Before Her Very Eyes

Chapter 61

Woozi and Jun went to the cemetery together that very night. Arin could not join, of course, as she could never be in front of Jun when her voice had the power to kill him.

She did not know what happened on that trip until the following morning at 6am, when she had to take the potion with Jun.

"Turns out the girl does have a thread connecting her to someone a few degrees south-east from her gravesite," Jun told her. "I can help him follow it toward the source, but there's a problem. It will probably take more than 12 hours. So if I do this, I won't be there to take the potion with you at MRS..."

Various solutions were discussed. Finding another lover for Extraction was one of Arin's suggestions, but Hoshi said that was not possible, since it was difficult to tell exactly when the potion faded away for the potion to work on another. Hoshi suggested they wait until after the voice elimination operation to do this, but Arin wanted to get this off of Woozi's chest as soon as possible.

In the end, they decided that Arin would meet them after 12 hours, wherever they would be, with a secure gag in her mouth, for the potion dosage renewal. Woozi would pick her up, since he was the only one who could face her without dying.

-

Jun, Woozi, and a few other mages from MRS's Recruitment Unit had set off on the journey that morning. Jun needed the extra help, for he had to be very focused on the thread as he followed it on foot. If he lost focus even for a second, he'd lose it among all the red threads he saw around him, and he'd have to start all over from the gravesite. Jun needed a lot of help to pull it off; someone had to feed him, pay attention to the surroundings, and even cover for him while he went to the bathroom.

Arin had not realized how hard it was until she spoke to Woozi on the phone to ask about the progress. He told her that Jun was working very hard, despite the exhaustion and the strenuous effort of focusing on one thread for so long.

When it was near 6pm that day, it was time to meet Jun for the potion dosage. Arin looked forward to seeing him, even for just a minute. She had missed him the past twelve hours.

Woozi had arrived to pick her up in his car. He looked relaxed when he arrived, like he had faith this was going to work, and he would finally find the person he'd been chasing for so many years.

"Hi!" he greeted her as she opened the door to the passenger seat, ready to climb in.

She froze when she saw what was on the passenger seat: binoculars.

"You can just move them to the back," Woozi said nonchalantly. "I bought them, thinking they might help Jun."

The binoculars triggered flashbacks that made Arin lightheaded and dizzy: the concert. Chilli. S.Coups' purple face. Minghao. That had been the last time she had ever touched a pair of binoculars.

"What's wrong?" Woozi asked as he watched Arin's eyes quiver at the sight of the binoculars. "Hey... what's wrong," he repeated when she remained frozen.

She closed her eyes and tried to shake the memories out of her head. Now was not the time to be traumatized. She picked up the binoculars, climbed into the passenger seat, and put them on her lap. "Sorry," she said. "The binoculars unlocked some painful memories."

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"I used them in the last Chilli concert I ever attended," Arin said. "So you can imagine..."

"Oh. I didn't know people used binoculars in concerts."

"Most people don't," Arin replied. She remembered how Minghao used to make fun of her for using them. "But I liked to use them. They helped me see Chilli up close..."