"Ah Ma!" The artist smiled and bowed to her with his arms behind his back, she nodded and moved past the door to let him in. Quentin looked around but found no sight of his friend, "Excuse me, do you know where Lily is?"

Her grandmother turned around after closing the door, "Bao Bei? Ah, who knows. She left this morning without even eating anything I left on the stove. Didn't you call her?"

Quentin thinned his lips, "Not yet, I wanted to come in person for something important."

Ah Ma's face widened, "ARE YOU FINALLY PROPOSING TO HER?"

"W-what? No- We're just friends!" The boy shook his hands defensively.

"I know," she sucked on her teeth and went to get her broom. "You two should start dating though, put yourselves out there! Get a partner!"

He rubbed his lip and daydreamed, but quickly shook his head and remembered his mission. "I should really get to Lily though, thank you Ah Ma!" Quentin opened the door and bowed again, nearly tripping on the steps as he went back to his car. Surely she didn't have work today?

The boy's assumption was proven correct when he arrived at the coffee shop and there was no sign of her, even from the grouchy barista who he'd already made an enemy of.

"No man, your girlfriend isn't on shift today."

"She's not my-" He groaned, "whatever. I'll look somewhere else."

The barista sighed, "Did you even try calling her?"

"Of course I did." That was a complete lie. "I need a new lead." 

With that, he left the shop and went back into his car, sulking. He pressed his head against the wheel, which he never used, and nearly choked from the amount of dust flying back into him. Add cleaning his car to his list of chores on top of everything else. Where the hell was Lily? Maybe Kaihou had some sort of mafia technology that could track her, better that than no lead at all. 

"You want me to... stalk your friend?" Kaihou took a sip of his coffee, looking worriedly at his friend.

"Yes, I need to make up with her."

He took another sip, "Oh right, you're fighting because of me."

Quentin clenched his teeth. "No, don't think it's about you-"

"You don't need to act like it isn't about me specifically, it's true; I put you in danger. The least I can do is help you find her and appeal to her myself, you saying something won't change the fact she hates me."

The painter groaned, "Why do you have to be right?"

Kaihou grinned over out-arguing him, then let him in. The boy walked in and sat next to Kaihou as he turned on his laptop. "I did Computer Science classes for a while, needed something to do other than keyboard."

Quentin raised an eyebrow, "I thought you said you specialized in business?"

"I self-taught myself keyboard, I'm not any good at it so I wouldn't call it a real talent, was too shy to join the Light Music club too."

The painter laughed.

Kaihou turned away from his laptop, "What's so funny?"

"You were a shy nerd in school, that's cute." 

The blonde widened his eyes, "Cute? Oh yeah? What were you in high school- some social butterfly who everyone wanted to sit at lunch with?"

"Yeah," he leaned back on the couch, raising his arms over his head. "Everyone also had a crush on me."

"Bullshiiit, you're bullshitting me!" He poked at the side of Quentin's rib, which was now exposed.

"It's true! I was a model you know, you don't subscribe to the beauty standard and not get teenager points."

"Well at least your pictures look good," Kaihou turned back to the screen, "I had glasses and didn't take good care of my hair, had one of those emo sidebangs at one point- made me feel so aged."

"Gross-"

"Wait..." Kaihou zoomed in on the screen's map, "She was at the grocery store an hour ago, but now she's at your house."

"What? Do you think she wanted to talk about stuff like I did?"

The crime prince shrugged, "Let's just go and see."

Ever the fashionista, Quentin looked at Kaihou's pajamas. "Don't you wanna get dressed before you meet Lily?"

There was silence for a few seconds, then the boy got up and went to his room. "Feels like you're introducing your boyfriend to your parents, jeez."

The two boys stood by the door, Kaihou put his hands in his yellow jacket's pockets and rocked back and forth like a toy horse. "You ready?"

"Not really, but it's not gonna get any easier to talk to her so I might as well do it now." He opened the door, and was greeted immediately by a burly man pointing a gun to zeir head in one hand. In the other?

Lily in a chokehold.