I spread up my wings, blocked a sneaking bullet, piercing his neck with the astonished gaze of the person in front of me, letting him kept my secret in his stomach forever. 

There was only one left. I stood still and slightly turned my body to give the place for the bullet, same as my expectation, the sound of the air been tore hit my ear. The man which had been the partner of me for a long time fired the bullet and hit that man’s head without even noticing it by him, allowing him to see what a real sneak attack was before he died. 

“Thank you very much, Hyung. You give me a chance to shoot.” Jaeyun’s action was neat as he always did, jumping off of the upper layer of darkness, with his symbol – the black guitar case on his back. However, in the Black Zone, most people didn’t have the interest of playing music, and everyone knew what the true things were in every big bag like Jaeyun’s.

 
“You’re welcome,” I said this in terms of his verbal irony, “Don’t stay at here.” He obviously knew that here was not for us to stay too, throwing a shabby shirt to me, watching me fold my wings and put it on, taking the lead of opening the old curtains and walked out of this warehouse.

 
“Where did you go in the noon?” He asked me while we were walking along the dusky alley. The Black Zone was always livelier when the sun set, every shop was wide opened, my eyes ached with flashing neon lights. But Jaeyun seemed to feel nothing at all, walking indifferently in front of me. 

I smiled, though he couldn’t see my expressions, “Prison.” 

The younger stunned, “You’d better just kidding.” 

“Sorry, I’m not.” 

He took a deep breath. I felt a chill on the back of my head, and I was afraid he would swing up his guitar case and bang on my head, “Please, Hyung. What good deeds have you done again?” 

“‘Karma’ was caught. You know, they won’t care about us if we do things lowkey,” seeing the other side seemed to be more anxious, I added, “But he didn’t cross the line, and someone just found him an eyesore and reported him to cops. Cops were just waiting for this chance and arrested him at once. Nobody can get benefit if he is arrested, no matter them or us. I saved him for our institute.” 

“What's the impact? You folks almost don’t buy information from him, do you? Aren't you the least fond of stirring up this kind of muddy water? Saying these kinds of big, profound ideas every day, do you really understand them? You do this to show how generous and kind you are, don’t you?" Although Jaeyun said this, he clearly eased down. Obviously, he also knew that in the end, the benefits of this matter outweighed the disadvantages. 

“That’s your misunderstanding, Jake,” I said plainly, pretending not to hear his latter half of his words, feeling a little discomfortable, “There’s no harm in having more connections, as there’s no harm in having more roads. Also, it's 'us', not ‘you’. I suggest you better mind your words.”

 
Of course, I could hear his words clearly showing a resistance not wanting to be in the same boat as the research institute. However, whether he would join the institute wasn't what he could decide, and I was okay to listen to his complaining, but it was only okay for me. If the research representatives heard it, the consequences would be serious, so I toughly reminded him. I didn’t mean to make him mad, but I was a little bit angry. However, the one threatening and the one being threatened seemed to at once switch sides after I said this to him, his back froze and no longer spoke. 

We walked all way speechless until we came to a less prosperous place. There was a traffic light in front of us, and it was currently red, but you know, here was Black Zone – almost nobody followed the traffic rules, plus there were no cars on the road, people crossed the road as if the light was green. Jaeyun stopped walking, turned around and looked at me. 

“Red.” I said to him. His eyes showed undisguised sense of disgusting to those who didn’t mind the color. 
I stood beside him with my arms held, walked forward firstly when the light turned into green. 

This time, it was Jaeyun behind me. I felt him depressed – though I had almost never seen him happy since I had worked together with him. But after my anger was gone, I couldn't stop worrying about him. Did I hurt him with my sharp words just now? 

“Why’re you not happy? Sorry, I just...” I slowed down to walk side by side with him, breaking the silence between us. 

He guessed what I wanted to say, quickly interrupted me, “Don’t be that sensitive, it has nothing about your words,” he frowned, “I’m just thinking, why can’t they even hold that important person like ‘Karma’, and make sure he’s not escaping? The thing more ridiculous is, they can’t even catch a single person sneaking into the jail and just let him run away unscathed with the prisoner.” 

My rising sense of guilt disappeared. "It sounds like you are upset that I've not being arrested?” 

He didn’t deny it and took his cigarette box out of his pocket, “I’m just telling the truth. If you have time to argue with me, why don’t you use this time to confirm whether your account is credited? Sometimes I can’t even tell why you are doing this business. Earning money? Or doing charity?”

“When two opposite people come to me for vengeance, I usually choose the person who gives more money, which shows I actually care about the money.” I replied and took out my phone. 

“Usually.” He repeated with sarcasm, taking out a cigarette and held it in his mouth. 

I didn't respond to him anymore. He was right, arguing was useless. After I checked that new money went into my account, I transferred four-fifths of it into our research institute’s account, closing my phone, “I’m going home.” 

“Quite early today.” 

“Jongseong and Sunghoon are going to my home today, I’m gonna help them packaging their luggage.” 

I once told him about them, so he wasn’t too surprised. Nodding his head, putting out the cigarette, carefully seeing the sorting of garbage, and threw the cigarette into the bin with “hazardous waste” on it. 

Although I had been working with him by two years, I didn’t have a good relationship with Jaeyun. The main reason was that he was the latest transformed person being produced, and he was not familiar with us. I had tried to get along with him harmoniously, but he drew an invisible and broad line between us. As a result, I didn’t want to consume my enthusiasm into the place that had no return on me anymore, and our relationship became like this today. 

But I had to admit Jaeyun was very good. Firstly, his arrival made me work much easier. He was an outstanding sniper, with perfectly exact marksmanship. When we were working, one was on the surface, and one was in the dark side, we almost succeeded in all our missions. Meanwhile, despite his fondness for making sarcastic remarks, he was always sober and rational. I knew clearly from myself that the emotional side took account of most of my heart, strong sense of empathy made me doubt or wander when I was making decisions. Jaeyun could always make constructive suggestions at these times, stopping me from irrational behaviors, helping me, who didn’t good at rejecting others when trading – since he had talked to our clients instead of me, our income had jumped into several times more than before. 

In addition to the above, there was another reason for me to tolerate his annoying character: I actually pity him, or...felt guilty for him. 

I had said before that Jaeyun was the last created person in our research institute. He was an adult when he came here, which was totally different from the remaining of us - I had been installed wings since I was very young, the memories of torture were already faded, and the pain repairing them was way too small comparing to the ones received in the battles; Jongseong went here just after me, but his process of transforming and re-constructing took over ten years, and he had been put into an insulated cabin during the process, without knowing how the process liked; Jungwon was thirsty to become stronger and enjoyed changing himself; about Riki...his situation was between me and Jaeyun, but he didn’t had that strong sense of guilt as Jaeyun had - he had only endless pain. 

With body and mentality matured, bearing a drastic agony seemed to be a much more tortured task. 
  
I was there while Jaeyun was doing the operation of transforming. As a transformation person who had the most experience and the highest ability, I had already been deeply believed by the research representatives at that time. After a mission completed, I returned to the institute and discussed some details for the clips inserted into Sunghoon’s brain, who had not been created yet. 
  
I was planning to go to one of the representative’s office. Suddenly, I heard noises in a lab when I was passing it. 
  
Reflexively alert, I softly approached it, attaching onto the door and listening carefully to what was happening inside