Welcome Home, Mirae (3)

Warning! This chapter has adult-restricted contents such as the use of vulgar languages, violence, intercourse, and might even show the portrayal of harmful activities. Continue at your own risk.

...

When Young Mirae reached her bedroom, her hand automatically moved without her knowing. Since she had done room cleaning for years at the hotel she had worked on, it was her preconscious mind that made her execute a thorough check for any dust on the surfaces.

Following the confirmation of the great work done in her bedroom, Young Mirae removed her garments one by one. She took off everything and dropped it on a spot before marching her way to the bathroom to take a quick shower. 

By the moment she finished, she hurriedly dried her hair, dressed up in nude pink silk pajamas, and went to sleep. But when it was past her bedtime and the clock soon shifted midnight, Young Mirae still couldn't relax for even a very brief time. 

She rolled on the soft mattress of her bed, producing loud noises of frustration that echoed through the enclosed room.

"Why can't I sleep?" she complained.

She already turned off the lights, sang herself many lullabies to sleep, and counted thousands of sheep hopping a fence. Still wide awake and full of energy, the thought of exercising jumped into her head.

It took Young Mirae a hundred push-ups, bicycle crunches, and toe touches before she felt drained. She sensed her energy was nearly consumed, thus she decided it would be perfect to go back to her bed.

Young Mirae was confident that she would be able to sleep by then, yet she heard gunshots downstairs.

Irked, she asked, "Are they doing Russian roulette with those fumblers caught again?" 

Young Mirae remembered what Bo Kyung told her when she was young. It was a tradition for the crewmates to hunt fumblers and the people who could not settle their debts, then force them to play the game. 

If they won the Russian roulette, they would get the green light to leave without taking a coin from their wallets.

However, the game was a suicide itself for the fumblers and loaners. No one won the gimmick of this crazy mafia family, because the game was nothing but a trick.

The original game's instructions were to load a bullet into one chamber of a revolver. Before they had to point the gun at their heads and pull the trigger, they needed to spin the cylinder.

But upon the Young family's trick to the game, after displaying the instructed gun that contained a bullet to the players, a crew would replace it with another that was fully-loaded without them knowing.

By the time the fumblers and loaners had chosen to pull the trigger at their heads, they had announced their death.

Oddly, Young Mirae recalled that the game was strictly performed in the warehouse, which should be more or less five meters away from the family's mansion. The gunshots should not be this loud and distinct. Moreover, it should not be firing consecutively.

If otherwise, the elders and the crews might be too drunk to agree for the game to settle downstairs.

"These crazy people and their crazy life choices," she mumbled behind her breath. 

Young Mirae pulled a blanket to conceal her silk pajamas. She stomped the sliding wooden door on one side and went down to stop the people from their source of amusement.

How could her grandfather allow them? Was he partaking in the game, too? If that was the case, her grandmother, who was also sleeping, must be on her way to scold these men as well.

Upon descending the stairs, Young Mirae shouted, "Hey, keep it down while breaking the eggs1! You guys are too noisy, I can't sleep! Gosh, what has gotten in your heads — huh?"

She stopped before finishing her word and her lips parted in a small "o". The picture that greeted her stupefied her from her spot. 

There, Young Mirae saw the crewmates were unconsciously lying on the wooden floor. Whether they were on their backs or their faces were facing the floor, visible holes were present on their bodies and heads. Some survived and still held guns in their hands, but the ones who made it out alive were barely standing with the wounds on any part of their bodies. 

Young Mirae froze for a minute, and her eyes locked at the dead. The gunshots came too late for her ears to hear. Her mind could not process what was happening inside her family's mansion.

"What, what is happening?" Young Mirae could hardly hear herself from the loud shootings. She remained standing, dumbfounded that her family's mansion was under attack. 

But who dared to?

"Young Miss!" called the voice coming from her uncle below the staircase.

Young Jae appeared grappling when walking as his cane was nowhere in his possession. He hurried to step toward Young Mirae and grab her arm. 

"Uncle, uncle, what was that?" Young Mirae managed to ask, forced to look away from the resulting incident taking place in the hallway and got dragged upstairs.

"What did ya see? Young Miss, please tell me," were his pleas, seemingly worn out.

"I saw some elders were dead. The crews were s-shooting the men w-wearing a blue brooch on their suits. Uncle, what is happening?" 

She waited for his answer but he was quiet; only the sounds she made from struggling for air were echoing through the hallway. Young Mirae continuously pulled by her arm, they soon halted after reaching the door to her bedroom on the second floor.

"Young Miss, let's talk here," Young Jae responded eventually. He pushed the sliding door open and locked it. "No, I should call you Boss from here on."

"Boss? What are you saying? I'm still not officially," a pause and Young Mirae pressed, "unless grand-gran is dead. Is he dead, uncle? Where is grand-gran, uncle!"

She was shouting her lungs out as she saw the man started combing his hair: a signature of his when he felt distressed.

Recognizing this body language of the man, Young Mirae bolted, "Where is Kyung? Where is granny? Uncle, where is everyone!"

"Kyung came to get the Mistress but." Young Mirae knew the cessation of his speech, hence her shoulders dropped at an alarming rate. "Look, Young Miss. No, Boss, if you want to avenge our family, you need to make it out alive."

"I'm no Boss. I'm just joking w-when I told Kyung to call me that. I'm still the Young Miss. Stop, stop calling me that. You know I am still lacking—"

"Young Mirae."

For the first time in years, she heard her uncle call her by her full name, again. It would rarely happen whenever she would anger him. And certainly, she was doing the same momentarily. 

"Jump from this window and use the car I parked in the backyard behind the fence to escape. When you make it out alive, you are free to choose either you want to live a normal life or seek revenge. The former Boss prepared a new identity for you to use if an emergency happened—"

"Why did grand-gran do that?"

"No questions," he growled, the boiling rage in his voice was preceding. "Now go, Young Mirae, leave this place!"

Her uncle forcibly dragged her and rammed her out of the window. Young Mirae fought back yet she was failing: her strength and energy were low because she exhausted herself with exercises to sleep.

Young Mirae could only hold the stool and casing of the window tightly, shouting back to the man pushing her constantly. 

"Uncle, I can help you guys fight these people! I'm one of the family, too!"

"No, don't you get it? They've already killed the former Boss and his Mistress! You're next to the list!"

"I don't care! That's why I need to avenge grand-gran and granny. Didn't you say so yourself? They're dead, and my remaining people are still fighting downstairs. I don't want to abandon them, uncle. It's not my way to do that, I refuse!"

"...I'm done with your whining," remarked her uncle. He punched her hands that were restraining her and pushed through the opened channel. "At least hear us out this time. Choose to live like a normal person, Young Mirae."