Miho the Killer
Chapter 84: Late Night Cafe

Chapter 84: Late Night Cafe

"What the hell happened there?!!!"

I completely lost myself.

I squared up to Shin, grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him against the wall.

Well, the last part I couldn’t really manage because he was as immovable as a boulder, or a mountain itself.

After Miho and I safely - barely - managed to jump to the next building from Club Volta’s rooftop, we ran down the emergency stairs with metallic clang-clang. Through the dark alley, swerving our way past Seoul’s glitzy Friday night crowd - there was no time or reason for stealth at this point as we simply couldn’t afford to be pursued by the police after our narrow escape, not to mention the fact that both of us were drenched in blood hardly making it possible for us to blend in with anyone anyway.

After about 15 minutes of relentless running that made my lungs burst, we arrived at the prearranged rendezvous point, quite many blocks away from Club Volta. It was a boutique cafe closed for the night and Shin pulled up the shutter and let us in after Miho’s shuffle-knock.

"Well done, ladies," Shin spoke nonchalantly.

"Is that all you have to say?!" I couldn’t contain my anger.

"Old man, what happened?" Miho was a little cooler, but even the easy-going and obedient ’niece’ wasn’t quite cool enough to feel let it pass that the ’plan’ was rigged from the start.

"Everything went according to plan and you did your job admirably. Bravo."

Shin clapped while I was still grabbing his collars with trembling hands.

"FUCK YOU!"

I’m normally one to swear much, but I felt tonight I earned my right to say this right to the old man’s face.

"Easy, Pigeon."

"DON’T CALL ME THAT!"

"I guess you could be promoted to Eagle now."

"Hey, hey, hey. Let’s all calm down and talk this through." Miho, an unlikely arbitrator, opened her arms and spoke slowly.

I grudgingly let go of Shin and he straightened his collars as if nothing happened.

We then each took a seat around a round table.

"Why don’t you tell us what REALLY happened?"

I spat my words.

"Let’s put it this way."

Shin lit up a cigarette and took a long drag, then slowly blew it out. He was polite enough to turn his head as he did so as not to bother the ladies with his vile smoke.

"President Ryu is dead. A large swath of Ilseong’s men are dead. And what’s more - thanks to Ms. Han here - the police swept in to apprehend those who survived. It couldn’t have gone better."

I could no longer fight back as I felt a pang of guilt. It was me who tipped off the police.

"What... do you mean?" Miho inquired, confused.

"Why don’t you tell her yourself?" Shin asked me with a grin.

I couldn’t bring myself to. All I could do was sit and fidget like an idiot child.

The old man gave me no break though.

Instead of taking over the conversation from there, he sat and stared at me, puffing away. It was clear he wasn’t going to say a thing until the words came out of my mouth directly.

"Miho... I’m sorry..."

"Eh?"

"I... I..."

I started to sob.

Useless. Again.

"I was the one..."

"You were the one? I don’t get it." Miho tilted her head to the side, stroking her bloody chin.

"Wipe the blood off your faces first at least." Shin gave a napkin each to us.

Blood on Miho’s face was pretty much dry at this point, but my face was sticky with blood and tears mixed.

I cried a little more, finally calmed down, and continued.

"I let Detective Choi know about the mission."

I couldn’t bear to look at my betrayed heroine’s face as I said this, but like a moth to the flame, my eyes betrayed me and stole a glance. Miho flinched a little, winced, was about to say something, then closed her eyes, frowned, straightened her brows again, took a deep breath, and asked.

"Why would you do that?"

"I wanted to save you..."

"Save me?!"

She slammed her hand on the table as she shot up from her seat, glaring at me with the eyes burning with rage that she’d never given me before.

It wasn’t just my heart breaking apart, but my whole body felt like it was getting dissected by her piercing gaze.

"I’m sorry." It was all I could say.

"Please don’t tell me it’s true, Sohee." Her voice was anything but calm.

"I’m sorry."

"Why... just why...?!" She growled, looking at me, grinding her teeth.

As scared and hurt as I felt, I couldn’t turn my eyes away from her.

Then she suddenly stepped back, still keeping her eyes on me.

It seemed she diffused a little, her mouth opened a little too, looking like she was about to say something, and then she dropped her shoulders as if she had lost her strength to fight. I saw her look at Shin, who was grinning, then look at me again, who was crying, and look at Shin again, who was still grinning.

"FUCK!"

With a sudden outburst, Miho jumped forward and landed a full blow on Shin’s cheek. The man didn’t even try to dodge as if he knew this was coming but decided to take it anyway.

"YOU SET HER UP!!!"

What?

"You... you... HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!!!"

Miho was angry at Shin. I’ve never seen this before. She landed another punch on his face, which he welcomed with his chin again. But a strong man or not, this clearly hurt and he let out a painful groan.

"I’m sorry, Miho. But this was for the best."

"I can’t accept this! I can’t accept this!"

The furious tigress threw a flurry of punches at Shin and at some point, it seemed he burst his lips and got a cut above his eye. Now he too had a blood-covered face.

The anger slowly subsided though and Miho calmed down finally, and asked the old man.

"Why did you do that?"

"Are you done now?"

"NO!"

With that, Miho landed the hardest punch she could possibly throw on Shin, which almost knocked him off the chair.

The wry old man moaned, groaned, and asked again.

"Are you done now?"

Miho said nothing. Just huffing to catch her breath. It’s been a tough night for her.

"Let me explain then."

Shin lit another cigarette and smiled.

It was clear which devil raised my devil.