“I don't understand,” Baekho uttered with difficulty after a period of time had still failed to let the magnitude of the situation sink in. JR, their friend for all these years, was a Lurker.

“How can you even join the Lurkers, what does that even mean?”

“You can't be serious, JR!” exclaimed Ren, interrupting Baekho's mumbling. “This must be a joke of some sort, you can't mean...”

JR glared at him, silencing him instantly with his frosty eyes.

“I need to leave here. I'm scared.” His voice revealed no fear whatsoever, only frustration.

“It's okay, we'll fix this. We'll take you to the hospital, I'm sure they'll figure something out.” Baekho said.

“No!” JR's voice broke into a menacing growl, sounding less than human. “I don't want to hurt anyone!” The sound then reduced to a whisper when he added, as if in obligation, “anyone I care about.”

“JR, please, don't go. We'll take care of you.” Baekho leant down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Just tell us what happened.”

Without warning, JR sprang to his feet and pushed Baekho away. The older boy tumbled backwards at the force and his head collided with the linoleum floor.

“Leave me alone! Don't touch me, don't make me hurt you!”

“Baekho!” In the instance Ren's attention was diverted by his concern for Baekho, JR made a run for it. Before Ren even got a chance to look up he had disappeared out of sight. Ren stared into the darkness beyond, blinking in confusion.

When did he get so impossibly fast?

A moan from the floor made him focus on Baekho again. “Are you okay?”
Baekho blinked slowly to chase away the gold spots swimming in his vision as he rubbed the back of his head.

“I'm fine, don't worry about me.”
With an uncertain gaze not really expecting to see anything he looked in the direction JR disappeared into. “Where did he go?”

Ren shook his head. “I don't know. He can't have gone far if the light really...” He sighed. This was insane.

“We should go after him,” he added as he jumped to his feet.

“Ren, no!” With a noticeably less nimble motion, Baekho picked himself up off the floor as well. “It's dangerous, we can't just...”

“We can't let him get away. God only knows what'll happen to him.”

“Ren, honestly, you saw how messed up he is right now. We can't risk it. Not until we know what's wrong with him.”

“We know what's wrong with him! We should get help.” Ren his heel, alternating between facing towards the door and towards Baekho. “We should call the police or we should warn people, we should... I don't know what we should do.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed again. His heart raced with the strain of uncertainty. Baekho just looked at him in silence.

“We should ask Minhyun. He'll know what to do.” With sudden clarity, he remembered all that Minhyun had told him, how much he already knew. He was a safer bet now than anyone else.

Baekho sneered involuntarily. “What can he possibly know that the police won't?”
“He says they keep everything a secret. That even if they do know, they won't tell us.”

“And you believe him?” exclaimed Baekho, putting a hand on Ren's shoulder and looking him dead in the eye. “He's as paranoid as it gets, we can hardly go around doing whatever he tells us.”

“At least let me call him.” The lines in Baekho's face softened in defeat and he let go of Ren.

“Fine then,” he said with a sigh.

“You can call the police too, if you want. It's not the one or the other. I just don't want to leave him out of the loop, not if he might be able to help.”
Baekho nodded calmly, but the shaky movements with which he took his phone from his pocket betrayed him. He was as agitated as Ren was.

With the faintest of reassuring smiles he sat down at the kitchen table and began to very slowly and conscientiously dial the number.

A part of Ren wanted Baekho to leave the room and give them both some privacy for their calls, but he knew it was too dark in the rest of the house. Besides, a second much larger part of him didn't want to let Baekho out of his sight. Not now. Not when that means he might lose him.

Almost without thinking he freed his phone from his right back pocket and he was already scrolling through his contacts list. He selected Minhyun's number at waited fearfully. The dial tone seemed to go on forever.

He's probably asleep by now, Ren reasoned, but nonetheless he felt ill at ease until he heard a click and the sound abruptly stopped.

“Minhyun?” Ren began.

"You better have a good reason to wake me up this time of night. If not, I know where you live.”

“I'm not in the mood for this, Minhyun. We have a serious problem.” There was silence on the other end of the line, then a sigh.

“Tell me.”

“It's JR. He's a Lurker.”

More silence.

“I know it doesn't make any sense, but I just don't know who else to call.”

“It makes more sense than you'd think.” There was no emotion it Minhyun's voice whatsoever, it sounded completely flat and
unsurprised. Ren felt a cold sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Rationally, it should be reassuring that Minhyun was so calm and businesslike in an hour of need. Somehow it wasn't.

“Where is he now? Is he with you? Can I speak to him?”

Ren gulped. “N-No, he ran off, I don't know where he is.”

“That's good. Listen to me Ren, and listen good. As soon as the sun rises, come to my home. You and Baekho both. As soon as possible, but not before sunrise. Don't go out in the dark, I can't stress that enough.”

“There's no need to,” the indignation seeped out into Ren's words. He wasn't a fool.

Minhyun went on without taking heed of the change in voice. “Call Woori. She has contacts from her night watch work. Ask her if she knows where JR was the night he didn't come home.”

"How would she know that? I think she'd have told me if she knew.” Ren was baffled. As far as he was concerned, Woori has no way of keeping track of anyone's whereabouts.

“Just ask her, okay? And tell her to be careful, tell everyone to be careful. And come see me when you can. Promise me you'll do that.”

“But Baekho doesn't-”

“Promise me, Ren!”

He paused, throwing a passing glance towards the table at which Baekho sat. His conversation was already over, and he sat staring at his phone.

“I promise,” he added in a whisper, his eyes darting back over to his friend as he did.

“Thank you.” Were his ears playing tricks on him, or did Minhyun sound genuinely relieved behind his act of stoicism?

“Good night, Ren.” With that he hung up before Ren got a chance to reply, doubtlessly to go back to his well-deserved sleep. It left Ren feeling both deserted, yet strangely at ease. Either way, he was glad he made this call.

Everyone was silent. Baekho didn't say a word as he sat there with his phone in hands, Ren watched him from the corner of his eye, debating what to say, and Mouse wasn't anywhere to be seen, having retreated into the safety of the shadows in their living room.

“How did it go? You don't seem...” Ren left the sentence hanging, afraid of what he might imply if he went on.

"You were right.” Baekho sounded as if he'd been hurt, not in his pride of being right, but rather in his trust that things would work out.

Ren figured it best not to relish. “What did they say?”

“I told them the Lurkers got one of my friends. They only asked if he was dead or injured. I said he wasn't, because, well, technically he isn't. And then they just told me I'm wasting their time.”

“Did you say that he had...” He searched for the right word “...changed?”

“They didn't care. Minhyun was right after all.” He looked up at Ren for the first time in a while. He seemed on the verge of tears.

“What did he say?” He reflected the question.

“That we should go see him.”

Baekho nodded, sadly realising there were no safer or easier ways to deal with this. If they wanted to save JR, they'd have to do it themselves.

“I agree.”

Author's Note: I'm sorry it's so short, guys. But I figured I couldn't leave you hanging much longer without posting something. I'll be having a few days off the coming weeks, so I'll work extra hard to get the next part done. Promise. :x