Ignites
The Dark Atmosphere (Twenty One)
One week after Yuka's departure, Haejun begins to adapt to his new status. Now he learns to do everything himself. Starting from waking Enzo to go to school, preparing Enzo breakfast, and delivering Enzo to school. But it was not necessarily done by Haejun himself because Jaekyung always helped him. Since knowing all the things that happened to Haejun, he has become more courageous to show his concern by often coming to Haejun's house to prepare breakfast or take care of Enzo if Haejun is busy completing his work at the headquarters.
“Good morning.”
Jaekyung greeted the father and son who were walking down the stairs one by one. Enzo who was next to Haejun immediately looked at Haejun strangely because Jaekyung was already at his house that early.
“Dad, why aunty Jae can enter our house?” asked the little boy plainly. Haejun sniffed his shoulders ignorantly and immediately looked at the gardener who happened to have just passed in front of them.
“It looks like Jungso let him in. Jungso ssi, next time don't let unknown people into this house.” Haejun really remembers with a cold face. Jungso seemed to feel guilty and directly bowed his head deeply. Jaekyung patted Jungso's shoulder gently to calm the man in his early thirties.
“Jungso said, Haejun won't fire you just because you let me into this house, I'll be in charge if you're fired by that fierce captain.”
Jaekyung blatantly looked at Haejun full of hostility, but was completely unresponsive to Haejun.
“Daddy, I'm hungry.”
“Ohhhh you are hungry, let's have breakfast together.”
Jaekyung enthusiastically prepared her breakfast menu for Haejun and Enzo. Haejun immediately sat Enzo on the chair and he followed next to Enzo while reading every email that entered his phone. Occasionally Haejun also glanced at Jaekyung who was painstakingly fulfilling Enzo's strange desires. Actually he salutes Jaekyung enough to attract her attention, but from the beginning he has vowed to love only Yuka, so that Jaekyung's existence here only he considers as a friend that he can use to keep Enzo or cook Enzo food if he is busy. After all, finding a truly trustworthy housekeeper was extremely difficult. Especially with its status as intel which is now increasingly widespread among the public, making it must be careful in including someone into the life of the household. And all this time Jaekyung according to him is not the type of woman who is dangerous and trustworthy. It's just that he was a little uncomfortable with the attitude of Jaekyung who seemed to want to replace Yuka's position at home.
“Hae, don't you want to eat your breakfast?”
“Hmm, soon.”
Haejun stuffed his smart phone into his uniform pocket and started scooping rice into his mouth. The breakfast atmosphere sounded quiet as usual. Only Enzo makes a fuss once in a while because he doesn't like carrots and asks Jaekyung to get rid of them.
“Later noon I will have a meeting with the general council, can you pick up Enzo at his school?” asked Haejun while chewing his food. Jaekyung immediately nodded excitedly and looked enthusiastic.
“Can I, of course I can. Coincidentally today I'm not having a job.”
“What have you been doing all this time?”
Haejun spoke coldly without feeling, insinuating Jaekyung who had always only seemed to busy himself without doing something quality.
“Ck, I am not an unemployed Mr. Lee Haejun, I have a counseling agency that I also have to take care of.”
“Yes, whatever you say.” replied Haejun lazily. The man resumed his delayed meal while muttering inwardly if in fact Jaekyung's counseling agency was not at all competitive. If his father was not someone who was rich and influential, maybe the bureau had been closed for a long time because of his consulting model is very arbitrary like Jaekyung.
“Come and we leave, I'm done.”
Enzo got off his seat with Jaekyung deftly wiping Enzo's mouth from the soup sauce. After he finished with Enzo, Jaekyung rushed to Haejun to clean the rest of the coffee stuck to the corner of Haejun's lips, but Haejun immediately held it back and snatched the tissue from Jaekyung's hand.
“It's not necessary, I can do it myself.”
After that Haejun immediately walked away followed by Enzo behind him. While Jaekyung still looked shocked while holding his chest.
“Yes God, that man!! Why is it so hard to get your attention!” rfor Jaekyung was upset while walking away leaving behind the rest of the dirty dishes that he did not clean because he was upset with Haejun.
-00-
“Dad, why is aunty Jae so noisy?”
In the car Enzo voiced his question about Jaekyung which he considered very noisy. Sometimes the boy also felt bored, just like Haejun, when he saw Jaekyung had appeared in his house early in the morning like today. But Enzo actually did not hate Jaekyung, he just felt lazy to hear Jaekyung's loud voice that was very disturbing.
“Entaihlah, probably because he takes care of too many crazy people.”
Enzo giggles at the thought of Jaekyung taking care of mentally ill patients in the hospital. Haejun once told Enzo that Jaekyung is a psychology graduate whose job is to take care of the crazy, even though in fact Jaekyung has never been in charge of the crazy at all, because he took up the field of child psychology.
“Dad, does Jae aunty like daddy?”
Haejun glanced at his son who was beginning to understand what love was. Though all this time it seems like Jaekyung never said it blatantly, even though the woman did show it through her aggressive attitude.
“Why can you say that?” haejun asked back. He wanted to test Enzo a little bit about the sensitivity of the boy.
“Aunty Jae seen sticking directly on daddy. And it makes me a little dislike. Dad will not replace mommy with aunty Jae, right?”
“Hmm, so Enzo doesn't want to have a new mommy?”
“No, enzo don't want!”
Enzo replied firmly and slightly snapped at the end. Haejun chuckled at his son's incredible reaction. And he was really grateful if Enzo did not want a new mother because honestly he also did not intend to find a replacement for Yuka. He only used Jaekyung for his sake.
“Good if Enzo does not want a new mommy, because daddy will not look for it either. Daddy only loves your mommy.” Haejun said as he is and sounded full of wounds, although he managed to disguise it with his stiff cold voice.
“Then what about aunty Jae? It will continue to stick to the daddy like a worm.” said Enzo with a disgusted face. Haejun stops his car right in front of Enzo's school and turns to his son after he pulls the handbrake on the side of his wheel.
“Let alone aunty Jae like that, as long as he can help daddy to take care of you, then daddy won't tell aunty Jae to leave. Does Enzo not mind if aunty Jae accompanies Enzo during daddy work?”
Enzo nodded his head slowly and seemed to understand the position of his father who was busy, but also had to take care of it because now he was not left in the house of his grandmother.
“Dad, but what if Enzo is at the halmeoni house like he used to be?”
“Alright, I understand. I love dad.”
Enzo hugged Haejun's body at a glance before he got off his father's sports car and waved lightly at his father who immediately drove his car away from the large courtyard of kindergartenthe boy Enzo studied.
-00-
Yeri clasped her chin on her desk staring bored at the state of her colleagues who suddenly became unemployed after Yuka's departure. On the right side of her desk, Yeri noticed Minzi was busy reading a fashion magazine she had read many times because the woman had no more reading stock to read
fill his boring time. Though usually Minzi had to steal time to read the magazines because their work is very busy. But now they look like unemployed because their team has not been active since Haejun is still in mourning and is in talks with the council of generals who according to Yeri is very conservative.
“Arghh, I'm bored!” yeri shouted loudly and made all her colleagues turn strangely to her. Sehun who was not far from Yeri's desk immediately threw the woman's head with a ballpoint pen because he was disturbed by Yeri's noise.
“You why? Don't you have any gossip material that could make your day better?” Sehun Sakarstik. Yeripun walked up to Sehun's desk while back in chin in front of Sehun.
“What should I gossip about Oh Sehun again, if senior Im is no more? All this time I've always known how their relationship was at headquarters, so I could be a source of news for those thirsty women. But now, everything feels bland without the presence of senior Im and captain Lee. I miss them.” whine Yeri like a child. Sehun rolled his eyeballs lazily while pushing Yeri's head backward in anxiety.
“If you've been spying on them all this time, you should know that senior Im and captain Lee are married, even if they already have four-year-olds. Huh, you are indeed a self-styled reporter.” umpat Sehun Sakarstik. Yeri exclaimed in annoyance and wanted to reply to Sehun's words, but the whispers coming from outside their room attracted more attention which made him immediately run outside the room.
“What's up?”
“See, captain Lee is back. It now looks cooler than before.”
Yeri looked at the silhouette of her captain's body that was walking towards the meeting room which was at the end of the hall.
“Hus, you do not carelessly gossip captain Lee.” said Yeri did not accept to other colleagues in his division. The three women who had been talking about Haejun immediately turned to dislike Yeri.
“We don't gossip about it, we speak the truth. What do you think of Captain Lee's attitude now that his wife has died? I began to wonder about his credibility because he had been proven to violate the rules of headquarters.” cynical woman was annoying. It felt like Yeri wanted to strangle the woman's neck and kick her out of the base because the woman was blatantly twitching Haejun in front of her men. Though they used to be women who chased after Haejun with a disgusting attitude. And just because Haejun turned out to have married Yuka, they became cynical like that to cover up their envy of having been defeated by Yuka.
“Huh basic licker. You used to praise Captain Lee and chase him in a disgusting way while leaving a chocolate bar to senior Im. And after you lost to senior Im, you guys were badmouthing captain Lee as you like. You guys are really disgusting.” reply Yeri with his spicy mouth. The three women were about to reply to Yeri before Haejun suddenly appeared behind them and made them all deathly pale, including Yeri because after all he had talked about Haejun, despite his intentions of being there to defend Haejun from the horde of sycophant women in front of him.
“Kcaptain, what are you doing here?” tanya Yeri stammered. Haejun observed the group of women one by one with his hideous flat face. Everyone who was there immediately lost the courage to just look at Haejun's pias face.
“I heard the noise and my name was mentioned several times. Do you have no other job but to talk about me and my late wife? You better go back to your room and do your job properly. I will not hesitate to report you to your division chief. And you Yeri, you better get in your room because after this I will give an explanation about the results of the general council meeting to you.”
Yeri bowed deeply as she occasionally glanced at the horde of sycophant women in front of her with a veiled look. While the group of women also immediately apologized to Haejun after Yeri left first to leave them.
-00-
Haejun stared lazily at the general council sitting in a circle inside the meeting room to talk about his problem that had broken the rules. In this room there are two camps that have been so hard to defend their respective opinions. But from both camps there is absolutely no point
the light that can end their debate that Haejun thinks is so boring.
“Kita
could not relinquish Lee Haejun as captain just because he broke the first rule in this headquarters. Lee Haejun has always been professional. If it wasn't for Miss Im having an accident in the line of duty, their status would never have been known. We should consider
the decision to relinquish his post and suspend him because captain Lee is one of the meritorious intel in this headquarters.”
“But what about the other agents, they will consider us unfair just because captain Lee is the captain in this base and has many achievements. They will definitely question our competence as generals.”
Haejun flat-robed general Jang and general Shin who were arguing with
alot in front of him. While he had not intended to make the slightest sound since he was really caught off guard by his current state. And those generals had absolutely no idea how he felt after Yuka's death. All they were concerned about was his status and credibility. Even without being in this headquarters if he had the talent to become great intel, he would have been able to do so. After all, the main goal is to arrest Park Jaejong on charges of smuggling illegal goods to China. Two days ago he managed to obtain physical evidence that could be used to arrest Park Jaejong. And after he managed to catch the crafty man, he will interrogate him so he can find the big boss who may have been hiding behind the backs of Park Jaejong and the ministers involved in crime out there.
“Captain Lee, do you want to defend?”
General Shin's voice spread his thoughts about Park Jaejong. He then cleared his throat slowly to remove all the obstacles that had always disturbed his heart and mind.
“Thank you general Shin for the opportunity, I will use this opportunity to make you aware of how careless I am to be in this position. So I don't care if you're going to take my place as captain or not, because I don't think that's important at all. My priority right now is to catch Park Jaejong and the big mafia boss who's been hiding behind Park Jaejong and the ministers who are in trouble out there. You need to know, from the beginning I did not want to get that special mission from the president because that mission would obviously endanger my family. I realized that I had broken the headquarters rules that forbid every agent from falling in love and having a relationship. But how can you limit a feeling that someone has. Feelings of love, disgust, hate, or anger are feelings that come on their own without ever being planned. And I always try to be professional because I never want to disappoint you all. Yuka and I were married five years ago, but have you ever heard the news before the disaster came upon my wife? Have you ever felt let down by my disloyal performance? I don't think so, because you all don't dispute that. And frankly without you removing my office I have felt how cruel the punishment given by God for my mistakes who have been married to a fellow agent. So if you want to give up my role as captain and make me an ordinary agent, I don't mind. I'm ready to relinquish that post whenever you ask.”
The atmosphere in the meeting room became silent after Haejun let out his entire wedge of heart. Mr. Lee who saw how his injuries seemed to be unable to say anything. He knew that this was his son's heaviest moment and this meeting was like salt sprinkled on his son's wounds.
“Where are you going, nak?”
Haejun stopped his steps that had been in the doorway. From another door came the figure of president Park Boyoung who was looking at him with a calming look. The man asked Haejun to sit back in his place because he wanted to announce an important news.
“So my goal coming here was to apologize to captain Lee for the unexpected incident a few days ago. I realized that everything that happened to Captain Lee was largely due to my faults that had put Captain Lee and his family in danger, at that time, I knew the status of Captain Lee who was married to the late agent Im Yuka. But at that time I still insisted on giving it a mission to catch the mafia in Korea. And it turned out that my choice was really right, captain Lee was a reliable agent for capturing those mafia pawns, he said, because in the last three months captain Lee managed to uncover eight rotten ministers and some of the rotten businessmen involved in the mafia group. Do you agree with my decision to retain the position of captain Lee?”
Silent. No one dared to voice out. On the one hand they feel like giving punishment to Haejun, but on the other hand they also agree with the reasons put forward by President Park. So in the end silence is the best option.
“Oh yes, there is one information from me. Today Park Jaejong is going abroad. It seems he already knows that we will arrest him on charges of smuggling goods into China and also the murder of Ms Im Yuka. Shin Jaeshin finally admitted his actions yesterday and he gave Park Jaejong the name as the boss who told him to kill Miss Im Yuka and become a spy in this headquarters. Son, do you want to complete your task?” ask President Park to Haejun. Haejun simply fell silent on the spot without answering yes or no. Now he is waiting for the decision of the general council, because he does not want to get many enemies inside his own headquarters.
“I give you a chance nak.” said president Park once again to make Haejun move immediately. Haejun then looked at his father for approval, and the father nodded his head steadily.
“Do it, son, complete your mission and prove it to us if you are entitled to your post as captain.”
Haejun immediately got up from his chair without saying a word to the councilor or president. He immediately contacted one of his colleagues who served at the airport to arrest Park Jaejong because he is currently a suspect.
Meanwhile, President Park seemed to smile with satisfaction because he was finally able to defend Haejun in the last seconds before the man got the punishment he should not have received. He and his bodyguard then left the meeting room with a smile on Mr. Lee as a thank you.
