It took exactly one night for Nam Taehyun to regret every single word he had said the previous night. Well, maybe not every single word, as he was still kind of happy and relieved he had been able to tell someone how he really felt about his situation, but he was surely regretting his last words.

Minho was the stubborn type and he wasn't going to give up on the job just because Taehyun told him to. He didn't even listen to Taehyun most of the time, he just listened to his father – and this time, it could be a good thing because Taehyun didn't really want him to leave.

“Gosh...” he sighed, running both hands on his tired face. He laid in his king-size bed, a dim ray of light coming from the heavy curtains. He had to get up, but he didn't feel like facing the world that day. Or any day, really.

Still, he knew he needed to apologize to Minho for what he had said.

...maybe the word 'apologize' was too much. He needed to make sure Minho knew he didn't actually want him to leave. Just that.

Taehyun got up, took a quick shower, dressed himself nicely – bunny pajamas were out of question – and went knocking on the bodyguard's door.

No answer.

Taehyun sighed and knocked again. He knew Minho was mad at him.

“Mister Song...” he bumped his forehead on the wooden door and knocked without pause like the annoying kid he was. “Mister Song, open the door. I need to talk to you.”

Still no answer from the man.

Taehyun furrowed his eyebrows, his patience slowly running out. He wrapped his hand around the doorknob and paused for a moment. It was his house after all, right?

He opened the door.

“Minho...” he said, looking at the dark room. Too dark and silent to be the place where someone should supposedly be living.

Taehyun swallowed a lump and walked to the window, opening the curtains while he tried to keep his emotions on a leash. He turned around, the room now fully lit by the morning sun.

It was completely empty.

The bed was untouched and there was no personal stuff around the room. The wardrobe was open – the only sign someone was indeed living there some time before.

Taehyun had his heartbeat echoing in his ears. No, it couldn't be real.

He walked out of the room and down the stairs in a state of denial. “Father!” his steps echoed through the wide hall and along the long corridor to the main studio. He rushed into the room without thinking twice, “Father!”

Three guys Taehyun recognized as his father's most trusted men were in a reunion with him, but they all turned around to look at him when he made his entrance. He had interrupted something important, apparently.

His father was bewildered. “Did you forget how to knock? Get out of here, I don't have time for your complaints now.”

Taehyun ignored him and stepped inside. “Where is Song Minho?”

The old man looked like he was about to strangle him. “Nam Taehyun, you're crossing a line here. You can't-”

“Where is Song Minho, father? What did you do?” Taehyun insisted. He didn't care about the consequences. He felt too guilty and he couldn't let Minho go before he could at least apologize.

The man sighed and told his men to wait outside. When the door closed, he looked at his son with furrowed eyebrows. He wasn't amused. At all.

“I don't know what's wrong with you, you've never been this shameless, not to this point,” he stood up to go pour himself a glass of water, giving his back to the boy.

“I apologize,” Taehyun quickly said, before adding, “Father, did you send Song Minho to do some job for the family?” He knew Minho was skilled and he hoped his father had just sent him away for a while, just the time to accomplish whatever his father had ordered him to do. He really hoped that was the case.

His father turned around and looked at him. “Song Minho has quit his job,” he said, carefully checking Taehyun's reaction. “He came to me this morning and asked for a task that could better fit his abilities. I already knew he was too skilled for this job, that's why I was satisfied to have him as your personal security. But I honestly don't mind giving him other tasks. He's one of our best men.”

I know, Taehyun thought. Minho deserved way better than a whiny child to babysit. No wonder he had taken the first chance to leave, and Taehyun couldn't complain, because he had personally pushed the man down that way.

“At some point, you would have fired him anyway, wouldn't you?” His father was being sarcastic, but there was no smile on his face. “But this is the first time one of your bodyguards gives up so soon. Usually, money is enough to make them stay and deal with you. But not this time. You're getting worse, Taehyun.”

Taehyun looked at his feet, not knowing what was making him more hurt: Minho's leaving or his father's words. But he could guess.

He quickly wiped away a tear that was threatening to fall. The last thing he needed was for his father to see him crying. It was weird, because his relationship with Minho wasn't that deep. They had been together for less than a week, and yet he was getting all emotional over his leaving. Maybe things were just adding up and Taehyun couldn't hold it in anymore.

“You're right, father,” he murmured, his voice cracking a little and becoming barely audible on the last syllable.

He left the room before he could see the surprised expression on his father's face.

* *

“This is Kim Jaebum and he will take care of your personal security from now on.”

Taehyun nodded slowly, not even eyeing the man in front of him. Another bodyguard, that was all he needed to know. It was enough. He knew this would happen anyway.

“Guess you know who I am,” he just told the guard, turning on his heels and leaving the room without adding anything else.

His father shook his head. “I expect you to keep an eye on him twenty-four seven.”

Jaebum nodded and followed the young heir out of the room.

Taehyun was walking up the stairs to his room, thinking about nothing except putting a foot ahead of another.

“Sir”

He wished he had plans for the night, at least he could distract himself. But he had none, and the thought of spending another lonely night at the villa was making him feel sick.

“Sir!”

Taehyun was about to turn the doorknob when he finally heard the voice calling from behind. The annoying new bodyguard. He rolled his eyes and turned around. “What?”

Kim Jaebum made him step back from the door and Taehyun looked at him like he was insane. “This is my room, what are you doing?”

The guard entered the dark room and the lights, checking every corner carefully before looking at the young heir. “I needed to check it was safe,” he explained.

Taehyun was bewildered. Was that guy serious? He was even worse than Song Minho.

“Never do anything like that again,” he walked into the room with angry steps. “What the hell, this is my room, of course it's safe! Just get out of here and leave me alone.”

“But sir, your father...”

“I don't care what he said, you're my bodyguard, not my father's!” He yelled, remembering a moment later how those words were exactly the same he had said to Minho the first time they met. He shook the thought out of his head. “Don't enter my room for any reason unless you hear me scream for help, okay?” Kim Jaebum nodded. Taehyun sighed and locked himself in his room.

With someone like that by his side, it was painfully easy to already miss his previous bodyguard.

* *

Taehyun never heard of Song Minho again.

A month passed, and then another, and his father never mentioned the man again, even if Taehyun knew he was probably still working for the family.

The first few days after the accident, Taehyun tried calling Minho another couple of times, without getting an answer. He didn't know why he kept calling in the first place. He told himself he just wanted to say something, to insult him for being so dumb and take his words so seriously, but he was afraid he actually just wanted to hear his voice and apologize. So, every time Minho didn't pick up, he felt both desperate and relieved, because he really didn't know what to tell the older man. But he kept calling.

Then, one day, Minho's number was not in service anymore. And that was the end of their brief boss-bodyguard relationship.

Taehyun wasn't the kind of person to chase after someone for too long, and he believed he had already wasted enough time on Song Minho. It wasn't even that important in the end – it wasn't like his relationship with Minho was anything special. The only remarkable thing about the man were his incredible skills and Taehyun couldn't deny it. But apart from that, he had just been his bodyguard. For a week. End of the story.

That night, Taehyun's bag was ready on his king-size bed. He needed to get some fresh air, and by 'fresh' Taehyun of course meant he was about to run from home without telling anyone. It was something he did every now and then and no bodyguard had managed to prevent his breaks.

Maybe Minho could have done that, he realized. But Minho wasn't there. He now had that over-protective Kim-guy, who was always sleeping a bit too soundly in the next room – Taehyun knew, because he had tried calling him at night to pull his usual prank on him, only to realize the guy would not wake up under a bombing. Unprofessional for sure, but Taehyun used it to his own advantage so he had never mentioned it to his father.

He shook his head with an amused smile, taking his bag and a few other things with him before opening his window and climbing down the tree in his garden. He was used to do it since he was a child, it was like a game for him.

His plan was to visit Jinwoo or Seunghoon and stay there for the night. Nothing was better than a night with friends to lift his mood. He had done the same thing tons of times since middle school and his father never found out about it. It was better if it stayed that way.

He knew all the shortcuts to reach his friends' places avoiding the main streets, where someone from the clan could recognize him. The shortcuts were dark and narrow streets but he was not a scaredy-cat. And he had a revolver Smith-Wesson 442 with him, even though he had never shot anything before. He stole it from his father's collection just to annoy him, but that was many years before.

He hummed a tune that was stuck in his head from that afternoon, thinking about all the things he had to say to Jinwoo – it had been a while since their last sleepover and he missed it. They still met every day at college, but they didn't have the same classes and it was hard to meet after class when he had an annoying bodyguard waiting for him at the entrance.

The alley he was walking in was particularly dark, but not so narrow. A car suddenly appeared from around the corner, probably coming from the main street. It proceeded slowly and it reached Taehyun's side within a bunch of seconds. There were five men in the car, laughing and smoking, loud music coming from the stereo. The driver noticed the thin figure of the kid and the car suddenly slowed down.

“Hey, kid.”

Taehyun stopped humming and turned around, noticing the five men in the car, that had now stopped in the middle of the street. They all got off the vehicle, some of them throwing cigarettes and bottles of whiskey.

They didn't have reassuring faces and Taehyun wondered what they wanted from him.

“Hey, it's really him,” said the driver to the other men. He was laughing but it sounded disturbing. “Nam Taehyun.”

Taehyun froze on the spot. .

“From Nam Junsu clan. How is the old man doing? I haven't seen anyone from your clan since one of your men left me this nice souvenir,” he showed a long white scar he had on his forearm. Taehyun shivered at the sight.

He didn't know he could be recognized so easily, but then again his face was pretty famous. He regretted going out alone and most of all he regretted all those times he had laughed in his father's face saying he didn't need any bodyguard. He totally got it now.

“Are you all alone?” the man made a show of looking around searching for Taehyun's guards or other people, when he knew perfectly the young heir was alone. “Your daddy is going to be really worried.”

Taehyun swallowed hard. He needed to say something or it was going to end really bad for him. “W-why should he be worried?” He gained a bit of strength with each word. “He knows I'm here, I just told him I was coming home. My bodyguard is probably waiting for me at the end of this street, I just called him,” he lied, trying not to show how hard his hands were shaking around the strap of his shoulder bag.

The whole group started laughing. Taehyun's heart dropped in his stomach. Definitely not a good sign.

“Do you really expect us to fall for that?” He stepped closer. “I bet your father doesn't even know you ran away. Actually, I bet no one from your clan knows you're here,” he looked at Taehyun's shocked expression and grinned. “You're wondering how do I know you ran away? We know you pretty well, Nam Taehyun. The rebelling son of Nam Junsu who doesn't want to take over the clan. The black sheep of the family. Ahh!” He took a deep breath while smiling, and to Taehyun he looked like a wild animal about to enjoy his prey. “You're so lucky we found you before someone could hurt you, don't you think?”

The other men behind him were approaching Taehyun as well, and they all had a disturbing grin on their lips. The young heir stepped back, but found himself trapped against the wall. He was shaking so much he couldn't even bring himself to reach for the gun in his bag.

They were on him before he could even utter a word. Two of them took him by his arms and the other two by his legs, ev