Byul stands with her back against the wall, watching as they demonstrate to her basic martial art skills, with San and Jongho facing each other. They can't tell who's winning because both have their own plus points; the youngest relies on his strength while the older relies on speed.

Sweat glistens on both of their faces as again they head towards each other, but unfortunately Jongho misses a step as he trips over the training mat. San takes this opportunity to slam the back of his leg at the area between the former's shoulder blades, slamming him down onto the floor. Jongho raises up his hand, admitting defeat.

"That's what we usually do for beginners," San says, helping Jongho to stand up. "Unless you're ready to do something more complex."

Byul pushes herself off the wall and walks to the stand that stores different kind of combat weapons; from melee, range to flexible weapons. Her fingers dance across the choices of weapons, thinking of which one she'd curl her fingers around. The rest eye her as her hand stops on the blunt-ended wooden sticks, automatically stepping back as she takes one and swings it in a half-arch, pointing one end towards Hongjoong.

"Up for a match?" she invites before throwing the stick to him. He catches it swiftly, tilting his head towards the training mat.

"She's not even restraining herself and going straight for the captain," Yeosang comments. "This should be interesting."

She plucks one stick from the stand, walks with her head down to stand in front of Hongjoong, who has his stance ready as he tightens the grip around the stick. She seems to stumble around for a moment before she gets to the position where she would be face to face with him. She rests one end of the stick on the ground, wrapping her hands on the other and resting her chin against her hands.

"I don't discriminate," Hongjoong says, kicking the stick so it's launched off the ground, catching it mid-air. "Whether you're a beginner or not," he holds it horizontally, "my opponents are all the same to me."

"One thing about you, Mr. Kim, is that you've been offending me a lot ever since the beginning. I get where you're coming from since you're a man of many talents," she expresses, earning an 'ooh' from both Wooyoung and San as they look on, impressed. "But too bad you ruined an innocent girl's life because of you can't keep your mouth shut."

"Oh snap," Seonghwa hisses. "They haven't even started but it's getting hot in here."

"Less talking, more action then." Hongjoong strikes, in hopes of taking her by surprise at his sudden attack but she is all prepared as she slides backwards on the mat, the blunt end missing from driving into her skull just by a few inches.

She hits him from the side using the middle part of her stick, causing him to loosen his grip on his weapon. As if in slow motion, she throws her weapon in the air, using the few seconds of her free hands to steal from his loosened grip and lets the one in the air fall rightfully into her hand. She spins on her heel to give a spinning kick to his torso, and he falls down onto the mat, skidding before he rams sideways into the foam-padded wall. She crosses one end of the weapon over the other, pointing them towards him.

With all of them slack-jawed with the short but impactful show, Mingi and Yeosang are the first to clap their hands before they are joined in by the oldest, their applause resonating in the training room. San does little to hide how proud he is seeing her bringing down Hongjoong without much fuss.

Yunho has been quiet since they started the training, as he feels that there's a spark igniting from one end of a severed memory as he watches her fighting style. There are subtle differences in how she brings herself from his memories of Lee Eunbi, but he's not ready to bring down his theory that this girl right here just might be Hwayoung's mother.

Throwing away the sticks onto the ground, she stretches out a hand to help Hongjoong up, who has yet to register that he had lost an impromptu match against Byul. With a grunt he gets up, hiding the embarrassment he felt as a small smile plays on Seonghwa's lips, looking like he's about to jeer at him for his loss.

"Hongjoong is one of the best when it comes to weapons," Yeosang comments. "And you beat up his ass in one try. What the heck just happened?"

"Just luck, probably," she shrugs, but she doesn't deny the slight smirk that creeps up on her face. "I'm not really good at close-range combat."

"You said you learnt taekwondo, didn't you?" Mingi butts in, picking up the sticks and stowing them away. "You basically slammed Yunho on the ground when you first came to the cafe. Black belt?"

"Yeah," she says sheepishly.

"San's a black belt too, a 3rd dan," Wooyoung says, looking too proud as he loops an arm around his team member's waist, hugging him close. "Which dan are you?"

"Only the second one," she says humbly, baring her teeth. "Not a match for San."

"Are you sure you're not a match?" San asks, lifting up his eyebrows partially. "Aren't you being too humble Ms. Han? Look at our leader, he's too quiet ever since you beat him. Come on, let's see if you're really no match for me."

"I let her win on purpose," Hongjoong defends himself, huffing. "I didn't want her to cry again because she's been doing that too much."

"Sure, Hongjoong."

San goes over to the metal stand and snatches off two protective body gears, giving one to Byul who catches it with her left hand. He goes over to her and without being asked he helps her to wear the headgear, with Yunho rolling his eyes until he could see the back of his head. San is making too obvious that he has taken a liking to her, while Yunho knows that he has no rights to stop him from making a move.

With the protective gear on, Byul waddles over to the centre of the practice ground again, looking like a cute penguin as she waits for him to get ready, the knots of his protective body gear being made up by Wooyoung. As they stand facing each other, she looks unsure on how she should proceed with her stance that San lowers down his fists and observes her worriedly.

"What's wrong? Not feeling well?"

"No," she answers simply, and turns to a question, "how far can I go?"

He shrugs, "As far as you can."

"Are you sure?" she squeaks.

"Yeah."

San ends up regretting his decision to let her go as far as she can, because by the end of their sparring session he is sprawled on the floor, with Wooyoung and Mingi rushing to his side when they see that he was not moving. She had let him land the first kick on the pad on her body - the only attack she had allowed herself to receive - as she retaliated and showered multiple kicks to him, sending him stumbling backwards before she launched herself off the ground and landed a solid kick against his chest, putting the session to a close.

"Okay now I'm scared," Jongho vocalizes as he stands behind Seonghwa. "She's not human."

San heaves himself up, stumbling around as he shakes his head, trying to ground himself back to reality. Even with the protective gear around his torso, he could feel the power she delivered through her kicks. He unties and takes off his gear, wiping the sweat drenching his face.

He breathes, "What are you? Are you sure you're only a 2nd dan black belt?"

Byul nods, indifferent towards their changing impression of her. She looks around, completely unaware of what exactly she had demonstrated towards them.

"You do know what you've just shown us, don't you?" Jongho asks, hanging onto Seonghwa's arm. "We trained for years yet you beat us up like it's your everyday exercise. It's either you're really skilled or you just underwent the same training as us." There's a skeptical glint in his eyes as he asks the question, but Hongjoong is quick to shut him off.

"It's probably just luck," Hongjoong glances at her, his intention unclear. "I don't think we've met before this, right?"

"Of course, it's all luck," she emphasizes, staring at Hongjoong. "We've never met before. I'm just a normal girl from Utopia district; I'm not some sort of sophisticated trainee like any of you."

"I see," San vocalizes. "Don't you guys think that she's similar to Lee Eunbi, was it Trainee #899?" He scans for her reaction, hoping that the name and number would trigger anything inside her.

Much to the disappointment and relief of some, Byul doesn't give any reaction towards the name or trainee number. Her face maintains the same expression she had after she finished sparring with San.

"Lee Eunbi?" she purses her mouth after some uncomfortable silence, then asks, "Is she one of your acquaintances?"

"She's Hwayoung's mother," Yunho interjects, his voice hard. He looks calm, but there's a notable difference in his composure. He's angry at San for bringing her name up, and he's angry at himself for wishing that it is somewhat true. "She was a trainee."

"That's enough," Seonghwa makes a point to take the gear from Byul before giving them to San, pushing him away and signalling with his eyes that he's currently being too pushy. "You've proven to us that you're good in combating skills, what about we test your aim next?" He pulls Wooyoung with him and shoves him towards her. "What should we start with; some good old darts, arrows or guns?"

"There must be one thing you're not good at, come on. It's not fair if you're good at everything, what does that make us?" Yeosang says jokingly.

Wooyoung brings out the target board with the darts, fixing the board at a suitable distance and giving them to Byul. They all step back, taking the necessary precautions just in case any darts go astray. She takes no offence in this, merely weighing down the darts in her left hand before taking one with the other. She scrutinizes the dart in her hand, feeling the weight and groove of the object.

After taking a long time with the first dart she throws back her hand, aims and releases the darts consecutively, letting them plant deeply into the board. She takes one look at the board with the planted darts and nods once in satisfaction.

Yeosang snorts and says, "You're really proud of that? See, I told you that there must be one thing she's bad at."

On the board, none of the darts have hit bullseye, or even the outer ring around the bullseye. She has only managed to land the darts on the area where she would only achieve single points, and even those are not much.

"Kang Yeosang, I told you to stop being so mean to her," the oldest chastises before turning to Byul, "Now Byul, don't worry, there's nothing to be ashamed of. You're good at fighting with your bare hands and weapons, that's more than enough." He puts both palms together and walks over to the board, intending to pluck the darts off. He stands in front of the boards and his head tilts to the side as he observes every single dart. He counts the darts and see where they actually landed and he blinks in disbelief over what he's seeing. "It's-"

"What's the matter?" Wooyoung joins in beside Seonghwa, observing the board together, trying to understand why the oldest looks hesitant as he looks at the target. His mouth parts slightly as he sees the dart, coming to a realization why the latter has stopped talking. He lifts up a finger, traces the darts on the board. "You didn't hit any high targets..." he trails off, "you did it on purpose didn't you?"

She wordlessly walks over to the board and plucks the darts. "Maybe." She closes her palm around the darts and walks over to the throwing point again and mulls, "You guys said that I must be bad at at least one thing, so I'm just giving you that." She throws the darts again, this time letting them focus on the bullseye. Silence accompanies them as they fail to react to her skills, not being able to witness anything like this before this.

"That's not fair!" Yeosang shrieks, walking over to Byul and putting an arm around her neck, pulling her down and ruffling her hair. "Even at KTC we had to be separated into different Aeons, imagine if she were a trainee there, they would have a hard time trying to sort her into one."

Yunho is about to step up to pry away Yeosang from her, but stops as she takes the lead first.

She gives a reply to him by driving her elbow into his stomach and pushing him off, letting him lay flat on the training mat. "I told you I wasn't a trainee there, I don't even know what the frick is an Aeon. I don't know who Lee Eunbi is, I've never met any of you." She turns to the rest of the boys and asks, "Is there anything else you want me to prove to you?"

Hongjoong eyes her and decides, "You're in, but only for this mission. I'll see whether I'll decide to keep you or not after that."

Wooyoung and Seonghwa clap excitedly at the leader's decision, with Yeosang and Mingi quickly pushing her into the meeting room. They sit her down, letting her face the screen and switching on the projector. The rest file into the meeting room, taking a seat around her as she's at the centre.

She complains, "If you haven't noticed I'm currently sweating a lot, so can I at least take a shower before we proceed?"

"We'll do that in a while, since Hwayoung is about to finish with kindergarten anyway," Wooyoung replies, nodding his head. "Don't worry, it's just some brief introduction."

Mingi displays a single page on the screen, showing what seems like a blank form with multiple sections. "Since you're going to be a part of us, at least for the time being, you will have to learn about how we deal with different situations, some basic information about our team members and of course, the codes that we use during our missions. Are there any questions so far?"

She raises up her hand. "You're all given codenames when you carry out the mission, do I get one too?"

"Of course, you have to get one and the best part is, you get to choose what your codename is. That's where we get to the first part of this staging; do you have any name that comes to your mind? Pick a pretty one because you see, I'm starting to regret my decision of having Sunfish as my codename. Pretty sure some of us regret our decisions too."

"How about Star? That sounds like a nice one," Wooyoung suggests, only to be met with a glaring Yunho. "What? It's a good name."

"If you're trying to make it obvious that Star is Byul, I don't even know what to say," Yunho replies. It's not that he's more concerned of the codename being a sure sign that 'Star' is Byul, but the nickname is what makes him anxious. He doesn't want to be reminded of that, when he's hanging on to a weak hope that Byul might be Eunbi.

"How about Aurora?" Jongho asks. "I've always wanted to have an Aurora on our team but no one wanted to take it."

"That's pretty," she agrees immediately. "I'll take Aurora, if that's okay with the rest of you?"

They murmur in agreement, bringing the session to another part. Mingi points to the form on the screen, explaining every part of the form.

"Before we were given permission to form a team and start carrying out our missions, we had to fill in this form with our details. The forms are submitted to KTC, but of course, we won't do that for you because essentially," he takes a deep breath, reminding everyone how Byul started getting involved with them, "you're not supposed to be here."

She raises up her hand again, earning permission from Mingi to ask another question. "I know that this might seem a bit too much to ask, but is it fine if I know a bit of background on this... Bifidensis and KTC or whatever organization you're involved in? Maybe some information on each of you and how you got involved with this team?"

"So basically, you want to know how we became agents?"

She nods, suddenly unsure of herself. She didn't want to provoke anything within them, but she lets her question hang in the air, waiting for any one of them to answer. "You told that you are only the surface of what's more repulsive beneath, Seonghwa. How bad is it until anyone that knows of your identities need to be eliminated? You're not just a simple team formed because of some camaraderie of wanting to gain money and carry out the jobs, so how far does it go?"

Hongjoong peers at her. Both opposing parties seem to be playing the game to steer it in their favour; they want to prove whether Byul is Lee Eunbi or not, but Byul is claiming that she's not, feigning ignorance towards the mention of the dead trainee. He notices how Yunho has been very fidgety ever since he laid out the possibility that she could be in fact, Hwayoung's mother.

How far can the truth hide itself? How far can you lie, pretending that not all is based on mere destiny?

Truthfully, Hongjoong's scared the rest of the boys would start unravelling the truth. If Han Byul is indeed Lee Eunbi, they would find out that Hongjoong had been lying to them all along, keeping secrets that he hoped he would not have to say out loud. There was a reason why he was appointed as the leader and there was a reason why these were the particular members were chosen. He knew exactly why, but none of the others know.

They weren't just simple trainees who somehow got lucky that they got picked earlier to be released from KTC. They are the players in a much bigger mission, more significant that would change the course of KTC. If they ever find out why they were really picked to be a part of ATEEZ and that he had been hiding the fact from them, they might take it in their stride.

The problem that's making him feel guilty about the increasing days he keeps the truth from them is that some of them might not even make it out alive.

---

[A/N: Please read;

Okay so--- I know that sometimes I update frequently and it's totally understandable that some of you hoped I could update like that all the time. But I'm really sorry because sometimes life and mental health get in the way and trying to come up with a chapter at those times can be hard :(

There might be some time that I could update frequently, or there might even be some time that I can't come up with new chapters simply because I'm too busy with uni so I can't find the time to sit down and write. I appreciate you guys so much; I really wish I could update a lot but I'm currently drowning in a mountain of work. Don't worry, I'll always try to find time to write, because without you guys this story won't go anywhere <3

I'm at the crucial point of my semester but I'll try to keep the regular updates coming! I hope that you guys can understand because gahhh I love you guys so much and I wouldn't want to disappoint any of you TT

With that said, thank you for reading and I love every single one of you <3 please take care of yourself and your health!

Also, happy birthday to ATINYs, to many more years to come!

I love all of you, my stars <3]