Page 217 of Scarbound

Ji-Woo looked back at him. “A shared garden?”

“No. Separate gardens, but there’s only a fence between them.”

“You’re planning to cross it.”

“If Jun can get inside and open Chung-Hee’s garden door, yes.”

Ji-Woo stared at him. “That’s breaking and entering.”

“If Noeul is there against his will, I don’t care.”

Neither did Ji-Woo.

He pulled out his phone again and called his brother. No answer. Again. Nothing.

He stared at Noeul’s name on the screen. “Come on, hyung.”

Duri looked at him briefly.

Ji-Woo called again. Still nothing.

“He said we’d meet Sunday,” Ji-Woo whispered.

Duri didn’t know what to say.

“He promised.”

“I know.”

“He wouldn’t disappear again.”

“No.”

Ji-Woo lowered the phone. “I can’t lose him twice.”

Duri’s chest tightened. “You won’t.”

Ji-Woo looked at him.

Duri regretted the certainty immediately. He couldn’t promise that. Not yet.

So, he corrected himself.

“We’re going to find him.”

Ji-Woo nodded once.

***

Chung-Hee was in the kitchen preparing dinner when the intercom rang. He stopped cutting vegetables and looked toward the screen.

Noeul had slept for most of the day. When he woke, it was rarely for long. His eyes wandered without recognition, his thoughts too fractured to hold onto anything for more than a few moments. He knew where he was and who Chung-Hee was, but that knowledge did not always keep him anchored. Sometimes he stared through the room as though the present had become too distant to reach.

The intercom rang again. His grip tightened around the knife.

Who would come here without warning? Almost no one visited. For one brief, terrible second, he thought of Ji-Woo.

Or Duri.