[Shin Hae Hee]

The morning and afternoon classes came by quite boringly with no trace of EXO whatsoever. It slightly annoyed me that they didn’t showed up as we -*cough*- they were quite ecstatic to finally meet the group who ranked number one for three consecutive years in Seoul’s underground gang charts.

The girls and I were walking across the main building’s inner lawn when a lanky boy huffed his way to us. “A-are…you…uhm…S-s-shin sunbaenim?” he stuttered, slightly cringing away from our curious gazes. “Yes. Do you need anything from me?” I asked, titling my head slightly to the side to get better view of his bowed face. “Uh.. uhm.. S-someone t-told me t-to give this t-to you.” Flinching, he quickly handed me a piece of folded paper, bowed again and ran off to the opposite direction.

“Heh. He’s something.” Nam grinned and nudged me in the ribs.

“Oohhh~ must be a love letter!” Ai giggled and clapped her hands together, Seoyeon looking confused but clapping along. Jin shot them a silent glare and took the paper from my hands.

“Hmp. As expected, another challenge.” Jin read on and passed me the paper. I scanned it quietly and passed it to Nam who passed it to Ai and Seoyeon then to Jin again. It’s like was just played pass the paper, minus the annoying giggles. “I’ll do it then.” Jin volunteered, stashing the already crumpled paper into her jeans and crossing her arms over her chest. “I’d do it too!” Nam raised her right hand slightly. We all nodded and continued our walk.

“Second gate. 11 pm sharp.”

***

I was sitting on the hood of my white Lotus Exige Edition RGB while patiently waiting for Nam and Jin to show up. It’s 15 minutes to 11 and the hooligans who challenged us are already here and are also sitting prettily on the other side of the road. Yes, ROAD. We have just been challenged to a two-on-two drag racing all around the school. This is how our turf deal with gang rankings the normal way, just for formalities and the bloodbaths are just for when things get out of control. But don’t underestimate our school. It could as well cover one whole city and we are now situated at the second gate where the boat/yatch club is situated, complete with a small pier all the way across the main gate. (see picture at the multimedia)

“I guess your groupmates went scaredy-cat on us now, didn’t they?” One guy from the opposite gang shouted while looking into my direction, followed by teasing boo’s from their lane. I simply smirked at him as a loud screech echoed in the rather deserted boulevard causing all heads to swerve at the newcomers.

Jin stepped out a moment later from a blood-red Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing, flicking her hair away from her face and grinned at Nam who just slammed the door of her bright honey-colored McLaren MP4-12C all the while adjusting her leopard-print blazer. Yep. These girls likes to drive with style.

“Where have you been? Another minute more and you would’ve lost by default.” I hissed under my breath when those two finally settled beside me to chill for a moment before the race begins.

“Relax Shin, we just got distracted from picking which car to drive.” Jin shrugged and tightened her knee-high boots from my right. I mentally facepalmed. Figures.

“And you said to be here at 11 sharp. So, yep. Here we are.” Nam grinned, wiggling her eyebrows at me. I sighed. “Whatever.”

“Where’s the maknae line?” Nam asked, looking right behind me. I pointed way to my left at our two maknaes, laughing their off to another one of Yoseob’s lame jokes while the others are doing their own thing. “Is that…. Gi Kwang… clinging onto Hyunseung, AGAIN? Aigoo those kids.” Nam tsked while shaking her head, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Yah, ‘those kids’ happened to be older than you.”

“Oopss. Annyeong, Doo Joon oppa.” Nam animatedly sweat dropped, scratching the back of the neck and adverting her gaze elsewhere.

“Annyeonghaseyo, oppa.” Jin stealthily straightened and gave Joon a small nod. The said man smiled and nodded at her in response. “Go easy on them, yeah?” He winked at the same time the whistle was blown in attention that the race is about to begin.

***

“Hrmmm~ That was one nice race.” Nam stretched her arms as we entered the now busy basement of the school’s main building. It was already 1 am and all is silent in the private school except for the main building’s basement which was bustling with people, gangs of every gender and age who hangs about around our city came to celebrate with whoever won the race challenge.

There’s a race challenge almost every day in hopes for the lower classed gangs to bid their way up the ranking charts before another year ends and only the top five would receive special privileges over anything they concern; in their turf, their city, their country. Nothing more and nothing less. PRISM is currently in rank second in the whole city. And since races in the city were mostly held near or around the school, our gang takes responsibility for every occasion, before, during and even the after party.

“You were too excited for it to begin with, Nam-unnie.” SeoYeon chimed in as we make our way to the bar while dodging some busy bodies scattered around the dance floor. The after party is always held at the left wing of the main building’s basement where the underground bar was situated. Our school that is run by SeoYeon’s family has every single advance technology you can import from around the country so it wouldn’t be a hassle to have every equipment of the school polished to the tiniest detail.

“But I haven’t raced since forever!” Nam Eun grinned back at our youngest member and continued her merry way. “That ‘forever’ started two weeks ago.” Jin rolled her eyes.

“I can’t help it if I was in the States for summer vacation. Aren’t you too?” the girl in question rolled her eyes back and Jin only shrugged.

“I see you’re on bar management today, Himchan.” I broke the slight tension in the air as I sat down on one of the bar stools, crossing my arm and slightly leaning forward.

“Call me Channie oppa! Oppa!” He whined while mixing a new batch of cocktails for the five of us.

“Himchan.” I smirked back at him while he pouted.

“Yah, just Piña Colada for the maknaes.” Jin chimed in, completely finished with their earlier discussion. “Eeeehhh? Wae??” Seo Yeon and Ai complained simultaneously, looking towards Jin with big doe eyes.   “Because.”   “Because isn’t an answer.” Ai pouted.    

“What Jin means is that you’re both still underage to take too much liquor into your systems.” Nam explained. Jin nodded as agreement and I swiped my eyes across the hall, looking at people partying and dancing and just plain chatting.

“One Mafia Martini, Bourbon Sweet Tea, Plata Fizz and two Piña Coladas, ready and served.” Himchan interrupted and placed each cocktail in front of us delicately, making an elegant bow and attending to the other people around the bar.

“Heh. Show-off.” Nam playfully shook her head before grabbing her drink. I simply shrugged and took a sip of my martini.

It was a few moments more when we heard a riot and people are already gathering at the dance floor where the fight was obviously sited. The girls immediately placed their drinks down the bar table to look into the building commotion, even the people behind the bar deserted the area.
It looks like someone picked a fight with the opposite team that challenged us earlier that evening.

“You little sh.t, you dare say that to us?!”

“Still denying that you’re trash compared to others?”

Nam Eun automatically covered SeoYeon’s ears when the screams accompanied by profanities filled the air and the verbal argument became an all out physical war between the two groups. A random guy grab hold of a folding chair and slammed it down on someone from the opposing group, causing the latter to fall face first on the cold floor, unconscious. Another one retaliated, picking a beer bottle and swinging it around, hitting someone behind him at the side of the head.

The dance floor turned out to be a mass of unconscious bodies littering about and no one even bothered to stop them… well, unless anything got out of hand. There were two more people battling it out in the middle, unfortunately.

One of the guys threw out a punch. The other one gave another back. It went on for a few more time until one guy fell on his back, conscious but too tired to step back up, but the other guy was too far gone, his eyes bloodthirsty as he pulled out a knife from his back pocket.

Click.

The light sound of the cocking handle of a gun resonated in the suddenly quiet room. All people froze and stared wide eyed at the blond haired girl who held a pistol daintily against the man’s forehead, his breathing suddenly hitching and the steal knife dropping on the elegant marbled floor.

That’s right. Fear me. I won’t have second thoughts in pulling this trigger at your head.

I f you think that’s where this ended, no. Not yet.

Another commotions occurs as the crowd erupted in another chatter as one side parted and twelve (I must admit, gorgeous) men walked in. Giving the feeling that they were walking down the runway with the spotlight shinning down on them. Rather, the spotlight might as well be on them. The twelve of them halted just when they’re at the front of the crowd and silently took in the situation before them.

One would simply feel the intimidating yet nonchalant aura around them the moment they stepped in the room.

I, recognizing one of the men standing before my very eyes, smirked, yet still not lowering the gun in my grasp.

“Welcome to our humble abode, EXO.”