Everyone was in the living room. As the pce was clear, Alfred excused himself to put something more comfortable on. Yeji went to Seulgi’s bedroom to do the same.

  Seulgi stayed in the kitchen and made some light sandwiches for the upcoming conversation. There was no clue how long it was going to go on, so they might need snacks. While making the gnoshies and tea, Seulgi updates Suki on all the goings on.

  Suki was on the table, not the counters, so Seulgi didn’t harp on her about being on things that she knew she was not supposed to be on. Besides, the cat was better company than most humans. Better looking, too. Cats were vain creatures, Suki was more vain than most, but the feline actually deserved her attitude. She was just too pretty and she knew it.

  After a short amount of time, the other two came back into the living room. Alfred had a green cardigan on, making him look like a Korean Mr. Rogers. He pulled a pipe out. Seulgi took a breath to start scolding him. But he beat her to it by saying, “Don’t worry, I don’t have any tobacco. This is just habit anymore.” She quieted back down as he chewed on the pipe stem.

  Yeji had some old, worn out, grey sweats on. They may not have started out as grey, but with age and many washings, they were grey now. She took the time to braid her hair as well into a single tail. The braid was as sloppy as the sweats, which with the Cheshire grin, she knew it.

  They arrayed themselves as they would, to be most comfortable. Couch, chair, or Seulgi’s p, where ever she sat. Seulgi put the sandwiches and drinks on the darkly stained oak coffee table. Alfred knew that his daughter was not some spendthrift, so he did not say anything about the probable cost of the table. He knew that with this wood and proper care, this table might be handed down to his daughter’s grandkids.

  It was Seulgi’s house, so she started the conversation. She checked her phone to see what time it was. Eight thirty in the evening, so plenty of time to hash things out. She set the phone face down on the table and started.

  “OK, Dad. You have questions. Go ahead.”

  Looking at Yeji, “What about her?”

  “She stays. There is a reason she’s here. I trust her implicitly.”

  He looked back at Yeji. “Clearance?”

  “Bck, sir.”

  Bck, hey? He thought. That is one step below cabinet ministers.

  “I guess that should be good enough for us,” he said with a wry smile.

  Looking back at his daughter, he asked, “So, what’s going on?”

  So, she told him. She started with being followed by someone as a child. She said that she had only recently remembered because of a recent dream that she had. She told him about how odd things started happening again as an adult. She brought up how her friend Wendy was attacked, how Jackson was kidnapped, and how she started getting weird ‘gifts’.

  She expined how she, Bhuwakul, Yeji, and some police detectives were trying to figure out who was doing it, and more importantly why. She had some ideas, but nothing concrete. She said that she had other avenues of information, to think about but said nothing about Wendy’s mother that she needed to consult as well. She gave as much as she could give without giving the more questionable data streams up.

  He mulled this over for a bit. He munched on a sandwich and drank some tea while the other waited. After a longish bit, he shook himself. “Who is Bhuwakul?”

  The ghost in the corner spoke up, startling both of the others by saying “He’s the one that flirts with your daughter.” The grin was a work of art within itself, even with an unnerving amount of teeth being shown.

  They both blinked in shock at the unexpected interruption but for different reasons.

  Seulgi hissed at Yeji, “Shut up. He does not.” Yeji rolled her eyes in contempt at this.

  “Oh, really. The guy who flirts with my daughter, eh?” Yeji nodded at this in assurance.

  Seulgi balled up a fist at Yeji. Then stuck up a thumb and ran it across her throat in an obvious threat. Yeji’s eyes went huge.

  Given the recent events, Seulgi realized that this was in exceptionally poor taste. She went immediately sympathetic and held the other woman’s hand. Then continued to threaten her in much more conventional ways, like beatings and broken bones.

  She turned back to her father, while still holding her friend’s hand. She continued with that she really didn’t know about Bhuwakul. He had just shown up one day at work. Nobody really knew him, anything about him, where he worked before, or who he worked with now. He was a literal mystery man.

  But, he was super friendly to everyone, until he wasn’t. He was super helpful at anything that she asked of him. Even the deliberately stupid stuff that she did as a prank. He did everything that she asked for, he even helped those who were in her clique. Evidently, he had ‘a talk’ to someone who was giving Nayeon a hard time, asking her to dinner when she wasn’t interested and he would not take ‘no’ for an answer. All she knew was that this person quit the job as soon as he got out of the hospital.

  He had done many things just for her. And he always did it with eye contact and a smile. Even when he joked back and teased her, he always met her eyes. Purely as a focus thing, not a dominance py. If it had been anyone else, it would have been creepy.

  He just usually showed up, did his thing, and left without saying anything. Again, if it had been anyone else, it would have been creepy. As is, Seulgi, along with everyone else just said ‘That’s Bhuwakul being Bhuwakul.’ And left it at that.

  He had never done anything violent to anyone – except that one guy – that anyone knew of. The most aggressive thing that he had done to her was ask her to dinner and dance. And maybe some flirting, she thought but would not admit to her father.

  She summed up that this was about as much as she knew and could attest to. She had some questions herself that she wanted to ask. Like, how was he handy at some many diverse things? How was it he knew how to fight as well as he did? Granted, she wanted to ask Yeji the same things. She brushed off most of her questions to Yeji as having had a lot of police and detectives in her family and growing up around a bunch of brothers and needing to learn how to fight.