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. Afterwards, 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 just wouldn't listen."

Heo-Yool scoffed before responding defensively, "I wasn't even going to bother her, I was just concerned!"

She raised a brow, which Heo-Yool ignored as he turned back to Yoon-Ji, saying, "It's already past afternoon, and I figured you would want something in your stomach once you woke up, so I got you one of these from the stop."

Hearing this, Yoon-Ji smiled and tilted her head in acknowledgement.

"Wah, thank you, Yool." She sent the other a smile before taking the food in hand and swiftly biting out of it. As her tongue touched the cold rice, she was met immediately with an explosion of delectable flavors.

"Mmh!" Her eyes went wide, and she excitedly looked at Heo-Yool, who was grinning back at her. "Tuna Mayo? You're the best, Yool!"

"Of course, I am!"

"Wait, you bought 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'll 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 start whining about 'favoritism' and say things like 'stingy,' Im Eun-Chan cut in to ask, "Hey, hey, hey... really, did you guys forget what we were going to do? Do you guys even still want to play?"

"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—a better version of mafia!"

"He's lying, by the way. The original is still better," Eun-Ha remarked in the background.

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

Heo-Yool continued to pester her, his demeanor comparable to that of a puppy pleading at his carer for food. And although she couldn't remember when she had promised such a thing, she knew she couldn't turn down her friend's invitation, especially not when he was asking her so cutely.

"M'kay, let's...do it," Yoon-Ji nodded, her words muffled as she chewed on her food.

The group cheered enthusiastically, and Yoon-Ji couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed when she noticed 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, who would whoop loudly every now and then.

"By the way," Yoon-Ji inquired after swallowing the last bite, and everyone promptly listened in. "What's with this version we're going to be playing? additional rules? New roles? Both?"

"Spot on as always, Yoon! 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, "Just one? How is it going to change the game, then?"

"Aish, this is why I told you guys to read the description earlier." Heo-Yool cut in, rolling his eyes and shaking 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 dead!"

Everyone took in the information and responded differently, with some quickly receptive to the change and others confused about what strategy to use with the additional role in the play.

Near Heo-Yool, Yeon-Woo had a Eureka moment "Since they're going against the mafia, doesn't that mean—"

"–they're on the citizen's side. And if the citizens can win, then they also win. Yep." Eun-Chan finished, "So, should we finally start?"

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

Over time, the more they played, the more they became immersed. No longer were they uncertain about their plays. 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.

As the sun began to set in the sky, the excitement and anticipation for the game continued to take hold. All were completely engrossed, not wanting to stop until the game had reached its climax.

"I told you I'm not the mafia!" Eun-Ha raised her voice, sending the group an almost desperate look while she pleaded innocence. The players returned it with a doubtful look, all except Yoon-Ji, who was taking the opportunity to sneakily peek at every surviving player's microexpressions.

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

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

Before they could do anything more, Yoon-Ji decided to cut in: "No, wait! Let's not vote and do the vigilante phase; we haven't heard if they're dead. Maybe they already know who the mafia is this time and can finally take action for us. If we vote now and choose wrongly, the Mafia will just win."

"You heard Yoon." Eun-Ha urged, making the others quickly flip-flop from agreeing with Heo-Yool to agreeing with Yoon-Ji.

The male continued to argue otherwise, saying if the vigilante chose wrongly, the citizens would lose as well. Yoon-Ji defended it by saying that, at least then, the game would end with a bang. The two quarrelled for a bit, only eventually quieting down once Eun-Chan signalled for all of them to close their eyes.

"The sun has started to rise," he read off from the phone. "Vigilante, you may now open your eyes and point at the player to kill."

"Hey, Vigilante," Eun-Ha spoke up, her eyes shut tight in anticipation. "Come on, do something..." 

After a few moments of silence passed, Eun-Chan started to crack up, eliciting various noises of confusion from the players. They wondered what happened that could've made the male suddenly break out into laughter.

"Mafia, open your eyes and pick a player to kill." A few seconds went by, the group intently listened on.

"Everyone, you may open your eyes now," Eun-Chan instructed, a large grin on his face. The players excitedly did so, they looked at one another and started making drumbeat sounds to build up excitement for the announcement of the ending.

"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. 

"Since we know the mafia were Mi-Na and Heo-Yool, who was the vigilante?" Eun-Ha asked, to which a hand was slowly raised.

"Yoon??" Heo-Yool repeated as though he couldn't believe it. "How did you know it was me?"

"Who wouldn't know it was you? Definitely not me and Yoon-Ji." Eun-Ha remarked, side-eyeing all her other fellow citizens who suspected her wrongly. 

They all listened as Yoon-Ji began to explain how she had been looking at everyone's microexpressions since the very start, going as far back as when they first received their roles. 

She pointed out how the whole time, Heo-Yool had been all too excited to pin accusations onto the others unreasonably. After rounds of this, and Eun-Ha pressured into being voted out recklessly, Yoon-Ji decided to finally step in and enforce her role, knowing it would put an end to the game with their win.

"Ah, so, Yoon..." Completely recovering from his loss, Heo-Yool suddenly wiggled his brows at Yoon-Ji. "If you saw all that, that means you were focusing on me, huh?"

Everyone broke out into laughter as they watched Yoon-Ji's face visibly cringe. "Don't even start with that, Yool."

While the group was fully engrossed in their laughter, they were oblivious to the fact that their noise woke someone from their peaceful slumber. This someone, being the one person they wouldn't even think to cross if they could help it.

Go Kyung-Jun.

Kyung-Jun wanted to make sure he had enough energy for the activities planned for the retreat and took to his seat with the desire to sleep throughout the ride. But, as if to make a fool out of him, there he was, still wide awake from the noise of his classmates.

He tossed and turned, but no amount of effort helped. They were also too into the game to even mind the volume of their voices.

Eventually, he had enough. Kyung-Jun opened his eyes and glanced over at the source of the noise, sweeping over the group until they unknowingly focused at one point.

"Hey, hey, give me the new role next," the girl in his view laughed, shaking her head as if she were done with her friends' antics. 

Her face was familiar, though not so much that Kyung-Jun could recall her name off the back of his mind. Still, the sight of her stirred something in his gut, something he couldn't quite place. Strange.

"Hey, you're good with names, right? Who's that?" Kyung-Jun found himself asking, the male beside him letting out a 'who?' in confusion. He reiterated, "The one near that nerd."

"Nam Yeon-Woo?"

Kyung-Jun raised his brow. "The girl?"

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

Hearing this, Kyung-Jun tilted his head, trying to see whether the name would strike something within him, just as her appearance did. 

After watching for a few more seconds, the male didn't say anything more, opting to sit back down. "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 going from a 100 to a 0. The smiles from their faces were wiped out as soon as the other continued, "Kyung-Jun is sleeping right now. You're all too rowdy."

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

If she were being real, Yoon-Ji could understand very well where Kyung-Jun's group was coming from; after all, their group had consistently been very loud since the afternoon. If she weren't in the same group, she knew she would've been just as bothered by the noise.

But the fact that the order to keep it down came from them, the known group of no-good-doers, rather than one of the officers like Jun-Hee, So-Mi, or even their homeroom teacher, left her with a bad taste in her mouth.

'What do they know about rowdy?' she thought to herself, feeling as if her enthusiasm had been snuffed.

She 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, realizing how quickly the girl could lose her composure. 

They went on, Yoon-Ji choosing to ignore their talk entirely in favor of taking in the scenery outside the window.

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 a phone call that seemed to be interrupted by the lack of signal in the area, leaving both Jun-Hee and Kim So-Mi 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 smiled at the sight of the three racing towards the building, amused by how they never seemed to run out of energy.

With the three out of sight, Yoon-Ji grabbed her bag and slung the strap over her shoulder.

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

"Um," the girl contemplated for a moment before shaking her head and replying, "I want to go ahead and rest up first."

"Weren't you just sleeping the whole ride?" Joo-Young piped up, sounding like she couldn't believe the very notion. "Come on, you're going to miss out on half the retreat if you keep sleeping most of it off."

Yoon-Ji laughed, waving her hand. "Okay, okay, I'll try to join you when I can."

Joo-Young nodded approvingly before they went on ahead, leaving Yoon-Ji to her lonesome once more. She was immensely glad that they had considered asking her to join; although she wasn't particularly close with any of them, the fact that they even cared to ask made her thankful.

'Oh, right!' Yoon-Ji's stomach churned as the realization hit her. She still had to send her father a quick message. 'He's going to kill me!'

She immediately unzipped her bag and dug into its contents. After grasping a sleek, thin, rectangular device, she slid it out, only for someone to suddenly snatch it away, leaving her hand completely bare. 

"Who-?" Yoon-Ji turned to the perpetrator in shock and saw none other than Go Kyung-Jun, looking at the device and then back at her.

"Go Kyung-Jun...?" she muttered.

In that moment, a mix of emotions flooded through Yoon-Ji's body—surprise, irritation, and a hint of fear. She stood there, frozen, her eyes darting back and forth between Go Kyung-Jun's face and the phone.

"Can you give my phone back?" Yoon-Ji asked, her voice small as she tried to rationalize what was happening.

Kyung-Jun didn't reply; instead, he let his eyes fall on the device in his grasp, taking note of every groove and crevice.

"This is a pretty nice model, recent too." Kyung-Jun inspected the phone before turning it over, viewing the design of the phone case, which Yoon-Ji didn't shy away from plastering stickers all over. "You like this type of stuff?"

Yoon-Ji didn't allow the male the satisfaction of knowing the answer to that, instead, she asked once again, "Can I have it back?"

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

The girl felt herself stiffen hearing her name come out from the male's mouth.

"You need this to call or text anyone? Like a boyfriend or something?" The male tilted his head, asking away while holding the phone out like it was some priceless artifact he got his hands on.

The other furrowed her brows before shaking her head and replying, "Dad, I have to call my dad."

Kyung-Jun's mouth hung as if to say 'Ah,' before mockingly asking, "Is that so?"

"Yes, so," Yoon-Ji hesitated for a bit before boldly reaching out to snatch the device. "Give it back!"

"Huh, no?" The male effortlessly raised his arms, preventing her from accessing the phone. His height made it difficult for Yoon-Ji to get the phone from him.

Kyung-Jun deciding to mess with her seemed sudden, but that was simply how he operated. If he set his sights on someone, he would stop at nothing until they were properly messed with.

It just so happened that she was unlucky enough to get noticed then.

"How much will this model sell for?" She heard Kyung-Jun mumble to himself and froze. Yoon-Ji stood there, her expression a mix of confusion and helplessness, as she watched Go Kyung-Jun press the power button. 

But to his disappointment and Yoon-Ji's own confusion, the phone never opened, and he was left to stare back at the reflective black screen.

He looked up towards the girl. "You brought a dead phone on the trip?"

Yoon-Ji was in disbelief, vaguely remembering leaving it to charge by itself before she took off for the trip. She shrugged her shoulders and truthfully replied, "No, I didn't. I don't know why it's like that."

Kyung-Jun scanned her expression, giving Yoon-Ji a chance to meet the male's eyes squarely, which she noticed lacked the usual antagonizing look in them; instead, they were, though she really doubted it to be true, calm, only carrying an underlying hint of arrogance.

"Well, that's a shame," he started, before shoving the phone into his pocket. "Guess I'll be keeping this until I've figured out what to do with it."

Without a warning, Kyung-Jun completely sauntered off with the phone. And the caught-off-guard Yoon-Ji's mind raced with multitudes of questions—why was he doing this? Kyung-Jun didn't seem to be in need of money or anything, so why was he messing with her, of all people? And why now? 

'Just when I hoped I would never be picked on by him, he immediately does this...' Yoon-Ji finally let out a deep sigh. She turned to the entrance, feeling frustrated that she'd already let the trip start on a negative note. 'Now how do I get it back...?'

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

───────── •✧• ─────────

( note )

not a solid ending for a chapter but I wanted to stop it right here since it's already at 3k words also, 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 soon 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