“Junhyung, you have a visitor,” the principal of Cube Reformatory School announced, taking Junhyung from his lessons and to the main office.

“Who do I know that would want to visit?” Junhyung asked himself, clearly confused as to who this visitor was.

Ever since Junhyung was young he was a loner.  His parents both died in an accident when he was 4 and while he was growing up in foster homes he had taken an interest in a dangerous hobby.  Fire.

Little Junhyung was often getting in to trouble playing with fire and setting things on fire.  He was often being punished whether it was a beating or being grounded.  It was not a pleasant childhood.  Moving from house to house, from uncaring family to uncaring family.  None of his “families” had taken particular interest in the boy and didn’t seem like they would want to keep in contact.  He was 14 when he came to this school and it’s been two years since then.

So who was this surprise visitor?

Junhyung entered the office to see a man in a fine black suit sitting in a chair in the principal’s office. 

“Hello, Mr. Yong,” the man stood up to greet Junhyung.  He extended his hand for a firm handshake.

“Um, hi?” Junhyung bowed awkwardly as he shook the man’s hand.

“Take a seat, Junhyung,” the principal said, motioning towards the chair next to the tall man as the principal took the seat behind his desk.  “Mr. Yoon here has an interesting proposal for you.”

Junhyung looked at the man, he usually didn’t much care for authority or for respecting his elders but this man exuded confidence and it intrigued the pyromaniac.

“So, Junhyung, can I call you Junhyung?” The boy nodded slightly, “I hear you’ve been through the foster program and that didn’t really work out for you.”

Junhyung nodded again.

“And I’m sure you don’t like this reformatory school either, right?  Well here is my proposal.  I have an important job, and that is to maintain the balance in the city.  Not many people pay attention to the behind the scenes people and I would like for you to become one of those people.  I have two other boys who currently live at my house as well.  One of them is my son, the other has been living there for about 10 years now.  I will provide a house, food, schooling, and training.  You just show up and learn and train until you’re ready to perform whatever jobs we need.  What do you say?”

Junhyung sat there with wide eyes.  This was a lot of information to take in.  This guy wanted him to leave the school and live with him in his house?  He was a stranger and he was taking him in to his house?  Junhyung didn’t know if he should trust strangers so easily but then again, it wasn’t all that different from growing up in the foster program and he DID hate it here at the reformatory school.  Everything was so structured and he had no freedom to do anything.

“I assure you, Junhyung,” Mr. Yoon added, “it will be worth your time.”

Junhyung looked thoughtful for a moment before giving a hesitant nod, it’s not like he had anything holding him back and he had nothing to stay here for.

Doojoon was 16 when he met Yong Junhyung.  They were the same age, with Junhyung being a few months younger.

The boy was labeled as a troublemaker in society but the mafia world saw value in him.  He possessed skills that normal teenage boys didn’t have and he didn’t have a life to leave behind.  He was a perfect candidate to bring in to the family.

Junhyung was a genius in his work.  He was a pyromaniac, though he preferred to be called a pyrotechnic.  It sounded more professional.  He had the use of his destructive bombs down to a science.  The boy had been nicknamed The Joker because of his obsession.

“Doojoon, Kikwang” Mr. Yoon was introducing the two friends to a new boy, “this is Junhyung.  I want you two to work with him; he’s got some very interesting talents that could prove useful in later missions.”

“Hey,” Doojoon stood tall, holding his hand out to the new boy.

“Hi,” Junhyung reached forward to shake Doojoon’s hand.

Junhyung had a strong hand shake, it matched his strong posture.  The boy had dark brown hair with side swept bangs.  He had small intense eyes that could be intimidating if needed and he looked like he would beat you up if you got on his bad side.

“You like fire?!” Kikwang asked with an excited expression.

“Fire is ok, but my specialties are my bombs,” Junhyung explained with a calm tone.

“Bombs?” Kikwang was really excited now, “I’ve been thinking of developing this bomb launcher thing, it’s like you know, it activates the bomb while you pull the trigger and shoot it.  It’s gonna be so cool, do you think you can help me?”

Junhyung was a little taken aback at Kikwang’s enthusiasm but decided it might be fun living in this place. “Yeah, sure I’ll help.”

In the months following Junhyung’s arrival he and Kikwang were almost inseparable.  Always thinking about, talking about, or concocting new ideas for new weapons.  It was only natural; the two had similar interests.

Doojoon didn’t feel jealous at all.  He didn’t need to.  He was also busy, training his fighting skills as well as his weapons use.  He also shadowed his father more often to see how to run a gang as he would have to lead his own team some day.  He already knew his first two members too.

“So you were in jail?” Kikwang asks about a week after the three boys have met.  Doojoon has been busy lately so Junhyung has been hanging out with the young weapons enthusiast.

“No, it was reformatory school,” Junhyung informs calmly as he looks at Kikwang’s weapon designs.  Kikwang has been trying to make a bomb launcher that activates the bombs as they are thrown so they’ll explode at the appropriate time.

“Well, what’s the difference?” The younger boy asks, pulling out one of his prototypes.

“I had to go to class,” Junhyung shrugged.

Kikwang gasped, “That sounds worse than jail!”

“They said the food was better than jail,” the older boy added.

“But like, I don’t get it.  What is reformatory school?”

“Well, it’s a boarding school for ‘troubled’ youth.  That’s what they said anyways.  I lived in a small room, I wasn’t allowed to decorate it.  We had to stay in our rooms most of the time if we weren’t in class or in other activities.  We had to go to class like normal, about 7 hours a day.  We woke up at 6 for breakfast, lunch was at noon and dinner was at 6.  It was really structured, I had no freedom really.  I hated it, we had physical activity for 2 hours a day which was pretty much, do pushups and sit ups for an hour and then free time for the second hour.  If we were acting up we would get solitary confinement or more pushups and sit ups.  It .”

“You were in jail!” Kikwang said with wide eyes.

“It wasn’t jail!” Junhyung grumbled.

“It’s close enough, it sounds awful!”

“Sounding awful doesn’t make it jail,” the older boy sighed.

“So? You wanna go try this out?” The younger laughed, pulling Junhyung from the room, outside to the backyard.  “Doojoon showed me how to test these weapons back here without making it too dangerous.”

Junhyung stopped, “Does Doojoon hyung hate me?”

“What?” Kikwang looked confused.

“He doesn’t ever hang out with us.  Ever since I got here he’s barely said anything to me,” Junhyung said, kicking a rock.

This caused the younger boy to burst out in to laughter.

Junhyung, not sure if he should feel offended, looked on with a confused face, “what? What’s so funny?”

“It’s like…impossible for Doojoonie hyung to hate anyone,” Kikwang said with remnants of his laugh attack left over.  “He doesn’t hate you, he’s just busy lately.  You know he’s gonna be a boss one day.”

“A boss? Like Mr. Yoon?” The older boy asked.

“Yeah, he’s gonna be a leader someday, and we’re probably gonna be on his team,” Kikwang smiled, aiming his bomb launcher in to the open field.

“We are?” Junhyung blinked, surpised.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?”

“I…I don’t know,” Junhyung shrugged.  “I guess you’re right.”

“Yeah, so you should listen to me more,” Kikwang said with a wink as he sent a bomb soaring through the air and cheering on impact as flames went up across the field.

“Huh, that thing works really well,” Junhyung smiled.

“Of course it does,” Kikwang said, “with my weapons knowledge and your bomb expertise how could it not?  See? We make a pretty good team already!”

“Yeah, I guess we do,” Junhyung laughed, trying the launcher himself.

“I’m a criminal,” Junhyung told Doojoon one day while the two were studying.

“Aren’t we all?”

Junhyung looked confused for a second.  “What have you done?”

“I was born to a mafia boss,” Doojoon stated, “I may not have done anything important yet, but I know I will have to do some things in the future.”

“That’s silly,” Junhyung scoffed.

“What did you do that was so bad anyways?” Doojoon asked, looking up from his calculus homework.

“I blew up a hallway in my old school,” the younger boy chuckled, looking at nothing in particular as he recalled the memory, “a whole row of lockers was destroyed.  People’s possessions, books, jackets, it was all destroyed.  No one was hurt of course, I did it over the weekend.  But I caused a lot of trouble like that.”

“Hmm,” Doojoon hummed, clearly amused at the story.

“What? You’ve done worse?”

“No, but Kikwang shot my uncle’s dog once,” Doojoon laughed, “he got in so much trouble for that.  Like, really, I thought my uncle was going to have him taken care of if you know what I mean.”

“Like, order a hit on him?!” Junhyung looked shocked.

“No way!” Doojoon shook his head, “He may have been in a lot of trouble, but he would never be killed.  I just thought I would go to bed one day and wake up the next with Kikwang in Egypt or something.”

“Oh,” Junhyung stared at his history book, “was the dog ok?”

“Yes, luckily,” Doojoon smiled, “if he wasn’t then I’m afraid Kiki really would have had a hit on him.”

Junhyung laughed, showing one of his rare, genuine smiles.

“Look, Jun,” the older boy started, “It doesn’t matter where you came from or what you did in the past, what matters is where your loyalties lie.  In the future we may have to do things we don’t want to but we have to protect the ones we love and we have to remember.  We do the things we do for them.  That’s what this life is all about.”

Junhyung nodded, “You and I both already know where my loyalties lie.”