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It's been a few weeks since Mari had last seen San at the school. She had learned to deal with things on her own, while Wooyoung slowly began to jump back into the flow of things. Every so often she'd meet Wooyoung in the courtyard during her lunch break, sitting with him in the far corners of the school. He never did it before, but he seemed to sense her loneliness and tried to join her whenever he got the chance. They'd talk while he sat on the table after jumping a gate that surrounded the school, Mari would share her very pitiful lunch with him if it was any good.

The two would get stared at for a while, seeing as Wooyoung didn't attend. He was a complete stranger on the school grounds and yet no one found out about it. A few days had passed of him hopping the gate until one of the teachers found out about his antics. They chased him away and Mari was given detention for bringing a stranger onto school grounds. After that, the school was forced into a dress code to differentiate between students and strangers. Now they looked like all the other stereotypical schools: collared shirts, plaid skirts for girls, long (or short) black pants for boys... it made her want to vomit.

That didn't mean Wooyoung would stop jumping the gate. The moment San would return, the two would be sharing clothes so that they could sneak him inside. Mari also noticed that a certain trio of boys had refused to comply with the dress code unlike everyone else. Sure they had their black pants and collared shirts but they stood out compared to everyone else. Wildly colored hair, piercings littering their ears, black leather jackets that hung off their shoulders. The number of times Mari would look up from her work to find some posse of girls drooling over them was disgusting.

And yet every time they passed by, one of them would suddenly slow his pace down. He'd catch her eye every time, the newly dyed blond hair of his falling into his eyes as he flashed a mischievous smile. Mari would ignore it if she had the chance, but how could she when a girl would nearly pass out at his gaze? How could she when she heard jealous boys whisper and murmur about his privilege and presence? She complained about it to Wooyoung all the time. She could barely focus in class because everyone would immediately redirect their attention towards him. All she wanted was a passing grade to get through her senior year!

She'd have to learn to deal with it when there were numerous people coming up to her almost every day. It was an odd change, no one ever tried to speak to her before. The girl would always radiate an aura not to be messed with in a desperate attempt to keep herself away from any sort of harm. Yet every other day she had a student walk up to her cautious and ask her questions about her other partner crime. They all wanted to know about San's whereabouts as his countless absences were adding up the longer he was away.

She didn't know why they were coming to her though, had San spoken about her when they weren't together? Or maybe she could be seen after school walking home with him. Honestly, she didn't know. They never specified how they had caught wind of Mari's existence. It didn't seem like they wanted to either. All they would do was come up to her before class or in the hallways, asking her millions of questions about her friend's existence. "You're Mari, right? Do you know where San is? What's he doing? Why isn't he coming to school?" Those were the things they'd bombard her with.

They seemed like genuine questions they were asking, she didn't sense any sort of malicious intent behind their words. But even so, she couldn't trust them, especially with such sensitive information like where San was and what he was doing. So all Mari could do was flash them a stiff smile and shoo them away as she said, "He's just sick. He caught something contagious so he's gonna be out for a little bit. I'll tell him you were asking about him if I ever see him!" Though her words only temporarily soothed their worries, as every few days they'd come back to check on San.

She was getting sick of it, to be honest. Mari had no privacy anymore when she was constantly running away from concerned friends she didn't know about. Was San more social than she originally thought he was? She knew he was friendly when he liked to be, but friendly enough to have dozens of people ask about him? Mari was this close to putting up a sign on her back to stop asking her questions. She was tired of listening to them already! Why couldn't people just leave her alone after she answered their questions?!

"You okay, Mari?" Wooyoung's voice snapped her out of her daze, suddenly back in reality. The two stood separated by the gate, staring at each other through the closely-knit bars that kept him from entering the school. Her friend glanced in between the bars, trying to urge her to speak out about what was bothering her. With his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket he spoke again, "Is something bothering you...? You seem really off today. Wait, wait! Don't tell me... it's that motorcycle boy you were talking about wasn't it?"

She rolled her eyes at the thought of Hongjoong, leaning up against the gate and sliding down to the ground. "While he makes up a good portion of my problems, it's not for once. It's really San's awfully desperate friends he's made here." She confessed, looking up at Wooyoung to invite him down. The boy dropped to the ground almost immediately, sticking his arms through the bars so that he has a least some presence of being in there with her. "It's been how many weeks since San is out? I don't even remember, but it's been a while. And his little friend group constantly come to me for answers!"

"Technically you do have the answers," The boy snickered, retracting his hand from the bars as soon as she reached over to slap them. "I'm serious! You do! You just can't reveal it to them as that would put both you and San in a very bad and vulnerable situation. By the look on your face, you've also lied as many times as you can, and it doesn't seem to be working." Mari groaned as she covered her face with her hands. What was she going to do? At this point, nothing until San came back!

"Do you know when he'll be coming back...? It doesn't even need to be exact." She begged, turning around to face him. Mari put on her best puppy eyes to try and sway Wooyoung, know he had a soft spot for things like that. The boy immediately reacted, covering his eyes so that he wouldn't see her. "Please, Wooyoung? You hang around my dad a lot more than I do, you know when he'll off duty right? You'll help me because we're best friends right?"

Wooyoung let out a muffled scream before turning to Mari with a content expression. "Fine." The girl jumped up, celebrating her victory before her friend pulled her right back down to the ground. "However, you have to get me a male uniform from your school right afterward so I can go in and out whenever I want. If you do that for me, I'll tell you what your father has planned. Deal?" He asked her, a mischievous smile on his face as proposed the idea to her. She rolled her eyes and nodded, agreeing to it quickly so that she could get the information she wanted.

He sat back on the ground, thinking hard on any information his brain had retained. "Your mom is a trooper, I'll tell you that. Despite being shot in an almost fatal area, she's recovering rather fast. While I'm sure your father would like to keep security around her at all times, but he can't deny the fact she's recovering. So I believe he said everyone guarding her may be dropped from their duties later this week or the next." Wooyoung informed her, recalling all the intel he had to give her. She let out a sigh of relief. Finally, San would be returning to her side once again.

Wounds usually don't take weeks upon weeks to heal, however, the mafia had to take extra caution. They couldn't go to hospitals like regular people since they were wanted by the justice system at all times. So they had to use some sort of underground doctor, who illegally did their job for criminals. However, they were hard to find so it took a while for the Seo Faction to give get a hold of one. The Faction wasn't trained in medicine, so they couldn't do anything for her mother while a doctor had finally shown up.

"Now, my payment," Wooyoung smiled at her innocently, holding his hands out to her. Mari blinked a couple of times before realizing what he meant, frowning at the realization. Why couldn't he wait till San came back? He said it himself, he comes back later this week or the week after. They can share each other's clothes, it's not like they've never done that before. "Go, Mari, go fulfill your part of the deal. Or do you want me to tell your father all your deepest darkest secrets? I'm a box full of surprises just waiting for him to hear!"

"Okay, okay!" Mari hissed, getting off the ground reluctantly. The boy gave her a blinding smile once more, trying to radiate a friendly aura to get her going. She rolled her eyes as she began to walk away, fetching the uniform Wooyoung had asked for. "Now go home! If someone catches you loitering around here while I'm gone you'll get the cops called on you. It'd be your second offense for trespassing!" She turned around to flash him the same smile he had given her, and the boy snorted in response as he began to leave the gate.

Mari pushed open the door to the school, entering through the back door. She knew exactly where she was, as she had come this way when she was fleeing detention that one day. Oddly enough while she was trekking the back way, she didn't see the trio of black motorcycles like last time. Either way, were parked somewhere else or they weren't here. It didn't really matter to her though, she was on a mission to retrieve an extra uniform for Wooyoung. She could only guess that had leftovers in the administration office.

"Excuse me? Are you Mari?" The girl turned around at the mentioning of her name, stopping in her tracks to find who was calling her. Behind her stood two students, glancing at her in expectation. One of them was a boy who towered over her like a giant, running his hands through the bright red hair that hung in front of his eyes. Next to him a girl, her eyes scanning Mari like she was some sort of machine. Though the hostile vibe she was giving her quickly dissipated once Mari nodded her head, giving them confirmation on who she was.

"Are you here to ask me about San?" The girl asked them, resisting a frustrated groan that wanted to escape her mouth. Instead, she left out a huff as she shrugged her shoulders with an annoyed expression dawning her face. "If you are, I've told everyone already. You can wait at least one week for him to come back instead of bothering me? I have other things to do right now." Mari told them, marching away down the hall to get as far away from as possible. Maybe that was a little too aggressive, but she was tired of being asked about San. They can wait for him to come back instead of bothering other people about it!

"Actually we aren't here for him. We're here for you." The tall boy spoke, catching her off guard with his voice. Based upon his appearance, Mari hadn't expected his voice to boom as loudly and deep as it did. She felt like she was going to be thrown off balance because of it. "If you're going somewhere, then we can talk and walk at the same time. I don't want to be a nuisance. I just wanted to talk to you, Hongjoong said it'd be a good idea to talk to you about it anyway."

She almost tripped over her own two feet at the mentioning of Hongjoong's name. Of course, he was behind something, the boy always found a way to bother her one way or another. "Who are you? The fact that you know Hongjoong is a lot more disturbing to me than it really needs to be." Mari asked him, glancing between the girl and boy cautiously. The girl scoffed at her words, crossing her arms as she made her best effort to keep up with the two.

"You don't know? He's Song Mingi. Probably the most popular junior there is at the moment. He plans the greatest parties this school has ever seen, everyone wants to go to his parties. Even college students will go if they have an invite!" The girl explained, a cocky expression on her face. The said boy snorted in response, looking away and scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. The praise she was giving him seemed to make him flustered and Mari couldn't help but wonder if she was just exaggerating.

He seemed so awkward, was he really this legendary party planner she was making him out to be? "Right, right... a junior with really good parties. So you must know Hongjoong through those parties." Mari questioned him. Mingi thought about what he was going to say next as if his history with the wannabe badboy was much more complicated than she was making it. "And you never explained who you were and your relationship with him. For all, I know you could be bluffing as hard as you possibly can right now."

The girl seemed slightly offended by her words but shook it off like it was nothing. "Me? Lee Jaerin, is my name. My father is the CEO of a private corporation and works in cooperation with my mother, they know Hongjoong parents. We do business with them when needed since we are fairly big stockholders." She boasted, almost as if she had been waiting for the chance to brag about how well off she was. Mari nodded in response to her life story, only needing two of the details that the girl has said. She shrugged past it, though, as Mingi suddenly spoke up.

"Anyways... I wanted to invite you to one of my parties I'm holding this weekend." Mingi offered as the trio got closer to the administration office. Mari felt her heartbeat race at the sudden thought but kept a straight face on the outside. Another party? It sounded like the heavens were after her neck if they were trying to send her straight back to somewhere she didn't want to be. The masquerade was formal, sure, but it had gotten crashed and ruined so easily. Who said it couldn't happen to a high school party?

"Hongjoong had told me to invite you, he said you seemed really stiff and needed to loosen up." Mari narrowed her eyes at Mingi, letting his words sink in as he spoke. So that's what that boy thought about her, huh? He was going to regret ever saying that behind her back. "I also wanted to invite you too, myself. I've seen you during the breaks sometimes and it doesn't seem like you get out. That San guy... he's in one of my classes and he talked about you a lot! So while I was going to at first invite San only... I think you should come too."

"You should go," Jaerin advised, giving her a more friendly smile than before. "I'm telling you, Mingi's parties are the greatest. The fact that you're being personally invited by not just him, but Hongjoong as well, is an honor you shouldn't slip up. It's also a great way to make connections to others with power, and you want power when you get older... right?" She asked her, clearly unaware of Mari's position in life in general. The girl scoffed at Jaerin's advice, she was looking down on her. She could just feel it.

"Okay." Mari agreed, stopping right in front of the administration office to face them both. "I'll go to this party or whatever since I know that wannabe badboy will bother me until I do. I'll "loosen up" and "make connections" too if what you want from me. After this, don't bother me anymore. I have more important things to do than attend a high school party." With that, the two students smiled at her in response. A little too sweet to be anything bad, yet a little too bitter to be something good either.

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