The strong hit onto his face that made his lips bleed wasn't that unexpected as it hasn't been the first time he was greeted like this. Wooshin carefully wiped his now bleeding lip with the back of his hand while breathing in heavily. Kuhn was working out for quite some time now, both to be able to defend himself as their job required it and because working out had become a hobby to him. It was rare that Kuhn hit him, but when he did, it was to give his right hand a piece of mind. He didn't like doing that to any of s, but from time to time he needed to make sure that they had understood how serious this business was. There was no time for playing and especially no time for being late. The gang was priority and everybody knew that.
"I called you what feels like over hundred times! Do you want us all to get killed actually? Is it that what you want?", Kuhn asked in a threatening manner directed towards Wooshin only despite Xiao standing a few steps away behind him, gesturing towards the rest of the crew to his left who were sitting in front of computers with guns in their hand, so concentrated on their work that they hadn't even looked up as Kuhn had punched him. Kuhn had never been someone to yell a lot or raise his voice, he made you feel bad with words and his words just now had strung a nerve he sure knew well. Wooshin had tried to leave the gang multiple times and had actually been the first one to try it after a couple of months of their first kill, but Kuhn had stated multiple times before that there was no getting out of this alive.
Wooshin knew not to answer any of his questions and instead kept on looking down onto his feet. He hated it when Kuhn was behaving like this. He was a good guy and they still had a lot of fun as he was still his funny self from high school, but during times like these he went into this professional persona and the boys always had a hard time getting him out of it. Wooshin knew that he was only being like this to protect him and the others, yet the hit had been pretty strong.
"Why are you so late?", Kuhn questioned and Wooshin looked up at his taller friend. He didn't want the fault to be on Xiao even though they were late because of him yet Wooshin was desperately trying to come up with something rather quickly.
"This is my fault only.", Xiao chimed in as he suddenly pushed himself in front of Wooshin in a protecting manner, before the older one could have even started his answer. He felt bad that his best friend had taken the hit that wasn't meant for him in the first place.
"My manner caused a fight between us and even though he kept on saying we have to hurry up to get here as fast as possible I kept on being stubborn and didn't get into the car which leads to us being late."
During his whole explanation Xiao had kept steady eye contact with Kuhn which had made Jinhoo look over to them as the first person, Sunyoul and the rest following soon. Xiao noticed that Kuhn's features slowly softened and he was hoping he would be able to make their leader calm down and get back to himself. His coping mechanism was acting up a lot lately.
After seconds had passed Kuhn heaved a quick sigh, looked onto his feet for a moment and up to Xiao again, seemingly way more relaxed compared to the older's expression as they had arrived minutes ago. Due to this the slap came as unexpected as it could have ever been and it looked just as strong as the hit a minute ago towards Wooshin's face.
Xiao quickly placed a hand on his left cheek as it felt like it was burning instantly, the taste of blood spreading in his mouth. The shock was visible on his face and he barely felt nor realized that Wooshin was pulling him back by the back of his collar so he could be the one that was being shielded. Right now Kuhn was unpredictable and Wooshin wasn't sure if he wouldn't hit him again.
The pain shook through the whole left side of Xiao's face yet the only thing that was going through his head was how Kuhn had only slapped his cheek with his hand while Wooshin had received a direct hit into his face with his fist. His pain was probably nothing compared to Wooshin's.
To Wooshin though there was something else more important now than the pain. With Wooshin the saying of The eyes are the door to your soul was completely fitting. No matter how good he was at hiding his feelings, his eyes said everything and right now they failed him in hiding his anger. It was nothing new that the guys hit each other, especially in stressful situations like the current one. After all they weren't babies anymore but grown up men who had been hit a lot of times already during direct combats, especially Wooshin, Kuhn and Sunyoul who were even in charge of it. Nobody in this room had ever hit Xiao until now though. It was like an unspoken rule not to do it. He was their youngest whom they sometimes still do tended to treat like a baby and he wasn't even seen as a full time member. So instead of hitting Xiao Kuhn had to be most thankful for him to help them out for so many times now already. The others had joined on free will and each to their own purpose, yet Xiao was only there out of kindness and because he wanted to share his knowledge and be helpful. Out of everyone in this room, even despite Xiao being the reason that they were late, he was the last one who deserved to get hit.
"What the hell was that?", Wooshin questioned the leader while Gyujin lead Xiao, who was still in a state of shock, to their sofa in the middle of the room and left to get an ice pack for him from the basement down the stairs.
To Wooshin's distress Kuhn didn't answer him, but made a few steps over to the rest of the members and asked Bitto how the search was working out so far to which said one shook his head. They hadn't found the guy's exact position yet despite having localized it through his phone earlier. Bitto was sure the guy who was sent to go after them had simply destroyed it so they would lose contact.
Wooshin's anger was fueled even more with Kuhn not saying anything to his question. He walked over to him and dared something he had never done before. He grabbed the taller by his shoulder and quickly spun him around to force him to look at him, then pushed him back to get any sort of reaction from Kuhn, "Why did you hit him?", Wooshin asked another question, his voice now lower than usual as he was trying to keep calm yet show Kuhn that he was being serious about this. Sometimes he felt like despite being his right hand and Kuhn listening a lot to him, the leader hated being interrogated and pushed into a corner. He hated questions. He hated being told how to do his job properly.
Kuhn scoffed, "Will you stop being overprotective now? He got what he deserves. It's nothing against Xiao, don't take it so personal. I hit you too and I would've hit anyone in this room who was late today." With these words he turned his back to him and got into a conversation with Jinhoo and Bitto. Meanwhile Wooshin was having the hardest time to hold himself back. Why was Kuhn acting like this out of sudden? He himself had said they would never hit Xiao and he was always listening to what Wooshin had to say. After all he had been the one to make him calm down and leave this persona multiple times. What was going on? What had he missed due to his fight with Xiao earlier?
Wooshin's expression hardened further as Kuhn told Xiao to get ready despite him still holding the ice pack against his cheek yet the youngest wordlessly obeyed and got up from the couch not meeting eyes with Wooshin as he walked past him to get to the room with the cabinet filled with several guns, half of them being unknown by name to all of them except Xiao who had brought them there in the first place.
As Xiao was gone Jinhoo looked up to Wooshin, an apologetic and sad smile spreading on his face. Wooshin wanted to say something to him as he was interrupted by the beep of an alarm installed on Bitto's computer. All of them except said one jolted in unison at the sound. A grin started spreading on their technician's face, "Got you, ."

It had been 30 minutes already. 30 minutes and no sight of either Wooshin or Xiao. By now Miyeon's thoughts were running marathons since they had a math exam coming up and she had understood zero throughout the whole week.
Wei nervously tapped against his book with the blue ball pen in his hand as he looked over to Minsoo, "Do you think they're coming?"
Minsoo on the other hand tried to not appear to worried yet he couldn't help it but to recall the last time he had seen the best friends. They were fighting at the school's gate.
"Whatever reason it is that they aren't here today, we have to focus. The math exam is next Thursday and just because Wooshin couldn't tell us he won't be coming today we can't let today go to waste.", Hyejeong explained as she was slurping her coffee. She was right, even if it had sounded a little harsh towards Wooshin. Just because he couldn't give them a call or anything their grades shouldn't suffer underneath his lack of responsibility yet Miyeon was worried. In the past he hadn't been able to attend their Study Meeting from time to time and had always written a text about it, expressing the guilt he felt of not being able to come but that something very important had gotten in his way.
She pressed the home button of her phone to check any possible messages, but except for one from her mother there was nothing. Same as Xiao. They were both silent since after school and it was suspicious.
"The last time Wooshin was online was at 3:50PM while Xiao was longer on his phone until 4:21PM.", Wei tried analyzing the situation as he checked on their last seen in the shared messenger app. It was after 6PM already and Xiao was always glued to his phone.
Minsoo let out a sigh and let the pen in his hand fall onto his book. He couldn't concentrate like this. Not when he and everyone else was worried about their friends.
"What if something happened to them?", Hyemi mumbled, hiding behind another bite of her strawberry cake. Miyeon chuckled and shook her head, "Remember Wooshin has a red belt* in Taekwondo? They can't hurt him."
Wei raised an eyebrow at her words. As far as he remembered Wooshin had never told them about his degree or belt in Taekwondo. They only knew that he had been in club as a child and had been there for a long time since he had enjoyed it so much. On the other side of the table Minsoo grinned into himself and tried covering it by looking down at his jotted notes again. Sometimes he forgot that he had finally succeeded in making Wooshin and her spend more time together, but officially nobody of them except Minsoo - unofficially though - knew. He was wondering if one day she would finally drop her crush on Xiao and figure out Wooshin is the right person for while spending all this time together. Minsoo's constant advice lessons for Wooshin couldn't go to waste just like that.
"He told me once during sports when we were practicing alone.", she lied quickly, closed her books and got up from her seat, "Anyways I'm stopping by Wooshin's house. I'm pretty sure Xiao is there too. I can't concentrate like that if I don't know what they're doing and how they're doing. There is too much stuff going on in the news about people being kidnapped and killed lately."
Minsoo was glad that they were on the same page and closed his books too. Maybe it wasn't even that bad to spend one Friday evening without studying. He would go home, get into a nice bath and just relax for today and when he'd get out and into bed he would have a message from their missing friends.
"I'm driving you.", Minsoo decided as started packing his things, "How about you guys?", he asked as his gaze went back and forth between Wei, Hyejeong and Hyemi. While Hyejeong agreed with the two and joined them, Wei and Hyemi were too determined to work on both math and their geographic project that was due Monday.
As they bid goodbye Wei looked after them for a short moment. Miyeon's crush had been so obvious on Xiao, but right now it had sounded like the person she was worried about the most was Wooshin. Love., Wei thought and shook his head in amusement, how confusing you are.