Author's Note: Please be warned that this chapter involves a fair bit a swearing and some descriptions of violence. Nothing too gratuitous, but if you're easily offended, then...well. 

Also, thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read this, and an extra thanks to those who've subscribed.

The garage was not, per se, an ideal place for one with injuries to rest. It was loud throughout the day, busy, and the couch was, to be quite honest, becoming a bit lumpy after years of abuse. Regardless, YongGuk would not have it any other way. He would not burden HimChan further by staying at his place, but could not bear to endure the emptiness of his own apartment—the only place left was the garage.

After all, injuries aside, he still had lots of work to be done—catching up on long-overdue paperwork, for example. A daunting task, considering the amount. A necessity, too, if he hoped to keep his barely legal business open. Leaning back on the couch—stiffly, to keep from jostling his still-healing bruises—YongGuk stared at the neatly arranged piles of papers and folders on the coffee table.

Everyone had been unable to hide their surprise when YongGuk had taken on the task, to which he'd grumbled, "aish, ungrateful kids," before starting. By now, the majority of the paperwork had been completed, ready to be mailed to the correct agencies. He was, he'd decided, due for a bit of a break.

As he shifted in his seat, YongGuk felt for the knife in his pocket. He slipped it out, holding it up to the light as if to inspect it. Nothing had changed except that YongGuk had painstakingly cleaned the blood off, careful to prevent the knife from becoming rusted or damaged. It was a simple thing, with the blade on one hinge, hidden in the varnished wooden handle. The branding, having been engraved into the wood, had long since worn off, leaving only uneven impressions in its wake.

He'd been perhaps a bit too optimistic to have thought the knife would lead him anywhere. YongGuk was not yet able to move around, anywhere beyond the loft in the garage; if he was, then he would have returned to the park, hoping that perhaps the girl might have returned.

YongGuk couldn't quite explain his curiosity, only knowing that it was exactly that; curiosity. He had a few guesses about the girl's identity, but nothing beyond that. As for her motivation? He had absolutely nothing. He understood decency and compassion enough, but to go out of one's way, to throw oneself into what could have been a dangerous situation like that, for a stranger—that made no sense to him.

He heaved a sigh, leaning back onto the couch as much as his injuries would allow him. YongGuk had more to worry about than this girl: his business and all that it entailed, his friends' wellbeing. Example for the night: he worried about the fact that JunHong was here instead of having dinner with is parents. There was little food here, leftover pizza, some kimchi and chips and snacks but nothing that was good for a growing boy.

What bothered him even more, though, was that despite its shortcomings, this garage was a much better environment for the teenager than his own home. YongGuk was certain that his parents had long forgotten they had a son.

YongGuk supposed that the constant clamber of JunHong—or Zelo, as they all came to call him—working on the SUV was almost therapeutic. He had company on most nights; at least one of the boys tended to stay behind, occupying YongGuk's waking hours with work, or video games until both fell asleep. He was grateful for that, the presence of someone.

The clamber, though, was suddenly joined by something much louder, something that sounded more urgent. Warily, he lifted himself off the couch and sauntered down the spiral stairs. The garage had been closed for hours, now, and clients usually called before they came for anything. It was new, and it was worrisome. As he made it to the main floor, it seemed that JunHong had just noticed the additional noise, pushing himself from beneath the raised vehicle.

"Who is it, hyung?" Unconsciously, the teenager brushed a hand over his cheek as if it wipe away some dirt and grease. Despite himself, YongGuk chuckled when the action only added another streak of black to the boy's face.

"Not sure." YongGuk's voice had been reduced to a near-growl, the unease growing as he inched toward the garage entrance. There were no voices, just the urgency of fist against corrugated metal and an echo that shook him. "JunHong-ah, why don't you...just go to the office." He didn't want to scare the kid, especially when he had little idea of what was going to happen, but he needed JunHong to be alert.

Zelo didn't need to be told what was happening; he could hear the fear in YongGuk's voice, in the way he called him by his real name and not their affectionate nickname for him. His fingers closed around a wrench, sitting atop the worn toolbox next to him. It wouldn't do much, but the weight and coolness in his hand was a minor comfort. Slowly, he backed into the disused office, his eyes never moving from YongGuk as the older man moved toward the garage door.

"We're closed," YongGuk announced over the banging, his voice steady and confident despite the fear that knotted his throat.

"D'ya think we give a ? Open up." The voice was gruff, obnoxiously loud but clearly threatening. YongGuk paused, listening for everything else; how many people there were, what weapons they might have had.

Guns were not common among the lower criminals of Jjiluldo; bats, crowbars, brass knuckles, pocketknives were more accessible and the people wielding them have learned to make them so much more dangerous. The patrons of his humble garage were not of the most honest calibre; many were ers, teenage runaways who couldn't afford a legitimate repair place for their stolen vehicles, minor drug dealers and pimps—people who would, in fact, choose bludgeons and brute force over guns.

YongGuk wasn't sure which one he preferred.

Just in case, YongGuk stood at the side before raising the shutters, so that he might have some hope of avoiding an outright massacre by standing right in front of them. The men that met him were gruff, with rigid postures and haggard faces—and no bludgeons.

They were hidden, but YongGuk knew that they had guns. This was not the sort of group to walk around the less-than-savory part of town unarmed.

His face remained passive as he regarded them, though his heart hammered wildly against his ribs—still bruised, by the way. "We're closed," he repeated, voice dropping to a growl once more.

The men didn't look at him, didn't speak to him, instead only looking around the place, searching. YongGuk's brows knitted together; he had no idea for what they were searching, no idea who these people were and why they thought that he had what they wanted. "That car." One of them nodded to the SUV under which Zelo had been working just moments ago. "Whose is it?"

YongGuk didn't keep the confusion from showing on his face. "I don't know. He said he'd pick it up by the end of the week." It was the bare truth; they didn't keep contact information here. No names, no phone numbers, no way for any of his clients to be traced from this garage. YongGuk's business was legal, almost everything he did was legal, but the same definitely could not be said for his clients. Keeping those contacts closed not only ensured that the clients might return, but that he would be keeping out of both sides of the law.

The man's arm shot out, fingers closing around the front of YongGuk's shirt. "Don't with me, kid. You and I both know who that car belongs to."

Setting his jaw, YongGuk closed his hand around the man's fist, prying the fingers off his shirt. "Good for you if you do, but I don't." He should have seen the response coming, but YongGuk didn't have time to prepare for the man's other fist coming toward his face, knuckles colliding with his jaw. The hand released his shirt, and YongGuk stumbled back, knocking over stacked toolboxes and miscellaneous items as he attempted to regain his balance.

The other men were already surrounding the car, opening all of the doors, the trunk, the hood. The man who'd hit him joined his friends, searching through the SUV just as thoroughly. With their backs turned to YongGuk, he slowly shifted toward the back, where he could see just the top of Zelo's head through the dirty class window of the office. That kid was so tall, YongGuk realized, that crouching really didn't do much to hide him.

He had just gotten to the door when one of them turned around, apparently having remembered he was here. "Yah, where the do you think you're going?"

"Finding a place to sit," YongGuk replied, hiding the grimace that came with the words. His face was almost bruise-free, damn it! "You better not damage that car. I don't want to be held liable when the guy picks it up."

Apparently not amused by snark, however honest it happened to be, the thug pulled away from the group, one hand reaching for the handgun tucked indiscreetly into the waistband of his pants. YongGuk refused to move, staring back at the man with an impassive expression. He had confidence that he wouldn't shoot, not over some snark from some backalley kid with a knack for fixing cars. The gun was a threat, a way to tell YongGuk shut up without really saying it.

YongGuk was confident that the man wouldn't shoot, up until he heard the movement behind him, the scraping of an old desk against concrete floor. He should have known better than to have sent someone as tall as Zelo into a room as cramped as the office. The movement from the man was so instinctive, so instantaneous that it took seconds after the shot had been fired for YongGuk to process it; seconds after he heard Zelo cry out, the thud as his body fell back.

He could have sworn his heart stopped, that his vision drowned is so much red that he could no longer see. He would have gone after those men, would have ripped them apart with his bare hands, if YongGuk had been impulsive enough to forget checking on his friend. He turned away, ducking into the dark and dank room.

"Hyung…" The voice was shaken, but not strained—not terribly so, anyway. Blood had already seeped into his jeans, the red looking more like rust against the dark colours of the material. The man had hit Zelo's thigh.

"Are you—you can still feel it though, right? Your leg?" YongGuk didn't quite know what to do; HimChan had a penance for quick thinking in emergencies, and it was DaeHyun who was good with injuries. YongGuk only knew that even if shock had already settled and Zelo couldn't register the pain, he should be able to feel his leg.

"Yeah...It really hurts though." Zelo managed a meek smile, trying to reassure his hyung that the injury wouldn't be too bad, even if it stung like nothing he'd ever experienced.

YongGuk nodded, only slightly assured, before inclining his head. The men were arguing; his buddies weren't happy that he took a shot, that the person he shot was nothing more than a scared high schooler with really long legs. YongGuk had been right, then; these were men higher up on the chain, those more careful with violence and dirtying their hands. They wouldn't shoot unless they had to; they were systematic and careful—not necessarily merciful or any less ruthless, but at least careful.

Their arguing came to an abrupt stop, marked by a startled cry and what sounded like a knife hitting a sand bag. The bag—a brick, YongGuk realized, of a particular white powder—dropped from one of the men's hands, a slick, silver knife sticking out from its very middle. The men looked up, YongGuk looked up, and he saw the figure before they did. Small, slim, dressed in dark colours so that the body might blend in with the harsh shadows in the garage.

YongGuk saw one man reach for his gun, and another already aiming at the figure. The shot was fired, but the bullet didn't reach flesh. The figure darted away, disappearing into some other dark corner of the loft area. A knife flew out of the shadows, slicing through clothing and embedding in one man's arm.

Tucked away in the office, YongGuk and Zelo remained completely still, hoping that they would be undetected. The figure landed on top of the SUV, undoubtedly staring at the men from the shadows casted by his—no, this figure was definitely female—her hood. A black mask obscured the lower part of her face, her eyes hidden by a cleverly designed hood. The clothes were fitted, practical and included an alarming number of holsters and sheaths for an equally alarming number of throwing knives.

One of the men lunged for her, hand moving towards her ankle. She responded easily by shifting away, then stepping onto the hand with a boot-clad foot. Another man raised his gun toward her, and she twisted away, flipping over the SUV and landing behind another thug.

He was the brawler of the group, YongGuk realized as he watched the man react easily, quickly, turning to throw a punch while simultaneously attempting to grapple the masked girl with his other arm. The two moved around each other, a flurry of kicks and punches so fast that even the other men's eyes widened as they watched, injuries temporarily forgotten. The man was finally able to land one strike on the girl, the force enough to knock her backwards.

She was upright fast enough, knives already in her hands.

"Beating up street kids isn't your style," she said, an unnatural timbre to her voice suggesting that she was using some sort of voice changer.

"And you would of course know so much about us, huh?" The man took a step closer, but the girl—surely, she was just that, being so slight and petite—remained still, undeterred. "We've heard about you, too, you know."

"Then you're stupid for not being terrified for your lives."

The fight continued, then ended soon enough with the crack of bones snapping. The man cried out, his voice no longer carrying that deep, threatening tone. The arm dangled at his side, a horrified expression marring his scarred face.

"Hope you won't need your ulnar bone—and probably your radial, too. I think I broke that, too, sorry." Zelo shifted uneasily beside him, a grimace clear on his face and YongGuk had a feeling it wasn't because of the bullet wound in his thigh.

"Now, then, why don't we get down to business." So very casually, she walked toward the men, all of whom, except for the one with the dangly, useless arm, had his gun raised toward her. "You are going to pay for being poison to this city, with your drugs and your weapons."

"So what are you gonna do, kill all of us?" The guns remained pointed to her, but she continued on her path, with slow, deliberate steps. At the question, she shrugged.

"Only if you make me. But, if you don't….the police should be here…." A pause, a heavy silence followed by a crescendo of police sirens drawing closer. "Just about now."

The men swore, moved as if to flee, but she was prepared. It was just a flick of the wrist—a motion so familiar to YongGuk—one that sent another slender knife toward the garage door. It was enough to move the chain from the hook YongGuk used to keep the door open, dislodging it from place and effectively allowing the shutters to fall, locking the men in. In the time it took for this to happen, the girl was already half way up the spiral stairs, and YongGuk could easily predict her path now; straight towards that open window, just by the couch.

YongGuk wasn't so concerned when the police questioned him about the drugs in the SUV. No, his mind was equally divided on two matters: Zelo's wellbeing, as the teenager was being carted off to a nearby hospital so that his wound may be properly treated, and the masked girl with the knives. His answers were distant and despondent, but without further evidence, the police had no claim on him and released him from the station.

HimChan was there to pick him up, DaeHyun and YoungJae in tow (they decided against calling JongUp; the boy didn't need to be caught sneaking out yet another time). His friends made an attempt to understand the situation, but even then, YongGuk felt too dazed to provide an adequate answer. They made do with resolving to bother Zelo about it as soon as the boy was conscious, and thus spent the night at the hospital, first waiting outside the surgical theatre as the bullet was removed and the wound sutured, then in Zelo's room, stacked onto as many chairs as they were able to request.

"Yah, they couldn't have smacked you that hard," HimChan muttered, jabbing YongGuk lightly in the ribs. Even as their dongsangs fell into an uneasy slumber, YongGuk remained awake, his mind evidently far away. HimChan had been watching him the entire time, and that YongGuk barely noticed was enough to scare him.

Finally, YongGuk turned to face his friends, eyes a little more clear but expression still as distant. He shrugged, the movement still jarring his injuries. "It's been a long night," was his answer. HimChan effectively gave up an all attempts to communicate.