“Everyone’s got their contacts on, right?” Jihye asked as she stepped onto the bus.

“Yes, noona!” Jongin and Kyungsoo chorused together as they followed suit.

“But, noona,” Kyungsoo began, taking his place next to Jongin and grabbing an overhead handrail so that Jihye could take her seat. “Why are you coming with us to school today?”

“I’m meeting up with someone,” Jihye replied simply, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. She rustled through her purse and brought out her phone to check for the time.

“What?” Jongin exclaimed a little too loudly. He quickly apologized to the passengers around him. Lowering his voice, he continued. “Are you meeting with a boy? What’s his name? Who is he? Why?”

Jihye grinned, already expecting this reaction. She looked up at Jongin with a blank expression. “It’s just someone,” she teased, before returning her attention to the more interesting contents of her purse.

“Ya--”

“‘Ya?’” Jihye repeated questioningly as she raised an eyebrow at Jongin. “‘Ya?!’” She scoffed. “Ya, Jongin-ah, I’m still your noona!” she hissed, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

“Mi-mianhaeyo, noona!” Jongin apologized politely, holding up his free hand in defense.

“We’re here,” Kyungsoo cut in, ignoring their bickering. His companions were quiet immediately, and they obediently followed Kyungsoo out once the bus came to a stop.

“Have fun, you two!” Jihye called out with a wave as she hopped backwards.

“Thanks, noona!” Kyungsoo waved back energetically.

“Wait!” Jongin called out. “Where do we wait for you later?”

“I’ll just meet you guys back at your house, Kai! You don’t have to wait for me,” she sang, before turning around completely and skipping towards her destination.

“Call me or text me when you get dooone!” Kai bellowed with both hands around his mouth. Kyungsoo just shook his head and laughed, patting Jongin on the back, signalling that they both had to get going to their respective appointments.

---

“Thank you for the letter of recommendation, seonsaengnim!” Jihye bowed at a right angle a couple of times as she made her way to the door.

“No problem, Jihye. It was nice seeing you again!”

Jihye grinned and gave her former teacher an excited wave before closing the office door behind her. She looked at the envelope again, holding it up before her eyes with both hands, awestruck at its existence and grateful for its contents. She gave it a quick kiss for luck before carefully placing it into her purse so it wouldn’t get wrinkled.

She gleefully made her way to the building exit, giving polite bows as she encountered other faculty members.

“Ah, it’s so dark already,” she mused as she passed by a large window. She pushed the door open, feeling a gush of wind at her face. She shivered a little as she pulled her cardigan closer to her body. “How do Jongin and Kyungsoo manage to stay here so late? I never wanted to stay on campus after dark.”

She arrived at the bus stop, but she was still a few minutes early. She took a seat at the bench and pulled out her phone to kill time while she waited. She plugged in her ear phones and placed both buds into her ears, then scrolled through the contents of her music player to choose what song she wanted to listen to.

A male figure took a seat next to her, being sure to leave some space in between them. Jihye didn’t bother to acknowledge him since she was so engrossed in her music; however, she noticed that his face held similar features with one of her all-time favorite actors, Song Joongki.

“Excuse me,” the stranger said, but Jihye couldn’t hear him. He cleared his throat and tried again, this time tapping her lightly on the shoulder. “Excuse me, miss.”

Jihye jumped slightly when he tapped her, and removed her ear phones so she could hear. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

The stranger smiled at her. “I just wanted to ask: are you, by any chance, Do Jihye?”

---

“! , , !” Jihye wheezed when she finally decided to kick her heels off behind her. She turned a sharp corner into an alleyway and hid behind an abandoned couch. Her emerald green eyes glowed as thin, golden rings appeared around her pupils. Within seconds, she had company: a flawless duplicate of herself. She willed the copy to run back from where Jihye had just come from so that the EXO agent, Baekhyun, would chase after the duplicate instead.

Jihye carefully watched from behind the couch to make sure that the agent had completely passed the alleyway. Once she saw that he had taken the bait, she sighed in relief, leaning back on the brick wall behind her. At least for now, she was able to risk a couple of seconds to catch her breath.

“I just wanted to ask: are you, by any chance, Do Jihye?”

Jihye narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m a fan,” he said sweetly, cocking his head to the side.

“Cut the crap,” Jihye snapped, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, I’m Do Jihye. So who’s asking?”

“Byun Baekhyun,” he replied calmly, sticking out his hand. She refused to take it, and he awkwardly drew it back. “Look, I’ve been looking for you for some time now.”

“Why?”

“I work for this group called EXO, and we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“EXO?” Jihye thought, eyes widening with recognition as she drew in a breath. “I’m sorry,” she said out loud, standing up. She hoped that he wouldn’t notice that her knees were starting to shake. “I have somewhere to be right now.”

“Ah, that may be a problem,” Baekhyun said sheepishly as he got up as well. Jihye took a step back, glancing behind her to make sure the coast was clear in that direction. “You see, it is quite crucial that I bring you back with me.”

Jihye paused. “No, thanks,” Jihye denied simply before she started running for her life.

---

“Seriously?” Baekhyun panted, stopping to catch his breath. He looked around quickly to gather his surroundings. “How can she be so fast?”

He caught a glimpse of a shadow up ahead, and suddenly his legs started working again. He felt the rush of adrenaline, a second wind of sorts, as he sprinted for the figure. He noticed her head turn back to gauge how close he was getting. When she picked up her pace, so did he. Baekhyun was able to successfully shadow her for a couple of blocks until he followed her around a corner to find that she was nowhere to be seen.

Frustrated, he ran both hands across his forehead and through his brown hair. He stumbled a little as he turned a full 360, but then he saw her again: peeking from behind the corner that she was supposed to have turned. There was no way she could have made it there without him seeing; no way in hell.

But Baekhyun couldn’t exactly think too much about this anomaly with all of the adrenaline running through his body; right now there was one thing on his mind -- one goal -- and that was to catch Do Jihye.

That proved to be a much more difficult task to accomplish than he had anticipated, though, especially when she kept disappearing out of thin air. He followed her around another corner to find that she had once again vanished when he finally realized something was wrong. Yes, it was expected that this girl had extraterrestrial powers; however, disappearing was not the correct one. That was a power attributed to the Master of Space.

“Ah, that’s right,” Baekhyun muttered as he began to retrace his steps. “I’m dealing with the Mistress of Duplicity.”

He would not be tricked again.

---

“Do I want to risk making more than one duplicate?” Jihye wondered to herself amidst the sound of her feet hitting the pavement. Making one copy was tiring enough for her, so to create multiple copies would be especially straining. Each duplicate divided her energy and concentration in half, thus causing her body more fatigue and making her duplicates seem less convincing.

She struggled to bring her phone out of her purse as she ran. Her hands shook as she dialed Jongin’s number a few times then repeated the process with Kyungsoo’s.

“!” she cursed, anxious tears welling in her eyes when she realized that no one was answering her calls. She quickly entered a near structure and found herself in a parking garage. Most of the marked stalls were empty, so she settled herself behind a pillar of a large diameter. She brought her phone out again, this time hoping to send a text message with an S.O.S. addressed to Seori. She did not get far in her message before she heard approaching footsteps and saw a faint light coming from behind the pillar. So, she was extremely grateful to find that despite the empty parking garage, she was still able to spot a tall, white truck that she immediately crawled underneath.

She caught her breath and cursed at herself quietly when she saw the first figure running around the same pillar she was just seated behind. Apparently, amidst her panic, she had accidentally sent her duplicate in the same direction that she was running to. She cursed again under her breath as she retracted the duplicate, being sure to keep very still once Baekhyun the agent came into view.

He looked around carefully, his eyes following the unexpectedly bright light that his small flashlight emitted. He breathed in deeply, still trying to catch his breath from the current chase. He was a bit discouraged that his target seemed to have disappeared once again, and in his frustration, he flicked the flashlight switch off and on a few times. He had almost considered just letting her go, but...

No; he could not give up. For Suho’s sake, for Division K’s sake, for Project Harmony’s sake, he could not give up. He refused to give up, especially when he was so close to capturing the Mistress of Duplicity.

Meanwhile as time appeared to slow down, Jihye continued to lay hidden beneath the truck. Everything was still and quiet as Baekhyun resumed to pan his eyes around the floor; Jihye tried her hardest not to breathe.

Dzzzt! Dzzzt!

Her breath hitched as she felt the sudden vibrations of her phone against the concrete. She bit her lip, scrunching her face nervously. “Please don’t hear that,” she thought as a bead of sweat trickled down her forehead. “Please don’t catch me. Please go away.”

Her eyes widened in fear when suddenly there was a blinding flash of light.

And suddenly Baekhyun was face-to-face with the greenest eyes he had ever encountered. Around her pupils appeared rings of gold, something he had never seen before. And suddenly there were many of her; multiple figures, all identical, laying beside her -- he counted maybe 5 or 6 of them. And just as suddenly, they all disappeared, leaving the sole girl lying beneath the truck.

“I’m sorry about this, but it’s my job,” Baekhyun whispered sincerely to the limp body as he picked her up and placed gently over his shoulder. “And it is quite crucial that I bring you back with me.”

---

“Yixing, you have a postcard,” Kris announced as he shuffled through Division M’s general mail pile. He picked it up and examined it, intrigued.

“Oh, thanks,” Yixing said as he got up to retrieve his mail. He stood awkwardly as the leader continued to scrutinize the postcard. “What’s wrong, duizhang?”

“Ah! Nothing, nothing,” Kris replied shaking his head as he finally handed the postcard over. “It’s in Korean. You got friends in Korea? Division K?”

“No,” Yixing shook his head, befuddled. He checked the photographic side first, which exhibited an artistic photo taken of the Han River. He switched to the other side and found a simple phrase written in neat block characters.

Be careful.

“Be careful?” Yixing repeated the message out loud in Mandarin. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”

A/N: Look who's back from the dead~~ Haha. Things finally settled down (a bit), I stopped being lazy and using writer's block as an excuse (although the struggle is real!), and now we heeeyuhhh! 

Here are a few updates about my life (if anyone still cares about me -- I know, it's been ages, and I haven't been updating, and y'all probably forgot about my story/ies and me... lol).

I'm in Korea. I teach English to elementary students in a school in Bucheon (Baekhyun's home town ;). I kinda drifted from K-Pop for a bit, which is weird being that I'm in the heart of it all, but... EXO's comeback (and actually 2PM's and BEAST's comebacks) reminded me why I moved to S. Korea in the first place!! ... kidding, totally kidding. But something did get rekindled once EXO's comeback happened. I've been fortunate enough to see BEAST and EXO live a few times (Beautiful Show 2013 was amaaazing, btw! And EXO comeback at music shows was cuh-raaazy!), but I've still yet to see my 2PM boys in Korea ;_; 

Anywayyy, that's enough about me. I should have blogged that, in retrospect. Buuuuuuuuuuut yeah, here's an update! I should update TComGF next... hopefully... ideally... but we'll see, haha. (cough)