The outskirts of Daegu are, to say the least, derelict; though one could pass it off as 'rustically fashionable' without dire consequence.

Of course, the daylight happenings of such an area are nothing special. An abundance of stone Cupid fountains smattered along the borders within invisible courtyards must have made for one too many romantic lovers' encounters. Underfoot, the polished sheen of the cobblestones are pitted with names, carved into the ground.

Mina x Jiho, reads one.

Nari and Dohyun Forever, reads another.

The one beneath is scrawled in unintelligible chicken-scratch, but you've already lost interest.

Under the cover of darkness, though, this place is a different story.

You lower your head, avoiding eye contact with the dark pockets of shadow that crimp and flex in the corners of your vision. Unfriendly, you decide promptly, is an understatement. Bottles of stale alcohol and burnt-out cigarettes line the walls, glinting with the dim light cast by flickering street-lamps. The sound of someone coughing suffocates the air, though it's more of a crippled retching than anything. You shudder and walk closer to the wall.

The man – of whom you've identified as the father of Bi-an's nephew – hadn't been very informative. All you'd managed to gather was that firstly, his son had been involved with a gang; secondly, that his captors had been stupid enough to actually place a ransom call; and lastly, that The Nephew's father had actually been able to record the conversation.

It had been a bit muffled, but you know where you're going.

Behind the 7-Eleven on Waryong-ro 100-gil.

You swerve left, ducking under a drunken man's arm as he swings it at your shoulder, babbling incoherently to his friend, who's equally, if not even more, intoxicated. "Look, hyung! A beautiful girl, all alone at night~" drawls the first man, a wide, broken smile splitting his face. "Aren't you lonely? Won't you come play with this old man, pretty miss?" His words are blurring together. You can smell the alcohol on his breath, even from a distance. He's revolting. "Come play with us~"

One of his hands springs forward with surprising speed to wrap around your wrist before you can pull back. "Please let go," you say, closing your eyes to block out the growing murmurs of interest. People are beginning to notice now. The drunken man's companion giggles to himself and gestures for the accumulating crowd to move back. All you can see are the eyes and the glistening sweat beading on the noses of the crowd. "Let go," you repeat, a little louder, and this time you let your hand fall, quite naturally, to the handle of the knife tied to your belt.

In English – just in case – you murmur, "Sir, please. You're causing a commotion."

He doesn't reply. He just sniffs wetly and wipes his running nose with the sleeve of his free arm as a ripple of muttering breaks out among the throng.

"Yah, !" shrieks one, pounding his moist chest with a fist. "I'll pay you good, just do it well~"

"Half-caste," mumbles a woman. "She's a half-caste. You don't get eyes like that here. Don't get eyes like that here, no."

"Look, she speaks English," realises another, goggling your face with black beetle-eyes. "You're not from around here, are you?~ I'll show you around~"

"Oppa will be gentle!" crows a middle-aged man whose skin looks like it's been dipped in candle wax. "Yah, little miss~ Don't you love gentle guys?~"

Chuckling.

The burning sensation behind your eyes is coming back. It's pushing against your pupils, begging to burst out. You clench your eyelids shut and take a breath through your nose.

No. Queen has no place here.

You jerk your arm free – not without difficulty – and raise your chin imperiously, bringing your face into the bright neon light. Catcalls of approval invade your ears. "Please," you say, firmly. "Don't embarrass yourself. Go home."

He grins at you for a moment, and then breaks out into a fit of soggy, clogged-up laughter.

"Little girl, don't you know not to come here at night?"

And then his hand is on your arm and he's pulling you closer to his chest –

So you draw your dagger and you hold it to his neck, and you say, "Please, don't make me do this."

It's true.

You don't want to.

You haven't experienced the feeling of blood on your hands yet, and you don't want this man to be the first.

There's silence, for a period of time, because suddenly, the beautiful, helpless, clueless girl in front of them doesn't seem so helpless or clueless anymore.

And then someone's voice – reasonably deep, and somewhat melodious – breaks the glass rod of soundlessness.

"Back off. This girl is mine."

You resist the urge to roll your eyes and turn.

A good eyeful of black-leather, metal-piercings teenager bares his teeth at you, blinding white blinking from the depths of his mouth. For a delinquent, he has a surprisingly pleasant face; large, double-lidded, deep-set eyes that, after closer observation, parade the striking, unnatural blueness of coloured contacts. A small face and fair white skin, paired with small cupid's bow lips. Somehow, the tiny upturned corners of his mouth makes you think he shouldn't be here.

"You're here for him, aren't you?" the boy asks, eyeing the mob of half- adults, who scurry away with their tails between their legs. He leans down and pincers your chin roughly between his index finger and his thumb, humming thoughtfully as he turns your face from side to side. "The old man caved in, didn't he? Who are you, then? A stranger who was too kind? That kid's relative?"

He's talkative. "Who are you?" you whimper. Make it convincing. "Please, give him back. I don't want any trouble. Please –"

He shrugs and releases your face. "Save it. You don't look like any of the girls who hang around these parts. They – you're too – forget it," he stutters, waving one hand around his face dismissively. You stare in bewilderment as he his lips awkwardly. He catches your eye and turns away, tightening his grip on your wrist in a silent warning. You have the urgent need to laugh as he continues to wet his lips. Not so much of a tough guy any more, huh?

Why is he his lips so much?

"You just don't have the right vibe," he decides, nodding his head. "Anyway, we'll fix the deal with you, and then we'll give him back." He seizes your wrist, dragging you into a broken-down storefront. His hands are so pretty that they seem almost alien; white, like the rest of him, and long-. In contrast, the rings adorning them are thick, and made out of a crude, ugly metal that digs into your skin.

A scrap of what looks like camouflage material is woven into a braid trailing down his left temple. It's an odd decoration. It suits him in a way that doesn't make sense to you, but you don't say that aloud as he kicks the door open with his boot and shouts into the empty shop, "Yah, idiot! We've got our prize!"

The soft sound of rustling cloth against skin emerges from the back of the room, and then there's another boy, except this one is angry. Angry, and baggy-eyed, and looking like he could murder your companion for waking him up.

"Hyung," he rumbles.

You try to get a good look at his face, but the darkness makes it hard to discern the blackness from his face. In the murkiness, you can see that this one's not dressed like a delinquent. A beige cable-knit sweater, white collared top, and jeans. "Hyung, you're stupid. That call was stupid. What were you trying to do, making a ransom call? This isn't an action movie, hyung. Suho-hyung is going to kill us..." He groans and crouches down with his hands in his hair. "What do you mean, we're going to hurt him? What are you going to do if they call the police?" A muffled whimper emanates from the pile of angry, tired boy on the ground. "What do you mean?"

Beside you, the white-skinned boy is starting to look ashamed – ashamed, not alarmed. You wonder if he's an idiot, like the angry boy makes him out to be. "That wasn't a ransom call! We didn't hurt him. Really, all we did was tie him to a chair –"

"Tie him to a chair?!" the other boy screams, and falls onto his back, spread-eagled.

It's only now that you can see him properly, with a ray of dim moonlight falling onto his face. Like the supposed idiot beside you, he doesn't look like he belongs where the alcohol and the cigarettes are. White skin, though not as blindingly pale as your jailer, and perfect bow lips curved perpetually downwards. His eyes are droopy; droopy and half-lidded, but when he opens his eyes fully to glare at your captor, the whites of his eyes are so prominent that it makes you want to take a step back. "So?" he begins, voice heavy. You notice that he won't meet your eyes. "What are you going to do? And why haven't you taken the goddamn knife off her?" He rolls to his feet and holds out his hand expectantly, sticking the other into his jeans pocket.

You hand the knife over, hesitantly, eyes fixed to the ground. They're both staring at you, as if they could figure out what to do with the girl standing in their little hideout by staring at the top of her head. "Please, can I just have him back?" you ask, gaze still trained on your feet. "I want to go home. Please."

The paler of the two smiles triumphantly. "Kkaebsong! It'll be easy. We'll give him back, and then we can take her home –"

Mr. Grumpy propels a stone across the floor with a savage little kick. It skitters to a stop beside a moth-eaten couch. "Do you think we're in the position to do that? They know we're the ransomers, what with your dumb little ransom call. What are they going to do if we come waltzing up to their cafe? Think, hyung! You're not a complete idiot, right?" He sounds desperate.

Your captor pouts. "Well, you're not doing anything to help..."

"I have nothing to do with this!"

"You're so lazy, I'm not surprised!"

The conversation quickly dissolves into an all-out argument as you stand there helplessly, the corners of your mouth twitching. Laughter isn't part of the job description, you think, and then you're laughing and they've stopped yelling and they're just looking at you like you're crazy.

"Sorry," you say, wiping your eyes with your wrists. You're still laughing. "I'm not – I'm not a very good prisoner, but you two..." You cover your face with your hands and take a step back, because you're not supposed to laugh, especially at your enemies, andin all honesty, you're not supposed to be able to laugh at all. "How can this be such a mess –"

Bang.

The door implodes with something close to an explosion, and you scramble back as a group of perhaps four or five foul-smelling men burst through the door.

Your hand scrabbles at your hip for your dagger, and then you realise you don't have your knife anymore, Mr. Grumpy of the Seven Dwarves has it – you can hear him shouting at the other boy to get you out of here, to get you away from them – and then one of the men clutches at your ankle and you're wondering how it all went downhill so fast and you scream as they tear at your scarf, and then your sweater, and then –

Queen!

Seeker's voice booms in your ears, and then your ears are clear and you can hear the scuffling of the two boys as they struggle to fight off two men twice their berth.

"Seeker," you gasp as you raise your leg and plant your foot into one of the men's stomachs. "Seeker, you ."

Oh, my. Feeling a little rebellious, are we?

You can actually feel the dusky gold filtering into your eyes, like trails of molten lead burning away the greyish-blue of Kim Chaeyeon's irises. "This wasn't a part of the job." You spit a globule of congealed crimson onto the floor by your right boot as you stagger to your feet. Seeker's presence fills your veins with something different – an empty chill that you never realised had gone missing – and you find yourself forgetting what it had been like to laugh. "We're in the wrong place. You led me to the wrong place."

No. I am rarely wrong, Queen. You are already halfway there. You have just ventured off the correct path.

"I would never! Don't toy with me!"

I am not. Dispose of these men, and you might snap out of your childish crusade and see the truth.

"Fine."

tfw you're so motivated to be unmotivated to do work that you write two 2000-word chapters in 3 hours :3

enjoy! second-person narration is so fun i think i might keep this one going~

and as always, thankyou for reading っゝω・)っ～☆

- Yukarin