Chapter 5

Jongin didn’t know what to think anymore. Were the Zutters good? Or were they bad? Why did they need to be all mysterious and hide their names?

Jonghyun had mentioned that Key was part or the Zutters. He also told him that Key thought the Zutters didn’t ruin lives and that Jongin’s group was the one with a warped sense of reality.

Where was Key wrong? Where was he right?

The Zutters didn’t seem unhappy. In fact, from the way he’s seen them interact, they seemed like a big happy family.

From what they gathered, the red-orange haired male’s name was Jiyong. He seemed to have at least a reasonably good status there. Well, at least Jongin assumed he stood above the long haired boy he would call ‘Princess’ for now.

The Princess had a pretty decent status himself, Jongin gathered from the previous encounters. At least it seemed that he had control over the other gangs. But then again maybe all the members of the Zutters had control over the other gangs.

There had been another boy who spoke to Chanyeol and Bom, the last one of the three they had seen on the first day. He was handsome and stoic. Bom had mentioned that his face seemed familiar.

Children who grew up on the street were usually mature. They call it being street wise or something like that. Then what about the Princess? He really looked too innocent, but then again looks were deceiving.

They seemed to have their own sources or ways in which they obtained the knowledge they had. And then there was the mysterious leader who seemed to control all of the Zutters. He seemed to know everything. He was the one who was behind his friends getting beaten up. He was the one that was curious why they wanted the information. He was the root of all the problems. He was the one who controlled everything from the shadows.

Jongin thought about the Zutters he currently knew about. How would he figure out the rest?

He thought about what Jiyong had asked.

“I was wondering why you were so interested in the Zutters”

Why? Why did he do something as stupid as this?

Pride? He was too proud to just back out?

Random curiosity? If that was the case, he would have stopped after his friends got beaten.

Revenge? Wouldn’t he be busy planning how to exact his revenge if that was the reason?

When he was the same room as Jiyong, for the first time ever, he felt that he had to get away as fast as possible.

Jiyong hadn’t done anything threatening, nor had he said anything threatening, (aside from talking about killing him multiple times) he wasn’t a tall muscular man, he was more feminine. He hadn’t looked angry, in fact, he had been smiling.

Jongin sighed, that smile was the most intimidating thing. The fact that he could probably talk about killing someone while having a smile on his face. That smile. It held nothing but a promise of misfortune.

Jonghyun continued to look for clues or anything that could help then catch the Zutters. He looked up databases, phoned acquaintances and even tried to look for cases where children just left their families, like Kim Hanbin. He felt his phone vibrate on top of the table and he answered it disinterestedly. His posture however, shifted very quickly as he heard what the person had to say. After hanging up, he phoned Jongin and the others. They needed to talk.

Sitting in the room were Jonghyun, Jongin, Junmyoon, Chanyeol, Bom, Senguri and Minho. Many were confused as to what was going on, but somehow looking at the crowd; they had a vague idea as to why they were gathered there. It was about the Zutters.

Usually in a room filled with seven people, one would expect there to be chattering or Senguri trying to crack a joke or something, but there were none. Silence permeated throughout the room for at least a minute before Jonghyun broke the silence.

“I was looking for information about the Zutters and anything that could be related to it,” he said, “And I’m not sure if it is a link, but I tried looking for teenagers or young adolescents who supposedly left their home without a reason.”

Jonghyun looked at Minho who gave a nod and stood up.

“I uhhh… I don’t know how to explain this,” Minho started unsurely, “But I’m actually not a Choi”

The group except for Jonghyun, Bom and Chanyeol stared at him blankly.

“I was actually adopted into the Choi family a few years ago. When I was adopted, the Choi family had a son who was a few years older than me. We didn’t really see each other though because I was living overseas before I was brought here. I didn’t know him well before he disappeared, but now that I think about the fact that he disappeared so suddenly without a trace, I think it might be because of the Zutters,” Minho explained.

Bom’s eyes lit up, as if everything made sense all of a sudden, “He was the one who Chanyeol and I met. I didn’t think he would join a gang”

“How do you know that?” Jongin asked.

“When I saw him, I thought he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. I didn’t imagine that Minho’s older brother would change so much. He never seemed like the rebellious type so I never would have imagined him dying his hair,” she said and then mumbled, “and such an eye-catching blue at that.”

Chanyeol nodded in agreement. “Although he looks quite different, I think it is him. His posture looked like someone who was raised in a reasonably wealthy family.”

“What was your brother’s name again?” Jongin asked.

“Choi Seunghyun.”

Jonghyun, Jongin then went to Minho’s house.

Both of them greeted Minho’s parents politely.

“Come in,” the older male, who Jonghyun assumed was Minho’s father, welcomed them.

“We’re very sorry for imposing.”

“No, it’s no problem. Minho told me you were coming.”

“Could you please help us by telling us how you think he became one of the Zutters?” Jonghyun asked.

“I honestly don’t know. He was always polite, serious and listened to what we said. He was a model kid. He just disappeared one day.”

“There weren’t any clues as to why he left?” Jongin then asked.

The father shook his head. “He just disappeared,” he stated sadly, “My wife was heartbroken. We both didn’t understand and we still don’t.”

Jonghyun felt anger rise inside himself. In his eyes, no one could do that to their family. He hated the fact that they’re not even feeling the slightest bit guilty.

“Have you seen other people hanging around him very often? New friends?”

“I remember two new friends. Well, I never really saw them, but my wife had seen them together once. She described them as two flower boys. One she thought was a girl, but Seunghyun said it was a boy. The other had dyed his hair orange I think.”

“I think I know those,” Jongin said, thinking of Jiyong and the princess.

“When I first heard about the boy had dyed his hair, I thought they would be a bad influence. But the strange thing is that my wife described the kids as polite and nice.”

“They talked?” Jonghyun asked, sounding surprised.

“Yes only briefly. The orange haired boy had complimented our garden.”

Jonghyun and Jongin both raised an eyebrow.

“Has he ever said their names?” Jonghyun asked.

The man thought about this for a while, “If I remember correctly, he referred to them as Jiyong and Taemin. I thought it was weird because he never refers to anyone so casually.”

Jongin tried to imprint the name in his head. So the princess was called Taemin.

Jonghyun nodded as he wrote it down.

“Can you find him?” the father asked, worried.

“Finding them is not the problem I think,” Jonghyun said, “Getting them to come with us is.”

The father nodded.

Jonghyun sighed. Once again it sounded like a nice kid before he got with the Zutters. He didn’t understand why these people did this. But the cause was definitely Jiyong and Taemin.

Seunghyun disappeared almost four years ago.

“Should we go look tomorrow?” Jongin suddenly proposed.

Taemin snuggled his head on Key’s lap. He’s been doing that for a long time now and it calms him down and Key as well.

He then looked at the other boys who were sleeping in the room. Baekhyun was protectively hugging his little brother Taehung even in his sleep. Namjoon looked so peaceful when he was asleep. Even the rowdy and mischievous ones like Jungkook and Zelo were quiet. All of them cuddled quite close to each other.

Key was absentmindedly Taemin’s hair. He sighed, followed by looking at Jiyong who was sitting on the opposite side, back leaning against the wall next to Yongbae. Seunghyun approached Jiyong and sat down.

“Can’t sleep?” Seunghyun asked.

“I’m worried they might find out too much” Jiyong said, “I want to protect them all. It feels like I’m failing.”

“You’re not. We’ll manage,” he replied carefully.

“They’re getting closer.”

Seunghyun looked raised his eyebrow.

“They’ll figure it out. Luck is on their side,” Jiyong said.

“We don’t need luck,” Seunghyun prompted.

“I hope so, I want to protect them…” Jiyong mumbled. Even if he was a known as a genius, he felt helpless. He couldn’t do anything except for hope. He laid his head on Yongbae’s shoulder.

This had become almost normal. This had become the only normal thing at a time like this. This family.

Yongbae who was sleeping besides Jiyong stirred slightly, looked at his best friend and then looked at Seunghyun.

Yongbae looked back at Jiyong’s sleeping figure. “We’ll protect them. All of us together,” he whispered.

Key looked down at the sleeping people. He would help. He would help protecting this family. For him this was the family that saved him when was given up on by his other family.

This family accepted all the weird things, each other’s weird quirks, little fights, each other’s personalities. This family gave them space and kept them safe. This family was his everything.

At first Key had been afraid of the people. He hadn’t trusted them. He hadn’t told them anything about himself.

They had taken him in, had taken care of him, taught him how to survive in this world, told him their stories.

Eventually he had told him his. He had told them why he didn’t live with his parents. He trusted them with secrets he never told anyone.

They never laughed.

Sure their princess had mocked him, but never with the intention to hurt him.

He mocked the princess in return.

They could laugh genuinely at each other. No, with each other.

They were everything a normal family was, only bigger and not related by blood. No, their bond was much stronger.

He recalled the first time he met these people. They weren’t called the Zutters at the time.

-Flashback-

“He’s cute,” the one with slightly chubby cheeks which looked like steamed buns said.

“Minsoek!” a blonde haired boy said.

“Don’t worry, you’re cute too,” Minsoek replied.

“Can you both shut it?” the pretty boy said.

“You’re no fun princess,” the blond haired boy teased.

“Stop it,” said the guy who was wearing an ped black jacket without a shirt. If Kibum wasn’t so down, he would have admired his beautiful abs.

A boy with orange hair appeared. “Who’re you,” he asked.

Key didn’t know how to react at all. He didn’t know these people.

“I’m Kwon Jiyong.”

“Kim Kibum” He was down right now and his eyes probably showed it.

“Are you going somewhere?” Jiyong asked.

Kibum was just about to reply when Jiyong continued.

“If you have nowhere to stay, you can stay with us.”

Kibum blinked. He doubted for a while but he didn’t really have a better plan at that moment.

 “Sure”

“Since both his name and surname start with Ki, we can call him Key,” The blonde haired boy laughed.

-flashback end-

It didn’t take them long to cheer him up. They were completely crazy people.

He had a personality that mixed well with these people and before he knew it, they had become friends.

Key smiled.

The group had grown since then. Back then there were barely ten of them, now there were twenty five.

A bigger family, more friends, more risks, more stories. They had saved him.

Now it was his turn, he would save them.

A/N: There was pretty much no Taemin let alone TaeKai interaction in this chapter :P But don't despair cause it's coming sometime (who knows when that is...)

Character appearances (in real life):

Kwon Jiyong-- G Dragon fromBigBang
Dong Yongbae-- Taeyang from BigBang
Choi Seughyun-- TOP from BigBang
Choi Minho-- Minho from SHINee
Kim Jonghyun from SHINee
Kim Kibum-- Key from SHINee
Kim Namjoon-- Rap Monster from BTS
Baekyun from Exo
Taehyung--- V from BTS
Jungkook is from BTS as well
and Zelo from BAP