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"Where are we going?" Mari asked, tension building up inside of her. She was riding in the back of Hongjoong's motorcycle, her nails practically digging into the leather jacket that laid on his shoulders as they slowly cruised through the broken streets of a dull neighborhood. The trees were bare despite it not being winter, not a single leaf dared to stay attached to its branches. The houses around them looked as though they had been beaten and broken into, its inhabitants abandoning what once held a busy household. "This looks like something straight out of a horror movie."
Hongjoong shrugged his shoulders, not finding the strength to argue with her. He was too focused on watching the scenery they were slowly rolling past with skeptical eyes. "This place has been this way since I was born. I heard from people that live around the area that it got caught in the middle of a turf war between two criminal groups. I have to assume it ended horribly for everyone who got involved, the criminal groups never came back and people feared being involved in another turf war. So they left." Mari nodded, trying to figure out if she knew anything about it.
It definitely sounded like something the Kim and Seo Faction would have done, as they were constantly butting heads years before she came into the picture. But she couldn't exactly pinpoint what would exactly be the cause for a turf war right in the middle of an innocent neighborhood. Maybe it wasn't really a turf war in the first place... an ambush instead maybe? The neighborhood they were in was a little close to the Seo's house of operations so maybe it was infiltration instead. Mari couldn't guess correctly if no one told her what happened in the past.
"We have to go this way though," Hongjoong informed her, revving up the bike to accelerate to faster speeds. "This is the quickest way to get back to that playground we started at without going through this god awful morning traffic. That is where you wanted me to drop you off at... right?" He asked her, the look on his face exposing his displeasure in leaving her somewhere that wasn't the doorstep of her actual home. Mari simply nodded her at his words as they began to zoom down the streets of the neighborhood. There was no way she was going to lead him into the heart of the Seo Faction's business.
Hongjoong would get mauled to death by the soldiers who protected the manor on a daily basis. Not only that, but her father would absolutely slaughter him. One for being a stranger to him, and two for keeping her out of the house for so long. Mari had stayed out the entire night, unlike what she originally planned. She wanted to go home as soon as twelve am had hit, but Hongjoong kept stringing her along elsewhere. In the end, the two of them had pulled an all-nighter, ranting to each other about the little things that bothered them and doing delinquent-esque things. She had completely forgotten about her father in the middle of it all.
That was technically though, to forget all the things that were bothering her and avoid the tragedy that had struck her faction. The mere thought of facing the music of her reality made her shake, so Hongjoong had become her distraction. Too good of a distraction if you asked her though. Mari had done countless things in one night, many of them being illegal and could possibly get her arrested. The obvious ones being stealing and vandalism. She was supposed to keep her public identity on the low, she was a member of the mafia and a high school student at the same time.
