You recounted what you had heard on the phone to the werewolves plus B-Bomb who were all now gathered around you in the living room of the werewolves’ home. Woohyun remained next to you, nudging you whenever your voice started to crack on you. He was saying with his body language what he had told you just before. He was here for you.

There was a moment of silence as everyone took in what you had said. Then, Sunggyu spoke first. “Most likely he didn’t expect us to know about this.” Sunggyu came to a conclusion as he leaned over in the lounge chair he was sitting in, his fingers intertwined as he rested his elbows on his knees in thought, “Which gives us an advantage in the situation as it makes it much easier to find out what happened to Myungsoo.”

“You said the mayor mentioned Wolfsbane?” Woohyun reminded you after realizing you had left that part out on accident.

You nodded in confirmation of his statement, “He said that there was no use trying to transform because that would make the Wolfsbane travel faster throughout his system.”

Sungyeol in a breath, a small hissing came out of his mouth as he did so, “But how did the mayor manage to get L to ingest Wolfsbane?”

Everyone in the room knew how careful Myungsoo was. There was no way he would so easily let himself be tricked into eating or drinking anything the mayor gave him.

Hoya was the one who voiced out this thought, “I doubt he would just take anything given to him.”

There was silence in the room, everyone thinking quietly to themselves. You sighed in frustration and pulled at the ends of your jacket. You saw the shimmer of your belt. You absentmindedly thought about the difference between this belt and the one you were used to wearing for the past month. An idea sparked in your mind and you turned to B-Bomb who glanced in your direction, a gleam in his eyes telling you he figured out the same thing you had.

The belt you were wearing today was different from the one over the past month in that it was lighter. Lighter because you no longer carried the gun Zico gave you after relinquishing it to B-Bomb for safe keeping.

The answer both you and B-Bomb had come to find out?

“A bullet.” B-Bomb announced to everyone.

The silence in the room was deafening.

“That’s how he got Wolfsbane into Myungsoo’s body. There’s no other way to do it without his full knowledge of what was going on.” B-Bomb paused and leaned back in his seat. He cocked his head to the right, his mouth forming a tight frown, “We always thought about making Wolfsbane bullets but Zico always forbid it. He said that doing that was worse than the act of shooting at all.”

“So then he was shot. That means he’s injured right now.” Sungjong’s voice cracked as he spoke his last sentence. He cleared his throat in an attempt to calm himself. You could tell he was scared about what would happen to Myungsoo now.

“With no way to heal himself.” Dongwoo grunted and ruffled his hair.

Woohyun knew this was not easy to think about. Myungsoo had been injured with a Wolfsbane bullet most likely and that meant his chances of fighting back against whatever the mayor had planned for him were miniscule. Now that everyone knew Myungsoo was injured though, Woohyun could only think of one thing, “But that still leaves one question.”

Sunggyu unfurled his hands from each other and sat up in his lounge chair, “Where he is.”

B-Bomb stood up immediately, causing the attention in the room to shift back to him once again, “I think I might know a way to figure that out.” You had a feeling you knew what his next words would be and you wished that you would be wrong.

“Zico would know.”

There it was.

Why did you have to be right now of all times?

You weren’t sure how you felt about the situation you were currently in. You were standing in the middle of the forest, B-Bomb at your side. The sounds of the wind rustling the leaves of the trees around you filled the silence. Still, there was an unsettling feeling despite the calmness and serenity of your surroundings. Mostly because you would be meeting Zico with B-Bomb alone. Why were you going to meet up with Zico with only B-Bomb at your side?

When you had contacted Jaehyo, he had passed the phone to Zico so that he could talk to Sunggyu. Zico accepted the request to meet up with the werewolves on one condition. You had to meet up with him only with B-Bomb. No outside werewolves allowed.

“He’s still as stubborn as always.” You pinched the bridge of your nose as you took a deep breath.

B-Bomb glanced in your direction, his lips tugging into a slight smile. “You’re saying that as though you aren’t equally as stubborn.” You snarled at him playfully and his smile spread across his face.

B-Bomb had told you just earlier that the mayor frequently goes through their territory without explanation, causing Zico to keep tabs on him whenever he does. If the werewolves didn’t smell him on their territory, where the mayor’s house was in the first place, then that meant that he was only in one other place, the hunter’s territory. B-Bomb knew that if the mayor entered their territory, Zico would know about it and thus would know where he would have gone.

That was the only lead on what to do now that Myungsoo had gone missing. To B-Bomb’s expectations, when the werewolves went looking for Myungsoo’s scent an hour before now, it led right into hunter territory, a territory they dare not cross since the situation with B-Bomb had finally been settled. There was no reason to go riling up the hunters all of a sudden so Sunggyu promptly went ahead with B-Bomb’s plan to meet up with Zico.

B-Bomb slid his hands into his pockets and his smile faded. He looked down as he felt around in his right pocket, a familiar cold metal underneath his fingertips. A light jingle came from him and you turned, curious as to what he was doing. He noticed your eyes on him and slipped his hand from his pocket. He held out his hand to you.

“What is it?” You asked as you peered down at his hand. He let his fist unclench and from his fingers, a silver gleam slipped from his palm and hung from his fingers. For a moment, you didn’t know what it was. Before you could question him, a small click in your head told you what it was.

“My bracelet?” You reached out for it, your fingers skimming across the metal, a small twinge of remembrance sprung up in you. A soft smile lit up your face. B-Bomb watched on, pleased to have put such an expression on your face. The smile didn’t last long however as a question popped into your head, “Why do you have it?”

“Does that matter?” He asked as he let go of it, letting it fall into your hand.

You pursed your lips. It did matter. It mattered immensely. However, you didn’t have time to question it as you heard something snap in front of you. You looked ahead, finding a dark silhouette walking forward from the shadows of the trees. You faced forward, your instincts acting first as you slipped on your bracelet without hesitation.

The silhouette slipped from the shade of the trees and revealed themselves however it was obvious who it was and as such did not surprise you.

“I hope you two did come alone as I asked you to. Though I would be able to tell if you didn’t, I can’t be sure.” Zico came to a stop a few feet in front of you and B-Bomb. It was good seeing him again. In fact, it was so good it felt unreal. It felt like ages since you had last seen that cocky smirk of his and those eagle-like eyes on yours that seemed to stare right through any front you had put up.

“We did.” B-Bomb answered back immediately, breaking you out of your daze.

“Well, you know I don’t take chances.” Zico gestured with his hands spread outward, that arrogant smile never seeming so good to see than right at this very moment.

Despite being mesmerized by the sight of him, you looked up and saw a flash of color among the dark green of the brush. A smile lingered on your face as you knew instantly who it was. U-Kwon, behaving like a monkey as always. If he was there, the other hunters must have been hiding as well around where you now where.

“So have you been feeling any different B-Bomb? Any more in control?” Zico made pleasantries with B-Bomb who was seemingly not in the mood.

“You know we didn’t come here to make small talk. We can talk about those things another time.” B-Bomb said back. He didn’t want to talk about his internal struggle now. Not in front of you. Besides, the most important topic to talk about now was Myungsoo. Not him.

Zico’s smile faded as he rested his hands on his belt. “Well you were right about the mayor paying a quick visit to our territory. Not only did he leave his scent everywhere but also a wolfy smell is hanging around now.” Zico closed his eyes and tilted his head upward, “Though it’s fading away bit by bit.”

You grew worried. If it was fading, did that mean Myungsoo was no longer with the mayor? “Then do you know where the Mayor went?” You could hear the worry in your voice, making you unable to lock eyes with Zico when he looked down at you in slight surprise.

“If I looked, I’m sure I could. Why so interested?” Zico raised an eyebrow, once more dodging questions, one of his specialties.

“Myungsoo went missing.” B-Bomb simply stated.

Zico’s facial features did not twitch in the least. He remained emotionless as he thought about the name that just came out of B-Bomb’s mouth, “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“He’s one of the werewolves.” B-Bomb explained. He paused for a moment, wondering if he should continue. After a moment, he did, “He’s a friend.”

Zico was startled by the use of such a word towards the one of the werewolf species coming from B-Bomb’s mouth. You are equally as surprised that B-Bomb called Myungsoo his friend. They seemed to have a casual relationship but you had no idea they were close enough for B-Bomb to openly call Myungsoo his friend. Especially in front of Zico and the rest of the hunters who, without a doubt, had heard his words from their hiding places around Zico.

You decided to use Zico’s surprise to suggest a rather difficult to bring up subject, “Sunggyu wanted your permission to cross the boundary.”

Zico tsked at the very thought of what you had just said, “He’s asking for permission now?”

“He doesn’t want to fight with you so it would help if you lost the undermining attitude,” You shot back to him. You wouldn’t get anywhere if he kept on being unreasonable like this. You knew he had the ability to take things seriously and that what he was doing now was dismissing you and B-Bomb’s pleas for help from him.

Zico noticed your sharp tongue hadn’t changed. Another thing that hadn’t changed was the way you were looking at him now. A fire in your eyes whenever you would look at him. He burned from the flames. He grew weak in front of their blazing intensity. He took a deep breath, “Fine. He can come but only after I find the place your werewolf friend is. I don’t want him all over our territory.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Zico. Thank you.” He didn’t look you in the eyes as he his heel, intending to leave. As he turned, he saw the gleam of something hanging from your wrist.

“You’re really something.” He mumbled as he rubbed the bottom of his face with his hand, hiding his smile behind it. What he had seen more than made up for the unreasonable request made to him. He had seen your wrist and from it he saw the dangling of a bracelet with a revolver gun charm hanging from it. You still wore it. Even though you were no longer by the hunters’ side, you still carried with you a piece of them. You still thought of them. Such a sight could have quite possibly made him do anything for you had he seen it earlier.

B-Bomb had seen Zico as he turned, no matter how much he wished he hadn’t. If B-Bomb had known such a small thing such as seeing you still wearing the bracelet Zico gave you would give Zico that much satisfaction, he wouldn’t have done it. Zico was his closest friend, like his own blood-related brother. Yet, just now, he couldn’t stand the look he saw on his face.

He shook his head, freeing himself from his suffocating thoughts, “He’ll call us when he’s found it. Now we just have to wait.”

You kept your eyes on the place Zico had disappeared to, a tight frown on your face, “It would go by faster if he could just let Sunggyu and the others cross the territory line.”

“You know his pride wouldn’t allow that.”

You laughed, “Yeah, I know. Sunggyu’s pride wouldn’t allow him to do it either.”

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A/N:

So now it looks like Zico is helping out. Anyone else miss him as much as I did? 

Not much to say for now, devoid of all ability to form words after reading my history textbook.

Will definitely post longer author's note next time. Promise.