Chapter 9
Another day has come and Taekjoo actually wants to get his mission started, it wasn't just to find Aiko, which he did, but it was to find out what happened to the whole of the Tanaka family and Aiko was going to be a great help for this mission.
"Aiko" Taekjoo called out from his bed, looking up from his laptop he's been typing on all this time.
"Taekjoo" Aiko said back, still keeping her eyes on the TV on the wall in front of them with whatever show she was watching, the show was bright and colourful and loud, so very loud he had zero idea why she had it at such a high volume.
"Okay… first Aiko, turn that down for me, thanks and what happened to your family? Like when they left the surface and went to water" Taekjoo asks, looking from laptop to Aiko.
Aiko shrugged and says "I don't know what happened I was born in the water"
"Lovely… not" Taekjoo said grumperly, placing a hand on his head and groaning in frustration "fuck sake" he says quietly, his time in Japan was coming to an end and they were going to need to head back to Korea, but is he going to take Aiko with him or not, he's just going to ask.
"Hey, Aiko wanna come to Korea with me, I can't stay in Japan for much longer," Taekjoo explained, his typing on his computer stopped and he was looking at her, she looked at him as well with a more upset expression.
"Why do we have to leave?" she asked, looking down at the floor, resting her head on her arms on the bed "I don't want to leave" she then says more quietly.
Taekjoo didn't know what to do, all he knew was she couldn't stay here, so he stands up and kneels in front of her, resting his hand on her arm "we're gonna have to leave soon, my time here is coming to an end" he explained once again to her.
"Fine!" she sits up, crossing her arms and lets out a little 'hmp' as she looks away from him with a frown. Taekjoo shakes his head and stands up, going back over to his computer and booking the plane tickets, getting his own near the window and hers right next to him, this was going to be something he was going to have to teach her about.
"Alright, so we leave soon, start packing your things Aiko" he says, turning his computer off and packing his own things and getting bags for Aiko as well and slipping some of her things she had gotten into the bag, he was just going to take her things with his things, it was easier.
"Taekjoo… can you pack my things?" she asked him, tilting her head as she asks, he has figured out that she always tiles her head when she asks him things, she always does it.
"Yeah sure" he says, taking her things and throwing it in with his own, just basically cleaning up the hotel room while Aiko just sat and watched her brightly coloured shows on the TV.
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Finally after an hour Taekjoo was happy with what the hotel room looked like, it was clean, their things were packed, the beds were put together - not Aiko's she was still laying on it - the bags were ready for taking to the car that he didn't use with all his time here.
He started taking all the bags to the car, leaving Aiko to her choice in the room. Once he was finally ready to leave, he chose to leave earlier than he was meant to, he wanted to get back to Korea.
"Hey, Aiko want to get going to the airport?" he said, leaning on the wall as he spoke.
She immediately jumped up, walking to the door, she looked back as she didn't notice he was following her, he had disappeared to cleaning her bed, once done they both walk off to the car, Aiko getting into the front passenger seat while he got into the driver's seat, the drive was peaceful and relaxing at first. Boarding and arriving was okay, but once they got to Korea things went south, the men from Taekjoo's company immediately jumped onto Aiko planting her face and chest to the floor, cuffing her hands behind her back. Taekjoo was trying to take their hands off her but it was no use, they just wouldn't let go. Taekjoo's mismatched eyes scanned the room, he soon saw the chef, he was watching it all happen, his hands behind his back, an emotionless face on, Taekjoo couldn't get a read on this guy, what was he feeling? What was he thinking? Taekjoo questioned it all.
Taekjoo quickly marched up to him, the man smiled, he smiled!
"Welcome back, Taekjoo," Chef said with a neutral expression.
"What are you doing!" Taekjoo basically screamed in the Chef's face, gesturing toward Aiko who's now being taken away by the other officers.
"Taking in who you were meant to find" The Chef said, showing distan for Taekjoo all of a sudden. Taekjoo was taken aback. He looked behind the Chef and just watched as the officers took Aiko away, her face showing clear panic and longing for Taekjoo. But Taekjoo was completely focused on his dumbass chef that he's now gonna nickname 'asshole'.
Taekjoo grabbed the chef by the collar. The remaining agents were about to jump him but the chef put his hand up to stop them. Chef Ims carefully takes Taekjoo's hands off his shirt, small wrinkles now appearing on his shirt, Ims ushered the agents back to the remaining black BMW out the front of his house, leaving Taekjoo and Ims to talk.
"Taekjoo" Ims says, placing his hands on Taekjoo's shoulders "You know I sent you over there to gather information and get the person we needed and you did that! I'm so proud of-" Ims was cut off my Taekjoo.
Taekjoo shrugged Ims hands off his shoulders and glared at him, stepping back "You said to bring her here! Not this! Why the fuck would you do that! She hasn't done anything, she's innocent!" Taekjoo was loud and open with his words and about his anger. Ims sighed and looked at him again.
"Taekjoo, please, I don't need this big commotion" Ims calmly says.
"Big commotion! You always make a massive commotion!" Taekjoo was making a point, he was completely correct as well "Get out! I'm done with you!" Taekjoo then said, pointing towards the door looking away from Ims.
"Fine, I'll leave, but I'll see you later" Ims said, his voice showing he was starting to get annoyed.
Once Ims had fully left and drove away Teakjoo let out a loud frustrated scream. Sitting down heavily on the cold couch made Taekjoo feel lonely, he couldn't hear the small noises of Aiko next to him or the giggle from her that she let out here and there, it wasn't there and he hated it. He hated being alone, he had never noticed how lonely he was before he met Aiko.
He buries his head in his hands, just letting himself feel the sadness that came with it.
After sometime he got up, eyes red and puffy from the small tears he had let out, he was going to find Akio, no matter what he did, so he called his trusted friend, one Ims didn't even know about, Nikolai, he was on the enemy team, aka the Russian team.
"Hey Nikolai, I may need your help," Taekjoo said, his phone on loud speaker.
"Oooooh, yes yes do say" Nikolai happily said, his russian accent thick in his words.
"I need you to track someone down for me, her name is Aiko Tanaka, she's about 5 '6, blue hair, purple eyes and she can turn into a mermaid," Taekjoo explained, walking around his lounge area.
"I'm on it, I'll meet with you tomorrow" Nikolai said before hanging up.
With that dealt with he just had to wait for Nikolai to gather information on her location and find out where she is.
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After a day Taekjoo got a knock on his door, opening it he saw the blonde hair and the pale skin of Nikolai, looking into his baby blue eyes he saw that he had more than enough information on Aiko.
"I've gathered quite a bit of information on your target," Nikolai explained, walking in with a laptop bag and a wad of paper in his hand.
Taekjoo gladly let Nikolai in and followed behind him to the lounge room. Once in, Nikolai took his normal seat and opened the laptop, slamming down the paper for Taekjoo to look at, parts have been circled and crossed out, parts were left alone and others were completely ripped out, then he heard the bang of Nikolai's laptop on the table, Taekjoo glanced up from the paper and saw security camera footage from Aiko's cell.
"We've got all the information we need and Ims entrusted you with the codes to every door in the building as well, so all we need to do is sneak in" Nikolai explained, hunching over on the chair and explaining with both his words and his hands.
"You're a genius!" Taekjoo happily said, now they would have to take at least two days to figure out how to sneak in, that was the hard part of this mission.
Taekjoo sighed, this mission was not meant to take this turn. Well, maybe it was originally meant to go like this, but after spending more and more time with Aiko, he felt himself wanting to change this mission, wanting to spend more time with Aiko.
But what did he get?
Nothing!
An involuntary groan slipped past his lips. He caught Nikolai looking through certain papers he hadn't given Taekjoo yet, Nikolai himself looked confused.
"Nik what's wrong?" Taekjoo asked, putting down what he was currently looking at.
"This wasn't meant to come with me today, I was going to show you later but… um" Nikolai looked up before he spoke "Sangwoo is working with the Tanaka family" Nikolai then quickly blurted out, he could see the basic rage on Taekjoo's face but somehow Taekjoo quickly calmed himself down.
"Okay… we'll focus on that later, right now we focus on Aiko and getting her out" Taekjoo then said, snatching the papers from Nikolai's hands and putting them on the floor. They now spent day and night working out how to quietly get her out, keeping the security footage up at all times even when they were sleeping.
One day Nikolai expressed his hate for just gathering information.
"Taekjooooooo" Nikolai groaned, cracking his back as he stood up and walked over to his friend. He plopped down harshly next to him, his face a mix of grumpiness and curiosity. Taekjoo had made one of those red string things from police movies but with cheap materials you could find from your local supermarket like simple pencils, rubbers and cheap red string that frayed easily.
"Wow!" Nikolai said once he saw the grey lines of the led and the faint rubbed outs lines. Nikolai's gasp then went to Taekjoo's face and he saw the dark eye bags that lay underneath.
"Dude go to sleep," Nikolai then expressed, but Taekjoo was zoned out. He gently shook the guy, after a bit of shaking Taekjoo's eyes finally closed and his body fell letting out a small plop as he landed on the pillows next to him. Nikolai lets out a sigh while closing his eyes, opening his eyes back up and picking his heavy friend up and taking him to his room letting the man sleep for once through this whole week. Nikolai knew why he wasn't sleeping, it was because they were so close to finally getting into the NIS, they had almost figured it out. But Taekjoo needed his sleep as well.
Once the big baby was asleep Nikolai worked on the final parts, hearing the small snores from the baby from his room made Nikolai let out a small chuckle as he worked on the small final bits.
After an hour - yes it took an hour to do small things - Nikolai was finally done, he just had to talk Taekjoo through it.
So for as long as Taekjoo was going to sleep Nikolai chose to sleep himself.
After god knows how long he felt a hand run along his shoulders.
"I've never seen you before and I know who of Taekjoo's connections" Nikolai heard a harsh manly voice, the person sounded on the older side maybe he was that chef Taekjoo always mentioned.
"W-who are you?" A tired Nikolai asked, looking toward the person he saw was older, but the man was clean, a perfectly tailored suit, perfectly combed back hair, clean shaven.
"I'm Chef Ims, I'm sure Taekjoo has mentioned me before" the man had sat across from Nikolai.
"Why are you here? And where is Taekjoo?" Nikolai then asked.
"I've made sure he sleeps a little longer, the kid sure needs a good sleep after all the sleepless nights" Ims then explained to Nikolai. Nikolai looked around the room a bit, the laptop with the security footage had been closed and factory reset, the papers had all been taken away, but the group of papers about Sangwoo were still there, Nikolai carefully slid them under the couch, making them unknown.
'Fuck this man' Nikolai thought about this man 'I'll nickname him fuck face' was his next thought.
"Hm, anyways, so who are you? I haven't heard about you yet… your obviously russian, thats unmistakeable, but where would my Taekjoo met a russian" Ims then explained and questioned, Nikolai wasn't about to explain all of that to his man, he was going to put off telling the real truth until he couldn't anymore.
"Nah uh! Not saying" Nikolai then said, looking away from the man, as he looked away he saw movement in the hallway.
Taekjoo!
Wait…
The shadow of the person was definitely Taekjoo but he was telling Nikolai to stay quiet about him being awake.
"Look at me, Russian!" Ims then yelled, making Nikolai's head snap toward him "Tell me where you met him and why you're still attached to him!" Ims yelled again, startling both Taekjoo and Nikolai with how loud his voice was.
"I'm not telling you anything!" Nikolai replied, Ims wasn't happy, his anger was only getting more and more and Nikolai certainly wasn't helping. Fuck face stood up, walking over to Nikolai and taking his chin into his fingers.
"You will tell me if you value your life" Ims threatened.
"Joke on you I don't!" Nikolai lied, but it wasn't obvious.
"You little-" then Ims got tackled to the ground, with Taekjoo on top, punching the man over and over again making the well kept suit messed up and stained with blood, Ims tried to fight back but that was futile.
"Nikolai! Run! You get into the centre! If the guards don't let you in-" Taekjoo then throws a key card at Nikolai "give them this and tell them you're with me!" he said before he got punched by Ims.
Nikolai set out on a run to his blue sedan and drove off, quickly getting to the centre before Ims could, he rushed in, trying to look as professional as he could as he walked around going to areas he thought he never would, finally he was in the place was packed with agents, ranging from big and muscle to just normal any old girls.
He walked through the place like he owned it, knowing what's where and how to get into said rooms, quickly finding where he needed to go, it took a bit but he was finally getting somewhere, most of the time was just him looking around has he hadn't actually seen the inside of this place yet, but he had finally gotten to the area he need, looking around to find the clues both him and Taekjoo had found, most of them were on the floor and he swiftly found them quickly getting to the next area.
Suddenly the feeling of a headache hit his head, then he fell to the ground, his cheek hitting the ground first before the rest of his body, then his eyes saw black, then he was in peaceful silence.