Wonwoo had left home because he knew he couldn’t stay. The feeling of being suffocated was increasing as time went on. And even if he tried to ignore it, it proved to be harder to do so as time went on.

He knew even though the circumstances surrounding it wasn’t the best, this was the time. It was now or never.

He had always wanted to leave, but it took this catalyst to propel him forward. What happened to him may have been unfortunate, but it would push him to take that first step.

Or at least that is what he told himself.

He honestly had no plan. No direction.

But that’s when he remembered the letter.

It was odd. He had never remembered for the longest time. It was something that faded. Something reminiscent like a distant memory.

But when he made his mind to leave, it suddenly came to him.

Like a lightning bolt, it struck him out of the blue. It was so sudden that it puzzled him of why he thought of it then.

And all he knew was that he had to find it.

It had been so long, but for some reason he knew exactly where it was.

He rummaged through all his old things, flinging over old test papers, birthday cards, and a bunch of scrap paper until he found the letter.

Despite it being so old, it still looked brand new. A crisp ivory white envelope that felt cold to the touch.

He frowned since he never remembered trying to open it. He knew he wanted to see what the contents was, but he had gotten busy and put it aside thinking he would get to it eventually. He had placed it in the piles of paper he considered important and promptly forgot about it.

But that irking feeling faded easily when he looked at the contents of the letter.

It didn’t have a lot written. There was simply a note that spelled out, “The one you have been looking for. Call her ‘Jay’ no matter what, lest you suffer the consequences,” and an address underneath written in black lettering.

He didn’t know why, but the first person he could think of was her.

It was the only thing that meant sense to him.

But “Jay.”

It wasn’t a name he called her before.

He was wary at first, but he decided to take that risk.

So, he packed up his bags and left.

He was surprised and relieved to see her face.

He didn’t know who exactly the letter was referring to. He only had his suspicions.

But the moment he saw her, he realized that she was who he was looking for.

In the past, whenever something went wrong for him, she was the person who he could count on to help him. Even if it was through comfort.

He felt a sense of relief but at the same time a sense of foreboding.

He was nervous, more so scared, of what she would think of him years after they last met.

Things were different now, but seeing her made Wonwoo think of the past.

When things were a lot simpler.

Now that she was kind enough to let him stay, he realized things were truly different.

The rules he had imposed on him upset him more than he realized.

He had his own fair share of secrets and troubles, but he felt a distance between him and Jay.

And it bothered him that the other four housemates seemed share a relationship he didn’t realize existed.

Wonwoo didn’t know what he expected when he arrived.

He just wanted a change of pace.

And now that he met Jay again, perhaps he simply wanted things to be the same.

The two of them talking about everything and nothing at all.

But he never expected that there would be four other guys living with her.

It wasn’t as if Jay getting a boyfriend never crossed his mind. In fact, he found it odder that she never did.

But he could see that there weren’t any romantic intentions amongst them. Although there was the occasional moment where one of them would show some kind of emotion that vaguely resembled something like that.

But even more than that, he felt like they had a bond with her. Something akin to pure trust and immense care. Something only people with close relationships could have.

No one spoke about it, and there were even a few who acted differently from that. But Wonwoo could tell.

And he could only tell because he used to have that connection with Jay when they were younger.

He probably secretly hoped that would still be the case; however, he was starting to wonder if everything he knew about her was wrong.

There was something that she was hiding, and he wondered if everything he knew was a lie.

But he knew that the only reason Jay let him stay was because of their friendship and that there was an unspoken rule that he wasn’t to get involved with what she does.

Wonwoo wanted things to be the same. But ironically, that was thing that bothered him the most.

At first, he didn’t think much otherwise.

They would all disappear from the house, leaving him behind, and they would be gone for hours.

But as the incidences began to occur much more frequently, he began to feel a little curious and a little left out.

Jay wouldn’t even tell him what it was all about either.

She remained mum about it, only giving vague answers to him.

None of the other house inhabitants answered him. Seungcheol would never really say anything to him. Jihoon would make a snarky reply back about how he should stop sticking his nose into their business. Jisoo would apologetically tell him he couldn’t tell him anything. And Soonyoung would laugh and tell him, “That’s life.”

It slowly got increasingly harder to ignore what was going on in the house even if he knew nothing about it.

Wonwoo left home to change, and yet here he was, still the same person that he desperately wanted not to be.

He decided to take matters in his own hands.

He knew that they would leave early sometimes. So, he woke early and waited.

He knew that Jihoon had the hardest time waking up so he assumed it would take them awhile to leave.

He waited in silence until he heard the click off the door being shut. He then pulled on his jacket and silently left the house.

He made sure to pace himself far enough where he could see the group wandering into the woods.

And even if he lost sight of them, he could hear them from far away.

He noticed that the group and stopped and he quickly ducked behind some trees so he could watch closer.

Jay was facing the four of them.

“I think you guys are well versed enough that I can teach you how to wield umbra guns.”

A murmur went through the four.

“Finally!” Jihoon groaned. “I thought we were going to stay on basic self-defense forever.”

“In my defense, the moves I taught you allows you to use the opponent’s strength against them. It’s not truly basic self-defense. It is a particular martial art and I…”

“Yeah, yeah. We get it,” Jihoon grumbled. “Get a move on it, will ya?”

She gave the boy a look before snorting. “Fine. Geez. No patience. You should really learn some. It does good for the body.”

The glare from the boy made her laugh. Without another word, she flicked her wrist so that she turned it half-way and opened up her palm so it was facing straight up.

In a blink of an eye, a small automatic gun landed in the middle of her palm and she curled her fingers around it. As her fingers wrapped around it, it began to glow a dark blue that wavered through the spectrum of blue while he held it. She straightened out her hand so that the weapon was pointed toward the four and pulled the trigger. A dark blue mass flew from the barrel of the gun and straight towards the boys.

The look she gave them told them that they needed to remove themselves from the path of her weapon. They promptly scattered as the light hit the tree behind them.

Upon contact, a blue light clashed against the tree, spidering up and down like a network of nerves before smoldering down to nothing. There was no damage to the tree, but for some reason, they boys knew that it would be smart to not let one of those hit them.

The boys turned back from the tree to Jay who let the weapon drop from her hands as it disappeared in mid-air.

She smiled serenely at them. “Now you try.”

They stared stupidly at her before Jihoon let out an outburst. “Are you ing kidding me? You can’t expect us to do something like that on the first try!”

She blinked innocently. “I thought you would want to try it out as soon as possible.”

He scowled while she returned his expression with a laugh.

“I’m joking,” she teased with a roll of her eyes. “I don’t expect you to know how to do that. You have to understand the theory behind it to materialize it. Or so I’ve been told.”

She walked towards them and showed them the weapon.

"This is called an umbra gun. Umbra roughly translates into shadow in Latin. Thus, the name. And I know, it's not that creative. But I wasn’t the one who made it up."

"Although it has the appearance of a normal gun, it doesn't function like one. What do you usually have to do before you shoot a real gun?"

"You have to pull down the safety latch," Jihoon answered.

"Right. But an umbra gun doesn't have that. You can shoot by just pulling the trigger. It also doesn't shoot out regular bullets."

She aimed the weapon at the tree again. The boys knew better than to stand in the direct line of sight, so they scrambled to get out of the way.

She shot the gun and the same dark blue glow flew and hit the tree, bursting with light at contact.

"As you can see, it doesn't shoot out bullets. Instead, it shoots out elemental anima, or simply anima, which is taken from the user's internal willpower or soul. And each elemental power depends which faction you're in. Since I'm the leader of the Azure Dragons, I have the power of wind. And since you are all my little minions, you have that power too."

She lifted up the gun again and set it on the palm of her hand. "This isn't a gun that kills normal humans. But it definitely will hurt if you shot one at them. It feels like you were er-punched and the air in your body will escape from you. For sure, you wouldn’t be able to move for a while. But it doesn’t kill you. The one thing it does well is that it is the one thing that can kill a nibra easily with one shot. Sure, you can kill one with a knife and stabbing it in the heart, but this way is much easier and simpler. A headshot or a shot to the heart is the only way to kill a nibra. I usually like shooting it in the heart because it's a surefire way to kill it. Shooting it in the head can be risky sometimes. There are nibras who can function without their heads. But all nibras have a heart."

"Materializing an umbra gun means taking every ounce of the willpower within yourself and forcing it out in a concentrate matter. It's difficult to do at first, but once you do it once, well, it's like riding a bike. You won't be able to forget and it'll be like second nature after that. Your body will remember that feeling and adapt to it. No two guns are the same since it is part of you. The gun can be seen as a representative your willpower."

"Question," Soonyoung called out with his hand shooting straight into the air.

Jay nodded for him to talk.

"Can anyone do this?"

Jay nodded. "Sure, it's not limited to anybody. Except you need to be officiated into a group. If I or any of the other leaders did not officiate you, then you wouldn't be able to materialize it."

"How do we get powers of the wind then?" Jisoo asked confusedly. "I don't remember anything that would make us have that."

Jay laughed. "Same idea. It's because I officiated you. Because of that kiss I gave you all, I was able to give you a small part of my power of the wind."

"So, you're saying we have part of your power," Seungcheol stated. “Like you’re giving a part of yourself to us?”

Jay frowned. "Sort of. It's like this. I give you a small sliver of my power, but it's not like you continuously energy from me. If you are capable enough, then you'll house that power in yourself and it'll grow to be a part of you. But regardless, it will only work unless you and I are connected."

"How do we do it then?" Jihoon questioned. "Materialize it. You hardly gave us any instructions. And if you did, it was ty."

She laughed. "That's why it's hard. You can't explain it. It's like taking a part of your soul and making it tangible. And everyone has a different way of doing it. Even the leaders have different ways of doing it. But maybe it’s like taking your emotions and letting it out? Like punching something when you’re angry?"

Jihoon scowled at her explanation.

"I know. It's not much help, but I will work with each and every one of you."

"Any more questions?" she asked.

They looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Okay, let's get to it! But I'll let you know. Don't be frustrated. It might take you a while before you can do it. I've seen it with the other factions."

True to her word, the boys were struggling for around a few hours.

When Jay said it was hard, she wasn't kidding. She had seen other groups take days even weeks to actually form a gun.

She knew that there were different methods for materializing a gun. And since she had never taught others how to do it, she had asked the other leaders for help. Boa had a straight-forward, follow-by-the-book kind of method that only she knew how to do. She tried to explain it to Jay, but it went through one ear and out the other. Tablo said he focused on emotions. He said that most of s were rambunctious and very active, but once you managed to calm them down and focus, they managed to do it. Jo Kwon said that he just made them do it. He didn’t explain much, but from what Jackson and Mark have told her, it was something they would rather erase from their memories.

None of it helped her, but the Head had suggested to think of how she first materialized her own gun. And all she could remember was anger. Anger and desperation.

Not the most ideal way to focus on materialization. She sighed. She knew that the way she did it was not going to work with the boys. It was because of her circumstances that she felt that way.

She frowned. Why did she feel that way?

That way specifically. She knew she wasn’t the most optimistic child when she first started out, but still, why did she feel so angry?

And then it hit her.

It was the what drove her to join in the first place.

Her anger and desperation that tagged along when she the Head asked her what she wanted to do.

She wanted to stop the killing. She wanted to atone for her actions.

A thud sounded from the ground and she followed the noise down to see her umbra gun lying on the ground.

She blinked and picked it up.

Was it so easy?

Her reasons were the same. She wanted it to stop.

But no longer was she feeling the same emotions.

Instead, they had mellowed out over the years.

Now, they were much more...hopeful.

She squeezed her hand and the gun disappeared within seconds.

Perhaps it would work with them.

Her eyes turned to the boys who were still struggling. And Jay knew that they all had to take a break.

“All right, guys.”

They turned to look at her, energy drained from their eyes.

“That’s enough for today.”

She could tell that they were disappointed, but they didn’t refute her words.

“We’ll try again tomorrow.”

They all grudgingly nodded and trekked home.

And unbeknownst to them, the boy who was secretly watching them had already run off earlier.

He panted as he reached the manor, heart pounding and hands twitching.

With one hand on the wall of the building, his gaze fell down to his other hand.

He blinked once and once more, unable to understand what was happening.

Because his fingers were wrapped around a gun glowing a peaceful cool blue, slightly pulsating.

He didn’t understand what he was looking at, nor what was going on.

All he knew was it was the same type of gun Jay was holding earlier.