She relived that moment on repeat for at least twenty minutes before reason came back.

The thing that came back to her was the look in her assailant’s eyes. The manic glee of being able to hurt her. The pain he was about to inflict upon her person was like nectar to him. Her anguish was a balm to his soul. It was pure, unadulterated psychosis and she was the focus of this joy. And he made sure that she knew it.

He was willing to make her friends suffer to harm her. She made other people targets for the mistake of breathing.

The reason he wanted to make her hurt was irrelevant because he could and did make it happen. He hurt her. He had hurt her friends. He made them all suffer because he wanted to and he could.

No one knew why, though. That was the real question. What had happened that made this person focus on one Ms. Kang Seulgi out of the over eight billion other people in the world available to harass? No one knew. No one would ever know. The finality dealt to him guaranteed that no one ever would.

But that did not matter at this moment that gripped Seulgi in her miserable waking nightmare.

She was unaware of the outside world. She was unaware of JooHyun barreling into the office like an NFL Linebacker, then sliding on her knees into and then wrapping around Seulgi in a protective cocoon. She didn’t know that the doctor came in a fraction of a second after her Hyunnie. The grip of the nightmare was so tight that they could not break the cycle.

She was unaware that JooHyun had actually snarled in protectiveness at the doctor when she approached with a needle of a sedative. It took a moment for JooHyun to get her bearings and then actually help the doctor sedate her friend and get her calm.

JooHyun spent about a quarter of an hour holding Seulgi in her lap, rocking her like a child, crooning comforting words, talking about meeting their friends at the restaurant, about how they would all get together and sing again.

The doctor knew and trusted JooHyun and let her take the lead on getting Seulgi back.

It took a while longer, but the magical voice and words finally penetrated the yawning void between them. Seulgi, ever so slowly, released her clenched hands. Once she started to relax, her arms shot out again, painfully wrapping around the smaller woman and held in a death grip.

JooHyun hissed in pain, but never stopped her words. She would intersperse some light songs within the words. Again, it seemed to be working.

The doctor looked at JooHyun in amazement. She just looked the questions at her but did not say anything to avoid interrupting the magic.

“I know her. We have sung together.” That was all she had to say for the doctor to understand.

When Seulgi started to relax her whole body, JooHyun used her shirt sleeve to wipe the tears off her face. When she managed to gain enough rationality to pull her face away from the tiny woman’s chest, she noticed a Seulgi-shaped print of sweat and tears on her shirt.

“Hyunnie? Why are we on the floor? What happened?”

“We,” pointing to the doctor, “were hoping that you could tell us. Come on, sit up. Can you stand?”

It took a bit, but they, with the doctor’s help, coxed Seulgi onto a sofa and gave her a glass of water. When JooHyun tried to excuse herself out of the office, to clear out for the doctor, Seulgi surprised her by the strength of her grip as she grabbed her hand and would not let go.

So, while sitting next to Seulgi on the couch, JooHyun joined the impromptu counseling session. The sedative was strong enough to relax the subject without impairing them. Had this been a normal day or session, Seulgi could have gotten up and driven off completely unimpaired.

JooHyun could tell that her friend was still deeply disturbed, so she kept petting the hand that had an iron grip. She knew that Seulgi was strong, stronger than her. But, if she had wanted to break this grip, she would need help. Or words.

“Seulgi, you are hurting my hand. Loosen up a bit, please.”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” as she let go altogether.

With a soft smile, JooHyun turned her hand over and reengaged the handholding, just significantly looser. “It’s fine. It was just getting  painful.” At the doctor’s nod, she continued. “So, what was all that just now?”

Looking at JooHyun and taking a sip of water, she said, “Right now, only Bhuwakul and Yeji know this as they were there. I was attacked. As in a man with a knife came out of the car park with the intent to kill me. Bhuwakul and Yeji managed to stall him, the knife was maybe thirty centimeters away from me. Someone else stopped him, more finally. Just now, I heard something that triggered that memory.”

Looking at the doctor, “How much client/doctor privilege is there? If I tell you of some legally questionable things, are those safe, or will police be called?”  

The doctor simply said, “Think about who recommended you to me.” This was a different voice from the one who was teasing Hyunnie earlier. Seulgi assumed that she was safe with that one statement.

She continued. “While Bhuwakul and Yeji had this person restrained, I heard an explosion then I was sprayed with blood, brains, and bone. The man dropped, and they checked me over to make sure that I was not hurt. The bullet that went through that man’s head hit me in the stomach, but I was…not exactly fine, but unhurt. Things got busy after that.” 

JooHyun was shocked at the unemotional and unadorned recitation of what happened. She whispered, “No wonder you have been off lately.”

The doctor had been quietly wondering what this woman had done to get a recommendation from this Family. Her practice started with her grandfather and had been doing business with this Family for over fifty years. The person who had made the recommendation had personally recommended only three people in that time. Seulgi is that third. She had to be someone special.  But, as of now, she was a client, not an enigma.

The doctor had a job to do and it was about time to get to it. She thought about her client list today and reprioritized her day.

“JooHyun, please go to the front and cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day. Then come back, if that’s OK with you, Seulgi?” Seulgi silently nodded.

As JooHyun got up and walked away, the doctor and Seulgi shared one brain cell and were envious of the sight until she got out the door and it shut, cutting off the view.