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When the girl had left the manor, the afternoon was upon her. The sky was turning into its natural painting of orange and yellows as the sun slowly fell into its slumber. It's a shame how she didn't really pay attention to the wonder that Mother Nature was presenting her, but she was distracted. Mari was fleeing from problems as fast as her legs decided to take her and her eyes were being blinded with hot tears that threatened to fall. Despite the clear skies that hung above her, there was a storm of emotions and thoughts in her head that she just couldn't get rid of.

Hence her running, desperately hoping that the farther she got from the source of the problem, the clearer her mind would become. By the time she had finally given her legs a break, the dark blue night was hovering over her. The stars were shining just a bit brighter than before, and the moon was the only thing accompanying her on her flee. Mari's knees had hit the concrete sidewalk hard, bruising them a little harshly on contact. She didn't even notice though, not when her body was releasing all sorts of emotions she didn't even know she was capable of.

With nobody around to within it, she broke down. The small little droplets of tears that were spilling while she was running had suddenly come out her eyes like a flood. She sat there on the sidewalk, sobbing her little heart out without hesitation. Mari unintentionally was handing herself and feelings to bystanders on a silver platter. She tried to hide just in case anyone was around, dropping her head into her arms and using her hair to hide her face. But it wasn't going to help Mari when she was having trouble catching her own breath in the middle of her weeps, making her crying noisy and bothersome. Thankfully, it was the middle of the night.

Somehow, someway, she found herself stumbling towards a children's playground. It had all the classic playground equipment: swings, slides, etc. all of it was going unused, seeing as the target demographic should be inside and sleeping at night time hours. Mari didn't know what compelled her to, but she ended up walking towards it, using as her temporary hideaway from the public. People usually steered clear of playgrounds at night, fearing the eerie and scary horrors it radiated around that time. But, to Mari, it simply was illuminated by the night lights, making it look more like heaven than anywhere else she passed by.

So Mari sat in the tunnel tube of a children's playground, her legs pulled up close to her as she stared at the small window that was built into its plastic walls. She had no clue how she was able to fit inside, these tunnels were supposed to be for children in elementary and below. Those are all relatively small people that can easily slip through things. Mari was an eighteen-year-old girl who had reached the average of a woman by now. Climbing inside should have felt impossible, but she was able to get inside anyways.

She had been sitting in the tube for a while now, she had lost track of exactly how long it had been. It wasn't like Mari was really paying attention to the time though, she was too busy wallowing in her thoughts and trying to pull herself out of the vulnerable state she was in. One part of her was furious, having acknowledged the situation and wanting to jump up and take action right at that second. Yet another part of her was tugging Mari down, almost forcing her to stay in the mood she was in. Both sides were clashes furiously, and the only product of it was fiercely hot tears that ran down her cheeks.

Yet before they could even fall, she heard the rumbling of some sort, slowly getting louder as it inched closer to her location. It sounded like the engine of a vehicle, rushing to its next destination as fast as it could. Mari rubbed her eyes aggressively, trying to get rid of the tear stains and the droplets as she peered out the small window in the tube. She could barely see, the built-in window just too small to give her a good view of what was going on. All she saw was a motorcycle screeching against the asphalt road, attempting a wild turn that would be hard to pull off. It quickly zoomed out of her line of sight, but not long after did she hear metal clash with metal and a heavy thud on the ground.

Out of a sudden impulse and panic, Mari struggled to climb out of the tube to find the stranger. The crash was loud, and it didn't sound like it was too nice to the rider on the bike. She stumbled out of the playground toy, hitting her head on the exit as she rushed to get out. The girl winced at the pain, rubbing her head softly as she stood upon the lookout. Her eyes trailed off to the sidewalk, where the fallen motorcycle laid and its rider. She heard their barely verbal groans as they struggled to get off the ground, trying to push their body to move as fast as their mind was running.

She opened her mouth to call out to them, trying to make sure the stranger didn't suffer any major injuries. Though Mari placed a hand over her mouth before she could say anything, her eyes widening in pure shock and tried to not give herself away. The stranger practically ripped their helmet off, revealing the awfully familiar blue-headed boy she knew all too well at this point. Hongjoong's face was littered with cuts and scratches, maybe a bit of blood trickling down a cut on his eyebrow. He hissed as he took off one of the leather gloves on his left hand, showing off a fresh new and ugly bruise on the side of it.

"Are you fucking crazy?! Again?" She couldn't help but yell, jumping up from her hiding spot. This was the second time she had encountered him while he was injured in some way, shape or form. She feared that it might become a terrible habit of his, and Mari wanted nothing to do with it. Hongjoong jumped from her sudden scolding, clearly, he had never realized she was there. The two didn't have time for much conversation though, not when another rumble of a vehicle could be heard approaching them from a distance. Both teens turned their heads towards noises, confusing donning her face while horror donned Hongjoong's. "What was that?"

"Mari, get down! Or hide somewhere, right now!" He exclaimed, avoiding her question entirely as he tried to shoo her into her hiding place. She shot him a questioning glance, clearly not understanding what the problem was. It didn't seem like Hongjoong was going to give her answer though, in his disheveled and panicked state. It felt unreal to see him so freaked out and worried, running his hands through his hair like crazy as if that was going to ease his nerves. "Please, princess? I'll tell you everything in a second, I just don't want you to be involved in my mess."

He climbed up the ladder to the lookout, meeting her on the playground set and staring at her with pleading eyes. "Hongjoong what's—" she began, but didn't get a chance to finish her sentence. He placed his hand over her mouth, cutting off any speech for his sake. His eyes darted from the tube to her and gave her an apologetic smile as he shoved her right back where she came from. "Hey!" She managed to screech as she tumbled right back into her hiding spot. She didn't even have time to process all that was happening around her when Hongjoong hopped right inside of it with her. There was definitely not enough space for the two of them to be cramped in there together.

They were two nearly grown high school students struggling to fit in a tiny playground tube for elementary schoolers. She would have kicked him off of her if she had been given the space to do so, but Mari could barely even move from underneath Hongjoong. "Get off of me." She hissed, reaching her hands up to try and shove him out of the tube. If he was looking for some sort of hiding place, he'd have to try somewhere else. This playground was her safe haven, not his! Yet before her hands could even reach his chest, he grabbed her wrist with lightning-like speed and restrained her movements. "Let go—"

"Have you been crying?" He asked her, completely out of the blue. Mari literally froze in place at his words, the situation they were both in crashing down on her harder than it should have been. She was crying, though she thought it wasn't obvious enough for anyone to notice. Especially not in the middle of the night with a single street lamp illuminated the playground and it's accompanying sidewalk. Unless her eyes were rosy red from her tears. His now blue hair hung in front of his face, failing to mask the sheer amount of worry that was pouring out of his expression. "Mari... are you okay? Did something happen?"

She opened her mouth to talk, to let some excuse tumble out of her mouth so that she wouldn't have to tell the truth. Yet her quick thinking was failing her as if Hongjoong had triggered her reality to come back running back to her with sharp claws around her neck. "I...," Mari mumbled, tears threatening to well up in her eyes once more. Not now when Hongjoong, the last person she'd want to see how fragile she had become, was right in front of her. "Its complicated Hongjoong, can we please not talk about this now?."

He didn't even have time to reply to her, no matter how much he wanted to. The two could hear the loud screeching of tires rubbing against the asphalt road, not long after it was followed by the slamming of a car door as well. Hongjoong pressed himself against the side of the tube, trying his best not to make any movements that could the two away. Yet Mari could tell his body was shaking just slightly as if he was trying to hold in any sort of fear or anger within him. She peered closely at his face, grabbing it with her own hands and looking at the scratches he has sustained. He was littered with small scars and scratches, a bruised lip with blood trickling now his mouth, and nasty bleeding scar right on his left eyebrow.

The two of them could hear footsteps in the grass approaching as if the stranger was suspicious of their hiding place. Mari cautiously wiped the blood of the scar, earning a wince from Hongjoong and causing more blood to trickle down from his wound. "I know you're there," a voice spoke, sending a shiver down Mari's spine. The owner of the voice seemed cold like a winter storm, their voice refusing to present any sort of emotion to them. "There's no use in hiding. Your motorcycle is laying out for all to see." They told him, their words directed towards Hongjoong.

There was a lingering silence between them, both parties wanting to see who would make a move first. Hongjoong had attempted to give himself up, but Mari grabbed his shirt collar to keep him right where he was. She wasn't letting me go, not to some stranger that seemed to be the cause of the injuries. Mari may not have known Hongjoong for long, but she wasn't that big of a jerk to let someone run off into unknown danger. There was a deep sigh from the stranger that was trying to coax Hongjoong into coming with them, running their nails across the plastic tube to create a disarming noise.

"You can stay out for as long as you'd like. You've done it millions of times before I'm sure. But at the end of the day, you'll have to come home at one point. You can't bear to live without your family." The stranger spoke, walking away from the playground that the two just barely hid in. They practically held their breath as they waited for the stranger to leave. When he was far enough away from the playground. The two crowded around the small window built into the tube, only to catch the closing of a white Tesla door. They couldn't see into the car, it was too far away for them to see and the windows seemed like they were heavily tinted.

As soon as the car had pulled away from the playground, Mari turned to Hongjoong with neck-breaking speed. "Did they do that to you?" She asked him, catching the blue-haired boy completely off guard. He seemed confused by what she said so Mari graciously repeated her words. "Did that... stranger... do that to you? The injuries I mean. The last time you got hurt, you said you were jumped for trying to get your bike back. This guy doesn't seem entirely new to you... like he's apart of your family or something." She clarified, unable to take her eyes off of the scar on his eyebrow that refused to stop bleeding.

Hongjoong shrugged, trying to wipe off any blood that was leftover. "Not really. He's just my dad's... secretary I guess. He's supposed to be looking after me but I keep leaving without anyone knowing. He's a pain in the ass and likes to come searching for me when I'm alone with my usual friends beside me." He replied, dodging Mari's questions about his injuries like an oncoming bullet. Before she had a chance to get the answer out of him, he grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to make eye contact with him. "What about you though? Who made you cry? Tell me their name, address, and phone number and I'll kill them."

Mari snorted, a low laugh escaping her mouth but it wasn't enough to make the storm clouds in her head go away. "Like I said, it's complicated. No one specifically made me feel the way I do. It's that... stuff happened at home. And I ran away from it. Can you believe this is the first time I've ever cried? This is a humiliating feeling really." She suddenly blurted, talking to him as if he had been a close friend of hers for years. It was weird how she had gone from loathing him to feeling like his presence belonged with hers.

Hongjoong nodded at her words, both of them falling silent as they were stuck in thought. The two of them were running away from something or someone, trying to escape problems they weren't ready to tackle. Yet somehow, no matter how different the situations were, they had ended up finding each other again. Whether it was intentional by fate or a complete coincidence, they'd never really know. "You wanna run away from our problems, princess? But like, together this time, I feel like we both need to just have some fun for once. My week has been hell, yours must have been hell after Mingi's party, so let's do something stupid. But fun, of course."

She raised an eyebrow as she carefully listened to his words. Mingi's party? How did he know she was there. Mari had never seen him to her knowledge, but she did blackout at one point. So... something must have happened at that party for him to bring that up. But she pushed past it, not wanting to destroy her brain over anything. "Alright then, wannabe badboy. What do you have in mind? There's only so much I can mentally prepare myself to do in the dead of the night, I will reject you if you say something stupid." He took her words into consideration, thinking carefully about what would come out of his mouth next.

"You've never had a tattoo before, have you? How do you feel about that?" Hongjoong asked her, rolling up his jacket sleeves to show off his own collection of ink on his skin. He had a sleeve of tattoos on his left arm, but the right was almost completely bare. It was a blank slate for anything to be written on it. "I know a guy that's still open around this time because he never sleeps, he usually does the ones I have now. If you're down, we could go get you you're first after I slap a bandaid on myself? I'll even match with you so you won't have to go through it alone either. Does that sound like a plan?"

Mari stares at his arms before looking down at her own, the clear difference between an almost totally painted canvas versus a blank one. Her father would kill her for going out with someone he didn't know and getting a tattoo. And without his permission no less. But... he was rather distracted right now. Everyone was distracted right now, and she needed one too to get through the rest of the night. "You know what, yeah. That does sound like a plan. As long as I get to pick what goes on my body though, I don't want to die of whatever pain you'd put me through." Hongjoong's mouth broke into a giddy smile as an excited laugh burst from him. Maybe this was the best decision she could have made all day.