Chapter Text
Kayden noticed strange activity around the house: People he had never seen before passing in front of the house multiple times a day, footsteps in the backyard, round devices installed on the light posts. Jiwoo didn’t seem to notice a thing, since lately he wasn’t home that much, but since Kayden and Kartein were basically stuck inside, their sharp, feline eyes saw everything. Still, they assumed that it must have been the korean awakened agencies keeping an eye on him, since Jiwoo being Kayden’s apprentice attracted a lot of possible opponents. It was kind of nice, knowing Jiwoo was protected, even if it was a bit invasive. So they just kept the curtains shut.
But the real kicker was when Jiwoo was at a sleepover over at Jisuk’s and Kayden and Kartein went out to collect the post from the box while in cat form. Afterall, even regular dogs can bring in the newspaper, so the korean awakened agencies wouldn’t be too surprised if their spies reported that the cats Jiwoo communes with can bring in some envelopes.
Once inside, the two placed the envelopes in a pile and then, after making sure that all the blinds were shut, they turned human.
Kayden started going through the envelopes.
“Electricity is pretty expensive this month. Damn thieves. If I didn’t have to save energy I would just generate all the electricity for the house myself. That would teach them.”
“The fridge would stop working while you’re sleeping, idiot,” said Kartein, staring at the water bill and analyzing the impact his long baths had on the household.
Kayden opened another envelope.
“Hey, Kayden, do you have any bills saved from a few months ago? We should compare the prices, I think these guys are scamming us.”
Kayden didn’t answer. Kartein looked toward him, expecting to find him attempting to create a separate source of electricity that would keep the fridge working overnight. Instead, Kayden was staring blankly at a letter. Kartein had to put in quite a bit of effort to release the envelope and the piece of paper from Kayden’s tight grip. But when he took a look at the contents of the paper, he realized that the envelope hadn’t contained a bill. The sheet of paper was full of printed pictures of Jiwoo around the house, pictures of Jiwoo alone in his room taken through the skylight or pictures of him at the store. There was even one where he was shopping with Kartein and Kayden…how come they hadn’t noticed being tailed while they were with him?
But what was actually concerning was the text printed in the middle of the page.
“Your move.”
Kartein looked back at Kayden. He looked furious.
“Those weren’t korean awakened agents. Someone is trying to threaten Jiwoo.”
In less than 30 minutes, Kayden and Kartein were in Jiyoung Yoo’s office, coming up with a plan to take Jiwoo out of town for a few weeks, leaving Shinwa to track down the stalkers. Kayden didn’t want Jiwoo to know about this whole ordeal. Poor kid couldn’t catch a break. Knowing that he had a stalker would do him no good, it was something the adults could handle.
But he also couldn’t wait and find out what the stalker had in mind, so Jiyoung took them to her house, where Subin, Jisuk, Wooin and Jiwoo were having their sleepover.
She led them to the living room, where the teens seemed really surprised to see Kayden and Kartein. Jiwoo approached them and said:
“Mr. Kayden, Mr. Kartein, what is going on?”
In an attempt to hide the fact that anything was wrong, Kayden smiled and said:
“We are going on a trip!”
“Wait, a trip? Now? Where?” Jiwoo asked, unable to hide his excitement.
“Yes, now. And it doesn’t matter where we’re going, we aren’t going on vacation, we’re going to train your powers in different settings.”
“Wow, that’s so cool!”
“Ugh, that sounds so cool, I wanna test my powers in different settings tooo.”, Subin complained.
“Sorry, this is not a camp. Although, if you want it so much, maybe someone should propose it to Han Seongik, I bet the academy would benefit from it.”
“Ok, then let’s go get my stuff”Jiwoo said, picking up the bag he came with.
“Wait, don’t you have all you need in that bag? You were supposed to spend a few more days with your friends, so I assume that you have enough clothes. We'll just stop by to get the cats you commune with. Worst case scenario, we toss the dirty clothes in the washing machine.”
“So we’re not stopping by my place anymore?”
“Why waste time? Miss Yoo already called Inhyuk, he will be taking the cats to Shinhwa, where he’ll be able to keep an eye on them 24/7.”
“He’ll be taking them to the office? Wouldn’t it be easier to just stop by and feed them?”
“No,”said Jiyoung, “he is pretty busy this week. By bringing them to the office, we are making sure that they are well taken care of.”
In reality, they were trying to avoid the stalkers breaking in the house and harming the cats.
Before they knew it, they were in a car they had borrowed from Shinhwa. Kartein was driving, with Kayden in the right seat and Jiwoo in the back, already asleep. In the trunk, besides Jiwoo's luggage, was a huge bag of cat food.
Kayden had seen Kartein drive before. Usually, his driving was perfect and relaxed. Kartein not using the blinker was unheard of.
This time, however, Kartein was switching lanes and taking weird turns without signaling, switching speeds randomly and taking less direct routes, all in an attempt to figure out if someone was following them. No one was.
Sometime around 3 am, they made it to the wooden cabin,half an hour of walking away from a small village. All around them was silence and the only sources of light were the moon, the stars and the headlights of the car. Kayen carefully picked up his still asleep disciple and they made their way inside.
It wasn’t much, but they had a kitchen, which made Kartein very excited, because they had passed a lovely farmer’s market on the way there. Kayden, on the other hand, wasn’t so thrilled, because he knew Kartein was going to use this opportunity to stuff him with vegetables.
He looked out the window. In front of them, there was nothing but a meadow. To their right, there was a forest. The closest village was barely visible to their left . Basically, Kayden would be able to spot anyone trying to spy on them and give them a piece of his mind.
He looked at Jiwoo's sleeping figure. Who could possibly have the nerve and the resources to stalk and threaten his apprentice? How much did they know?
And more importantly, now that they had left town…what was their next move?