maybe he was okay... Physically... But I knew he was not... Mentally.

"I got shot?" I asked, sounding a little careless as if it was nothing. But First was not having it. He sighed, "Tung, I'm serious. This is not something to be taken lightly. Have you gotten shot before?" He asked, sounding really concerned yet confused.

"I have. Multiple times," I replied.

"Is that where those marks in your chest and hands are from?" First asked back. Yes, I had gotten shot three times before. That was the fourth time. I had a shot mark on my left shoulder, one on my right arm a bit above the elbow and one on my chest a bit right to the middle. I nodded slowly.

First let out another deep sigh and continued. "Khaotung! You can't be doing this... You can't risk your life for other people like this!" First muttered, a bit louder than usual, his voice breaking between sentences.

"You don't understand. This is my job, First. To sacrifice for people..," I replied. I could feel First's pain. I had been through that. It's hard to understand, especially for someone like him.

"But you wouldn't be able to save other people anymore if you died in this!" First yelled. His voice breaking into pieces as tears started falling from his eyes. I tried to wipe his tears to comfort him but I was not good at comforting others... or myself. He brushed my hand off. I knew he was hurt but I wanted him to understand me, to understand that what I said was true.

"If I really died in this, I won't have anything to regret," I replied still with a small smile on my face. He wouldn't get it. The happiness of being able to save people's lives is the best, way better than being able to save your own life.

"But I will! I will regret! I will live with the guilt of not being able to save you my whole damn life! Do you understand that? How do you think I'll live after seeing the first person I truly loved die in front of my eyes?" First shouted again, loud enough for only me to hear and not get out of the room.

"Trust me, you'll be okay. I had seen both of my parent's deaths in front of my eyes and here I am," I replied. Yes, my reply was maybe a bit brutal but it was the truth. Life doesn't pause for anybody. If you have dreams to follow, you won't have time to sorrow up on somebody. Even though my parents death had turned me into a totally different person, it gave me hope, not loss.

"Khaotung..." That was all he said before the conversation totally closed up. He brought me some water and the day went on like that. I understood his pain but that pain won't last long.

I believed if we'd been drowning in sorrow for a long time that meant happiness was at the gate waiting for us to reach the gate.

Before the day even passed, I was called into the office again.

"F-First, I need to go," I murmured to First in a tone that could already express the pain I was feeling.

First's expression changed. He looked at me with disbelief. "B-but you just had the operation." His disbelief turned into concern and he grabbed my arm and started rubbing it gently.

"Yes but I need to go. This is important," I murmured once more. This time, he stood up and held me by my shoulder to get me up.

No one had taken care of me that well before. In fact, no one had ever taken care of me at all so I felt needed. I knew I was an important person in other's opinion since I saved many people's lives but to me, from childhood since then, I was the most useless person ever. If I really was an important person, why would mom choose to leave the world that had me behind?

First sighed and continued to help me stand up from the bed. The pain was numb but my body was weak. So I wasn't able to stand up properly.

First took me outside to a wheelchair and drove it out of the hospital. Once we were out, the car that Jack had sent for me was already there. "You can leave me here," I muttered to First and he nodded, concern still highly evident on his face.

Once we arrived, Jack helped me out of the car and brought me to the office.

My office and home were not too small, not too large. It was rented but I had spent enough of my money on the furniture. There was a couch right beside the door where the wall was stepped backwards. I sat on the couch while Jack brought a small bag with a handful of stuff there.

"What are those?" I asked and Jack put the bag on my desk.

"These are stuff the victim's relatives found unusual," He replied. I stared around the room. I didn't know what it was but it seemed unusually different. I felt as if I hadn't seen my own room in years.

My eyes roamed to the bag on the desk as I noticed Jack go to the kitchen to bring some water. I stared at the white bag as if I could see everything that was inside. I wish I could but I could guess that even though the bag was small, it was half full.

In a few moments, Jack came back with a glass of water and helped me gulp it through. I couldn't drink or eat anything properly since I had woken up. It was like a stone got stuck in my throat. Maybe it was a side effect of the medicine they had given me.

After I was done, Jack went over and brought the bag to the couch. One thing I totally hated was being sick. I hated being unable to do things that I usually could do if I was well. I did like to be taken care of but I just felt like life was too short to sit still and do nothing.

I slowly put my hand in the bag, picking things out. The first thing I picked out was a pillow, a small, simple, white pillow. How could that have anything to do with murders? I examined the pillow thoroughly and saw a blood stain on the very corner of the pillow.

The second thing I picked out was a watch. A simple watch. But I had seen that watch somewhere before...

First...

On First's wrist...

It had disappeared from First's wrist a few days after I started investigating the case...

But that didn't make sense... The murder was done before I started investigating. Then was the watch put there on purpose to deceive me?

The last thing I found in the bag was a bullet. A freaking bullet! I looked at Jack, having no idea what that was doing there. Jack understood and explained, "That was stuck in one of the victim's room's walls." At that point, my head was spinning. No case had ever made me that confused before.

What was a bullet doing in their rooms if they didn't have any sign of blood in their bodies? What did it have to do with their rooms anyways? Didn't they disappear from First's bar?

My head was spinning. I didn't want to think about anything anymore. It was just becoming more and more complicated with each thing we found. I had no clue what was going on. The dots didn't make any sense for me to connect.

Time passed more and more and I was running out. I didn't have a deadline but the more time passed with the case unresolved, the more people around me gossiped. My reputation had almost gone down the drain and I couldn't keep up. Too many things were happening.

It had been half a month since the last accident happened and my wound still hadn't totally healed.

After I finally got some time alone to spend with First, I was in his apartment with my head on his lap and body on the couch. A show was going on on the TV but I wasn't paying attention. The person I was laying on was way more interesting than the show.

But somehow, his face seemed pale. I knew that First wasn't paying attention to the show on the TV as well so even though there was an emotional scene going on the show, I still wondered why he was stressed.

I stared at his pale face, emotionless and worried, his phone made a ding sound with the notification and he picked it up. I could see the name being saved as Mom but I couldn't see what the message said. He looked at him staring at the message for a few seconds before putting his phone back down, without giving any reply to his mom's message.

"First, are you okay?" I asked as I brought my hand up to gently brush my thumb against his cheek. First looked back at me, the show just becoming a simple background noise as his eyes sparkled just like how it always did when he looked into my eyes.

He let out a small sigh before replying, his gaze still fixed on me. "I am. But I'm a bit confused..."

"What are you confused about?" My head tilted a bit on his own, giving First assurance. "Everything. Everything that happened that day. It was never brought up again. What exactly happened on that day and who is John?" First's voice got slightly louder with each sentence as if he had been holding all of those questions in for them to burst out at the right moment.

"John... That's who you want to know about..." My voice got quieter, almost inaudible. "Alright. I'll tell you who he is," I muttered swiftly as if in a hurry and got up from First's lap to sit right next to him on the couch, turning my front towards.

With a flick click of the remote, First turned the TV off and fixed his posture, turning to look back at me, eager about the story.

"John and I were best friends in university. But a betrayal broke us apart..," I murmured slowly as I watched First furrowing his brows in confusion.

"How big of a betrayal was it for him to want to kill you?" First asked, confusedly.

"The betrayal wasn't from my side. It was from him. My girlfriend, Nim, at that time cheated on me with him. But that was not it. After I broke up with her, I found out that she didn't cheat, John forced it on her," I explained the story and watched as First's face went through so many emotions. From confused to totally speechless.

"Woah..," First exclaimed. "I feel really bad for Nim. Do you know how she is now?" He asked calmly.

I nodded slowly as a small smile of proudness spread on my face. "She's happily married now, living in the Philippines." First smiled back as if he could feel the warmth of the connection that he had built with her just by what I explained to him.

But once again, our time together got cut short by the same old person, Jack. I picked the phone, half annoyed and half concerned. "Jack?" I asked from one side of the phone. Wherever he was, it was very noisy. The background noise was so much that I almost couldn't hear him.

"Sir, please come to the river-right now. It's an emergency," He murmured and immediately cut the call.

Bidding farewell to First, I left his apartment, promising to come back and not spend the night at the old, small office I had lived in.

I had arrived at the river and the river was really crowded, cars stopped there. Everyone was crowding around something I couldn't see. Seeing me, Jack ran towards me. "Sir, murder no. 10." He murmured near my ear.

There it went, another murder. I couldn't believe that was happening. People were still getting killed on my watch. Was this person not scared at all?

I took Jack to one side of the road to silently talk to him. "Calm them down and get the body. Get all the information you can find about the victim," I whispered to him and he nodded. "I won't be at the office. Call me if anything comes up," I told him and left for First's apartment.

That was an important task but however, First was slowly becoming more important to me. I was just finding time for myself. It wasn't like I was bailing work even though I sometimes felt like I was.

Was First distracting me from my initial goal of protecting people?

To Be Continued....