Ten years.
It didn't feel like ten years. It felt like the underground had always been there, and the world above it had always been something that happened to other people.
But time had passed regardless. The children who had stood trembling in that room while Melon Violet smiled at a dead boy were not children anymore — or almost not. They had grown up in corridors and training rooms and the dim light of a basement that never changed regardless of what the sky was doing above it.
And somehow, in the middle of all of that, they had become a team.
They were in the middle of a game when the call came.
"Melon's office. All of you."
They filed in together — Mayex, Boran, Adam, Elara, and Benny — and found Melon sitting behind her desk with an old man standing beside her. He had the kind of face that had been worried for so long it had simply become his face.
Melon looked at the group.
"Mayex, Elara — you two are lifelong partners. But I see you've collected some extras." She glanced across the rest of them. "I suppose I can consider you all a team."
"Yeah," Mayex said.
"Yes," Boran said.
"Yep!" Adam said.
"Yes!" Benny said.
A pause.
"…Yes," Elara said.
Melon looked at them all for a moment. Then she moved on.
"Mayex. You're eighteen now. Which means it's time for your first mission."
The room shifted. Not physically — nothing moved. But something in the air changed, the way it does when something that has been theoretical for a long time suddenly becomes real.
Mayex looked at her and said nothing.
"You will protect this man," Melon said. "Be his bodyguard."
The old man looked at Mayex with a small, tired smile.
"I'll be in your care."
Mayex looked at him. Then back at Melon.
"If this is my mission — why did you call everyone?"
Melon's expression didn't change, but something behind her eyes did.
"Because this isn't a solo mission." She leaned back slightly. "This man owns a large company. Someone is after him — we don't know exactly who or why yet. You alone won't be enough."
Silence settled over the room.
Boran spoke first.
"If it's this serious — why give it to us? It'll be our first time."
Melon stood.
She walked slowly around the desk, taking her time, until she was standing directly in front of Boran. She looked at him.
"Because this is how the organisation works~" she said. "Nothing here is easy. And this is actually the most suitable first mission I could find for you."
She said it like it was a gift.
Adam grabbed her hand.
His eyes were wide and shining.
"Do we get snacks as a reward?!"
Mayex stared at him.
Elara stared at him.
Boran stared at him.
Benny put her face in her hands.
"Adam. Really. That's what you got from all of that."
"We haven't had snacks in YEARS," Adam said, completely serious. "I want a chocolate bar. I want a white one specifically. I have been thinking about it for months."
Melon looked down at her hand, then up at Adam, then down at her hand again.
"…Yes," she said slowly. "There will be snacks. As a reward." A pause. "Do not hold my hand again. Or I will cut it off with a butter knife. Slowly. So it hurts as much as possible."
Adam released her hand immediately, smile completely intact.
Melon straightened her sleeve, then gestured toward the door.
"Out for a moment," she said to the old man. He nodded and left without a word.
She pulled out her iPad.
"Before you go — I need to log all of you. Standard procedure."
She looked at each of them in turn.
"Mayex. Male. Brown eyes, white skin, brown hair. Eighteen. Adam. Male. Blue eyes, white skin, ginger hair. Seventeen. Elara. Female. Green eyes, mixed skin, brown hair. Nineteen. Boran. Male. Blue eyes, brown skin, brown hair. Eighteen. Benny. Female. Brown eyes, brown skin, brown hair. Fourteen."
She set the iPad down.
"Done~"
Benny raised her hand slightly.
"How exactly is this going to work? Do we all just… go out and do our thing?"
"The old man has money," Melon said. "He'll provide accommodation. You won't need to worry about that."
"And the city?" Mayex asked. "Where are we actually going?"
"Köln."
She waved toward the door.
"Now out."
They found the old man waiting in the corridor, still wearing the same tired smile. Nobody said anything for a moment.
Then Boran exhaled.
"Let's get going, I suppose."
The old man's car was enormous — a jeep, wide enough for all of them with room to spare. He drove. They sat in the back and looked out the windows.
Germany.
They had been transported here years ago, but they had never actually seen it. The underground had no windows. The underground had no sky. Now, watching it pass through the glass — the streets, the buildings, the light — nobody spoke for a long time.
It was a lot to take in, for people who had spent ten years underground.
The house was large. The old man showed them around briefly, left snacks on the table, and disappeared into his work room. The lock clicked behind him.
From the other side of the door, muffled but audible —
"FUCK!"
A pause.
"I cannot BELIEVE this! My life is on the line and that woman sends me TEENAGERS?! Is she INSANE?! I paid a HUGE loan for my safety and she gives me — TEENAGERS!!!"
The voice cut off abruptly, as if he had remembered the walls weren't thicker than they were.
In the living room, Adam was already halfway through a chocolate bar.
"…Did he just—" Mayex started.
"Yes," Boran said.
Silence.
"Anyway," Adam said, holding up the white chocolate bar with great seriousness, "this is even better than I remembered."
"You're RIGHT," Benny said. "It's so GOOD—"
Boran looked at them. Then at Mayex, who had sat down and was reaching for a snack with the relaxed energy of someone on holiday.
"…We are here to protect someone," Boran said.
"Yes," Mayex said. "And we can also have snacks."
Boran pressed two fingers to his forehead.
"I'm going to check the neighbourhood."
He stood, pulled his jacket on, and walked out the front door.
Elara watched him go.
Then, quietly, she stood and followed.
The street outside was normal. Residential. Quiet for a Sunday afternoon. Boran walked slowly, scanning without making it obvious, hands in his pockets.
They're eating chocolate inside, he thought. First mission. Unbelievable.
Then something caught his eye.
A glint. Something reflecting light from further down the street, near the entrance to a narrow alley.
He slowed.
Looked again.
That's shiny.
He moved toward it. Carefully at first, then faster when it didn't disappear.
He reached the alley entrance and stepped in.
On the ground, half hidden in shadow, was a pair of scissors. Golden-handled. The kind that catches light and throws it back.
He picked them up and turned them over.
Then he saw it.
In the polished surface of the blade — a reflection. Distorted but clear enough. Someone above him. On the fire escape.
Looking down.
Boran moved.
He spun and drove the scissors upward in one motion.
The figure dropped from the fire escape and landed in front of him, dodging the strike with an ease that was almost casual — the kind of ease that comes from having done this many times.
Boran stumbled back a step and looked at what was in front of him.
The man was tall. Built. And his face —
His face looked like it was melting. Burn scars, deep and uneven, pulling the skin in directions it wasn't supposed to go. He looked like something that had survived something it shouldn't have survived.
He looked at Boran with mild interest.
"Well," the man said pleasantly. "I didn't know they were hiring children for protection work now."
He tilted his head.
"I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Johan."
Boran's body made a decision before his mind did. Every instinct he had — ten years of training, ten years of being told to read a room, read a person, read danger — all of it was saying the same thing at once.
Run.
Not because of the face. Not because of the size.
Because of the way Johan stood. The complete absence of tension in his posture. The way he looked at Boran the way someone looks at something that isn't a threat yet, but might become mildly inconvenient.
"I think I understand your fear," Johan said, reading him easily. "The face. It happened when I was young and foolish." He almost smiled. "Now I look like melted ice cream."
Boran's grip tightened on the scissors.
"…Are you the one after the old man?"
Johan reached into his pocket.
The silence that followed lasted exactly long enough to mean something.
Then he pulled out a gun and pointed it at Boran. Not dramatically. Not with any particular weight. The same way you'd point at something on a shelf.
"Yes," he said. "It is me."