Hansol follows Gohn and Jenissi across the city, listening to Gohn chatter mostly to himself.  Every once in a while the older two would stop and talk at length with someone on the way while Hansol would try to stay back. 

If Jenissi knows why Hansol is with them he doesn’t show it and Gohn hasn’t mentioned anything.  Consequently, any plans of searching for B Joo have fallen to Hansol sneaking glances across the street or around the corner.  Hansol wants to ask Gohn what exactly he should be doing, but he hasn’t gotten a chance.  Gohn keeps leaving him behind with Jenissi while he goes off to do something or other.

This time, Gohn has disappeared inside of an apartment building with the promise to be back in a minute.  Hansol and Jenissi don’t say anything to one another when Gohn isn’t there, but it isn’t exactly awkward.  Whatever business the older two have seems to carry on without much discussion.  (Gohn’s chatter hardly seems related).  He’s beginning to wonder why Gohn even invited him along.  Maybe he hadn’t been expecting Jenissi to be better yet.  He had said as much the night before.  But then Jenissi had practically invited Hansol along himself as if he understood that Hansol had intended to go with them.

He doesn’t feel comfortable asking either of them.

Having little else to do, Hansol leaves Jenissi leaning against the side of the apartment building.  The older’s eyes rove over the bustle across the street like he’s piecing together a puzzle he has grown bored with, so Hansol simply steps away without a word.

He decides he might as well take advantage of the current lull in activity to try to get information from one of the food cart workers down the street.  The workers have eyes on everything and they don’t take sides.  They’ve been useful in the past.  If B Joo has been down this way they might have seen him.   

Hansol gets too close before he sees that three boys in front of the snow cone cart are staring at him. Their red bandanas are conspicuously wrapped around different parts of their arms.  He can feel their anger snaking along the ground toward him.  He can’t blame them for that, though.  The night before he had driven them away at gunpoint.

His first and only reaction is to freeze.

In joining the Boyscouts, Hansol had never gotten close enough to make friends.  Maybe if he had, the three boys coming up before him wouldn’t have their rage set in determination against him.

He tries to slide his foot back but even as strangers mill down the street past him, he cannot move—as if the triumph the rapidly approaching figures feel has welded him to the spot.

“Hey you!”

Hansol’s eyes flick toward possible escape routes.  If he starts running he might get lost in the crowd gathered across the street for the lunch rush. 

He is pulled backward a stumbling step and suddenly Jenissi is there in front of him, holding tight to his wrist. 

Jenissi is half a foot shorter than any of the boys standing opposite of them, but his voice is firm when he says, “Is there a problem?” 

The one at the front of the trio responds with an air of false politeness, “We have a grievance to file with the person standing behind you.  We have no problem with yourself.”

“His problems are my problems.”

Hansol cannot see Jenissi’s face but there is a wave of justified anger rolling though Jenissi’s hand on his wrist.  He tries to pull his arm out of the other’s hold, hoping to break the concentration that keeps the older fixed on his target.

The person opposite has his expression darken.  “The kid’s one of ours.”  He gestures to the bandana at the crook of his own elbow, seemingly to make sure Jenissi understands who he is dealing with and also to point out how Hansol’s own bandana has gone missing.   “You can understand how his sudden change of color would be very concerning and we might have some questions.”

“He is under our protection now.”

Hansol stops trying to tug his wrist free and stares in horrified awe at the back of Jenissi’s head.  Neither of them are a match for the Boyscouts in front of them.  Their abilities are no help here.  Jenissi’s threat is empty.

One of the three starts coughing and cracking up at the same time.

Jenissi levels his gaze at him.

The one in front, caught up in the laughter of his friends, has a hint of a smile on his face when he steps into Jenissi’s space.  “Perhaps you’re new to this part of town,” he adjusts the collar of Jenissi’s shirt in a decidedly threatening way, “but you’re on Boyscout turf.”  With a slight flair, he slides a knife, formerly tucked into his sleeve, down into his hand.  He keeps it pressed close to his palm as he continues, “I don’t know who you’re with, but whoever they are should learn to respect boundaries.  This is our territory.”

Jenissi doesn’t budge but threatens back, “The whole city is our territory,” reaching into his jacket.

The boy in front tenses and starts to raise his arm. The one who hasn’t said a word yet has a hand reaching toward his pocket.  Hansol ducks.

Jenissi flips something out of his inside pocket, body tensed.  “If you know anything, you’ll leave now while I’m still giving you the option.”

Buzzing with Jenissi’s fierce protectiveness, Hansol can’t reach past it to know how the three are reacting.  He studies the confused faces of the three and watches as the one who had been laughing before leans forward and whispers something urgently into the leader’s ear.  The leader’s eyes grow wide for a moment then quickly narrow again.  He tries to look through Jenissi to Hansol.

“I swear I will leave your guts on this sidewalk if you’ve rolled on us for Minjun’s crew. Think you can wave a gun in our faces and then hide behind a Keebler Elf with a badge?  You were looking for a fight last night so let’s finish it.”

The leader looks ready to pounce, but the one who is no longer laughing catches his arm, this time Hansol hears the hushed words, “Dude—mapae.”

The leader drops his hand back to his side.  His eyebrows are furrowed.

“You should listen to your friend,” Jenissi warns, gesturing to the one who had whispered before.

The leader looks strangely at Jenissi for a moment before hitting his two friends and gesturing for them to head off. He flips the knife back up into his sleeve.  “Never mind,” he quickly mutters to Jenissi, “keep him.”  Hansol thinks he almost catches a sorry before they disappear back the way they came.

A few moments later Hansol is sitting on the bottom step of the apartment building.  Jenissi sits off to the left a step above him.  Hansol’s legs still feel like jelly from the encounter, but Jenissi is sprawled back with his elbow on the step behind him, casually picking at a piece of grass he’d pulled from between the concrete. 

Jenissi stops to stare at his fingers for a moment. “You should try baking soda for that.”

Hansol blanks then realizes that Jenissi had been holding onto the wrist with the red stain.  A faint tinge of red has transferred to the elder’s fingertips from the intensity of his hold and the sweat that had formed there.   

"Why did they leave?” Hansol asks, placing the suggestion aside.

He can feel the amused smirk on Jenissi’s face. 

“Because they knew what was good for them.”

“They called you mapae.”

“They didn’t call me mapae,” he pulls something from his inside pocket and passes it on to Hansol.  The object is heavy.  Hansol studies what seems to be a medal or a badge of some sort.  The object is bronzed and printed with horses.

“What is it?”

“P Goon’s a sentimentalist, if you can believe it.  Mapae was the symbol of the secret police in the Joseon Dynasty.  They sniffed out corruption in towns outside of the king’s viewing.  Basically protected the citizens from power hungry officials.  P Goon likes the sentiment.  He has taken their mission as his own.”

For a moment, Hansol wonders if P Goon has taken the mission as his own or if he was old enough to have started it.  At this point, anything seems likely.

“What we do is far from public,” Jenissi continues, “but there are enough people in this city who know about us.  The rumors fly.  It proves useful.  One of them understood what they were dealing with—or rather who they were dealing with.  We don’t normally deal with underlings like them so we were lucky I suppose.”

“Why do you do it?”

“Do what? Protect the city?”

Hansol isn’t quite sure what he was asking, but now that Jenissi has filled in the blank he agrees, “Yeah.”

Jenissi pauses, breaking off pieces from the blade of grass in his hand.  “It’s not as cut and dry as you’d think being able to . . . see things.  For example, I know that you ran into those three guys last night and chased them off.  I saw it after you came to the Hangar.  I knew you were connected to the Boyscouts but I still don’t know how or why or what happened before that moment or what happened after.  Context is everything.  But I’ve found there isn’t a clear anything in this world.   Sometimes there isn’t a bigger picture.  See, people with abilities in the stories always have a bigger purpose.  I don’t think we do.  We’re genetic leftovers.  We exist because the genepool occasionally forgets we’re not supposed to anymore.”  

Jenissi flicks the grass toward the sidewalk and watches it land.  “Protecting the city, running the city, whatever you want to call it, that’s P Goon’s business.  He feels a loyalty to this place.  He gave it life.  It’s his.  But this is the modern age.  He couldn’t keep pretending he was his own son and forging death records and starting over.  That’s why he’s moved most of the operation underground.
As for us, working for him gives us something to do.  Gives us a purpose, I guess.  A context.  Otherwise . . . what could we do?  There’s no job out there we can hold.  No place we can stay for long.  These damn—” he lowers his voice, eyeing a passing couple, “peculiarities guarantee we can never be happy in any way that normal people define happiness. 

Jenissi looks dead into Hansol’s eyes and Hansol can feel his heart freezing. “Being like this will take everything that you care about, Hansol.  It will destroy everything that matters to you.  Everything you believe in.  We all find ways to pretend that living the way we do matters.  Maybe we hold onto the past.  Maybe we try to give ourselves a bigger purpose.  Maybe we pretend that this is some kind of family.  Maybe we just pretend that this isn’t our reality.  It , but it’s something.  It’s something very human.”

Hansol stares across the street, trying to imagine the future Jenissi is describing:  it’s a future full of days as bright as today but all of them bleak. 

“I know why you’re out here, Hansol.  Gohn told me.” 

Hansol doesn’t feel threatened by this news.

“He’s got a big mouth so careful what you tell him.  It’s a good thing that you’re searching for your friend.  I confused you and him last night.  Your lives must be mixed up together.  Even if they weren’t, it’s a good thing to look for him.  It’s a good thing to care.  Even when it seems silly and futile and you’re worried you’re only going to hurt people—I think it’s human to care, and you have to try to be human as much as you can.  Especially since in a lot of ways we aren’t.”

Jenissi trails off and tips his head back at the sound of the opening door.  Hansol does the same as Gohn walks out of the apartment building.

“Took you long enough,” Jenissi quips.

Hansol presses himself back into the role of observer, twisting to lean on the metal railing so he can watch.

“You know LE.  She wouldn’t let me leave.”

“Don’t pretend it wasn’t you running your mouth.”

There is a hesitation of acceptance as Gohn responds, “I mean it wouldn’t be a problem if only one of us had a big mouth.”

Jenissi does that small satisfied look that echoes the feeling of a smile and closes his eyes, leaning his head back between his shoulders and enjoying the sun.

Hansol waits for him to say more—to mention the episode with the Boyscouts—but he doesn’t.

“So. . .” Gohn leads, “we good to go?”  Jenissi’s response to Gohn and to Hansol’s leading silence is to stay reclining on concrete steps. 

“I’m ready whenever you are,” Jenissi suddenly remarks.  Standing all at once, he trounces down the steps. 

Gohn looks down at Hansol, sharing bewilderment with him.

Hansol gets up and walks beside Gohn as he moves at an unhurried pace to catch up with Jenissi who seems to be following his own thoughts where they wander in his head.

“Have you had any luck looking for that friend of yours,” Gohn asks, his voice low.

Hansol doesn’t know why Gohn thought walking around the city would be the kind of searching he meant.  Gohn doesn’t seem to understand that people like him and B Joo would not be found casually wandering the city. 

“Not yet.”

“Sorry if this hasn’t been what you were expecting.”  Hansol looks up at Gohn but the older is looking ahead.  “Must feel like we’re just running errands.  I hope it’s not too boring.”

“It’s not.”

“You’ve been lagging every time we pass a side street.  I know you’ve been thinking of leaving.  ”

Hansol stops.  The easy excuse is that he’s trying to be thorough in his search, but he doesn’t feel like lying.  “If I stay I’ll never find him.” 

“Maybe not.”

Hansol feels a terrible pressure in his chest as if the clear blue sky and the fresh air and the small sound of a chirping bird will swallow him whole.  He doesn’t know how to explain.  “I have to work harder to untangle myself from other people’s lives.  Feeling other people’s emotions makes it really hard to leave.  And. . .you’re decent people.  But even a safety net is a net and. . .”  He looks across at the sky.

“I didn’t stay when I was first given the choice.  You don’t have to make a decision now.  You don’t have to know, yet.

“I do know.” Hansol feels the ghost of Jenissi’s protective hold on his wrist, of Xero’s arm around his shoulder, of Gohn’s hand at his forehead and Sangdo’s hand at his shoulder, and it’s suffocating. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”  He knows that eventually every day would be like this one.  Every now and then he would stop and look at a crowd, wondering if B Joo was part of it but never staying long enough to know for sure.  If he stayed he would let him go.

“I know you want to find him.”

“I don’t think he wants me to find him anyway.  Not like I can undo everything I did.”

They have to stop short because Jenissi is standing in front of them now, holding a plastic bag up in offering.  “Baking Soda,” he announces.  They are standing outside a convenience store.

“What for?” Gohn asks, perplexed.

Hansol meets Jenissi’s eyes and the apprehension and pressure drain out of his body on an exhale. 

Jenissi makes that same expression that’s almost a smile and feels almost the same.  “Wash and make yourselves clean. Though they are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

Hansol holds on to the offered words and the plastic bag.

Gohn has a perplexed look that fades into a knowing smile as he watches Jenissi. “Haven’t heard you quote that old book in a while.”

Jenissi acknowledges the comment and turns.

“Wait.”

The word leaps out of Hansol’s mouth before he thinks it, but when Gohn and Jenissi turn to look at him he has made his decision.  “Can we make an extra stop?”

A/N  I'm so terribly sorry about how long it took me to update.  I've actually had a version of this chapter done for a month (or more) but I just had so many doubts and I kept rewriting it and rewriting it and trying to figure out where I was going and how I was going to get there and wondering whether or not I should even continue.  But I think that I finally feel right about it and I hope it's okay.  And most of all thank you for waiting and caring about this story.  I truly appreciate you all.--coraroc