Your ‘home’ is actually an apartment, located in the poorer part of Seoul, where everything is disorganized and rather old compared to the rest of the city. But it is the only place your family can afford. After your mom had been fired from her job due to her ‘condition’ you guys were kicked out from your old, nicer apartment and had to move here. The only money that comes in to the household is the money you earn from working at the institute; your paycheck fluctuated depending on what sorts of jobs you received and how well you performed, so some months your family was basically scavenging for food while others you guys could afford to treat yourselves a bit.

You slide a small silver key into the grey, paint-peeled door of your apartment and push it open. The apartment is unexpectedly warm; the smells of cooked rice, cheap soap, and old paint flood your senses; ahhh home sweet home. The table is scattered with a bunch of your brother’s school books as well as dirty bowls, spoons, and cups. Your brother, Taesoo is sitting on the couch watching TV. The moment he heard the door he turned his head and his eyes widened when he saw you.

“NOONA! Your back!” he exclaims, rushing over to give you a hug. You are surprised because you realize that he is almost as tall as you now. Although he is 15, only 2 years younger than you, you still treat him like a little kid sometimes, but you two are still extremely close.

“Hey Taesoo, I’ve missed you” you ruffle his hair and flick him in the forehead with your index finger.

“hey!!! You can’t do that to me anymore, I’m almost as tall as you now”

“well, you still have a lot to grow until you catch up to me” you say while laughing. You plop down on the couch next to him and change the channel to some random music show with guys wearing sparkly, nice clothing and girls wearing short pink dresses singing happily. You sighed, if only I could be like them and not have a care in the world.

“So how’s school going?” you ask your brother.

“Fine…I guess, the teachers are nice and the school is really clean…but…”

“but what?”

“I don’t know, just some kids have been really annoying recently…they make up rumors about us…and you know they just assume things about umma.” He looks down at his hands with a frown. “One kid even said that you dropped out because you had joined a gang, gotten pregnant and started doing drugs. And it seriously pissed me off that they just assumed these things. They say really bad things about umma too. Sometimes I just want to beat them up till that they can’t move anymore.” By now your brother is shaking and his face is red.

“Hey calm down Taesoo, I know this is common advice but you should just ignore them”

“But how am I supposed to do that when they say such disgusting, disrespectful things about you and umma?”

“I don’t care what they think about me”. Before you had dropped out (you preferred to say ‘graduated early’) of school due to your situation your old friends had always wondered what happened to your family, and when they couldn’t find out the truth, they did what all high school teenagers do: make up some stupid rumors. You had never seen them ever again after you left, and you hoped you never would; they weren’t your true friends.

“Those kids don’t understand us and what we have been through so don’t bother with them because they’re not worth your time. But if they ever get to violent and try to hurt you, than tell me and I’ll go and kick their asses”. Taesoo made a face at you.

“Noona! That’s so embarrassing, I don’t need a girl to protect me, especially my sister”

“Stop being so ist Taesoo, girls can beat people up too, and I’ve saved Sehun’s on numerous occasions”.

“well that’s different Noona.”

“okay Taesoo, whatever you say”.

                You ask Taesoo about your mom. He tells you that she is sleeping right now and that you probably shouldn’t wake her up because she always gets grumpy when she is deprived of sleep. She is getting better now and is eating more regularly, according to Taesoo. Ever since your Dad had left, your mom had never been the same. She was like an empty eggshell, fragile and breakable, dry and completely devoid of life. You were scared, you were so afraid that she would shatter in to a million pieces one day and you would never be able to put her back together again. And even if you could, she wouldn’t be the same, there would always be something missing. But recently she has been getting better and that gives you hope, which is all you need to keep you working hard at the institute so Taesoo can have a normal childhood, one that you did not have.

                “Oh yeah, noona! I almost forgot to tell you, I got a job!” exclaims Taesoo, breaking you out of your reverie.

                “What!? No, you can’t, you have to focus on your studies, I’m not working my off for nothing” you glare at him.

                “Come on noona”, he pouts at you, “it’s just a small afterschool job at that new coffee shop that just opened in downtown Seoul…anyways, we need all the money we can get don’t we?”

You realize that he is right, you guys did need all the money that you could get.

                “fine, but if your grades start slipping you have to quit.” You say this with a stern voice and you suddenly feel like a nagging mother.

                “Okay, but you have to promise me you’ll visit me while I’m working at the coffee shop”

                After eating breakfast with Taesoo and catching up a bit more, you tell him you will visit him again in a few days and immediately returned to the institute, remembering Key’s threat about if you were late. You find Sehun in the shooting range surrounded by a bunch of girls and a few guys. Sehun has such precise and accurate aim that if you asked him to shoot at a bulls eye one hundred times he would probably only miss once. He was also rather agile, strong, and good looking and it was because of this that all the girls at the institute seemed to want to get together with him, or to put it more crudely, sleep with him. You stepped back to admire you’re best friend, his biceps flexed every time he pulled the trigger and his movements were fast and fluid. You have always thought of Sehun platonically, but recently you have become more aware of the small touches that pass between you two, touches that before you wouldn’t have thought twice about.

                Sehun spots you a few minutes after you walk into the room and immediately starts to make his way towards you. You shrink back a little from the almost tangible glares of jealousy you receive from the other girls. If only you could convince them that you and Sehun were just friends, but you found that a useless conquest because they wouldn’t believe you no matter what. You run over to retrieve a gun so you can practice but accidently knock over someone along the way; It is a girl with short spiky red hair and makeup caking her face.

                “oh sorry, mianhae” you say politely and offer your hand to her but she slaps it away and spits on your shoes. You are in shock and you recognize her as one of the girls that was flirting with Sehun earlier.

                “Wow you are so conceited, you think you can just walk around and assume people will move out of the way just because you’re Sehun’s partner? I hate arrogant people like you.” She says this with a venomous tone that makes you extremely pissed off.

                “excuse me but who’s being the conceited here? I just said sorry and offered my help to you because I knocked you down by accident, I didn’t mean to do that.”

                “whoa, what’s going on here?” Sehun just arrived and tries to step in.

                “It’s okay Sehun, this girl just has a stick up her and can’t seem to get over herself, let’s go”

You turn around and don’t notice that the red-hair girl is about to punch you until Sehun stops her fist with his own hand.

                “oh so now he’s your knight in shining armor huh? I bet you can’t even fight your own fights and he does all the work, I hear he’s only your partner because you do ‘favors’ for him” she raises her eyebrows and seems to challenge you. You never step back from a challenge, not to mention, you are about to explode with anger any second now due to her comment. You are just about to kick her in the stomach when Key intervenes.

                You review the plan in your mind over and over again as you and Sehun wait for Key to get the car from the garage. It was actually a rather simple plan, it just seemed complex because of the multiple components and stages but the goal was straightforward: to retrieve some very important files that were vital to the financial success of the client. This client was the head of a large overseas corporation; the files they needed to steal were the blueprints and plans of a rival corporation that was threatening to overtake and exploit their client’s corporation. With these files, their client could put himself at an advantageous point above his rival. All they (Hanbyul, Sehun, and Key) needed to do was to sneak into the main facilities of the rival company, take the files, and sneak out without being caught. However, this would be hard because the building would obviously be highly secured since they would anticipate something like this. To add to this, other organizations wanted these files and blueprints as well for the same reasons, so they would probably see other agents there, who have the same task as them.

Sehun clears his throat but you refuse to look at him. An awkward silence ades the air around you guys.

                “you didn’t have to do that you know” you say, breaking the stillness.

                “Do what?”

                “You didn’t have to intervene, I can take care of myself, I’m not a helpless little girl like I used to be when I first came here.”

                Sehun turns to look at you. You can tell he’s angry and frustrated because his eyebrows are furrowed and his lips are pinched together in a thin white line.

                “She was about to punch you! What did you expect me to do? Just stand back and watch you get hurt?”

                “I get hurt all the time Sehun, and I need to prove to these people that I’m strong so they’ll respect me.”

                “I just….I just can’t stand seeing you hurt though” he says this while running a hand through his already tousled hair. “especially if you’re hurt because of me”.

                “Sehu—“

                “no, listen to me, things have been different lately and I keep thinking things and having weird feelings that I’ve never had before, and it always happens when I’m around you” he says this quietly, like he is unsure of himself and your reaction. You look at him with a confused expression.

                “It’s just I think I might have feeli—“. But you don’t get to hear what he says because he is cut off by Key arriving in the car and you remind yourself to ask him about it later. For now you push everything that just happened to the back of your mind and prepare yourself for the mission at hand.

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)

sorry it's moving so slowly! Kai will definitely be introduced next chapter, which i will try to put up by Friday.