“Zico,” Sungkyu called out as he turned into an alleyway. Seven boys were grouped around a fire, their faces dirty and harsh. There were many of these groups roaming the streets, infrequently terrorizing the neighboring towns but mostly roaming around the Precinct looking for trouble. Most of the time they usually added to the trouble. Sungkyu knew that these boys were far from evil; they were simply bored with their lives. He had seen enough evil to know how to identify it, anyway.

“My man, Sungkyu!” Zico waved amiably from the fire, taking a step towards him, then freezing a little. “Is, uhh, CL with you?”

“No,” Sungkyu replied, at which the latter instantly relaxed and bounded forward. “So what can I do for you this fine day?” He smirked wryly as he looked up at the sky, where rain was beginning to fall.

“I need you to tell me all you know about L,” Sungkyu got straight to the point, without smiling. He knew that Zico would help – mostly because there was something about CL that seemed to terrify him – but there was still something about the guy that he didn’t trust. He simply put it down to the fact that he simply didn’t trust people that easily. Zico’s expression didn’t change, nor did his eyes waver from Sungkyu’s.

“I’ll tell you what you need to know,” he scratched the back of his head with another sharp-toothed grin, “but nothing more.” He turned back to his gang. “Kyung, make sure the fire doesn’t die.” A boy gave an audible sigh and made a rude hand sign. Zico gave a raucous laugh. “Rooftop?” he indicated to Sungkyu. “Just so you know,” he added as they mounted the rusting, decaying stairs, “I can’t tell you much without incriminating people.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t be going after them,” Sungkyu replied blandly. “It’s only L I’m interested in.”

Zico gave a wide grin. “Oh, you would be incredibly interested when you find out who they are. I’ll tell you about L, but for the bigger picture you’ll need to go to Key.” They reached the top of the building and stood staring over the empty street. Zico shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at him. “So what do you want to know about our precious L-sama?”

-

CL looked up as the bell above the door rang and Key entered the vicinity, furtively looking behind him and locking the door. He flipped the sign over so it said ‘closed’.

“Key, if I wanted to repel customers I’d like to do it on my own terms, thank you very much,” CL blinked at him and going around the counter to flip it back. Key said nothing, only reaching out to grab her wrist and cornering her against the counter. His hair was dark brown with wine streaks, and crimped on the longer part of his fringe. He stared intently at her, and CL raised an eyebrow.

“You know what Sungkyu is doing right now, don’t you?” he asked tersely.

“Of course I do,” she replied. “You know I can’t do anything to stop him, Key. He’s never listened to me.”

“You have to stop him,” Key said urgently. “This time. You have to. He wants to know everything about L, and I mean everything. Where he comes from, what he does how he got here. I can only tell so much, and when he eventually finds L, who knows where that will be? Who knows what other stuff he could dig up? About you, about me, about Jepp.” His voice had dropped to a dangerous whisper, and recognition flashed in CL’s eye.

“There is nothing that we have in common for him to suspect us,” she told him firmly.

“Maybe not us, but what about you and Zico?” Key raised an eyebrow. “Plus with Zico’s idiotic way of showing that he knows L from way back, Sungkyu is definitely going to know that you are indirectly involved. And then what are you going to do? Run?”

“Stop it Key,” she said quietly. “You’re freaking yourself out.”

“What if he goes down there? They’ll kill him. They’ll kill him and then they’ll come for us. I don’t want to die. I ran on my first mission, I’m not a Hunter, I can’t fight. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.” His grip on CL’s wrists tightened, and she felt his nails digging sharply into her skin. His eyes were gleaming and his breath had sped up significantly.

She realized what was happening a second too late.

Key blinked, and when he opened his eyes, they were completely amber-coloured and his pupils were oval and vertically orientated. His face seemed a little more fox-like, and she knew that by now the black stripes forming a cross down his spine and acros his shoulder blades would have appeared. His breathing was completely haggard, and he bared his teeth at her, showcasing long, sharp canine teeth. He raised a hand and she leapt out of the way quickly as he swiped at her and knocked over a glass that crashed to the floor and had him jumping backwards and landing on his hands and feet. He arched his back, crouching at her as he bared his fangs again, before raising his head and gekkering loudly. It echoed around the silent room and made CL’s heart stop in her chest. It was a sound that she hadn’t heard from him in a long time, and one that she hadn’t planned on hearing again.

“Key,” she said firmly, holding up her hands as they encircled each other silently. “I don’t want to fight you.” He hissed menacingly at her. “Key, I know you’re in there.” There was a slight twinge in the back of her neck but she ignored it. “Control it, I know you can.”

Key leapt out at her and she dodged, rolling out of the way as he crashed into a table. She didn’t give him time to get back up, flying at him and pinning his wrists and legs to the floor with her own body. He growled and snapped his neck up to bite at her but she held firm. “Control it,” she said again as he lashed out at her. “Control it, Key!” she screamed. The twinge in the back of her neck was becoming more frequent and it sent shivers down her spine. “Look at me,” she commanded. “Look at me!”

Key’s eyes landed on hers and she saw that, despite how animalistic he looked, there was fear written in them. He was trying hard to calm down, she could tell. “You can do it,” she encouraged. “You can.” She could feel his pulse beginning to slow down. His fangs began to retract, and the amber began to seep from his eyes. His breathing stabilized, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them he was completely back to normal.

“Crap,” he said hoarsely. “I thought I had it all under control.” CL released him and flumped down beside him, closing her eyes as she drew a deep breath and pressed a hand to her head. “I’m scared CL,” he admitted. “I think Sungkyu’s going to burn this place down.”

“Not if we stop the fire first,” she remained adamant, but he shook his head.

“You can’t put out a fire that’s already started,” he swallowed hard. “And believe me, it’s already started.”

-

-

There she was.

Scanning the screen in front of her with fervent eyes as a smug smile lit her lips. She tapped at something on the glowing display, and then pressed her hand against it. A thin glowing line moved up and down, then disappeared. She reached down and typed in something, and the screen disappeared from sight.

She looked up and their gazes met.

“Stop staring,” Junhyung hissed at her. “She’ll kill you.”

But she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the beautiful, cold face that presented itself to her. The stare-off lasted for about 30 seconds, and then BoA turned and walked away.

“I’ll beat her one day,” she murmured, her eyes narrowed as she sipped on her drink. “You’ll see. I’m going to be Head Hunter.”

“No kidding,” Junhyung replied sarcastically, bringing a fist down and crumpling his coke can as if it were made out of paper. “Shouldn’t you be finding a new job to go on now?”

“Shouldn’t you?” she asked in reply, and he shrugged and popped open a new can. “Stop drinking those things, they’re disgusting.”

“Says the zombie with metal bits in her arms,” he muttered dangerously. She smirked at him and got up, leaving the table to make her way to the keyboard where BoA had been standing previously. She was nearly there when an arm draped around her shoulder and she was pulled unwillingly into someone’s chest.

“Well hello there beautiful,” G.O. smirked. “I heard you got a name change. Doesn’t the G just mean that we were meant to be together?”

“ off G.O.,” she growled at him and removed his arm rather forcefully from her shoulder.

“Oh come on,” he laughed as he followed her. “You’re hot, I’m hot, we can be hot together.” A sly grin crossed his face. “And you know I wouldn’t shoot you like your last boyfriend did.”

In a split second she had whipped out her gun, cocked it, locked it, and fired it through his chest with no change in her expression whatsoever. He fell to the ground, body arching in pain for a few seconds before he became still. “Straight through the heart,” he smirked, sitting up and swiping at the dark blood that dripped from the corner of his mouth. “I think I’m in love.”

“Next time it’ll be through your head,” she replied with a sweet smile, and continued on her way. She brought up the screens and flipped through the waiting jobs, frowning at how boring they all seemed to be. Yawning, she randomly selected a job and scanned through.

The girl staring back at her had chin-length blonde hair with black stripes running horizontally through. She looked cool, confident, much like the facial expression that BoA wore on her face every day; like she could beat everyone easily and knew it. She didn’t like it. “A deserter huh,” she narrowed her eyes, then scanned her palm against the screen and tapped on ‘Accept’. “We’ll see if you were really as good as everyone said.” She was about to close the screen when she remembered that BoA had accepted a mission as well. She scrolled fervently through the files until she came across the job in question.

The target had bleach blond hair, dangerous eyes, and was located in the Precinct. “A runaway,” she murmured as she read through the details. “Stability status unknown. Single-handedly destroyed Batch 15. Approach with caution.” A grin appeared on her face. “I like the sound of this.” She typed something furiously into the keyboard, then closed the screen.

“We’ll see who gets to him first, princess.” She laughed to herself and walked away.