“Practice sure went long today, huh.” Luhan threw his running shoes into his bag, and put on a pair of bright red converse.

“It’s kind of relaxing,” Yixing replied. He neatly folded his running clothes and stacked them into his duffle bag. Unlike Luhan’s bag which was full of crumpled clothes, Yixing actually took the time to fold and put everything away nicely.

Luhan flopped onto the bench and bent over with a groan to tie his laces. “I don’t think almost dislocating my shoulders counts as relaxing.” City qualifiers were coming up soon, so the track team was putting in extra practice hours. Luhan rubbed his sore arms. He thought field events would be fun, but it proved to be more work than he thought.

Yixing offered his friend some muscle cream. “I did suggest you join cross country with me,” Yixing said with a smile.

Luhan scrunched up his nose, both from the smell of the ointment and the thought of running long distance. “I don’t have enough stamina for that,” he said as he applied the cream to his aching muscles. “Running is too hard.”

His friend laughed and hefted his duffle bag over his shoulder. Suddenly, Yixing’s phone buzzed, Luhan’s buzzing right after. They looked at each other in confusion before picking up their phones. Both phones had the same message sent to it, from an unknown number.

We have your friends. $10,000 for each head. Cash. We’ll be waiting.

Below the message was a photo of Kai and Sehun, lying on the ground, their faces bloody and bruised. There were shadows of men with white bandannas around their arm behind them, some of frozen mid-kick or mid-punch.

Yixing and Luhan stared at each other with horrified expressions. “W-what do we do?” Yixing stammered. He had almost dropped his phone out of fright. A million situations that ended with all of them dead ran through his head, and it took all of his willpower to semi-convince himself that they were all unreasonable.

Luhan stood up. His face was a mix of determination and fear. “I have a plan,” he said.

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Sehun grunted in pain as a foot stabbed him in the stomach. Kai lay on the ground beside him, gritting his teeth and fighting not to cry out. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, but they had gotten away from them for too long. Sehun wondered what would happen now that they weren’t able to produce the funds needed to pay back the gangsters.

“Alright, we still need to keep them alive.”

Sehun let out a quiet sigh as the men moved back. The leader of the group walked up to him, his face covered with his bandanna. His blonde hair was draped over his left eye. It was the same man that he and Luhan encountered that night. “Get up,” he said. His voice was cold and hard like steel.

The two boys struggled to their feet, staggering as they tried to stand up straight. The blonde male dangled Sehun’s phone in front of him. The message on the screen showed the conversation between him and Luhan. Sehun reached out to grab his phone back, but the leader moved the phone out of his reach. “Seem’s like they’re here already.” A shadow of a crooked smirk was visible under his mask.

As if on cue, the door slammed open. Luhan and Yixing stood in the doorway, looking very out of breath. Luhan held a metal briefcase in his hands. “Let them go,” he said. He tried to put as much confidence as he could into his voice, but he was visibly shaking under the intense gazes of the gangsters. Yixing looked like he was about to faint and vomit at the same time.

The blonde leader stepped forward. “Give me the money first.”

“Don’t do it!” Sehun lunged forward, but two gangsters grabbed him and kicked him in the shins. He groaned as waves of pain caused his knees to buckle.

“Sehun!” Luhan rushed forward, but a burly gangster grabbed his arm. The smaller male froze in fear.

The leader walked forward and took the briefcase from Luhan with ease. He opened the box to reveal stacks of hundreds, totalling to $20,000. He closed the case and gave it to one of his men, who took the money away.

Luhan stared at the leader with as much authority as he could. “I gave you the money. Now keep your side of the deal.”

The leader smirked. “How naïve.”

With a snap of his fingers, his henchmen had all of them in tight grips. The leader flicked his head to the side, and the gangsters began to usher the boys towards the back of the room. Suddenly there was an explosion from the room, startling everyone in the room. Luhan’s guard loosened his grip just enough so that Luhan was able to wriggle out and grab the nearest weapon, which was a large baseball bat. He swung at the man behind him, and then the man holding Yixing. Sehun and Kai followed Luhan’s example and used the opportunity to shake off their attackers. Smoke billowed from the room where the gangster with the money went, and began to fill the room they were in.

The four boys hurried out of the hideout, the gangsters hot in pursuit. They ran as fast as their legs would take them, which unfortunately for Luhan, was not very fast. One of the gangsters had a metal baton in his hand, and he threw it with impeccable aim at Luhan. The metal stick smacked the Chinese boy right in the back of the head. With a sickening crunch, he fell to the ground.

Sehun froze, turning around to see Luhan on the ground, blood pooling around his head. He felt a primal anger rise within him, until all he could see was red. With a roar, he charged. 

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A/N: Hello! With the Joonmyun and Kyungsoo's relationship more or less come to a happy ending (maybe), lets see how Hunhan is doing haha I know the transition was very abrupt, sorry haha 

Thank you for those who commented and those who are still reading this. Also hello new subscribers! I hope you are enjoying this fanfic :) 

That's all for today, thanks so much for reading and subcribing and commenting, I'll post another chapter next week!