Crescent // ATEEZ ✔

10 [dispose]

"I switched the cameras off; bring her out of the store," Mingi announces from the main area of the cafe as he types something away on his laptop. "We don't have much time before they notice something's amiss. We have less than..." he consults the clock, "...5 minutes."

After getting the confirmation from him, Seonghwa steps into the store, putting out his arms in defence, trying to fix his body language to show that he doesn't mean any harm. The trail of blood leads to her in the corner, unscathed. He looks at the small uncapped bottle filled with fake blood on the floor beside her. There is a lot of explanation to do to her so he crouches a few feet away from her, trying to reason it out.

"Yeosang didn't touch you, did he?"

She shakes her head, gesturing to the fake blood beside her.

"Please take that as we truly mean no harm to you. I know you're scared and confused; we will give you all the explanation that we should but first, you need to follow us upstairs. We don't have much time before Mingi has to switch back on the cameras at the cafe."

Her whole body is shaking but she doesn't give any more reaction.

"Please believe us this one time, we meant no harm to you. If..." he changes the direction of his approach, "...we have a child upstairs. You can stay with her if that makes you feel safer. We need to get you away from the cameras first, then we will explain."

"I can't walk properly," she merely replies, stretching out her legs. "I- I hurt them again when I was running away from... Yeosang."

"I can uh-" he does a gesture to show that he can carry her up the stairs, but he's too shy to verbalize it. They are the reason she's hurt, they are the reason she got caught in this mess, yet she still shows a little bit of trust in them. Somehow, that made him feel a little bit relieved. "If you would let me."

"Uh, sure."

He doesn't waste anymore time as he slides his arms under her knees and behind her back, lifting her up with ease. She looks away, feeling stripped now that he's too close for comfort. He only looks straight ahead and she looks away, avoiding any moments that could make the situation awkward. They step out to find Mingi waiting at one corner in front of his laptop, while Hongjoong, Yunho and Yeosang have gone upstairs. Wooyoung, San and Jongho remain downstairs, regarding the pair quietly.

Seonghwa slightly nods to Mingi, and he carries her up the stairs to punch in the code, before putting her down softly on the sofa across another one where the three men are already waiting for them. He joins them, keeping a distance from her because they know they're not making it any better for her. Too much of a mess have been done, but they have no way of turning it back.

"Who are you?" she asks first, surprising the four as she slowly sits against the sofa, moving her bandaged arms carefully.

Yunho nudges Hongjoong, prompting him to answer. He blinks once before saying, "We do run the cafe-" She gives him the look. "-but under that we have other jobs."

"A gang? Or assassins?"

"We're not just that. We're hired 'couriers'," he says while putting up quotation marks. "We get requests from people to do all kinds of jobs."

"So you do kill people," she snaps. "But why won't you kill me? And what was that back at the cafe?"

He hesitates. "Yes, but we have our own principles. We don't simply kill anyone. The reason why we had to bring you back here was because we needed to sort things out. The cafe is full of cameras, full of people watching."

"You mean those who you called monsters?"

Something in his eyes shift and he darts his eyes away, like he's hiding something. She notices, but decides to deal with it later.