I was furious by the time I got to my room. My first kiss and it had to be that jerk. I mean, I guess it wasn’t a real kiss, but a kiss nonetheless! He even had the nerve to just sleep after that! Oh, he did not want to wake up tomorrow. I was going to let him know how angry I was; that jerk.

                I woke up the next morning to silence. Since I was the first one up, I decided to get dressed and make myself breakfast. The kitchen was huge but I somehow managed to find everything easily: a bowl, a spoon, cereal and milk. I went to the living room after I had finished eating and sat on the couch. What the heck was I going to do? Actually having a morning to myself made me realize how boring my life suddenly became. What did these people do? Was this really a gang or were they just all talk? I mean, sure, they definitely had the “I’ll kill you” part down to a T, but what about actually going through with it? I was starting to doubt that these boys were actually a gang, because if they were, they were boring. I would never have thought that I would regret ever thinking that.

                Joon was the first to walk into the living room and looked surprised to see me there. Seeing his face reminded me of last night and I was still not happy.

                “Jerk…” I muttered as he walked by me. I really hoped he’d heard, that stupid fake gangster.

                “What’d you call me?” he stopped in front of me and narrowed his eyes.

                Huh, he was trying to be scary now. After realizing that they were fake, would I really be scared? Of course I wouldn’t.

                “I called you a jerk, you…jerk!” I snapped at him. I knew I didn’t like him for a reason.

                I glared up at him and he seemed dumbfounded. Good, he should be. I wasn’t going to be one of those people who were scared of him because he was part of this “gang.”

                “Did you forget who you were talking to?”

                Heh, he’s trying to be scary again. Not gonna work!

                “No, I didn’t forget and that’s why I’m talking to you the way that I am.”

                “Oh, really? And who exactly am I in your eyes?”

                “A jerk who needs to get some manners.”

                “Manners? You’re talking to me about manners?”

                “Did I not say that? Are you stupid too?”

                “Say that again.”

                “What? That you’re stupid? Or a stupid jerk?”

                “You’re starting to piss me off and it’s too early for that.”

                “Aww, too early for you to step out of your comfort zone?”

                “What the hell is wrong with you?”

                He seemed really angry now. Good.

                “You’re what’s wrong with me, you stupid, drunken, kissing jerk!”

                “What?”

                I wanted to slap him now. Trying to be all innocent and acting confused.

                “You heard me!”

                “Where the hell did ‘kissing’ come in from?!”

                “Don’t act confused like you know nothing! You came home last night, drunk, and kissed me!”

                He looked even more confused and then he sighed. Why didn’t he seem angry anymore? Why did I always get confused talking to him? Then I saw him smirk. The heck was he smirking for?!

                “So you’re mad at me because I kissed you while I was drunk?” he was still smirking. WHY was he still smirking?

                “No, I’m not mad because of it; I’m pissed off because of it!”

                “Why? Was it your first?” his smirk widened. He was mocking me.

                So I slapped him.

                Who knew that one slap could take away all the anger and fill it with fear? I sure didn’t. After you slap someone, you’re supposed to feel good about it. I felt like my life was over.

                The glare he was giving me wasn’t just a glare. It was a death glare. For that second, I would have believed that he was in a gang for sure, but I regained my composure. I wasn’t falling for that look again. He could act like a gangster all he wanted; I wasn’t going to let anything slide. They chose the wrong girl to mess with this time.

                He slowly put his hand to his chin and rubbed his cheek lightly with his thumb.

                “You’ve got guts, but you’re using them in the wrong place,” he narrowed his eyes.

                “Whatever, I’m not scared of you anymore. I know this isn’t a real gang. You’re just wannabes hoping to become big time gangsters.”

                Hah! I said it! Now he would know that I know they’re fakes. He couldn’t lie to me anymore.

                “You think that we’re wannabes?” now he seemed amused. He crossed his arms across his chest and gave me another smirk, “Well, aren’t you glad I have something for you.”

                What the heck was he talking about?

                Almost as if on cue, the others walked into the living room as well.

                “What’s going on?” Seungho asked, looking very suspiciously at us.

                “Nothing at all,” Joon smirked at him, “we’re going to be taking her with us tonight. She needs some…convincing.”

                “Convincing? About what?” Mir was putting on his sweater as he came into the room.

                “Joon, she can’t come with us tonight. She’s not even initiated yet,” G.O seemed confused as he look at me and then back to Joon.

                “Then I guess we’ll just have to do the initiation before we get there,” Joon shrugged with a grin.

                “What initiation?” I was almost afraid to find out. Wasn’t I already in this gang or whatnot? Why did they need me to go through an initiation?

                “You need an initiation to be a part of this gang. I’m sure you realized that,” G.O said.

                “How is an initiation going to work if I was forced into it?” I didn’t see any logic in it. At all.

                “Forced? You had the choice to join or die,” Joon smirked.

                “Once again, forced,” I stated.

                “I don’t think she’s ready to find out what’s going on tonight. She’s not even trained yet,” Seungho said. He looked worried and I could tell he was saying something with his eyes to Joon. I just didn’t know what it was. Was it really some gang activity that I wasn’t ready for yet?

                “Alright, let me tell you why she needs to come tonight. She thinks we’re “wannabes” trying to act like gangsters,” Joon said and looked at the rest of the guys.

                They seemed pretty shocked to hear that.

                “Hey, that’s not really nice. You think we’d be claiming to be a gang if we weren’t?” Mir sounded hurt. And now I was feeling bad for even thinking that. I mean, did I really know what they were capable of?

                “It’s not like we have action in our lives 24/7, you know. And you heard the secret, what’re you doubting about?” Thunder continued with the hurt voice.

                “I’m sorry…” it was all I could say. I guess I was being irrational about it all.

                “Damn right you’re sorry. Be glad I didn’t kill you here and now to prove it to you,” G.O took a quick step forward and I moved back. I wouldn’t get too close to this one; he was dangerous.

                “We’ll send the other boys tonight and we’ll let them deal with it for now. We need to start working on our newest member,” Joon had a smirk on his face again. He was not thinking nice things.

                “What is this? A meeting without me?” Bom unnie walked into the room with her hands on her hips. She looked around at all of us and then her eyes stayed on Joon.

                “Good timing. We’re gonna start training this one today,” Joon motioned to me with his head, “and you and G.O need to teach her hand-to-hand fighting.”

                “Ah, finally!” Bom unnie seemed excited.

                Hold on, hand-to-hand fighting? She knew how to fight? That didn’t seem possible. She looked like she was one of those girls that wouldn’t want to break a nail. And G.O was going to help out as well? Wait, G.O? WHAT THE HELL?! He was going to have a reason to beat me up now. Why?!

                “Seungho, you’ll teach her the knives.”

                Seungho was good with knives? That would be interesting…

                “And I’ll teach her the guns,” Joon grinned at me.

                I guess this was their way of saying “you should have picked death.” I knew I made the wrong choices when rushed into them. I should’ve had them give me a day to think. Dang.

                “Hey, then what’re we? Emotional support?” Mir pouted at Joon.

                “You two can teach her endurance. We need to know how trusted she can be with that info with her,” Joon patted Mir’s head.

                “Don’t pat my head, I’m not a kid,” Mir pouted again and moved from under Joon’s hand.

                “So when do we all start?” Thunder asked.

                “Noona and Seungho can start whenever they want. It’ll be an hour today since it’s only the beginning. Each day we’ll increase the time by half an hour with fewer breaks in between. You can handle that, right?” he smirked at me.

                “Yes, I can,” I stated confidently. What did he think I was gonna do, run away?

                “Then come on with us. We’ll get started right away,” Bom unnie said and began walking away as I followed quickly behind. I saw G.O sigh before he started following us. This was going to be a long hour, wasn’t it?

                Bom led us into the basement of the house which revealed a couple of rooms. She walked into the first one and it was filled with training and fighting gear: punching bags, weights, a fighting ring (though it was more of a fighting circle surrounded with a 2 foot tall wall). I was in awe looking at everything when Bom unnie appeared in front of me.

                “Shall we begin?” she asked and smiled at me.

                “I…I don’t even know the first thing about fighting…” I admitted. Sure, I was tough but I had never fought with anyone in my life.

                “And that’s what I’ll be teaching you. I’m not the best fighter myself so I’ll be teaching you the basics, the main ground that you’ll need and G.O will do the rest. He’ll teach you to perfect it so that each and every movement will be smooth. Don’t worry, hun, we’ll take care of it all,” she smiled again and I couldn’t help but smile back. She was so motherly and anyone would be able to feel it, though the part with G.O was still scaring me. Was she going to leave us alone when her teaching time was up? I hoped not.

                Bom unnie spent the rest of the hour showing me how my feet should be planted on the floor and how my hands should be. Every time I would glance at G.O, he’d be watching me closely. He seemed to be calculating my every move, studying me. When he would catch me looking at him, he’d give me a glare and mouth out “pay attention.” My attention would automatically go back to Bom unnie. I didn’t want to annoy him.

                “Okay, Chaerin, that’s all for today,” Bom unnie rubbed my back, “we’ll go into more detail about it tomorrow. You’re going to head outside to work with Mir and Thunder. You know how to get to the back yard right? I showed you yesterday.”

                “I remember,” I nodded and gave them both a small bow before leaving.

                Walking through this house reminded me that this was a mansion, not a normal house. It was huge; one wrong turn and you’d be praying to have your phone with you to call for directions.

                I finally reached the back yard and Mir and Thunder was sitting on the grass talking and laughing. I walked closer to them and they stood up, noticing me.

                “How was fighting?” Thunder asked as he and Mir began walking to where they were going to start training me.

                “Good. Bom unnie didn’t teach too much because it’s the first day,” I replied, following behind them.

                “Heh, don’t think we’re gonna go easy on you though. Noona’s just nice. We’re getting down to business right away,” Mir laughed.

                Oh, great. And the torture begins.

                Thunder was holding my feet down as I was doing sit-ups. I was on 70 and had to reach 100 before they would let me free. Mir was squatting behind me and once I would go down, he’d push my shoulders to the ground for a second and then let go, making it more difficult for me to get back up. If I failed to get up right away and do another sit-up, they would make me hold a 1 pound weight in both hands (which were crossed over my chest). Each time, the weights would get a pound heavier. Oh, and I would also have to start from 1, even if I was at 99. This was my third time and I was holding 3 pound weights. This was, without doubt, torture.

                “One-hundred!” Mir exclaimed and Thunder let go of my legs.

                I couldn’t help but just collapse on the grass, trying to catch my breath.

                “You two…” I tried to tell them how awful they were but I was way too out of breath to do so. They laughed at me and Thunder held out his hand to help me stand up. I stood up and Mir patted my back.

                “You did well, young grasshopper,” and he gave me a little bow. I laughed and was feeling a lot happier. I wouldn’t mind being tortured by these two. They’d do it and then make me feel better about it. Thunder bought me bottled water, how thankful I was for that water.

                “You’re going to Seungho next for the knives. Good luck, he’s pretty serious when it comes to teaching people knives,” Mir patted my back again.

                They led me to where I was going to have the session with Seungho. It was in the next room from where I had the session with Bom unnie and G.O. The moment I opened the door to the room, I saw Seungho throw a knife to the wall and it hit a small black dot on the wall. Holy crap.

                He looked at me and smirked, walking to the knife and pulling it out of the wall.

                “Come in,” he said and I realized that I had been standing in the doorway, dumbfounded.

                I slowly walked into the room and stood near him. Was I going to learn how to throw knives like that? He walked to me and handed me a knife.

                “This is a knife,” he stated.

                “I’ve seen a knife before, you know,” I replied, a bit offended that he would think I was stupid to not know what a knife was.

                “Just making sure,” he smiled and took out a knife for himself, “today I’m only gonna be teaching you the basics. That means how to hold the knife correctly and how to throw it. You won’t understand everything the first time, so just let me know when you get confused.”

                He flashed me another smile and all I could do was smile and nod. He was definitely a nice one. I didn’t understand what Thunder and Mir were saying that he would be mean about learning this. He was being very nice and I enjoyed this change.

                It took me about half an hour to learn that part and we spend the last half hour throwing the knives. None of mine stuck to the wall and he encouraged me to try harder…at least, it sounded like he was. The harsh words were covered up so well by his encouragement that I just took it in positively.

                “We’re almost done,” he stated as I was about to throw my last knife to the wall, “try to get this one to at least stick for a second.”

                “I’ve been trying,” I tried not to whine. I was finally starting to understand how to throw it! Stupid time limit was killing my chance of perfecting it in a day!

                “Don’t worry about it then. You’ll get it soon,” he smiled, “but our time is up for today. Go to the next room. That’s where Joon is. But since you have a half hour break, you can continue to practice. You better have it at least stick to the wall for a second by tomorrow or I’m not teaching you anymore,” he threatened, pointing his finger at me. I was shocked at his change in character until he smiled and poked my forehead, “good luck,” he said and walked out of the room.

                I liked this guy too. Three out of five of them liking me was even more than I had imagined.

                I continued to practice for about 25 minutes. The more I threw the knife, the more I felt comfortable with it. I had watched Seungho do it a few times but I couldn’t get myself to do it the same way. Why was it so hard to make the knife stick into a wall?! I wouldn’t be able to learn this if I was angry about it. I decided to put the knife back into its place and then headed out to see what Joon had in store for me. I didn’t want to spend time with him at all, especially since I was going to have to learn how to use guns. It wasn’t going to be that hard though, right? It’s only learning how to hold it and shoot it; nothing big.

                I walked into the next room and it was empty. Everyone else had been in their spots except him. What? Was he that special he didn’t have to be on time? I looked around the room and saw that the walls were full of guns. Handguns, rifles and many others…but I didn’t know the names yet. There was a gun on the table so I walked over to look at it. It was shiny and I went to touch it when a hand grabbed mine.

                “Don’t touch what isn’t yours,” Joon’s voice was close to my ears. I flinched back and gave a small bow, muttering an apology. He didn’t have to scare me like that. He raised an eyebrow and looked amused.

                “What?” I asked when he continued to look at me without doing anything. He picked up the gun from the table and held it towards me.

                “Hold it,” he said and gave the gun to me.

                I held the gun in my hands. I hated the feeling. It was heavy, cold, and uncontrollable. I felt even if I did have control over the gun, it was still much more powerful than I would ever be.

                “It’s heavy…” I muttered.

                “Hold it out like you’re gonna shoot someone,” he said and crossed his arms across his chest, stepping back to observe how I was doing.

                I held out my right hand, trying to hold the gun tightly. I couldn’t keep my arm straight.

                “Straighten out your arm,” he commanded.

                I tried but failed. I couldn’t keep my wrist straight and had the urge to just put my arm down all together. I heard him sigh and tried to hold the gun with two hands, the way police hold theirs: one arm out straight and the other supporting it.

                “Don’t use two hands, just one,” he commanded.

                “Well, I’m sorry if I’ve never used a gun before,” I glared at him and tried to hold the gun out straight again.

                I heard him sigh again and then footsteps. I looked to see him walking towards me. Why? What was he going to do?

                “Just hold it out,” he said and held up my arms with his hands, one of his under my elbow and the other under my hand, “like that.”

                “I know how to hold it out but it’s heavy,” I began to whine, “I don’t know how to make my wrist straight…”

                He looked at me for a second and then walked behind me.

                “Like this…” I heard him say and he held my hand with his, straightening out my wrist. I felt his breath lightly on my ear and shivers went down my spine. Why was he so close?

                “See? You can do it,” he said and I felt him move away quickly.

                What was he talking about? I looked at my hand with the gun and I had actually held it straight. The surprising thing: this was the first time the whole day I felt accomplished about something. Actually, it was the first time since a few days ago when I joined this gang that I felt accomplished about anything.

                “Wow…” I said with a smile. I was truly happy that I was able to hold the gun straight, until I realized that it was a real gun I was holding. I put my arm down.

                Joon walked towards one of the walls that had the handguns and picked one up. He held it in his hand and began walking towards me. In a matter of seconds, he had the gun pointing at my forehead.

                “This is what you’ll be learning to do…” I heard him talking but suddenly, memories flooded into my mind and his voice faded out.

                “Give me the money and I won’t kill the girl!” a man had his arm around my neck and was holding a gun to the side of my head. The tears flowed down my cheeks.

                “Let her go!” it was my father’s voice. He was here to save me.

                “Daddy…” I choked out before I heard gunfire. The man had shot out at the police.

                It was that man who had pointed the gun at me the same way before taking me captive, the one that my father killed in order to protect me. It was the only time that my father had ever used his gun on a person even though he was a criminal detective. The sight of a gun being held to my forehead again brought out my fear and I remembered why I hated guns so much.

                I heard myself scream and I fell to the floor, burying my face into my knees. I was breathing hard, I couldn’t stop the tears. It was like being back in that alleyway. I couldn’t pull myself by to reality. The tears continued to stream out uncontrollably.

                “Hey…” I heard Joon’s voice. It was low and I could tell he seemed nervous about confronting me.

                “I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered. I didn’t want him to see me crying so I kept my face hidden in my knees.

                “You should have told me you were afraid of guns,” he had an annoyed tone in his voice now.

                That jerk. I didn’t care about him seeing me crying anymore. I glared up at him and stood up.

                “Well, gee, if you had warned me that you were going to freaking point that thing at me, we wouldn’t be in this position!” I wiped away my tears and noticed that I was tightly gripping onto the gun that was in my hand. Out of sheer anger and stupidity, I pointed it at him, “How does this make you feel? All warm and fuzzy?”

                How the gun flew out of my hand and how I ended up on the floor with him pinning me down was a mystery.

                He was glaring at me so I glared back. He started it.

                “Don’t you ever point a gun at me again unless you want me to kill you,” he said through gritted teeth.

                “Well, how should I know you’re scared of them if you never told me,” I spat back. If he wanted to play that game, then I would too.

                He continued to glare at me. He knew I was right and that was probably why he couldn’t say anything back. The nerve of this guy…

                He got off of me and held out his hand. Yeah, like I wanted help from him. I stood on my own and looked away, making it obvious that I was mad at him even though I knew he didn’t care.

                “Pick up the gun again,” he demanded.

                I did and looked at him for what I should do next. I could tell he didn’t want anything to do with me at the moment. I sighed. I’ll be the bigger person this time.

                “I’m sorry about pointing the gun at you…I won’t ever do it again,” I tried to apologize.

                “Whatever, let’s see if you can shoot.”

                What?! He totally brushed off my apology! My list of reasons for not liking this guy was getting longer and longer.

                He took me to another side of the room and I saw targets. I was gonna do target practice?

                “You’re not going to be shooting the moving targets just yet. You probably don’t even know how to shoot correctly,” he said.

                He was right but it was still a blow to my ever diminishing ego.

               He put up a target that wouldn’t move and told me to point my gun at it. I did and, surprisingly, my arm was straight. I guess holding the gun long enough got my hand use to its weight.

                “Now, shoot,” he said.

                I put my finger on the trigger and tried to press it. I couldn’t do it. Not that I wasn’t strong enough to pull the trigger but I was too scared to pull it. I didn’t want to shoot and I didn’t want to deal with guns. Why did I have to learn all this anyway? What was it going to do for me?

                “Why aren’t you shooting?” he sounded annoyed.

                “I don’t want to,” it was half true. I wasn’t going to tell him that I was scared.

                “You don’t want to or you’re scared to?”

                “…both?” I didn’t know if I should’ve lied to him about being scared but I decided not to. He found out that I was scared of guns. He should’ve realized that it’d be difficult for me to actually shoot it.

                “What’s so scary about the gun? It’s a weapon. Is that what scares you? You’re not killing anyone with it,” he was definitely annoyed now.

                “I just don’t feel comfortable shooting it. I don’t want to shoot it. And plus, I hear it’s loud and can knock a person back if they’re not standing correctly,” I was going to try anything to get out of shooting for today. Please just let me off today.

                “Then let me help you with that,” he said and walked to me and took the gun from my hand.

                He glanced at me and flashed a smile before pulling the trigger. I flinched at the sound and my hands automatically went to cover my ears.

                “Now that you’ve heard the sound and you saw that it didn’t knock me back at all, shoot,” he handed the gun back to me and waited.

                I held the gun up again. I could do this. What if I had to protect myself from someone and the only thing to use was a gun? I had to at least try it once. So I held the gun up and pulled the trigger.

                That’s when it finally dawned on me: I am in a gang. My father is a criminal detective.

                Holy. Freaking. Crap.