「d e t o u r s | lsy & ljh 」
@mixhachi
“Aish, what a mess.”
With a few clicks of his tongue and a bout of hushed curses rolling off of Jihoon’s lips, he releases a sigh of utter devastation. Jihoon’s eyes gave a once over on the watch stripped to his wrist, thoroughly troubled by the numbers that shone in digital format: 00:37. The curfew implemented by the newly appointed mayor had only been in effect for two days, and it was already giving Jihoon a headache. Even his guileless veneer would not get him out of any mess he’s bound to get himself into--even if Jihoon manages to convince police folks that he was a minor (which of course, isn’t true), he would still be taken into custody for failing to comply with the curfew hours. He had just finished a low-paying job offered by a client to steal back something that was stolen. Complicated, right? Apparently, this wealthy, 30 year old bachelor had been granted ownership of an antique set of China that had been passed down in his family for over 8 generations now, but it was stolen as quickly and as easily as how it was handed over to him. It was a petty job, and every bit of information that Jihoon needed about where it was stored, who stole it and a complete blueprint of the place was pretty much just handed over to him on a silver platter, so it didn’t require Jihoon too much work.
What irked Jihoon to no end, though, was the fact that the bachelor had arranged to rendevous with him at a specific place and a specific time tonight to give Jihoon his pay, but decided to bail the last minute. Ergo, a very grumpy, unpaid Jihoon was scampering out in the open, where many cops roamed just a few minutes after curfew. Though that didn’t bother him too much, since he knew every nook and corner--every secret that this city held, and he was confident enough to say that he could easily get home unscathed, and without being caught by the cops. Jihoon has memorised every path and junction that normal people could pass, and the ones that only a handful of specifically skilled people (like himself) could.
Given the circumstances, Jihoon used an alleyway that was more often used by passersby, since he knew that commanding officers of the local police departments would be dense enough to deploy their patrolling officers around the more hooded part of town where the unidentified, nameless people commonly roamed. 27 and a half steps into the alley, he had only spotted about two patrollers within the vicinity which were of no absolute threat to Jihoon--especially as both of them seemed to be dozing off and definitely foregoing their duties for the night. Just as he was to take his full 28th step onto the stone road, his feet were so abruptly disturbed by a distant sound of gunshots being fired. Jihoon was not in any way a stranger to those kinds of reverberations, so he was not worried at all. Though given the curfew circumstances, what burdened him was that the gunshot sounds seemed to happen in a location not too far from where he was, and that would definitely alarm the surrounding police officers keeping a vigil around the area. Naturally, the loud sounds woke up the two officers dozing off and quickly got on their feet to check out what was happening.
“Crap,”
Jihoon’s reflexes adapted to the sudden shift of situation and his agile movements led him to grab the bars of the hanging ladder attached to the emergency fire exit behind the building, allowing his arms to pull himself up and hide from the officers at a location unbeknownst to their peripheral visions. With all this gang-police turbulence happening around town, how the hell was he going to get back safely to his home without being caught?
