At the crosswalk, Myunghwa bid goodbye to Lee Junho, her client who needed her to role-play as his girlfriend. They attended a fancy show-off-your-things-to-your-peer party. Initially, she thought who was she to attend as his plus one. She wasn’t a well-known star or famous you-know-who in par with his wealthy status. She was just great at role-playing, guessed that worked for Junho.

“I thank you for your wonderful service.” Junho extended a white envelope. Well, she must have done a great job then. The nights she spent watching dramas with those spoiled rich kids paid off.

Oh My. That had to look like it was an inch thick. “Oh…thank you.” Myunghwa cringed at her voice raising an extra pitch, but who cared. It got the job done.

Junho waved and disappeared into the crowd when the intersection light indicated for the pedestrian to cross one way. Myunghwa waited until she lost sight of Junho to peel the envelope opened. Her eyes widened at the stack of cash. Must be nice to have the luxury of handing cash as free hugs. She quickly closed the envelope and tucked it in her purse. As she glanced up, her eyes locked with a pair of eyes narrowed at her then to her purse. A built broad-shoulder guy stood in a semi casual suit, one eyebrow slightly raised. She couldn’t tell if he was judging her or squinting from the sun or planning to rob her. Had he saw her interaction with Junho? Her joy with the money Junho gave her? Her stack of cash?

Just then the other side of the sidewalk timer started, and people scrambled. He tore his eyes away following the crowd to the opposite side of the street.

“Myunghwa!”

Her eyes found Youngni running from the other side passing the judgmental guy to her. Youngni stopped to catch her breath before signaling she was ready to walk to Call Me.

“How’s your date?” Myunghwa asked.

“Terrible. Almost got my busted today. Hyesung was sent to the hospital. Almost had to go to the police station again.” She said, leaving the part about Jungkook out.

“What? How? Tell me all about it.”

“Ughhh…now I have to write a report.”

“Yeah. Fun.” Thanked goodness Myunghwa always played safe, so she had never to worry about writing an incident report. She read templates and she decided she never wanted to write one.

“Yeah, I had to finish before the training tomorrow.” Youngni suddenly remembered about the self-defense class their boss said it was now a requirement. Said a good friend of hers wanted feedback before officially making the class a permanent offer to the community. Luck for her and Myunghwa, the first trial class was on their free day. And to make it more exciting, that was another report to write. Ugh.

---

Never had Jungkook thought he would put his self-defense skills to use. When he was accepted to Justice Academy, it was amongst the first few classes he had to enroll. Lucky, he took some basic defense class too in his teenage years, so he felt confident to be an assistant in this trial class.  Nervous still racked him at the thought that he hadn’t taught a class before. He only attended.

“Hyung.” Jungkook dropped his gym bag and straightened his back and bowed to the instructor, Hwang Chansung. Chansung was a part of Namu Station. He coordinated with the station to keep the officers’ defense skills sharp.

“You’re here early.” Chansung dropped the final mat onto the floor and used his feet to kick it into place. “I’m sorry to bother you last minute. With Baekhyun out, I’m down one person.”

“Happy to help.” It was a last-minute request from his Team Leader after Baekhyun requested for a family emergency leave.

“Your Team Leader asked me to put together a women self-defense class, so this workshop will be the first trial. Let me know what you think.”

Jungkook wasted no time to change into his uniform. The class was thirty minutes away, so he got straight into stretching though he knew the class would start with it. He just wanted to be prepared. Preparation? No preparation hadn’t prepped him for anything that came from Youngni. The girl amazed him every time with her courageousness then shunned him with her escapes. He didn’t know what he had done to make her avoid him. Pretty sure he recalled only encountering her through situations that brought them together. He only acted accordingly. Never overstepped any boundary.

“Jungkook, can you go to the storage and get a uniform for Hyunwoo? He said he couldn’t find his uniform. The participants should start arriving any time now.”

“Hyung is coming?” Jungkook stood up, delighted. He hadn’t seen Hyunwoo for a while. The last was when he grabbed lunch with Hyunwoo and Mark after they come to look for him at the academy.

“I needed the extra eyes, so I asked him.”

“What about Mark-Hyung?”

“He couldn’t clear his schedule due to the late notice.”

Jungkook nodded thoughtfully. He probably was busy offering all his time to Soomin. Well, even though there was no Mark, at least he’d get to see Hyunwoo.

“Excuse me? Is there where the self-defense workshop will be held?” A group of five females entered, eyes scanning the room.

Jungkook took that as cue to go search for a uniform and leave Chansung to take roll call.

After a quick shuffle through the storage, Jungkook returned with two sizes. “Chansung Hyung I…Hyung!” Jungkook speed over to Hyunwoo, who greeted him with a wide smile. A grin almost. They exchanged a quick hug and handshake.

“You’ve grown up.” Hyunwoo placed a gentle hand behind Jungkook’s head and messed with his hair.  

Jungkook flashed a full set of teeth at Hyunwoo. His eyes traveled to the ground at the compliment.

“Is that for me?”

Jungkook extended the uniform. “I wasn’t sure which one woul