Answer ||| Ateez

2

Rainfall added an eerie sheen to the streets that was magnified by the flickering lights meant to give anyone out this late at night a sense of security.

But there was no security anymore. Not like how things used to be.

The Wolf Pack ruled everything. Crime was accepted now, as long as it wasn't directed toward the Pack or any of their associates.

The police didn't exist. They had been destroyed a long time ago, along with all organized military or any kind of government.

It was dark times now... And it didn't look like they were going to get better.

Murderers, drug dealers, rapists... They all ran free with no punishment.

Common folk lived in fear every day that they could be the next victim of some sick, twisted criminal, and they did everything they could to have some semblance of a life.

It wasn't easy, but most people managed to get by somehow.

As the rain fell harder, sending droplets flying in all directions and creating an endless ripple on the pavement, Mingi pulled his collar up to try and protect his neck.

The long trench coat he wore was thankfully waterproof, but it did very little to protect him from the cold. He brought his fingers to his lips and blew on them to try and warm them.

But the chill in his bones didn't matter. He would stand there all night and freeze if he had to. As long as he got to see him...

Nothing else mattered.

Mingi had spent years searching. Hours upon hours of research and investigating.

They had been horrible years too.

Growing up had been normal for him. He had a happy childhood with parents who loved him and taught them everything they knew.

But with the Wolf Pack ruling over everything, his parents ended up on the wrong side of a business deal which ended in their deaths.

They had tucked Mingi away in a closet where he was forced to listen to them beg for their lives and promise to do whatever the stranger wanted. But it didn't matter. They both died with a bullet in their heads.

As Mingi grew and learned to take care of himself on the streets, he started to have strange dreams.

One night, he dreamed of his parents dying a different way. His mother was raped first and then murdered before his father...

Another was learning how to pick locks and stealing things to give back to their original owners. There were several like this, all with different objects to retrieve and different houses that he broke into.

There was one that stuck with him for awhile, and it was when he was hit in the head with a shovel. He thought about that one over and over, it felt so wrong. Like had made a mistake.

When he was about eighteen, new dreams started coming to him.

He saw seven other men and learned that five of them were criminals, along with himself. They all had their own stories that came to him over time.

But there was one face that visited him more than normal. One that always had him waking up crying and feeling so empty inside.

The night that he learned the name of this mystery man, Mingi had cried in his shower after collapsing on the floor.

Visions of Hongjoong swam before his eyes. His smile, his sass, his kind heart. He remembered the way he cared for the other's in their group, but also how he cared for mankind and had wanted to bring peace back to their city and the world.