Sehun pulled the mask over his face to conceal himself from the eyes down. Chanyeol had been drumming his fingers impatiently for the past few minutes. The duo spent the afternoon on a rooftop laying on their stomachs with a couple of binoculars. They were spying on Jung Seungho who they had been tracking for three weeks. The death of the man was worth at least twenty-five thousand. His gang had angered the wrong people for raiding supplies that didn’t belong to them. For the past few hours, Seungho was in a room with other men in suits, seeming to be in a meeting.

“Remember Kyungsoo’s party?” Chanyeol asked, breaking their concentrated silence. “Not the piñata one. The one before that. Seoyul said you brought a girl to the party.”

“Who’s Seoyul?”

“My cousin! Can you learn her name?” Chanyeol smacked Sehun’s head. “I told her that you weren’t bringing a girl to the party and now she thinks I’m a liar. Do you want to be cousins with a liar, Sehun?”

Sehun didn’t answer him, pretending to be too immersed by whatever Seungho was doing (which was literally just sitting around in his office).

“You were talking about Byul, weren’t you?”

Sehun was hoping Chanyeol wouldn’t put the puzzle pieces together, but he was apparently smarter than he thought. “It was just an excuse. You know I can’t stand your cousin. Sorry.”

“Come to think of it, you and Byul disappeared during the party after we were supposed to beat up that guy.” Chanyeol set his binoculars down on the ground to stretch his arms out. “Where did you go?”

“The bathroom.”

“What?”

He sighed, not knowing how their stakeout turned into a gossip session. “We were just talking.”

“You were gone the whole party. What the hell were you talking about? By ‘talking’ do you mean making out?”

“No!” Chanyeol’s accusation made Sehun drop his binoculars as well, suddenly disinterested in their target. “We were talking about everything and anything. It’s easy to put up a conversation with Byul.”

Chanyeol clucked his tongue. “You really like her, don’t you?”

Sehun only grunted, knowing a proper answer would just fire Chanyeol up for more questions. The silent flutter in his chest was the answer in itself.

“Well if you’re denying it or not…” Chanyeol put his chin on his hands and side-eyed Sehun. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re a bad influence on her.”

Sehun stared at the cement below him, watching an ant crawl. “What do you mean?”

“Look what you’re doing, Sehun. You’re on a rooftop so we can spy on some jerk gang boss so we can kill him later for a quarter of a hundred thousand dollars.”

No matter how much Sehun wanted to say Chanyeol was wrong, he was painfully right. “You’re doing it too,” he weakly backfired. “I don’t mix her with my work.”

“She is your work. The seventy-five grand, remember?”

Sehun threw him a glare. “No, I don’t remember. I was hoping you have forgotten by now too.”

Chanyeol rolled his eyes at his hostile words. “Don’t worry. I won’t touch her. Of all the girls you chose to make out with in a bathroom, why did it have to be the seventy-five grand one?”

Something popped in Sehun’s temple. He thought they had already gone over the conversation that explained they were just talking, but Sehun peeked into the binoculars again and noticed something strange. “I thought there were at least twenty other guys in that room. There’s only five now.”

The doors that led to the rooftop burst open, revealing the suited men who were missing from Seungho’s office. They were branding knives and blunt objects.

“Oh, ,” Chanyeol muttered under his breath, reluctantly standing with Sehun. “I told you we should have brought guns at least.”

Laying a blouse flat on the board, Byul ran an iron over it to smooth out its wrinkles that had come from being in the dryer. Her concentration was briefly interrupted by a knocking on her door. She ignored it for a good few seconds to flip the blouse over until it got to her nerves. Whoever it was, they began to pound on the door until it was shaking.

“One second!” Byul left the iron upright before walking to answer the door. She was ready to tell off the probably irritating salesman trying to sell her a useless product, but when she opened the door, she gasped.

Chanyeol had Sehun’s arm around his shoulder to help him stand. He half-dragged Sehun into the room once Byul moved aside to allow them in. Sehun was struggling to keep upright, looking as if he could collapse at any moment. He could barely keep his eyes open, wincing at every step he took.

“What happened?!”

“I don’t have time to talk. It’s not long before those guys find my car outside. I have to reroute them,” Chanyeol hurriedly explained, everything sounding like one long word. “Can you take Sehun for now?”

“Put him on my bed.” Byul rushed to push her bedroom door open while Chanyeol hobbled in with Sehun. He placed him on the mattress and Sehun groaned in pain from the motion. Byul couldn't keep her eyes on one part of Sehun for too long. There were bruises and cuts and scrapes. “Chanyeol what do I do? I’m not a doctor or anything—”

“I don’t know, but whatever you do, don’t take him to a hospital! Even if he’s coughing up blood, don’t even think about it. Just watch over him. I’ll call when I think it’s safe. I have to go.” Chanyeol left before Byul could ask him more questions.

Sehun was yelling after him. “Get back here! Why the hell would you lead them here?!” He propped himself up on an elbow, motioning to stand and follow after Chanyeol, but then falling back down in too much pain. “Byul, I have to go. Help me up.”

“Go where? You’re hurt!”

“I have to. What if they come here? This isn’t the best place.”

Byul didn’t know who “they” were, but she understood enough to know they were bad news. “Chanyeol is handling it, I think.”

Grabbing a moist towelette from a packet on her desk, she got on her knees beside the bed to wipe Sehun’s face from the dirt and blood. Byul kept her hands and movements as light as a feather as she cleaned up Sehun. She was afraid of causing more harm than good.

“I don’t quite understand what’s going on. Who’s chasing you?” she asked.

“Byul.” Sehun grabbed her wrist, stopping her actions.

She was scared she hurt him somehow and looked at him with wide eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Sehun turned his head to meet her gaze. “You know I wouldn’t lie to you, right?” His voice was soft.

“Don’t act like these are your dying words. You’re fine. Mostly bruised and your cheek and arm are bleeding, but you’re fine.” Byul eyed the horizontal cut across his left cheek that was matted by dried blood. “Who’s chasing you?” she asked again.

“Chanyeol and I have been keeping an eye out for this man. His ‘friends’ picked a fight with us.”

Byul clenched her teeth. “What are you doing getting involved with people like that? I’d hit you if you weren’t already hit enough.”

“Where’s your roommate?” he asked, remembering Jangmi.

“She’s still out of town, but she’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

“Lock the doors, okay? Just in case those guys saw Chanyeol bring me here.”

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