-

“We’re... here,” Taemin points a finger to the ground. At the same time, a woman dressed in an old-fashioned white blouse and black skirt bumps into Taemin, making him stumble. “Ow!” he says, and regains his balance. “And… they, the hunters, are coming here.” He goes on. “So, what do we do?”

“We can start by getting as far away from here as possible,” the girl named Krystal states. She tightens her grip on her sister’s hand and starts marching off, diving into the sea of people without looking back at Taemin and Kai.

Taemin turns to Kai and raises his eyebrow. “Who put her in charge?” Kai just shrugs and starts walking.

The sea of people moves in uncontrollable waves. Kai tries to leave space around him open, but it doesn’t work. Every step he takes, he becomes more and more squished against Taemin, with strangers’ arms and legs crashing into him on all other sides.

Kai wonders how the girl named Krystal is so sure of where she’s going. He takes one long step forward to catch up to the two girls, grabbing Taemin’s arm to drag him along too, and they both accidentally end up pushing into the girls’ backs.

Taemin runs into Jessica a little more forcefully than Kai. The push makes Krystal lose her grip on her sister’s hand. “Excuse all of you!!” A stern female voice exclaims, and Kai sees a bulky, heavy woman wiggle herself in between Jessica and Krystal. “I need to get going!” The big woman grunts, shoving Kai and Taemin away from each other and going on her way.

“Whoaa whoa,” Taemin says as another mob of people pour into the space between him and Kai, pushing them further away from each other.

“Jessica!” Krystal cries, reaching her hand out, but a skinny old man slaps her hand away. “Watch it! I’m gonna be late!” The man hisses at Krystal. As he walks past, he even glares at Kai.

Another figure comes and practically slams sideways into Krystal. The dark haired girl yelps, losing her balance. Kai reaches out and grabs her arm, pulling her toward him as the former figure sneers and struts off.

“Hold on Kai, we’re coming that way!” Kai hears Taemin shout. His friend’s voice sounds blocks away, befuddled by insults and curses of people in between them, trying to wiggle through faster than one another. Like some sort of angry race.

Kai’s head bobs a little above the general sea of people. He scans the faces and catches sight of Taemin, holding onto Jessica. But a sight just diagonally from his friend sets an alarm off in Kai’s head.

Even in center of a populated district, the hunters wear their conspicuous, black combat uniforms. There are two of them, with matching black sunglasses. They're several mobs away from Kai and Krystal and Taemin and Jessica, but right in between them, in the space that keeps growing bigger and bigger as the four are dragged apart by moving bodies.

One has his head turned toward Taemin and Jessica. The other, even with his eyes covered with glasses, is looking straight at Kai.

Kai flails his arm at Taemin. “No, Taemin! Not this way!!” He shouts. Taemin wrinkles his nose in confusion. “Hunters!! Over there!!” Kai points with his long free arm. He doesn’t really think it matters whether the hunters can see him pointing at them or not.

Taemin turns his head in the direction Kai is pointing to. “!!” he yells, and looks at Kai again, bewilderment in his eyes.

“Just go!! Meet up later!!” Kai shouts back. He knits his eyebrows together as his friend gets farther and farther away. He doesn’t dare bring up the rail-train station. He just hopes that Taemin understands. He doesn’t know how great the hunters in the sunglasses can hear, and he doesn’t want to find out.

“Are those hunters?” A voice says right under Kai and he looks down to see the dark haired girl clinging to his arm.

“Yes. We need to move,” Kai replies, pushing Krystal in front of him so they can get through the crowd without separating. “We’ll meet up with Taemin and your sister once we’re clear from their radar.”

Krystal says something that Kai doesn’t catch because she’s facing away from him and the people around him are too loud. He doesn’t have time to think about it, because when he looks back, one of the hunters is dodging through the crowd after them.

Somehow, there is an opening in the sea of people dressed in outdated clothes, and Kai and Krystal break through. The narrower street they're in contains people who are standing or sitting on the streets, not moving with the purpose of going somewhere.

That’s as far as Kai can observe. He looks back and sees the hunter, way too close to breaking out of the crowd right behind them. He grabs Krystal’s hand and starts running down the street. He looks around, and there are narrow alleys that lead into shadowed places.

“No, we can’t get caught alone,” Krystal breathes beside him. Kai nods and keeps going.

The end of the street opens up into another spacious square, swarming with yet more people. But it’s not a storming, uncontrollable sea this time, and Kai decides to take the chance. He again pushes Krystal first. Behind him, he sees the black-clad hunter running toward them.

Kai bumps shoulders with several people, who spit curses at him. He steers Krystal with both of his hands on her shoulders, when she cries, “Another one coming!”

The new hunter is wearing the exact same uniform as the one somewhere behind Kai, all up to the black sunglasses. He’s way too close and he waves a flat, rectangular tablet in one of his hands, scrambling toward Krystal.

Kai tries to dodge out of the way, but the hunter lashes out. He’s holding some small piece of machinery in his other hand, and he almost tags Krystal’s arm with the gadget. Krystal sees it in his hand, because immediately, she pulls her arm out of the jacket she’d been wearing. As she gets free of her jacket, Kai clenches his hand in a fist and slams it into the hunter’s jaw. There’s surprisingly wiggle room for his leg, and Kai raises it up to kick the guy in the side.

The hunter falls back into three different people. Krystal’s jacket also falls to the ground, but instead of in a pile, it retains its same form as it was on Krystal. Kai frowns, but pushes Krystal away. 

“What the hell was that?” Krystal says, as Kai looks back to search for the first hunter.

“I don’t wanna find out,” he responds. He sees the first hunter temporarily distracted by the sight of the fallen hunter in the crowd. He takes the chance to duck both of his and Krystal’s heads, tailing it into a small clothing store.

Kai watches through the transparent door as the first hunter grabs the second hunter’s tablet. The man seems to look into it, but then raises his head and looks around, cursing.

With a start, Kai feels a cold hand on his cheek. He turns and meets Krystal’s sharp eyes. “You feel like normal human temperature. And I’m cold, so we must be off the radar now,” she says.

Kai sees the first hunter walking away from the clothing store, disappearing into the crowd. “Let’s get back to the rail-train station,” he hears Krystal say. She gets past him and grabs for the door.

“Wait,” Kai calls. He goes and grabs a thick woman’s jacket from a rack in the store, and slams down a few bills in front of a startled looking clerk. He pushes the jacket in Krystal’s hands as they walk out.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Krystal comments, darting into the least occupied street possible.

Kai doesn’t respond. That was the last of the money he and Taemin had grabbed with them before they started running for their lives. He can’t even remember if the same currency from 2013 is used in 2003.

-

Missed out on updating yesterday... Hopefully this chapter and the new poster makes for it~? (Beauuutiful poster courtesy of woobabylove0904!)

Thank you always for reading :)