It had taken both Zinger and Hyosung to drag him up from the mat after Youngjae had ended up allowing himself to fall asleep. “C’mon, you can sleep while you’re getting your hair cut…” Hyosung whined.

“My god… for such a light weight, you’re heavy!” Zinger added with a huff, letting go of Youngjae’s arm and letting him flop back down to the ground with a small grunt.

“Are you calling me fat?” Youngjae mumbled as he pushed himself up, rubbing at his tired eyes as he accepted Hyosung’s offered hand in assistance on getting up off the floor.

“No… Of course not… Just implying that you have a very squishy tummy is all.”

Youngjae blushed, tugging his shirt down subconsciously as he pouted. He let out a whining sound as Zinger pinched his pink tinted cheek with a giggle before she and Hyosung grabbed his wrists.

“Since you took that nap, you’ll have to eat while you’re getting your hair fixed.”

A sigh passed Youngjae’s lips as he followed Zinger and Hyosung down to one of the empty conference rooms. All of the chairs except for one had been stacked into the far corner and the heavy, long wooden table was pushed up against the wall to create a makeshift vanity counter. A mirror was propped up in the center, and various cosmetics and different scissors and razors littered the rest of the table top.

Biting his lip nervously, he looked around the seemingly empty conference room/makeshift salon. He scolded himself as he jumped slightly as Zinger placed a hand on his arm, “Don’t look so panicked, Youngjae! It’s just a hair cut… It’s not like it won’t grow back out…”

Hyosung nodded in agreement, “It’ll turn out good, I promise, Jae!” The girls pulled him over to the seat just as the door behind them opened; a girl with curly brown hair came in, all but beaming with happiness.

“Ah! Finally, I knew one day you guys would call me in to give someone a makeover…” She practically bounced over, pushing down on Youngjae’s shoulders to make him sit down, “Tell me... what are we going for… Nerdy… Jock… average guy… oh… can I dye his hair blue?”

Youngjae stared at her with wide eyes through the mirror positioned in front of him, “W...what?” He stuttered, trying to keep up with the accented dialect in which she spoke in.

“No, you can’t dye it blue, Sunhwa!” Zinger scolded as the girl, Sunhwa, ran her fingers through Youngjae’s light blonde locks.

“Fine, just take all the fun away from me, Zinger.” Sunhwa said with a pout before she studied Youngjae’s hair, “What’s the look we are going for though?” She said, growing a bit more serious as she grabbed a spray bottle and began to wet Youngjae’s hair with it.

“He’s going undercover into a gang.” Hyosung supplied, to which Sunhwa nodded before making eye contact with Youngjae through the mirror.

“Anything that you absolutely do not want?” She asked with a grin.

“Blue hair?”

The whole time that Sunhwa was working, Youngjae was forced to face the opposite, mirror less wall with only his imagination to supply what could she could be possibly doing to his hair. His head defiantly felt lighter, that was for sure. He began to grow nervous as he heard the buzz of hair clippers and the feeling of it sliding along the sides of his head where his once blonde locks hung.

“Uhm… Sunhwa… it’s… not to short, right?” Youngjae asked nervously, trying to reach up and feel the length once more before his hand was smacked with the back side of a brush for probably the tenth time already.

“Like I told you earlier, I’ll let you see when it’s done, okay?” She said in the odd accent once more.

Youngjae pursed his lips as Sunhwa started working on point cutting his hair. “Where are you from, anyways?”

“Busan.” Sunhwa said with a grin as she pushed Youngjae’s head to the side a little bit to get better access to different layers she was working on.  “Is the accent really that bad?”

Youngjae smiled, “No, not at all.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Okay, yeah, just a little bit… but, I think it’s cute.”

Sunhwa let out a little giggle as she pinched Youngjae’s cheeks, “You’re too sweet, Youngjae. It’s going to get you killed in this line of business, you know that?”

Youngjae puffed out his cheeks, “Thanks for the boost of confidence.”

“No problem!” Sunhwa turned away from where Youngjae was sitting, grabbing a glass bowl from the table and starting to mix the hair dye into it.

“Hey, wait, you promise it’s not going to be blue, right?” As predicted, the back of the hairbrush popped him in the head.

If he hadn’t bleached his hair so many times already, the itch on his scalp from the hair dye would have been annoying. Of course, having a distraction from the slight burn of the chemicals so close to the skin of his scalp was also a big helped.

The distraction came from a bundle of energy that called himself Kwanghee and insisted that in just the time it took Youngjae’s hair dye to set, he could teach the other how to act like a real gangster. The impromptu acting classes included quite a lot of laughter inducing facial expressions to the point that Sunhwa actually had to leave the room to catch her breath, leaving the two boys to continue with their ‘class’.

“Okay, and what you’ll really need to control is that whole… nice guy vibe. I mean, maybe you could get it to work for you, but… You need to tone it down nonetheless. Otherwise, those thugs are going to walk all over you.” Kwanghee said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. “Keep your expression serious, your eyes fierce. Don’t let them intimidate you, okay?

Youngjae nodded a little.

“Okay, good, now give me your best mean face…… Youngjae, you look constipated.”

Youngjae let out an exasperated sigh, “Gee, thanks!”

“See! That’s better! You do annoyed good. Your sarcasm could use a bit more edge, but, that’s a good start! Next time, try rolling your eyes too, just a little for dramatic effects.”

Sunhwa peaked her head back in the door, “Are you guys done playing around now?” She asked with a grin as she leaned farther in, “It’s time to rinse that dye out, then I need to style it a bit more before Jieun wants to talk to you.”

Youngjae gave Sunhwa a quick nod, getting up to follow her to rinse out the hair dye.

Jieun looked up from the stack of paperwork she was going through as someone knocked lightly on the door. “Come in.” She called, looking back at the paperwork. The door slammed with a loud click before the chair in front of her desk was yanked back, the wood scrapping against the ground as someone flopped into it rather roughly. Jieun looked up slowly, taking in the sight of the young man slouched down in the seat in front of her, his hair was shorter on the sides and back compared to the top, which was stylishly messy. The once soft blonde was replaced by a darker, dirtier sort of blonde, almost a borderline brown.  He slowly turned his gaze to her, his eyes darkened with what seemed to be a mix of annoyance and boredom as he raised an eyebrow.

“What?” he snapped.

A smile slowly spread on Jieun’s lips, “Very nice, Youngjae…” She said giving him a little bit of a clap as the boy quickly fell out of character.

“Kwanghee told me to come in like that… was it okay?” he asked.

“It was great, Youngjae… “ Jieun said with a nod of approval  “Now, I know today has been really busy, and you are probably sore and just want to take a few days to relax, but… We are so close to slipping you in Youngjae, that… I’m afraid that today will be your last day.”

Youngjae stared wide eyed at Jieun, “W... what do you mean?”

“I need you to take on your new life, Youngjae. I’ve gathered together the last little details that you may need to know into this,” She handed a small stack of papers over to Youngjae, “but, the second you walk out of this building… We will all cease to know you. It’s important for you to remember this, as… Even if you see one of us in the streets, you are not so much as allowed to make eye contact with us. It could blow everything we have worked so hard on, you understand, right?”

Youngjae nodded numbly, reading over the first few sentences on the top most paper, “What… what about my apartment?”

“Jihoon said that he’d take care of it while you were undercover, but, you are forbidden from going back to it.”

Youngjae bit his lip, “W…What about P.O?”

“You can say goodbye to him tonight. I know it’s going to be tough, but… Even though you won’t see us, and we won’t be able to communicate… Youngjae, I want you to remember that we have your back.”

Youngjae nodded. “How will I know what to do if I even make it into the gang?”

“Don’t worry about that, Youngjae. We just need you to make it in; we’ll handle the rest from there, okay? Befriend them… be you and let them let you in. Build a friendship with each of them and just, go along with their plans. We will take care of everything else.” Jieun smiled, standing up and signaling Youngjae to do the same. She held out her hand, “You are truly a brave person for accepting this sort of high risk mission without the proper experience to fully understand what you are getting into.” She said as she shook his hand.

“… Is that supposed to be a compliment? Because it sure didn’t sound like one.”

Jieun laughed lightly, “Go on, go talk to P.O before you leave… he’s down in conference room number 3.”

Youngjae nodded, bowing lightly to Jieun, “Thanks… I… I’ll try not to let you guys down.” He turned, leaving the office. He had only made it halfway to conference room number 3 when a call of his name stopped him. He glanced back as Minhyuk ran up to him, slightly out of breath.

“There you are Youngjae… I’ve been looking all over for you… Must have passed you like, ten times… barely recognized you.”

Youngjae rubbed the back of his neck, offering the other a light smile, “Y...yeah… it’s… different, right?”

Minhyuk nodded, “Yeah, but… look… I want to apologize about the other day. It’s… really cool of you to step up to the plate like this.” He said, before sighing, “Look. It’s not going to be easy, going under cover like this… and… I want you to have this…” He pulled out a cloth wrapped object, shoving it into Youngjae’s hands. “It’s a knife… a good one at that, it’s gotten me out of a lot of tough spots and, I think it’ll be best with you. For luck, you know?”

Youngjae carefully pealed back the cloth layers to expose the gleaming switchblade knife. The handle, although clean and polished, showed signs of wear with knicks and scratches lightly covering the shining metal. Youngjae carefully opened the knife, noticing the blade to be in near perfect condition except for a small knick right near the tip of the blade.

“It’s a bit worn down… but, just, when you look at it, just remember, each scratch represents a time that I almost didn’t make it back, but I fought through… and I stand here today.”

Youngjae pointed to the tip of the blade, “Does this one have a story.”

Minhyuk nodded, “That was from my first undercover mission…”

“What happened?”

“How about this…” Minhyuk started, taking the knife from Youngjae’s hand and folding it closed before putting it in the others pocket, “When you make it back in one piece, I’ll tell you the story. But for now… I’m pretty sure P.O is looking for you… He told me something about him having bought you dinner?” Minhyuk laughed at Youngjae’s surprised expression before shooing the boy along, “Yah, Youngjae!” he shouted before Youngjae rounded the corner, “We’ll always have your back, okay?”

Youngjae nodded, a genuine smile gracing his lips as he hurried off to find his best friend. Sure enough, he found P.O in conference room number 3 with enough takeout food from a variety of places to feed a small army.

“I never pay for dinner… so…. I got all your favorites.” He admitted as Youngjae looked around in wonder. He smiled a little, “Figured you’d want to eat things you love while going over the boring paperwork…” he said, motioning to the small stack of papers still clutched in Youngjae’s hands.

Youngjae nodded a little, sitting with P.O as they began to dig in, the amount of activity having gone on in that 24 hour period made for a great appetite as Youngjae all but inhaled the food as he and P.O went over the facts typed up neatly on the white paper, poking fun at it and joking while pretending that nothing was wrong. Youngjae didn’t comment on the fact that he didn’t even know how long he’d be gone for, and P.O didn’t voice the loneliness that was already beginning to seep into his chest even with his best friend sitting right there with him.

They enjoyed the moment for what it was and didn’t take even a second for granted, passing the unspoken words of a simple goodbye with each glance and touch.

Youngjae had managed to stretch out the meal with P.O for as long as possible, the food having long since gone cold by the time they decided that they honestly couldn’t eat anymore. He wished that he could have stayed in his best friends company for the next life time, but, he knew it was time to go. He knew if he kept putting it off and delaying, he’d never leave, and so with that, he finally voiced a final goodbye to P.O, hugging the other tightly as he promised to make it back in one piece ‘even if it killed him’, he joked.

The sun had long since set, dropping the outside temperature and clearing the outside sidewalk of the usual hustle and bustle of city life. His breath fogged up the clear glass as he stared out at the dark street with its occasional car or taxi passing by.

This was it.

His name may have still been Yoo Youngjae, but, in a short, 24 hour period, he felt like someone completely different. It was both exhilarating and terrifying. He knew that as soon as he crossed over the thresh hold of the office he considered to be his second home, his past would be deleted, erased from history and never to be brought up again. Yet, his future held so much more, this was his chance, he could be someone he never dreamed of ever being. He didn’t have to take into consideration what others would think about him because it was simple… They didn’t know him.

A small smirk of sorts crossed Youngjae’s lips as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath… and shoved the door open. With his head held high, he walked with a new purpose, a new confidence in his step as he headed in the direction of his new life.

If parts don't make sense, or there are any major mistakes, I'm sorry. I twisted my ankle today and I really shouldn't be allowed to try and type when on any sort of pain medication. D:

So much packed into one chapter, I feel like I jumped around to much, but... oh well. We have the begining of Youngjae's transformation... Physical changes can only do so much, just remember that~.

I hope you guys are still enjoying the story~! I work weekends, so, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to update between now and Monday (because my hours are litterally 10 hour shifts and I don't get home till almost 11pm. But, if I can't update this weekend, I'll defiantly get on it on Monday and get chapter 5 up.

Lots of Love,

Lynn