He had remembered it.
Sunoo had given one of the medical packs to Sakura, when they were all going on their first paired mission outside of their headquarters.

Sakura always had it with her.
But, there was one problem.

Yunjin didn't know it.
She didn't know that there was no Sakura. Or Chaewon.
They'd never came back to base.

Because of Heesung. He had kicked them out.
And now, they were stuck, in dire, dire trouble.

...

She didn't know it. Yunjin didn't know any of it.

Jungwon just knew it by looking at the two girls.
Not her. Not Kazuha. Not even Sunghoon. Neither of the three.

He'd found out that neither Chaewon nor Sakura had come back. And, when he had asked Heesung about it, that was when the fiery clash had started.

At first, back in the dorms, he had expected a modest answer from Heesung, perhaps he had been mistaken and they really were back, but that was not the case.

Heesung had simply replied with the words, "They're gone. I sent them back. Away from us."

And it had not sat well with Jungwon at all.
That's what got them to their point now; in a huge, sporadic mess of confusion and anger.

Jungwon just stared at Yunjin blankly. He didn't know what to say, or what to do.
For one, he had Sunoo in his arms, bleeding out, and a truth that he'd wished was a lie.

"Sakura has one of them, those kits, right?" Yunjin repeated, becoming more and more aware of Jungwon's silence.

"I... uh... well..."
Jungwon tried to push out words, but his brain felt like it had been washed out. All that came through his lips was confused blabber.

So, Heesung, who had just gotten up from the ground, took it all into his own hands.
He spoke to Yunjin, in a somehow calm voice.

"They never came back. Sakura nor Chaewon."

His words rung in the room like a heavy weight being dropped.
Yunjin would've thought the weight fell on her heart.
"What? What do you mean-"

"They're gone. I sent them back to wherever you guys had started from. I sent them away. And I was about to send the rest of you as well... but then I saw Kazuha and Sunghoon's conditions and... and..."

Heesung shut his eyes tight.
He knew it as well as he needed.
He knew just how badly he had messed up. But the anger still stayed with him.
It burned like a red hot coal.

Yunjin stood, eyes wide, staring at Heesung as if he'd just committed murder in front of her.
In fact, that's exactly what she had thought.

Heesung expected her to start shouting at him, and soon enough, there was shouting just after.
But it wasn't Yunjin.

It was Kazuha.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!? I- WHAT?!? BRING- BRING THEM BACK, YOU BASTARD!! BRING THEM BACK!! I'LL FREAKING KILL YOU!!!"

She stumbled off the couch, and hurled herself at Heesung with all the strength she could muster in her poor condition.

"Kazuha-" Yunjin shouted.
She tried to pull the girl back as she started throwing her one good hand at Heesung, who didn't choose to back away. It was almost like he was accepting it, the fact that he had wronged and was choosing to pay for it.

But, he was smiling at her.

Even though his posture showed remorse, his face showed manic.
Whatever anger he was driven by, it was strong. It was like it had made him stop caring about everything and everyone.
It was almost... different.

A little bit too different.

"YOU- YOU'RE SMILING, HM? I KNOW WHAT'LL MAKE YOU SMILE- LET ME GO!"
Kazuha pushed Yunjin's hands away from her, and went back at Heesung, who didn't seem to be bothered by her anger one fair bit.

But, this time, Heesung decided to add insult to injury.
He grabbed near Kazuha's shoulder, right on the patch of skin which had a dark bruise on it. Right where her collarbone had been broken.

"Who's the bastard now? If you want them back, feel free to go out and get those two. Or join them, I don't care."

He pushed her away, and she fell to the ground, in pain.

"...That is, if you're even mildly capable of surviving a day with your condition."

"HEESUNG, BACK OFF HER!" Jay screamed.

He stood forwards, blocking Heesung off from anyone else, whether that'd been Sunoo or Kazuha.

"HEESUNG, DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH?!?" Jake shouted in turn, running and backing up Jay.

The three of them stood face to face. Two of them were frowning, one of them was smiling.

Heesung just kept grinning at them, and it was starting to piss Jake off.
"YOU MAKE ME SO-"

"Angry? Don't you think I'm angry too?" Heesung sneered.

Jake felt like he couldn't take it anymore.
He took out his blade, and slashed Heesung's face.

...

Pain.
It was fuel.
A fuel to anger.

Blood dripped down from his lip down to his chin.
His grin dropped.

Heesung stared at Jake, with a wide-eyed murderous look, a cherry red ooze of blood just streaming down his lower lip, which had been sliced.
Jake held his blade tightly in his hand, and on the very tip of it was Heesung's blood.

"It'll be better for all of us if you just stopped speaking..." Jake huffed, his chest rising up and down in his barely contained anger.

Heesung, in a slow movement, wiped his lip with his sleeve, taking a glance down at his own blood. His hand, just like Jake's, was shaking in fury.

"Is this how we're doing this now, bringing a knife to a fistfight?" Heesung said.

His hand came up to his belt, for his blade.

"No! We are not doing this!"

Before he could grab ahold of it, Jay quickly snatched Heesung's blade and threw it to the side, away and out of reach.

"Not now. Not ever. Stop, okay? Stop this! You've caused us enough trouble already... Just take a look around you, look at the state of this place! Look at Sunoo! Jake, just- just put your blade away, alright? It's causing us so much harm!"

Jay reached over for Jake's blade, expecting him to keep ahold of it, but Jake just let him take it out of his hand without difficulty.
But he and Heesung kept their death glares at each other. It was almost like they'd wanted their stares to burn a hole right through the other's face.

"Blades away... We never... never... use them against each other. Never again, Jake. Never again." Jay finished.

He pulled Jake away from Heesung, and into the dorm rooms after passing by Niki, who eyed them worriedly. Heesung was left in the main room with everyone else, who had seemed to have their eyes pinned on him.

Out of all of the people in the room, apart from Heesung, Sunoo seemed to be the biggest outlier. His hand had somehow surprisingly been bandaged up by Jungwon, and the table knife had already been pulled out, and it was lying on the floor next to them.

Jungwon was cursing under his breath.
As much as he felt bad for Sunoo, and the amount of pain his hand must've been in, it wasn't the thing he was worried about.

It was the bandage.

The bandage was red.
The blood was still seeping through.
It meant that, if it still continued to bleed out at this rate, Sunoo lose too much for him to handle. He'd die, to put it short.

"Forgive me, Sunoo... I don't know what I'm doing. I wish I did..." Jungwon mumbled.

He tore off another piece of bandage, and wrapped it around Sunoo's hand. But, this time, he made it much tighter.
Sunoo knew exactly what Jungwon was trying to do, and he screamed into his hand when Jungwon fastened it tightly, but otherwise kept his reaction to a minimum.

"Leave it like that, Jung- Jungwon... there's not much more you can do..." Sunoo said, pushing the words through his gritted teeth.

Jungwon let out a large huff.
His heart was racing, but he was glad to be able to have helped, even if it was painful.

"I'll leave it... But what if it bleeds again?" Jungwon asked.

"It- It hasn't, though."

"But what if-"

"Leave it to me, Jungwon... Just- It's okay... I'll be fine..."

Jungwon nodded.
At least it was stemmed well enough that Sunoo could talk to him.
Not like how he was screaming earlier.

He was glad the injury, although very bad, hadn't been any worse. The knife had been aimed at him, but Sunoo had decided to bite the bullet instead.
For all he knew, one wrong placement could've ended his comrades' life.

...

Time: 23:13, October 22

Everything felt so... different.
She had walked up this same path for many, many years, but it had never felt this different to her.

It was so empty.
It felt like an entire part of her had just been separated. That was what it felt like, at least.

There was nobody but herself and Sakura. Even with Sakura, though, it still felt like she was alone. Before, she had felt so full, so alive.
But, over the courses until now, she felt like she had lost all part of herself.

Like how they'd lost Garam.
Or perhaps even Eunchae, be it she'd turn out be alive or not.

With everything she'd lost, whether that was someone or something, she felt like a part of herself went away with it.

And now, she felt like a nobody.
Like a dull knife.

Chaewon let out a huff, and slowed down to a stop. Sakura stopped soon after, and looked back at her, squinting through the darkness.

"Tired?" She asked.
Sakura held out her hand for Chaewon to take, but Chaewon shook her head.

"No, no. I'm fine... I was just... thinking."

Sakura gave her a small nod,
"Okay..."
and then she proceeded up the mountain. Chaewon followed closely behind.

It wasn't long until they had reached the familiar iron hatch hidden between the overgrowth.
Sakura trailed her hand across the hatch's surface.
It was icy cold. Just like how she'd expected it to be; nobody'd touched it for a while and the climate outside felt almost freezing.

Sakura placed her hand on the metal plate for the doors to open, and they entered into their headquarters.

Chaewon scoffed.
"It's some next level technology right there,"

She pointed at the metal plate.

"They didn't even have a lock at the other base." She said, sounding a little proud, but also a little distraught.

Sakura let out a breath.
"Well... perhaps Sunoo's got a little bit to learn, then. Hopefully they come to their senses and make it safer. They live on the edge, those lot."

Chaewon mumbled something under her breath, behind Sakura's back.
"Hopefully they come to their senses and let us back in..."

She went behind Sakura through the hatch, shutting it closed behind them.

Sakura switched on the lights, and took a look around.
The sight was almost bittersweet, in a way.

The long travel was over. They were back where they started.
Back to their headquarters. The place was thrashed, with a series of upturned chairs and all sorts of things like pillows and pieces of broken wood scattered all around the floor.

Out of all the six doors there had been to start with, there were only five left standing.
The red one had been completely obliterated.

Eunchae's door was in pieces. Splinters were stuck in the wall, and some of the paint around the door frame had been scraped off from the time when the door had been broken off it's hinges.
It truly was a poor, poor sight to see.

Chaewon walked up to the fallen door and tried to pick it up by the handle, which just gave up on itself; the metal separated from its screws, and the handle detached, leaving the remnants of the door to collapse back down to the floor right in front of her.

She huffed.
"It's all in ruins..."

In spite of it, Chaewon threw the handle away from her, and it rolled into the darkness of Eunchae's room, underneath a shelf that had been toppled over.

Sakura came up behind her, scanning the room.
Eunchae's room was almost unrecognisable. All the shelves had been broken off, the bed was mangled and the walls had a concerning amount of indents in which some of them had something that looked very much like blood splatters in it.
It definitely was blood.

She tore her eyes away from them. It was distressing to see.
Perhaps even some of it was her blood.

Sakura could still recall the pain that had shot through her neck when Eunchae had attacked them.
Kazuha and Sunghoon could've died along with her if the girl hadn't gained control of herself over the spirit.

Eunchae's eyes had stared right down into her soul.
And it was like she knew. Like Eunchae knew everything. Or, more precisely, the spirit knew.

The Eunchae first turned, the spirit didn't look like it was going in a random order when it came to attacking. If that had been the case, Eunchae wouldn't have had her attention diverted when she had Kazuha in a neck hold.

Eunchae would've killed whoever she could reach first.
But that hadn't been the case.

Then, she would've killed Sunghoon before moving to Sakura.

It wasn't just any random order.
The spirit wanted to kill them all, for sure. But it looked like it wanted to prioritise the most powerful ones first.

The spirit had wanted to start with Sakura.
Hence why Eunchae targeted her.

If she had gotten Sakura out the way, without any of her experience in healing and fighting, the others would've had a much, much lower chance against her.
Eunchae'd kill everyone.

But she wanted to start with a particular person.
At that was Sakura.

She knew, once Eunchae could catch a single glance of her, she'd be next.

...