Baekhyun woke up with a crick in his neck. The couch had been quite uncomfortable and he stretched to shake off the tension in his muscles. He straightened out the hooded sweatshirt Sehun had lent him and dusted stray lint off his joggers.

The entire house remained serenely quiet. Baekhyun took a moment to appreciate the calm.

Soon after he realized that he was the only one awake, Baekhyun started feeling restless.

He decided to head out for a quick walk. Finding a scrap of paper and a pen, he scribbled out a note detailing his whereabouts and left it on the couch.

He grabbed his phone off the coffee table and picked up the spare keys hanging by a peg near the front door.

Once he was on the street, Baekhyun took a deep breath and sighed, content.

The neighborhood was empty and the air was just a bit chilly, enough to nip at his skin pleasantly.

Baekhyun wandered around aimlessly, hoping to distract himself.

It wasn’t until his phone started ringing that Baekhyun realized he’d walked farther than the posh neighborhood that Sehun lived in.

The area he was in now was on the grittier side. He noticed shady alleys, faded graffiti and even some tired looking people milling about, getting their daily doses of caffeine from coffee shops and walking their dogs.

Baekhyun checked his phone screen and frowned at the hidden number. After brief hesitance, he answered the call.

“Hello?”

Baekhyun ducked around a lamp post and moved away from a plump lady with a mean looking German Shepard.

“Can I talk to Hayan?”

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded vaguely familiar but Baekhyun didn’t ponder on that. He was taken aback by the fact that this person knew Hayan, and that he knew that Baekhyun was with her.

“There’s no Hayan here,” Baekhyun replied, speaking in a deeper falsetto, in the hopes of hiding his identity.

He couldn’t be sure whether this was a friend or foe.

The man on the other end sighed heavily, like the entire conversation was a chore.

“This is Tao, we met a few days back. You’re Byun Baekhyun. Traveling with Hayan and Kim Jongin, who prefers to go by Kai, and Jung Soojung, who goes by Krystal. On the run from the Blue Dragons.”

There was a pause.

“Can I speak with Hayan now?”

Baekhyun turned into a narrow alley and leaned against the wall, feeling overwhelmed.

Who was this stranger that randomly called him up and recounted the major events of the past five days to him?

‘What did he say his name was, Tao?’

“Baekhyun, this is important,” Tao hissed. “We don’t have much time.”

Baekhyun snapped out of his daze. He vaguely recalled Tao to be the dark haired Chinese man Hayan was fr