“What?”

I cringed, sinking even lower on the couch.

I was currently at Yongguk and Himchan’s apartment, squeezed between Daehyun and Youngjae on the worn out old sofa, with Yongguk standing in front of me, hands on his hips, glaring furiously. I didn’t think I’d seen him so angry since I’d gotten shot.

I’d made the mistake of telling Zelo about getting locked in the supply closet for hours the day before. Him and his big mouth had blabbed to Yongguk, and so now here I was, getting lectured.

“I thought you said the bullying had stopped!” Yongguk growled, livid.

“It had!” I tried to explain. “After you came to the school, it stopped for a while. I thought it had stopped for good.”

Yongguk opened his mouth several times to speak, but he seemed too angry to form words and so he’d close it again. Eventually he said, “This is ridiculous, Narae. What if you’d inhaled the fumes or something? What if you’d fallen and hit your head? What if…” He didn’t finish his sentence, obviously imagining too many horrible scenarios that would lead to my death.

While I appreciated his concern, it was a little frustrating. “I’m fine, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay,” Yongguk snapped. “Maybe I need to start coming to school with you every day.”

“The school was pretty pissed the first time you showed up,” I pointed out. “I don’t think they’d take too kindly to you coming every day. And I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Apparently you do,” Yongguk said shortly.

Himchan cocked his head to the side. “Wasn’t your boyfriend supposed to be protecting you?”

I glared at him, willing him to shut up.

“That’s right,” Yongguk agreed vehemently. “I only agreed to let you date that rich kid because he promised he would protect you. He’s not doing a very good job of it, is he? Maybe I need to teach him a lesson on how to take care of his belongings.” He cracked his knuckles menacingly as if to reiterate his point.

I rolled my eyes. “First of all, I don’t belong to anybody.”

“Sorry,” Yongguk mumbled sheepishly, realizing that he’d gotten a bit carried away with his righteous indignation.

“And second of all, Jonghyun does protect me,” I assured them. “But he can’t be with me every second of every day. I just went to the bathroom during class, and we’re in different classes. It’s not his fault. You can’t blame him.”

Yongguk frowned. “I still don’t like it. Maybe I need to have a talk with him…”

“Not a chance in hell,” I said flatly, getting to my feet. “And I won’t be caught off guard next time. I’ll definitely put up a fight.”

Himchan ruffled my hair fondly. “That’s our girl.”

Apparently Jonghyun doesn’t need Yongguk to pressure him into becoming my bodyguard. He takes up the post all on his own, following me between classes, taking me to and from school, forbidding me from even going to the bathroom without someone with me.

“I’ll be fine on my own,” I said with a roll of my eye. It was the following Monday and Jonghyun had waited for my outside the bathroom door before our first classes.

“You clearly won’t be,” Jonghyun retorted, frowning. “I don’t want you to end up locked in a closet again. Or worse.”

I just sighed heavily.

“I’m going to ask Amber to take you home this afternoon,” he said as he walked me to my first class.

I gave him a funny look. “What? Why?”

“I have a dentist appointment after school today,” my boyfriend replied glumly, his arm wrapped around my waist. “I won’t be able to drive you home.”

“I’ll be fine going home by myself,” I assured him; I seemed to be reassuring everyone a lot those days.

Jonghyun gave me a pained sort of look. “What if you end up locked in another closet? Or worse?”

“I’ll be sure to have my cell phone with me this time,” I promised. “Even if I get locked in a closet, I’ll be able to call somebody to come help me. And I won’t let my guard down anymore. I swear.”

He didn’t look happy about it, but in the end he relented. After all, Jonghyun had seen me in action before when we’d infiltrated the Gongpo main house and rescued his father. He had to trust me a little bit.

So, after school let out that day and Jonghyun said a really reluctant goodbye to me before he headed off to the dentist, I caught my old bus back to my part of town. The driver looked at me for a long time when I climbed on – he wasn’t that used to seeing me anymore after Jonghyun had become my personal chauffer – but he didn’t say anything, and I took my seat towards the front of the bus, my headphones in and a book open on my lap.

When we reached my stop, I thanked the bus driver and hopped off, my bad loaded down with the textbooks I would need for homework that night. There was the loud sound of a car horn honking when the bus pulled back out into traffic, and so I glanced behind me. It was only because of the honking horn that I saw the stranger behind me. It was the same dark-clothed person who had followed me home once before.

I wasn’t a girl to get spooked easily – I had grown up with Yongguk and the boys for role models, after all – and part of me wanted to approach this person and demand to know why they were following me. But the part of me that was a bit more logical pointed out that it wouldn’t be a very good idea to start a fight – there weren’t many cops in this part of town and the ones that were there didn’t give a . So I just turned towards my block and hurried on, turning my music off so I could focus on the steady footsteps following me.

The footsteps picked up the closer I got to my street, even more than my own. I was walking as fast as I could and there were practically running after me.

Just as I turned around to confront my stalker, the person launched themselves off their feet at me. Their shoulder collided with my sternum hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs, and we both collapsed on the concrete painfully.

Even with a hood up and a mask covering their face, it was easy to tell that my attacker was female. She was breathing heavily, eyes narrowed into tiny little slits of hatred. She smelled strongly of some sort of vaguely familiar perfume, the type that half the girls at school wore on a daily basis.

I was stronger than her, but she was clearly desperate, and she had a pair of scissors in her hands. She grabbed a fistful of my long hair to hold me still and stabbed the scissors directly at my chest.

Luckily my instincts were quick and I rolled to the side to avoid being stabbed, but she had a good grip on my hair and wasn’t letting go any time soon. I swung my leg around, knocking her off her already unstable feet. She let out a little squeal as she went down, but she still didn’t let go of my hair.

So I did the only thing I knew to do. I slammed the heel of my hand as hard as I could into the bridge of my attacker’s nose.

I’d learned from Yongguk that breaking noses was pretty difficult to do, and doing it the way I had could send splinters of shattered bone into the brain, but even though the girl stumbled back and blood spurted from her nose and I was pretty positive it was broken, she still didn’t let go of the death grip she had on my hair.

So I snatched the scissors from her and cut my own hair in one swift movement. With nothing holding her in place anymore, she fell back against the concrete.

I didn’t even wait to see who she was. I turned and I ran as fast as I could to the safest place I knew: Yongguk and Himchan’s apartment.  

I feel like it should be pretty obvious who the attacker is by this point haha but you'll find out for sure pretty soon >.<