It took Jonghyun and Key a little while to gather information on Taemin’s car whereabouts, and also getting there. So by the time they spotted Taemin’s car, they spotted the couple as well.

              Taemin was in a mess, with blood everywhere and face pale as white sheet. Hyehee was half dragging him towards their car and Taemin insisted on driving. “Taemin!” Key yelled and Taemin wasn’t sure if it’s because he heard the guys’ voices, he seem to loosen up and eventually, he lost his strength.

              Luckily for him, just before his face hit the ground, Key caught him. “What happened?” Jonghyun asked as he got nearer to them. “He was shot in his arm, should we get him to the hospital?” Hyehee asked with concern visible in her voice. She was still trembling but she felt better seeing the both of them.

              Jonghyun took off his outerwear and put it around Hyehee’s shoulder. “It’s a gunshot wound, we can’t go to a hospital. No worries, Key will handle it. It wasn’t the first time anyway.”

              That sentence caught Hyehee off guard. It wasn’t the first time, how many times did Taemin go through such things? Was he used to all these already?

              Jonghyun followed the trail of Taemin’s blood and reached the container. He went in for a while before running out and back to them. He walked around the car and got into the driver seat, “I’ll get some guys here to drive Taemin’s car back.” he said, keying things into his phone. Hyehee got into the passenger seat and not even two seconds, she got out of the car again. “Give me a min!”

              “Where did she go?” Key asked, putting Taemin in the backseat while getting in beside him. “I don’t know.”

              “To think he wanted to drive just now, tch.” Key nagged, shaking his head in disbelief at the guy who doesn’t know death. “And what did you see just now, in the container?”

              Jonghyun put his phone away and looked straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel. He watched as Hyehee came running out from the container with something in her hand.

              “Minho’s corpse.”

When Taemin had his eyes opened again, it was when he heard Key and Jonghyun’s bickering outside his room. He sighed, before noticing Hyehee sleeping next to him. Her hand was holding his left hand, keeping a distance from him so as not to be near his wound. Taemin blinked, raising his right hand to touch her head.

              Key opened the door and witnesses the scene, with Jonghyun behind him; he walked over to Taemin side of the bed and placed the first aid kit on the bedside table. “Great, you woke up just in time for me to change your bandage.”

              Taemin swallowed, taking his hand back awkwardly. “It’s fine,” he said, his voice came out hoarser than he thought. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to see anyone other than his sister, not to mention caring about his wound. Key exhaled sharply through his nose, clearly annoyed at Taemin’s attitude. “Well then, I’ll change it after dinner. It’s going to rot if you don’t change it, mind you.” he nagged, before leaving the room.

              Jonghyun took a quick glance at Hyehee who was still sleeping peacefully, and Taemin seemed to have caught his gentle eyes.

              When they closed the door behind them, Taemin closed his eyes again. After dinner huh…he wondered how long he’d slept. “Oppa?”

              Taemin snapped his eyes open and saw Hyehee looking at him. She pushed herself up on her elbow and watched him. Key had told her that Taemin has always been like this; always having sleepless nights before he got into a fight. Of course, Taemin is not the type that enters a fight for no reason. He must be vexed over the problem that he couldn’t sleep.

              And that was exactly why he would sleep for longer than usual after he injured himself, and Key and Jonghyun were glad that he could finally rest his body.

“You’re a licensed doctor?” Hyehee watched as Key uses a tool to pick the bullet out from Taemin’s left arm. “Not.”

              “But you seemed professional.”

              “…” Key paused, “I came from a family where everyone was a doctor. I grew up watching how they treat people. Although I’m not licensed, but I have the skills.” He pressed his lips together as he placed the bullet on a small metal tray. Key sighed, taking another tool to pick up a needle with string attached to it. “But I’m not interested in being a doctor. I left the family and became rebellious, master took me in and that’s when I joined the Dragon’s; but I’m glad that one day I could use this kind of skills to save someone I cared about.”

              Hyehee raised a brow; smiling as she learned something new about Key oppa that night.

“Are you feeling okay?” Hyehee asked, and Taemin responded by lying on his side and pulling her in, making her lie on his left upper arm. “Your wound—,”

              “It’s fine, just stay still.” Taemin closed his eyes. With his right arm over Hyehee, he hugged her. “I’m sorry, Hyehee” He said quietly.

              Hyehee stared blankly at Taemin’s chest, she doesn’t dare to move. “Stop saying sorry.” She said. “Instead, I want to thank you.”

              Thank me? Taemin had a small smile on his lips, “It’s because of me that you were dragged into this world. You lost hyung, you got kidnapped, you heard gunshot, and you saw Minho dead. So don’t thank me.”

              “Don’t say that, oppa.” Hyehee smiled, fingers tapping on Taemin’s chest. “I want to thank you for saving me, for being with me, and for being here with me.”

              Taemin felt like he could hug her forever. He wants her, he wants to protect her, he wants to bring her and look at beautiful things.

              And to do that, he has to end things. End the things in the mafia world.

Taemin was in the study room using the laptop when Key stormed inside the room. The latter stood opposite of him and waited for him to respond. “What?” Taemin asked, finally looking up from his laptop.

              “Don’t you think you owe Jonghyun and me, an explanation?” Key crossed his arms.

              Taemin lowered the screen of his laptop, “what are you talking about?”

              “About you planning to take over the Phoenix clan,” Key said, “and I noticed you’ve been using the laptop a lot these days, I supposed you’re eyeing for the financial group too?”

              Taemin blinked, he looked away from Key as he sighed. “So what if it’s true?”

              “So that’s what you and master have been talking after the meeting that day. He dismissed us first but you stayed back.”

“Yes.” Taemin said, looking back at him. “But I don’t have the intention to explain anything yet. So stop asking.”

              Key was almost in shock, no intention to explain? After all these years and you don’t even want to explain anything to us?

              “Fine then, what about Hyehee?” He retorted. “I saw how you two behaved just now. What is she to you, your girlfriend?”

              “She’s my sister.” Taemin answered firmly. “Really? Have you not told her you’re not her brother?” Key sneered loudly.

              “And why does it matter to you who she is to me?”

              “Who is who to you?”

              Both of them snapped their heads at the door when they heard Hyehee’s voice. , Key cursed mentally, he should have closed the door when he came in just now.

              “What are the both of you arguing about?” Hyehee stood at the doorway before she takes small steps into the room. Taemin took a glance at Key, who returned with a guilty look. It’s better this way, you’re supposed to let her know somedays anyway, Key hope that Taemin could hear his inner voice.

              And it seemed like Taemin did; he sighed and signaled Key to leave the room.

              “I’ll go prepare the medication for your bandage later.” The latter said, awkwardly leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

              “So?” Hyehee broke the silence as she stood in front of Taemin. “It’s nothing, Hyehee.”

              “I heard something, so don’t tell me that it’s nothing.” She responded fiercely. “Oppa, you’re hiding things from me. I know you are. I heard what you told me yesterday in the container. You told me we will leave when everything ends. What are you trying to do, and what am I to you?”

              Taemin was slightly taken aback when Hyehee confronted him. Did she hear something just now?

              “What did you hear just now?” Taemin asked, finally standing up from his seat and walking over to her.

              “Does it matter what I hear? Or will you only own up when I tell you what I heard?”

              Oh, since when Hyehee became so good at words?

              Taemin had a small smile on, “looks like Tae oppa couldn’t hide things from you anymore.”

              Was he supposed to be glad that Hyehee actually matured? Or was he supposed to be scared because he can’t call her his sister anymore? What if being his sister was the only way that he could be by her side? What if she hates him because he’s not her brother anymore? What if she wants to leave?

              “Oppa,” Hyehee took a step forward and wrapped her arms around Taemin’s waist, surprising him. “Why are you afraid to tell me that we are not siblings?”

              “…” Taemin froze.

              Why, you say.

              “I want to be by your side.” She breathed.

              …Really? Even after knowing I’m a nobody to you and yet I made you lost your brother, and messed up your world?

              “Please tell me everything.”

              Taemin closed his eyes as he returned the hug. Will you still be right here if I tell you everything?

Taemin held Hyehee’s hand as he walked her into the building. “This building belongs to the L-Phoenix Financial Group. I’m sure you heard of it before.” Key said, leading the way to the lift lobby. Hyehee nodded, recalling the time she read a case study during her finance lesson about this corporation. It was a subsidiary of the largest financial firm in Asia.

              Taemin pressed the lift button, and when the lift came down, the three of them went in.

              “Which floor are we going?” Hyehee asked, staring at the number that goes up to 22. “We are not going up,” Taemin smiled.

              Hyehee raised a brow as she watched Key pressed his thumb against the first floor button way longer than usual, as if he was doing a thumb scan.

              “The first floor button serves two functions. One is to come down from the higher level obviously, and another is to go beyond level one.” Taemin explained as the lights inside the lift starts to turn dimmer, he tighten the grip on Hyehee’s hand when she gasped a little as the lift starts to go down. “Of course, there are only selected people who can access the button with their fingerprint. Master, Jonghyun, Taemin, and me,” Key continued.

              “That was impressive,” Hyehee mumbled under her breath inaudibly, and here she thought that Phoenix was just a backstreet mafia group. “Isn’t it?” Taemin gave her a small smile when he heard her.

              When the door of the lift opens, Hyehee dropped her jaw. The basement was designed like an arena with different corners serving different trainings. “It’s the physical training right now,” Key said when the three of them stepped out.  She looked around, spotting a group of men forming a circle, and within it were two guys fighting.

              “Stand firm when releasing your punch!” a loud voice yelled and it took Hyehee a while to register it was Jonghyun’s voice. “He’s kind of the best fighter here so master leaves it to him to train the guys.” Taemin said, leading Hyehee away into the shooting corner. And everything of their actions was caught in Jonghyun’s eyes.

              “He brought Hyehee here,” Jonghyun stated, watching the two walked away when Key passed him a bottle of water that he took from the nearby counter. “Yup, he told her everything.”

              “Is that so,” Jonghyun gulped down his water faster than he thought.

“Are all these even legal?” Hyehee asked Taemin, who had his back on her as he assembles a gun. “What is?”

              ”All of these, the basement, the fighting, I don’t know, the gun in your hand too maybe?” she shrugged. Taemin laughed, “You will be surprised.” He said as he walked towards her and hand her a pistol.

              Hyehee stood rooted to the ground, the small yet fatal weapon that took her brother’s life.

              “It’s not too late to turn back now,” Taemin said. “You wanted to try, didn’t you?”

              Hyehee swallowed, picking up the gun with her trembling hands. It was lighter than she thought but the heavy burden and responsibilities behind it as soon as you fires, she couldn’t imagine.

              “I’m not turning back.” She rolled her eyes at him.

              When Taemin told her everything from the beginning; from when he first came to know about his identify, and Jinki’s involvement with the mafia, to Taemin’s position in the Phoenix’s, he told her all of it, and she wasn’t planning to back away.

              Taemin turned Hyehee around, making her face the shooting board. He stood closely behind her, with their bodies pressed together; he lifted her hand with his right. “Place your finger at the trigger, raise your arm to your eye level and aim at the target.” He said low, and she felt a shiver down her spine when she could sense his breath.

              Taemin moved away, leaving Hyehee in her position. It was a full two minutes with Hyehee standing there staring at both the gun and the target board.

              “Hey,” Taemin voiced out, snatching the gun away from her in a swift move and—

              BANG.

              The sound echoed in both of their ears when she saw a bullet hole right in the middle of the target board.

              The people undergoing training did not bother themselves with the gunshot since they hear it almost every day; but Jonghyun and Key turned back, curious to see who the one that fired it was. Both of them took a glance at each other when they see Hyehee covering her ears and Taemin with the gun.

              “When you have a gun, you fire. You shoot in order to survive.” Taemin said, looking at her. “If you stayed still with a gun in your hand, you’ll get killed faster than you think.” He put the gun down on the table.

              “You don’t have to do this, Hyehee.”

              Hyehee clenched her teeth; she picked up the gun and aimed at the target. This time, it took her just three seconds to gather the strength in her index finger.

              BANG.

              Her bullet was nowhere near Taemin’s, but he smiled and took the gun away from her.

              “Congratulation on your first shot,” he smirked lightly.

“Are you nuts?” Jonghyun questioned at the top of his voice. “I think he is,” Key added. The both of them sat on the couch in disbelief as they stared blankly at Taemin.

              “I have my reasons.” The latter said. “And what are they? What kind of reasons do you have that you’ve to bet your life on it? Don’t you know that the Dragon clan is in ‘emergency state’ right now because they lost their head-to-be? No matter how much Choi Siwon hates Minho, he adopted him for that reason. We don’t know when they will come and yet now you’re giving yourself to them.” Jonghyun hissed.

              Taemin sighed; he leaned back and slouched into the seat. “I said I have my reasons, moreover, master had already agreed to it. I’m just telling the both of you, not asking for your opinion.”

              Key sneered, “you’re one stubborn tard.”

              “I agree; I would have killed you if I don’t know you.” Jonghyun closed his eyes and leaned back too. “Whatever happens, we will be behind you.” He said.

              Taemin smiled.

              “Tomorrow huh…” Jonghyun sighed. “Did you tell Hyehee yet?”

              Taemin shook his head. “I actually didn’t want her to be present.”

              “What?” Key questioned, “Again? And I thought you didn’t want to hide things from her anymore.”

              “I’m not hiding it from her; I just didn’t want her to be present.”

              “And what makes you think Hyehee would stay home obediently?” Jonghyun retorted. “She will go.” He added.

              Taemin sighed; he stood up and walked towards the door. “The handing over ceremony will take place at the basement, 11 at night.” he said, before leaving the room.

              “I hope things will go smoothly tomorrow.” Key commented. “Even though we know that surely something is going to happen. Taemin knows it too, which is probably why he requested for the ceremony to be held.”

Taemin was lying on the long couch with an arm behind his head. He stared blankly at the ceiling, thinking of times when they were younger and more carefree. He smiled, remembering how Jinki used to tell him that Hyehee was born to be the princess in their family, Taemin even laughed at him saying that Hyehee was born so that he could have a younger sibling to pick on. Until he left the family, he realized that Hyehee wasn’t a princess, she’s an angel.

              “Oppa…”

              Taemin looked up when he heard Hyehee’s sleepy voice. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

              Time now is almost 4 in the morning. It was already midnight when they came back from the basement and Hyehee was too tired to join the guys who wanted to drive out for supper again. After coming back, Taemin gathered the other two in the study room and tell them about the handing over ceremony.

              Taemin got up from the couch and went over to the bed; he got in the blanket and watched Hyehee who was already on her side staring at him. She shook her head, “you didn’t. Maybe I just didn’t want to sleep alone.” She shrugged with a yawn.

              “Hyehee,” he shifted himself, “later there will be a handing over ceremony at the basement. I’m taking over the clan.”

              Hyehee widen her eyes, “why all of a sudden?”

              “Remember when I say about leaving here?” Taemin lowered his voice. “Taking over the clan and destroying it is the first step.”

              Hyehee sat up, “you want to disband the clan?”

              “That way, we could start anew.” Taemin said, “I want to bring you away and start afresh. You don’t deserve all these.”

              “Oppa,” Hyehee took Taemin’s hand and fondle with his fingers. “I’m fine as long as you’re with me. Don’t force yourself to do things that you don’t like. I heard from Key oppa that you’ve been using the laptop a lot to learn about the financial group. You’re not really interested in it right?”

              “The condition to take over the clan was to join the business. I don’t have a choice but I don’t plan on staying very long. After I take over the clan and find a way to disband it, we will leave.” Taemin said firmly. “One more thing, the ceremony tomorrow, you’re not allowed to be present.”

              “What, why?” She pulled on his arm, “you’re leaving me alone again?”

              “It’s too dangerous. I just killed Choi Minho, people might be after my life right now. I don’t want you to be—,”

              “I’m going.” Hyehee cut him off, “I’m definitely going.”

              “Hyehee!”

              “Don’t try to get rid of me!” she cried. “I’m trying to be closer to you, I even shoot using a gun, I never ever in my life thought I would be looking at a real pistol let alone be using one, but you keep pushing me away! What do you want me to do?” her voice came out loud and shaky, and she turned to the other side of the bed with her back facing Taemin.

              “Hey, Hyehee…” he sighed, staring at her back and the blanket that rise high and low in accordance to her breathing. He shifted himself again until he was so near to her that he buried his face into her hair while holding her in his arms. “Hey…” his voice was soft, gentle, and slightly muffled. “You’re so important to me that I don’t want anything to happen to you. What if I lose you?” he questioned.

              Hyehee closed her eyes. She understand that Taemin didn’t want to put her in danger but when she said that she wants to be with him, she meant it. She sighed, she didn’t want to be his burden but she really doesn’t want to be left alone. “I’m sorry, I’ll stay home tomorrow.” She surrendered quietly.

              Taemin closed his eyes, planting a kiss at the back of her head. Sorry, I just want to protect you, he thought, holding her closer to him and taking in the scent of her hair. It was a blessing to be able to hold her to sleep tonight.