An unremitting maze of blinding white walls stood before Nora and Namjoon as imperiously as ever, despite them having scanned every ward that they had passed by in the last few minutes. They had ensured not to leave any stone unturned, repeatedly combing through the countless faces that they had already spotted once in the meantime, in case their inspection was not thorough enough. Yet when it came to their efforts bearing proportional outcomes subsequently, all they could see was failure painting the town red right in front of their eyes.

Namjoon was downright frustrated with how such setbacks carried on to strike them inconsiderately when they already had so much on their plate. Raking his hand through his hair rather too harshly, he grunted under his breath. Confounding Nora because of his long-overdue burnout was never his plan, but that was how it had turned out to be nevertheless.

 "We're almost there. She must be somewhere around at this point, it's just that we haven't caught her yet. But we will soon, before you'd even realize. Believe me when I say I've never trusted my hunch this much. So just hang in there a little longer, please?" Nora's consolation would have immediately worked wonders had another nagging thought not begun to plague Namjoon's mind so soon.

"Where's senior, though? I haven't really seen her since we arrived at this hospital."

"She's off to the restroom—" Nora had to cut herself off when Namjoon started to retrace his steps. "No Doc, what are you doing? Let her be for some time. Try to understand that she must be startled due to all of this too. I'll check on her in a minute or two. Don't make it any more difficult for her, please."

Nora exhaled in relief when Namjoon finally jettisoned his idea of following Youngmi to the edge of the world— if that was where she might have fled to— as he slowly rotated on his heels and ended up facing her. Once their eyes locked on each other's, it felt like a vacuum had been engendered out of nowhere, for Nora could experience herself being levitated towards the male. However, on the contrary, Namjoon's eyes portrayed nothing akin to that dawning epiphany. His head was bestrewn with only one concern, the one which Nora was aware that she would never be able to block out from there no matter what.

Before Nora could grasp, a reluctant tear pricked her in the corner of her eye, causing her to shake her head ardently so as to dismiss it without getting it noticed by Namjoon. Quite unexpectedly though, his brows did furrow at her abrupt gesture, but momentarily, since a crash cart behind them had literally crashed into a wall and thus been toppled over to an irredeemable extent. Both of them had promptly jerked their necks in its direction, rushing over without any second thought to assist the nurse in assembling it once again.

Although when Nora crouched down to lend a hand, she could not refrain from peeping into the private room that remained so defenselessly open to her probing now. Veering her line of sight towards every visible corner of that room in a fraction of seconds, her eyes widened dramatically upon registering an acquainted figure. Paying no heed to the task at hand anymore, she instantly lurched in that person's direction only to discover that her intuition was accurate. Though like a cherry on top, she ultimately got to familiarize herself with the one whom they had been originally seeking as well, as she proceeded to sit beside Youngmi.

"How long have you been here, Doctor Shin? If only we had known that you were here all along." Nora feigned a benign smile, leaning towards Youngmi thereafter to whisper in her ear, "That's Ewan's mom, right? How did you find her?"

"I remembered her name from nine years ago," Youngmi shifted her gaze, making it land upon the old woman who was now peering out of the lone window in her chamber, "missus Lee Chungok."

"What did you just say?"

Nora could not refrain from gawking at Youngmi for having uttered the name so conveniently. But then again, she had not really been filled in on the true identities of the impostors who had effortlessly put a handful of noir films to shame. Those wolves in sheep's clothing who had turned the tables in ways that she would never become capable of comprehending. To witness Youngmi addressing one of her culprits so endearingly was point-blank hilarious yet sympathy-inducing at the same time for Nora.

Nora wound up snickering once she had properly wrapped her head around the unprecedented development, stirring Namjoon on the other hand— who was still awaiting his cue to abandon the threshold of that room and finally enter into it— to readily suspend his internal deliberations and quickly read the room. The male hastily walked in the moment he was done fathoming the beckon, as he and Youngmi inquisitively stared at Nora, expecting her to clarify her insinuating remark. 

"Doc, did you hear what she just said?" Nora asked rhetorically, eyes fixated at Namjoon. "That lady right there is Ewan's mom, the great Lee Chungok herself, who's played an equally significant part in sabotaging Doctor Shin's life. My bad, I couldn't recognize her as such at the first glance itself since I wasn't really interested in the trivia that was provided to me about her. But it's truly amazing, y'know, how we ended up shooting two birds with one stone in spite of all that careless—"

"She's a victim herself, Miss Son, so is her late husband. She's told me everything that's happened with her family since that incident, so please stop framing her for God's sake! She has anything but seconded her son. She's innocent." Youngmi spoke in Chungok's defense, consistently glaring at Nora.

"Why in the world would you take her side when you don't even know what all has occurred behind your back? Moreover, do you perhaps assume that I'm an idiot? An aphasic person cannot possibly be made to open up so easily, did you think that would've slipped from my mind?" Nora retaliated, her chest heaving up and down in breathlessness.

Youngmi did not respond for a couple of minutes, resorting to merely gaping at Nora in an intent manner. However, it was not because she had run out of justifications to present. Rather, at that point, she had simply been bled of the motivation to continue shielding the old lady from the oncoming character assassination, with the help of bare words. As was palpable, they were not at all working on either of the two slanderers standing across from her. But surrendering when their case was not much far from being labeled as convoluted was an extremely dicey position to undertake at the same time.

Youngmi drew in a sharp breath, whisking her vision to match with Nora's and thereby parting her lips to give her the rundown that she had been pursuing all this while, only to let someone else beat her to it in the end.

"None of this would've taken place if we had let him suffer the consequences of what he had done, fair and square. All of this could've been avoided if we hadn't sheltered him and overlooked the crime that he had committed. It's because of us only that he learned nothing from his blunder, and instead chose the path to attempting more of those. We're definitely as much responsible for the havoc that he has created." Chungok spoke, her voice imbued with blatant repentance.

▪️

A YEAR AGO

Choi Yooan's life was anything but how it previously used to be. The fact that his initial years of conviction and the subsequent punishment were made extraordinarily comfortable as a result of his parents' pulling strings everywhere they could, had led him into concluding that offenses such as the one that he had perpetrated, were deemed as minor at the end of the day and did not exactly posses the potential to wreck his life in the long run.

However, now that he had spent two years in the juvenile correction centre— which should not precisely be counted as such since most of the time, he had remained at home— and undergone another year worth of probation, stayed in Dublin for a total of three years to complete a bachelor's degree in Business Administration, and again wound up waiting two years at home for his father to publicly and officially appoint him as the heir to his throne, he could no longer bring himself to be in tune with his former notion.

Life was not so pleasant anymore as it had been for him earlier.

Releasing a resigned gasp, he resumed scrolling through this phone, dodging past every kind of redundant news that boredom had forced him to dip into. He would roll his eyes whenever a certain piece of gossip pertaining to the marriage of some wealthy kids made it to his feed, wondering if being able to call someone their husband or wife was all that their dreams had eventually watered down to.

"And then there's my old man, who hasn't even floated the idea yet regarding me being the only candidate to his fortune, let alone a formal announcement..." Yooan elongated his speech when a shocking snippet of the same genre flashed before his eyes, causing him to exclaim, "What the actual fuck?"

"Mr. Choi, the Chairman of Choi Holdings, has named his long-time mentee and one of the Executive Directors of the company, Mr. Nam Ganghwa as the next chairman. The leap is surely a huge one for Mr. Nam, and considering his unsullied public image, the company will most probably heal from the brunt that the Chairman's son's activities all over the years have made it bear. The transfer of the title will be held next week in the presence of the Board of Directors of Choi Enterprises." Yooan recited to himself, guffawing as he recapitulated what he had just read.

"They literally stashed me away for eight fucking years, for something that shouldn't even have  mattered much in the first place. And now they accuse me of harming the company's reputation when I didn't even let out a squeak in these eight long years? Is this a fucking joke?" Yooan muttered, gritting his teeth as his free palm simultaneously clenched into a fist.

"This isn't sitting well with me." He mumbled, a disappointed smirk accompanying the emerging tears in his eyes.

▪️

a/n

ewan's still not a grey character tho lol, his actions just can't be justified. you'll understand what i'm saying when the next will be released hehe. also, somehow we've almost reached the end of 'sweet tooth'??🤪 this is the third last chapter if i'm counting correctly. i hope y'all have liked this book so far😩 i've really put my all in this one (so do all the other authors but ygwim, right?) do leave your precious votes and comments for me to read and be happy about! thank you for being here <3