Seungmin and I arrived at our home. It's just the 2 of us. Even when all the lights are on, the silence is just scary, it's no difference from being in the dark.
He took off the specially made hoodie he's wearing, and it made a huge metal like crashing noise on the floor, leaving himself in his white t-shirt. I slightly flinched a bit at the noise.
As I've said, he's the strongest fighter and killer among us, even Sungyoon can barely control him.
He may only look like a really cute quiet boy, he's one of the scariest killers you've ever met.
All day, Seungmin would just stay in one of the rooms alone, training. No one dared to disturb him. All I know is he's training to make himself even stronger. He has a skill and he's developing on it.
One time, I accidentally went into the room Seungmin is in, and he was like a totally different person. At that time, he told me to fight him, and then beat me up so badly that everyone had to go into the room to stop him, then take me to the black market hospital. Ever since then, no one has ever thought of even touching that room's door when my brother is in there.
He apologized afterwards, claiming that he was too focused in training back then and thought I was an enemy.
I don't blame him, because I'm his sister, and he's actually a nice person. But with what he did to me, I can't imagine what will happen if other people are the ones who entered the room.
"Heard that you completed a mission with Joochan today?" He asked. I nodded.
"Anything suspicious you saw today?" He then questioned. I thought of the boy, but then I don't want to cause trouble, so I shook my head.
I should probably forget about the boy, I'm thinking too much.
"That's good, it's just that I have a feeling that something will happen. Go and do your homework, you still need to go to school tomorrow. I'll order pizza." Seungmin looked at the clock. It's 7pm.
Sometimes if it's late, we would eat in the base. We buy food from the restaurant downstairs and bring it to the base. The food is really good.
"Okay." I nodded, before going back to my room.
You may wonder why we became killers. In fact, this is a way to earn money and support ourselves, especially when our parents are no longer here. We have no one other than our team.
Every time I completed a mission, an amount of money will be transferred to my bank account, it's the money that the client paid along with the money the company paid, and that amount is not a small amount. So I can afford the things I want. But most importantly, I will donate half of the money, but it depends on whether there's someone in need.
As I took out my phone, I received a message from Joochan.
"Have you arrived home safely?"
I smiled. I'm happy that he actually cares.
"Yeah." I replied.
"Come to school early tomorrow."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I miss you." He answered. My mind got messed up for a second. My face heated up. But then I shook my head.
No way he'd actually mean it.
"..." I didn't know how to answer.
"Just kidding! We need to prepare for our arts test!"
I sighed, feeling relieved but also a bit disappointed. But I already know that Joochan is always so passionate about arts. And... I don't think I have feelings for him like that.
"Okay."
By the way, we have an arts test? I forgot about it. Oh well, I never put in effort anyways.
------------------------
The next day
I entered the noisy classroom. Even it's really irritating to the ears, I somehow like it better than the silence at home. That's why I kind of enjoy going to school early.
"What kind of arts test is it?" I asked as I sat down next to Joochan. He looked up from the drawing in his notebook.
"I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?" He asked, looking serious.
"Good news." I answered.
"The test is about sketching, which you're good at!" He said cheerfully.
"Bad news is?" I asked.
"The test is actually tomorrow." He replied. I widened my eyes and kicked his leg.
"OUCH!" He exclaimed. Oops.
"Did you forget that your strength is your weapon?! You're literally killing me!!!" He whisper yelled.
"Sorry." I laughed.
At this moment, the teacher came into the classroom. The class immediately lowered their volume, some people put their phones away.
"Go back to your seats." The teacher said. Even though people are still chatting, they slowly moved back to their original seats.
"Why are you so early today?" Some students asked. Our class teacher is a friendly teacher who can be childish at times. She doesn't mind chatting and having fun with students.
"I have something special to announce." Our teacher replied with a wide smile.
"Don't be joking, miss Jang." Some students frowned.
"It's good news!!" Miss Jang answered cheerfully. She glanced at the door.
"Class, we have a new student who'll join us starting from today. Let's welcome him in!" Miss Jang said with a cheerful smile as she stood up and went to the door. All of us were shocked by the news but clapped anyways.
"New student?!" Joochan whispered as he clapped.
"I know right." I answered. There are many students in our school who left to study abroad but there are not many students who transferred into our school.
A boy walked into the classroom and we started talking amongst ourselves, talking about him.
"He's cute!"
"Another good looking boy in our class starting from now."
"We're so damn lucky."
"Not bad, huh?" Joochan poked me with his elbow, looking at my reaction to the new student.
But I was completely shocked.
Because he's the boy I made eye contact with yesterday. I recognized him by his eyes.
"Hello! My name is Kim Jibeom and I'm from Busan! Nice to meet you." The boy said before bowing.
"Your Busan accent is cute." Miss Jang laughed a bit and Jibeom smiled shyly.
"I'll fix it!" He exclaimed and everyone laughed.
"Minkyung, you've seen him before?" Joochan noticed my weird reaction, and whispered.
I pretended to be confused and shook my head.
"It's alright, let's stay aware." He patted my back and I smiled.
"Where do you want to sit, Jibeom ah? We have many empty seats here." Miss Jang questioned.
Jibeom looked around the classroom. People all wanted him to sit near them.
For one second, he made eye contact with me, but as if nothing happened, he looked away, and turned back to Miss Jang.
"I don't know, miss Jang. Can you choose for me?" Jibeom asked innocently.
I can tell that many girls here already fell for him. Even though they all seem calm, they're probably dying on the inside over his cuteness. I have to admit that he's cute, too, especially when he smiles. But I have to stay aware.
"Hmm...let me see...." Miss Jang thought for a while.
"I know! Class, do you guys want a whole new seating plan?" She asked brightly and cheerfully.
"YES!!!!" Some students were so excited that they stood up and almost flipped their tables. They're either horribly awkward with their seat mate, or is left alone for god knows how long.
"NO!" Some of them have been sitting with their best friends or their crushes, and some have formed a whole squad since they sat near each other. They don't want to be separated.
"Okay let's do this! Come on guys, pack your stuff and stand up. We'll be doing this randomly." Miss Jang cheered.
"Oh come on!!!" We groaned. We thought we could have a chance of choosing the seats on our own.
We packed our bags and went to the back of the classroom.
Miss Jang will use the random number generator from the calculator, and when our class numbers appear on the calculator, miss Jang will call our names.
The first one to be called out will be sitting at the first seat at the first column counting from the right at the back of the classroom, then the second one will sit behind the first one and so on, until the first column is filled and miss Jang will move on to the second column.
Miss Jang started calling our names.
"When's the last time we've done this? 4 months ago?" Joochan chuckled.
"I don't know. But that's how you became my seat mate." I smiled.
Now I remembered. The last time Joochan transferred to our school is before our holiday. Miss Jang also rearranged the seats like this.
"Hong Joochan." After a while, miss Jang called.
"So fast?!" Joochan jumped before turning back to me.
"Guess we'll have to say goodbye, Minkyung." Joochan pretended to be sad.
"Not so fast, Joochan." I rolled my eyes. I leaned on the wall as I watched him walk to the second seat of the third column.
"Awww Minkyung you might not be able to sit with your boyfriend again. Don't be sad." Some girls came to comfort me. But in fact I'm totally fine, maybe I'm even a bit happy that no one will be screaming in my face again... this makes me want to laugh so badly.
"They're a couple?" At this moment, Jibeom came over as well and asked curiously.
"Yeah! Almost everyone knows that Minkyung and Joochan are a couple!" The girls all answered, excited that Jibeom is taking the initiative to talk to them.
"Hmm, interesting." He smiled, and leaned on the wall as well, standing next to me.
The girls left somewhere else to chat, while everyone else are chatting themselves. Jibeom and I looked at each other for a while.
"Hey." Jibeom suddenly said. I looked at him.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"Have we met before?" He asked, staring at me with his big eyes. I panicked on the inside but stayed calm.
"No, why would you ask that?" I smiled.
"Oh, nothing. I probably didn't see clearly last time." He smiled as well. Last time?
"Bae Minkyung." My name is called by miss Jang. I went to her.
"Where do I sit?" I asked.
"Here." She pointed at a seat. I jumped.
"OH MY GOD!!!!" Joochan screamed.
Guess what? We're seat mates again. We even sat at the same column as our previous seats. The only difference is that we moved one row forward.
"Ooooohhh~~~" The rest of the class cheered.
"Again?" Miss Jang frowned as she looked back and forth between us and her calculator.
"See, we met again." I smiled. Joochan and I shook hands.
"Well this time we're sitting at the second row, how great!" Joochan said sarcastically.
Suddenly, I feel someone sit down on the seat behind me. I turned around to see Jibeom smiling at me.
"Hi." He said cheerfully.
"Good to sit near you. But too bad we're now at the front." I smiled as well.
"So...is sitting with your boyfriend more important or sitting at the back more important?" Jibeom joked.
"At the back." Joochan and I answered in sync.
"Woah...you guys don't seem like a couple." Jibeom laughed.
"They don't have to act lovey dovey but we all know that they love each other." Jibeom's seat mate said.
"I see." Jibeom smiled.
"Jibeom ah, you seem happy around your neighbors." Miss Jang said as she walked over to us.
"Yeah, they're really nice." He said cheerfully.
"Take some time to fill in these forms and notices first. Then you can talk to them later." Miss Jang placed down a bunch of paper, and Jibeom pouted at the scene.
Many classmates "awww-ed" at his reaction. I just laughed, and took some of the papers to take a look.
"Oh, so these are the things we receive at the beginning of the school year." I nodded. I remember that big pile of books and papers.
"Which elective subject are you taking?" Joochan asked Jibeom.
"What are you guys taking? I feel like you guys are taking the same subject." Jibeom answered. We widened our eyes, because that's true.
"Visual arts." Starting to get aware, I carefully answered.
A thought suddenly hit me...
Is Jibeom really a normal student? Is it possible that he's a killer as well?
"Okay, I'll take visual arts too." Jibeom started filling in one of the forms.
"Why did you want to take the same subject as us?" Joochan is aware too, but his acting is more natural. He just laughed it off.
"I don't really know anyone here so might as well stick to you guys if you don't mind. Plus, I don't care about electives." Jibeom answered, not even looking up from his form. He didn't bother to observe what's around him, that's not what a killer will do.
Wait.
There's no way I can tell if he's a killer or not based on his actions at school. Just like Joochan and I, we're completely different people inside and outside school. Dammit.
---------------
"So that's how the test works. Starting from tomorrow you can start working on it and you have to submit it by the end of the school day. If you don't hand it in, you can't leave school. Is that clear?" Our arts teacher explained and asked.
"Yes." We nodded.
"Then that's the end of our class. You guys are dismissed." The teacher nodded and left the classroom.
After the teacher left, the arts students in the classroom started chatting, while the students from other elective subjects started to return to the classroom.
"She's crazy! That's a lot of work and she expects us to hand it in by the end of tomorrow?" Joochan asked, shocked.
"I know right. And she gave us 5 topics for preparation and only 1 will be tested. I'm so doomed tomorrow." I answered with a sigh.
"Nobody said that we can't start today." Suddenly, Jibeom said. We turned around to look at him.
"Really? Are you really going to prepare all 5 topics or are you doing this by luck?" Joochan frowned.
"I know which topic will be tested." Jibeom shrugged, leaning back on his chair. I raised an eyebrow.
"Really? Which one is it?" I asked. He held out his hand, meaning that I need to pass my preparation worksheet to him. I gave it to him.
He took the paper and circled a topic with his pencil.
"I'm absolutely sure." He said as he gave me back my paper. I only stared at him, not believing him.
At this moment, miss Jang came in to dismiss the class.
"If you're not going to believe me, then I can't do anything about it. Good luck, see you tomorrow." Jibeom smiled as he carried his bag and stood up, leaving the classroom.
Joochan and I exchanged looks.
"Let's go to the stationery shop and get the arts supplies..." Joochan said.
"Sure..." I answered.
Both of us left school to get art supplies at the mall near the school.
"I think something might be wrong about Jibeom." I spoke as both of us are finally left alone.
"No, something IS wrong about him." Joochan answered.
"What if he's a killer?" I asked. Joochan stayed quiet for a while.
"We won't find out until he actually does something. What if he only does planning just like Donghyun?" He asked back. I shook my head. First, that's not likely to be true, two, Donghyun is a killer, too.
"He won't cause any trouble at school, right?" I sighed.
"He may not but it's hard to say... this is our first time we encountered killers outside of our groups and this isn't normal...we're not supposed to meet but only know each other's existence." Joochan said, looking serious.
"Are we the only ones having weird situations like this? What if the others in the base have met other killers too?" I asked.
"Let's ask them." He nodded.
After getting the art supplies, we went straight to the base.