xv. First Contact

How many days had it been? How many days since Zico started up his training again? Three? Four? Seven? Judging from the date on your calendar that read March 15, it had been five. Five days since the bruises started to form and four days since the soreness started settling in. You were tired and as a result quite lethargic as you yawned widely, exiting the building you had entered two hours ago. You had to go to school now from here, the library.

Now that your afternoons were filled with snow trekking and mountain hiking, at least that's what it felt like, your mornings were the only time you were able to sit down and do your homework. Most importantly though, it was the only time you could study for your upcoming midterms which were next week. That's right, a mere five days away starting on Monday with the dreaded history exam with your homeroom teacher who hated your guts.

Why are you taking them so late? School was kept in winter break due to a snowstorm that blew through early January. Three weeks extra of vacation and three weeks extra of the school year to endure. You were fine with it though. You weren’t bad in school. Behaviorally, you knew you would not be looked upon favorably but academically, you were passing everything with flying colors. Not that you could say as much about Ricky for whom mathematics was the heavy anchor tethering his boat in the middle of a vast ocean. In less metaphorical words, it was definitely not his best subject. Niel was doing well and trying to help him but, judging from the amount of time they have had to put into studying every night, he hasn't been getting much better all too quickly.

You wanted to help them. You truly did. But, you had tried talking to Zico about letting you off only to be dissuaded from it not by the leader himself but from another leader, from Sunggyu. Sunggyu who saw the training as helpful and even said he'd get in on it tomorrow. Or was it today? You honestly couldn't remember. All the days blurred together now.

Your phone rung, drawing out of your thoughts and causing you to stop right where you stood to answer it. You didn't want to turn the sidewalk into your own personal slip and slide due to the melting ice that coated it. While you didn't intend to, you ended up blocking someone as you stopped. Someone who bumped into you from your left due to you having stopped right in front of the entrance to the library.

"Sorry." You apologized immediately, realizing your fault and allowing yourself to take the blame without a second thought. You continued walking forward, answering your phone as you walked slowly to your car, praying you didn't slip and end up sliding there instead, "Hello? What's up, Sungjong?"

The male on the other side replied in a high-pitched tone, "Hyunjoo! Don't forget you promised to eat breakfast with me and Sungyeol at school today!"

"I didn't forget." You mumbled, diverting your eyes as though he would be there to read the guilt you so obviously displayed through them. You had forgotten. You had forgotten completely. Sungjong sighed through the receiver, picking up on the shame ridden tone you had used, and rather than continue to pretend you didn't forget in the least, you ended up giving into him, "Alright, I did. But, I'm on my way there now." You spared a laugh at the end, hoping it would lessen the lecture he would proceed to give you. But, he didn't lecture you. Instead, another sigh could be heard through the static.

"Just hurry up and get here. I want to see you before class starts." Sungjong mumbled lowly, displeased that breakfast would only last twenty minutes judging from how far the place he knew you were at right now was.

If this had been the past, you would have let out a confused, "You saw me yesterday." Instead, another laugh escaped your lips, "On my way."

And with that, you walked to your car carefully but, at the same time, as swiftly as you could so that you could go to the person who wanted to see you right at this very moment, Lee Sungjong.

But, this does not end so simply, no. Someone was listening. Listening in on every word that passed between you and the person on the phone with you. Someone who recognized from the sound of your voice that you were the person whose face he had yet to behold. Whose picture he so torturously asked the woman named Sunny for over and over. You were Song Hyunjoo, as though the utterance of your name during your conversation did not give you away.

The young man who had bumped into you, merely looking for a safe haven so as to escape the sight of those who watched over him while he was here in Springfield, those people remaining unnamed but infamously known never the less, had found you. And like Christopher Columbus who claimed he "discovered" the Americas, he had discovered you.

And he was intent on surveying what this new world had to offer before getting his hands dirty.

Step one was to be here tomorrow to do just that.

“Hyunjoo.”

You stopped mid-chew of your lunch and looked to Niel who had called out to you. He was looking at you with a rather perplexing expression, making you unable to figure out the silent message he was trying to send.

“You know I’m not good at picking up hints, Niel.” You frowned, completely unaware or rather completely unfazed by the attention you were getting. Why would you be garnering attention? Well, you naturally did without much of a hassle but today in particular, the whispers and murmurs around the classroom were about you and the three people besides your close friends Ricky and Niel who crowded around your desk this lunch period.

Ricky had had enough of it and spun around in his seat, glaring down all of the wandering eyes that were focused on the group of you, “What are you looking at?” His upper lip curled as he flared his nostrils at them, an action that was successful in stopping the stares.

“Oh, that.” You nodded your head, only now getting why Niel had looked at you with wide, insinuating eyes earlier. “Sorry about that.”

“We’re used to it, it’s just that,” Niel paused, groaning in frustration as he reached up, tugging at the back of his hair because he wasn’t sure how to phrase his next words. In the end, he gave up and decided to go ahead and say it, “If this is going to be an everyday thing, we should really find somewhere else to eat lunch.” By this, he referred to eating lunch with Sungyeol, Woohyun, and Sungjong in tow.

You nodded again, understanding completely. But, you didn’t have much of an idea of where else they could go. “Where would we go though?”

“Yeah, this isn’t going to work since Dongwoo and Hoya will be eating with us tomorrow.” Woohyun’s words surprised Ricky, whose mouth fell agape at the thought of not just three but five of them being there. Niel saw Ricky’s look of shock and reached across the desk, putting his hand under his chin and pushing it back up, closing his mouth.

“There’s always the gym.” Sungjong suggested, only to get nudged hard by Sungyeol to his right.

“You’re kidding, right? That place is freezing in the winter time.” Sungyeol had heard it was anyway, his own body not at all affected by the cold weather recently, and he wasn’t going to subject you to that.

“It sounds fine. There’s more room there too.” You backed up Sungjong’s claim, causing him to stick out his tongue at Sungyeol right after.

“I’ll bring blankets tomorrow.” Niel added, getting curious looks all around, “I’m not going to be freezing my off in the gym, thank you very much.” He chewed down on his sandwich nonchalantly; settling on the idea no matter how hard Ricky promptly kicked him under the desk for it.

And then, at the sound of a certain someone’s voice, Niel almost choked.

“Did I come in at a bad time?”

Your eyes widened as you grabbed onto his drink, opening and handing it to him, “You okay?”

Who was the person who had surprised Niel into almost dying and had caused a large, conniving smile to appear on Ricky’s face? That person would be Yura, the object of Niel’s affection. The oblivious object of Niel’s affection as in school, he had only talked to her on two occasions that Ricky would always about.

The first occasion, Niel had walked into the girl’s bathroom on accident and she was there washing her hands. The conversation was his panicky, “I’m sorry,” followed by her calm, “It’s okay,” before he went running out like a five year old who finally understood what it meant to bath in the woman’s bath.

The second occasion, Niel was discussing the topic of academia with his teacher in the faculty office after arguing with Ricky who wouldn’t stop joking about how it sounded like the word macadamia as in macadamia nuts. His friend’s words, like a virus, infected him and from his mouth came the word macadamia instead. Lucky for him, or rather unluckily for him, Yura was there helping her English teacher and she corrected him, “Do you mean academia?” He responded with an utterly embarrassed, “Right, academia,” as he cursed Ricky in his mind.

Those were the only two times they had said anything to each other in school. Out of school was no better, a simple hello and goodbye being exchanged during the Mayor’s events. But, Niel watched her often and rarely had he been so close to her, a reason he diverted his eyes as Yura turned her own to Woohyun by your side.

“Ms. Kim is asking for you. It’s about graduation.”

“Graduation? What about?” Woohyun answered, throwing you a look before standing from his seat reluctantly. He didn’t want to leave so soon.

“She wouldn’t say.” Yura answered back, her eyebrow rising as you caught the smile Ricky was giving her. She looked away, not sure why he was seemed to be laughing at her silently.

That’s right, you had almost forgotten. Graduation wasn’t far from now. There was just the rest of March, April, and then May. Then, Hoya, Woohyun, and Dongwoo would be graduating. It was so close. What would happen after that? When in your last year of high school with Ricky and Niel, would you also be with Sungyeol, Sungjong, and Myungsoo? Would you be in Myungsoo’s homeroom again? Nothing seemed certain.

But, that only made you want to make sure it would be. That you would be with them on that day in August after summer break went by and you would have turned eighteen already in June. You felt like you would be able to make it happen. Much more than you would have if someone had asked you not even two days ago. Now that you were facing things head on fully, facing everything, you were more confident in the things you could do.

One of those things being the training session you had with Zico after school today.

“Why’d you do it?”

Hyosung paused on her way up the stairs, turning back around to look down at the person who had posed to her that question. It was a woman with golden, brown hair who smelt of vanilla, Zinger.

“Why’d you let him go so easily?” Zinger knew Hyosung. She knew exactly what kind of person their leader was. Implacable. Ensconcing behind her commanding façade a mind that worked a mile a minute. Perhaps even faster. However, more than anything, she was prudent and sensible. Hyosung had her wits about her. She wouldn’t so willingly give up such easy prey, “Don’t say it’s because you weren’t enjoying the kill. Save that excuse for Sunhwa and Jieun who don’t care for explanations or common sense. I want to know why you really did it. Honestly, why did you let the werewolf leader go?”

“Honestly,” Hyosung started, much to the displeasure of Zinger whom knew from the heavy-lidded stare she was getting that she wouldn’t be getting much at all. Hyosung was going to meander past the truth again. She was going to tip toe past it, pretending it didn’t exist. But, Hyosung figured if not now, Zinger would find out later. And if Zinger found out later why she let Zico go, she most likely wouldn’t take it as well than she would if she heard it now.

So, Hyosung’s gaze turned serious now that she had decided she would reveal the reasoning behind her actions, “I wanted to see where things would go from here. Those elitist dogs are experiencing a fraction in their ranks and I for one am looking forward to seeing how that plays out a while longer.” Hyosung paused, her lips curving into a wry smile, “Just a little while longer.”

“I didn’t think it was important enough to mention.”

“Not important enough to mention? You must be joking!”

Sunny guffawed at the serious look on Soryong’s face. He actually seemed as though he were getting angry. As though he were actually mad that she had kept her real assignment here in Springfield in the dark until now. She turned to Daeryong whose feet were kicked up on the coffee table, his arms stretched out as they rested on the back of the couch.

“He’s the one who’s joking, right?” She let out another laugh, utter disbelief that they would pull such a prank on her. Except, it wasn’t a prank. And she learned that it wasn’t as Daeryong answered her, his voice a low, guttural growl.

“Does it look like we’re joking right now?”

His eyes peered up at her from beneath his fringe, a dark haze covering them. They didn’t seem angry, Daeryong and Soryong were, in fact, angry. And this caused her to grow angry as well.

“You both told me you wouldn’t interfere. You told me that. If you’re going back on your words now, if you’re going against our code now, I won’t simply overlook it again.” The atmosphere in the room got colder, Sunny not at all doing what her named implied. She had brought the eye of the storm to Springfield. She had brought him, the person who could begin to escalate things if he did find you. If he did indeed make contact with you.

Around him swirled a ferocious and unforgiving tornedo that if allowed to go about it’s own way, would bring upon them a series of events that, once put into motion, would be unstoppable. And the two brothers had been working against that before Sunny arrived, working to stall things as long as they could while they tried to think of a solution to it all. So this, the utterance from Sunny’s lips that she had lost track of him, in town and let him wander around, was nowhere near good news. In fact, it boded bad news for Snow White and her fourteen dwarves.

In the end, Soryong sighed, giving into his heritage, what he had grown up into, once more as he walked past Sunny, disregarding her, “Just get him under control before we have to do it ourselves.”

Daeryong stood up as well, also choosing to exit the room, done with the entire situation, “And we won’t be so nice about it.”

You watched on in silence as Myungsoo shifted his feet in the snow, weaving his legs this way and that as though in a trance, dancing to music only he could hear. Though, in reality, the only accompaniment his dance had was the popping sound of bullets being shot.

Zico was the one doing the shooting, the bullets in his gun not Wolfsbane filled but not fake rubber either. This was the reason you weren’t partaking in this specific training session today. The two were practicing. They were practicing how to dodge bullets as well as Sungjong and U-kwon could. Myungsoo wasn’t fast but he was observant. He predicted where Zico would shoot next, where the bullet would go cutting through the air. The result was his lithe body swaying this way and that.

But, he seemed upset about something. Conflicted about something. Something you couldn’t pick up on. You knew that he, B-bomb, and Woohyun had encountered three hunters that night Hoya, Sungyeol, Sungjong, and U-kwon came to pick up Dongwoo from her house. And since then, he had been making it a point to not miss a single one of the training days that you had with Zico. You could only wonder what was wrong with nothing really concise or concrete to go on except his ever unreadable facial expressions. You hadn’t even had a decent conversation with him since he got you into “trouble.”

“Bored?”

You flinched, much more immersed in watching Myungsoo than you knew you were, at the sound of Jiyeon’s voice. Jiyeon laughed as she leaned against the tree right beside you, “Too bad everyone else wanted to scout today.” Jiyeon mumbled, her thoughts going to a certain single werewolf that she wasn’t able to see this afternoon because of that.

You nodded, your thoughts wandering once more as you turned back to the scene in front of your. Jiyeon sighed and faced forward, her hands in her pockets when she suddenly had an idea. An idea that sprung from remembering the argument she had with Jaehyo and Kyung this morning. She turned to you again, gripping the sides of your face with her hands and yanking your head around to face her.

“What?” You asked, your voice a muddled mumble due to her hold on your cheeks that puckered your lips together. 

“What do you say to a two versus two tomorrow? You and me versus Kyung and Jaehyo.” Little did you know, she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. 

You would have been stupid not to notice. Not to notice what? The plain as day, so obvious it baffled you, staring of the male seated in front of you. He had been there for around an hour now. Sitting there at the other side of the table, adjacent from where you now sat in the quiet library. Quiet except for the every so often flipping of pages as you studied for your spring midterms. Had you done anything to garner the unwanted attention of his feline like eyes that studied you as though he were entertaining himself in a game of cat and mouse? Not particularly. He just sat down out of nowhere and had been there since. Not a single book lay in front of him. Not a single thing preoccupied him but the act of boring holes into your head.

You were going to ignore it, to pretend you didn’t notice. But, once you reached that hour mark, you got annoyed with it. You became annoyed only not due to the staring but that plus the expectant look on his face.

He looked like he wanted to say something and was simply waiting for you to acknowledge him. To acknowledge his presence and allow yourself to know his true purpose. You weren’t going to give him what he so noticeably wanted but after an hour, who could blame you for doing so? Not your conscience which was utterly clear at this point as you flipped to the next page of your notebook and ripped the corner off, writing onto it a sentence that despite being short, you believed would be effective in conveying your message.

Then, you didn’t bother folding it in half as you slid it towards him, not looking up so as to take a better look at his features. You didn’t care much for what he looked like. All you could see were those eyes of his. Those sharp eyes that seemed to hold behind them more questions than answers. You weren’t interested in his other facial features as you were more than convinced you would turn down the opportunity to even begin to delve into inquiry.

That’s what you thought but as a hand reached out, passing the note right back to you before pulling away, what you read caused your eyes to go lifting upwards. There was something powerful about it. Something commanding about his appearance. In one word, to you, he was attractive. Good-looking. But, you knew fourteen other good-looking men, though perhaps “men” was not the right word. Still, he caught your attention. He caught your attention with the flittering of his eyelashes that held behind them an intent he so surreptitiously hid. He caught your attention with the quirking of his lips into not a smile but instead a scowl, one that edged you on. But most of all, he caught your attention with what he had written back to you on that note you thought would end the encounter then and there.

A note you had written to him that said, Stop staring.

Below that in penned cursive were words that extended your message, making it his own.

Stop staring at me staring.

“I’m studying.” You explained, as though that would somehow stir this mysterious man to leave. He didn’t, and you somehow knew it wouldn’t. The familiarity with which you felt as he sat there and the normality of the situation was jarring to you. So much so you simply let yourself embrace it.

“I know.” He said in reply, his voice a low whisper as he took note of the atmosphere enveloping the two of you that was the library, “I’ve been watching.”

“Who are you?” You narrowed your eyes at him, the consequences of what it meant to ask your question, of what it meant to know who he was, a mere afterthought.

He seemed to like that question. Why wouldn’t he? It was what he had been waiting for all this time. As he answered, you caught the lilt in his voice, his tone and accent marking itself in your mind and engraining itself there in your memory, “The creepy teenage guy in the library that stares at a girl for an hour just to have her pay the slightest inkling of attention to him.”

“No,” you shook your head, your eyes still blankly lingering on his as you disregarded his sly joke, “Your name. What's your name?”

His voice sang it out, his name. It sang it out so reverberantly that it must have gotten the librarian’s attention. Despite it being a whisper, you heard it all the same. You heard it all the same as you felt like his voice conquered the quiet with such authority that the librarian herself did not attempt to stop him, “Cha Hakyeon.”

This Cha Hakyeon character, this mysterious man with gray dyed hair and eyes that seemed to shine gold in that instant in which he revealed his name to you, was dangerous. The kind of dangerous that you questioned only briefly. Only briefly before you drew your eyes away from him and settled them back down onto your notebook, going back to your studies. And Cha Hakyeon sat there the entire time, watching you as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

And this began the first of many encounters with the male named Cha Hakyeon. 

A/N:

Cha Hakyeon. For those of you who don't know, before you resort to using Google (everyone's best friend), that is the real name of VIXX's N. Can you blame me for using him? Can you blame me for using him when he added so much more to the plot that you just don't even know about yet? I don't think you can. Can you blame me for making some of you freak out that he's here? Yes. Yes you can. I take all the blame on that one. 

I would like to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day! (no matter how late it is.) Anyone else out there forever alone by choice? Or is that just something we forever aloners say to make ourselves feel better? Don't worry, I'll be your Valentine guys! Even if you had one already, I push them out of the way and give you all of my love! 

Ahem, confessions and chocolates and flowers aside, there is indeed a fight scene in the next chapter! Hip Hip Hooray for that! Jiyeon & Hyunjoo VS. Kyung & Jaehyo. Won't that be interesting? 

The real question is, are N's intentions good or are they bad? 

For now, who knows.

(I do. I know. kekeke)