~_____~

Namjoo let out a snort and watched Tao hand the man their tickets before he joined her in the ferris wheel. The man closed the door to what seemed like a cage before pressing a lever to hoist them up.

“You’re serious,” she blatantly stated.

“Well, it’s not like you could go anywhere like that,” Tao pointed at her ankle. “You’re like…an annoying kid now.”

Namjoo shot him a glare before she turned to look out the dirty window full of tiny scratches. Her eyes ran over the scenery down below as they were slowly carried into the air by the big machinery. She stared down at the little kids who had now become ants to the eye oblivious of the curious gaze Tao was shooting her.

“Don’t tell me you wanted to come here to ride…” she began as she turned around to look at Tao only to see him quickly turn away.

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion when she saw his face flush a quick pink before it disappeared.

“What’s wrong with you?” Namjoo wondered. “Scared of heights?”

“No!” he shouted turning to face her before retreating back into his earlier position.

Namjoo shot him a snort, “What’s with you?” Then she let out a laugh, “You never rode a Ferris wheel before? Ha! You’re shy, aren’t you? Because you never rode the Ferris wheel before!”

Namjoo clapped her hands together and laughed. Tao timidly glanced at her before sinking into his seat. Namjoo felt a hysterical laughter roll through her and she clutched onto her stomach to laugh away. Tao’s eyes quietly swept over her before he reached a hand out to sweep back the hair that had fallen over her shoulder.

The laughter ceased right away and her eyes stilled. Namjoo glanced at Tao before pressing her lips together and ran a hand over her hair. It quickly became awkward and she straightened up never minding the scenery below.

From the corner of her eye she watched Tao’s hand drop onto his lap before he sat up. She felt their legs brush, but was unable to move away for the sake of awkwardness.    

“Can I ask you a question?” Tao asked.

“Oh…yea…sure.” She slightly glanced at him.

“Have you…do you think about having a life separate from this job?”

“I don’t know,” she quietly replied. “What about you, Tao? Going to be a criminal for the rest of your life?”

“I’m not a criminal now.”

Namjoo felt her eyes hit the floor before she turned to look at him, “Yea, I guess you’re not a criminal.”

She felt their eyes meet before he shyly looked away.

“Why don’t you be a nice guy, Tao?” Namjoo said then felt a smile fall across her lips. “I think you’d be an awesome nice guy.”

He slowly lifted his eyes up to meet hers, “What’s in it for me?”

“Well,” Namjoo blinked, “for starters, you could have a better life and maybe friends and do the cliché, like, get married.”

Tao slightly snorted, “Married.”

“It’s a possibility,” Namjoo shrugged. “A lot of people do it.”

“Would you want to get married?”

Namjoo felt her mind literally go blank. She turned away from Tao, her mind still blank.

“I haven’t thought about it.” Namjoo replied then turned to him. “Would you?”

Tao shrugged, “I don’t know. I’ve never liked anyone.”

Namjoo laughed and suddenly felt the awkwardness disperse, “You’re so innocent, like a baby.”

Then she laughed again and turned away from him unaware of the quickening heart inside his chest.

~_____~

“I cannot believe this!” Donghae covered his eyes with his hand as he paced back and forth in front of the mechanic shop. “What the hell happened back there!?”

Victoria felt him look over at his way and she let out a snort before crossing her arms, “You tell me. How in the world could you have gotten the wrong car!? You were chasing them on foot!”

“I didn’t expect that either, Victoria!” Donghae fought back before flinging his arm out to point at the rented car sitting inside the garage. “And what in the world were you thinking, allowing him to drive into the car!? Are you nuts!?”

“That was mere coincidence!” Victoria shot back. “I only stopped the car you were aiming at.”

“By endangering the citizens!?” Donghae screamed. “You could have killed someone! That was early morning traffic!”

“Do you think I wouldn’t have thought of that!? What do you think I am? A trainee from the organization!?”

Donghae glared at her and gritted his teeth before turning away to let out an angry grunt. She watched him kick the ground and heard him heave a loud sigh.

“Lets try to track the car down,” Donghae  suggested with a thick tone in his voice that told her he was just as unhappy as she. “We don’t have time to be arguing.”

He brushed past her and Victoria bit her bottom lip to restrain herself from arguing with him anymore. Very quietly she followed his lead.

~_____~

So what to do now? Kris always thought Suho had some sort of brilliant plan in his mind, but seeing the situation they were currently in; he was beginning to understand Namjoo’s definition of ‘reckless.’ Suho never had a plan and everything he did resulted from last minute impulses, which somehow goaded luck over to his side. Where was that luck now? Kris thought they could really use some at the moment.  

Suho was on the ground as helpless as a dog and if he moved even a muscle he could have his arm disabled forever with a shot of the gun. The worst case scenario was if both he and Suho both ended up dead, so after a quick debate Kris thought he’d rather take the shot.

With a quick spin of his legs he kicked the stranger above him and moved to pull himself up. As expected a gunshot rung throughout the abandoned factory. As foreseen, he did get shot, but not in the arm. The bullet ripped through the muscles in his left shoulder and the endless pain was enough to make him keel down.

Turning the pain into energy he threw his fist up smashing it against the man’s face screaming at the same time, “Suho, get up!”

The pain was outrageous and he felt blood slowly trickle down his shirt before shoving the man to the ground to continue beating him. When he was in the state of recovery from Kris’ knock outs Kris took the advantage of grabbing the gun from his hand since his has flown somewhere unseen.

“Don’t move,” Kris warned while trying to catch his breath.

When he turned he saw that Suho had taken the chance to pick up the gun that had dropped from his hand earlier.

The cops arrived about 10 minutes after they made the call and Kris was immediately transported to the hospital for treatment.

“That worked well back there,” Suho commented a minute later upon setting a bottle of water down on the table of some restaurant where they had stopped for lunch.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Kris said.

“Why? I thought the bullet only ripped your muscle. Does it hurt anywhere else?” Suho’s eyes slightly widened.

“Forget it,” Kris told.

“I mean, those guys are being transported to Seoul and the police are investigating whatever’s left of the girls as evidence. It worked out good.” Suho nodded his head. “Those poor girls, though. I wonder how many of them are just kids.”

Kris glanced up to see Suho’s face sink into sympathy, “We’ll get them in due time.”

“Yea,” Suho smiled, “I’m sure we will.”

~_____~

“It looks so normal,” Chorong commented as she and Lay strolled pass a playground.

There were children laughing about the innocence only they knew of and adults chattering away with smiles on their faces. The breezy wind that swept the grass and the bright sun overhead told them of a peaceful world the eye saw upon their meeting.

“But if you look behind the curtains, draw aside the smiles; there’s a world of war over money, drugs, and domination,” Chorong stopped by to watch a group of teenagers walk by on their way home from school.

Their school uniforms reminded Chorong of her adolescent days where she had carried a school backpack and wore the school uniform. She had felt so in the crowd and there hadn’t been a desire to fit in as she was struggling with now.

“Being young is so different,” Chorong finished.

“Isn’t that what our parents tried to protect us from?” Lay asked. “Told us to hang out with the right crowd and gave us lectures so we wouldn’t have to learn from greed.”

“I don’t know about you, but didn’t count for me,” Chorong said, “everything was about ethics and righteousness, arms and shields for battle. In my house you’d see pictures of men in the military; badges on their uniforms and books about guns.”

“Yea,” Lay agreed sticking his hands into his pockets, “that is very different from me. So why’d you decide to join the force when you could have chosen something else to do?”

Chorong shrugged, “Maybe pressure or maybe since I come from a generation of policemen I felt inclined to keep it going. I don’t know.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like you hate your job.”

“I don’t,” Chorong agreed.

Lay turned to look at her before turning away to heave a sigh of satisfaction, “Namwon is pretty small. You don’t think we’d have to have another chase tomorrow, do you?”

“I don’t know,” Chorong replied.

“I wonder how the others are doing.”

~_____~

“Wait, stop, stop,” Donghae ordered and the officer on duty immediately paused the picture on the screen.

“Great,” Victoria commented, “so she wasn’t pointing to the red van, but the car before it.”

Donghae restrained from rolling his eyes, but let out a heavy sigh, “Are there cameras on the streets near the highway intersection?”

“No, we don’t,” the officer shook his head. “The street’s going under construction in a few days, so the city hasn’t set up any.”

“Thank you,” Donghae stiffly thanked before leaving the police station.

“So what now?” Victoria asked. “They already got away with that child. Are you going to prowl again for them?”

“We don’t know where they would have gone,” Donghae turned around to face her. “And we can’t without finding a trail first, which I’m pretty sure has been swept away by the citizens. Lets just look somewhere else. They won’t be working so openly, they never do; that’s why human trafficking hasn’t been stopped.”

“We still have another day,” Victoria told. “We still have a chance to get those guys.”

“Yea? Well lets hope I have some of Suho’s luck on me.” Donghae muttered before starting toward the parking lot.

To the greater end of Donghae’s luck, none of Suho’s had rubbed off on him. The next day’s search for trouble around the city ended up as nothing before they had to leave for Daegu.

Lay and Chorong were waiting for them at the bus station. They looked well and were waving as they neared.

“You two are early,” Donghae greeted.

“Namwon is small,” Lay said then checked his watch, “the others should be arriving soon.”

Then as if on cue Suho and Kris walked through the sliding doors. Suho was first to wave toward them excitedly and he quickened his steps until he neared.

“So we aren’t last after all!” Suho commented. “So how’s everyone? Everything went all right?”

“We’re good,” Lay responded with a smile.

“Then while we wait for Namjoo and Tao, I’ll go check in for the cars,” Victoria suggested before walking away.

“Are they late?” Suho asked looking around.

“It’s fine. We’re in no rush anyway,” Donghae said. “Since it’s not too late, how about we go look around the city before heading to our hotel?”

“Does that mean dinner?” Suho raised his eyebrows.

“We can have dinner at the hotel,” Donghae told. “I’ll treat after we finish our business here.”

“Great, just what I’ve been waiting for,” Suho rubbed his hands together.

“I think that’s them,” Chorong said nodding her head toward the hallway.

Donghae turned to see Tao looming over the limping Namjoo beside him. She was wearing what he recognized as one of Tao’s shirts and even though she’d tied the ends of his shirt to make it appear fitter on her, it still looked too large for her.

“Are you ok?” Donghae asked.

“What happened!?” Suho worried when they finally stopped.

“Ah…well, you know, bag got stolen, got into a little fight,” Namjoo shrugged.

“A fight!?” Kris slightly raised his voice.

Donghae turned to look at him before turning to Namjoo, “Everything ok, though?”

“What?” Tao questioned when Donghae glanced at him. “She ran off before I could find her.”

“I wasn’t blaming you,” Donghae stated, “but everything’s all right?”

“Of course,” Tao seemed defensive.

“Ok, cars are ready,” Victoria said walking over with two keys in hand before stopping upon the gauze around Namjoo’s ankle. “Everything all right?”

“Of course!” Namjoo replied.

“Ok, lets not blow the matter up,” Donghae insisted, “Victoria, we’re going to be driving around the city to get a good look around. I can drive, but someone else will need to take the other car.”

“I don’t mind,” Lay offered standing up.

“Ok,” Victoria nodded handing the keys over. “Then shall we set off?”

~_____~

“Ow! Hey, watch it,” Namjoo bit her lip and scolded when Tao slightly turned her around.

“Sheesh, sorry,” Tao apologized. “You wouldn’t have to wear that thing if you would’ve listened to the doctor.”

“Forget it!” Namjoo pulled her arm out of his hand and limped forward.

Suho watched amused before he took a step toward his team mates, but paused when Kris intervened.

“I thought you said everything was ok,” Kris reminded grabbing her arm to help her.

“Everything was ok,” Namjoo uttered through closed lips and shrugged out of his hold. She limped two steps forward before grabbing onto Suho’s arm. “I hope you’re going with Donghae.”

Suho slightly laughed before slowly helping her along, “Oh the joy of watching this.”

“Watching what?” Namjoo questioned confused.

“Nothing,” Suho shook his head. “So you lost everything you brought with you?”

“It’s not a big deal. We’re not staying in Daegu long anyway.”

“You’re probably going to have to opt out of this mission,” Suho told. Then he slightly smirked, “You and Kris.”

“Huh!?”

“Well that’s because he got shot back there…in a place you can’t see.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Suho laughed, “Nothing from the gutter, obviously.”

***Ha! So everyone's finally in one place together! Like finally ~.~ 

***Recap (from earlier chapters cause I think we all need to refresh our memory and remember where I left off): 

- They separated into groups and flew to different cities to track down those who are part of the human trafficking ring in hopes of getting some clues about Hyukjae (who may or may not be Eunhyuk - I have still yet to reveal that)

- Lay, who was hoping to become friends with Chorong has finally done so during their mission in Namwon. 

- Chorong was able to set her feelings for Suho aside and focus on her work, but we shall see what happens next bc she is an innocent puppy in love 

- Tao is growing an attachment and realizing his attraction to Namjoo

- Kris told Suho he likes Namjoo

- Suho is hoping to make Chorong feel more welcomed on the team as well as comfortable with just who she is and what she can do

- Victoria and Donghae still have some scores to settle, but they're slowly learning to get along.