Chapter Nineteen

Hyuk-Jun left the hunters in the room after the meeting ended. Wooyoung was the first to leave right after him. His partner, Junho, was worried for his anti-social friend, so he left along with him. A few other hunters left the room as well when they saw the others were making their ways out, leaving only a handful of them behind.

One of the hunters, Nicole, approached to Yuri worriedly. “Gosh! Yuri, I’m sorry to hear about your incident. Did you hurt yourself anywhere?” She took Yuri’s hands and checked her from head to toes, ensuring the latter didn’t get herself injured.

An awkward smile formed on Yuri’s face as she tried to pull her hands away from Nicole’s grip. This young lady was pretty much known as the Mother of Hunter S. No doubt she was a nice, sweet and kind-hearted person who was filled with passion, but Yuri thought that her friendliness and passion were a little too… … much for her to handle.

“Nicole-ah… I’m perfectly alright, really. I finished them off in a distance before they are able to even come close to me––”

“Oh then you must be petrified! I’ve heard about the casualty too, it must be hard for you.”

“Um… Yeah…” Yuri forced out a smile. She still needed some more time to get over with Jessica’s incident.

While the two hunters were engrossed with their conversation, they failed to realize that Tiffany had been watching them with an expressionless face for a very long time.

Being Yuri’s partner for three years, Tiffany knew exactly Yuri was getting uncomfortable with Nicole’s kind passion, but was too nice to push her away.

Too bad, she is not Yuri.

Tiffany finally lost her patience and stepped forward. She encircled her arm around Yuri’s waist and pulled her into her embrace, breaking her physical contact with Nicole.

“Nicole,” Tiffany flashed her infamous eye-smile at the hunter. It might look sweet to the others when they viewed it from far, but to Nicole, who was standing right in front of her, she could clearly see the hidden warning message behind that pair of beautiful curved eyes. “Thank you for your concern, but I’ll take care of Yuri personally if anything goes wrong for her.” Nicole gulped and nodded immediately, implying to Tiffany that she understood what she meant.

Satisfied with her answer, Tiffany intertwined her hand with Yuri and dragged the both of them out of the room.

The tension within the room finally died down.

Seungyeon approached Nicole from behind and threw a light punch on her head. “Yah! Are you a fool? Can’t you see Tiffany is standing right beside Yuri? And haven’t I told you to stop being so hyperactive when showing concern to others?”

Nicole hugged her head and pouted at Seungyeon with her pitiful puppy eyes, “I couldn’t control myself…”

“So do you want me to tape you up to a chair next time?” Seungyeon glared at her.

Sooyoung joined the conversation, “Bravo Nicole! Even I stay a certain distance with Yuri when Fany is not around. You are simply way too daring!” Sooyoung had some kind of bad experiences back when she was Yuri’s assistant. Since then, she knew there were some things which she needed to avoid doing.

“Everyone knows Tiffany is possessive of Yuri.” One of the guys from the opposite side commented. “I suggest you keep your hands away from Yuri if you don’t want Tiffany to slice them off.” He joked and chuckled.

And that comment really ticked Yoona off.

“Fany unnie isn’t as scary as how you think she is.” Yoona retorted. She was very much displeased by how these hunters viewed the hunter who showered her the most love, care and concern in this organization. “Don’t judge her if you don’t know her well.” Those who saw her as a devil, never realized that under the devil’s mask was an angel’s heart.

Yoona was once like these people. She, too, was afraid of Tiffany when she first came into Aurales three years ago. She heard many stories from her seniors and instructors that a hunter named Tiffany was a ruthless person who they must never provoke. One of which was there were these few guys who merely stole glances at Tiffany, were severely punished by her that it took them almost three months to get out of their bed. This scared almost all of the newcomers including her, thus many of them had inherited fear on someone whom they had never met before.

Then, the day came. Yoona graduated from her training with an outstanding record and was unfortunately (?) assigned to Tiffany as her assistant. The organization did not want hunters with zero on-field experience to accomplish mission on their own, so they split up some of the pairings and put the new qualified hunters with the experienced ones.

Sooyoung was already there by then. She was assigned to Yuri as her assistant since a few months ago. Yoona remembered she was so envied of Sooyoung back then, when she learnt that Sooyoung had gotten the nicest and friendliest person in Aurales, while she had to live in fear till their superiors decided to let them go.

However, much to her surprise, after living and accomplishing mission with Tiffany for a period of time, Yoona realized Tiffany was completely different from the impression imprinted in her mind.

True, she could be ruthless, but only to people who she thought were threatening. In regards to the rumors she heard from her seniors and instructors before, Yoona had a chat with Sooyoung once and she told her what she heard from Yuri about the real reason behind all those punishments.

Tiffany was never a rash and unreasonable person. If it weren’t for those people who overly offended her, she would not have taught them a lesson.

Asides from that, Yoona was saved by Tiffany numerous times when they just started mission together. She might be an excellent student, but reality was completely different from training. Yoona had no idea how petrified she had become when she first saw a real mutant charging towards her. And if Tiffany did not appear just in time, she might have died already. And this did not just happen for only one time, Yoona only accustomed to this kind of life after almost half a year. But never did Tiffany once complaint about her slowness and being troublesome. Instead, she provided her with her fullest support, ensuring Yoona got rid of her fears and finally excelled as a truly qualified hunter.

All of them just had no idea how great Tiffany was.

*

Tiffany and Yuri were walking down the hallway hand in hand, towards their dormitory.

“Thank god you stopped Nicole! Or else I may have to listen to her blabbering for the next two hours.”

Tiffany chuckled at her partner, “You can always stop her.”

“You know I’m not good at this,” She shrugged, before continuing her sentence, “Which is why you are so important to me!” Yuri released Tiffany’s hand and hung her arm around the shorter girl’s shoulder. “Say, can I come to your room tonight?”

Tiffany glared at her, “I have a wound, mind you.”

Yuri then realized what she just said. She moved her arm away from Tiffany in panicked and jumped in front of her. She held her hands right in front of her chest, waving them as she quickly explained. “I didn’t mean that! I was thinking you might need help since you’re injured.” Tiffany eyed her suspiciously. “Serious! I wasn’t having weird thoughts!”

“I dare you.”

She walked away with Yuri following her from behind.

“Fany-ah~~” Yuri linked her arm with Tiffany’s. “Don’t be mad. I’m serious! I wasn’t––” Tiffany suddenly stopped in her track, causing Yuri to pause and looked at her weirdly. “What’s wrong?” She turned back to the front, only to see Wooyoung and Junho blocking their path.

Junho waved at them, specifically Yuri, awkwardly and apologetically. He tried to pull Wooyoung back, but this guy was too stubborn.

Yuri understood what he meant. She quickly slid in between Tiffany and Wooyoung before a war sparked off.

“Hey oppa, if you don’t mind us, we want to get across…” Yuri secretly shot an eye signal to Junho, asking him to help her with it.

But Junho shrugged helplessly at her instead. He would have stopped him earlier if he was able to, but he failed terribly.

Wooyoung stared right at Tiffany, ignoring the fact that Yuri was standing in between the both of them. “So I guess my nose isn’t playing with me. You really are injured.” Wooyoung’s nose was known to be the most sensitive among the hunters. Even if it was only a droplet of blood, he might be able to sense it too.

Tiffany narrowed her eyes back at him, if there was one person she ever wanted to avoid, that would be Wooyoung.

She pulled Yuri back and stepped right up to him. “If you have nothing better to say, get out of my way.” She said with a stern tone, startling Junho causing him to jerk.

Sometimes Junho just failed to understand why his friend liked to challenge that formidable woman so much. Almost everyone in Aurales was afraid of Tiffany and they would try their best to avoid her, but Wooyoung always did the other way.

He tugged onto Wooyoung’s jacket secretly, trying to pull him away, but the latter did not even move a single inch.

“Don’t make me think you are worthless, Tiffany.” He muttered, just loud enough for Tiffany to hear.

Tiffany glared at him, but Wooyoung broke the contact away by leaving the scene. Junho apologized to Yuri and Tiffany once again before chasing after Wooyoung. He was really clueless as to why Wooyoung enjoyed provoking Tiffany so much.

The cold hunter stayed still in her position for the next few minutes with her eyebrows furrowed deeply into her skin. Yuri had overheard Wooyoung’s words too. She guessed Tiffany was pondering over them. However, at the same time, she couldn’t make up what was exactly going through Tiffany’s mind because she didn’t look mad or upset to her.

“Fany-ah…” Yuri nudged Tiffany’s shoulder. “Shall we go back?” As much as she wanted to give Tiffany some personal space, they were in the hallway now. If Tiffany wanted to do any reflection, returning to her room would be the most appropriate place to do it.

Tiffany turned to her and let out an audible sigh through her nose.

Wooyoung…

She clenched her fist as she walked away with Yuri.

It is worthless all along.