“You do it.”

 

“No, what the ? You do it!”

 

“Wha- dude, I don’t know how to wake up a girl!”

 

“Well t-then, Google it!”

 

“God--quiet down! She’s gonna hear us!”

 

“We’re here to wake her up, isn’t that the whole ing point?”

 

“What, do we like give her a wet willy, or like slap her or jump on her until she wakes up?”

 

“Okay, how about not doing something that results in killing her on her first day here?”

 

“Fine. Let’s dump water on her.”

 

“FOR GOD’S SAKE, CAN WE PLEASE, FOR ONCE, JUST COMPLETE A TASK LIKE REGULAR, FUNCTIONING HUMAN BEINGS?”

 

“Alright, alright. But I ain’t waking her up.”

 

"Jongin, you're the ladykiller here, you do it!"

 

"Wha--why is he the ladykiller, I pull chicks way more regularly than he does!"

 

"Sehun, that's not called a ladykiller, that's called a manwhore."

 

“Fine then, Baekhyun, you do it.”

 

“Ew, dude no, cooties!”

 

“Dear god, I’m surrounded by idiots.”

 

Sookyung woke up to the scuffling, shoving, bickering and giggling of eleven grown men, all surrounding the perimeter of her bed, looking down at her like she was a meteor that had just landed on earth.

 

She groggily rubbed her eyes, before blinking several times. She was just about to flip them off for being noisy and annoying until her vision cleared up to reveal all of them now standing up straight, blinking just as blankly back at her. She pulled her duvet closer to her chin, slightly embarrassed that all of them had just bombarded into her personal space and was now only staring, not even saying a word.

 

What a way to start her morning.

 

Sookyung cleared before talking, “C-can I help you?”

 

“Um,” Baekhyun coughed, being suddenly pushed to the front by the rest of them, “we just wanted to make sure you were awake. We have breakfast ready downstairs, and you, like, have to come and, uh, train with us after.” His face turned beet red as he coughed at the end of his sentence, the awkwardness mounting, although Sookyung couldn’t help it find it endearing that they had already fixed breakfast for her and all of them were here, calling her up for the day. What? Snap out of it.

 

She sufficed the smile threatening to creep on her face as quickly as it came and nodded, “Alright. I’ll be right down.”

 

Baekhyun nodded quickly before turning around, obviously flustered and waved for the other guys to hurry up and leave too before she got ready. Sookyung looked down at her lap and smiled softly, wondering how many interactions with girls he's had in his lifetime before meeting her.

 

Man, waking up first thing in the morning, and Sookyung didn't feel the familiar urge to sock the first person to talk to her in the face. Jeez, stop.

 

She shook her head and rubbed her face tiredly one last time before heading to the washroom to freshen up. As she washed her face and brushed her teeth, she couldn't help but think about her first day ahead of her. Her first day as a traitor.

 

She wondered what their training facility looked like, how big their strategy room was, what weapons they housed, what transportation they utilise most often, and what roles, specialties,  and abilities each member possessed.

 

But most importantly, she wondered what the guys were like in their everyday lives whether it be when they were undercover or when they visited their friends, well, if they had any or if any of them were aware of this life or not. She wondered if they also had a side to them that wasn't all about the guns and the killing and the revenge and the business. She saw the slightest hints of it along the way here, but truthfully, she kind of wished to hopefully see more of it throughout the next few weeks, months, however long. Maybe it could act as a distraction and reassurance to Sookyung that maybe, truly, they aren't really bad people. But only time could help Sookyung decide that.

 

She made her way down the spiral staircase, only now truly taking in the interior of the beautiful mansion. The sunlight shone in through the stained glass window they had on top of the front french double doors, accentuating and casting it's beautiful light across the tall ceiling and the furniture below it. The entire mansion was decorated in a vintage style, she noted, mostly everything made out of stylish wood, including the floors, fireplace, and doors. This was quite different to her headquarters, where the main colours were mainly grey, black and white, with thick glass panels and doors. There were many other doors and corridors that lead to other places, places that Sookyung knew were for much different matters.

 

She entered the kitchen, expecting it to be empty and motionless, only to find it bustling with action, all eleven of the guys noisily in their seats, not even realizing she was in the room. Sehun and Tao were currently falling over their chairs laughing at something Baekhyun had said, who was still in the midst of telling his story theatrically, waving his chopsticks in the air. Kyungsoo, Xiumin, and Luhan were snickering quietly at the side at the sight of Kris and Lay facepalming and rubbing their temples, telling them to shut up or else they'd really regret later today, whilst Kai and Chen were immersed in their own conversation, chucking mouthfuls of rice in their mouth at the same time. At the end of the table, Suho was silent, watching over the entire circus show of the young ones and the older ones conversing in different manners, a hint of a father's smile spread across his handsome features.

 

Sookyung wondered how they seemed to be so uplifted today, quite contrary to yesterday, when all of them were as serious as can be, all focusing on the task at hand of handling Sookyung and plans to get Chanyeol back. But as a nurse and from quite a lot of experience, Sookyung knew that these boys were no different from anyone in a hospital, whether it'd be a doctor, nurse, patient, guardian of a patient; any smallest and most temporary distraction from the stress inside was very much welcomed. She didn't really know and understand who this 'Chanyeol' was and how important he was to this group, but regardless, it definitely seemed like the boys could use something to sway their focus, even if it was just for a little while.

 

Kris was the first one to look up and his eyes were instantly shot wide, “Oh hey, Sookyung’s here! Guess we should probably hurry up and finish breakfast so we could get to the training facility sooner! Right, boys?” His voice oozed with sarcasm, a huge smile plastered on his face.

 

Jongdae gave him a little sneer with a  threatening jab of his fork near his face and turned to Sookyung, changing his expression to his usual playful, friendly one, “Have a seat, Sookyung. Better eat up before we leave for the facility,” he said before adding, “and also so you’ll have enough energy to beat their asses to pulp later,” giving her a wink.

 

Several voices rose up in protest, as Sookyung laughed softly before sitting down on the opposite end of the large, marble dinner table, right in between Sehun and Chen. She looked up at the maknae sitting beside her staring across at the older one with a mocked hurt expression on his face, “Excuse you, but I am the best fighter in you group of hooligans, okay, I ain’t gonna--”

 

“Hey, maknae, watch your damn mouth!” said Baekhyun, still in the middle of chewing.

 

“Is that how you talk to your hyungs?” Luhan put a hand to his hip, feigning disappointment.

 

“Did you just call us hooligans?” Xiumin glared at him.

 

“Um, excuse me, but we are on totally different levels. Are you forgetting two days ago when you declared us to a 2-on-1 and couldn’t move your neck for the next three hours?” Lay scoffed, swinging his fork between him and Kai. Kai wiped his mouth with his napkin, amused, looking down at his bowl, shaking his head goodnaturedly at the camaraderie between his hyungs.

 

Sookyung snuck a glance at him as he was still silently giggling at the continuing argument between who could do a better flying roundhouse kick, and quietly wondered why he seemed to be a little different than the rest. Sure, he was quiet, but he had this aura to him that wasn’t necessarily powerfully and authoritatively quiet, quite like Kris and Suho, and not scarily silent like Xiumin; he gave Sookyung just a sense of curiosity of who he might be, what he was like, if he really did have a side to him that Sookyung didn’t know about. In fact, she wondered that about all of them. And for some reason, she made it a goal--no, a promise--to herself that she would figure it out.

 

She snapped out of her little world as she heard a stomach growl, alerting her that there was still a steaming bowl of rice, sweet and sour pork, and seaweed soup sitting in front of her. Without hesitation, she began eating, feeling much more comfortable wolfing down mouthfuls in front of the boys now than yesterday.

 

“Hey, Soo!” yelled Tao from across the table, making her amused that he’d called her in a short form version of her name, making it seem as though they’d gotten close to her already, “just exactly how great are you in combat? I mean, our Suho here has been going on and on about your skills and the rest of us here wanna see if you live up to the hype, honey,” he winked. Suho immediately shot the younger one a small glare, telling him to shut up. Sookyung raised her eyebrows, amused that the leader had already been praising her without even seeing her in action. Yet.

 

Sookyung swallowed her mouthful before deciding to slyly play along. If cocky is how they wanna play it, then so be it. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to see for yourself.”

 

~~~

 

“Ow, ! Hey, that’s my--ow! Jeez, okay! I tapped! I tapped! Fu--dude, I tapped, you can let go now!” Tao screamed, his words muffled as his face was currently pressed to the ground, on his stomach, with one of Sookyung’s knees at the bottom of his spine, pulling his arm back with her elbow where his spine and neck met.

 

She huffed a satisfied sigh before loosening her grip on his arm. Thirty two seconds. That was a personal record. She stood up straight, sweaty, more so from the warm ups and push up contest rather than the actual fight, and was clad in black spandex shorts and a faded, baggy and oversized Cinderella t-shirt her mother got her from Disneyworld when she was eleven that she wore to the gym a lot and somehow still fit her. Simply shrugging and giving him a sweet smile, "Sorry."

 

She made sure to add an extra strut to her step as she made her way back to the benches on the sidelines to pick up a towel and water bottle, ignoring the jaws and eyes that touched the floor, astonished. This was a moment she'd always planned on perfecting since the beginning; she wasn't just a regular girl who would take an easy beating. She didn't need protecting and she sure as hell knew how to shield her own . She wasn't afraid of showing them this; if this didn't show how invested in this mission she was, she didn't know what did.

 

"H-h-he's... did you j-just beat Tao? I-I mean, he's lost before, but I've never seen him not stand a-a chance against his opponent..." Kyungsoo whispered, his eyes bigger than normal. The other guys had almost the same expression as him, spare a few--Suho looked triumphant with his arms crossed and a small smile on his face, Jongdae was on the verge of breaking into a puddle of tears of laughter, and Kai looked at her with great amusement.

 

Once again, Sookyung ignored them,  now carrying her towel and water bottle to the mannequin punching bags, ready to get her step back from being a little slacking the past few days.

 

She ran her hand along the leather material of the fake head and body mirroring hers. Never before has she seen a training facility with such advanced equipment and necessities like the East. Although she wasn't certain, she's heard once before that the East specialized in combat, whilst the other three districts had their own abilities. Just once glance at the room and her sources were confirmed.

 

Just an hour ago, the guys had led her to the facility, heading into many alleyways and wooden doors and handprint scanners to later reveal to Sookyung an underground facility clad right underneath a hair salon and a French bakery. Inside was bustling with movement and other agents training in their respective rooms based on their physical capabilities, explained Chen.

 

As soon as sliding doors allowed the guys in with their hands in their pockets and tough yet unspoken expressions, every working staff member or agent took their time to bow or somehow acknowledge them, not even bothering to notice the West's blood daughter wedged right behind the two leaders walking in front, not to mention four members flanking her sides and the rest of them guarding her from behind.

 

After a few more dizzying rounds of left turns and right turns and awkward elevator silences and some more ID scanners, they finally reached EXO's floor--one whole floor of specific training weapons, rooms, and equipment all personally fitted to best benefit the guys and their levels of endurance, strength, speed, stamina, and weapon handling. Even Sookyung saw that one of the rooms she'd walked by was labeled "Intellect Development Training". Her tour guide, Jongdae, who was whispering along the whole way right next to her, explaining every nook and cranny that they set their sights on, revealed that this was where they trained for the more mentally challenging stuff, possibilities spanning from lie and sound detecting, code decoding, map reading, analyzing handprint patterns, and many more.

 

Sookyung stared at every inch of the equipment visible to her and knew that her inner daughter-of-a-gang-leader was squealing in delight at the sight of all the clean, intact material of the equipment.

 

And now, she was in perfect stance, one hand guarding her jaw with the other in front, eyes glowering, ready to prance at the practice mannequin. Funny how just simply being in a room full of accessible necessities was enough to get her wheels rolling again, just as well as before. The thought almost sent chills down her spine.

 

"That was impressive," Kris nodded, prompting her to turn back around and look at them again, "But you see, Tao isn't the most formidable opponent amongst us," she ignored the latter's annoyed scoff, "let's see what you can really do against our top guns, especially if you think you're all that."

 

"Kris," Suho warned, but the foreigner ignored him.

 

"Okay, seriously. What is your deal?" Sookyung asked, not really sure she wanted to continue the game of guessing and checking to figure out why Kris was being so rude to her, even after she's tried to prove to all of them she's in for good. "Do you, like, have a problem with me or something? Because if you do, then why the am I even here? You're wasting your time, Wu Yifan."

 

That hit a nerve. The rest stared back at Sookyung with a sense of utter shock that the female had stood up to their other leader like that. No one, absolutely no one, besides Kris' sister, called him Yifan, and they knew she'd grazed a red zone by calling him out like that, regardless of who she was, where she came from, and what she knew. Although Sookyung didn't know that and despite their clashing opinions, they did share one thing in common; Kris' temper wasn't so good either.

 

He began with a scoff, running his finger along his bottom lip, astonished that this girl, barely up to his nose, was testing him. Who does she think she is? Kris could have her as good as dead meat if he wanted to, but he knew that the others would never forgive him.

 

That arrogant, prince-like smirk was still plastered on his face, enjoying this little game. "So that's how you want to do it? Well then, Park Sookyung, it's time you met the East's strongest fighter formally."

 

And with that a boy was nudged to the front,  caught off guard, showing just the same element of shock in his eyes as Sookyung did.

 

"Kai?" She asked, dumbfounded.

 

Before, when Lay had mentioned something about a 2-on-1 with Kai and Sehun,  Sookyung certainly didn't think much about it as her mind just automatically assumed either Sehun was probably one of the weaker ones or that Lay and Kai had the man-advantage. But the quiet,  observing guy that hasn't said a single word to her apart from the business, the guy who averts himself from the attention and commotion caused by the others, this guy was the most lethal fighter in EXO, the district specializing in combat?

 

"Y-you want us to fight?" Kai asked, unsure. It wasn't in Kai's nature to say that the reason behind why he didn't want to fight her was because he knew she wouldn't stand a chance and a few nudges of his arm could probably knock her unconscious. He just didn't know if he wanted to see her writhing in pain underneath his force.

 

"Oh, come on," Kris huffed. The others were now stealthily becoming a little more alert. They were all aware of how far Kris can go when he's fired up, especially when he was being tested just a while ago by what he thought was an arrogant little girl. "Don't be such wimps. Dude, I've seen you kill people like running your hands through water. I don't want to see Jongin right now--show me Kai."

 

"Alright, Kris, stop. That's enou--" Suho began to take Kris by the arm and shrug him back, before he was interrupted. The sliding glass doors standing at the other side of the large, whitely lit room slid open.

 

"Daddy!" yelled a little kid not older than about five as he ran in through the door, manoeuvring and ducking through and under the large equipments, seeming as though he definitely