There were a lot of things to remember about Jepp, Sungkyu mused as he sat down on the floor next to the injured man’s head, taking in the bandages and the faint marks on his face where he had been cut. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember a time where Jepp had been so badly injured that he had been bed-ridden for two days. In fact, he could hardly remember a time where Jepp had been injured, period. The thought angered and scared him at the same time, and he didn’t like the sensation one bit. Sungkyu sighed, his eyes narrowing as he got noiselessly to his feet and headed for the door. He paused in the doorway and looked back.

“I’ll find out who did this,” he told the still figure on the bed. “To you and to CL. I’ll find them, and I’ll make them pay.” He walked out of the room and closed the door softly behind him, heading straight for his own room to think things out on the roof.

Hidden just out of sight around the wall, Min curled her fist up to her chest, trying to quell her shaking heart as she sent a death glare at Sungkyu’s retreating back.

-

“Hey Skyu,” CL popped her head out of his room window and screwed up her nose as a cold wind hit her in the face. “Time to clear up downstairs. You know how the old ones like to come and visit once in a while, I don’t think they’d like it if they came in and found blood and broken pews all over the place.”

“CL,” Sungkyu said shortly without turning around, staring out at the dark desolated roofs of the slums. He was in his usual white v-necked top with sleeves rolled up, and CL wondered how on earth he could sit out there for hours without a jacket when she was already shivering. And then she remembered that Sungkyu was cold-blooded anyway, so he probably didn’t feel any difference. The thought made her smile harder. Without asking, she climbed out of the window and settled down beside him, curling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on her arms. They sat in silence, and then Sungkyu lay back against the roof tiles, his arms behind his head as he gazed up at the sky. She watched him from the corner of her eye and his gaze swiveled to her.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, not meanly, but not exactly friendly either. She shrugged and directed her gaze over the bleak rooftops of the slums. In the distance she could see the hint of a storm gathering, lightning flashing over another part of Level. It almost seemed like an omen.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked in return, fingers digging into her skin. “About that L guy.”

“Don’t know,” Sungkyu replied in a bored tone. “He’ll come back some day for sure, if he’s serious about killing Min. I’ll get him then.” CL smirked slightly at the listless way he was speaking despite the strength in his words. They lapsed back into silence, the sky slowly darkening above them, and CL’s blood slowly running cold in her veins. She shivered and rubbed her arms.

“Why do you stay?” Sungkyu asked suddenly. “In this place. There’s nothing for you here.”

She blinked, burying the bottom half of her face in her arms. “There’s nothing for me anywhere,” she mumbled. “So I might as well stay in this hole with others who feel like me. It’s a purely selfish reason.” She cast a glance at him but his eyes were closed and he gave no indication that he had heard her. “Why do you stay?” she asked in turn. He opened his eyes but didn’t look at her.

“CL, you and I both know that we both have issues,” he said to the sky. “You stay because you have nowhere else to go. I stay to protect.” She raised an eyebrow at him but he ignored her. “I’m not out to change the world or anything. I hate those people who talk about changing the world like it’s so easy. Even if I can’t, even if it’s completely beyond my ability, I just want to protect the people who are important to me and me alone.” There was a pause in which neither said anything. “It’s stupid and naïve but yeah… I want to protect everything,” Sungkyu said quietly.

“It doesn’t sound very stupid to me,” she hid a smile. He didn’t reply. “You know Skyu, sometimes, it’s okay to smile for yourself,” she said.

“Smile…” Sungkyu stared up into the gray clouds that hung overhead. “I haven’t done that in a while.” She turned her head to look at him. “Don’t say you don’t know how to, because it’s only a simple act of manipulating your facial muscles,” she told him mirthlessly.

“Maybe,” he replied. “One day. It’ll be nice to smile again.” A cold breeze swept over them, but CL ignored the goosebumps on her arms, continuing to gaze at him as a small, gentle smile appeared on her lips. He opened one eye and swiveled it around to look at her and she hastily looked away, though the smile stayed.

-

There were a lot of things to remember about CL as well, Sungkyu thought to himself as he paused in the process of completely demolishing a half-broken pew to stare over in her direction. She was crouched on the floor, tongue sticking out of the corner of with deep concentration as she scrubbed diligently at a particularly stubborn blood stain. She looked up and caught his eye, breaking out into an infectious smile and waving at him. He turned away.

It was strange how easily people changed, he mused as he inspected a splinter in his thumb. It was also strange how they could change so drastically. He remembered the first time he met CL – she was half-delirious then, raving and more animal than human. He found it a little hard to remember CL like that (it had been almost two years since he had last seen her like that, not counting her sugar withdrawals), but then he remembered the time she her knife at him and missed by a few inches, and he wasn’t too sure which CL was real anymore; the past or the present.

“Are you okay?” asked a small voice behind him, and he turned, on his thumb, to find Min observing him quietly. “You look like you need help.”

“Uhh, yeah,” he said, removing the digit from his mouth. “It’s a splinter.” He held it out to show her, and she took his hand with no question. He tensed up a little, but let it pass. He watched as she delicately pinched the tip of the fragment, swiftly removing it from his skin. “There,” she said, giving him back his hand.

“Thanks, Min,” he patted her on the head. She simply nodded, and went back to work.

He remembered the first time he had met Min, too. She was covered in blood, her eyes wide and bloodthirsty and a murderous grin on her face as she stumbled down the street. She left a long crimson trail behind her in the snow, and it was Jepp who caught her as she fell. That was a year ago. To this day Sungkyu hadn’t the courage to ask her what had happened, nor who she had killed. He knew he wouldn’t get an answer anyway.

Somehow they had all ended up in this town completely out of their minds. He wasn’t surprised, when he thought about it. It was the sort of place to attract the kind of people that they were.

There’s a little bit of madness inside all of us.

-

“I’m going,” Sungkyu announced over breakfast two days later. The church had been completely restored back to normal (save the broken windows and missing pews), and he wanted to track down Jepp’s assailant as soon as he could. From experience he knew that the faster he moved the faster he would find him.

“No,” CL said firmly, pointing a fork at him. “Not until Jepp wakes up.” He shook his head. She didn’t get it. He was about to argue when something whizzed past his ear and there was a silent clunk behind him as the fork embedded itself into the wall behind him. “I said no,” she raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m taking Min with me to the shop and someone needs to stay behind with Jepp.”

“Min can look after him,” he stood up, completely unfazed by the fact that she had just thrown a fork at him and missed on purpose. “You don’t need me here.” He took his plate to the sink and another fork sailed past his head. “CL, how many forks are you going to throw at me before you get that I’m going anyway?” There was a swooshing sound behind him and, turning swiftly, he nonchalantly raised his right arm. The barrel of the black gun pressed against CL’s forehead as the blade of one of her knives pressed against his throat.

He opened his eyes and CL grinned at him. “To hell with forks,” she announced. Min looked back and forth between them, her expression blank. Their gazes bore into each other’s, Sungkyu’s closed and hard, and CL’s stubborn and challenging.

“Whoa,” said a hoarse voice from the doorway, and they looked over to where Jepp stood, shirtless and dazed-looking. “Did I miss something?” Min jumped up and ran to his side, looking as relieved as she knew how.  He smiled and ruffled her hair as he always did, before looking back up at Sungkyu and CL. “What are you guys doing?” he asked easily.

Sungkyu looked back at CL and slowly lowered his weapon, stowing it back into its holster at his hip. “Good to see you awake, Jepp,” he said, walking past and patting the man on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself while I’m gone.” He disappeared into his room and closed the door. Jepp looked back at CL, who looked defeated.

“Somehow I can never make him stay,” she mumbled, and turned away. A second later she passed him a plate, with a bright smile adorning her features. “You’re probably starving, seeing as you’ve been out for 4 days. Come on, I’ll make you something. And Min, finish your food.”  No one noticed as she stared at Sungkyu’s closed door a little longer than she should have.