Sehun, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo were hired by the third shift mayor of Anam to find her young daughter who had run off from home after an argument. The third shift mayor did not wish to mobilize the Anam police force for the sake of it and was recommended by her assistant to hire Sehun’s team for the job.

It wasn’t that hard and in a few hours, they found the young girl hiding in an abandoned shop in a back-alley that served to trade rather questionable but legal items from other regions of the galaxy.

Sehun was glad to accept a mission that actually didn’t require fighting and for them to travel because starship fuel prices were on the rise due to an ongoing political crisis in the planets that produced this fuel. A lot of their pay from missions went to fuel, weapons, and maintenance but they were able to break even although the profit margin wasn’t that high.

After the mission, the third shift mayor of Anam paid for the trio to stay for a day in the penthouse suite at Anam’s exclusive business hotel.

Chanyeol was sitting out on the penthouse balcony made entirely of glass floor and railings. The hotel itself was one of the tallest buildings on Anam, so Chanyeol had the view of almost the entire bustling metropolitan skyline of Anam below and ahead of him.

If it weren’t for the fact that Anam was heavily polluted by light because of its eternal night, Chanyeol could probably see far enough to the bright side of Anam from the elevation he was on.

Chanyeol had pulled a chair to the balcony’s glass balustrade, where he sat; resting his head on the edge and one arm dangling off the balcony as he looked on at the view beneath him.

There was a lot to see and the wind blew cooler up there compared to at a lower elevation on Anam. Chanyeol didn’t care for that because he didn’t go along well with the cold but he did think that Kyungsoo might like that.

“You know, this is better than your ty apartment,” Chanyeol commented, seeing Sehun walking to the edge of the balcony and standing beside him.

“My ty apartment saved you from the streets,” Sehun retorted, taking no offense.

“Too bad we can’t afford places like this,” Chanyeol half-heartedly complained.

“Well, people like us don’t have much of a choice. We ran away from our homes. I don’t think it’s wise to envision a luxurious, comfortable lifestyle when we’re basically fleeing to escape a threat. You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment,” Sehun advised, tucking his hands into the pockets of his trousers.

“I know,” Chanyeol muttered, feeling the wind blow on his face and hair.

Right then, Kyungsoo who was actually standing around, butted into the conversation, “-when you say ty apartment, you mean that you never even seen how the floor looked like until I arrived here. I don’t know how you two used to live like that.”

Chanyeol chuckled, “Yeah, we never really bothered to clean it up until you came here.”

“I’m a busy man, alright. Chanyeol spends the most time there and all he does is sleep around,” Sehun tried to shift the responsibility.

“-right,” Kyungsoo played along at the jabs they were taking at each other, “-you barely did any housework when we lived on Kunryun either.”

“Hmm…” Chanyeol hummed, asking out of curiosity, “How’s Kunryun like? I can barely find anything on Kunryun because there are very strict immigration laws there. It’s virtually impossible even to visit if you’re not a Gauean. I find it amazing that you two even managed to escape.”

“We all live on floating island cities. Because our population is so small, we consolidated all the settlements and everyone lives in one city now. The island is big and there’s not many of us so there’s lots of free space everywhere that we turned into parks. There are lots of trees and if you stand on some parts of the floating island, you can hear the great winds blowing and then you’ll know that you’re home,” Sehun replied, tinged with a sense of nostalgia.

“Oh, that’s why you Gaueans like the wind so much,” Chanyeol snickered, “-it’s probably sentimental to you.”

“Yeah, everyone has a job on Kunryun that the government assigns to you based on your power and abilities. No one is unemployed, homeless or goes hungry. But you’re allowed to fight someone in a higher position to get their title. If you win, you get it. If you lose, you die,” Kyungsoo further explained, “That’s why our population is only left with the strongest.”

“That sounded like a good system to use with a dwindling population, to be honest,” Chanyeol chimed in, “-but then you guys had to go all archaic with your power hungry traditions.”

“I agree,” Kyungsoo folded his arms across his chest as he too looked out at the view of the skyline near the edge of the balcony, “I bet the entire galaxy sees as us some violent, unstable race that is orchestrating our own demise. Not that I’m denying that that is what’s really happening.”

“You can’t change what’s in our blood. That’s why we left,” Sehun added.

“Well…if you want to know what we Vuurians think of Gaueans. We just think you guys are kind of mysterious, secluded and not really friendly to outsiders,” Chanyeol informed.

“-sounds a bit right,” Kyungsoo sighed.

“You two are good though,” Chanyeol made sure to say, lifting his head to look at Kyungsoo and Sehun standing beside where he was sitting.

“Yeah, and you make a good meat shield for us fragile Gaueans,” Sehun joked.

Chanyeol pouted, remembering when Sehun and now Kyungsoo had thrown him into things simply because they know he could take the hit.

Kyungsoo laughed.

~~★★★★★~~

It was several Anam days later, in the later hours when it was a few more hours till their usual sleeping schedule.

Chanyeol was sitting on the couch watching the Anam news that always had something to report on 25 hours a day. Sehun and Kyungsoo were in the small kitchen, cutting and preparing food to put into the ration bags for their next mission.

The window beside the couch was left open as usual, although it was less windy around that time. It was probably the dry season on Anam but Chanyeol wasn’t sure.

It was then when Chanyeol felt the apartment building shaking slightly. The air around him also seemed to vibrate. It only lasted for less than a minute at most before everything came to a standstill like normal.

While seated on the couch, Chanyeol turned his head to look up to the ceiling, thinking that maybe their upstairs neighbors were responsible for it.

Sehun popped his head out of the kitchen, “What was that?”

“I don’t know, a moonquake maybe?” Chanyeol supposed, looking over the couch towards Sehun, where he saw Kyungsoo behind Sehun trying to see what was going on too.

“I don’t think so,” Sehun rebutted, “A moonquake on Anam that was strong enough to rattle the building would usually last up to an hour. That was too short.”

“It’s probably the mechanics living upstairs?” Kyungsoo tried to suggest.

“Maybe,” Sehun shrugged.

“You want me to tell them to keep it down?” Chanyeol offered, “I’ll go-“

“Shh,” Sehun immediately hushed Chanyeol to keep quiet. Sehun spoke in a whisper, “Turn off the TV.”

Chanyeol did as he was told while Kyungsoo was still holding a pot of soup that was to be frozen and turned into rations later on.

Sehun lightly tiptoed towards the main door, making sure all their five locks were in place like it was supposed to.

Sehun pressed his ear to the gap between the door and the frame, where he, sure enough, heard a few disembodied voices talking outside. It was the language in which they talked in that worried Sehun.

Upon hearing that, Sehun quickly turned to Kyungsoo and whispered something into his ear. Kyungsoo nodded, placed the pot down back on the table and rushed to his room to grab his sword.

“You and Kyungsoo have to leave now. Get Umi at the space dock and fly off to our hideout on Myolhada. Kyungsoo doesn’t know the way there so you have to go with him,” Sehun sternly told Chanyeol in a low voice, so as to stay quiet.

“What’s going on?” Chanyeol was surprised but managed to keep his voice low too.

“There’s Gaueans walking down the corridor looking for us. Our position is compromised,” Sehun warned.

“-but I thought we were supposed to be safe on Anam?” Chanyeol mentioned, shocked.

“It doesn’t look like that anymore. You two need to leave now!” Sehun ordered, pointing to the window.

“What about you?” Chanyeol asked, concerned for Sehun.

“I’ll buy you two time. They likely want Kyungsoo, not me. I can hold them off until you two get far enough,” Sehun briefed Chanyeol.

“Come on, Chanyeol, let’s go,” Kyungsoo tugged onto Chanyeol’s arm, leading him to the edge of the window.

Kyungsoo already had his cape on and his sword with him, but Chanyeol was still dressed in casual clothes he usually wore at home.

Sehun threw the keys to Umi at Chanyeol who caught it and then solemnly nodded back to Sehun who gave the both of them a thumb up.

“I’ll catch up,” Sehun waved off Chanyeol and Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo held onto Chanyeol’s hand as they climbed over the edge of the window, looking down at a five floors fall down to the brightly-lit streets of Anam below. It was their only exit from the apartment to avoid the Gauean soldiers outside their door.

It was not windy that day. Chanyeol hesitated to take the plunge but Kyungsoo had not. Vuurians were not that swift or agile to jump off high places and survive, unlike a Gauean.

Even before he was ready and had braced himself for it, Chanyeol was sent falling down when Kyungsoo took the jump while holding onto his hand, bringing him down together.

Kyungsoo rolled and ended up on his back on the street below, much to the surprise of the street side vendor in front of where they had landed on.

Kyungsoo had used his own body to cushion Chanyeol’s fall, knowing that he was not that sturdy when it came to falling. It didn’t seem to hurt Kyungsoo, although he did make a splattering noise from his mouth when Chanyeol landed on his stomach.

“Sorry,” Chanyeol quickly apologized before getting up off from Kyungsoo and looking up at their apartment from below.

They weren’t able to see much from the street level but they were certainly taken by surprise to hear the loud explosive sound of their door being blasted open, and a resulting shockwave being visible from the window they had just jumped out from.

“Sehun!” Chanyeol exclaimed, worried for Sehun still in the apartment.

“He’s one of the strongest Gaueans. There are not many stronger than him. He’ll be fine. Let’s go,” Kyungsoo urged, pulling onto Chanyeol’s hand as they leaped into a sprint down the streets.

“Are you sure?” Chanyeol almost yelled as they were running down a dingy, minimally lit back-alley; one of the many that existed on Anam due to the massive and numerous buildings being built so close to each other.

Kyungsoo did not answer Chanyeol’s question this time, as they kept running through the constantly bustling streets of Anam that never slept.

Kyungsoo never looked back but Chanyeol often did so, making sure that no Gaueans were after them or maybe to see if Sehun had caught up to them.

Chanyeol trusted Sehun’s strength but he was very much scared off by the Gauean nature and tales of killing each other.

Sehun was an expert at running and hiding from the people who might come after him, which was why he bought the so-called “ty apartment”. The apartment was the only affordable one that was close enough to the space dock where Umi was parked in, so they could escape fast and easy if needed.

Furthermore, the high rental for the parking on the space dock was one of the reasons why they never really made a big profit off of the missions they undertook.

In order to access the space dock, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had to enter the space elevator tower station not far from their apartment.

The space elevator was a lift that transported people to the space dock at the top which was thousands of kilometers above ground level and floating in space at a low orbit.

The dock was built in space to park starships and large spaceships alike, in order to ease their takeoff without the need for a long runway and copious amount of fuel to reach a velocity enough to escape the gravitational pull on Anam.

Because Anam operated throughout the clock, the tower station was always full and packed with people going and coming back from Anam.

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had to hold hands so they wouldn’t lose each other in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, as they made their way to the boarding gates.

They scanned their ticket cards on one of the many holographic panels that allowed them to wait for the elevator in the boarding area.

When they arrived in the massive boarding hall among the hundreds of other people, Kyungsoo read the clocks on the wall to see that the elevator would be coming down in a few minutes.

The elevator was able to board a few thousand people at one time and took at least fifteen minutes either way to reach the space dock and the station on Anam.

Chanyeol quickly pushed through the crowd, pulling Kyungsoo by the hand so they could quickly board the next elevat