Running in high heels is not the easiest thing to do, nor is it the most comfortable, but at this moment in time, she didn’t exactly have a choice. Although Daeun was fast, - she had been on the track team her freshmen year of high school, back when she was still young and excited over the wide variety of clubs, before Minwoo had started getting into trouble and they both got a little too high off the power of their youth and the promise of their coming adulthood- the blue haired boy was faster. He was catching up on her quickly, his loud, boisterous laugh echoing through the night, spurring her forward. One second he had been teasing her playfully in an almost flirty manner, and the next he was chasing her with a near killer intent, seeming to enjoy it just a little too much if his thrilled laughter was anything to go by. Daeun was really beginning to regret her life choices at this point- and yet she also wasn’t. An odd feeling of euphoria was building up in her chest, adrenaline pumping strongly through her veins, a chilling thrill of excitement moving throughout her body that made her want to laugh with the dangerous boy, to break the calm quiet of the night; she had been hanging out with Minwoo for too long, addicted to trouble as much as he was.

“You know Princess, you aren’t so bad,” he laughed from behind her, voice closer than she would have liked. She winces when she feels a rush of air pass by her arm, catching a glimpse of outstretched pale fingertips from the corner of her eye. Her heartrate picked up, as did her speed.

She takes a sharp right into a nearby alley in an attempt to lose him, but he’s more agile than she had originally thought and he switches directions easily, squeezing into the narrow gap right after her. He reaches out again in another attempt to grab her, using the opportunity of the limited space to move that is before him since she will no longer be able to effortlessly dodge him- except she does and he’s nearly stunned into motionlessness at the fluidity of her actions and her quick wit, in actuality though he only falters for a moment, steps stuttering and eyes widening for just a split second before the wide grin on his face returns, confident and a little impressed. Up ahead was a chain-link fence, weak and rusted, blocking the path; thinking fast, Daeun flung herself at the fence, scaling it quickly, even in her heels, with experience that came from years of mischievous teenage troublemaking and sneaking out in the middle of the night, managing to avoid his extended hand for the third time. It took him longer than it should have for him to pull himself together and climb up after her, only seconds, but with his ability and track record they were unnecessary seconds he shouldn’t have wasted or even needed to, and she used that time wisely, taking off around another corner and even managing to unclasp the straps on her shoes. She was excellent at multitasking, one of the many useless skills she possessed and never really thought much of, and it came in handy in this type of situation, allowing her to finally remove her stupid heels, leaving them behind in the empty street without sparing them a single thought. The pavement was hard underneath her bare feet, unpleasant, but she was faster this way and the adrenaline rush dulled some of the pain.

He was behind her again, not as close as before but still close enough that she was in his line of vision, not close enough for another opening to grab her but still close enough that should he run any fast than he was now another attempt wouldn’t be impossible. She was going to do her best to prevent that, but she wasn’t yet sure how. There was no way in hell that she would lead the guy back to her place, despite it being the closest safe haven, so that left Minwoo’s house. Of course, it would still be ideal if she could shake him before then- she wasn’t so heartless as to lead a possible psycho to her best friend’s home; delivering danger right to his door was more than inconsiderate, even if her friend courted it enough on his own- but the exact method of how she was supposed to do that still escaped her. The answer came approximately thirty seconds later in the form of the old arcade her and Minwoo used to frequent in their middle school and early high school days.

The building was two stories, the arcade on the bottom and the top floor doubling as a flat, a small living arrangement the owners took advantage of. The owners were a lovely older couple who had been together so long their banter was as natural and comfortable as a second skin- she remembered the two of them teasing her and Minwoo about their own friendly banter, wanting to know when the wedding was to the two teenagers’ horror; it was undeniable that their interactions were similar, but in their case it came more from familiarity than it did romantic feelings. The old man used to play games with the kids that patronized the establishment, surprisingly good enough to have a few high scores of his own, which he teased the youngsters over constantly. His wife would often be baking treats or preparing sandwiches and drinks upstairs in their half-sized kitchen for any of the children if they were hungry. It was a quaint, homely, yet fun and carefree family run little business that had been, and still was, popular among the youth in the city, in spite of the fact that it was caught on the edge of what was considered to be the “bad area”. The memories of the time she spent there were pleasant, and, in this instance, they were also particularly useful.

On the outside of the building was a shaky dark metal fire escape, ladder half up. The hazy plan forming in her mind was risky, not to mention a bit farfetched and stupid, but if any situation called for risks, then it was this one- besides, risks had never scared her anyway, she usually never even took them into account, and she didn’t now either. Running at the ladder full speed, she pushed off the ground and jumped, managing to get a firm grip on the ladder and climb up the rungs without missing a single beat, taking the impact like it was nothing, once again showing experience in her actions that shocked the man chasing after her, gaining her a couple extra precious seconds. Even in her restrictive party dress- she swore this would be the last time she wore the thing, despite it being one of her favorites; clearly is was just bad luck after getting her into difficult situations two nights in a row-, she was able to quickly ascend the fire escape, dashing across the rooftop to the skylight with the broken latch she knew was located above the bathroom from the few times she had been invited upstairs by the friendly older couple that had the troubling tendency to welcome in wayward children with open arms and warm smiles. Using her knowledge, she disappeared through the skinny skylight just as the male had reached the roof. He blinked as she vanished.

Stumbling through the apartment as quickly and quietly as she possibly could and avoiding the door she knew led to the master bedroom, she made her way to the kitchen, back to the window that looked out on the fire escape. Ducking out through the opening much bigger than the one she had shimmed herself through on the roof, not forgetting to close it behind her, she made her way back down, not bothering to use the ladder again in her haste and scraping her feet and knees on the ground as she fell, letting out a sharp, painful yelp that caught the attention of the boy with the blue hair that still stood dumbfounded on the edge of the roof. He turned back around just in time to catch her figure disappear around another corner.

He sighs, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and staring up at the starless night sky in both frustration and faint amusement. He didn’t know whether to be pissed that he had let the girl get away, or thrilled that there was someone that could outrun him, outsmart him, something not easily done- or really, something not done at all. Despite the conflicting emotions fighting for dominance inside his head, one thing was certain, and that was the unshakable feelings of interest he could sense blossoming in regards to the girl in the dark blue dress with the tattoo on her wrist that managed to still run in those dumb high heels. A smirk grows on his face in spite of himself.

“Well, Shownu certainly knows how to pick ‘em. I’ll give the bastard that.”

···Ä···

“! What the hell?”

When Minwoo wakes up the next morning, a little after ten, he doesn’t expect to see his best friend curled up on his dull beige couch like she would have been yesterday had it not been for a certain someone with the initials S.H ditching her haphazardly in his upstairs guest bathtub. Unless he missed something though, there was no party last night, and the last he had heard from her she was going to go out searching for the infamous mystery man himself. His drooping half-asleep eyes widen at the realization and he lets out a frustrated sigh, ruffling his hair as he lets out a few more curses under his breath. She went out last night; something must have gone wrong. Looking at her now, brow furrowed slightly even in her sleep, he has a bad feeling, one that only increases when he notices the cuts on her feet and the dried blood on her knees. The anxious feeling of panic begins to bubble his chest, rivaling the previous heavy sinking feeling he felt after overcoming his confusion upon seeing her laying there on the couch he knew from experience was anything but comfortable.

“Daeun,” he whispers her name in concern but doesn’t make a move to wake her up; she looks like she’s had a rough night and he wants her to rest. Unfortunately, he ends up waking her up anyway when he returns from the downstairs half bathroom with the first aid kit he keeps there to treat his own injuries, tripping over some of the he still hadn’t cleaned up yet, either from yesterday or his usual messy lifestyle. The crash startled her back into the world of consciousness and she shot a venomous glare in his direction, though it turned into a faint wince of discomfort when she shifted in such a way that her scraped knees brushed against the harsh material of the sofa.

Minwoo wastes no time getting down to business as he kneels in front of her and pops the cliché white first aid kit open. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I was chased through town by an ,” she grumbled back in reply. Minwoo raises an eyebrow as if prompting her for more, but doesn’t say anything out oud. He merely brings out the Band-Aids and rubbing alcohol, letting his unspoken question hang in the air- he knows she’ll answer, she just needs a moment to fully wake up before she could properly explain.

She hisses when he presses a peroxide soaked paper towel onto her knee, cleaning the wound. They say nothing for a moment- the irony is not lost on either of them, both remembering with slight nostalgia their sophomore year of high school when Minwoo had first started getting into trouble and it had been Daeun tending his wounds and not the other way around- and then Daeun begins to speak, recalling the events of the previous night in a rather bitter tone of voice, and he knows that she’s pissed about it all.

“Apparently, the guy who left this,” she waved her wrist around apathetically, “is friends with a blue haired boy that, if you ask me, has a few screws loose, not to mention he’s probably bipolar. He saw the tattoo, demanded why it was there- as if I know- and then proceeded to talk some nonsense about princesses and running and steps. He chased me to the old arcade; I had to break into Halmoni’s house to get away. Do you think she’d mind?”

“It’s not the first time one of us have done it,” Minwoo shrugged off her weak, mostly just polite, concern with an easy nonchalance that soon disappeared as he actually began to process her words fully. “W-wait,” he backtracked, uncharacteristically stuttering in his haste and surprise, “Someone chased you? Someone told you to run?”

Daeun blinks, not understanding the need for emphasis, the context and implications of both the word and his tone completely lost on her. He looked absolutely scandalized. It makes her cautions, not to mention confused. “…Yeah?”

“.”

He says nothing more, prompting her to let out an annoyed sigh and prod him to elaborate on the powerful, yet extremely vague, utterance of the taboo four letter word. “Care to explain?”

He doesn’t, gently taking her tattooed wrist into his hold once more. He squints at it, hard, scrutinizing it with such intensity that her skin feels like it’s burning. His gaze is not as angry as the boy from last night’s, but it is just as sharp, just as focused; his grip is nowhere near as bruising, touch soft, nearly feather light, as if he is too afraid to touch the marking, but for some reason she feels just as much pressure from his careful fingertips and probing eyes. It takes a minute- a full sixty seconds of heavy silence that would have been awkward, stifling, had they not been as close as they were; still though, Daeun thought she was going to die from the curiosity eating her up inside, from the anticipation she could feel in the air like a physical being, taste on the tip of her tongue- and then he finally finds it, the barely discernable x in the small circle that separates the first initial from the second. He recognizes it easily, having seen a symbol just like it a few times before on a friend of his, a black tattoo slightly bigger in size but familiar in content.

“,” he repeats.

“You already said that.”

Minwoo falls back, sitting on his heels as his tan hands release her arm and return to his ruffled caramel brown hair, messing it up even more in his growing frustration. She watches him, a little worried and off put by his actions- Minwoo is never one to shy away from complications or problems, something they have in common- but before she can ask him just what the hell is so wrong, he begins explaining on his own, picking back up the momentarily forgotten medical kit and continuing his work as he does.

“I think it’s a Brand. It looks just like the tattoo one of my friends has, minus the letters and all that crap. I think the Badge belongs to his group,” he tells her, mumbling it all in a way that makes him not seem all that pleased with the newly discovered information. Before he moves on, he’s going to have to clarify a few things for her first, such as-

“Brand? Badge? What the hell are you talking about? I don’t speak street thug, nor do I speak idiot,” she rolls her eyes at him sarcastically, hissing again and throwing a glare his way when he presses down particularly hard on one of her cuts. The vindictive little brat did that on purpose she knows, but she lets him be, just this once, in favor of getting some answers.

“A Brand is a tattoo given to a member of a group to show both involvement and loyalty,” he informs her, thankfully ignoring her indirect insult to his intelligence- though if the carelessness of which he was cleaning and wrapping her wounds was any indication, then he was getting back at her in other, less verbal ways. She wants to laugh because Minwoo actually sounds sophisticated for once; okay, so sophisticated might be a bit of a stretch, but he did sound decently knowledgeable- like a talking dictionary. She felt a little like an elementary school kid being lectured on terminology for their upcoming test. Her friend took no notice of her obvious amusement though, and continued on with his small lesson, a true professional indeed.

“A Badge is a group’s symbol, kind of like a logo. My crew’s got one too; we put it up to claim our pieces- Ah, like a calling card!” his eyes lit up and a bright, rather proud grin spread across his face. Clearly, he was pleased with himself at coming up with the perfect analogy, and to Daeun that only made the situation seem even more bizarre and humorous. She kept her growing amusement at bay though, trying to focus on what he was saying and what it meant for her.

“Anyway,” he continued, carrying on in a nonstop dialogue with himself, “this is their Badge,” he pointed at the miniscule dot they had both previously mistaken for a period. “It’s an x inside a circle. I’m not entirely sure what it means, but since it’s not my group, I’m not supposed to.”

Now that he pointed it out, it did seem kind of obvious to her. The design was just as he said, a simple, bold lowercase x in the middle of a thick black circle. How she had missed it, she didn’t know, but then again, it was easy to overlook things when you didn’t even know you were supposed to be looking for them. She opened to ask another question, but he beat her to it by the slim margin of a second.

“Before you even ask, no, I don’t have a Brand. Not every group does that, and it’s not really a popular practice amongst the graffiti community. And before you ask again, no, I don’t know the group this Badge belongs to. However, I do have a friend that belongs to them. I can take you to meet him later. They aren’t a graffiti crew; they’re a group of Runners.”

“Of course they ing are,” she scoffs, not understanding the term fully but getting a pretty good idea of the big picture finally. At least, she understood why he had put such special emphasis on the word before. At least it now made a little sense why the guy had chased her and why he had been so unbelievably fast and unexpectedly agile, the epitome of the over used idiom “quick on your feet”. With that being said, even if she understood- which she still didn’t, not really- she wasn’t going to forgive the little blue haired bastard. Runner or not (she still didn’t know what the hell that entailed, besides the obvious), he was still a bipolar .

“I’d explain fully, but I don’t actually know a lot about them,” Minwoo told her, voice and expression laden with an unspoken apology. “Like I said though, I can take you to someone who does. He’s a friend of mine- well, more of an acquaintance really, but the Jo twins are good friends with him. I can call them,” he offers, a deal she takes him up on without any hesitation.

The Jo brothers are a pair of twins the same age as her and Minwoo and good friends the two had met their senior year of high school, when the twins had transferred to their school. They also happened to be part of Minwoo’