EMBERS • HAECHAN (Not Finished Yet)

Chapter 76

I immediately shifted my eyes away from them and instead looked at down at my scarred hands, that were nervously playing with the hem of my wet top.

"Apparently they think that Sunghee is the only girl though," Yeeun tried to quickly calm the group down, in the meantime drawing back the attention on her,
"but that doesn't mean that we are safe.
We have to get rid of SVT more urgently than ever before they possibly attack Sunghee again, if not in the worst case our gang itself. We can't wait for them to make a mistake anymore."

An unpleasent silence settled down and although I kept looking down at my fiddling hands, I could still feel the eyes of the other members as they seemed to slowly bore into my own body.
It was more than just uncomfortable, upsetting, maybe even depressing to possibly have that many people thinking you failed beeing a DRGNS.

There was no way I could mention Taeyong's request about working together with them.
Nearly half the people inside this room looked as if they were ready to start a war, their only goal to erase the two other gangs in order to get back to the old days.

I almost sighed in frustration, but fortunately Yuqi's sudden voice prevented me from doing so. Brooding, she leaned  over the table and turned to her leader, looking at her seriously and curiously at the same time.

"What exactly do you suggest?"

Yeeun thought about it briefly, but it didn't take long before she had already made up a few new plans.
She wasn't our leader for nothing and even if I didn't want to admit it at that very moment, her decisions were often the ones with the best outcomes.

"The first change is that we will increase the members in night patrols. Instead of keeping watch alone, you will now be in groups of at least three or four members. Also, from now on we will not only patrol near NCT's headquarter, but also in places where SVT was last sighted."

Our leader automatically folded her hands in her lap before she started looking directly at individual girls in our gathering.
It had been a while since I had seen Yeeun that stern and attentive, but since we didn't know what SVT was up to next, I wasn't surprised in the slightest.

I screwed up and after everything going downhill, the rest of DRGNS had to make up for my mistakes.

"Olivia, Yuqi, Nayeon and Miyeon- try to find every little detail about SVT's activities. I don't care about the sources, just watch out for anything that might give you any clues. Social media, the news, even rumors of any possible eyewitnesses.
You should be especially observant, Nayeon. 
Maybe you can get additional information at the police station. Use your authority as an officer and search for cameras or files, that might've recorded something about the other gangs.
We need to finally track down their fucking headquarters before anything else happens."

Determined, she looked at every single one of the members and watched them confidently nod their head at her strict plans.
Everyone was well aware of the importance of these missions and they were ready to give their all in order to put an end to SVT and NCT.

Apparently not everyone was supposed to participate though, as the white haired leader enlightened us quickly afterwards.

"That doesn't apply to you, Sunghee. I hereby exclude you from any gang activities."

My mouth automatically opened as I leaned forward energetically, another short wave of pain rushing through my nerves due to my hip, causing me to shrug within the same second.
However, I only clawed my fingernails into the palms of my hands and blocked out the horrible feeling, only focusing on the girl at the end of the table.

"Why?"

"Because you need time for recovery from you injury.
SVT is after you as well so I won't take the risk and involve you in anything gang related. For now, you won't be going to school and stay at home unless I allow you to leave."

Slightly offended by her last sentence, took a sharp breath in. She was basically keeping me from the outside world as if I was a child that couldn't take care of herself.
I understood that she wanted to keep me save, but she was taking all of my freedom at that point.

There were so many questions, but we didn't even address them.

How long did she plan on hiding me?
Until we took care of SVT?
How long would it even take us to finally get them into jail?
Or the more important question, how?

For the first time I actually thought about how on earth DRGNS was going to get SVT arrested.
Looking back at the last few years, it quickly became clear that we hadn't accomplished anything at all.

Mission after mission we had made sure that both SVT's and NCT's plans were hindered without them even having a clue about us, but what was the point of all that?

Did we get in their way?
Yes, countless  times.
Did we achieve any long-term results?
I have to answer with a big fucking no.

"What exactly is the plan after finding their headquarters?"

I glared right into the sinister eyes of our leader, speaking out lout what no one else had ever asked.

After ending up in all those fucked up situations with the opposing gangs themselves, I finally realized that we had only slowed them down every now and then, not really contributing in the city's safety as we had originally planned.

If we wanted to get rid of SVT, we would have to get to the root of the problem and make sure that nothing new could sprout there ever again...

That's exactly why NCT was a necessary ally for us.
We didn't stand a single chance without them and even if the didn't want to admit it, I was sure that at least some of them knew it.

For a brief moment Yeeun looked at me in astonishment as if I had surprised her with my last question.
As expected though, she quickly regained her composure and threw her snow-white hair over her shoulder unbothered.

"We will worry about that later."

Sadly that's it for today, but I'm trying to write as much as possible

Love you all😊💚
Stay safe and let's do our best for NCT's next comeback