After what felt like an eternity, Yoon-Ji felt the jostling of a bump in the road, slowly yet surely bringing her out of her slumber. She groaned and rubbed her eyes, trying to shake off the residual fog of sleep that clung to her senses.

  Once she came to, she looked through the window and was pleasantly surprised to see the sun had risen in the midst of the hazy afternoon.

  The girl took a moment to stretch her limbs, her body aching from the cramped position in which she had fallen asleep. Then she leaned back and closed her eyes, aiming to drift off to dreamland once more. Before she could continue, a tap on her shoulder snapped her back awake.

  Her gaze closed in on Heo-Yool, a store-bought onigiri in his hand, as he expectantly looked back at her.

  Eun-Ha spoke up from the seat behind, "We already told him not to bother you, but he wouldn't listen."

  Heo-Yool scoffed, "I'm not bothering her, I was just worried."

  He turned back to Yoon-Ji, saying, "I figured you would want something to eat once you woke up, so I got you this."

  Yoon-Ji’s stomach grumbled right as the boy said this, and she decided to take the food in hand, swiftly biting out of it. As her tongue touched the cold rice, she was met immediately with an explosion of delectable flavors.

  She swallowed the food down before looking back at her friend. "Spicy Tuna Mayo? You have taste, Yool."

  "All the best for my chaperone," Heo-Yool winked, embracing the earlier teasing he got from the girl.

  "Wait, you got that from the stop earlier?" Interjected Yeon-Woo, gazing longingly towards the food in Yoon-Ji's hold. "Hey Yool, do you have another one? I can buy it from you if you want?" 

  "Nope! I'm all out of the good stuff, sorry man!" Heo-Yool shook his head.

  Before Yeon-Woo could even begin to whine about 'favoritism' and say things like 'stingy,' Im Eun-Chan cut in to ask, "Yah, can you guys stop stalling?"

  "Oh right!" Hearing this, Heo-Yool seemed to come to, and he turned to face Yoon-Ji once more. "Yoon, we're about to play another round of Mafia. But get this, it's a better version of Mafia!"

  "Don't listen to him, Yoon. the original’s still better," Eun-Ha remarked in the background.

  "That's only because you guys don't know how to play it my way." The boy stuck his tongue out at the girl before turning towards Yoon-Ji. "You're going to join, right? You promised you would join," 

  Heo-Yool continued to pester her, his demeanor like that of a puppy pleading at his carer for food. And although she couldn't remember when she had promised such a thing, she couldn't miss the opportunity to play and potentially mess with the boy.

  "Okay, count me in," Yoon-Ji nodded, her words muffled as she chewed on her food.

  The group cheered enthusiastically, and Yoon-Ji couldn't help but feel embarrassment noticing classmates from other rows turning to stare at them, giving them varying looks. Neutral to downright annoyed.

  Even the class president woke from his sleep to briefly send them a warning look.

  Im Eun-Chan, who took on the role of the game master, noted the glances they were getting and tried to pacify the group, particularly Heo-Yool.

  "Before we start," Yoon-Ji piped up, "What's up with this version we're going to be playing? I wasn't listening to Yool this morning."

  "Really…" Heo-Yool let out in disbelief.

  "Good question, Yoon. This version has a new role, one new role to be exact," Eun-Chan answered, showing off the title card on his phone, which read 'Vigilante.'

  A girl seated on the far right side of the last row, with blonde streaks in her hair, Choi Mi-Na, perked up, “Well, what's it for? How's it gonna change the game?"

  "Aish, If you guys would've just listened earlier." Heo-Yool shook his head in disappointment while the others bemoaned his words. "The Vigilante is a killing role. Basically, what they do is they have to kill if no mafia gets voted out during voting."

  "But," the boy dramatically looked around before continuing, "They need to make sure the one they kill is a mafia, because once they kill an innocent, then they're also dead!"

  He looked around, taking in the different reactions to the new role with a grin on his face. "Are you guys good with that?"

  Everyone eventually agreed, and the air was filled with excitement as they started the game. The first few games were clunky, with the additional role proving difficult to make a good play out of.

  Over time, the more they played, the more they became immersed. Their voices rose higher with each passing round. The sounds of laughs, gasps, and cries of surprise filled the air, the students getting so caught up that they barely noticed how the sun had started to set outside, casting their bus in a golden hue.

  "I told you, I'm not the mafia," Eun-Ha raised her voice, sending the group a desperate look while she pleaded innocence. The players returned it with a doubtful look, except Yoon-Ji who was more focused on Heo-Yool’s noisy goading.

  "Come on, you have 'guilty' tattooed all over your face," Heo-Yool tutted at Eun-Ha before announcing, "Let's vote her out now and win!" to which everyone voiced their agreement.

  "What the hell's guilty about my face, huh?!"

  The discussion continued until they finally reached a decision and headed for the finals, with Eun-Chan to announce the winners.

  "In the previous phase, the Mafia chose to kill player Eun-Ha, but..." everyone's eyes widened, "the Mafia was killed by the Vigilante before they could! Which means the innocent citizens have won!"

  All the citizens from the round loudly whooped in joy whilst Mi-Na and Heo-Yool, the Mafia killed by the Vigilante at the very last moment, groaned. 

  "Wait, so who was the vigilante?" Eun-Ha asked which Yoon-Ji took as the cue to raise her hand.

  "Yoon?" Heo-Yool repeated as though he couldn't believe it. "You knew?"

  "Only me and her apparently,” Eun-Ha remarked, side-eyeing all her other fellow citizens who had accused her wrongly. 

  “Of course I knew. You're already pretty loud when you're a citizen, but that somehow doubles when you get mafia, Yool.” Yoon-Ji shook her head, snickering at the boy’s surprised expression.

  "Uh, well,” Heo-Yool quickly regained his composure and suddenly wiggled his brows, “the only thing I got is that you were focusing on me huh?” 

  Everyone watched Yoon-Ji's face visibly cringe.

  "Don't even start with that, Yool.”

  Fully engrossed in their laughter, they were oblivious to the fact that their noise had woken someone from his slumber, someone they wouldn’t dare cross if they could help it.

  A few seats away sat Go Kyung-Jun, who had only intended to sleep through the entire ride. Instead of getting that rest though, there he was, wide awake thanks to the noise of his classmates.

  He opened his eyes and turned to the side, but it was no use.

  Eventually, he had enough. Kyung-Jun clicked his tongue and glanced toward the source of the noise, his gaze sweeping over the group until it unknowingly settled on one person.

  “Hey, hey, give me the new role next,” the girl in his line of sight snorted, shaking her head as if fed up with her friends' antics.

  Kyung-Jun remembered seeing her that same morning while lining up for the bus. She'd been staring right at him then, her expression unreadable.

   A familiar face, though not enough for him to recall her name right away. Still, the sight of her stirred something in his gut, something he couldn’t quite place.

  Strange.

  "Yah, you're good with names, right? Who's that?" Kyung-Jun asked, prompting the boy beside him to let out a confused, "Who?"

  He clarified, "The one near that nerd.”

  "Nam Yeon-Woo?”

  Kyung-Jun raised a brow. "The girl?”

  "Ah," his seatmate turned to look. "You mean Kwon Yoon-Ji?"

  Hearing the name, Kyung-Jun tilted his head, and in that moment, it clicked.

  After watching her for a few more seconds, he didn’t say anything else. Instead, he sat back in his seat with a muttered comment.

  "They're loud."

  As Kyung-Jun resettled, Shin Seung-Bin, who had been the one sitting next to him, decided to stand up. He slapped the backs of the heads of the two students sitting in front of him, then turned to Kim Jin-Ha, "Hey, go tell them to shut their mouths."

  Jin-Ha looked behind him, cursed under his breath, and yelled, "Hey!"

  The group at the back immediately paused their antics, the noise dropping from a hundred to zero. The smiles vanished from their faces as the voice continued, "Shut your traps, will you? You're all unbelievably loud.”

  After that, he turned back towards the front, oblivious to the scowls that bore into the backs of his, Seung-Bin's, and Kyung-Jun's heads.

  As much as she wanted to talk back, Yoon-Ji knew better than to waste her energy arguing with Jin-Ha of all people. Honestly, she could even understand where he was coming from, their group had been loud all afternoon.

  Still, ‘Wrong messenger.’ She thought, bitter at the thought of getting a scolding from the delinquent group rather than the homeroom teacher, Jun-Hee, or heck, even So-Mi.

  Feeling her enthusiasm snuffed by the interruption, Yoon-Ji turned to Heo-Yool and informed him that she would not be participating in the following round. Her friends whined in protest at first but eventually let it go.

  The bus ambled down the road for another hour or so, surrounded by dense, towering trees that closed in on all sides. Its engine hummed quietly, breaking the serenity of the night. 

  Before long, the bus came to a gentle halt by the side of the road, the door hissing loudly as it opened. The occupants of the bus cast their gaze upon the foreboding building that loomed to their right, whereupon stood the very place they would spend their retreat in, the Muryeong Youth Center.

  When everyone stepped off the bus, they were immediately met with the scent of earth, a strong contrast to the city air they were used to. 

  Their homeroom teacher went on ahead, disgruntled by an interrupted phone call and leaving the rest of the class to deal with the matter of settling in.

  Yoon-Ji stepped out and grabbed her bag from Heo-Yool, who immediately took off laughing with Eun-Chan and Yeon-Woo lagging behind them.

  "Hey, you guys, wait for me!"

  She watched as the three raced towards the building, amused by their energy.

  "Yoon-Ji," a voice called out from behind, and Yoon-Ji spun around to face Mi-Na, who was with Lee Joo-Young and a few others. "We're about to polish the steps for the dance in the gym, will you be joining?"

  The girl thought for a moment before shaking her head, "Not tonight, no. I was thinking of just relaxing, who knows what they'll make us do tomorrow."

  "Weren't you already sleeping for most of the ride?" Joo-Young piped up. "You're gonna miss out on a lot if you keep sleeping off somewhere."

  “Beats having to participate in a relay with a sore body, no?” Yoon-Ji waved Joo-Young off, “You guys go and have fun, I'll be there for the final practice.”

  Joo-Young and Mi-Na shared a look before conceding. They went ahead, leaving Yoon-Ji to her lonesome once more. 

  As the pair of girls walked away, Yoon-Ji remembered then she'd yet to inform her father about their arrival to the destination. She immediately rummaged through her bag, looking for her phone.

  Just as her fingers wrapped around the sleek rectangle, someone snatched it clean from her grasp, leaving her hand empty.

  "Who-?" Yoon-Ji furrowed her brows in irritation and turned to the perpetrator, only to stop when she saw none other than Go Kyung-Jun.

  "What the…Go Kyung-Jun?" she muttered, blinking once.

  She looked behind him, finding him curiously all by his lonesome and without his two loyal followers. She then glanced at her phone, trying to make sense of the situation.

  "Can you give my phone back?" she asked, her voice even.

  Kyung-Jun didn’t respond. He looked down at the device in his hand, turning it over in his palm with feigned interest.

  "This is a nice model. Latest, too," he said, flipping it over to inspect the sticker-covered case. "You like this kind of stuff?"

  Yoon-Ji held out her hand again. "Sure, can I have it back now?”

  "I'm not done yet." He looked up at the girl, a hint of a smirk playing at his lips. "You're that Yoon-Ji, right? Kwon Yoon-Ji?"

  Yoon-Ji blinked. 

  “Why?” She asked, eyes flicking from the male to her phone.

  "Right, I remember now," he said, voice easy, almost amused. "You’re the one who told me off for messing with that nerdy friend of yours, right? Said something like, ‘Go pick on someone who can fight back.'"

  “I gave it some thought and…” His eyes met hers. "you have a point, maybe I should.”

  “Huh.” Yoon-Ji paused after hearing that. She then couldn't help but scoff, “So what's your big plan? to pick on me? And you only got that idea, what? Today?”

  “Couldn't be bothered back then,” Kyung-Jun shrugged, "But then you guys turned the bus into a party while I was trying to sleep. Kind of hard to ignore after that.”

  'Sounds like a whole lot of nothing for a reason,' Yoon-Ji thought, her face betraying her attempt at seeming neutral to the male's egging on.

  "Anyways, need this to call or text someone? A boyfriend, maybe?" he waved the device in front of the girl.

  Her brows drew together as she crossed her arms over her chest, "My dad. I have to text my dad.”

  His lips parted, like he was going to say Ah, before mocking, "Is that so?"

  "Yes, so-" Yoon-Ji paused, then tried her chance, jumping for the phone. "Give it back–"

  "Ah?" he said casually, lifting the phone out of her reach with ease. His height making it impossible to snatch.

  After the failed attempt, Yoon-Ji regained her footing and stared, exasperated. ‘Of all people…’

  “Well,” he started, before shoving the phone into his pocket. "I'll be taking this until I've figured out what to do with it."

  Without a warning, Kyung-Jun completely sauntered off with the phone, leaving the girl caught off-guard. ‘What the hell?’

  Kyung-Jun had never tried messing with her before, even after that ‘confrontation,’ if she could even call it that. 

  While they'd had their run-ins, sure, this came completely out of nowhere.

  ‘Just when I thought I could finally relax,’ Yoon-Ji let out a sigh, dragging a hand down her face. The trip hadn’t even properly started, and already it was going off tracks.

  ‘Now how am I supposed to get it back…?’

  Taking one last look at the youth center’s signage Yoon-Ji headed through the doors, leaving behind nothing but the stillness of the night.

───────── •✧• ─────────

( note )

I just want to inform y'all I hated Kyung-Jun with a burning passion (I was literally screaming at my screen whenever the characters just let him say whatever). Bullying, assault, blackmailing and just about any violence towards other ppl is not and will never be okay.

It was for this reason I took the liberties of toning down his character from the beginning and changing some of others' as well since I'm going canon divergent anyways. Obviously these characterizations are part of the original source material's plot but we don't just want a retelling of that right?

4/18 - partially edited; removed and added some parts to better the flow

12/26 - edited this again, bc I was rereading and didn't like some parts...