Purple Scent

Ch. 11: Out

I pushed Yul with much force he literally rolled while he laughed softly, careful not to wake the others. I cleared my throat and rolled my eyes at him, "I don't have that in my mind.", I firmly said and stood up before walking away.

He started following me with that playful look of his.

"Why so serious?", he asked and I decided to just ignore this flirty brat doing magic tricks on my heart. I guess, I really needed to sleep.

I removed Soljun's jacket from my back and placed it back over him since he looked cold as he was curled into a ball, before I looked at Yul and placed my hands on the sides of my waist and said, "Just sleep already."

I walked towards the space where I can fill and lay down, somewhere nearer the fire and rolled the piece of carpet to place over the ground. The boys had brought the carpet from the storage room. It's a red carpet; it was long so they cut it to pieces each of us could fit into. It's kind of dusty but it just need some big hands from the boys to dust it off.

I saw Yul took one for his own and placed it somewhere near me. I glared at him. Is he really trying to piss me off? As much as I want to yell and stop him, I tried to ignore. I'm so tired, and my eyes were droopy. I laid there and watched the fire few meters away from me, its light and warmth reaching for us.

My eyes trailed automatically towards Yul who finally found his sleep, eyes closed, sleeping on his side facing me. I sighed in relief. Finally.

Actually, I was meant to die and rot at that fallout shelter, waiting for me to old and just be eaten by the Violet Harpies, but meeting Yul and Jaewook somehow brought me to meet Heeshik and his friends, accept and try to forgive Soobok and Kahee, to where we were now. At some point, it was good. 

The mess Yul and Jaewook brought the first time I met them led me to meet the other guys earlier than how they planned, and I found out that there was something I don't know about the Violet Harpies. Now to think about that, Heeshik had something to say to me when we met back then, and it's about the Violet Harpies. What could it be?

As much as I want to know about it, they are all sleeping, and I'm dozing off, too.

---

"Do we really need to stay here?", Hyunki crossed his arms as he sat lazily at the ground like a kid throwing tantrums. I laughed at him. Why are they too hyped up about getting into “action”? Or going out?

I sighed internally. Men.

"Hyunki, it's dangerous. Last time, we all had our weapons with us but we found it hard to fight them. It really looked like it was the first time you fought with them.", I said and rested my loaded crossbow on the floor for a while and knelt one of my knees and leaned over to tie the my left shoe. I dusted my hands and picked up my crossbow.

"It's our first time, actually.", Younghoon said as if it was some important trivia. “It’s not that bad.”, he tried to convince me.

I sighed, "Still, it’s just hard to go out and think about looking after few of you, when the sole reason why we have to go out is not to babysit.”

“You’re so mean.” Hyunki complained, Younghoon nodding in agreement.

I sighed, “Just stay here. In that way you’ll surely be safe. We all don’t know how many were roaming out there."

Yowoo pointed his lips towards my left side. "Jaewook's going, though? Why can he come when he's even the youngest of all of us?", he crossed his arms.

I sighed, "Okay, Jaewook, just stay here before these guys would bash me until I die.", I rolled my eyes and Jaewook stomped his feet while he walked towards the empty seat beside Yowoo and gave the latter a smack on his arm.

“Why did you  have to say that?”, he rolled his eyes. Yowoo just grinned apologetically.

“Sorry, I was childish, wasn’t I?”, he scratched the back of his head.

"So, I'm going with Soobok, Jaehwa, and Dohyun.", I announced and secured the strap of my crossbow bolt bin and faced Heeshik, "You take care of them, especially that guy with three stars on his cheek.", I said out loud and I heard Yul protested.

"Me? Should it be the younger ones who should be taken care of?", he asked and threw me a glare.

I looked at him before I started to walk away with the others, yelling, "Yes, you. Because you're like, a five year old child to me."

Dohyun laughed at my playful remark and I threw him an annoyed look, "Don't laugh, you're a five year old kid to me, too. I just needed you to be with us.", I said and he just pouted.

If I'm going to name someone who's reliable in fighting, it's Dohyun. it's not that they are not good at fighting—well, they were—Dohyun is ready to fight anytime, anywhere, and I think he would be enough to protect if not us, himself. I’ve seen him that time when we left the fallout shelter. It was as if he was made to fight. He had strong fists and arms.

I don't want to get the guys into trouble. And since Jaehwa and I will be at the back of the truck, Soobok should have someone beside him in case there would be an attack while he was driving.

"Be safe!", Heeshik reminded us after walking us to the entrance of the arena, outside the gymnasium.

I nodded, “Keep the doors closed and safe. Stay alert.” I reminded him. He nodded and walked back in.

Dohyun and Soobok had hopped on the front of the truck and locked the doors. I unhooked the tailgate and jumped up at the back of the truck with ease, before I turned towards Jaehwa and gave him a hand to step up. After he did, I hooked back the tailgate for safety.

Unlike the others, Jaehwa wasn't really talkative towards me. Well, he spoke sometimes, not that much. He sat and sighed before he rested his baseball bat beside him. He was humming to random songs I don't know of, since I mainly listened to classical songs, or masterpieces from operas.

His silence were not suffocating, in contrast, it was soothing. Plus the melody that comes from his hum was kind of comforting.

He was looking around, watching. That's the reason why I took him with me. He had some kind of sharp observation. I didn't plan to break his concentration, but he decided to talk about random things he could ask out.

But in a summary, it was unexpectedly peaceful during the ride, and I didn't know if was just being paranoid or if I was just expecting some Violet Harpies to come after us, but I knew something was off. I was suspecting them, knowing that they could wander around at daylight.

It wasn't long until Soobok had parked the truck beside an unknown establishment I haven't been yet, but it looked like a normal eatery. It looked like the usual restaurants downtown, except that it had a microscope logo and a label, “Micro-Lab”. It wasn’t a restaurant, but a laboratory. The exterior design was deceiving.

I started at the name of the establishment and I don't know why, but I suddenly became paranoid and had a feeling something's going to happen.