CHAPTER 16: TURN OF EVENTS

As I felt my senses awakening after hours of deep and calm sleep, I noticed myself wondering whether I was actually waking up or dreaming. I was surrounded by Wonwoo’s scent and his arms were tightly wrapped around my body. I felt his breath on my shoulder and neck. It tickled. I chuckled and slowly turned around in his arms to look at the sleeping boy. His hair was all messy, his face slightly puffy from sleeping in the unusual position. The beams on sunlight that got inside the room from the window danced on his skin, on his thin arms that were still placed on my body. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was feeling. I was happy to be reunited with my boyfriend after months. But I was also shaken by the events of the last couple of days. I felt shadows creeping around my happiness and shook my head to get rid of them.

My motion seemed to wake Wonwoo up. He opened his eyes slowly and eyed at me lovingly. I couldn’t help but to smile at him.

“If this is another dream, I’d rather never wake up”, I said quietly.

The boy hummed and placed a kiss on my forehead. “It’s not a dream.”

I chuckled and buried my face onto his chest. I just wanted to cuddle and lie down a little bit more. But honestly, we didn’t have time for this. Dr. Choi and Seungcheol - along with their drifter hunters - were probably searching for us. Of course there were other drifters to hunt down and kill, but we had escaped and we had knowledge of them. We were probably their first priority right now.

These kind of thoughts seemed to creep into Wonwoo’s mind as well as he let out a sigh and slowly got up from the bed. “I’ll make us something to eat.”

I sat up, stretching my body, and glanced at the clock. It was almost 10am. We sure had gotten a good full night of sleep. But right now we really had no time to rest like this. We needed to come up with a plan of some sort - what should we do about our situation, what should we do to our enemies? Going to the police wasn’t an option. They wouldn’t believe. Drifters? Time traveling? Pfft, they’d just laugh.

Worry formed a wrinkle in between my eyebrows for the rest of the morning. We ate breakfast in silence. We were both thinking hard and trying to come up with a solution. The silence was broken off as Wonwoo’s phone rang. We both stared at the device for a second before he got up from the table and answered the call.

“Hello?” the boy greeted the caller. “Vernon? Slow down, I don’t understand.”

I raised my eyebrows at the boy. Had something happened. He shook his head and tried to calm his friend down. “Calm down. I’m not at the library. I’m staying in my parents’ old apartment. You should - what? Here?” the boy glanced at me and blinked before continuing. “I guess you can come.”

Wonwoo ended the call and returned to the table. “The library has been completely rummaged. Vernon was worried if I was inside. I guess he hasn’t met with Mingyu yet since he didn’t know.”

I nodded, frowning a little bit. “And he’s coming here?”

“Yes. He seemed pretty worried.”

Well, who wouldn’t?

The morning went by slowly. I showered, then Wonwoo. We had to change back into our old clothes since we had nothing to change into here. Vernon came by, checking we were really all right and demanded to know exactly what had happened. First we had to explain the drifter part to him. For my surprise, he didn’t seem all that shocked. I watched as the boy just nodded and listened carefully, his light brown hair bobbing up and down along the nods. After we finished the whole story, the boy was furious.

“Wow, so you were beaten up and kidnapped and Mingyu got to play the part of a hero? Why didn’t I know any of this”, the boy whined and then crossed his arms on his chest. “Unbelievable. Where is Mingyu now?”

Wonwoo shrugged his shoulders. “Probably home sleeping. I do think we should call him here too. What he did yesterday was pretty dangerous so he’s probably being searched as well.”

We all agreed to that, so as Wonwoo decided to call him to the apartment, Vernon offered to go and buy some food and comfy clothes for us since we had pretty much nothing. I asked if I could join him. Seoul was a big city - in year 2157 it was even bigger than it was in 2017 - so it wasn’t very likely for the hunters to find me if we just visited a store or two quickly.

Wonwoo glared at me as we prepared to go out but I just flashed him an encouraging smile and followed Vernon out of the apartment. I didn’t really know a lot about him. I just knew he was half-Korean and he and Mingyu had been Wonwoo’s best friends since they were children. At first we were very awkward and silent, but slowly we started talking more.

“What’s the most different about this time and your time?” he asked at some point and I had to look around me carefully before answering because he had said that rather loudly and I was a runaway.

“Mostly the technology and the buildings. And the flying cars”, I answered as I quickly picked something comfortable from the clothing rack for us to wear.

We were heading back to the apartment as my eyes hit a familiar face walking on the street, getting closer and closer to us. My eyes widened and I grabbed Vernon’s arm tightly, stopping him. The boy stared at me with wide eyes and blinked a few times, looking extremely confused.

“Don’t look confused. Smile to me or something”, I whispered. “The son of the person who tries to kill me and Wonwoo is walking towards us. We need to go.”

Fortunately Seungcheol hadn’t noticed us - yet, at least. My hand still holding Vernon’s arm tightly, we took a turn to the left and decided to walk around the block to get rid of the boy. What I was glad about was the fact that even though Vernon and I were pretty much strangers and he was still very new to the whole situation, he took it seriously and lead me away safely.

As we had walked around the block and the familiar apartment building was standing in front of us, Seungcheol suddenly showed up again. He appeared from behind a corner, his arms crossed against his chest, glaring at us stalely. My eyes widened and my grip on Vernon’s arm became stronger.

“Amateurs”, he simply stated. “You got lucky and escaped. And you don’t even leave the city?”

I glared at the boy who looked annoyingly innocent with his doe eyes and long lashes. Fortunately Vernon opened his mouth before me. “That would be losing.”

“And who might you be?” Seungcheol asked.

“Someone who is more or less involved in the situation”, Vernon stated, raising up his chin a little bit.

Seungcheol chuckled. “If I was you, I wouldn’t get involved at this point. It’s basically the same thing as getting a death sentence.”

“ off.”

As I heard Wonwoo’s low voice growling at the other boy I felt delighted and scared at the same time. I felt more safe when he was there, but then again, he was putting himself into danger by coming to see the boy. Seungcheol turned to stare at the boy who was glaring at him. The older let out a snort and crossed his arms again.

“Well this is convenient. I have both of you here. How about this? Your friend knocked me off yesterday. Today I will knock off someone important to you.”

With these words being said, Seungcheol suddenly kicked Vernon in the stomach, making him fall on his back. My hand slipped off his arm and suddenly I had Seungcheol’s fingers wrapped around my wrist. I tried to wriggle out of his hold and as I failed, punched him in the shoulder with my other hand, which sadly left to Seungcheol also grabbing that one.

“How do you like this?” he asked Wonwoo and glared at him. If stares could kill, this one surely would have.

Wonwoo let out a deep breath and rushed towards us, punching Seungcheol in the face. The older boy clearly didn’t except that as his grip on my wrists loosened and I wriggled out of his hold. The boy glared at Wonwoo furiously and was quick to return the punch. At this point Vernon ran towards me and pulled me aside.

I stared as the boys continued fighting and curing each other off. I couldn’t really do anything. Getting in between them would mean getting injured. I glanced at Vernon who was staring at them too, looking like he was waiting for the right moment to rush in between the boys.

“You should man up”, I heard Wonwoo growl at Seungcheol as he punched him in the face once again. This seemed to piss Seungcheol off even more as he landed a jump-kick onto Wonwoo’s stomach. The boy fell down, panting in exhaustion. At this point Vernon saw his chance, apparently he had gotten enough of this as well. He rushed towards Seungcheol from behind and kicked him down, then placing a couple of punches on the boy.

“Man up and stop taking orders from your father”, Wonwoo continued as he got up from the ground. “Stop acting like a spoiled little brat.”

Seungcheol was lying down on the ground, panting, bruises starting to form on his skin. He got up, looking quite painful, and glared at Wonwoo, then at me.

“Leave. Get out of here and never come back”, I hissed at him, not looking him in the eyes. I was too angry.

Vernon motioned a punch with his fist as a warning to the boy who seemed to hesitate a little before snorting, turning around and disappearing behind a corner. At that moment I rushed to Wonwoo. I looked up at his face and gently touched his bruised cheek and the corner of his mouth that had some blood on it.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

“Yes. How about you?”

I nodded at the boy and let out a sigh. “We tried to get rid of him but he must’ve realized where we were headed to.”

“It’s okay. But what’s good is that you noticed him in time. What if he found out about the apartment? That would’ve been bad. But he didn’t, so we’re safe”, Wonwoo stated. “Vernon, I’m sorry you got hurt. But I’m also thankful.”

Vernon shrugged his shoulders. “No problem. I got to play hero too, not just Mingyu.”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes and helped us gather all the shopping bags that had fallen onto the ground during the situation. Then we made sure we weren’t followed and returned into the apartment.

After Wonwoo and I changed into more comfortable clothes, and after Mingyu showed up - also after we had told Mingyu about the fight with Seungcheol just before - we gathered around the kitchen table to think and talk about the situaton; possible solutions or ideas to at least improve the situation.

It was hard. Hopeless. We knew most of the city’s drifters were either hunted after or already given the option to die or become a hunter. We didn’t know how many hunters there were, where they got all their information from, we knew pretty much nothing.

“I have to admit the situation seems pretty hopeless”, Vernon stated with a sigh.

“Idiot”, Mingyu said and slapped the back of the boy’s head. “We know that, you didn’t have to say that.”

Vernon rolled his eyes and rest his head against the table. I glanced at Wonwoo who looked both exhausted and desperate for a solution. I realized to look at the clock and my eyes almost widened as I came to understand we had been talking for hours. It was already time for dinner and we had skipped lunch and every small snack normal people eat every now and then. All we had eaten was breakfast and I actually felt my stomach growling of hunger.

“Maybe we should continue tomorrow”, Mingyu sighed. “This is a tricky one, I have to admit.”

Wonwoo nodded. “You should go home and rest. Vernon too. There is a lot to think about.”

The boys got up and were preparing to leave as the doorbell rang. We all froze in our tracks. Who was it?

“Did you order food?” Mingyu asked quietly.

I shook my head. “We didn’t.”

Suddenly there was a gunshot that was apparently pointed towards the door. I let out a muffled scream at the sound and brought my hands to my ears as a reflex. Wonwoo rushed towards me immediately and I could see Mingyu and Vernon get tense as well. It took just a fraction of a second for the door to be broken down and is it fell down into the hallway, two armed men walked into the apartment. My legs went weak. How did they know to come here?

I looked at the men - no, they were still young. Boys. Probably close to my age. I could almost see the hesitation in the other hunter’s eyes. I knew it immediately, they were hunters and at least the younger one really didn’t want to do this. I didn’t get to study the hunters’ faces for long as I noticed the familiar face of the person who walked into the apartment behind the hunters.

“You told me to man up”, Seungcheol’s voice echoed in the hallway. “How about a level-up? I’d say this is a nice one.”

“How did you find us?” I accidentally let the words escape my mouth.

The boy snorted and glared me from behind his long eyelashes. “There are things called tracking devices. Like the one I placed in your boyfriend’s pocket during our play fight.”

“What?” I gasped. “You’re really getting lower and lower, Seungcheol.”

The boy chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Hmm, let’s see. We have the runaway drifters, the one who knocked me off, and the one who got a death sentence earlier. This should be fine.”

I stared at the boy as he examined us with his eyes for a second before nodding and taking a couple of steps back. “Alright. Kill them all.”

As he dropped the words, I felt myself starting to panic. Blood escaped my face and began rushing everywhere else, my knees went weak and I felt myself shaking in terror. Kill? Seungcheol really commanded these drifters to kill us just now. I glanced at Wonwoo in fear as he grabbed my wrist very hard. He was scared too. Of course he was. Who wouldn’t be?

My eyes started wandering the walls and accidentally found Seungcheol who walked out of the apartment and turned to glance at us for the last time.

“I’m sorry”, he said before disappearing from my sight. His voice actually sounded sincere.

Wonwoo finally got the guts to open his mouth. “Think about this. I know you’re like us too. I know they would’ve killed you if you didn’t become hunters. You don’t want to kill us.”

My eyes found the younger hunter’s eyes and I saw the fear in them. He wanted to run away. So did I. But with these two men standing there, pointing their guns at us, it was impossible. This boy probably had the same thoughts. He wanted to run away but he’d get killed if he did.

“Spare us - “, I whispered at the boy but got startled as the older one loaded his gun.

“Shut the up and accept it.”

CHAPTER 16

As I felt my senses awakening after hours of deep and calm sleep, I noticed myself wondering whether I was actually waking up or dreaming. I was surrounded by Wonwoo’s scent and his arms were tightly wrapped around my body. I felt his breath on my shoulder and neck. It tickled. I chuckled and slowly turned around in his arms to look at the sleeping boy. His hair was all messy, his face slightly puffy from sleeping in the unusual position. The beams on sunlight that got inside the room from the window danced on his skin, on his thin arms that were still placed on my body. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was feeling. I was happy to be reunited with my boyfriend after months. But I was also shaken by the events of the last couple of days. I felt shadows creeping around my happiness and shook my head to get rid of them.

My motion seemed to wake Wonwoo up. He opened his eyes slowly and eyed at me lovingly. I couldn’t help but to smile at him.

“If this is another dream, I’d rather never wake up”, I said quietly.

The boy hummed and placed a kiss on my forehead. “It’s not a dream.”

I chuckled and buried my face onto his chest. I just wanted to cuddle and lie down a little bit more. But honestly, we didn’t have time for this. Dr. Choi and Seungcheol - along with their drifter hunters - were probably searching for us. Of course there were other drifters to hunt down and kill, but we had escaped and we had knowledge of them. We were probably their first priority right now.

These kind of thoughts seemed to creep into Wonwoo’s mind as well as he let out a sigh and slowly got up from the bed. “I’ll make us something to eat.”

I sat up, stretching my body, and glanced at the clock. It was almost 10am. We sure had gotten a good full night of sleep. But right now we really had no time to rest like this. We needed to come up with a plan of some sort - what should we do about our situation, what should we do to our enemies? Going to the police wasn’t an option. They wouldn’t believe. Drifters? Time traveling? Pfft, they’d just laugh.

Worry formed a wrinkle in between my eyebrows for the rest of the morning. We ate breakfast in silence. We were both thinking hard and trying to come up with a solution. The silence was broken off as Wonwoo’s phone rang. We both stared at the device for a second before he got up from the table and answered the call.

“Hello?” the boy greeted the caller. “Vernon? Slow down, I don’t understand.”

I raised my eyebrows at the boy. Had something happened. He shook his head and tried to calm his friend down. “Calm down. I’m not at the library. I’m staying in my parents’ old apartment. You should - what? Here?” the boy glanced at me and blinked before continuing. “I guess you can come.”

Wonwoo ended the call and returned to the table. “The library has been completely rummaged. Vernon was worried if I was inside. I guess he hasn’t met with Mingyu yet since he didn’t know.”

I nodded, frowning a little bit. “And he’s coming here?”

“Yes. He seemed pretty worried.”

Well, who wouldn’t?

The morning went by slowly. I showered, then Wonwoo. We had to change back into our old clothes since we had nothing to change into here. Vernon came by, checking we were really all right and demanded to know exactly what had happened. First we had to explain the drifter part to him. For my surprise, he didn’t seem all that shocked. I watched as the boy just nodded and listened carefully, his light brown hair bobbing up and down along the nods. After we finished the whole story, the boy was furious.

“Wow, so you were beaten up and kidnapped and Mingyu got to play the part of a hero? Why didn’t I know any of this”, the boy whined and then crossed his arms on his chest. “Unbelievable. Where is Mingyu now?”

Wonwoo shrugged his shoulders. “Probably home sleeping. I do think we should call him here too. What he did yesterday was pretty dangerous so he’s probably being searched as well.”

We all agreed to that, so as Wonwoo decided to call him to the apartment, Vernon offered to go and buy some food and comfy clothes for us since we had pretty much nothing. I asked if I could join him. Seoul was a big city - in year 2157 it was even bigger than it was in 2017 - so it wasn’t very likely for the hunters to find me if we just visited a store or two quickly.

Wonwoo glared at me as we prepared to go out but I just flashed him an encouraging smile and followed Vernon out of the apartment. I didn’t really know a lot about him. I just knew he was half-Korean and he and Mingyu had been Wonwoo’s best friends since they were children. At first we were very awkward and silent, but slowly we started talking more.

“What’s the most different about this time and your time?” he asked at some point and I had to look around me carefully before answering because he had said that rather loudly and I was a runaway.

“Mostly the technology and the buildings. And the flying cars”, I answered as I quickly picked something comfortable from the clothing rack for us to wear.

We were heading back to the apartment as my eyes hit a familiar face walking on the street, getting closer and closer to us. My eyes widened and I grabbed Vernon’s arm tightly, stopping him. The boy stared at me with wide eyes and blinked a few times, looking extremely confused.

“Don’t look confused. Smile to me or something”, I whispered. “The son of the person who tries to kill me and Wonwoo is walking towards us. We need to go.”

Fortunately Seungcheol hadn’t noticed us - yet, at least. My hand still holding Vernon’s arm tightly, we took a turn to the left and decided to walk around the block to get rid of the boy. What I was glad about was the fact that even though Vernon and I were pretty much strangers and he was still very new to the whole situation, he took it seriously and lead me away safely.

As we had walked around the block and the familiar apartment building was standing in front of us, Seungcheol suddenly showed up again. He appeared from behind a corner, his arms crossed against his chest, glaring at us stalely. My eyes widened and my grip on Vernon’s arm became stronger.

“Amateurs”, he simply stated. “You got lucky and escaped. And you don’t even leave the city?”

I glared at the boy who looked annoyingly innocent with his doe eyes and long lashes. Fortunately Vernon opened his mouth before me. “That would be losing.”

“And who might you be?” Seungcheol asked.

“Someone who is more or less involved in the situation”, Vernon stated, raising up his chin a little bit.

Seungcheol chuckled. “If I was you, I wouldn’t get involved at this point. It’s basically the same thing as getting a death sentence.”

“ off.”

As I heard Wonwoo’s low voice growling at the other boy I felt delighted and scared at the same time. I felt more safe when he was there, but then again, he was putting himself into danger by coming to see the boy. Seungcheol turned to stare at the boy who was glaring at him. The older let out a snort and crossed his arms again.

“Well this is convenient. I have both of you here. How about this? Your friend knocked me off yesterday. Today I will knock off someone important to you.”

With these words being said, Seungcheol suddenly kicked Vernon in the stomach, making him fall on his back. My hand slipped off his arm and suddenly I had Seungcheol’s fingers wrapped around my wrist. I tried to wriggle out of his hold and as I failed, punched him in the shoulder with my other hand, which sadly left to Seungcheol also grabbing that one.

“How do you like this?” he asked Wonwoo and glared at him. If stares could kill, this one surely would have.

Wonwoo let out a deep breath and rushed towards us, punching Seungcheol in the face. The older boy clearly didn’t except that as his grip on my wrists loosened and I wriggled out of his hold. The boy glared at Wonwoo furiously and was quick to return the punch. At this point Vernon ran towards me and pulled me aside.

I stared as the boys continued fighting and curing each other off. I couldn’t really do anything. Getting in between them would mean getting injured. I glanced at Vernon who was staring at them too, looking like he was waiting for the right moment to rush in between the boys.

“You should man up”, I heard Wonwoo growl at Seungcheol as he punched him in the face once again. This seemed to piss Seungcheol off even more as he landed a jump-kick onto Wonwoo’s stomach. The boy fell down, panting in exhaustion. At this point Vernon saw his chance, apparently he had gotten enough of this as well. He rushed towards Seungcheol from behind and kicked him down, then placing a couple of punches on the boy.

“Man up and stop taking orders from your father”, Wonwoo continued as he got up from the ground. “Stop acting like a spoiled little brat.”

Seungcheol was lying down on the ground, panting, bruises starting to form on his skin. He got up, looking quite painful, and glared at Wonwoo, then at me.

“Leave. Get out of here and never come back”, I hissed at him, not looking him in the eyes. I was too angry.

Vernon motioned a punch with his fist as a warning to the boy who seemed to hesitate a little before snorting, turning around and disappearing behind a corner. At that moment I rushed to Wonwoo. I looked up at his face and gently touched his bruised cheek and the corner of his mouth that had some blood on it.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

“Yes. How about you?”

I nodded at the boy and let out a sigh. “We tried to get rid of him but he must’ve realized where we were headed to.”

“It’s okay. But what’s good is that you noticed him in time. What if he found out about the apartment? That would’ve been bad. But he didn’t, so we’re safe”, Wonwoo stated. “Vernon, I’m sorry you got hurt. But I’m also thankful.”

Vernon shrugged his shoulders. “No problem. I got to play hero too, not just Mingyu.”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes and helped us gather all the shopping bags that had fallen onto the ground during the situation. Then we made sure we weren’t followed and returned into the apartment.

After Wonwoo and I changed into more comfortable clothes, and after Mingyu showed up - also after we had told Mingyu about the fight with Seungcheol just before - we gathered around the kitchen table to think and talk about the situaton; possible solutions or ideas to at least improve the situation.

It was hard. Hopeless. We knew most of the city’s drifters were either hunted after or already given the option to die or become a hunter. We didn’t know how many hunters there were, where they got all their information from, we knew pretty much nothing.

“I have to admit the situation seems pretty hopeless”, Vernon stated with a sigh.

“Idiot”, Mingyu said and slapped the back of the boy’s head. “We know that, you didn’t have to say that.”

Vernon rolled his eyes and rest his head against the table. I glanced at Wonwoo who looked both exhausted and desperate for a solution. I realized to look at the clock and my eyes almost widened as I came to understand we had been talking for hours. It was already time for dinner and we had skipped lunch and every small snack normal people eat every now and then. All we had eaten was breakfast and I actually felt my stomach growling of hunger.

“Maybe we should continue tomorrow”, Mingyu sighed. “This is a tricky one, I have to admit.”

Wonwoo nodded. “You should go home and rest. Vernon too. There is a lot to think about.”

The boys got up and were preparing to leave as the doorbell rang. We all froze in our tracks. Who was it?

“Did you order food?” Mingyu asked quietly.

I shook my head. “We didn’t.”

Suddenly there was a gunshot that was apparently pointed towards the door. I let out a muffled scream at the sound and brought my hands to my ears as a reflex. Wonwoo rushed towards me immediately and I could see Mingyu and Vernon get tense as well. It took just a fraction of a second for the door to be broken down and is it fell down into the hallway, two armed men walked into the apartment. My legs went weak. How did they know to come here?

I looked at the men - no, they were still young. Boys. Probably close to my age. I could almost see the hesitation in the other hunter’s eyes. I knew it immediately, they were hunters and at least the younger one really didn’t want to do this. I didn’t get to study the hunters’ faces for long as I noticed the familiar face of the person who walked into the apartment behind the hunters.

“You told me to man up”, Seungcheol’s voice echoed in the hallway. “How about a level-up? I’d say this is a nice one.”

“How did you find us?” I accidentally let the words escape my mouth.

The boy snorted and glared me from behind his long eyelashes. “There are things called tracking devices. Like the one I placed in your boyfriend’s pocket during our play fight.”

“What?” I gasped. “You’re really getting lower and lower, Seungcheol.”

The boy chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Hmm, let’s see. We have the runaway drifters, the one who knocked me off, and the one who got a death sentence earlier. This should be fine.”

I stared at the boy as he examined us with his eyes for a second before nodding and taking a couple of steps back. “Alright. Kill them all.”

As he dropped the words, I felt myself starting to panic. Blood escaped my face and began rushing everywhere else, my knees went weak and I felt myself shaking in terror. Kill? Seungcheol really commanded these drifters to kill us just now. I glanced at Wonwoo in fear as he grabbed my wrist very hard. He was scared too. Of course he was. Who wouldn’t be?

My eyes started wandering the walls and accidentally found Seungcheol who walked out of the apartment and turned to glance at us for the last time.

“I’m sorry”, he said before disappearing from my sight. His voice actually sounded sincere.

Wonwoo finally got the guts to open his mouth. “Think about this. I know you’re like us too. I know they would’ve killed you if you didn’t become hunters. You don’t want to kill us.”

My eyes found the younger hunter’s eyes and I saw the fear in them. He wanted to run away. So did I. But with these two men standing there, pointing their guns at us, it was impossible. This boy probably had the same thoughts. He wanted to run away but he’d get killed if he did.

“Spare us - “, I whispered at the boy but got startled as the older one loaded his gun.

“Shut the up and accept it.”