Even though they've been sent away by Soyeon and they're allowed to rest before having to rise again early in the morning, San can't sleep. When he checks his phone it's still the same number calling him over again, and he refuses to answer it, either letting it ring long enough to become a missed call or swiping his thumb across the screen to shut it down.

He sighs, something making him uneasy even though Soyeon assured them that they wouldn't have to be following her anymore for today. They know she's with her boyfriend, and although they're hired to become her personal bodyguards, it's not like the house goes totally unguarded. She has her own set of guards protecting the house round the clock, so their main focus is only on her.

In their room, Seonghwa on the bed beside him is sleeping like a baby, hands curled into fists on either side of his face. His eyes are tight shut, unmoving even as San accidentally drops his phone to the hardwood floor. Waving a hand over his teammate's face to see whether he's actually asleep, San realizes that Seonghwa doesn't seem like he would wake up even as the whole house is turned upside down.

Putting on his slippers, he steps out of the guest bedroom that has been turned into theirs, while Jongho and Yunho share the bedroom located beside theirs. As they signed the contract that put them in place as Soyeon's bodyguards, the job requires them to reside in the same house as her, and she's kind enough to be giving them two bedrooms, which are even bigger than their whole dorm back in Linaria District. When they're off-duty, she has permitted them to roam anywhere inside or outside, except for the topmost floor where her bedroom is, unless she requests them to guard that floor.

So far, there has been no need. And again, they still think hiring the four of them is too much of a stretch.

Considering that he has no restrictions in walking around the house, he walks around aimlessly in search for a place he could sit and see whether sleep would come to him. As he walks down the stairs his hairs stand on end when he feels like something is moving in the dark at the bottom of the stairs. He wouldn't say he's the bravest out of the four as he slowly walks down and squints his eyes to see...

"Panther!" an aggressive voice comes out of the dark followed by something flying in the air, and then a soft thud.

San gets taken by surprise that he loses his own footing, tumbling down the steps and his body hitting something else that causes him to stop rolling. Hissing in pain he opens his eyes only to have a pair of yellow eyes staring down at him and a weight pressing down on his chest, but before he could scream a hand clamps over his mouth. His first instinct is to fight off like how he's trained to, but the voice that comes next made him realize that he recognizes the voice, and it's an animal that's sitting on top of him.

"It's me, Kang Yeosang. Don't scream or you'll wake the others up."

San slaps his hand away before sitting upright and the animal on his chest jumps to the next person, snuggling into Yeosang's arms. "Well if you're not creeping in this house looking suspicious then maybe I won't!" he screams in a hushed voice. "What on earth do you think you're doing, creeping around the house at 2 in the freaking morning?"

Yeosang blinks before narrowing his eyes. "Isn't that a question I should be asking you? I'm a veteran at this house and you're only a one-week tenant. The one being suspicious is you."

"I-" he presses his lips when he realizes he got caught with no good reply. It does seem suspicious how he's walking around the house while wearing his pajamas, acting as if he knows the way around the house when he still gets lost even after a week of observing the ways around the house. He hasn't been in a house that big for a while. "Well, I wasn't trying to do anything suspicious." He quickly adds, "I couldn't sleep, but I didn't want to switch on the lights because that might wake people up."

"So you were floating around like a ghost around the house?" Yeosang's hands are rubbing the cat's back up and down, followed by the satisfied cat's low purrs. "In the dark?"

"Y- yeah? I wasn't doing anything wrong! And you? You were, what, shooting some spy movie when you went flying in the air?" He frowns before shifting his focus on the cat, who looks at him with wonder, with that face that makes your heart automatically melt. "And since when did Miss Bae have a cat?" The said cat rubs her head against San, and the latter pats her head before letting her lick his hand.

"I wanted to catch her before she makes any noise, because somehow she managed to slip into the house. She's not Soyeon's, but the neighbour who lives across this massive amount of land until you have no idea where it starts and ends. She has too many cats that some tend to stray away, and Panther has taken too much liking to Soyeon's house. So she spends a lot of time here, but maybe you've never actually seen me giving food to her or her sleeping around. She might as well be ours. Her name's Panther by the way; though Soyeon doesn't actually play with her that much. She doesn't hate cats but she doesn't like them either; she's neutral."

San stays quiet at this. They find it funny how they're talking while in the dark at 2 in the morning, just right after San fell from the stairs like a sack of potatoes while Yeosang just soared in the air like a cannonball, with a cat in tow.

Yeosang tickles the part under Panther's chin, and he notices how San seems to be staring absent-mindedly, knowing how something must be playing in his mind. He decides to ask the question, "How is working for her so far?" He stops tickling the cat and proceeds to lift her up onto his lap as he sits cross-legged. "Must have been opposite of the job you're thinking of."

San winces, feeling like Yeosang had caught him red-handed. It's true, this job is exactly the opposite of what he had been dreaming of when he first wanted to join a security company. He must've been affected from watching too many dramas; bodyguards in his vision are those who wear sunglasses all the time, unfaltering, always looking brooding and mysterious while their hands are quick to pull guns out when something is threatening the person they're protecting.

All the while, so far one week into the job they've only been following Soyeon around the house, feeling more like a stalker rather than a bodyguard. It's made worse because Soyeon prefers to spend time with painting, not leaving the house; it's not even a wonder how she had managed to escape the frame of being Bae Wonshik's daughter. You can't even catch her outside.

Right now, he's only having that title as a bodyguard, but he's no more than an alleged creep who walks around the house in the dark while wearing pajamas because he couldn't sleep.

"I'll be 100% honest, and I don't think I can lie to you anyway. You look like the person who can tell straight away when someone's lying." San fixes his sitting position so that he's facing Yeosang, hugging his knees to his chest. "It's totally different than what I expected, but it's the job that makes me have food on the table and a place to sleep. So I'm not complaining."

Yeosang nods, sighing. "I understand; it must be hard isn't it? To need to work your ass off just so you can live a decent life. Especially when you work with people like Soyeon who doesn't have to work a day in her life yet her wealth can last until her future generations."

He pauses and studies Yeosang's expression. "Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't get jealous of someone who doesn't have to work yet they get to live like this? But life's never fair, and I sure do hope that you didn't mean anything to Soyeon when you said that. I know you're her best friend but I'm her bodyguard. If you ever do anything to her... I won't hesitate to kick some ass."

In return, Yeosang chuckles before shaking his head. "I've been with her since we're a day old, so trust me, if I would want to do anything to her, I had a lot of chances to do so. I love her like I love a sister, so I wouldn't want any harm to come to her."

San narrows his eyes while mumbling, "Still, I would keep an eye on you."

"Whatever you say," he says in a defeated voice. "I'm going to lead Panther outside and then I'm going to sleep. It was nice talking to you." He starts standing up, Panther in his arms.

What they hear next coming from the floor above shocks them both that San immediately stands up as if he had initially planned to follow Yeosang. They look at each other in alarm, knowing that the scream they had heard just moments ago belongs to Soyeon. Without needing any cue, both of them turn around to run up the stairs, San leading the way as he's much faster while Yeosang is still struggling to hold Panther in his arms. It is as if his confusion on the layout of the house is gone, spurred by Soyeon's scream.

They only heard it once, but San is almost pretty sure of where it had come from, and while running he prays that nothing has happened to her. He can't judge everything from the short scream alone, and he instructs Yeosang to inform the rest of his teammates while he goes to check it out. The latter nods before he changes the direction to the bedrooms of the bodyguards instead, while San focuses on getting to Soyeon's painting studio.

At least he hopes that he's right.

He trains his ears to hear whether there's anymore noise produced by her, but he's only met with the dead silence of the night. He doesn't know whether anyone else had heard it, but it could be unlikely considering how her painting studio is located at the end of the hallway, away from the bedrooms of the workers in her house. Not somewhere pleasant to be if you're alone and someone is out to get you. The news about Reflectors flashes before him, and he does hope that if it is indeed them, then the part that they never hurt anyone is true.

He pants as he arrives at the painting studio, feeling like his heart is about to fall through as he looks at the opened door. He slowly steps in, looking around at all the familiar paintings, seeing that there were some freshly splattered paint on the floor. Then he halts when he spots Soyeon at her easel, her face in pure shock and hand trembling. He can't see her whole body but he's pretty sure that her whole body is shaking.

"Miss Bae-" he starts but she immediately points a finger to the door.

"It's them," she says her voice cracking. "The Reflectors-" When he's about to approach her to ask whether she's fine she urges him to go and says that she's fine. "Get them-" It's like she can't manage to finish her sentences after being heavily startled.

He doesn't say anything but merely nods at her order, knowing that he has to get his hands on them first. He doesn't know that the rest are already awake but meets them halfway, already devising a plan on which way they'll be covering. Finally they're doing their first legit job, tracking down the infamous housebreakers in the mansion that provides them a maze, all in their pajamas. Instinctively Seonghwa and Yunho take the front and back part of the mansion, while Jongho and San split to either side of the mansion.

As San passes through the garden his brain starts to think of possible routes that the members of the Reflectors might have taken. Yeosang and the rest of the workers have been scouring through the interior of the mansion, so he leaves the inside to them. It looks like the two guards taking post near the entrance of the mansion has been mobilized too as they're looking around but San shakes his head. It's not enough; there are a thousand possible ways the Reflectors could have escaped, the mansion is simply too big.

He doesn't give up though, he's desperate to at least catch a shadow of the housebreakers; there are too little descriptions of them available to the public that he doesn't know what he'd expect. How skilled must they be, to be able to avoid from being caught all this while? But tonight things went wrong because they accidentally bumped into the house owner, who, just like him couldn't sleep or refused to sleep. Questions race through his mind as fast as his legs bring him around the mansion, looking out for anything, anything that could point him towards the outlaws.

Yet it seems that he has been merely going round in circles, because by the end of the race the four bodyguards run into each other at the front of the mansion, their search fruitless. They look around to get any information for the other guards but it seems that they too, could not find anything; as if the Reflectors simply disappeared into thin air.

After confirming that they can no longer catch sight of the outlaws, they gather inside. They see that Wooyoung, wearing a bathrobe with golden embroidery is sitting at the living room surrounded by all the workers. Yeosang is worriedly pacing behind, his hand caressing Panther as if it's a method of calming himself down.

"Where is Miss Bae?" Seonghwa asks to no one in particular, but his eyes are directed towards Wooyoung, somewhat accusative.

"She had been in the bathroom because she has been feeling unwell; she's pretty shaken up," Wooyoung answers anyway, looking at each and every one of her bodyguards. "A maid is waiting for her outside the bathroom, she said she'll be joining in a few moments."

They wait, everyone seemingly frozen except for Yeosang who can't stop pacing back and forth. As 5 minutes are up their heads spontaneously turn to the direction of the main double curved staircase, Soyeon being guided by one of the maids to the palatial living room, with Wooyoung quickly approaching her before taking her hand.

He helps her to sit down, and with her eyes downcast, she sinks into the sofa. When he sees that she's wringing her hands, he covers her hands with his, and there's a pronounced difference in her stature.

After she manages to collect herself, she instructs, "All of you can return to your rooms, except for the four of you," she looks up to her bodyguards, "Yeosang and Wooyoung. I need... to talk to all of you."

Although confused by her instructions, they hesitantly leave the living room, feeling spooked out at what just happened. If it was indeed the Reflectors, even with what they consider strong security, they have managed to break past it; they're not a group to be messed with then.

When Wooyoung sees that the last worker has went upstairs and left only the seven of them there, he turns to his girlfriend, genuine worry etched across his face. "Shouldn't we be reporting this to the police? You ran into them and they could've done something to hurt you."

"I could be mistaken; they could probably not even be the Reflectors. They could be anyone but their name was the first that popped up. I just-" She buries her face in her hands, and Wooyoung wraps his arms around her. "I don't know, I was scared."

"It could be anyone, but it doesn't change the fact that someone had the guts to break into the house even when there are a lot of people around."

She stays mum, the vivid colours of blood still filling her vision as much as she tries to get rid of it. She hopes that she'd done enough to rid of any evidence of that and none would find out about it. She won't tell; she refuses to tell. Not after this incident. She feels Wooyoung rubbing circles on her back, helping to calm her down but even his touch does nothing to her; her mind is too attached to the colour of the blood. Still, her mouth is locked from saying anything.

"Still... wouldn't you want to report this to the police?" Yeosang asks. Panther has jumped out of his arms and is sitting perched on the arm of the sofa both Wooyoung and Soyeon are on. "Someone broke into the house."

"I mean..." she gulps. "I don't know whether it was actually a person or it was just my paranoia. It was 2 in the morning, I was tired and maybe it was only my own shadow. In fact maybe you couldn't catch anyone was because there was no one in the first place. It could only be my imagination."

Her bodyguards shuffle in their spots, feeling like failures as they couldn't catch the said housebreakers.

"I know this sounds... absurd but I'd like it if we don't report it first. It could only be myself. We'll... see how it's like from now on and if it happens again, I'll make sure the police hears it."

They look at each other; it does sound absurd but they cannot question their client's requests. What they need to focus on is to protect her, which they may have just failed just now.

Wooyoung has another burning question in his mind; why was his girlfriend not in bed with him after he thought that she had drifted off to sleep, and was found at her painting studio instead? But he remains it as a question, knowing it's not the right time to be worried of petty questions like that.

With that, the case for today is forcefully closed, even though there's still some lingering suspicion. In the following days, nothing of importance happens as they dutifully continue their jobs as her bodyguards. When Soyeon had finally stepped outside of Aurora Heights because she said she wanted 'a change of scenery', they should have seen that as a red flag.

As if she's never there in the first place, Bae Soyeon has gone missing.

---

[A/N: So... ATEEZ storyline writing contest anyone? Not at how the last date is on the same date as my paper T^T I never thought I'd see the day when ATEEZ would ask ATINYs to write stories for them.]