After what felt like an eternity, Yoon-Ji felt the familiar jostling of a bump in the road, bringing her abruptly 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, but before she could continue, a tap on her shoulder snapped her out.

Her tired gaze slowly focused on Heo-Yool, a store-bought onigiri in his hand, as he expectantly looked at her to take it.

Eun-Ha spoke up from behind, "We already told him to leave you be. But of course, he just won't listen."

To which Heo-Yool responded defensively, "I wasn’t even going to bother her; I was just concerned!"

Eun-Ha raised a brow which Heo-Yool ignored as he turned to Yoon-Ji, saying, "It’s already past afternoon and I figured you would want to get something in your stomach once you woke up so I got you this.”

Yoon-Ji smiled, her face warming ever so slightly as the others teased her about Heo-Yool's actions. Meanwhile Heo-Yool himself only continued to grin toothily, seemingly unfazed by what was happening. His attitude towards the situation made her think, and while she admittedly did find the notion a little flattering, she knew that Heo-Yool's actions were not meant to come off as romantic in nature.

‘He’s just always been mindful like that,’ Yoon-Ji thought, feeling grateful and at eases knowing that she was friends with such a great person.

“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 flavours.

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

“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?”

Heo-Yool shook his head no before another friend, Im Eun-Chan, cut in to ask, “Hey, hey, hey… really, did you guys forget what we were going to do? Are we still gonna play?”

Hearing this, Heo-Yool seemed to come to and he turned to face Yoon-Ji once more. "Actually Yoon, you woke up just in time! We were about to play another round of mafia. But, get this– a better version of mafia!”

Eun-Ha stepped into the conversation, “Don't force Yoon-Ji, you!”

“You're going to join, right? You promised you would join," Heo-Yool pressed, his demeanour 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 felt bad at the thought of turning down her friend's invitation, especially 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. From neutral to downright annoyed.

Even the president, Kim Jun-Hee, woke from his sleep to briefly look at them. Yoon-Ji tipped her head at him, as if to apologize for the rowdiness. Thankfully, the other received this message with a nod and smile.

Im Eun-Chan, who took on the role of the game master, also noted the glances they were getting and tried to pacify the group so they could begin the game, but the noise was inexhaustible when they had the Heo-Yool whooping 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 general rules? New roles?”
 
“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 to 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 mock disappointment while the others bemoaned his words. “Anyways, the Vigilante is a killing role, but the catch is that they're an innocent. They're not required to kill anyone during their turn, but if they do, they can only kill after two nights have passed.”

Everyone took in the information and responded varyingly, with some being quickly receptive to the change and others just confused about what strategy could be used with the additional role in the play.

To Heo-Yool's side, Yeon-Woo had a Eureka moment as he held out his green can of Pringles and said, “Since they're citizens, doesn't that mean–"

“–they have to help remove the Mafia. Yep.” Eun-Chan finished, ”So, can we finally start?”

Everyone agreed and the air was filled with excitement as they started the game with the new role. 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.

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 and they found the Mafia.

“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 player's micro expressions.

“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.

Before they could do anything more, Yoon-Ji finally decided to cut in: “No, wait! Let's do the vigilante phase first; 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-Ji!” 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 and only quietened down once Eun-Chan signalled for all of them to close their eyes so they could start the next phase.

“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. If you choose not to kill, you may close your eyes again.”

“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 a laugh.

“Everyone, you may open your eyes now,” Eun-Chan instructed with a large grin on his face. The players excitedly did so, look at the others and thrn started making drumbeat sounds to build up excitement.

“In the previous phase, the Mafia..." everyone’s eyes widened, “was killed by the Vigilante! 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 by the one player who remained calm throughout the session, Yoon-Ji.

“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 micro expressions since the very start, going as far back as when they first received their roles. She pointed out how the whole time, Heo-Yool was all too excited to recklessly pin accusations onto the other players, without even presenting acceptable reason. After rounds of this, and the fact that Eun-Ha was being pressured into being voted out recklessly, Yoon-Ji decided to finally step in and enforce her role.

“Ah, so, Yoon…” Completely recovering from hearing the explanation, Heo-Yool suddenly wiggled his brows at Yoon-Ji, “You were focusing on me, huh?”

Everyone broke out into laughter as they watched Yoon-Ji’s face turn into one of unsubdued cringing. The whole time, their group remained completely unaware of how their noise had gotten so loud that it woke someone from their sleep.

Go Kyung-Jun had only been looking to rest the whole afternoon. He wanted to make it so he had enough energy for his own personal ‘activities’ during the retreat. To his chagrin, his sleep kept getting interrupted as loud noises constantly erupted from the back. No amount of mentally tuning out helped. And so, left with no other idea, the male glanced over at the source of the noise, his eyes sweeping over the lot to get an idea of who to teach a quick lesson, until they focused at one point.

He watched them for a bit before sitting back down properly, off-handedly remarking, “They're so loud."

As Kyung-Jun resettled, Shin Seung-Bin, who was sitting next to him, stood up and unprovokedly slapped the back of the heads of the two students sitting in front of him. He then turned to Kim Jin-Ha, “Hey, 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. They were all visibly frazzled by the loud and furious call out from the messy-haired male, and the smiles from their faces were wiped out as soon as the other continued, “Kyung-Jun is sleeping right now. You're all too loud.”

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.

Now, Yoon-Ji could understand where Kyung-Jun’s group was coming from; after all, their group had been very loud since afternoon. But the fact that it 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 a bunch of jerks,' she thought to herself, feeling as if her enthusiasm had been snuffed.

She turned to Heo-Yool and told him lightly that she would not be participating in the following round. Though it was an impulsive choice, Heo-Yool fully agreed, realizing how quickly the girl could lose her composure. They went on, Yoon-Ji choosing to ignore their withdrawn 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. Inside, the students who had long since fallen into a tranquil silence, gradually started muttering amongst themselves about their plans for when they arrived.

Yoon-Ji didn't really know what she wanted to do; she had only really thought so far. But if there was one thing she knew, it was that if she was looking to have fun, she only needed to join Heo-Yool.

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

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 ideas on how to have fun.

After the three were out of sight, she took the time to observe her other classmates. A few steps away was Ahn Na-Hee, accompanied by Jang Hyun-Ho, looking like a sweet couple with the way they stuck close to one another. She sighted Jung-Won walking towards the entrance, leaving behind Yoon-Seo, who was strangely fixated on the building.

“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 bunch of others. “We're going to be practicing a dance routine in the gym; will you be joining?”

The girl contemplated for a moment before shaking her head and replying, “I was planning to rest first.”

“Rest again?" 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 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, prancing towards the entrance of the building and 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 very happy.

Since starting high school, she has always tried to stay friendly with everyone in her class to avoid any unnecessary conflict, and it seems to have worked so far. She had never gotten into a real fight with anyone, and sure there was the fact that So-Mi’s whole clique never really got on well with them, but even so she was pretty well-liked among her classmates. Even if they weren't super close, Yoon-Ji was content with the few friendships she had, and that was all that mattered.

‘Oh, right!’ Yoon-Ji's stomach churned as the realization hit her. Before leaving, she'd been given explicit instructions by her father to contact him once they arrived, so he could rest easy and not worry about anything bad possibly happening to her. ‘He’s gonna kill me!’

She immediately unzipped her bag and dug into its contents. She grasped the sleek thin, rectangular device, 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.

In that moment, a mix of emotions flooded through Yoon-Ji's body - embarrassment, annoyance, and a little hint of fear from the unexpected interaction with the male. Unable to think clearly, she stood frozen, her eyes darting back and forth between Go Kyung-Jun's face and the phone.

"Give it back," Yoon-Ji pleaded, her voice small.

“This is a pretty nice model,” Kyung-Jun remarked, turning his attention to the design of the phone case which Yoon-Ji didn't shy away from plastering stickers all over. He then looked at the girl, a hint of smirk playing at his lips, “You still need to call or text anyone? Like a boyfriend or something?”

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,” She hesitated for a bit, before boldly jumping towards the male and reaching out to snatch the device, “Give it back!”

"Huh, no?" The male raised his arms, preventing her from accessing the phone. His height made it difficult for Yoon-Ji to get the phone from him, so she began contemplating using underhanded tactics. She considered jabbing him, biting his arm, and even kneeing him in a specific spot, but all these ideas she quickly dismissed.

She had heard rumors about him getting into fights with female students in the past, heard how he'd do them in like he normally would his male victims. While they were only just rumors she'd heard, she wasn't going to risk it on the off chance he would allow her to get off scot free.

"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, anger, 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 to the trip?”

Yoon-Ji herself was in disbelief, vaguely remembering leaving it to charge by itself before she took off for the trip. She hung 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 antagonising 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 questions—why was he doing this? Kyung-Jun didn't seem to be in the need of money or anything, so why was he messing with her, of all people? And why now?

As she tried to understand his motives, only then did she realize that he was alone without any of his goons with him, which only added to her confusion. Her gaze bore into him as he disappeared into the building.

‘Just when I hoped I would never be picked on by him, he immediately does this…’ Yoon-Ji finally let out a deep sigh, realising that she was unlikely to get the answer to her question anytime soon. 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 centre, Yoon-Ji entered through the doors, leaving behind nothing but the stillness of the night.

( a/n )
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 (and a few specific characters)
with a burning passion. 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 and changing some of others as well since I'm planning on going canon divergent soon anyways. Obviously these characterizations are part of the actual plot but like,, creative liberties, yeah?

If you guys were tuning in for a massive jerkface and softgirl relationship I'd suggest turning away bc this might not be it for y'all 😭