Three hours passed and nobody turned up. The announcement had gone out twice. The cabins were still empty. Vin Jin, Sally, and Jenny had even gone to Baki and Seongji's room, but the door was locked and nobody answered.
They stood in the corridor trying to think. Then Sally straightened up. "We're doing this wrong. Let's go back to the club. Someone there must have seen them."
Vin Jin's face tightened. "Damn. How did we miss that? Let's go."
The club was packed now, louder and more crowded than before. They pushed through and tried asking the people nearest to where the group had been sitting. Nobody was paying attention to anything outside their own circle. Vin Jin scanned the bar and stopped. "We were sitting right across from the bartender the whole time. He would have had a direct view. Let's find him."
They made their way to the bar and sat down. Vin Jin flagged down the nearest bartender. "Can you help us with something?"
The bartender leaned in. "Of course. What can I get you?"
"Nothing to drink," Vin Jin said. He pointed toward the corner booth. "My friends and I were sitting over there a few hours ago. I stepped out and they were gone when I came back. Did you see anything?"
The bartender shook his head. "I just started my shift. Someone else was here before me."
"Who?" Vin Jin asked. "Name?"
"Minyul Cheon. He should be in the employee break room right now."
Vin Jin stood up. "Thanks."
They pushed back through the crowd. Sally shouted over the music, "Where are the employee areas?"
Jenny pointed toward a velvet curtain half-hidden beside the DJ booth. "There! That looks like it goes backstage."
They ducked through it. The noise cut down immediately. Plain concrete walls, dim overhead lighting, and a row of doors with small plaques. Vin Jin read them as they passed. Storage. Electrical Room. Manager's Office. Then further down, a handwritten sign taped to a door: Employee Break Room.
Vin Jin pushed it open.
Three employees sat around a small table with playing cards and coffee. They all looked up. Two were women in bartender uniforms. The third was a young man with long, shaggy black hair, bangs hanging over his eyes.
One of the women started to rise. "You can't just walk in here."
Vin Jin looked at the young man. "Minyul Cheon?"
The man set his cards down slowly. "Yeah. Who's asking?"
Sally stepped forward. "You were working the bar from six to nine tonight, right?"
Minyul nodded, watching them carefully. "Yeah. If this is a complaint about the drinks, I followed every recipe exactly."
"It's not that," Jenny said quickly. "We're looking for our friends. They were in the corner booth near your bar." She nodded at Sally.
Sally pulled up a photo on her phone and held it out. "These people. Did you see them?"
Minyul leaned in and looked at the screen. His expression shifted. "Yeah, actually. I remember that group. It was big enough to stand out."
Sally's voice jumped. "What happened to them? Did you see where they went?"
Minyul leaned back and rubbed his temple. "They were there for a while. Quiet compared to most. Then a guy came up to the table." He paused. "I made a note because I thought it might turn into something. Hold on."
He crossed to a small locker in the corner and pulled out a logbook, flipping through it. "Here. 8:47 PM. I flagged it as a possible confrontation at table seven." He looked up. "But then they all just got up and walked out together. Your friends and that guy. No struggle, nothing forced. They went through the back entrance."
Vin Jin's fists closed. "Back entrance?"
One of the women spoke up. "It leads out behind the building. We use it for deliveries and smoke breaks. Regular passengers wouldn't know it exists unless someone showed them."
Minyul nodded. "That's what sat wrong with me. But they were all walking normally, so I thought maybe they knew the guy. My shift ended right after and I came back here. I'm sorry I don't have more."
Vin Jin was already at the door. "How do I get to the back entrance?"
Minyul pointed. "Down the hall, left turn, metal door at the end."
They were already running before he finished the sentence.
Vin Jin cursed as they moved. "Why would they go with some random guy? None of this makes sense."
They came around the corner and Vin Jin pulled up short. The large man was standing there. Short, light-colored hair. A build that made the corridor feel smaller around him. Sally had seen him three times now: at the breakfast buffet, in the hallway when they were rushing to find Warren, and now here, right outside the door Minyul had described.
Sally grabbed Vin Jin's arm. "That man. I keep seeing him. He was at the buffet this morning. He was in the hallway earlier too."
Vin Jin was already moving. He closed the distance and hit the man low, driving into him and taking him off his feet.
CRASH!
They hit the floor hard. Vin Jin pinned him and grabbed his collar.
"WHERE ARE MY FRIENDS?!"