BASTARZ (바스타즈), Zero For Conduct, (EP), 2015

“Chanwoo, Donghyuk, take the rear side, I want those girls gunned down before they get the chance to even think about leaving. Bobby, Junhoe and I will go after Newsun and Yugyeom. Jinhwan and Yunhyeong get atop the car and keep your eyes on everything.” Bobby and the boys quickly took cover as their leader gave orders, the derelict warehouse a total battleground thanks to the arrival of them and a group of 5 girls.

“What about Nari-sshi?” Jinhwan asked.

“She can look after herself. Just make sure we get one of the enemy out here alive.”

“Aish, this girl…” Bobby grumbled as he quickly scanned the warehouse. It was a wasteland in the heart of the city, broken chunks of the building itself and old machines scattered about, marking time and disaster’s impact on the place. But the fresh bullet holes speckled along the dilapidated walls were tell-tale signs of the ensuing bloodbath.

Bobby gripped his hand around his gun tighter, “What mess have you got us into now, Song Nari…”

Hyerin had notified iKON about Nari entering the warehouse alone, and they didn’t hesitate one second in getting to there and giving her support. They were a team for now, after all. But Bobby was so angry that she’d go ahead without them like this; he couldn’t stand her stubbornness, let alone her lone-wolf attitude. He wanted to find her and shoot her himself, rid himself of the bother she’d caused him for the past week.

“Let’s just stick to the plan, okay?”

Bobby’s angry thoughts were short-lived when he saw Nari, body bloody and unconscious, sprawled across the floor nearby an old contraption that looked ready collapse. For some reason, Bobby’s legs carried him over to the girl before his conscience and all sense of rationality could even protest.

“Or not,” Hanbin mumbled as Bobby foiled his plan.

Ducking under and over rapid gunfire, Bobby skidded to the ground beside Nari, turning her body over to be met with the bloody sight of a ghastly bullet wound in her side.

“Ah, ,” Bobby cringed in English as the blood seeped out in streams. Bobby took the bottom of his shirt, tearing the fabric off just as Nari had done for him not long ago, before pressing it against the bleeding wound. He felt bile tickle the back of his throat as the girl’s warm blood coated his hands.

Nari stirred ever so slightly during the roaring sounds of gunfire, “Don’t- don’t touch me.”

Bobby scoffed, “You’re here bleeding your life away, and you have the nerve to complain at me for trying to save it.”

“Shut up.” Nari groaned before attempting to sit herself up, “Don’t,” she slapped Bobby’s hands away as he tried to ease her up, “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re really not.”

Nari looked back over the scene, eyes widening in horror at the sight of Hanbin, Junhoe and Yunhyeong chasing after a Newsun and Yugyeom, who were crawling back to safety like wounded animals, “We can’t let them get away!”

“You’re not going anywhere in this state,” Bobby ordered her. He wasn’t prepared to take anymore of her crap, especially since she’d messed things up by charging ahead and coming here alone.

“You can’t tell me what to do!” She forced herself up onto her legs, shaking and pale as she glared at Bobby. He caught her just in time as her legs gave way under her. She looked up at him in contempt as he held onto her waist. Bobby gulped.

Stop with that tingling.

“You forget we’re all a team now.” He reminded her, “That means we’ll take care of our own. Right now, we’re getting you out of her before you lose whatever usefulness you have.”

Nari grumbled as she put her arm over his shoulder, “Just let me shoot someone, at least.”

It was just when the words left her lips that more gunfire sprayed before the two, and they were both thrown to the floor. Bobby flinched as a bullet grazed his arm, the contact more painful considering the bullet missed anything serious. Nari on the other hand, writhed in pain as another bullet lodged in her waist.

“Bastards!” Bobby shouted before taking Nari’s gun off of the floor and letting dozens of bullets fly forth. He roared in anger at the people on the receiving end of his impromptu fury, the prospect of further disaster and failure unthinkable. It was when the two girls who'd shot at him lay in pools of their own blood that Bobby seemed to snap out of his red mist and back into the brutal reality of things.

"Nari," Bobby stared down at Nari's gun in his shaking hand, her own blood staining the Phoenix etched onto the metal plating. He wanted nothing more than to erase the sight from his memory.

It was just as Mino had described to him at the party the week before. The first time he'd kill to make a difference, kill out of pure rage and anger than out of necessity, and all Bobby wanted to do was cry like the baby he really was. Dropping the gun out of his hand, Bobby stared down at Nari’s limp body across the filthy ground. The colour was being leeched from her skin, blood seeping out and around her. She was so peacefully still, but Bobby knew that the longer he left her, the harder it would be for her to wake up again.

Shoving her gun in his leather jacket and steeling himself, Bobby carefully picked up Nari his arms. He cringed at how light she was. It was is all her fire and strength had been out of her. Donghyuk and Chanwoo came over, panting and sweating ever so slightly. But shock hit them when their eyes ran over the corpses they'd been targeting.

"You killed them?" Donghyuk asked, pointing his gun at the two dead girls on the floor. He was not used to Bobby being this ruthless.

Bobby grunted and turned the other way, "Collect their tags and join Hanbin and Yunhyeong."

"Where will you go?" Chanwoo called out as Bobby walked further and further away, the gunfire becoming more and more distant as Bobby cradled Nari in his arms.

He looked down at her with furrowed brows, “To fix the mess she’s got herself into…”

Sprinting his way back through the battleground, his desperation to get Nari to safety was Bobby's main driving force as opposed to the sheer danger they were all in. He could feel the warm blood seeping through his clothes, and he struggled like crazy to stop his stomach from falling out and to the ground. Steeling his shoulders and resolve to get Nari out of there, Bobby broke out into a sprint, ignoring the protest from his aching arm. He told himself this desire to protect Nari was merely to clean up the mistake she’d made.

Nothing more, nothing less.

He was pushed onwards more so when Chanwoo and Donghyuk ran behind him, giving him all manner of crazed covering fire as they navigated their way to the safety of the car.

Bobby grinned at the unwavering sense of teamwork he and his brothers had, “You see Nari, this is what gets you through things alive.” He scoffed as they approached the car. Jinhwan expertly slid down the hood to meet them, sniper rifle in hand as he looked at Bobby questioningly.

“What happened?”

“She was an idiot, that’s what happened!” Bobby groaned as Chanwoo stepped ahead of him to open up the back of the car, “She came in here alone and they sprung a trap I’m guessing.”

“Can someone tell us who ‘she’ is exactly?” Donghyuk demanded as he pointed his gun at Nari. Something about the gesture angered Bobby, and he couldn’t help but hold onto Nari slightly tighter.

“That’s a good question,” Jinhwan scoffed, “But we can explain that when we get out of here.”

Donghyuk grumbled uneasily before stepping into the passenger seat, whilst Chanwoo silently helped Bobby ease Nari into the car.

“Gross,” Chanwoo mumbled as he took his seat next to Nari’s unconscious body, wrinkling his nose at the sight of all the blood, but he didn’t hesitate in pulling a first-aid kit out, “How many hits did she take?”

“I- I don’t know.” Bobby’s voice and hands shook as he rested her head on his lap. He couldn’t deal with this gore and healing malarkey, he was too queasy for that sort of thing. But Chanwoo took the reins at this point, hands steady and face concentrating with medical supplies as the car roared to life under Jinhwan’s control.

“Hold this,” Chanwoo ordered him, holding a roll of bandages out for him. Bobby shakily took it from his hands, unable to take his eyes away from Nari’s paling face. For some reason, he was taken back to the night he’d seen her crying in his bathroom, for once vulnerable and unsure of the world around her.

Chanwoo’s next command was enough to drag Bobby out of his mind, “Lift her shirt up.”

Bobby gulped, “She’ll hit me if I touch her again,”

Chanwoo rolled his eyes, “Do you really think she’s in a position to be complaining, Hyung?”

Bobby nodded and gingerly pulled Nari’s shirt up, damp with blood, until they were met with the gruesome sight of her bullet wounds. As the car raged through the warehouse grounds, Donghyuk firing from the windows like a bat out of hell, Chanwoo expertly bandaged up Nari’s wound, a temporary measure until they could get her to a better place.

“Red Velvet is outside,” Jinhwan announced as they approached the gaping hole in the side of the warehouse that they made came in by earlier, “Hyerin-sshi found out where Nari’s been staying, and apparently getting there is quicker than the roads towards our hospital will be.”

“How long will that be?” Chanwoo asked, his concertation-voice in full swing, “I’m not sure how long she-“

“Don’t. Say. That.” Bobby immediately tensed up at that mere suggestion, some strange, defensive sensation taking place over his body as he found himself staring down at Nari one more.

“Not long,” Jinhwan confirmed, “Hyerin’s with Wendy in the car ahead, we’ll follow them.”

Bobby’s hands couldn’t stop shaking on the brief and totally-not-under-the-speed-limit journey. Chanwoo berated him several times on the way for having a poor disposition, before quickly going back to fixing Nari up.

He couldn’t understand why he was feeling so hung up about this situation; he told himself he