Ba Reum was standing next to Yo Han's car, his face looked hard, his arms held tightly next to his body, his fists shaking. He was in turmoil. He could scarcely believe the deal that these women had made.
Somehow they dared to judge him, before he even did anything wrong and probably would have sentenced him to death. He wondered what was the trigger, being the head hunters son, or having the psychopath gene?
Would his mother have abandoned him when she didn't know he had that special gene, just because she knew who his father was?
Yo Han came to stand next to him. He hesitantly laid his hand on Ba Reum's shoulder, hoping that it would comfort the other man.
"I'm sorry." He said.
"You don't have anything to apologize about. If anything I should apologize to you, for having to think that you were that man's son" Ba Reum said tightly, trying to control his emotions. Yo Han flinched lightly.
"I grew up thinking my mother loved me. You ran away from home." Yo Han said. Ba Reum looked at the man. After a minute he sighed.
"Well, I fucked up this conversation, we didn't even get to ask her if she knew who was following us." Ba Reum's muscles relaxed and he fell to the car, leaning against the door.
"She didn't know. I asked after you left." Yo Han said.
"Oh. Thanks." Ba Reum muttered, glad that the other one thought of it.
"I know this will sound insensitive, but how are they, your…my… well family." Yo Han hesitantly asked. He was curious about them, even though Ba Reum didn't have a good relationship with them.
Ba Reum swallowed at that question, thinking back at his horrible childhood.
"Our mothers are both the same, both willing to kill a child because someone said that we might be psychopaths." Ba Reum forced out, Yo Han flinched. He knew this, but the fact that he wasn't related anymore to the head hunter had made his head a bit giddy and somehow it made it hard to process that they might be just as bad as the mother he grew up with.
Yo Han had to admit that his mind was still reeling with the information he had gotten. He couldn't believe that his mother, no, Ba Reum's mother had hidden this truth from him. She claimed to love him like her son, but she had seen what it had done to him, how far away he had been driven by the knowledge that his father was a serial killer. And yet she choose to stay silent, throughout his childhood, adolescence and even now he was an adult.
If only she said something then, perhaps he could have dealt with it better. If she just would have said he had been adopted or something;
"I'm sorry, I just wanted to know." Yo Han admitted to Ba Reum.
"It's hard to say." Ba Reum suddenly said, his voice emotionless and dead "They never were kind to me, but now I at least know why. To their other children they were perfect parents." He saw Yo Han's eyes widen when he mentioned other children.
"You got a younger brother and sister. They are twins. Your brother is an intern at a famous law firm, your sister is handicapped. I don't know what happened to her."
"Ah yes, the car accident." Yo Han said. He had read Ba Reum's medical file, "you had amnesia and never had contact with your parents again."
"Yes, the best thing that could have happened to me." Ba Reum suddenly stepped in the car. Yo Han followed him swiftly.
"I know that both of our mothers are horrible people. To think that anyone could trade their children like this and even swore to kill them. But they haven't killed us, so perhaps they aren't that bad." Yo Han tried. Ba Reum still refused to look at him, just staring ahead. Yo Han started the car and started to drive in silence.
After a while Ba Reum sighed.
"I think my mom would have tried to kill me." He eventually said. Yo Han turned his gaze slightly over to Ba Reum and then turned his attention back to the road.
"Why would you say that?" Ba Reum bit his lip, debated to himself how much he wanted to share of his childhood.
"I ran away from home because my stepfather beat me. He was quite harsh. Sometimes I would lose consciousness even. I can just still hear them call me a monster. Mother just said he couldn't do it when my siblings watched. If he did it without them seeing it was okay."
"That's…worrisome." Yo Han ended, not really knowing what to say after that statement.
"I'm not saying that you can't meet them, but I think it's best that we wait with the big reveal. Perhaps it would be best that no one knew I was still alive even." Ba Reum said, not wanting to loose his current live. He didn't know what his friends and mother would say when they discovered he was related to the Head Hunter. Of what his mother would do once she knew that he remembered his old family.
"I do wish to meet them one day. I never had any siblings before. But I do think it's better not to show who we are yet as well."
"You do?" Ba Reum said, looking up at Yo Han.
"Yes. Those people who have followed us when we were small. You said that you've seen them again. Since they are related to these murders happening now, let's not unnecessary risk any lives." Yo Han reasoned.
Ba Reum could only agree. The rest of the road was spent in silence, each of the young men lost in their thoughts about how their lives perhaps could have been. Ba Reum couldn't think his youth with Sung Ji Eun as a mother.
She had clearly told him that she had hated the whole idea of him. If anything she would have given him up as a baby or would have killed him eventually with her own hands.
It didn't take long before they reached Ba Reum's house. Yo Han parked the car, but before Ba Reum could get out, he stopped him.
"I want to help. I want to find out who those people are that followed us. It must have to do with the psychopath gene. That's our connection. I'll start to research that." Yo Han declared.
"Are you sure? It could be dangerous." Ba Reum asked in surprise.
"I am." Ba Reum thought about it. He never worked with a partner before, but if anyone had something to do with this case, it was Yo Han.
Ba Reum nodded.
"That's good. If you find something important, you can call me. If I find something, I'll call you." They shook hands and each left in their own direction.
Like every weekday at 10 in the morning, Bong Yi went to visit her grandmother. She was glad that she started to finally visit her grandmother since a few days. When she had just been imprisoned, Bong Yi hadn't got the courage to visit her grandmother and seeing her in prison clothes. It would have rubbed it in too much for her;
Because of all the time she had recently been spending with Chi Kook, he had quickly found out that she hadn't been visiting her grandmother.
"Why aren't you visiting her?" he had asked her in surprise, and when she answered that she felt guilty because she thought her grandmother was in jail because of her, he knocked some sense into her.
"First of all, it wasn't your fault. Do you think that your grandmother would be happy that you aren't visiting her because you feel guilty. I think the best way to get rid of that is to make sure to visit your grandmother. Talk with her and you'll see that she will always love you." He had said to her, "Bong Yi, don't waste the time that you are given. Stay with her as much as you can."
She had cried once again then. She had been crying to much as usual. Chi Kook had afterward helped her take contact with the prison and was able to set up a daily schedule. She visited her grandmother 6 times a week, each time she was allowed 15 minutes to see her grandmother. Once she would go back to school, these visits would be put in the late afternoon, so that she could visit her after her school hours, but for this week it was still in the morning.
The first time she had seen her grandmother, she had begged for forgiveness, saying how much she regretted every time she had ignored her halmoni, or had been angry over nothing.
Of course halmoni had immediately said that there was nothing to forgive and that she shouldn't cry because of this. That she shouldn't cry because of her old silly grandmother.
Now that those words were said, Bong Yi felt lighter and was happy that she went every day.
She told her grandmother about all that had happened outside the prison. Her grandmother had been as shocked as she was when she heard what happened to Soo Jin and Ba Reum, and she worried together with her when Ba Reum suddenly took off.
Then when he had returned she had laughed with her because of all the youth anecdotes she had heard.
She felt closer to her grandmother then she had ever felt before, even though she was now in prison. It was going to be a long 6 months, but they would get through it.
She was looking forward to another talk with her grandmother, glad for once that nothing special had really happened in the past few days.
She had been waiting for her grandmother to appear in the visitation room for over 10 minutes when a guard showed up instead.
"Were is my grandmother." She asked in surprise. This wasn't normal procedure.
"She has taken ill." He said, looking uncomfortable to bring the news to her, "She has a bad cold and she has been moved to the medical wing."
"Is she okay? Can I see her." Bong Yi asked, once again her heart pounding.
"She is fine, but we don't allow her visitors today because of this." And the guard left her. She went away to clear out the space, her mind lost again. She had gotten so much bad news these days. When would the world finally get to be better?
In a daze she went to the hospital, knowing that it was her turn to sit with Ba Reum this afternoon. They tried to have at least one of them to sit with him to make sure he had someone to keep him company and not to suddenly disappear again.
He was already sitting there, reading a magazine out loud for his mum. She came in and sat down heavily. This time she was glad that he was there not to help him, but just so that she wouldn't be alone. She took in a shaky breath.
"What's wrong?" he asked her, worried, looking up from the magazine.
"It's probably nothing," she said, licking her lips and noticing that they were dried out, "but halmoni is ill. She was in the medical wing in the prison and they wouldn't let me see her." She tried to give a calm smile to Ba Reum, but it turned out to be a grimace.
Ba Reum looked at her, he tried to say something, but he thought better of it. He put down his magazine and stood up behind her, lying his hands on her shoulders.
She grabbed one of his hands with hers, feeling the comfort it gave to him.
"Does her health bother her a lot?" Ba Reum asked eventually.
"Well, she is a bit older, so her joints often ache. But ever since the incident, she has gotten trouble with her lungs." Bong Yi thought about the cough that her grandmother still had since that night in the rain.
Ba Reum was taking this information in, thinking about it, an idea started to form in his head.
"Say, what would you say about getting your grandmother free early?" he said.
"What?" Bong Yi exclaimed.