Sunggyu stared past the metal bars to the man in uniform on the other side. The officer was carelessly chomping on a donut that was double the size of his own face. Sunggyu frowned as his stomach growled, remembering he hadn’t eaten anything for hours. The man stood up and put the donut down when someone came rushing through the front door.

“Sunggyu!” Sunggyu stood up from the cold bench to see a woman with short black hair rushing towards him.

“Mom…?” Sunggyu blinked, as the cop unlocked the cell and let Sunggyu out. Mrs. Kim paused, barely looking him in the eye.

“Let’s go.” She said. As they exited the police station, Sunggyu walked behind his mother towards the car.

“…Where’s Noona?” He asked. Usually whenever Sunggyu would get in some kind of trouble with the law, his older sister was the first one to come get him.

“She hasn’t been feeling well lately.” Mrs. Kim replied still not making eye contact with her son. “She had a doctor’s appointment earlier and the doctor told her that she’s been overworking herself and needs to rest.”       

“Ah…” Sunggyu nodded. His sister’s husband recently lost his job, so she’s currently juggling two jobs to support the two of them, and their two-year-old son. On top of that, she always manages to take care of Sunggyu as well, lending him money and such. Sunggyu felt the guilt forming in the pit of his stomach.

The car ride was silent, and when they arrived home, Mrs. Kim parked the car, but didn’t get out. She just sat there, her hands still on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead blankly. Sunggyu glanced at her, wondering what he should say to make everything better. But that was just it. There was nothing he could say. This was his fault. For being a lazy thieving moocher who still depended on his mother and sister to get by. Mrs. Kim’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, but she remained silent. Sunggyu could see her lip quivering, and her eyes getting red and watery.

“M-mom…I—.”

“Don’t. Please don’t Sunggyu, just don’t.”

“But I—.”                                                                                                                  

“Please…”

“I’m sorry Mom. I just…” Mrs. Kim finally turned to face him. She took his hands in hers.

“Don’t say sorry to me. I don’t need it.” She said. “To yourself…you’re the one who needs to apologize to yourself for the way you treat yourself.” Sunggyu swallowed down a lump in his throat. “It makes me so upset. Both your sister and I…we can’t stand seeing you like this. Sunggyu, you’re so smart and strong and amazing, but you just keep throwing your life away. Please…” His mother was in tears now, and Sunggyu couldn’t look at her. He hated seeing his mother cry, especially because of him. “Please don’t stop trying…you’re so young, and I know that you’ll find something else that you want to do with your life. Promise me ok? Promise me you’ll start to try again?”

“Mom…” Sunggyu looked down at their hands. His mother’s smaller hands gave his a slight squeeze. “…I…I’ll try…” His mom beamed at that, and released their hands to wipe away her tears.

“That’s all I need to hear.” She smiled, despite her swollen eyes and tear stained cheeks.

♦♦♦

Sunggyu lay in his room, staring at the ceiling. The image of his mother in tears stuck in his mind. That was the thing he hated the most and he swore to himself that was the last time she would cry because of him. He didn’t realize for how long he lay in bed, just staring at the blank white ceiling, but apparently it was the next morning, when he heard the doorbell ring. He didn’t get up, assuming it was someone who came to see his mother.

Besides no one ever came to see him.

♦♦♦

“Mrs. Kim I presume?” A dark haired woman in a navy suit, asked. “My name is Jeon Mi Seon from the Police station.

"Ah yes…do come in.” Sunggyu’s mother greeted and guided the woman to the kitchen table. As they sat, Mrs. Kim offered some tea and cookies. “So what did you think of my proposal?”

“Ah yes, we actually think the idea is a good one. And have him approved to join today if he is ready. The SC department is eager to take him in.”

“Oh my! Really, that’s amazing!” Mrs. Kim cheered, as Sunggyu walked into the kitchen, searching for something to eat. “Ah Sunggyu! Come over here.” Sunggyu glanced from his mother to the strange woman and walked towards them. “This is Jeon Mi Seon from the police department.”

“…Uh Hi.” Sunggyu greeted, and then turned to his mother. “What’s going on?”

“Remember what you promised me last night?” His mother smiled.

Sunggyu gulped nervously. “Yeah…”

“Well I pulled a few strings and…”

♦♦♦

“I can’t believe this…I can’t believe my mother got me a job at the police station.” Sunggyu sighed as he stood in the SC department’s front office. “What does SC stand for anyways?” He wondered as he walked up to the front desk, where there was a light haired man, with dark circles under his eyes, standing and searching through some documents. “Um…is this the SC department?”

“Hm?” The man looked up. “Oh yeah, the secretary just stepped out for a second so you can just…oh wait are you the new guy?”

“Uh yeah I guess.” Sunggyu shrugged.

“Ohh…wow you must be excited.”

“…Is that supposed to be sarcasm?” Sunggyu asked suspiciously.

“Haha no.” The guy laughed. “Oh by the way my name is Seungho. Yang Seungho.”

“Oh nice to meet you, I’m Kim Sunggyu.” Sunggyu greeted.

“Well Sunggyu, I meant that you must be excited to be working with the Nam Woohyun.”

“…Who?”

“Oh that’s a good one.” Seungho nodded glancing down at his paperwork.

“I’m not joking though.” Sunggyu replied blankly.

“…What? You mean you decided to take this job without knowing who he is?”

“Well I didn’t really decide to take this job as much as was forced to take it…” Sunggyu mumbled.

“Well he’s a pretty big deal. In fact he’s considered the best in the business.”

“And what business is that exactly?”

“You know. Being a Supernatural Conservation officer. Protecting and controlling the behaviors and the habitats of the supernatural. What the SC is all about.” Sunggyu blinked.

“Wait you mean you guys are real?” He gasped. He always heard stories when he was little about there being a section of police officers that worked to protect and take care of all things related to the supernatural. He never actually believed it to be true. “Wait does that mean there’s such things as monsters?”

“Wow you’ve got a ways to go don’t you?” Seungho sighed and shook his head. “Well I’ll let you meet your partner. He should be around here somewhere…Nam Woohyun! Over here!” He gestured to a big intimidating guy with muscles and tattoos. Sunggyu thought maybe this wouldn’t be so bad if he was working with such a cool looking guy. That is until the tattooed man walked the other way and from behind him a much shorter guy wearing a red cardigan and skinny jeans walked towards them. On closer inspection he had styled hair and smooth skin. Was that bb cream he was wearing? Sunggyu frowned. “Oh they can’t be serious.” He thought.

“This is Kim Sunggyu. The guy who’ll be your new partner.” Seungho introduced them. Woohyun nodded to Seungho and gave Sunggyu a big smile.

“I’m Woohyun. Nice to meet you.”

“Uh…yeah same here.” Sunggyu nodded. There was an awkward silence

“So…” Seungho tried to get things rolling, when the woman in the navy suit, Mi Seon appeared.

“So I see you two have met already.” She noted. “Woohyun, you two will have your first mission tonight. It’s just a couple of rogue zombies. So for now, why don’t you show Sunggyu around the office? Get acquainted with him and introduce him to the others.”

“Yes ma’am.” Woohyun nodded. “C’mon Sunggyu, let’s go.” He gestured to the hallway. Sunggyu frowned as he walked beside the shorter man.

“It’s Sunggyu hyung.” He muttered.

“Hm?”

“I said it's Sunggyu hyung. Call me hyung. How can you be disrespectful to someone older than you kid?”

Woohyun pouted. “I’m not a kid! Plus how do you know I’m younger than you?”

“How old are you then?” Sunggyu sighed.

“Twenty-two.”

“Well there you go. I’m twenty-four.” Woohyun frowned.

“Fine…anyways this is the break room.” He gestured towards a carpeted room. There was a couple of small round tables scattered around and a mini fridge in the corner. To the side of the room were a few cupboards with a microwave and coffee machine on top. Sunggyu nodded barely sparing a glance at the dismal space. “Don’t drink the coffee.” Woohyun instructed. They were about to leave when they heard a squeal from behind. They turned around and saw a girl with long light brown hair coming up to them.

“You’re the new guy right? Hi, I’m Hyomin. Nice to meet you. You’re cute.” She grabbed onto Sunggyu’s arm and giggled. Woohyun frowned and pulled her arm away from Sunggyu.

“Stop it Noona! And don’t say he’s cute. He’s not cute. He’s scary and not that nice.” Sunggyu glared at Woohyun who looked away sheepishly. “I-I mean…”

“Whatever…” Sunggyu waved it off. He figured Woohyun probably liked this Hyomin girl and was getting jealous.

“Aw don’t say that Woohyun. He’s totally cute.” She grinned and reached out to pinch Sunggyu’s cheek, but Sunggyu slapped her hand away. He also noticed Woohyun’s aggravated stare.

“Look I’m not here to make a love connection, so can we just get a move on.” Sunggyu sighed, not wanting to get involved in a love triangle.

“Oh I see…playing hard to get huh?” Hyomin smirked. “That just makes you more attractive to girls. You do know that right?” Woohyun couldn’t take this anymore.

“Cut it out Noona! Stop it!” He yelled out childishly.

“Calm down Woohyun-hyung…” Sunggyu turned around to see a very pretty looking…man? Girl? Well he really couldn’t tell and frankly that bothered him.

“Sungjongie…” Woohyun whined.

“C’mon Noona, the boss wants to see you about something.” Sungjong told Hyomin, ignoring Woohyun.

“Oh all right.” Hyomin sighed, but not before giving Sunggyu an affectionate tap on the . She winked at him then turned and left with Sungjong. Sunggyu sighed, while Woohyun seemed very uncomfortable and restless with what had just occurred.

Sunggyu thought Woohyun was being very annoying, but he should at least let the younger know he had nothing to worry about and that Sunggyu wasn’t interested in Hyomin.

“Look…I’m not interested in her ok?” Sunggyu sighed. Woohyun stared at him, wide eyed than finally breathed out and seemed to relax after hearing that. Sunggyu knew it. People were so simple and easy to read, he thought to himself.

“You promise hyung?” Woohyun asked.

 “Huh? Uh yeah…She’s all yours.” Sunggyu sighed, hoping to put an end to this discussion, but then Woohyun gave him a confused stare.

“What?”

“I said she’s all yours.” Sunggyu repeated. “That girl…you like her right?”

Woohyun blinked. “Wait I thought you liked her…”

Now Sunggyu was getting aggravated. “No! I just told you I didn’t! I said she’s all yours!”

Woohyun scratched the back of his head. “…I…don’t understand…”

Sunggyu slapped a palm to his forehead in exasperation. “Why are you so stupid?! I just said—!”

“But I never said I liked Hyomin noona.” Woohyun added. Sunggyu sighed.

“Yes you never said it, but I used my awesome deductive reasoning skills and figured it out!” Sunggyu explained, but then pouted when Woohyun snorted.

“Awesome deductive reasoning skills?” He chuckled. “That’s funny…”

“What’s funny about it?” Sunggyu started getting defensive.

“I don’t like Hyomin noona.” Woohyun admitted.

“What? But then why were you acting…all weird before?” Sunggyu questioned and became even more confused when Woohyun looked down, seemingly embarrassed.

“It’s just that…” Woohyun started. “Hyung is my partner…and I don’t want you to be closer with the other officers than you are with me.”

“Uh…what?” Sunggyu asked, caught off guard. “You know we just met right?”

“Yeah I know…but if you like someone else more than me, than you won’t want to be with me as much…” Sunggyu was getting a sneaking suspicion that Woohyun couldn’t tell the difference between a work partner and a life partner.

“Look, you—.”

“Hyung do you like me?” Woohyun asked, his eyes sparkling with anticipation.

“W-what?” Sunggyu was getting flustered at this point with all Woohyun’s weird behavior. All he could think was that if this was the best officer in the department, then they were all kind of screwed. “Ok listen I’m going to be honest here. I don’t know you and you seem kind of weird so far so...” Sunggyu began.

“No I get it…sorry. I’ll back off. You can go to the front desk to request a transfer.” Woohyun nodded, solemnly and began to walk off when Sunggyu grabbed him by the wrist.

“Wait. Where’re you going? Just let me finish first…you’re so overdramatic.” Woohyun stared at him, confused. Sunggyu uncomfortably eyed the floor as he spoke. “I was saying since I don’t really know you that well, I can’t say whether I like you or not. I mean honestly can you say you like me when you barely—.”

“I like Hyung!” Woohyun cut him off.

“See? I—Wait what?! Don’t lie…before you said I was scary and that I’m not nice.” Sunggyu narrowed his eyes.

“Well yeah…” Woohyun chuckled. “That’s when I didn’t really know you.”

“And then two seconds later…” Sunggyu sighed.

“I just mean you wouldn’t be here still talking to me, if you weren’t nice.” Woohyun smiled. Sunggyu looked down and played with the end of his shirt, his face feeling a little too warm for comfort. “Ah now I get what Noona meant…” Sunggyu looked up and blushed.

“W-what? I-I’m not…” He stopped when he realized Woohyun was staring straight at him. 

“Really cute.” Woohyun grinned and laughed. “Well shall we finish our tour then?” Sunggyu grumbled and followed Woohyun. As they walked, they could hear some yelling coming from one of the rooms. Woohyun led Sunggyu to that room and opened the door to see a man, who was on the skinny side, with dark brown hair, cursing at the laptop in front of him. He was sitting in front of his desk and beside him was another desk, both of the cheap oak variety.

“I can’t believe this! This is just ridiculous!” The gangly man screeched.

“Sungyeol, this is my new partner, Sunggyu hyung.” Woohyun announced. “Come greet him.” Sungyeol looked up from his laptop at Sunggyu, then at Woohyun, and grinned. He got up and Sunggyu discovered that he was quite tall.

“Nice to meet you, Sunggyu hyung.” Sungyeol greeted. “I’m Lee Sungyeol.”

“Yeah nice meeting you too.” Sunggyu smiled back. At least this guy seemed fairly normal, except for the yelling at his computer. “Why were you yelling?”

“Oh that…they ran out of my favorite coffee beans.” The tall choding explained.

“You order coffee online?” Sunggyu asked.

“Of course! This is a special blend imported from South America! You can’t get it anywhere else!”

“I see…”

“Sungyeol shares this office with Sungjong, the really pretty guy you saw earlier with Hyomin noona.” Woohyun explained. Suddenly Sungyeol’s phone went off. He looked at it for a few seconds, before his eyes went wide and he his arms into the air.

“Hallelujah!” He shouted to the heavens and began leaping around like a deer in the midst of spring. “Gotta go! They started selling the beans at the café on 3^rd street!” He shouted and zoomed out of the office.

“What was that about?”

“He follows coffee on twitter, so he gets updates on where coffee is.” Woohyun said.

“He follows coffee…coffee has a twitter?” Sunggyu asked.

“Apparently…” Woohyun shrugged. They headed to the next office, just as a short blonde haired man was walking out of it.

“Hey Woohyun!” He greeted cheerfully and smiled.

“Dongwoo, this is my new partner Sunggyu-hyung.” Woohyun said.

“Hi I’m Jang Dongwoo! Nice to meet ya! What’s your favorite color? My favorite color is green! Do you like mammals or amphibians—?”

“Ok let’s go.” Woohyun said and began dragging Sunggyu away, as Dongwoo kept on babbling.

“But he’s still talking…”

“He’ll be fine.” Woohyun said and led the older man to another office. “Ok this is my office. Sorry it’s kind of cramped.”

Woohyun wasn’t lying. It was basically a cube shaped room with a desk similar to the one Sungyeol had with a laptop and a bunch of paperwork on it and an office chair beside it. There wasn’t anything else really, probably because there wouldn’t be anywhere to put it. Sunggyu already felt cramped with just him and Woohyun in the room.

“Just a second.” Woohyun said and disappeared from the cramped office. He returned with another office chair and rolled it into the tiny room. He patted the seat and smiled at Sunggyu. “For you.” As soon as Sunggyu sat down the chair collapsed, sending him to the floor in its demise. “Sorry about that…you ok?” Sunggyu noticed Woohyun holding back a smile. He ignored Woohyun’s helping hand and got up by himself, not forgetting to send a glare at the younger man.

“You did that on purpose didn’t you?” Sunggyu frowned.

“No! I swear I didn’t.” Woohyun waved his hands in front of him for evidence. Then he looked around, considering what to do next. “How about you sit on my chair ok?”

“Then where’ll you sit?” The chestnut haired man asked.

“Don’t worry about it.” Woohyun grinned and pushed Sunggyu toward his chair. Sunggyu had to admit, the chair was damn comfortable. It had a head rest and everything. He was about to relax when he noticed Woohyun haul himself up onto the desk right in front of Sunggyu.

“…What do you think you’re doing?” Sunggyu raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sitting.” Woohyun let his legs dangle off the desk and knock into Sunggyu’s.

“This…this is weird.”

“How? In what way?” Woohyun asked, even though he had an all knowing spark in his eye. Sunggyu stood up suddenly, but then realized that was a bad idea because he was a little too close to Woohyun. He was going to move when Woohyun grabbed his hands.

“W-what’re doing?”

“Hyung…your hands…”

“What? What about them?” Sunggyu asked, looking down at his own hands to see what happened to them.

“They’re really pretty…” Woohyun said softly, then looked up and smiled. Sunggyu hated himself for blushing. He pulled away from Woohyun and went to the other side of the room, turning away to hide his embarrassment.

“How can you say such a…” Sunggyu flustered about, then turned to Woohyun. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Hm? What do you mean?” Woohyun acted innocent, pissing Sunggyu off even more.

“Ugh just forget it…” Sunggyu sighed, “Anyways…are we really going to face off against zombies?”

“Ever heard of Zombie hill?”

“You mean that deserted village that’s near a graveyard?” Sunggyu asked.

Woohyun nodded. “Except it’s not actually deserted. Zombies live there. They even have their own little society. They’re actually pretty intelligent, but sometimes when a dead person rises and becomes a zombie, they get really confused and freak out and become a hazard to themselves and humans. Those are what we call rogue zombies.”

“So what do you do? Kill them?”

“No!” Woohyun frowned. “How could you say that…what we do is knock them out, and then transfer them to Zombie hill where they can live peacefully with the other zombies. See this?” Woohyun showed Sunggyu a vile of lime green liquid. “We inject this into their hearts to make them unconscious.”

“Ok, so how do I do that? Do I first have to fight them or…?

♦♦♦

“This is stupid…I thought we were supposed to be partners…” Sunggyu complained as he rested his hands on the steering wheel. He watched Woohyun exit the car and head off towards the forest. He stopped, looked back at Sunggyu and gave him a thumbs up. Sunggyu scoffed and looked away. Do I really have to sit here and do nothing?” He turned and asked Mi Seon who was sitting in the back seat. She didn’t even look up and continued doing whatever it was that she was doing on her phone. She was always forced to tag along to oversee new partnerships just to make sure everything went smoothly and that the partners get along well and are suitable for each other.

Sunggyu groaned and leaned back in his seat. Woohyun was still in view until he dived into a bush. “What is he even doing?” Sunggyu sighed, but then shot up in his seat, when he saw them.

The zombies.

They had an unappealing shade of Greenish brown skin. Some of them were missing eyeballs, and were messy combinations of exposed flesh, muscle, and bone. Their clothes were ripped and dirty, and they didn’t look too happy to see Woohyun, who by now escaped from behind the bush and was slashing a zombie’s head clear off its body with what looked like an ordinary kitchen knife. He shoved the headless body down and jammed the injection needle through its heart. The other zombies didn’t appear to like that and lunged for Woohyun.

Sunggyu turned to Mi Seon. “Shouldn’t we help him?” He asked her. She didn’t even look up. He made a face at her and turned back around to see Woohyun had knocked two zombies to the ground. Another zombie that grabbed onto Woohyun’s waist got its only good eye stabbed by Woohyun’s knife. It fell backward, just as Woohyun struck the needle injection into it. The other zombies started turning to escape, but Woohyun wouldn’t let them. He leapt on one’s back, pushing it down, while kicking another one to the side. He had a look in his eye that made him seem like more of a monster than the zombies. He finished up quite easily after that, knocking out all the rest of the zombies. He fished his cell phone out of his pocket made a call, then hung up and walked back to the car.

Sunggyu just stared, mouth agape, as Woohyun got into the passenger seat and grinned at Sunggyu.

“All done. I just called the transfer people. They should be here soon to move the bodies to Zombie hill.” He said, and wiped some dirt off his face. He looked down and frowned. “Aw man…I really liked this shirt. Hurry and drive us back to the office so I can wash it. Maybe I can get this stain off.”

♦♦♦

Sunggyu marched right up to Seungho’s desk.

“Oh Sunggyu…how’s working with Woohyun?” Seungho looked up.

“What the hell is he? Some kind of ninja assassin?! And why does somebody like that need a partner? He seemed perfectly capable of handling those zombies! There were like fifteen of them. And I’m pretty sure he took them all out using a kitchen knife…”

“Yeah…actually he is fully capable of handling any monsters himself.” Seungho nodded casually.

“Then why does he even need a partner?”

“Well that’s…you see Woohyun is…”

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OMG people actually subscribed! Thank you so much! There wasn't much action in this chapter...sorry about that, but I'm still trying to introduce the characters and such...

Celebrities in this chapter are Seungho from MBLAQ, Hyomin from T-ara, and Jeon Mi Seon, an actress.

Please comment <3