Byul stared at her laptop, replaying the footage of the security camera again and again.

She had left Hyejin and Yongsun in Wheein's care and gone by herself to the address that Changsub had given them. Since she went in broad daylight, it would be safe to go alone. No one would attack her then. She brought her gun just in case, though.

The owner of the internet café had been kind enough to give her a copy of the security cam footage, and she had brought it to her apartment. But no matter how many times she watched it, she couldn't really find anything really useful. All that she could determine was that the person who posted her photo was a man. Great. That only describes like half of the world's population. 

A phone notification stole her attention from her computer. Yongsun had texted her. Byul smiled as she read her text.

Yong:

Wheein told me you left to get the security cam footage!!! Why did you go without us?!!!! It's dangerous!!!!

Byul:

Awww, you're worried about me?

Yong:

You're an idiot.

Byul:

Thanks, you're a beauty.

Yong:

I'm gonna ignore your unnecesary comments.

Byul:

You shouldn't ;)

Yong:

Whatever.

Byul:

How are you guys doing?

Yong:

Hyejin's fine. She's only upset that Wheein forced to close the café for today so that she could rest. Wheein is doing well too, although she still looks a little shaken up.

Byul:

And you?

Yong:

All healed up already. Remember I'm a vampire?

Byul:

I bet you're still hungover, though. XD

Yong:

As I said, I'm gonna ignore all your unnecesary comments.

Did you get any useful info from the footage?

Byul:

The person we're looking for is a man. He's kind of muscular.

Yong:

And?

Byul:

He was wearing black clothing.

Yong:

How useful.

Byul:

Your sarcasm is not appreciated.

Anyway, yeah, there wasn't anything important, really. I'll send you the footage, though. Check it out with Wheein and Hyejin.

I have to go now.

Yong:

Ok.

Where are you going?

Byul:

You're interested?

You care about me!!!

EVERYONE! LISTEN! THE KIM YONGSUN CARES ABOUT MEEEEEE!!!!!

Yong:

...

Ok, I'm done dealing with you and your five year old brain.

Bye.

Byul:

Wait

I'm going to work

Byul chuckled as she saw Yongsun leave her on read. She sighed as she put her phone in her pocket, being too tired to go to work, but she had to go as her sick leave was over.

Byul drove to the association. As she was entering, she was greeted by Seulgi.

"Hey, Byulyi unnie! How are you?

"I'm practically completely healed. Just a little sore."

"Ah, good. Was the address I gave you useful?"

"Yes. Thank you again for that."

"You're welcome. By the way, Irene told me to tell you to go to her office."

"Why?" Byul was confused. Irene never called her to her office before.

"I don't know, but she seemed pretty mad. Be careful."

"Okay, thanks. Bye."

"Bye."

As Byul walked away from Seulgi, she couldn't help but wonder what could Irene possibly want from her. She got to her office, where she found Irene and Hajoon. As Seugi had warned her, Irene did not look pleased at all. Byul had actually never seen her lose her cool before, and it was kind of scary. She gulped and sat next to Hajoon on the table.

"So, Moon Byulyi, you never told me exactly the reason why you asked for sick leave." Irene said.

"I got beat up by a vampire."

"I know that, but is there anything else I need to know?"

Byul gulped and glanced at Hajoon, who looked pretty scared.

"Not that I know of."

"Then explain this." she said as she slid a paper across the desk. It was printed copy of Byul's wanted post.

"Ah, that. I don't really know anything about it." Byul tried to seem innocent, but Irene didn't buy it.

"You should have told me! You could have gotten killed!" Irene yelled, making Hajoon flinch. She sighed and lowered her voice. "If any of my hunters is in danger I need to know. Understood?"

"Understood." They both said.

"Can we go now?" Byulyi asked, annoyed with being bossed around.

"No. I have something else to say." Irene said and turned to look at Hajoon. "Hajoon."

A single bead of sweat fell from his forehead. "Yes?"

"Where were you while your companion was getting beat up?"

"Ah, I, uh, hurt my back while carrying a really heavy vampire and couldn't get back to Byulyi. That's why I asked for sick leave."

"And you know that one of our rules is that no one can hunt alone, right?

"I do."

"Then why did you not send another hunter to accompany her?"

He looked down. "I'm really sorry. I thought she could manage by herself since she's the best."

"I don't care for your excuses. This happens again and you're fired." Irene said sternly. "You can go now."

Byul and Hajoon nodded and exited Irene's office. 

Byul turned to Hajoon. "I'm sorry that you got reprimanded because of me, Hajoon." she said.

"It's not your fault. Irene's right."

Byul sighed, looking at the ceiling. "I hate being babysitted."

Hajoon chuckled. "No one's babysitting you. We're taking care of each other. Irene was just worried about you."

"Right." Byul said, and suddenly remembered what she had talked with Wheein and Hyejin the other day. "Hajoon, can you wait for me in the lobby for a bit? I need to ask Irene something."

"Sure."

Byul ran back to Irene's office and knocked. A more relaxed voice than before told her to come in.

"Irene, there's something I wanted to ask you."

"What is it?"

"Where do the vampires we bring back here go? Who buys them? You never told me."

"You never asked."

"But I'm asking now."

"Well, a few bodies are sold to supertitious rich people who would pay anything to get something supernatural. They usually buy fangs, or hearts in jars. Obviously, they sign a non disclosure agreement. So that others don't find out about vampires, you know."

"That's creepy."

Irene shrugged. "It's nothing different from hanging the head of a deer on your wall."

But it is completely different, Byul thought. Vampires are people. They might not be human, but they're people. Even the cruel ones.

She winced at her own thinking. She would never have these thoughts a few months ago, before meeting Yongsun and Wheein and Hyejin.

"And what else?" Byul asked.

"Well, the rest are sold to use for medical experiments."

"What kinds of experiments?"

"That's confidential."

"Come on, you can trust me."

"I don't think so."

"Please."

"I'm just going to say that, thanks to those experiments, the end of vampires is near."

"End?"

Irene sighed and started whispering. "Don't tell anyone this, but we found a way to debilitate vampires for extended periods of time. That way it will be easy to get rid of all of them."

Byul didn't like the way that sounded. "And how do you debilitate them?"

"With a new drug our chemists made. But strangely the government hasn't given us the authorization to start using it yet."

Byul nodded. So the government did know about the association. Did they leave the association alone because they knew that they only kill 'bad' vampires? That was a dangerous game they were playing. If the association got ahold that some politicians were vampires things could get ugly. Most hunters held so much hate for vampires that they'd do anything to clean the government of them.

"When do you think they'll give the authorization?" Byul asked, even though she had the feeling that the government wouldn't ever give it.

"I don't know."

"Does anyone else know about this drug?"

Irene sighed. "Byulyi, what's with all the questions? I'm busy."

"Yeah, sorry. I was just curious. I'll leave now."

Byul walked out of the office more worried than before. What was the government planning to do about this? What if all vampires were really in danger like Irene said?

Down at the lobby, Hajoon was waiting for Byul. They left to the center of Seoul to hunt as they used to do before they both got hurt.

Hajoon was ecstatic when he saw that they'd go in Byul's new car.

"Woah, Byulyi! You've got a nice car!" he exclaimed, examining it.

Byulyi laughed at the way Hajoon was excited like a kid. "Yeah, I was tired of always taking the bus. Although driving can be tiring too."

Hajoon shook his head at her as they both entered the car.

"How can you get tired of driving a car like this! You're so weird!" he said, running his hands on the seat's leather as Byulyi started the car. "I wish I had a car like this. Or any car, really."

Byul suddenly noticed a silver ring on Hajoon's hand.

"Hajoon, you've got a really expensive looking ring. This is why you don't have a car. You should spend your money better."

"Ah no. Actually, this was from my mother." he said looking at the ring with love in his eyes.

"Sorry, I didn't know." Byul immediately retracted from her earlier statement.

"It's okay." he said, smiling at Byulyi. "It happened a long time ago. Vampires killed her, you know."

"I'm sorry." Byul said again. "Is that why you became a hunter?"

Hajoon nodded. "Isn't that why we all became hunters? Because we all lost someone we loved?" he said, contemplatively looking at the through the car's window.

"You're not wrong." Byulyi agreed.

"Who did you lose?"

"My grandmother." In another time Byul would have added Wheein to that list, but thankfully, she now knew that that wasn't the case.

"Hm." He acknowledged. "That's plenty of reason for us not to feel guilty with the job we're doing. Killing vampires might look cruel, Byulyi, but it's necessary. They are monsters." he said as he took out his gun and started playing with it in anticipation of getting to work.

Byul chuckled nervously at the sudden change of topic as she parked the car. "I've never seen you get this serious, Hajoon. Are you okay?" 

"I'll be okay when I make sure that all the vampires in Korea have bullets in their hearts." he smiled. "But it seems to me that maybe you don't share the same sentiment." 

"What do you mean?" Byul asked cautiously.

"I'm just saying that you've grown less passionate since you started the job. Even Irene has noticed it, but she hasn't said anything. You should sort out whatever it is that's bothering you." he said. "Before it's too late."

Hajoon didn't say another word as he got out of the car.

They only managed to hunt two vampires that evening, as Byul's back turned out to be sorer than she thought it would be. Hajoon was disappointed, almost irritated, but, well, it couldn't be helped. Byul drove him back to the association and then drove home.

She was worried. Both Irene and Hajoon hated vampires so much. Could she be working with them even though she held such different views from them? She was already thinking she'd have to resign soon. It was getting progressively hard killing vampires even though she knew they were bad. Maybe Wheein was right. There had to be another way to deal with them.

Byul stopped thinking about such things and took out her computer to watch the security cam footage for the thousandth time that day, but didn't get very far into the video when she received a text. It was Wheein.

Wheein:

Byul unnieeee!!!!!! Yongsun unnie showed us the footage and I found something useful!!!!

Byul: 

Well, hello to you too, Wheeinie.

What did you find?

Wheein:

*drumrolls*

I noticed a silver ring on the man's finger.

The quality isn't the best, but I'm pretty sure about it.

Is that of any help?

Byul didn't answer. A silver ring. It couldn't be what she was thinking, right? It had to be a coincidence.

Still, she made a mental note of going to talk to Hajoon tomorrow, just in case. She was too tired right now for that, and it was impossible for him and the security footage guy to be the same person, she told herself. So she just went to bed.

A/N: So we finally get to know the person behind the post. Also, today's chapter isn't proofread. I had a really bad cold last week (I'm still recovering), so I didn't have the motivation or strength to do it. Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes.