The first words that registered inside Echo Girl's mind were her manager's, snapping at her for messing everything up and ruining her own career.

"...Just wait until your father hears about this! This can't be salvaged anymore, nothing we say to the press can fix this... I'll certainly end up fired either way." he spat, angered and running a frustrated hand over his bald head.

She could feel her nails gripping so hard into her hands that they left nearly bloody marks behind.

"...What?" she murmured, slowly coming back to reality.

Her manager sighed deeply, laying a tired hand on her shoulder. "Your career, miss..." When she still looked at him in pure confusion, he continued. "It's over."

After a scary length of silence standing in the entrance of C&R, already having been kicked out by the security guards, she laughed. "...Over?" She laughed even more boisterously now. "What are you talking about?"

"Miss... With the statements you made... And said statements becoming a public, it won't be long before you become a complete pariah in this industry—"

Her laughter stopped, reality sinking in.

"Shut up! No— no, there's no way I'll let that happen!" she screamed, almost hysterically, before he quickly took a hold of her shoulders to try to calm her furious self.

Her sharp fingernails dug into his arms, forcing him away while he concernedly called after her. "Ms. Choi!"

"Shut up, no! There's no way!" She yelled out, pulling at her long locks of brown hair. "No way...!" Her expression completely darkened. She held herself tightly, barely preventing her body from falling to the ground in shock.

What had she done...? This really hadn't worked out her way. None of it had.

It only angered her more. How did he dare...

The uncomfortable manager saw the way she gritted her teeth, gripping her arms even tighter while her eyes became colder. Icier.

Suddenly, she opened her mouth slightly. She murmured something inaudible.

He wasn't able to hear what she said. "...Miss?"

"...No matter what, I won't go down alone. They will come with me."

He saw how her pink lips curled into a small smile.

-------

He was about to rush out of his office, running to go back to Jaehee.

She certainly deserved an explanation after all this, he decided.

But he got interrupted by his father's entrance into his office. He was surprised, to say the least.

"Weren't you on a trip with Mother?" Was all he could ask, before the Chairman closed the door behind him and stared at Jumin grimly.

"Yes... But..." He could see the strained expression on his father's face and he knew it had been nothing good. In fact, it had been enough to leave his normally unscathed father looking like a broken man.

"...Your mother and I broke it off, Jumin."

It took a minute to process the words. "...Broke it off?" Then he realized. "You broke off the engagement?"

The Chairman could barely manage a nod before he sat down in front of him in a slump.

Jumin sighed; he wasn't sure why he felt so relieved and why he felt so hurt at the same time.

Whatever this mess of emotions was, he didn't want to deal with it. Not right now.

What he wanted the most was to return to Jaehee and give her the good news that Echo Girl was finally off their backs — not that she knew she was on them to begin with. To finally be able to celebrate with her...

But his father... Seeing him in this condition, he knew he couldn't abandon him at a time like this.

He drove him mad: bringing woman after woman, thoughtlessly having foolish affairs (to the point he caused this whole blackmailing situation), and completely ignoring the way it affected his reputation and the company.

Complety ignoring the way it affected Jumin himself. As a child he had to grow up seeing all that. Seeing all his superficial, gold-digging women vanish one after one.

A very small part of him always wondered, if maybe his mother had been one of them, too... Maybe that's why she left.

Or maybe she had left him so broken-hearted, such as now, that he was simply unable to function normally anymore and became a completely different kind of person.

Jumin poured the Chairman a glass of wine, a special one he had stashed away inside one of the small cabinets of his office.

He saw his father shed small tears silently — it wasn't a sight he had been expecting, but one received nonetheless — as he explained everything that happened between them to him while he pretended to be interested.

He tried his best to console him, while he himself felt a tight squeeze of his heart. He doubted he'd ever see his mother again.

----------

Jaehee sometimes rushed too soon for her own good.

Maybe if she had inspected the number ID better, maybe if she had actually looked over the out-of-character form of speech she would have noticed.

"Come outside, Assistant Kang. I need you urgently, right now."

Suddenly calling her Assistant Kang through his texts now, and suddenly asking for her to come outside with such urgency.

Of course she complied.

If he got hurt and she didn't come to his aid in time because she was busy paranoidly reading between the lines, she would never forgive herself.

She had never expected that it'd be her who would end up hurt, though.

"Jumin must be in a lot of trouble if he sent me a text like this..." she mused inside her head, sheer worry inundating her thoughts. "I hope it had nothing to do with Echo Girl... I must get to him before—"

Jaehee had walked out to the back exit of the C&R building — just as a new message had instructed — and she didn't expect to suddenly get grabbed by strong, suffocating arms and gotten her mouth covered with some kind of handerkief that immediately made her feel dizzy.

She realized a muscular man wearing black and sunglasses, who resembled a bodyguard, had seized her: holding both her arms forcefully behind her back and not allowing her to move enough to even think of using Judo to fight him off.

Left with no better alternative, she kicked her legs as much as she could, attempting to free herself in vain, trying her best to scream out loud, but with her mouth tightly muffled by the handerkief he had wrapped around her face, it was near impossible for it to be heard.

Before Jaehee realized, she was unconscious and hastily thrown into the backseat of a dark car.

-----------

Jaehee heard voices.

They sounded dim, and they were hushing and whispering as if they didn't want to wake her.

But she was already awake, a fact they were seemingly oblivious to. She was confused, unaware of her surroundings until she slowly managed to open her eyes again, her breathing harsh through her lungs.

Her heart was beating frantically inside her ribcage, to the point she felt it may explode; and she rapidly glanced around, as quickly as she could, trying to recognize her location and see the faces of her captors.

Realizing she was living this nightmare again. No... She didn't want to relive it. She was so scared she could barely breathe — the flashbacks that reminded her of another time she was kidnapped didn't help her in the least.
.
.
.

Her six-year-old self was sobbing out her already puffy, red eyes — tears falling thickly over her bruised cheeks.

When he heard her screaming, the cold-blooded kidnapper had harshly slapped her across the face.

It hurt. It stung like the sharpest pain she had ever experienced.

And knowing she was in this kind of hopeless situation, alone, left in the hands of the horrible people keeping her captive only made it worse.

Jaehee was alone... Completely alone and left to die. She was unable to stop her helpless wailing.

"Shut up, or you'll get slapped again, girl." the man retorted, clearly unimpressed, while he fixed the cuffs of his sleeve with that same cruel glint in his eyes.

Jaehee did her best to shush herself up, biting her lips hard to prevent them from making any noise.

"You should be thankful, though," he snickered darkly, another man walking inside the damp and stuffy room as he pushed a young child around her age, who quickly lost his balance with his hands tied behind his back. "You'll be getting a new friend today."

Jaehee was in complete shock when the little boy of raven black hair stumbled over, falling on his knees right next to her. She immediately glanced towards him, observing how for being someone who just got kidnapped, his face looked immaculately blank.

But beneath the blank mask, she could see the anger. Cold, piercing anger and disdain.

"Behave, I'm sure we'll get a good ransom for the brat. Make sure his hands are well tied this time though, he tried to make a sneaky little escape while I wasn't looking in the car." He smacked the back of the silent boy's head, not holding back any force.

Even when hit so harshly, the boy didn't make a sound; only staring down at the floor with empty eyes.

"Uh... Uh..." Small whimpers escaped Jaehee's lips, and she quickly forced herself to look away.

The captors, two scruffy but clearly strong men, gave them a last, withering glance before they slammed the door behind them.

"Uh..."

The boy stayed on his scraped knees. Not staring at anything in particular but not looking at her at any cost.

Jaehee slowly began to cry again, feeling even more hopeless than before. She knew it had been selfish when she felt glad someone else her age was around and she wasn't completely alone anymore.

But now she regretted it. She regretted it so bitterly.

"...Mommy... Mom..." Jaehee cried softly, knowing her mom wouldn't hear her, yet not wanting to keep the words stuck inside her throat.

The boy finally turned towards her. His eyes were just as cold as she had noticed before. "Stop."

"Huh...?"

"Stop it," he barked, clearly annoyed. "Your mother's not going to hear you... Dummy," he murmured the last word under his breath as he looked away

She gulped down the tight knot in her throat. "What...? What about your mom...?" When he didn't answer, she finally asked the question that was befuddling her mind, "Aren't you scared?"

His face was turned away from her, and looking him over more intricately, she could see the expensive and fancy clothes he wore: a short-sleeved white shirt with grey stripes, and dark shorts with straps over his shoulders — like overalls, but way more elegant-looking.

If she remembered hard, her mother had mentioned them once while she worked sewing clothes. Sus... Suspenders?

He finally pushed himself down, sitting next to her in a small thud. From closer she could see the pretty shade of grey his eyes were — they looked like stormy clouds.

"...No." He finally turned his face to her, and even though he tried to hide it, she could his eyes wavering. "My father is gonna come for me. I know he is."

"Your mom—"

"I know my father's gonna come." he repeated curtly, cutting her short. She heard his firm voice fluctuate for a second and she didn't ask again. It was clearly something painful to him.

They were silent for a long while.

"...D-do you think they're gonna come for us?" Jaehee asked softly.

"Tch." He scoffed. "They'll come for me. I'm worth too much."

Jaehee slowly glanced at him. Scared, but more and more curious of who he was. "B-but... What about me?"

The boy was silent, glancing at her momentarily. He must have seen something in her gaze, because his own immediately softened. As if apologizing for his previous harshness towards her.

"...They'll come for you, too. I'll make sure of it," he told her with just as much assurance as he had before; looking at her with with such a confident sense of assertiveness that she felt her honey-brown eyes widen. "I'm giving you my word... I never go back on it."

She was quiet for a while, unresponsive.

He became worried for a second before he saw the corners of her lips quirk up a little. Her eyes still looked as sad, but for some reason there was some kind of sincere trust in them.

"...My name's Jaehee..."

He didn't answer for a while, and she feared he wouldn't tell her his name.

And he didn't. Looking at the darkened expression in his eyes, she knew he wouldn't. At least for now. "Jaehee..." he said her name softly, "...I'll protect you."

Jaehee seemed surprised at what he said, but her shoulders relaxed slightly. "I'll protect you, too... Oppa."

It became a promise.

------------

"Father... I understand you're going through a difficult moment right now, but I need to see my assistant."

An hour had passed, if not more, and Jumin was growing more and more anxious to check on Jaehee. Every time he tried to excuse himself, his father kept him down by starting a new rant about his mother or going back to his silent sobbing and drinking and "nobody cares for this old man, not even his son" discourse.

However, it had been enough.

He needed to see her.

"Jumin, come on..." The Chairman whined, now immensely drunk. "You're really gonna leave me like this? Have a little filial piety... Human sympathy, son! This is why people call you an emotionless robot!"

"Father, you're getting too emotional again." Jumin sighed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, and got up — before his father grabbed his arm.

"What is so important that you're itching so hard to go?" he inquired now, clearly irritated as he harrumphed.

"My gi— my assistant," he repeated, purposely emphasizing the word. "I almost said girlfriend," he realized, sweat-dropping and chastising himself. His father certainly didn't need to know about his true relationship with Jaehee. "I should be more careful."

"What's so important about her?" his father drawled, crossing his arms. "Isn't she the one who quit...?"

Jumin was quickly growing annoyed. He freed his arm from his father's grasp easily before walking down to the door.

"W-wait...!" His father yelled out, dramatically holding out his hand towards him. "Jumin, I know there's something you're not telling me... Isn't there?! You and that 'assistant' of yours... There's something weird between you two!"

Jumin was alarmed for a second, but then realized that the one speaking wasn't his sober, perceptive father, but an extremely drunk, fibbing version of him.

"I don't have time for this," he said simply, before the door slammed behind him.

"Wait... Huh... That boy," Chairman Han muttered exasperatedly after heaving a deep sigh. "Doesn't he know that I can tell when he's lying...? I was the one who raised him."

He took another swig of red wine.

He had suspected his son was in love with his assistant for a while — and seeing the way Jumin's shoulders had momentarily tensed up when he brought it up was enough of an answer for him.

"...So that's why he didn't want to agree to the arranged marriage..." He chuckled slightly in amusement. "It's nice... To finally see him in love. I hope it goes well for him..." Even if it didn't for me, he left out.

------

"Jaehee?" She wasn't in her office. That was the first red flag for him.

He turned to one of the other employees, a man named Jin. "Oh... He's the same pesky guy from the race event." He shrugged the momentary annoyance off. "You. Have you seen where Assistant Kang went?"

Jin blinked. "Ms. Kang? Um, no. I thought she was still working at her office?"

Mi-Cha arrived from the company kitchen, bringing a cup of green tea with her. "Jaehee? Did something happen to her?" she quickly asked with concern.

"I'm not completely certain yet." He looked downwards, eyes closing as a headache took over him. "Did you see her go anywhere?"

Mi-Cha thought deeply, putting a finger over her chin as she squinted her eyes. "Yes... Before I left, I think I saw her quickly get up. She... She went towards the exit over there, I think?" She pointed to a white sign with red letters on it, leading to a stairway, which led to the back exit of the building.

Jumin's eyes widened slightly. Why would she do that? It was out-of-character of her to suddenly up and leave without informing anyone...

He didn't say anything before quickly storming through the door of the exit, MC hot on his heels.
.
.
.

He didn't find her. The parking lot of the back exit was eerily empty.

No one.

He looked down at the ground and noticed something.

A candy wrap.

"Huh?" he murmured before reaching down and picking it up. He felt his heartbeat come to a halt when he realized what it was.

The caramel candy he had given to Jaehee.

----
Sorry for the wait, I'm back from the hiatus :) Thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll keep steady updates from now on.