When all of them were seated together in the long table of the dining halls after lunch, they looked ready to fight and tense. The situation was called for a meeting, but Sena did not expect to see their gloomy, shadow-covered faces. They were formidable warriors with one common interest, and when she coughed awkwardly to ease the tension, they all turned their heads simultaneously and placed piercing gazes at her.

                  She helplessly glanced at Joonmyun. He seemed to be the only person in this room who was calm enough not to stare at her with daggering glares. She also appeared to be the only clueless one in the room, and Sena never liked being kept in the dark even when she did so often to others. He shrugged her off easily and put on a lazy smirk that suggested he had nothing to do with what they knew nor did he want to know.

                  “First of all, ease up,” Sena waved her hand and stood up. She was wearing a long dress with edge touching her knees. It fluttered a little as she walked, and she noticed that they seemed to be watching her movement with hawk-like precision. There was no ‘easing up’ for the Elites. “Is there something you want to tell me? Because I am here to talk about New Year plan.”

                  “New year?” Luhan’s ears perked up. His face no longer held the same anxiety he displayed early on as he unconsciously touched the button on his shirt and smiled brightly at Sena. She kept that small, simple gesture at the back of her mind – knowing that it was something he always did whenever he lied. Ten years worth of friendship would not be able to deceive her with mere verbal words. She knew him better than that – he should know.

                  “Yes, new year,” Sena casually dismissed the early tension and glanced at their relieved faces – all but the new guy Lee Taemin. She had not bothered to look at him carefully, knowing that if she really did, it would not be his face she was looking at, but a mirror image of Jongin’s past self. “When Grandfather was alive, we used to spend new year in the Seoul headquarter or the Jeju’s shrine. I just want to hear if any of you have a different suggestion.”

                  “Jeju sounds good, minus the shrine part of course, but it is more plausible than Seoul,” Chanyeol chirped in, being the lovely chatterbox he always was. Kyungsoo shook his head and gave Sena an embarrassed, but agreeable smile. She smiled in return with a very pleasant nod. “I mean, where else would we go? And we can even visit the Mountain’s hot springs while we are there!”

                  “Not Jeju. It’s going to be packed with tourists,” Kibum, who recently dyed his hair a pastel pink color like the cotton candy, cut in. Jonghyun shot his cousin a look, but he was coldly ignored. Being a native to Jeju Island, he would know a lot but none seemed happy about his suggestion. “And not Seoul, it only has fireworks and it’s boring and equally crowded. We’ll only be swimming in the ocean of people here.”

                  “Sena,” Yixing interrupted the intense staring battle between Kibum and Chanyeol. When he spoke, there was a soothing effect that pulled people in, almost like a distant echo. Sena thought that it had something to do with Yixing’s specialty area, medicine. His personality was calm and composed like the water – flowing to the right direction and easily adaptable. “While Chanyeol’s idea sounds good, Kibum here has a point. Perhaps we shall visit somewhere else, like the Lhasa monastery we grew up in, or even Bhutan’s tiger temple.”

                  Before Sena could speak, Sehun was already staring with a look she could not ignore. His eyes were filled with solid earnest that compelled her to agree with whatever he wanted to say, “Yixing is right. A break from Korea sounds brilliant right now. You always spoke about Bhutan, Sena, perhaps it is time you take us all and show us why that place is so memorable to you.”   

                  Joonmyun’s fingers covered half of his tiny face as he observed the situation in the room. Luhan, too, felt that something was different this time. Yoon Sena was born and trained to be a suspicious person all her life. It was a wonder why she never raised a question to interrogate them. When she turned around and furrowed her eyebrows in concern, Joonmyun knew she did not trust their lies, since it went so badly from the very beginning.

                  “And what would happen to the headquarter when we are gone? What if Byun Baekhyun use this momentum to attack while we are vulnerable?”

                  “You’re being paranoid, Sena,” This time Taeyong was the one who spoke up. She did not notice him much earlier, and Taeyong, as always, was tense, so there was not much difference that she would be concerned with. When she gazed at his dark brown eyes – a shade she found fascinating most of the time – they were confident and honest, and Sena suddenly remembered that before Sehun, there was Taeyong she trusted, and she felt that the burden on her shoulder was lifted by half.

                  “If by paranoid, you mean ‘careful’, then yes, I am probably the most paranoid person in the world,” She answered, and though her reply might sound cold-hearted, a smile made its way to her pretty little lips halfway through the sentence. Taeyong sighed, a loud thump he could not shield away echoed from his heart. It had been a year now, and he did not know when it happened, but it did, anyway – in the strangest way possible.

                  “My Lady? If I may speak?” The curly-haired new trainee, whom Sena distinctly remembered as Minho (though she still could not recall his surname, maybe it was a Lee or a Kim or a Choi), raised his hand almost shyly. She was surprised to find such politeness in her Elites since she made it very clear from the beginning how much she detested being called by her title.

                  “Just Sena, please, and speak up if you like, no one’s stopping you,” She nodded.

                  Taemin observed in a daze when the lady did so, because he had met the other clan leaders before, on some very special occasions, and none of them ever corrected their Elites that way. The leaders should be addressed with utmost respect, or so they were trained since they could remember. It might have to do with her age, since she was the youngest of all leaders, or her rebellious streak that made her do things impulsively. Nevertheless, he liked the way she dismissed the laws for them.

                  “Maybe we can shorten the stay if you are so worried about the headquarter’s security. Instead of a week, we can push for three days and spend the rest of the holiday in Seoul,” Minho spoke in a very clear voice without blinking at all.

                  “What do you think, Dear Fiancée? Shall we book the tickets to Bhutan now?” Sena chuckled teasingly and turned to Joonmyun, finally sparing him a look after going around the room for a while. He knew that his answer would not affect anything she had planned for, and judging from the devious glint on her starry eyes, she did have something in-store, and it was not something anyone else would like.

***

                  When Sena was fifteen, she accidentally saved someone in Thailand. She still remembered the face of the boy she saved, because he had given her a vow, and now she wanted him to return the favour and repaid the vow he once spoke of. His features were not kind, but when they were placed together in an oval-shaped face, he looked good and nice – the approachable kind of beauty that one could admire and touch. That was how Ten would serve his purpose under Sena as an official Elite.

                  Ten, named after the number he loved most and the perfection he trained to be. And ironically, he was the eleventh and possibly the last member if Sena chose not to add anyone to the Elites anymore. But she always kept the possibility open for a hidden gem in the clan, though she preferred not to, because of privacy and trust issue. Technically, he was still under the jurisdiction of Genbu, being a Thailand nationality-holder, but since he vowed to Sena, here he was – a nameless boy with a special talent from a normal human family.

                  Last time they met, he was a homeless boy with especially bright almond-shaped eyes. He was dirty, smelt of the road and rats, with dusts smeared onto his skin. Ten was a year younger than she was, and something just pulled her to him and she impulsively saved him and brought him to a safe haven. He was not ungrateful like most people were and vowed to repay this debt with his life – something Sena did not really need at the time. And yet here he was.

                  “Yoon Sena,” he breathed in and spoke of her name like a precious-something he held very dear and very close. Ten was not raised with rules and protocols, hence the lack of mannerism in front of the leader of Seiryuu. Still, he knew enough about everything else and acted accordingly as he bowed a little with a heart-wrenching smile. It had only been half a decade since they last met and he was now beautiful and all grown-up.

                  “I’m glad you still remember me,” She joked lightly and chuckled to herself.

                  Ten’s Korean was not perfect, and he only spoke very basic Chinese and sufficient amount of English. He learnt everything through the span of five years and the amount that he knew was impressive enough. He looked up to her as a savior and an almost parental figure, hence the idolization from the younger boy. What he lacked in words, he made up with his sweet, adorable smile that looked at her with nothing but admiration.

                  “I wouldn’t dare not to. My promises are not to be taken lightly.”

                  She had heard that sentence somewhere. My promises are not to be taken lightly, Princess. There was a small sting to her beating heart, but she chose not to react on it. I am strong, Sena reminded herself, I won’t break down. And she had impressively kept a record of not breaking down for a year and a half, something she tried to continue on as a morale support for herself.

                  “Since you are here, I’m assuming you are ready to take on the position and to inform me on something good?”

                  Ten might be short and adorable, but in reality, he was a highly-skilled spy and a self-taught hacker. Sena also appreciated his ability to make weapons and his amazing skill to absorb information from anyone, anywhere. He had been working halfway across the world – sometimes in Uruguay, other times in Colombia. He could be anywhere all at once, and like his nickname – Black Viper – suggested, he was quick enough to strike and leave without leaving a trace.

                  “Of course, Sena. I would never come here empty-handed. You could treat it as a small friendship gift from me,” He grabbed a chair and fished out some papers from his bag. He was still very traditional in the way of dealing with some things, like bringing a huge stack of printed stuffs to work instead of showing it via a tablet. In his opinion, tablet could be hacked but physical things could always be protected with life.

                  “Immigration information?” She raised her eyebrow and took a look at the paper he gave her. There were several faces she knew to be politicians from South Korea’s Ministry of Defense department. One of them would be running for presidential election in 2022. Her lips curled up into a beautiful smile as she tapped her fingers on the table impatiently. “These are Grandfather’s men you say? And they are working in the Blue House?”

                  “It’s not just that,” Ten explained. “Some trustworthy resources informed me that there would be an attack targeting the president very soon.”

                  Her smile grew wider and in a sense, more cruel. “They are not wrong. But the target should not be the president herself, but rather, the place she is staying at. Just like the main building and our previous Seiryuu headquarter, they would aim for something bigger, knowing that the President would sought after our help while her power is decreasing in the public’s eyes. This would bring down Yoon’s clan name as well. As expected of Grandfather and Baekhyun – they like to work in a bigger scale.”

                  “And what would you want me to do? Shoot these people down before they can act?”

                  “That won’t be necessary,” She bit her lower lips out of habit, “Seeing that the Elites are working together to keep something away from me, there must be something big going on that I could not know. The more they hide it, the more curious I will be. What I want you to do, Ten, is to install me in the Blue House with a fake ID. I want to get to the bottom of this case and strike them down and pull the branches from its tree. It’s best that we keep Baekhyun’s influence on the South Korea’s government to a minimum.” Sena could not afford to lose a strategic country like South Korea, which her ancestor had protected for millennias.

                  “Consider it done,” He flicked his finger, “And what kind of position do you want to try on for this job?”

                  “The cleaning maid doesn’t sound too bad. Or a bodyguard, so long as they won’t recognize me for this job. Yeah, in fact, a bodyguard sounds cool. Let’s try that one!” She stifled a giggle but failed to hold back laughter, “I can’t wait to see Sehun and Luhan’s reaction when they find out. Oh God, it’s going to be precious!”

                  Knowing the two of them, plus Joonmyun, it was only a matter of time before they found out that Sena had been sneaking out to the Blue House to work. That was what made it so exciting – sneaking out had always been her strongest forte and favorite part in doing anything. She could not wait for Lunar New Year to pass by so she could start working very soon. 

                 A/N: Whose point of view do you want to read by the end of this story? Joonmyun, Sena, Jongin or Sehun?