“Well well well. What have we here?”

“Like a mouse in a trap.”

“Didn’t think we would find you all out here?”

“Yeah, Mary Sue’s like a siren, she’s so easy to find. Her loose tongue led us straight here.”

“It’s you!”

You had no idea what was going on. Everyone was spread out around you and staring each other down. It was like a massive face off.

“What do you want?” Seyong demanded from the sudden surge of people.

“Besides another bruise to match the one on the other side of your face,” Zelo quipped.

“Easy,” Himchan said, his voice close to your ear. “You let Mary Sue go, and anyone else you’re keeping hostage with your sick notes.”

As your eyes glazed over everyone’s faces, you noticed Zico’s eyes narrow menacingly as he glared at Nichkhun, whose jaw was tensed as he glared right back.

“Or what?” Ren said with a hostile smirk. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you have no leverage or collateral.”

“Didn’t you know?” Himchan retorted. “We’re bounty hunters.”

Every body in the alley became somehow stiller, and Ren cocked an eyebrow. “Bounty hunters?”

“Of course. How do you think we became so popular?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ren muttered scathingly.

There was a short pause as several eyes shot toward Himchan.

“Okay, we’re not really bounty hunters,” Himchan admitted. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not serious. And totally capable of taking you down.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Your hair stood on end at the sight of Ren’s morbid grin, and you could feel the tension in the room shoot up, like the moments just before an explosion. About a dozen bodies fell into a stance for a fight, when suddenly—

CLANG!

The door swung open once more, and a bunch more people spilled out of it into the alleyway, surrounding the group already there.

“Get your hands off my girlfriend!”

“Mary Sue, are you okay?”

“Oh my god! When did CL join the gang?”

“What’s going on? Why is everyone out here all of a sudden?”

“Do you think that gang member is cheating on Mary Sue with CL?!”

“Why did you drag me out here?”

“This is Mordney High’s most scandalous love triangle ever!”

“Everybody shut up!”

The crowd was silenced by Ren’s deafening command.

“You can step off now,” Himchan informed Chanyeol. “We have this situation under control, and as you can see, I’ve already saved Mary Sue. Before you,” he emphasized.

“What I see is you holding her hostage in the middle of an alleyway in a crowd of dangerous gang members,” Chanyeol growled. “She’s hardly safe with you.”

You had no idea what they were even talking about.

“Excuse me, who are you?” Ren questioned icily, visibly annoyed at being ignored by the tall person in front of him.

“Chanyeol.” He turned around to address Ren coolly. “Park Chanyeol. And I’m Mary Sue’s boyfriend.” He turned back to Himchan. “Her only boyfriend.”

“Mary Sue has a boyfriend?” Zico muttered.

A few of the other gang members shrugged. “She never mentioned him,” Eli said.

A muscle above Chanyeol’s eyebrow visibly twitched. “Well, she does!” he said loudly and pointedly, staring straight at Himchan. “And only one, too! And that’s me.”

You could barely hear the chuckle that bubbled up from Himchan’s throat.

“And if anyone’s going to save her, it’s me, because I’m the one who always saves her.” He took a menacing step forward, gaze unmoving and unblinking. “So let her go,” he ordered.

“You’re too late,” Himchan murmured tauntingly, smirk evident in his voice.

Chanyeol’s expression darkened, but before anyone could react—

CLANG! CRACK! THUD!

“Oh, , guys, I broke the door.”

“So this is where the party got off to!”

“Wait, none of these people are vampires. They’re just a bunch of nonthreatening high school kids.”

“Hey, some of us are very threatening high school drop outs!”

“Somebody’s a high achiever over there.”

“Yeah, and look where it got you. Petty arguments over convoluted relationship issues that have nothing to do with you, all wrapped up in the glamour of standing next to a dumpster in a dimly lit alleyway.”

“Living it up over here.”

“Sunny! Thank God you’re okay!”

“Hey Chanyeol, can you maybe fill us in on what’s going on out here?”

“Yeah, and skip the high school gossip and get straight to the point. This whole night’s been confusing as hell to follow.”

“Well, right now there’s kind of this three-way face off happening over Mary Sue,” Chanyeol explained. “There’s the gang, which is most of the people standing behind me, the popular crowd, those people over there,” he gestured vaguely with his left arm, “plus this douchebag with the cage hold on Mary Sue.” He grit his teeth and swallowed. “And then there’s us.”

“Well,” Suho nodded with a cordial smile, scanning the alleyway as he took in the information. “Seems like this situation is under control,” he said with a grin. “What do you need us for?”

You got the sense that was the tone he used whenever he used to fight vampires. It sounded insincere, like he was bluffing.

“I was thinking we could take them all out pretty easily,” Chanyeol said seriously.

“Dude, these guys are all human,” Chen protested.

“Yeah, the most we could do is keep them from hurting each other,” Xiumin agreed.

“They can’t hurt each other if they’re all unconscious.”

The statement rang through the air after it was said, and after a moment, Kai shrugged and pulled his face into a noncommittal expression. “I’m down.”

“It should be easy for you,” murmured someone lowly. Everyone’s attention turned toward Ren, whose unsettling smirk and dark, eerie gaze, as well as the blade swinging from his fingers, had several people backing away from him to create a wider radius around him. “After all, we’re just a bunch of nonthreatening high school kids.”

“Easy, Ren,” Eli warned under his breath.

“I mean, you’re right,” Ren continued, staring straight at Chanyeol as he twirled the knife. “None of us have the kind of experience it would take to be able to overcome a whole team of… is vampire hunters the impression you’re trying to give?” He chuckled darkly, a low, quiet growl of a sound. “How can we even compare?”

“Ren, take it easy,” Eli hissed more urgently, masking Zelo’s whispered whimper of, “Not again...”

“Especially since we’re so outnumbered.” Slowly, Ren took one step forward.

“Ren!” Eli barked.

“Hey, why are you fighting it?” Zico remarked, shaking out his shoulders as he bounced on the balls of his feet. “Leader’s gearing up and ready to go, we should be too.”

“Let’s get wild,” G-Dragon agreed, a wolfish grin spreading across his face.

Eli stared apprehensively at his fellow gang members. Seyong was the one to return his gaze.

“Stay loyal to the brotherhood, Eli,” he said, as if he was reminding him of their one cardinal rule. Then he looked back at the scene and pulled his shoulders back, hands tensing.

“I have one request,” Ren said softly, staring up into Chanyeol’s face.

“And what’s that?” Chanyeol responded menacingly, eyes narrowed and body completely tensed.

Ren’s smirk was deceptively sweet and unsettling as ever. “You’ll go easy on us newbies, won’t you?”

Your heart rate spiked as Ren’s knife swung forward, and suddenly the entire alleyway was in an uproar. Chanyeol jumped back and knocked over you and Himchan, and suddenly you were crawling on the ground toward some corner that was safer than the middle of everyone’s feet. Zico and Seyong dove forward into the growing fray, and Eli was shoved into the wall by AJ and the two of them fell to the ground engaged in their own struggle. Hunters were running in and pulling Ren off of Chanyeol and gang members off of high school students and vice versa. You had to admit, you had been anticipating a completely different outcome than just a regular fight, but this was a bit of a relief.

As soon as he was free, Chanyeol rolled over and stood to grab Himchan, who was fighting his way through several scraps back toward the door leading into the club. Before Himchan could get within three feet of it, Chanyeol grabbed him to spin him around and punched him square in the jaw, sending him stumbling backward and reeling. Chanyeol grinned proudly, standing tall and shaking his hand out.

“That’s for trying to steal my girlfriend,” he said, then grabbed the collar of Himchan’s jacket and dragged him upright. When he turned around, most of the action had halted, and every single gang member and person from the popular crowd who had barged in on the gathering was caught in the hold of one of the Hunters.

Fei and Jessica had attacked CL as soon as G-Dragon left her side to fight with his fellow gang members, and now each of them was being restrained by Kai and Baekhyun, respectively, while Amber and Krystal were standing by CL, having helped to break up the catfight. You watched as the two males exchanged knowing grins from behind the girls’ backs. Baekhyun seemed to be handling Jessica fairly gently compared to the rough hold Kai had on Fei, and he smirked and pulled her tighter when she struggled and snarled.

From the flashes of the scene you could remember, G-Dragon hadn’t even really had a target. He just seemed to be fighting whomever he could, reveling in the excitement of the crowded brawl. Even now he was grinning, the spark of adrenaline alive in his eyes as Kris restrained him.

Lay was standing behind Ren with his arms held tightly around him. Ren was struggling violently and Lay was bleeding, but he seemed to have been able to keep the gang leader contained.

“You alright, Lay?” Suho, who had a scowling Seyong stuck in a half nelson, nodded toward his fellow former Hunter.

Lay nodded, panting heavily and maintaining a quivering hold. “You never get used to the feeling, no matter how many times you get stabbed,” he grit out, clearly expending a lot of energy on just trying to stop Ren from escaping his arms and trying to stab more people.

Zico was also proving to be a difficult captive, twisting and kicking his legs in the air as he fought to get free from Tao’s iron grip. He had launched himself at Nichkhun at the very first opportunity, tackling him to the ground and wailing on him, and now Nichkhun’s lip was bleeding and his face was sporting a bloom of reddish purple on the side of it. Zico had a bit of a black eye though, so clearly Nichkhun could handle himself well enough to fight back. But Nichkhun wasn’t putting up any fight at all to Xiumin, who was standing behind him and tightly gripping his elbows. In fact, he seemed fairly calm, not even sparing another glance at his attacker, as if Zico was not even worth his attention.

“Hey, Xiumin?” Lay said through clenched teeth. “Think you could trade off and come help me out here?” He and Ren were shaking just a little more violently, and it seemed like he wouldn’t be able to keep his hold on him much longer.

After a pause and with a tilt of his head, Xiumin beckoned Key and Jonghyun over to keep a restraint on Nichkhun, who raised an eyebrow and glanced back at them with a ghost of a smirk as they did.

With both of them on him, Xiumin and Lay could force Ren into a painful looking kneeling position with his arms held up behind his back. He twisted and fought like an animal, but they managed to subdue him, and he stared at the ground, fuming with rage.

“Alright then,” Chen said, standing behind a stoic kneeling AJ. “Now that we’re all being civil, I think it’s time for a family discussion.”

“What’s there to discuss?” AJ spat out, along with a few flecks of blood.

Chen raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat pointedly. “Well, first of all, how you barreled straight toward that guy.” He nodded across the way at Eli, whom Luhan had pinned against the brick wall. “Clearly, there are some issues you two need to work out.”

“There’s nothing,” AJ insisted.

“That’s believable,” Chen remarked.

Suddenly, there was a struggle near where you were hiding as Fei let out a growl of frustration.

“Easy there, kitten,” Kai muttered, clearly enjoying the position they were in.

“I swear, if you call me that one more time”—

“You’ll do all sorts of awful things to me?”

She uttered a noise of disgust and rolled her eyes.

“I would never disrespect you like that,” Baekhyun murmured quietly to Jessica, his grip on her arms hardly restraining. She pointedly ignored him.

“Maybe we should get to the whole point of why everyone was fighting in the first place,” Kris said pointedly, commanding everyone’s attention.

All the eyes turned to you, hiding in your corner against the wall.

Then several things happened at once.

With a look of urgency, Nichkhun suddenly forcefully yanked his arms out of Key’s and Jonghyun’s grasp, just as you heard the loud CLANG! of the door as someone stumbled upon your alleyway scene, as well as a panicked “Mary Sue!”

The next thing you knew, everything went black.

Beep…Beep…Beep…

It was so quiet in the fluorescently lit hospital room that the sound emitting from the machine was deafening. It sent Jonghyun’s nerves on edge. He kept anticipating the sudden break in the pattern, followed by the never-ending tone as the green line went flat. He kept dreading the moment he might lose his sister forever.

The doctors said if she didn’t wake up soon, she might suffer permanent brain damage or, even worse, she might never wake up from her coma. The brick that fell on her head after that guy randomly stumbled outside onto the scene, hitting the heavy metal door against the wall and knocking it loose, had knocked her out cold. It was kind of ironic. Everyone in the alleyway had been fighting over her, and at the last moment this happened. It was like the fates were telling them no one could have Mary Sue.

Jonghyun’s parents were sitting on the other side of the hospital bed, staring down at Mary Sue. They looked extremely worried, and Jonghyun felt terrible for them. They had been so concerned for him and his sister and the possibility that they could be getting into situations where they could get hurt, and now their worst fears had come true.

He felt terrible for Chanyeol, who had insisted he would be the one to protect her, but had failed to do so. And now Chanyeol was sitting with his head in his hands in a hard plastic chair in the corner of the room, drowning in the guilt while the other eleven former Hunters stood around him.

He felt terrible for those who were close to Mary Sue. Amber, Key, Krystal, Sunny, Sungmin, Donghae and Eunhyuk all really cared about her. They were some of her best friends, and had even fought to protect her at some point, and now they had to see her like this.

He felt terrible for all the gang members and popular kids. They had been Mary Sue’s friends, too. They all cared about her just like her other friends, and now they were all crammed into this small hospital room waiting for her to wake up.

He felt terrible for Bang Yongguk, the random guy who had walked out into the alleyway. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now he was caught up in all of this mess as well. It’s not like he’d had any former connection with anyone else here. And yet here he was, standing in the corner with his eyes trained on Mary Sue as well.

Jonghyun felt terrible for everyone, especially Mary Sue. This whole world was so unfair.

“This never would’ve happened,” Himchan muttered through gritted teeth. “If you didn’t try to play hero.” He shot a glare at Chanyeol, who only sunk lower in his chair, eyes focused on the floor beneath him.

“This wasn’t Chanyeol’s fault,” Baekhyun shot back. “If anything, it’s the gang’s fault for getting her caught up in this mess.”

“Hey, we weren’t doing her any harm,” Zico defended. “She’s a part of our family now.”

“Family,” Nichkhun scoffed. “Who would want to be a part of your family? Dirty and delinquent.”

“You know,” Amber cut in. “Your record isn’t exactly clean yourself, Nichkhun.”

The deceitful Casanova grit his teeth in silence.

“Am I the only one who thinks she had it coming?” Key chimed in. “No? Okay.”

“If only you hadn’t opened that door!” An accusatory finger was pointed at the flinching Bang Yongguk.

“Wait guys!” Zelo shouted. “The bonding exercises.”

Everyone stared questioningly at the youngest gang member.

“Trust, respect, understanding, trust, honesty,” he recited. “Don’t you see?”

“You said trust twice.”

“It spells truth.” He looked around at everyone in the room, then at Mary Sue with a reverent understanding. “All along, we’ve been using acronyms for our own selfish purposes,” he said. “But Mary Sue was using them for good.”

There was a pause as this revelation hung still in the air.

“Zico?” Seyong was looking at him almost apologetically, and Zico met his gaze with a questioning eyebrow crease. “I uh… I used your toothbrush. Like a bunch of times.”

Zico looked like he was about to murder the sheepish looking Seyong, but another voice interrupted.

“I like Nichkhun.”

Many pairs of eyes focused on Minho, several of them incredulous. He was staring downward, but he glanced up to meet Nichkhun’s eye.

Nichkhun responded with a small smirk. “Well I was using Mary Sue to make you jealous.”

Minho nodded slightly and chewed on the corner of his lip. “Guess it worked.”

“Guess so,” Nichkhun agreed, his eyes lighting up as a grin overtook his features.

Mary Sue would’ve loved to see this, Jonghyun thought. That is, if she had any grasp on the concept of homouality. She really loved seeing new couples brought together, especially under her influence in some way.

“I’ve been trying to break up Sunny and Sungmin,” Baekhyun admitted from the corner, looking forlorn.

“Why would you want to do that?” Sunny gasped in surprise.

Baekyun looked so desperate. “Because you’re just so perfect, and I don’t know, I wanted to be part of that.” His shoulders slumped. “But it’s pretty obvious that almost nothing will ever break you two apart.”

Sungmin wrapped an arm around his girlfriend and shot Baekhyun an affirmative smirk, which Baekhyun returned with a subtle smirk of his own.

“I was avoiding Yongguk,” Zelo said in a small voice, staring down at the ground away from the man in question. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Yongguk frowned, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “Well I was looking for you,” he replied.

“Really?” Zelo looked up in surprise.

Yongguk nodded. “After I heard you were there,” he said. “Didn’t expect to find you like this, though,” he admitted.

They stared at each other for a moment or two without saying anything, and Jonghyun figured that was a conversation for a less crowded place.

“In Vegas, Tao and I—oof!”

Jonghyun looked over to see Kris bent double and holding his stomach, Tao having apparently just elbowed him in the gut.

“You what?” Lay asked, raising an eyebrow.

Kris shook his head. “Nothing,” he grunted. “Gambled a bunch. Got drunk.” He straightened up with a pained look and a quick exhale. “That’s all,” he assured.

Several Hunters nodded in acceptance.

After a short pause, Key nudged Jonghyun and raised his eyebrows at him. Jonghyun took a couple seconds to understand, but he did once Key tilted his head in his parents’ direction.

It was time to finally tell his parents the truth. He took a deep breath.

“Mom? Dad?”

They both looked at him teary-eyed.

He swallowed nervously. “I’m uh… I’m not a transvestite.”

He could read the blatant confusion on their faces.

“I’m just gay.”

They took a couple seconds to take in the information.

“Oh, thank god,” his mother sighed, putting a hand over her heart.

“What?”

“Son, we were so worried about you,” his father said, holding his mom’s hand tightly.

“We thought maybe there was some sort of twisted mentality there.”

“Yes, like you wanted to become your sister or something.”

“We were afraid to bring it up like that, but…”

“You know we love you no matter what, and we would accept you for who you are.”

“We just want you to be happy.”

Jonghyun wanted to cry, he was so relieved. “Mom, Dad. I love you.”

“We love you too, Jonghyun,” his mom said. “But if you’re not a transvestite…”

They both exchanged looks of slight confusion.

“Why were you dressed like your sister?” she asked.

Jonghyun almost laughed. “It’s a long story,” he explained.

It was then Chanyeol took a deep breath and sat up in his chair. “Mr. and Mrs. Mary Sue’s parents,” he addressed.

They both turned to him with questioning expressions.

“I’m not the perfect boyfriend you think I am,” he admitted. “I was dating your daughter before too,” he said. “And I’m the reason she kept sneaking out at night. It’s my fault she made you worry, and it’s my fault she died during the vampire apocalypse.”

Mary Sue’s parents looked horrified as he continued.
 

“It’s my fault she got hurt,” he said, defeated. “I didn’t protect her enough. And I’m sorry.”

Before they could respond, Mary Sue started stirring in her bed. Everyone crowded around her and leaned down to see if she was okay. Chanyeol got up from his seat and strode across the room to the foot of her bed, and Jonghyun could feel the hard thud of his heartbeat as he waited with baited breath for his sister to come to.

Relief washed over him when she opened her eyes. Her eyebrows creased together as she looked around at all the faces leaning over her.

“Give her some room,” Suho said, and most of the people backed up to let her breathe.

Jonghyun smiled at his sister, and she smiled back, her eyes falling with recognition on him and then his parents, and also Key and Amber and several other people. Chanyeol grinned and leaned in close, taking her hand.

“Mary Sue, I’m so glad you’re okay,” he sighed. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you. And I’m sorry I’ve been a terrible boyfriend because I was too afraid to talk to you. I promise I’ll be the best boyfriend in the entire world from now on.”

That look of confusion on Mary Sue’s face made Jonghyun’s gut drop uneasily, and she only uttered one word of response.

“What?!”