Closing his eyes so that the sweats from his forehead couldn’t get in, Jonghyun threw another powerful punch to the sandbag before staggering back and panting in exhaustion. He had been boxing non-stop for hours, and at that moment he felt like his arms and legs were about to fall out of his joints anytime soon. Despite that fact, Jonghyun still enjoyed it because it was the only thing that kept him feeling real in this world. He took his boxing gloves out and walked his silent way to the locker room without even looking up from the ground, totally aware of the fact that no one would ever reply back even if he started a conversation with them. But really he didn’t mind it, since he always prefers to be alone.

   The chatting and whispering inside the room were replaced by freezing silence right at the moment Jonghyun stepped in, with his head held high and a rather scary frown plastered on his forehead. He ignored their mocking stare as usual and made his way to his locker at the very end of the room, but contrary to his expectation, someone was there to keep him in companion. His eyes met the red thread connecting to that person’s neck, and he looked up to see another annoying bastard from his boxing club, Chunjae something. The latter leaned against Jonghyun’s locker; an arrogant smirk crept through his lips:

   “Good morning, flower boy.” Chunjae spoke and Jonghyun looked up at him with a nonchalant straight face. He tried to slide his hand between the masculine body and the locker, but Chunjae pressed himself closer to the locker, blocking any space that was left for Jonghyun to get his deed done. Jonghyun frowned again at the sudden action of his mere acquaintance, but soon the frowned stretched into a smirk as he felt the nervousness screaming inside of Chunjae, and figured out that the latter lost a best to his friend and was made to get on Jonghyun’s nerves. Deciding that he shouldn’t freak the guy out, Jonghyun looked into Chunjae’s eyes and said slowly, emphasizing every word escaping his mouth:

   “Please get out of the way. I’m not free to joke around with you.”

   “Huh, now the flower boy got scared!” Chunjae laughed and his friends joined. Jonghyun flinched a bit, trying to keep his temper at a decent level, and calmly stated again:

   “We can settle down these things later. I really don’t want to use violence, but if you…”

   “What are you going to do, huh, flower boy?” Chunjae began to speak in a baby voice, and the others laughed along in respond as the guy took a step forward and poked Jonghyun’s face. “Are you going to cry out to that hottie mother of yours? Yeah, just call her here for me; this guy is a little desperate for a hoe to serve. You know that pretty could do a lot of things more than taking care of your pretty face and…”

   Before anyone of them could even react, a violent thud soon replaced the sound of people mocking and cheering. As they regained their composure, the students inside the locker room realized that Chunjae was flipped down to the floor, his back banged against the hard floor and his head was bleeding severely as he gasped for air. Everything fell into scary silence as Jonghyun took his backpack out of the locker and harshly slammed the door back into its place. A preventive attitude was build up as a shield to protect the others from the almighty Kim Jonghyun who was washing in the shower phlegmatically as if nothing had happened. Minutes later, he walked out of the shower, water still dripping from his wavy, brownish-red bangs as he turned around and growled with a hoarse voice, making the hair on many of the guys’ arms stand up unwillingly:

   “And don’t you tell me I didn’t warn you first. You better learn how to shut your stupid mouths up before I think of something better to do with your ing idiotic faces.”

♥

   The sunlight caressed Jonghyun’s wet hair as he walked along the pavements, hands shoved in his pockets. The light almost blinded him when he looked up, so he decided to glue his gaze to the ground, watching the pace of his sneakers stepping on twisted red threads. Looking at his own, hanging from his shoulder in a ridiculously dangerous situation, Jonghyun couldn’t help but smirk at the thought of how his life would be taken away if he just snatched the thread away, breaking the fragile bound between it and him. As his finger began to caress the thread slowly in a halting wonder whether to kill himself or not, Jonghyun frowned as the vibration of his phone caught his attention. Glaring at the phone number, he sighed and picked up. She must have known about it.

“Good morning.” He said, trying to be as cooly casual as possible and forcing himself not to yawn as he felt the laziness of a middle-aged businessman getting out of his bed somewhere near him.

   “Oh, don’t you ‘good morning’ me, Kim Jonghyun.” Replied a hoarse female voice, as if she was speaking through gritted teeth. “You beat the crapout of that guy and they told your coach, and he had been lecturing me for like fifteen minutes about how I should ‘take care’ about you and that I should ‘pay more attention to your actions’. And don’t you touch that thread of yours, I know what you are planning. If you are dead before you get back here, well make sure that you will be buried somewhere I can’t find. Because I swear if anything happen to you, you will be worse than dead, Jonghyun. Remember that.”

   “Calm down, you know that I won’t do…”

   “I give you ten. Freaking. Minutes. Get back here before I skin you alive and hang you on the wall to remind the others about the punishments for not obeying me.”

   She hung up, leaving Jonghyun alone, a bit shocked with her threat. After swallowing hard, he slid his phone back into his pockets and dashed his way back to the familiar Victorian house a few blocks away, where the only person he fears was waiting, and he bet anything that the phone was shattered in her grip already. As he ran through a luxurious mansion, he saw a guy with sharp eyes sitting on the grass. He seemed to be really drenched in the sun, and he was all dressed in white, making Jonghyun feel that he was somewhat unreal. Jonghyun paused to look at the stranger, and moments later he was fully aware of the fact that he couldn’t saw any sign of the red thread connected to the guy. That could only mean one thing. His lips curved into a mischevious smirk, and before anyone could notice he was already back on his way to the house.

♥

   The door slowly creeked open, and Jonghyun wondered why on Earth did they have to live in an old, rotten house where every single movement could be come a potential threat that the house would collapse down in just five seconds. To his expectation, a blonde-haired girl was standing there with her arms on her hips; a death glare went from her eyes, across the room and straight into his eyes. Chaerin took a step forward, as flexible as a cat, and soon approached Jonghyun. She pointed a finger at his face angrily, but then sighed and took a step back. Jonghyun grinned, knowing that his ‘mother’ was only good when it came to threatening others.

   “You really need to control your emotions, Jonghyun.” Chaerin shook her head as she walked out of the living room, followed by the younger. “Things can’t only be solved with fists. Sometimes you need to work things out by other ways.”

   “I’ll try.” Jonghyun kept his head down and murmured, mentally he accused people for pissing him off; it wasn’t his entire fault when people kept getting in his way and didn’t listen when he tried to persuade them in a polite way. What did his psychiatrist say? Emotional problems. Pst, problems my .

   “So what about that?” He spoke again and took another look around Chaerin’s room, reassuring that there was no one else to listen to the conversation. She looked at him with her bold eyes in a few seconds and shook her head in disappointment. Jonghyun sighed at the thought that they had been looking for something for too long a time, even though they didn’t even have a single clue what is it that they had to find. They gave it a mysterious, glamorous name and left it there somewhere unknown; making people like him literally dig the entire city up for something. Something they need to find; but are unsure of its uses and also, what would it do to them.

   “I heard Seunghyun and Jiyong found another person for their group.” Chaerin said, her fingers playing with the corner of the table. “As if they don’t have enough of them. We need to pull more people to our side, Jonghyun, unless we want to lose this.”

   The latter’s fists clenched tightly, though he remained silent. There is no way he would let the other side win. In this kind of battle, they need to put themselves first, and Jonghyun would practically do everything just to help save the people he needs to save. Even though their minds were not alike. Even though they were standing on different sides of the war.

   “I saw someone this morning.” He pulled a chair closer and sat down, eyes not leaving the floor as if he was admiring the greatest flooring he had ever seen in his life. “You know that huge mansion of the ambassador?”

   Chaerin nodded with a frown as Jonghyun continued. “I couldn’t see the thread of one person in there. He was around my age, and I’m pretty sure…” The latter paused for one dramatic second before staring back into Chaerin’s eyes. “… He is one of us.”

   “That must be the son of the ambassador. People say he is depressed after the death of his mother, but are you sure that none from the other side spotted him?” A smooth voice resounded against the wall of the room, and Jonghyun was startled. He turned around to see a confident young woman with a smile widening on her lips, her red hair was practically glowing under the sunlight lighting up the house. Chaerin smiled, her frown quickly disappeared.

   “Good morning, Bommie.” She said, and Jonghyun bowed respectively at the woman as she signaled him to sit down.

   “The same to you, Chaerin, Jonghyun.” Park Bom said and got closer. “So back about your main topic, are you sure that no one from their side is watching him?”

   “I’ve just seen him for the first time this morning.” Jonghyun shrugged. “How could I know that, assuming that I know anyone from their side?”

   “Then it’s high time we took action.” Chaerin frowned.

   “But we can’t just break into his house and tell him that he needs to be one of us!” Jonghyun objected. “He is the ambassador’s son, for crying out loud!”

   “It’s not that he can do anything against us.” Bom smirked and Jonghyun’s eyes widen as they heard another person’s voice and realized that that person had just stepped down from the stairs. This can’t be good to me. Or to that dude, Jonghyun gulped, regretting the fact that he never knows how to shut his mouth at the right time.

♥

Author's words: Hiya, it's me xD First I want to say THANK YOU to all of the three subscribers *loving kisses and hugs* As cheesy as it might sound, you don't know how you made me feel XOXO. 

@Pumpkinjuice: I'm glad you liked the plot and how I decided to squeeze most of my favorite boybands here xD And about Taehwa's death, mostly it's because I wanted to let Minjun in. Sounds cruel, right? You'll figure out what else I wanted when I killed her, but of course then you will have to stick to this 'cause I'll have it explained later :D