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Mari glared lowly at the teachers in the room, her eyes watching them like a hawk. They didn't seem to be paying attention to her, conversing between each other and glancing towards her every so often. Their faces were filled with resentment and annoyance, having to deal with Mari once more in the after school hours. She was sent to detention for the nth time for her attitude towards the instructors and her clear disobedience to the rules of the school.

Plus the fact that she had been purposely skipping school for several days, they were getting rather tired of the girl's antics. Though they had no choice but to shelter Mari in their school, her father would make it absolutely impossible for them to suspend or expel her. The school's placement was perfect for her double life as a Seo Faction member and regular rambunctious teenager.

"When will you learn, Seo?" One of the teachers spoke, breaking out from the circle of instructors that were crowded in the corner of the room. "If you just did as told, you wouldn't be punished so often you know. I know you're as tired we are of these after school punishments." They tried to convince her, metaphorically on their knees and begging for her compliance.

She snorted at their pleading, shrugging her shoulders as she innocently batted her eyes at them. "Well... maybe if you just went ahead and curved my grades to a nice A and erased my currently horrible record, we could talk then?" The teacher's desperate expression quickly dropped into one of irritation, giving up their attempts at convincing her to change. "What? We both get what we want? You want me to be a good student, and I want to pass senior year! What a great deal, right?"

"There's no point in talking to her," A feminine voice taunted, crossing her arms as she narrowed her eyes toward Mari. She immediately recognized this teacher to be the one that sent her to detention a few months ago, the day she had first met Hongjoong and his wannabe bad boy crew. "It doesn't matter what you do, it's not going to change how she thinks. I honestly don't understand why our principal won't just expel her while we have the chance. She's detrimental to this school's reputation!"

"Oh my god, so mean," Mari mocked in the same tone, crossing her arms around his chest tightly and kicking her feet at the chair in front of her like a child. However, she fixed her face and attitude as she leaned towards the instructor, who instinctively leaned away from her. "If I'm so detrimental to this school's reputation then I wonder how bad you are!" She gasped, covering her mouth with a hysterically shocked expression on her face.

The teacher was fuming with anger, her ears turning bright red as she opened her mouth to retaliate. However, another adult quickly interfered, not wanting to write a report on a grown woman assaulting a teenage child. "Two hours, Seo. You're here for two hours. At least try and think about some solutions to your current problems, okay?" They asked, jingling the key to the room in their hands before the posse of educators left the room and closed it behind them.

Mari was left in detention with only one teacher who didn't seem to pay much attention to her, seemingly grading papers from their other more important students. There was no way of her escaping now that the teacher she was with seemed rather young and the keys to keep them locked inside were gone. Though that didn't bother Mari that much, the other teacher's words did.

Her current problems? Mari had to resist practically scoff in their faces. What did they think her main problems were? Her unwavering attitude towards the adults that ran the school? Her forever falling grades that would make it impossible for her to "thrive" once she finally reached senior graduation? She only ever cared about her school life because her mother and everyone in the Seo Faction knew how that turned out.

Her real problems were the ones that were buried deep in illegal territory, her mafia business so to say. With the Lee and Seo Faction allied with each other, Mari would be forced to see Jaerin a lot more often than she'd like. In fact, those who knew of her true position in the faction would be pushing her to keep up the bond the two mafias had at the moment. The Japanese Yakuza that they were allied with provided them with many more soldiers and weapons than they could imagine. The Lee Faction provided them with intel and territory that they previously didn't have access to.

With the Lee Faction on their side, they were several steps ahead of whatever the Kim Faction was planning next. While that sounded absolutely lovely to Mari in the long run, she couldn't stand even being in the same as Jaerin. The girl already knew she didn't like her since the moment she met her, but after Mingi's party she had this aching feeling in not only her head but her gut that Jaerin couldn't be trusted. She didn't know what happened at that party that led her to come to that conclusion, but she definitely knew it wasn't anything good.

Then there was the mere existence of Choi Jongho and his affiliation with not only the Utopia but with the Lee Faction. Mari didn't get the entire backstory on how Jongho became a Player of the Utopia, as that wasn't the focus of their miniature mission. However, his affiliation with being a member of the Lee Faction was rather questionable. She only wondered if that's why he didn't want to speak of the Utopia in the first place. Did he assume that the trio was going to relay the information back to the Lee faction themselves as if they themselves didn't know this information?

In addition to these questions, what was a Lee Faction member doing all alone by himself anyways? Members of that mafia usually moved in groups of at least three to give each other protection in less crowded areas. Jaerin could freely move about the private school because there are so many students and staff that attend it on a weekly basis. She needed no guard to keep her safe when it would be too obvious to attack her in a group of not just people, but children so to say. Yet the place where the Kim Faction had attacked her mother and almost slaughtered the entire party wasn't populated by anyone...

She jerked back into reality at the sudden noises of knocking on wood, making her turn her head towards the single door that led into the temporary detention classroom Mari's alerted state quickly died down at the sight of Hongjoong at the window, knocking on it to catch her attention. "Loverboy?" She mumbled, quickly glancing around the room to check if the teacher had spotted the boy. It seemed as though they were no longer in the room though, having stepped out for a moment.

The girl cursed to herself slightly, which meant the teacher had keys to the room on them despite the ones from earlier mocking her for her last escape attempt with them. "Princess?" Hongjoong responded the nickname that wouldn't go away still in his vocabulary. "Are you in detention? Ooh, did someone get in trouble with the authorities?"

She rolled her eyes at his teasing, crossing her arms as she started to speak. "No, I didn't. Well... I did, but I would have gotten out of the school campus had I taken the back way where you park your motorcycle. It's the fastest and easiest way out of here, half of the security cameras back there haven't been working since freshman year. I thought I was slick enough to go through the front... but they were expecting me there."

Hongjoong his head as he sat down beside her, his eyes widening as he processed the information he was receiving. "Wait... you know where I park my bike?"

She gave him a questionable look, recalling the exact placement of his black and red motorbike. "Yeah? In the teacher's parking lot behind the school, the place where all the cameras don't work. I go back there all the time to escape punishments like this easily like I literally just said. Plus, I remember you parked it there the day we met."

"You remember the exact place I park my bike every day from our first encounter?" Hongjoong questioned, just repeating her words in a different way. She looked clearly annoyed by his pestering despite answer his question twice. He gasped as he leaned back in the chair, a smile growing as his face as he thought about it. "Wow... you didn't even like me then and you know that? Are you sure we haven't met in the past before then?"

"No, It's been almost three months. You're a very easy person to figure out and I'm not stupid." Mari told him, narrowing his eyes at his easily impressed self. Hongjoong's smile openly grew wider and toothier at her words, taking no offense to her jabs. "What are you doing here anyway? I thought you left at the end of the day like everyone else did."

"You know how my parents suck right?" He suddenly said, jumping out of the chair and making his way to the storage room that was in the classroom. Mari nodded her head in response, immediately remembering the extremely short talk that had the day she ran away from the manor out of sheer panic. It wasn't that long ago, perhaps five days since they had done their little adventure around the city? That was the same day she had gotten the matching tattoos with Hongjoong engraved on her wrist and the night before Jongho had been found by the faction.

"I make a lot of junk and have nowhere to keep it at home since they tend to throw out anything that isn't my motorcycle. But both you and I they'd throw out the bike at any chance they get," Hongjoong began, though Mari found herself tuning out his voice. She stared at her left wrist, where the drawing had been inked onto her skin. If she was being totally honest, she had forgotten all about the tattoo she had gotten with him. There were more important things she had to worry about than a simple sun and moon that was permanently on her skin. For most teenagers, now would be the time to regret something like this since it would be rather hard to get off the final product.

Yet, the more Mari stared at the tattoo on her, the more endearing she found it. She didn't experience any of the regrets and worry that most people would have over having to hide such a permanent drawing from her father and the school itself. Mari simply found it... endearing. "Princess?"

"What?" She looked up with a confused expression on her face, completely lost on where she was in the conversation they were having. Hongjoong gave her the same exact expression before snorting, not finishing his sentence from earlier. Without any clue on what he had potentially asked or said beforehand, she started laughing in hopes that he had told her a joke instead. Though that would be rather out of character for her when did Mari ever genuinely laugh at one of Hongjoong's jokes?

"You zoned out, princess." Mari's expression quickly morphed into an annoyed one, her glare strong enough to pierce the sturdiest of metals. "I asked about the party, Mari. The one that Mingi has hosted at his house? Do you remember anything from it? I know it's been a while since it happened but we never got to properly talk about it."

The girl thought about for a second, unsure of how to answer him. "Properly talk about it? What do you mean, did someone call the cops or something? Is that why I don't remember anything from it?"

"Trust me," Hongjoong told her, walking towards her and placing his hands on her shoulders. "If the cops had shown up at that party, you would have remembered that. They don't really... like me or Mingi for several reasons. And the mere fact that you were with me during it would have made you guilty by association."

"I found you at that party?" She exclaimed, grabbing his arms and forcing them away from her shoulders. "What... when.... how?! I don't even remember seeing your face!" Hongjoong opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. He slowly began to realize what he had said, his eyes widening and his ears turning a slight pink in the process. She immediately took this as a sign that the boy knew something she didn't and needed to shake the information out of him. Perhaps this was a clue as to why she hated Jaerin a lot more than she originally did. "Hongjoong, what happened the night of Mingi's party?"

He immediately grabbed the hood of the leather jacket he wore, forcing it over his head to cover his eyes. "Nothing really happened, I swear! Well... not really, but I'm saving you the trouble of not knowing what happened for your sake. I really am." He lied, trying his best to ward off the girl's curiousness. It wasn't going to work though, Hongjoong was the only person she knew that had the information of what happened that night. He had no reason to try and avoid it now, he had already given away that she was with him that night, something she had no clue that night.

"Hongjoong, please!" She begged him, shaking the boy by the lapels of his jacket. "The only thing I remember from that night was arriving, entering, and vomiting after my friend had started to take me home. Information like that would be very nice to know right now so I can answer a few questions that have been in my head for the past week."

"No need to get handsy, princess," Hongjoong teased, making Mari recoil and roll her eyes in response to his words. "I have a general idea of what happened but definitely not the big picture. However, it is big enough for me to understand that Mingi needs to choose wisely on who he invites to these parties of his." He explained, a little bit of bitterness sprinkled in his tone. "Here's the sugarcoated version, whatever drink you had got spiked and you got... drunk."

She nodded her head as she sunk into her seat, giving Hongjoong a question glance. "That's the sugarcoated version? What's the normal version of that story then, since getting my drink spiked isn't the sweetest thing I'd like to hear."

Hongjoong was silent for a moment, pulling on the strings of his hoodie as he thought to himself. "Well, the culprit was Jaerin. You two were with each other and she had exposed herself on accident that she was the one who screwed with your drink and I almost killed her for it. You went absolutely apeshit and did a lot of things you'd probably regret if you remembered them."

Mari sat there at the desk puzzled. That explained why she had this even stronger burning harder for Jaerin now. She had tried to ruin her night after she herself had come to invite her on behalf of Hongjoong, with Mingi so less! However, there was still one thing on her mind, one thing that the boy in front of her wasn't telling her. "When you say I did things I'd regret... what exactly... were they?"

Almost on instinct, both of them met each other's eyes. Neither of them broke eye contact as the silence between the two settled and Mari's brain began to create one hundred different scenarios he might be talking about. For the most, everything Mari does is done with pride and no second-guessing. She rarely regretted the things she's done, but in the recent months, she's started to embarrass herself a lot more than normal on her own accord. And then it hit her.

"Holy shit." She gasped, suddenly the weight of the world crashing down her shoulders. Mari immediately covered her face with her hands, trying to hide the sheer shock and embarrassment that was on her face. Hongjoong's light laughter began to echo in the empty classroom as Mari sat there like a burning leaf. "I'm so... so sorry. Oh my God, that's.... fuck! I'm such an idiot!"

Hongjoong gave her a mischievous smile as he leaned his head up against his hand, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. "Aw, don't be embarrassing, princess." He cooed, "I really loved the compliments. I will never, ever, forgot them."

"Hongjoong shut the fuck up!" Mari screamed, kicking the boy's legs under the table. He only laughed through the pain, continuously teasing her about only what she could assume was her drunken state. She should have never asked him what had happened. Now that Mari was completely aware of her actions, he was never going to let it go.

"This is the place?" Mari asked, stepping out of one of the many Rolls-Royces and closing the door behind her. She stared up at the building in front of her, examining it closely. It was a rather large warehouse, not much bigger than the manor she lived in with her father. The building was rather dirty on the outside, covered in dirt and rust and some sort of unidentifiable substance that was splattered on the one side of the wall. The warehouse had a large coiling door that kept her from seeing the inside she could hear the excited shouts and screams from where she was standing. "It's not very secretive if you ask me."

"This place is being guarded at all times, the only reason we got through those gates to these warehouses is because the faction has been here before," a voice spoke, coming up behind her and placing a hat on her head. Mari immediately reached for the weapon that was strapped at her side but stopped when she realized the person who touched her was Wooyoung. He gave her a sly smile as his eyes darted down towards the pistol she clutched in her hands. "Don't pull that out like it's some toy. The Utopia may have mafias and gangs constantly walking through here, but there are still some somewhat innocent people walking through this building."

"I knew that," Mari quickly told him, spinning the trigger guard on her finger before placing it in the holster around her waist. It was quickly hidden by the shirt she pulled over it, followed by the black jacket she wore over it all. Just as easily as she took it out, it disappeared from plain sight. "Where are San and Jongho though? We can't go in without either of them. Plus the Lee Faction is supposed to be here as well. Without them, we're totally screwed for this plan."

The Lee Faction proved to be very good allies when it came to spying and gathering information. One of their men they had sent to spy and intercept any messages that Kim Faction was getting or receiving had discovered very critical information. The Kim Faction was scheduled to meet up with the Chinese Triad's leader, Zhang Yixing, in order to bring them to their side of the playing field. It was probably one of the reasons they had attempted to slaughter the entire group that had left the manor in the first place, to gain their own chance at wooing the Chinese Triad to their side.

They had planned to meet up at the Utopia, the fight club and negotiation area, in order to hide their attempts at allying themselves together. Fortunately, the Seo and Lee Faction had an easy ticket into the fight club to make their appearance in the building consequential. The Seo Faction would be arriving as Watchers and leave the impression that they were attending the night's fights as endorsers for Choi Jongho. Meanwhile, some members of both the Seo and Lee Factions would scour the building for members of the Kim Faction. Once they were found, they'd attempt to stop the faction completely in their tracks with whatever means necessary.

"The Lee Faction arrived before we did in order to start searching early, that's how they work." Wooyoung shrugged, beginning to walk towards the entrance to Utopia. "From what I know, Jongho had to also be here rather earlier as he is a Player and had to get ready for the matches he'd participate in order to sell this scene a little better. And San, I think he's participating as a sniper or something due to some of his wounds not being fully healed."

"Well, the whole gang's together, huh." She mumbled, taking the hat he had placed on her head off. "So I'm guessing we watch Jongho fight and discreetly look for the Kim Faction? And when we find them we do what everyone else will do and mess up their plans for acquiring allies."

"By any means necessary," Wooyoung repeated, as the two reached the entrance to the Utopia. There was no one following directly behind them, everyone in the faction had quickly spread out to either guard the other exits or start searching for the Kim Faction. He took a quick glance towards Mari before grabbing the back of her jacket's hood and throwing it over her head, snatching the hat out of her hands and placing it on her as if it was a finishing touch. "Make sure to obscure your face, idiot. We weren't given any masks because they're hoping that the chances of us ruining this entire plan is very low."

"I know, stop trying to baby me Wooyoung." She complained, slapping his shoulder in retaliation. "You can't even say anything, you're wearing a blazer and a cheetah print shirt. You look like you're dressed for clubbing, not for watching people fight for money."

He rolled his eyes before crouching down on the ground, grabbing the handle of the coiling door and slowly lifting it up. Light fluttered into the outdoors as the screams began to boom loudly in their ears, giving them a feel for the atmosphere they'd be entertaining for the night. There were several hundred, at least a thousand or more people inside of the room. A majority of them seem crowded around two large cage-like structures that stood side by side in the middle of the building.

Around the edges of the building stood rows and rows of unopened packaged boxes that would never see the light of day due to the takeover the warehouse underwent. There seemed to be more rooms near the back of the warehouse which was most likely where the negotiations between the Chinese Triad and Kim Faction would be held, but that's not exactly where the two of them were headed. "You ready?" She asked Wooyoung, grabbing the boy's arm and dragging him inside unwillingly. "This is gonna be one hell of a night."

"One hell of a night watching people fight for money," He sneered as the two of them walked inside, the atmosphere hitting them much harder when they officially stepped inside. The air was hot due to so many people sharing the same breathing space and the entire building either smelled of sweat from the Players or alcohol from the Watchers. There was also a faint whiff of some sort of drug, but Mari just couldn't identify what. "So what are we planning to do? Split up and go to one of the cages to see what's going on?"

"No way, I'm sick of being split from you all the time," Mari told him, holding his arm tight as the walked through the crowd of people in the Utopia. Every so often they'd spot a Player in the crowd, sitting somewhere close to the back on whatever makeshift bench they had. There was a look of defeat in their eyes and their bodies seemed injured from their previous fights. There was a common theme between all the injuries they had: long and large gashes were marked across their arms and faces, still fresh and oozing with the thick liquid of blood.

They must have all suffered defeat from the same exact person because the theme was slowly beginning to create a pattern the more people Mari spotted in the crowd. "I think we should look for Jongho," She whispered towards Wooyoung, a worried look in her eyes as she stared at all the fallen Players. "I don't know if he's noticed, but these people are all suffering the same almost fatal wounds. I think that's the guy we need to look out for just in case his affiliation isn't just with Utopia, but with the Chinese Triad or Kim Faction."