With a worn out sigh Aron washed off the last blood off his hands. The unused bathroom in the basement was really a mess now, more than usual he thought, when he looked at the other one who was calling the leader for help on the two dead bodies.

“Thank you man. One minute later and I wouldn’t have been able to prevent it”.

Fisher smiled at him as he hung up; it looked as if his face was about to crack in two and his eyes were gleaming.

“I know. That’s why I didn’t wait to come. I tell you, it was close this time. Who would have thought that your teacher through six months turned out to be a Solum associate?”
“I know what you mean, it’s crazy”. Aron leaned back on the heavily graffiti-tagged wall and looked at the two black zipped up body bags. “And because of him we still haven’t got even the slightest clue to who their little spy is…”
He bit his lip in frustration. Fisher had called him about an hour after he started to observe Minki and Minhyun from a distance and told him that even though he hadn’t found anything on Minhyun yet, their own goddamn teacher had turned out to have quite the background. He had been watching Minki for six months on behalf of Solum, waiting to give their assassins the right opportunity. And he had finally been able to give it to them when Minki at last had shown up late for class for the first time ever.

He had already stepped out of the room to call an assassin when Fisher had taken him down, then contacted Aron who immediately joined with him, and together they had been able to kill the assassin before either of the two boys in the class room had known what was going on.

No doubt the assassin would have slit the throat on both of them for good measure; Solum never left any witnesses to their killings.

Just one minute later and he would have had to explain to the leader that both Minki and Minhyun had been murdered. That was a scenario he never ever wanted to live through.

But no matter how deep Fisher had dug, he hadn’t found anything suggesting that he had been the one to put chloroform into Aron’s water bottle.

“By the way, what do you plan on telling the Helix? He’s still waiting for this one to show up and let them off, right?”

Fisher kicked the upper one of the bags.

“… He’s still alone with Minhyun! I gotta…”
“Wow, wow, relax there Superman! I forgot to say, Minhyun’s totally clear!”
“What?”
“Yeah, I’m serious. I’ve got nothing on him whatsoever, not even any former detentions or anything. There’s no way he’s linked to Solum, I swear on my hair products! He’s as innocent as a little lost kitten”.

“You’re absolutely sure about this? He could be killing Minki while we’re just standing here!”
“Absolutely sure Aronah. Look, I know that your theories usually ends up being right, but just face it, you were wrong this time. Is it really that bad? I mean, isn’t Minhyun one of your friends?”

At once he felt guilty about even having suspected Minhyun in the first place. Fisher was right, he was one of his best friends, there was no way he could be a Solum-spy.

“You’re right. Sorry. Let’s just get these two out of here and get back to our jobs…”
“Sounds like a good plan. But you’ll have to dispose of them yourself as always. I’ve already risked too much by going into the field with you like this”.

“True. You just get out of here now, then I’ll have the leader hurry with some backup”.

“Sure thing. See ya, and try not to get killed, okay?”

With a dazzling smile he put on his cap and sunglasses and left Aron with the two dead Solum members.

Minki couldn’t help but sigh when he pulled his oversized T-shirt over his head and then his black blazer.

Neither Aron nor Jonghyun had turned up for gym class, and Minhyun had called and said that he had to go see a doctor about the wounds on his back because they wouldn’t stop hurting as he thought they would. Dongho always skipped gym class to study anyway, so he was changing in a corner by himself when someone pushed him in the back hard enough to make him fall.

Another sigh, this time a bit more exasperated.

Without getting up he turned and looked defiantly at the small group of boys from the class who stared contemptuously down at him. Not even the slightest sign of fear was shown on his face.

“Do you have a problem?” His voice was icy.

The boys laughed and two of them grabbed his arms and made him get on his feet, unable to twist from their grip.

“We just thought that you’re doing an awful lot to get noticed, right? We don’t want an attention like you in our class”.

“Shut up and let go of me. I can assure you that I don’t enjoy being in your class”. Even though he knew he was only making things worse, he couldn’t help but provoking them as much as possible. For days he had been hiding to the others that these guys were after him and it had been hell. No way he would just stay quiet and let them win.

One of them, a black-haired one, went a step closer and started to slip his fingers gently through Minki’s thick blonde hair with a mock-affectionate smile on his face.

“You’re so full of yourself, aren’t you?” he sneered, suddenly pulling Minki’s hair as hard as he could.

Minki couldn’t hide a small sob from pain and angry tears started to well up in his eyes.

“Let go of me” he maintained, but they were only laughing.

“As if. We talked it over, and we think you need to be reminded that you’re not better than the rest of us, just because you now have a fancy hair colour…”
“I’m way better than you, that’s for sure!” he sputtered, no longer able to control his anger. The two boys who held him tightened their grip until pain, and the black-haired one took out a pair of scissors, still smiling.

“That’s exactly the attitude I’m talking about. Let’s see how smug you are without those plastic tresses of yours”.

“No!”

With all his might he started to twist and turn in their grip, but one of the others quickly helped them holding his head still and they were way stronger than him.

“Don’t do this, let go of me!”

“You’ll have to beg for it .”
“Please!”

“Louder”.

“I beg of you, don’t do this! Please not my hair!” He was crying hysterically now, his legs no longer in any condition to keep him standing.

But the boys just smiled, while the black-haired guy leaned forward and chose one of the white and thick locks.

“I don’t think I heard you”.

“No, no, don’t…” The sound of the scissors shredding the air as they cut off the lock of hair made him scream. “Stop it!”

“That was one. How long do you think it’ll take to cut it all off?” The tallest of the ones holding him grinned maliciously, but at once they had to restrain him even more as he started to fight against their arms again, this time blinded by rage.

“I’ll ing kill you! Let go of me!” He struggled and had to scream again when his gaze fell upon the cut off tuft on the floor. “I hate you! I’m gonna kill you, bloody all of you!”

“That’s not very nice Minkiah” the black-haired one giggled, grabbing another section of hair. “You’ll have to behave yourself”.

“STOP IT!”

Just when he was sure he would lose another precious amount of hair, the black-haired one was pulled back by a pair of hands shaking in an uncontrollable frenzy.

“Get away from him!”

Jonghyun buried his clenched fist in the black-haired one’s face, his eyes burning with ire. Singlehanded he pulled the other three away from Minki, knocking one of them unconscious on the way, then he put an arm around Minki and made him make a run for it before any of the four guys got their senses back and started to follow them.

“Jonghyunah…” Minki cried as they ran away from the school towards the public library. “Where have you been?”
“I was at the dentist. Christ, I’ll never do that again…” He opened the door and made sure Minki got in, before leading him to the corner furthest away from the entrance, and they sat down in a pair of chairs, Minki still fighting to stop crying.

“Hyung, they cut off my hair… I must look awful…” Jonghyun hushed at him, leaning over so that he could his back tenderly.

“Raise your head Minkiah… Yeah, like that. Let me see now…” Carefully he turned Minki’s head so he could see the side with the cut off lock. “There now, I promise it’s not as bad as you think”.

“Really?” Minki sobbed and looked at Jonghyun with tearful eyes.

“Really. You almost can’t tell.” He smiled and gave him a quick hug.

Minki noticed that he was still shaking in anger and carefully he placed a hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder.

“Hyung?... Is something the matter?”

“You bet. Minki, those guys were about to scalp you! They wouldn’t have stopped if I hadn’t saved you, anyone could tell! What if I had been late, huh? God, I don’t think I would have been able to ever forgive myself…”

Jonghyun took a deep breath to calm down. For a moment he had almost thought of confessing to Minki how much he liked him, but then he threw the idea away. Minki hadn’t shown even the smallest sign of liking him back, it would be risking their friendship.

“Hyungie?... Thank you”. Minki placed both arms around Jonghyun, smiling against his chest. “I’m glad you saved me”.