As soon as JYP left the room, Nichkhun’s eyes connected instantly with Wooyoung’s. It didn’t take long before he was out the door. Wooyoung came after him, but not without leaving Mai a look that demanded her to behave.

Not as if Mai had a choice. Being stuck between Seulong and Taecyeon and their barrage of questions and demands towards Junsu and Chansung had her busy enough. Too busy to even think of her own troubles. Too busy to even analyze that look Wooyoung gave her before storming off after Nichkhun.

Bored, Kass watched the events unfold. She had nothing else better to do, and right now all she wanted was to digest what information she had just received. It was very interesting indeed, and her mind was playing all sorts of scenarios. She hated being a pawn- or at least being called one. She was hardly so.

“Boys, calm down,” she drawled, “if you do I’ll show you what it’s like to have a good time.”

“Shut up Kass,” Chansung rolled his eyes in exasperation. There was no calming the two other men in the room, and he was running out of nice things to say. “Try to help at least.”

“Wait,” Mai stepped away from the brawl and turned to the redhead, “You’re Kass? You can’t be, Jinwoon said you killed Changmin, but I saw it with my own two eyes, that other one did it.”

“Rai?” Junsu asked, “Uh, no, Kass did.”

Mai’s mind swirled around her. She felt as if her world was tilted beyond its axis and over. Nothing made sense to her. “But I saw her!”

“Your captain died of poison. Don’t you read your own ME’s reports?” Junsu’s answer was met with hostile glares, and he quickly slipped behind Chansung.

“How could you talk about death like that?! He was our captain!” Mai shrieked.

“People die all the time, girly.” Kass retorted, “Get over it. Boohoo, so someone important died, do you honestly think we don’t know what that’s like?”

“Kass, I think you’re going too far,” Chansung warned.

“Oh shut it boy-o. She needs to hear it. We’re hired assassins, mercenaries, whatever you want to call it. We kill because we’re paid to do so, we kill because we’re told to do so. It’s no different from them. They just have a badge that exempts them from the legal consequences of killing people. Personally I think we do a better job than they do, considering our hit-per-hit stats and target difficulty levels.”

“Don’t talk about it like it’s a game!” Mai was furious, and Seulong grabbed on to her elbows to keep her from launching herself against Kass.

“Calm down,” he tried soothing her, not because he didn’t want a fight to break out, but more because of the fact that he was well aware they were in enemy territory. Right then he wished Junho hadn’t gone missing, the other rookie was sure to calm Mai down.

“And don’t give me that ‘ends don’t justify the means’ thing. At the end of it all, people who need to die are dead, and the world is a better place.” Kass ended her argument with a flourish of her hand, but none applauded her.

“You’re going too far, Kass,” Junsu murmured. “Let’s all just let it go. We’re all on the same team now.”

“It will be a cold day in hell before you can call us a team!” Seulong blurted out.

“Funny you mention that,” Chansung muttered under his breath. He didn’t want to argue- to him it was just another one of those insane orders on the job. In a way he could empathize with Schatten, but did they have to make everything so difficult?

“We’re not going to help you,” Taecyeon’s declaration was solid. He refused to take part in whatever madness this was. Finding out what JYP was to both groups still hung like a heavy cloud over him. He couldn’t accept it.

“We’re not asking for help,” Junsu drawled, “you’re being ordered. You know, like a mission. We don’t exactly have a choice.”

“And you live like this?!” Taecyeon shot back, “You live having some man tell you who to kill? No questions asked?”

“You weren’t listening, were you. We all have reason to be here. Fortuna took more lives than we did, they took innocent lives, while the blood we spill are all tainted. We’re here because we got an invite, and we stayed because we chose to.”

“You’re getting paid, it’s all about the money in the end.” Seulong added.

Junsu scoffed, “I wish. We survive the day, get pretty things because R&D developed them, but don’t for one moment think we do this because-”

Chansung laid a hand on Junsu’s arm to cut him off, “Don’t bother. We’ll only want to kill them if this goes on, and Staunton wouldn’t want that we kill his team.”

“You can’t beat us,” Seulong remarked, albeit prematurely.

“Actually, we can.” Chansung answered smoothly. “We can go one on one, and we’d all defeat you. We can even tag-team, and that would be worse on you.”

It took a great deal of strength for Mai not to beat Chansung silly with her jutte. He was becoming exasperating, and all she wanted to do was find Wooyoung, demand some explanation because surely he understood this better than her. After which she needed to find Junho and Rai. Maybe after all that she can sit everyone down again and repeat everything they just talked about because she was utterly lost.

“I’m bored now,” Kass teased, “Where’s Rai anyway? I need more entertainment.”

Junsu ran a hand behind his neck, “She left a message, how could you not get that?”

Kass rolled her eyes, “What message?”

“Rai,” the name rolled off bitterly on Mai’s tongue. “She escaped, I don’t know how, but she escaped with Junho.”

Chansung scratched the back of his head and eyed the two other officers as they appeared to have calmed down. “Actually, yeah, we busted them out. They’re off revisiting the past. If you want to talk to her, she should be back in a few days.”

There was something wrong with Chansung’s statement, and Mai couldn’t decide if it was the delivery or the content. “What?”

“Anyway, looks like we’re all nice and calm, we were told to tell you that your rooms are unfortunately at the basement. That way, when the police people come looking in our apartments upstairs, they won’t find you.” Junsu looked around at the shop, now uncertain what to say next. “Uhm, you’re free to come up here though. I wouldn’t suggest going out, but everywhere here should be cool.”

Awkwardly, Chansung bid his goodbyes after directing Schatten to how the basement door mechanism worked. Things were going to get interesting at Fourth Avenue, that much he was aware of. They were overcrowded with Victoria and Schatten staying with them- even more so when none of them were pleasantly invited to stay over.

Mai watched as the members of Hell left one by one. Somehow, she couldn’t believe they would just leave the way they did. They were very relaxed about the whole matter, even with the revelation that they worked under the same man. Should the roles have been reversed, Mai knew there was no way she was going to let these people live.

Taecyeon and Seulong were both exhausted from the day’s activities. It was well past the evening, and the whole day had just been draining.

“We should look for the inspector,” Mai suggested.

“No, leave them alone.” Seulong answered. “I’m tired.”

“We can’t leave them alone, what if someone gets hurt?”

Taecyeon groaned as he lifted his bag over his shoulder, “They’re big boys, leave them alone. They’ll work out their differences.”

“They could kill each other!”

“Look, we know Wooyoung didn’t do anything to June, so I don’t think Khun is going to kill him. Besides, Wooyoung can’t win against Khun, everybody knows that.” Taecyeon just wanted to end the conversation so he could rest. At that point it didn’t even matter anymore that he was inside enemy territory. The thought never left his mind, he knew better to lower his guard, but for now he needed quiet time.

In her frustration Mai angrily stomped a foot on the ground, “Then someone tell me what’s going on! Who’s Nichkhun? Who’s June? Why is this such a big issue?!”

With a sigh, Taecyeon gestured Mai to follow them down the basement. It was going to be a short story, but only because they knew so little. That meant Mai would have more questions, and he needed to be seated to answer those.

Once everyone was seated, Taecyeon didn’t wait any longer and began his story. “Believe it or not, Wooyoung was nothing like the Wooyoung you know now. Back then he was...normal. He was fun, and gullible, and he followed Khun and June everywhere. He idolized those two, and we made fun of him and he didn’t mind.”

Both Taecyeon and Seulong laughed at the horrified look on Mai’s face. “It’s true. He was cute, hence Woodong. Like a little chick, like the one he loved to talk about. A literal chick for a pet- anyway, Nichkhun and Wooyoung were inseparable. It was only natural that they got drafted in the same unit together as soon as we graduated- Wooyoung was a special case. Even though he was a year below Khun the situation back then pulled out all seniors and juniors to serve at the key points during the Settlement period of the Unistate. Anyway, that was two years ago, the same time we thought June died. After her death Nichkhun was furious, at first we tried to understand that that was how he grieved, but it didn’t get better. Then he and Wooyoung left for their deployment, we thought it would be good for Khun, but then Wooyoung comes back alone and reports Khun dead. That was when everything just fell apart.

“He started to change, and no one knew what really happened. He stopped talking to us, and we just thought, if Khun died, maybe he’s grieving too. But then rumors spread that he killed Khun.”

“But obviously people you thought were dead are actually alive.”

“Yep.” Seulong answered, “Well, June’s kinda alive, but Nichkhun is very alive and kicking.”

“You’re not curious? We can still go find them,” Mai was hopeful they would change their minds, but the expression of their faces were set.

“They’ll settle it out. For whatever reason it was, Nichkhun went rogue and Wooyoung reporting him dead took him off the radar. We can easily say Khun did it for June but something else went down between Wooyoung and Nichkhun. It's between the two of them and we may never find out." Taecyeon concluded the discussion by laying down on his mattress. “Get some rest Mai. Save your questions for tomorrow.”

Like a petulant child, Mai grumbled as she pulled out the sheets on the surprisingly well-made and freshly prepared cot. There were still more questions than answered, but tonight, weariness won over her, and as soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell fast asleep.