Kyungsoo was gone from work for a few days and when he returned, he expected to find his stuff in a box and a letter of termination from the company for failing to show up without cause after three days straight.

Instead, Kyungsoo came back to work to find out that he was still very much employed. Junmyeon almost jumped into Kyungsoo’s arms and dragged him to a supply room so they could talk in privacy about the ordeal they had been in.

Junmyeon had apparently lied to the bosses that Kyungsoo was bedridden at home and even produced a fake doctor’s note to show as evidence, so Kyungsoo wouldn’t have action taken on him for being missing from work.

Taemin, the man working for Baekhyun, was missing from work himself and had not shown up since the day Kyungsoo was dragged off to Macau by Chanyeol. If anything, it was Taemin who was facing termination from work, although Kyungsoo knew now that this job was just a facade and that Taemin was really employed by the mafia.

Unlike him, Kyungsoo actually needed this job to pay his bills.

Although Junmyeon and his family were safe it seems, Kyungsoo still felt extremely guilty for putting them through such a traumatizing situation. Especially when Junmyeon and his wife seemed even more worried about Kyungsoo than themselves.

No amount of backstage passes, press edition freebies and meal vouchers Kyungsoo could give them would erase his guilt for putting an entire innocent family

The only way Kyungsoo could ever truly make his repentance was to make a promise to himself that he’d stay away from trouble and not actively pursue anything more that had ties to both Chanyeol and Baekhyun.

And Kyungsoo kept that promise for a few weeks at least, until Junmyeon came to him asking for help to expose a syndicate.

Apparently, some hooligan trouble makers in the neighborhood had formed their own small gang and were now extorting small businesses out of “protection money”. One of the businesses happened to be Junmyeon’s wife’s cafe.

The cafe was slowly gaining a loyal customer base and having members of the gang constantly hanging around there and causing trouble was bad for business, even if they were able to pay off the so-called “protection money”.

Afraid of retaliation if reported to the possibly corrupt local police, Junmyeon turned to Kyungsoo, hoping that he would expose them in the media and publicly call them out to force immediate action from a higher level of authority.

Not three weeks since Kyungsoo last saw Chanyeol, he found himself in the back of Junmyeon’s white van, parked behind a sleazy cheap motel, with a camera in hand.

It was around eight in the evening on a Tuesday. Junmyeon was in the driver’s seat with his head ducked down as Kyungsoo moved from window to window in the rear section of the van to shoot some photographic evidence from behind the tinted glass windows.

With Junmyeon’s knowledge of the neighborhood, he and Kyungsoo had managed to track down this local gang which seemed to be made out of four men in their twenties to forties and a corrupt low-ranked policeman who happened to be one of the gang member’s cousin.

The gang’s arsenal mostly consisted of their own vehicles, two baseball bats and some machetes. Their highest claim to date was probably extorting around 3 million won from a tuck shop owner, which they later wasted away on alcohol, cigarettes, and women.

Allegedly, they also often started fights among themselves and could not really see eye to eye even when pertaining to trivial matters.

Compared to the grander scale of crime gangs which Kyungsoo had the fair share of experiencing, this “gang” was nothing more than a nuisance. A part of Kyungsoo felt bad for them because they seemed pathetic if compared to what other crime organizations were doing, and how eerily professional and organized they were. Particularly, the ones which Chanyeol was involved in.

So much for staying out of trouble for Junmyeon’s sake though, because Kyungsoo was getting right back into it by the very friend he was trying to protect. It was all ironic and dare he even say- humorous.

But Kyungsoo didn’t complain and went along with the whole plan for the sake of his friend.

Four of the gang members were hanging around outside the motel building, standing under the faded neon signs as they smoked cigarettes and littered their buds everywhere on the ground. One of them was also causing quite a nuisance when he showed up with a loud modified bike and constantly kept revving the engine.

After shooting a few pictures from the back of the van, Kyungsoo too ducked beneath the windows. The rear seats had been collapsed and stored away, giving Kyungsoo ample space to move around as he took the pictures.

The van was parked in one of the parking lots across the road from the motel. There were also a few other vehicles left there overnight so it didn’t seem too suspicious that they were there at the time.

Kyungsoo browsed through his camera roll to make sure he had what he needed.

As Junmyeon peeked behind to ask, “Got it?”

“Yeah I have most of them but there’s one guy who won’t seem to look this way. I can only get a glimpse of his side profile,” Kyungsoo grunted lightly.

“Which one is it?” Junmyeon asked, slightly lifting his body from his crouching position to have a look at the display screen of Kyungsoo’s camera.

“It’s the bald guy wearing the wife-beater shirt,” Kyungsoo told, peaking momentarily through the window to see if the man in question had changed position.

“Oh, him,” Junmyeon replied, trying to get up into a sitting position to also have a look when he accidentally hit his arm on the light switch lever, which immediately the headlights of the van right into the direction of the gang members loitering outside the motel.

Kyungsoo saw what happened in horror from the back of the van, while Junmyeon frantically attempted to turn off the lights, only to end up accidentally hitting the horn and activating the windshield wipers in the confusion.

Which, of course, alerted the rowdy gang members of their presence.

Kyungsoo made sure all the doors of the van were locked while Junmyeon managed to finally take control over his own van’s controls.

“,” Junmyeon cursed, pushing Kyungsoo out of the way and jumping from the driver’s seat to join him in the rear when a gang member peered through the windshield to see them inside there.

“They’re in there! They’ve been watching us!” One of the gang members yelled from outside, alerting the others of their presence.

In a moment, the van was being battered with punches and kicks. The gang members attempted to break down the doors windows while shouting and forcing Kyungsoo and Junmyeon out.

They also shone lights from their phones through the windows to have a look at Junmyeon and Kyungsoo, who ducked and covered their heads with their arms to protect their identity.

It would spell trouble for everyone and anyone who knew them if the gang members found out who they were.

“What do we do now?” Kyungsoo hissed, hiding his head in a corner of the van with Junmyeon right beside him.

The van was shaking and wobbling due to the gang member’s assault upon the vehicle. One of them had even climbed to the roof and was jumping up and down on top of it. They were causing quite a ruckus but no one in the area was brave enough to mess with them.

“I don’t know!” Junmyeon trembled, sputtering, “They’ve blocked the back and front. I can’t drive out here with them blocking the way. I can’t just run them over. I’ll go to jail for that!”

“,” Kyungsoo swore, quickly scrambling through his head for ideas.

“What do we do!?” Junmyeon cried out, “We can’t stay here forever! Should we just call the police from another station? Not all policemen are corrupt, right?”

Almost immediately, an idea struck Kyungsoo’s head. He just remembered that he was wearing the exact same pair of jeans from when Chanyeol had dragged him off the street and onto a plane to Macau.

When Kyungsoo got home after the whole ordeal, he had just tossed the jeans aside and forgot all about it. That was until he ran out of clothes to wear that morning because he had been procrastinating on doing the laundry.

The jeans weren’t what was going to save them. It was the card with Chanyeol’s phone number tucked away and forgotten in the back pocket was what would save them.

Even though the memory of him and Chanyeol ing in that hotel room occasionally replayed in his head, Kyungsoo never contacted Chanyeol after they parted ways that day. It wasn’t because Kyungsoo hated Chanyeol.

Instead, Kyungsoo saw it as a way to distance himself from such trouble and from further implicating innocent people into the mess he had created for himself.

“No police! I got it handled. Wait!” Kyungsoo instructed Junmyeon.

Biting the figurative bullet, Kyungsoo reached behind to his bottom to reach for the crumpled card in his back pocket. With his phone already in his hand, Kyungsoo dialed the number.

It took a few rings before Chanyeol answered the phone. Kyungsoo didn’t have to introduce himself even if this was literally the first time he was calling Chanyeol. Because Chanyeol seemed to know it was him, not that it surprised Kyungsoo either.

Apparently, Chany