Chapter 49 - Please be alive

Loud noises wake him up. Jung Kwang-soo holds his head in his hands. He feels drowsy. His vision starts to clear up. Did he doze off? He looks at the half-finished bottle of the sweetened milk. He remembers picking it up at midnight. After taking a few sips, he has fallen asleep.

Someone is trying to break the door. He gets up and opens it. The guards are standing there with a scared look.

One of the guards speaks up. "Are you okay?"

"What happened?" He asks. His head begins to clear up. "Is something wrong?"

"Someone threw a gas bomb in the corridor around 12:15 AM. All the guards fell asleep," The man tells him with fear. "We woke up a while ago."

He runs to the bedroom. His eyes bulge out when he sees the bloody sheet. Ahn Hana is nowhere to be seen. He looks for her in the bathroom. There is blood on the floor. Ahn Hana is nowhere.

Where is she? No. No. She can't die.

***

When he sees the blood on the bed, he can't move further.

"The cameras are destroyed," The detective is saying to him. "We found a strong drug in the drink. The killer threw the silent gas bomb first. It was full of strong sedatives. Mr. Jung's drink was already tweaked by a strong sedative. He entered the house between 12:15 AM to 12:30 AM. He must have left before the dawn. We received Mr. Jung's call at 9:30 A.M. He is being tested right now."

Do Sejin has been at the hospital. His father collapsed last night. His father couldn't bear the sight of his only daughter's dead body. His mother is also sick and inconsolable. Eun Min Ah is with her. He couldn't leave them.

Yesterday, he lost his sister. Today, Ahn Hana is gone. Even her body is not found. Jung Kwang-soo has promised him that he will protect her. Why did this happen then?

He can't process anyone's words.

"Looking at the blood..." The detective hesitates. "She must have been tortured. The killer must have taken her along with him. The chances of her survival are low. Let's stay strong and hopeful. We will keep looking for her."

The killer didn't leave from the front gate. The backdoor of the building is found open to the alley. The surveillance cameras are nonfunctional.

"The killer is smart. He must have planned this for a long time."

He doesn't want to hear things like this. He wants to find Ahn Hana. He doesn't know what kind of things she is going through now.

"We found cameras in her house. She was being watched 24 hours a day."

Hours turn into days. She is not found anywhere. Nowhere. Doctor Bo Ji-Won also comes back from her honeymoon when she receives the news.

"We have to find her soon." She is shaken to hear the bloody details. "She is already sick and pregnant. She has to be found soon."

"Pregnant?" Do Sejin can't believe what he is hearing. "I thought that she was..."

"Yes, she was infertile. Not completely. Rather, it was like her chances of having a child was extremely low. It was a miracle that happened to her." Bo Ji-Won tells him honestly, "She really wanted to live. She was looking for surrogacy options too because of her illness. She wanted me to raise the child in case something happened to her."

She covers her face with her hands in despair. "She told me that she would definitely come to me after the hearing. I shouldn't have left. I should not have believed her."

His mind goes back to the day when she called him a miracle in her life. A miracle that happened to her. Pregnancy. His child. She didn't say a thing about it. Not a word. She didn't want him to know.

Even if there has been no killer, she would not have told him anyway. He would have lived without knowing.

Seol A. The killer cut her belly and took away the organ. He realizes why his sister was killed that way.

He clutches his ċhėst. His sister. Ahn Hana. Both of them. Did that killer hurt Ahn Hana because he ɨmprėġnȧtėd her? That kind of obsessive monster would never allow Ahn Hana to bear someone else's child.

Too late.

"Ahn Hana, where are you? Please be alive." He screams, hoping that she would hear him.

Days to week. Weeks to months. There is no sign of her. With each passing day, chances of her being alive are closing to zero. There has been no new murder. No sign of the killer either. No secret message. Ahn Hana has disappeared along with the killer.

Baek Han Sol comes out of prison after further investigation. Ahn Hana becomes a legend for connecting the dots between the murder.

Jung Kwang-soo drowns himself in liquor. He couldn't protect his only friend. It's heavy to live each day without her. Nothing is the same. Nothing will be ever the same. He can't go back to his own house. Sometimes, he would go to her home and try to find her. Maybe she has tricked him and ran away to her secret vacation. Maybe the killer didn't take her. He hopes, desperately, that she tricked him. It's better if that is the case. He prays every day.

'Please be alive, Ahn Hana. Prove the world that they are wrong. Prove that you are alive. Please come back.'

Do Sejin's parents also try to accept the fact that their daughter is gone. Doctor Bo still calls Ahn Hana's phone every day, hoping that it would connect someday.

Do Sejin has stopped drinking. He has stopped meeting girls or going to the parties. The playboy inside him is long dead. He is not the same boy who lived as if there is no tomorrow. There is a tomorrow for him. He hasn't lost hope. That killer owes him a lot. He doesn't stop investigating for a moment. He lives for tomorrow. That tomorrow when the killer is caught and pays back what he owes everyone. That tomorrow when she reappears alive. Until he finds her body, he refuses to believe that she is dead.