Haeri went through the motions of taking notes and listening to the lecture, the gossip never died down. All the girls kept talking about her throughout class as JongUp stayed in the back, keeping his head down. 

Many of them assumed he was sleeping but Haeri knew better, he couldn't sleep in a situation like this, not when he had to protect her from harm. Things were getting out of hand at school, no one was paying attention as usual. 

But the gossip was exploding, everyone was talking about how Haeri and JongUp were together. How they got together, how she was a witch for taking away their dream guy. There were many unpleasant things being said about her, but none about him. In fact, everyone pitied him, at least all the girls did. 

Haeri wondered if boys even cared about this stuff, she knew the girls did but that was for obvious reasons. But she couldn’t imagine boys getting upset for things like this. She stopped taking notes for a moment and contemplated that thought. 

So why did Junhong say what he did? Why would he even bother actually? He shouldn’t have had to worry about anything. He didn’t even like her, like how other guys supposedly did.  

What he did was yet another puzzle Haeri had to figure out. This guy was definitely bad news, he had something up his sleeve, she just couldn’t figure out what. If he was working for the other gangster, then how did he find out she went to this school? 

Unless, they found out JongUp’s identity, but how did that happen? He kept his cover well, and he kept his gangster life and school life separate. She didn’t know, if he was a spy there were so many things that had to follow. 

“Hey, Haeri.” Youngjae said, his voice next to her, interrupting her thoughts. She knew that he was weird about the news from the start. 

“Yeah?” She replied, looking up at him. “What is it?” The teacher had stopped lecturing and everyone had left the classroom, including JongUp. 

“Class is over. Were you spacing out?” Youngjae asked her.  

Haeri groaned, gathering her stuff together and packing up, “Yeah, a little. Gossip spreads like wildfire here, doesn’t it?” She said.  

Youngjae frowned, “It always has. But anyway, the teacher wanted to meet you so if you could go to the classroom, I’m going to go get lunch.” He told her. 

“Okay, thanks, Youngjae.” She said, heading in the opposite direction of the cafeteria. She would just get lunch later, JongUp would be waiting to sit by her anyway.  

It was weird that he didn’t wait for her to leave the classroom, but she never knew where he was exactly, he could have waited to see her leave and went to the cafeteria himself.  

She walked down the hallway and saw the teacher up ahead, she picked up her pace to catch him, when a hand covered . She smelled something sweet before her vision faded. 

~ 

“What do you want, Junhong?” JongUp said angrily. He had been called away by this punk, at the beginning of lunch. He needed to make sure Haeri got to the cafeteria safely, girls were crazy. 

“Just to talk, how is everything?” Junhong asked him, a wide smile on his face. 

“Are you mental? You just want to make small talk?” JongUp scoffed, before turning to walk past him. This was pointless, he didn’t need any of this right now.  

“Not so fast, Moon.” Junhong said, when JongUp turned to look at him, the smile on his face was gone, replaced with a smirk. 

“You.” JongUp spat out. “I knew it.”  

Junhong gave a little wave, “You didn’t think we’d find out?” He asked him. “Well, it’s no matter, now we finally have some leverage on you, you’ll come around.” He said.  

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” JongUp shoved Junhong and the taller boy easily fell to the ground. 

“You have a weakness, Moon. And we all know what that is.” Junhong replied and immediately, JongUp ran to the cafeteria to find her. She had to be there, why wouldn’t she be there? 

She wasn’t stupid, why would she not be there? Why would she listen to anyone else? It wasn’t Junhong that lured her out. But she didn’t trust him anyway. 

JongUp groaned, he knew what would have gotten Haeri into trouble. He knew exactly what went wrong, he walked over to him and shoved Youngjae to the ground. He wasn’t about to waste his time and strength uselessly. 

“Where is she?” He shouted at Youngjae who looked scared but his eyes defiantly stared back at JongUp. 

“Away from you.” Youngjae replied calmly.  

JongUp threw his arms exasperatedly and knocked Youngjae’s lunch all over him. “If anything happens to her, Youngjae, you’re going to wish you were dead.” He ran out of school, into the streets to wait for the negotiations to begin. 

~ 

She groaned when she came to, her vision was black even when her eyes were open. She struggled but felt her hands tied behind her as she sat in a chair.  

“Is the princess awake?” A familiar voice cooed. She recognized him from the alley, he was the right hand man. 

The cloth was lifted over her eyes and she took in her surroundings. She was in some kind of cell, no windows, just a skylight. On her right was the guy from the alley, but in front of her was a face she didn’t recognize. 

“Hello there, Haeri. Nice to meet you.” He greeted her with a smirk. He cupped her cheek and she pulled away. That’s when she realized she didn’t have anything covering . 

“You know my name but I don’t seem to know yours.” She replied politely. This was no time to play a damsel in distress like in the movies, she had to calculate exactly what would get her out of there. 

“It’s Bang.” He said, “This is the first time we are meeting, I believe.”  

“Yes, and you don’t look as scary as I imagined.” She told him and he replied with a chuckle. 

“I’m not scary at all. But your boyfriend has something I want.” He said.  

“His neighborhood.” Haeri said.  

“Smart girl.” Bang said, “Yes, but he hasn’t been so forthright in giving it to me. So now we have to use means like this in order to get what I want.”  

“You know that he might have given it up if you just waited.” She told him.  

“How long would I have to wait? I have things to do that would go through this place, things that time sensitive.” He replied, “Now, we just wait for your boyfriend to rescue you.”  

“In the meantime?” She asked, sensing there was some sort of catch. 

Bang smirked, “Nothing, we do nothing to you. I have women flocking to me left and right, what makes you think I’d want a child like you?” He retorted, “But if you insist, then we can talk about these people.” He said. 

A couple was brought in, there were in handcuffs and both of them were shaking, their bodies just skin and bones and Haeri recognized them immediately. “Mom, Dad?” 

They turned to her and sniffled. “Chips.” Her mother replied.  

Haeri’s heart stopped, of all the things to care about at that moment in time, the only thought on her mother’s mind was chips? 

Bang waved them away and they tried to fight it, but without any strength, it was futile. “I found them trying to get pot from one of my dealers. But they were out of money, so I had to keep them here.” He said. 

“How did you find out?” Haeri asked. She knew that he only kept her parents alive this long because he had a use for them. Now that the use was over, they were as good as dead. But they didn’t care about her, so what did it really matter? 

“They said your name, it wasn’t until Junhong got into your school that I found out there was a connection between your face and your name. But then I had to keep them around, I would get you to get Moon to give me what I wanted.” Bang said. 

“They don’t even care about me, they just have the munchies.” She told him.  

“I know, princess. I’m sorry.” Bang said, without an ounce of sincerity. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a gangster to find.” He left the room with Chang Guk and that was the end of it. 

Author's Note;;
Hey hey~ so i still have hw. lol.
but I'm too excited to slow down lol.