Empire of the Ring

The different colors of lighting of the fountain created a dreamy atmosphere around the two. Youngho looked at Fatima's eyes, she quietly looked back at him with her untainted eyes as if she has been waiting for this moment.

"Fatima, have you thought about when you want to get married?"

Fatima replied him boldly as if it was obvious.

"Whenever you want to."

Utterly shocked, Youngho was flustered. Finally confirming his heart toward her too, she now acted daringly.

"Wait, you are going to marry me?

Fatima looked at him as if he was being absurd.

"Then, you'd be okay if I marry another man?"

That could never happen. Youngho had never thought about Fatima being with another man.

"I don't mean that…"

"I want to have your babies and live on the farm with my siblings as a family, just like now."

"…"

"I remember you said a man never goes back on his word. Doesn't that also include a man's action?"

He said something like that when Fatima asked if she should go to college. It was not just because of his word that he should be responsible for her but it was because they just confirmed their hearts toward each other. Fatima was certain that she wanted to be with him more than anything since she even dreamed to have his babies in the future.

No more words were needed. Youngho gently put his arms around her again and said.

"Thank you Fatima, I don't know if I deserve to be with you but I will always be by your side as your man."

"…"

Fatima did not say anything but her body was shaking. His shoulder was getting wet because of her tears of relief. He held her even tighter.

***

"Hey! Lee Youngho. What's going on in here lately?"

Youngho was not sure what Jongil was talking about.

"What's wrong? Why are you even here, not in your house?"

"Come clean now. What have you done to Fatima that she is avoiding Insoo and me whenever she sees us?"

After promising her and Youngho's future, Fatima had been extremely shy and Jongil caught the strange vibe in the farm.

"You know, any women at her age always change. Don't accuse me of anything."

"But why the sudden change? She never acted like that before. Wait? She'd changed after you guys went out to the downtown and had dinner out."

"Phew, I'm getting tired of your fictions. Stop writing fictions and get back to work."

Youngho tossed him the report that should be submitted to the CIA's European chapter and left the porch.

'Man, he's like a ghost. How can he be so fast-witted? Jeez…'

***

With Jongil's appearance, the house got boisterous. Zeynep was being loud playing the piano on the second floor. Youngho had bought the piano for her as soon as hearing about Zeynep's interest in music from Fatima. He did not know anything about music but when he went to a music shop, the owner said that any musician could play the piano even for just a little bit.

Youngho did not think much and bought the piano. He dreamed of Zeynep being a composer, it sounded great since many composers earn money producing soundtracks for movies and TV shows.

However, it was Zeynep he was dealing with. Nobody knew when she would change her mind again. Once she was intrigued by something, she did not look back and paid her whole attention to her new interest.

Fatima thought it was funny that Youngho bought a piano the next day she told him about Zeynep. His decision seemed to be so reckless since he did not know anything about piano, because in order to be able to play, they needed a tutor but there was no person of such talent on the farm.

Fatima searched for a piano tutor in Baku and she finally got a hold of a girl who attended Baku Academy of Music. It was a little late to start learning to play the piano compared to many musicians who started training at very young ages since Zeynep was fourteen now but Youngho was sure that bright Zeynep would be able to catch up with others soon.

***

A rare, harsh rain was signing the beginning of the summer in Baku, and it was when Youngho heard about Ilkwon and his family's successful escape from North Korea.

Youngho was eating a Korean pancake, which he asked for Insoo's mom to make because he wanted to drink since it was rainy outside.

"Boss, I just arrived at Vladivostok."

"Is everyone safe?"

"Yes, boss. Everyone's safe but their health is weakened now, I think we should rest in a hospital for a few days."

"Alright. Then stand by in the hospital for a while. If you send me the pictures of your family members and their birthdays, I'll make them fake passports."

"I don't want to bother you. We can ride on the train that crosses Siberia, then we could safely reach Volgograd. "

"Hey, it'd be hard for your family to travel long hours on a train, especially with their conditions now. Just listen to me, so you can fly from there."

"Okay. I'll take their pictures and send them to you a few days later when they feel better."

"Alright. Do you have enough money?"

"I have enough for now. Thank you boss…"

Kim Ilkwon choked up at the end, so he hung up quickly. Jongil who was listening to their conversation next to Youngho exclaimed,

"Man! He really did it! He rescued his family from North Korea. He didn't ask about me, did he?"

"Jongil, let's go to Volgograd soon. We need to make his family's passport and bring them here."

Jongil agreed in excitement.

"Yeah, of course I should go since my little brother's family is coming."

Youngho's heart broke for Ilkwon's family members to think about the hardship they had been through to the extent that they needed to be hospitalized.

When Kim Ilkwon left the farm, Youngho had a doubt that he would be able to make it back. A hundred dollars was not a small amount of money, and if he had bad intentions he could have gone to any other country to live on. After all, Ilkwon was an elite agent who mastered all sorts of skills and techniques including foreign languages. There were lots of things to do for a young guy like him. However, he had called Youngho to return to Baku. He kept his promise, and that was more important than the money.

Youngho planned to give empty rooms on the second floor in the management building for now and build a house for them on the farm in the future. The farm was a great hiding place for them since the North Korean authorities would be seeking for him with avidity. He had one more reason to help them. He was atoning for killing young lives in battlefields. Although he could not turn the clock backward, by doing good deeds, he wanted to wash away the feeling of guilt.

***

There were two ways to get to Volgograd from Baku; by train or by connecting planes.

The train takes the whole day to get to Volgograd, so it was better to fly if one was pressed for time. However, it was a pain if the layover between connecting flights was long.

Finding a flight schedule that only had two hours of layover, Youngho and Jongil decided to take airplanes. They flew to Moscow from Baku and arrived at Volgograd on a connecting plane

Feeling glad they arrived at perfect timing, they walked out of the arrival lounge of the airport but there were a lot of security guards blocking the crowd. They said that there was a report about Chechen rebels' terror attack, so they did not let out people from the airport until they were done searching for explosives in people's luggage. It took three hours for them until they could receive their luggage and get out of the airport.

Youngho could not just leave his luggage there even though he wanted to in frustration. He did not have special things in his luggage but he needed his laptop and clothes in there.

Sergey was waiting for them outside and he also looked tired for waiting too long.

"Phew, that was a heck of a wait. You should've just come out, our men could wait here bring your stuff later."

"Brother, sorry for the long wait. We didn't even know the time has passed this much since we were busy looking at beautiful Russian girls. We needed to grab our stuff or the guards would've been suspicious of us."

It was such a Jongil-like reply. The airport was indeed crowded by Russian beauties from different regions of Russia.

"Jongil, you're still a newly-wed and your wife is beautiful. Why are you talking about girls?"

"No men would reject ten girls, brother."

Youngho interrupted Jongil's stupid talk.

"Brother, he's being foolish as always. He says something like that all the time but he was meek as a lamb when he met Katya."

"Dude, Katya is a mother. I'm just talking about girls."

It was silly but men liked to talk about girls when they were alone.

Yaniv was gone for hunting with President Putin, so he was not in Volgograd. They did not go to Yaniv's mansion but checked in at a hotel in the downtown and grabbed some beer together.

"I have all passports ready here. It's not going to be a problem when they pass the airport security, so don't worry about that."

"Thank you as always, brother."

"Don't say that. It's between us. There must be a day when I need your favor."

It was convenient to have a mafia friend. Youngho did not know how they made fake passports but they seemed to make this kind of identification with ease. It was truly amazing to see the fake passports since they looked real including its hologram that was not detectable by the airport security.