Winwin finally arrived at the ground floor and ignored the look the security sent him as he ran outside the building. He was sure someone was watching around here, as he looked up and down his surroundings. If he could find just one familiar face, he could go after them. After all, they had been contained in the same place before getting separated one by one.

He decided to cross the road, and then started searching the buildings on the side. It felt almost impossible, considering the number of buildings around there, but he couldn’t give it up so easily. He kept searching through the floors of the buildings without caring for the looks that people gave him, because this was much more important than anything. He needed to stop NCT from plaguing Jaehyun, or else the boy might end up just like them.

Just like them, he thought bitterly as he ascended and descended the stairs over and over. Them who lived under the strain of experiments after experiments, in order to be superior to ordinary humans. Even though his group hadn’t been through as much as the ones chosen for NCT were, but he thought it was bad enough. The ones chosen for NCT though, were worse. They went through so many experiments until they became bare of their emotions, as if they were robots. That was mostly why he feared NCT. They wouldn’t think twice to do what they were told to do, whether it be good or bad.

Unfortunately for Winwin though, he still couldn’t find any trace of anyone from NCT. He was now huffing and puffing as he descended another stairs to the crowd outside. His eyes were still wild as he looked around, trying to find something worth to be chased after. Then something occurred to him as his eyes fell on the apartment building where Jaehyun lived. A realization started to dawn upon him.

“No way,” he muttered before running across the street again, causing some cars to blare their horns at him. He urgently entered the elevator to the floor where Jaehyun lived, and he waited anxiously for the elevator to go up until its doors were finally opened. He then started running until he found a wide-opened door of Jaehyun’s apartment, as he rushed inside, looking frantically for the boy.

“Jaehyun-ah!” he called over and over as he looked through his bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, everywhere, but he found nothing. There was no way this was all NCT’s doing, right?

He then opened his phone to dial Jaehyun’s number, but to his disappointment, he heard Jaehyun’s phone ringing from the bedroom not too long after that. Now that he was desperate, he called in to one of his groupmates.

“Kun-ge? I have a bad news.”

Taeil was sure of what he was going to do now. He looked at his phone several times, waiting for the call he had been waiting for to come, as well for the train that would pick him up. He had been thinking of this choice over and over, and although he felt guilty to his parents, there was no other way to save Kyunghyun other than this. He swore to come back some time and pay back everything he had done for his parents, because even though they weren’t his real parents, they had been watching over him with genuine love and concern after all.

While slowly getting lost in his thoughts, he finally got a call, and from the one he had been expecting.

“Hello,” he said into the phone, feeling awkwardly excited.

“Taeil-ah,” he could practically hear her smile. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m in Seoul Station right now. Wait for me there, okay?”

He finally heard her giggling into the phone, making himself smile as well. “Okay, I’ll see you in the airport!”

The appearance of Kyunghyun in his life was so unexpected, and she was also the one who opened up his old memories about his childhood. Everything he saw whenever he looked at her, it was all his memories that got locked away due to his trauma. He was thankful for having met her as well for that, and the only thing he could do in return was this.

Kyunghyun looked down at the tattoo that she got recently.

She already expressed her wish to get herself a tattoo, but Doyoung never let her do it. He liked her to be clean, he said. She kind of liked herself to be free of ink too, but deep down, she had always wanted to get it.

Well, she had always been so contradictive, which was the thing Hansol disliked about her. But he was also contradictive as well, because even until the moment Doyoung picked her to be his partner, Hansol couldn’t make himself let go of her.

“I will be fine,” she had assured him. “Doyoung likes me, so he probably won’t harm me in any way.”

“Probably,” Hansol spoke in such a low volume, but Kyunghyun could catch the slight sarcasm in it.

“He will never hurt me,” she fixed her words to make it more assuring, but surely, Hansol would never be convinced about it.

She knew that Hansol had been keeping an eye on her once in a while, because she had seen glimpses of familiar faces here and there. The guys who hid under the name of SM Publishing Company, the place where she used to stay before Doyoung decided to set her free from there.

With Doyoung’s ability, she felt physical freedom for being able to go anywhere without having to worry about money to pay for plane tickets, but mentally, she was far from being free, and she knew that.

With Taeil though, she felt as free as a bird. Even though Taeil didn’t have Doyoung’s ability, he could tolerate Kyunghyun’s free wishes so much better. That was the reason why she chose to be with Taeil now, especially since now Doyoung would stay confined under NCT experiment for a few days.

Although she felt bad for Doyoung and even Hansol, she was really sick and tired of this life. If suicide was not the right answer, then Taeil would be one, she had thought.

Winwin sat inside the train, looking at the constantly changing view outside the window mindlessly. Not really mindlessly, more like dreading the reality. He failed his mission, and once he arrived back to his group’s place, there was no doubt he would receive a really bad punishment. The thought made his hand shaking a little bit, as he slowly closed his eyes. If he could just find one of them, it wouldn’t have come to this, he thought. He felt like beating himself up for his own clumsiness. How come it never occurred to him that they had been trying to distract him all this time?

The train came to a stop, but his stop was still far from here. In fact, he was the only passenger in the car. Only a person wearing a red beanie entered the car in the last stop and sat a few seats away from him before the train started again.

As he felt like he was about to fall asleep, his phone started vibrating in his pocket. Winwin opened his eyes lazily while reaching for the phone, and he felt like he just got a heart attack upon seeing the caller’s name.

It was Hansol, and whenever he called, it was never a good thing.

“Hello, Hyung?” he answered the phone nervously.

“Where are you right now?” Hansol’s voice was calm, but somehow there was a tension behind it.

“I’m—I’m on a train back, what’s wrong?”

“.”

It was weird hearing the elder curse, because no matter how intimidating he was to Winwin, he never let out any crude words. Until now.

“Which train are you on?”

“Um, train from Seoul Station to the airport station.”

“Okay, I’ll see you at the airport then.”

Before Winwin could ask why, Hansol hung up first. Winwin could only look at his phone nervously. Hansol must have seen something, and it probably involved him as well, which was why he called him. He braced himself for anything that would happen at the next stop.

By the time the train reached the airport station in Incheon, Taeil couldn’t hide his smile. He left the train to get to the airport, while trying to find Kyunghyun in the middle of the bustling crowd. Finding her was not an easy task because there were too many people around there. She did message him that she was near the entrance between the station and the airport so he was heading there. Thankfully as he reached the said place, he saw her there with two tickets in her hand. When she saw him approaching, she greeted him with the brightest smile he had ever seen of her.

“Taeil-ah! I got our tickets here, it’ll depart in 20 minutes.”

She then stared at him fondly, while he got another flashback of their childhood.

They played around a lot in a playroom full of toys. He could see how happy they were back then, and when his vision went back to the present Kyunghyun who was currently smiling at him, he could see how her expression mirrored that of their happy childhood.

“Nice, should we go to the waiting room?”

She linked her arm with his, and they happily walked together, until both of them instinctively stopped at the sight of someone familiar.

In front of them was Doyoung. His hair was that of bright red color, different from the last time they had seen him. The sight of him though made both Kyunghyun and Taeil surprised, with her hurriedly turn around and force Taeil to do the same too, but what Doyoung said made both of them stopped in their tracks again.

“You know that no matter how hard you try to run, you still wouldn’t be able to escape from me, right?”

Kyunghyun tightened her grip on Taeil’s arm, letting the truth of his word sink in. Taeil was utterly confused, but he somehow felt the dreadfulness of the situation. He knew they had to get away from Doyoung, but he felt it was wrong at the same time.

At last, both of them turned back to Doyoung, who had slowly stepped forward, closing in on them, with his eyes trained on their linking arms, and then back to their faces.

“I see something must have happened when I wasn’t around. Were you guys planning on going on a vacation? Where are you planning to go anyway?”

There was a silence after that, which honestly made Taeil suffocated too much. He couldn’t muster a response because he was too busy thinking of how to get away from him. Actually he could just pull Kyunghyun to run with him, but looking at Kyunghyun standing firm on the ground made him unable to do that. He had been giving Kyunghyun the chance to do whatever she wanted, even in this situation.

“Somewhere we have never visited before,” she replied to the question.

“Oh, may I know where it is? I might actually plan on going there next.”

“No, I can’t tell you about it.”

Doyoung’s eyes trailed off back to their linking arms. “I see you got yourself a tattoo.”

Both Kyunghyun and Taeil looked down at her inked hand, a black star on her wrist. She smiled before looking up at Doyoung again.

“Yes. You know how much I’ve wanted to do this, right?”

“Indeed,” he answered, too quickly for her liking. “I know a lot of things besides that. I know how you feel forced to be with me all this time. That’s why I’ve always brought you to so many places, but this is how you’re going to repay me? Trying to escape from me?”

“No. I don’t feel forced when I’m with you. Even when I know you’ve been using me because of my ability to strengthen your power, I never complained. I liked being with you, but I’ve always been following my instinct, and right now, my instinct tells me that I have to stay away from you and be with Taeil. Don’t you understand?”

Doyoung let out a bitter snort after hearing her argument.

“So you think I’ve only been using you?”

He grabbed her in the shoulders, forcing her to break her linking arms with Taeil, who could only look at their fight.

“Has it never occurred to you that I might be genuinely in love with you?”

Kyunghyun and Doyoung looked into each other’s eyes, with the former starting to form tears on hers. She couldn’t help herself when it comes to love. Probably it was true that she naturally had that player instinct in her, and probably it was that instinct that told her to swerve her way from Doyoung. She was sure she still loved him though, heck, she still loved Hansol as well. But Taeil had always been her first love, and first love never faded away no matter how many seasons had passed.

She then tried to let go of his hold, which was surprisingly easy. She felt regret the next moment she looked into Doyoung’s eyes. She could see that he was heartbroken, and with that regret came a satisfaction. She then linked back her arm with Taeil’s without breaking her gaze from Doyoung.

“I’m sorry that you have to fall in love with a girl like me. But I can’t stay in one place for long. I can’t stay with one person for long as well. That’s why I have to go.”

She decided to just leave it there and tugged Taeil’s arm to walk away from Doyoung, but Taeil refused. Instead, he stayed still in his place, as if something had just hit him.

“Taeil, let’s go,” she said as she tried tugging at his arm gently again.

“Will you also leave me like this when the time comes?” came the question from Taeil, which made even Doyoung look up in surprise.

Kyunghyun was visibly flustered, as he willed his arms to be free from her hold.

“I actually thought of this decision many times. I thought of the things that I’ll give up on by doing this. But seeing how you easily leave someone you said you love just like this made me think if everything I am about to give up on was really worth it if you’ll leave me in the same way. I am currently thinking over it again.”

She looked like she would cry once again, as she tried to hold onto his arm again. “Taeil-ah...”

“Please assure me that I will not regret this decision at the end.”

She looked at him with pleading eyes and was about to say something when suddenly a blasting sound was heard, making everyone in the crowd shocked and some of them stayed down with their ears covered.

The two men in front of Kyunghyun were even more shocked to see what had happened.

A bullet had stricken through Kyunghyun’s chest, through where her heart was located. She looked down at her chest, and everything went slow motion for her before she realized that her life was slowly waning out of her body.

By the time she fell on the floor lifelessly, people around the crowd started screaming and shouting, asking people to call 119. Everything was frantic, but Taeil and Doyoung stood still in their places, eyes looking down at Kyunghyun’s lifeless body, not knowing what and how to feel about this turn of event.

When he got back half of his senses, Taeil tried to trace the source of where the bullet was coming from. His eyes trailed to the corner of the second floor, where he saw someone with his gun aimed at him. That someone, realizing that Taeil had noticed him, put down the gun, and the face of the shooter gave Taeil serious goosebumps all over him.

Because, of all people, he would never expect Jaehyun, one of his favorite customers, to look down at him with such cold eyes, akin to an emotionless robot.