Yes, it's published, it's up on Amazon and available for Amazon Kindle and Paperback! 😭
First of all, I want to thank you, all the STAYs that read my fanfiction and loved it, reblogged it, left comments and so on! This is how I knew I have to turn this into a book.
Because of you, Velvet Chains is now a book.
And of course, I want to thank my forever inspiration and the man who was my main character in fanfiction and now he turned into Kai Mordov. But before there was Kai, his name was Bang Chan. My muse. ❣️
You can get the book here: Velvet Chains | Book
Tropes: Mafia Dark Romance, Lovers-Enemies-Lovers, Betrayal, Kidnapping, Debts in Blood, "You're mine", Touch her and die, (and honestly many more)
AND HERE IS A LITTLE TEASING DIRECTLY FROM THE BOOK:
This will be a one shot fanfic that is entirely inspired by this prompt that I found on tiktok. Credit: kpopp.multiverse
18+ CONTENT, NSFW THEMES, SMUT
POV: You're his stylist. He has a quick change. You're alone backstage and you fix his shirt, hand brushing him on accident. He flinches and texts you right after the stage... (This is the prompt from the tiktok, will just be continuing from there.)
When I felt my phone buzz, I wasn't expecting to get that message from Jongho. I also wasn't expecting to get it while I, along with all the other members of ATEEZ were in the same room.
Looking up from my phone, I immediately make eye contact with Jongho, his face remaining stoic, but the flicker of amusement behind his eyes makes my skin heat.
Suddenly I realize that I can't stop replaying that moment either, even though it wasn't intentional--I didn't realize how big of a ripple this was going to cause in both of our lives, especially since the other members saw it happen. I know they did. They had been talking about it, and now here I was in a staring contest with Jongho and feeling my body start to shake.
Nerves? Excitement? Embarrassment? I don't know. I just knew that I needed to leave the room immediately.
Sure, I had worked for the company and for the guys for years, but had never felt like this over a simple interaction. I had always touched them and their clothes. It was MY JOB.
I'm searching for the exit and make a beeline for the door, desperate to get rid of the weight on my chest as I push through into the cooler air of the hallway. Making my way down the hall, hoping to find some place a little more quiet where I can ground myself again.
Sinking down against the wall, I lean my head on my knees, just taking deep breaths, still unsure of why this was affecting me this way.
As I'm counting my breaths and finally feeling like I'm coming back to reality, I hear a voice. "Are you alright?"
Snapping my head up, I make eye-contact with Jongho. Scrambling to stand, I'm running a hand though my hair nodding. "Yeah, no, I'm fine. Thanks." I'm scrambling to smooth my clothes and avoiding his eyes at all costs.
He shifts from one side to the other, his hands loosely clasped together in front of him. I can feel his eyes still on me, but yet I refuse--despite the pull that is begging me to look at him.
"I should go." I say, moving to brush past him.
A hand shoots out and grabs just above my elbow, pulling me closer. "Stay." I turn my head, realizing just how close Jongho is to me--it makes my breath catch in my throat.
Suddenly, my throat is dry and I can't seem to speak, so just a simple nod suffices. Yet, he doesn't let me go.
Instead, Jongho turns to face me , his hand still holding my arm as the other comes up to run a thumb on my cheek, eyes scanning my face as if checking for any damage.
"Tell me what's wrong?" He says softly, his hand sliding down to grab my hand, thumb running across the knuckles.
He was always so gentle, always so kind. I had been drawn to him the most out of all the members. He made me feel safe. Safer than anyone ever had before and so...I melted.
"I didn't expect to have that...reaction to your text?" I say, still aware of how close we're standing.
What if someone came out and saw the two of us? Would I lose my job? Would you lose everything? Would fans send me death threats?
But as I look into his eyes and see the way that he's watching me, I realize one thing--I don't care.
"I mean, I've literally done this job for what....5 years?" I say, throwing my free hand in the air in a nonchalant gesture. "Why was this time different? Why all of a sudden do I feel like I can't breathe because I was doing my job? Now I can't stop replaying my hand on your stomach, which wasn't even a big thing???" You realize that you're rambling as soon as the smirk appears on Jongho's lips.
"I think that this time was different because we're different, no?" He tilts his head to the side as he asks, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he takes a deep breath.
In the same moment that I hear him breathe in, I realize that I'm holding my breath, unsure of what will happen next.
When I release the air, my eyes flick to Jongho's mouth. "I do think that we're a little different from the beginning, yeah." I say with a deep breath, finally filling the empty void in my lungs.
"But what is that even supposed to mean...why was it like this? What exactly do we do? Why is this making me feel panicky?" There's a involuntary laugh that bubbles from my lips as I run my free hand through my hair.
All the while, Jongho remains a constant. His head nodding as he listens, really listens to what I'm saying. For the first time, I understand. I understand why it's different...and that terrifies me.
It's as if he sees the recognition in my face finally mirror his own before he takes a step closer. "You felt it too, right?"
A simple nod.
I can't think straight, I don't even know where to focus. All I can manage to do is stare straight ahead at him, his eyes focused down at my lips, and suddenly I can't stop messing with them.
I drag my bottom lip between my teeth, letting it slowly slip out when I hear a soft sigh from Jongho.
His eyes move up to mine, and I'm once again speechless. "You are making this harder than I wanted it to be..." He says, my brows knitting together in confusion.
"Do that again and I'm not going to be responsible for what happens next." He says.
I feel my cheeks heat with that phrase, short-circuiting slightly when I realized that I took a step closer to him.
The magnetic pull that I was feeling was certainly something that I couldn't deny. There was nothing that I could do in order to stop what happened next.
Forgetting what he had just said, I take my lip back between my teeth, his hand shoots up to my chin, thumb pulling my lip down and I swear my body is about to hit the floor.
"What did I say..?" He says, leaning in, our breath swirling together as I look into his eyes.
Both of us know what's going to happen before it does. My hand slips underneath his jacket, grabbing the fabric of his shirt in a light fist as he turns me more towards him, eyes flick to my lips once more and we connect.
His lips are soft against mine, softer than I imagined, but god, do they feel like home.
The moan that comes from deep within my body is almost embarrassing, to say the least--but I can't help but melt into him. My heart is hammering against my chest as I kiss him back, feeling my head starting to get fuzzy from the contact.
He pulls away from me, a small chuckle sounding from him and I feel my face heat. "What's so funny?"
"I never thought that you would sound better than my dreams." All I can do is blink at that statement.
"Wh-what do you mean?"
In that moment, I notice his eyes darken. Something is stirring inside him and it's dangerous.
I felt something against my hand and realized that I was almost against the wall. Was this his plan the whole time? To separate me from the gro--
I can't think as he leans in and breathes against my neck. "You know exactly what I mean." My shaky breath stops as he presses his lips against my skin.
Yes, I think I do.
My mind is completely blank, the only thing that I have the slightest ability to focus on is the way that Jongho is pressing against me, I can practically feel his body heat radiating into mine.
"Jongho. . ." I breathe, my head falling to the side as I slip my fingers into his soft hair.
I can feel the smirk on his lips against my skin. "Yes?" He says, his hands are resting just at my waist as he pulls back, eyes shimmering with something I'm not sure I understand fully.
I can't help but stare at him, that little smile on his face.
"What's wrong?" He asks, his hand slipping between my legs as he moves to shield me from the hall. To say that I am floored is the least of my worries right now as he palms me, I can feel the friction against my skin, my arousal growing by the second--I can't catch my breath.
"N-nothing." I choke out, taking my bottom lip between my teeth again.
"I told you not to do that. . ." Jongho growled, his lips crashing down on mine again.
I whimper as his hand slips into the waistband of my pants, finding my arousal. His hand is full of magic as he practically casts a spell on me.
I shoot my hands out to grab his arms, fingers pressing gently into the fabric. "Fuck--" I can barely get the curse out as his hand works me, my legs shaking from the contact, breath caught in my throat.
"That's right-- come undone for me."
I can feel my cheeks heat at both the command and the sensation this man is bringing to me.
His hand quickens, and I can barely contain my moans with each touch--but it seems that Jongho had already planned for that, his hand sliding over my lips, still allowing me to breathe.
"You're going to make such a mess." He breathed against my ear, I could feel his hips shifting against my leg, his own arousal apparent.
With a grunt I press my palm to the bulge, rubbing to see what reaction I would get--he falters his own touch, leaning more into the wall.
Perfect.
A gentle tug is all it takes for me to be turned to face him, undoing his pants, my eyes meet his and he uncovers my mouth, our breath mingling as I pull him out and start to stroke.
He sighs and leans his forehead against mine, his hand still working me as I return the favor. Just as a moan starts to escape my throat, Jongho's mouth meets mine.
The kiss has changed. No more soft and full of desire, it's now hard, fast, and full of need, his desire reflects my own as I whine against his lips.
As our hands continue, I can already feel that pressure building deep within my stomach.
Was this really how it was going to happen? Us pressed against each other in the corner of a hallway until we can't take it?
As I feel that crest building I knew the answer. "Jongho," I said between breathy pants. "I'm gonna--" I whine against his lips, my legs continuing to shake as I rise higher and higher, my hand moving faster, gripping him.
"Ah shhh---" I hear him curse as he's practically fucking my hand, both moving towards the cliff.
I can't last any longer, my body riding the wave as my orgasm crashes over me. "Oh FUCK!" I cry out, feeling myself crest the waves, my hand still working him, kissing along his neck now as we breathe each other in.
His hips move faster into my hand, an arm locking me into the corner as I trail my lips up to his, his shuddery breath making me weak again. "Augh, fuck." He sighs, grabbing my chin and bringing our lips back together.
I hum into his lips, feeling him move faster and faster until he finally releases with a gasp, ribbons painting the wall next to us as he drops his head for a moment to catch his breath.
"Damn . . ." i said, pressing a kiss to his slightly damp cheek. "One brush was all it took, hm?"
He chuckled and lifted his head to meet my eyes, and suddenly my heart was in my throat as he looked at me. His eyes held an affection that I had long since missed out on, but now, here, in a hallway exhibition, I had found him.
I genuinely can’t believe that Velvet Chains — the fanfic I posted on this very blog a YEAR ago — still gets visits, likes, comments, reblogs, and the sweetest messages from people who discover it for the first time.
Like… hello??? You guys still find it?? Still read it?? Still scream about Chan and Y/N in my inbox??
It blows my mind in the best way.
I told you earlier this summer that I was turning the fic into a full novel and that I’d update you once it was ready for Amazon.
Well… IT’S HAPPENING. 😭🔥
The manuscript is uploaded.
KDP says “In Review.”
The next step is literally: PUBLISHING.
(Please, Amazon… I’m begging. Work faster. My soul is pacing in circles.)
To everyone who has ever read the fic, reblogged it, sent me an ask, yelled at me in the tags, or whispered “I need more of this” at 3AM — thank you.
You’re the reason I had the courage to turn this secret little Tumblr AU into a real book. You believed in this story before I did.
I will never forget that.
Now… as promised 👀📚
Here’s the book cover + the official tropes list so you can see exactly what this chaotic little fanfiction grew into.
Feel free to scream, flail, cry, attack the reblog button — whatever feels right.
So... I rewatched Twilight (it's autumn, don't judge me) and it gave me the itch to start a Stray Kids Vampire AU series.
This one's going to be longer than my usual stuff, with a lot of plot, lore, coven dynamics, conflicts (werewolves?? rival clans??), plus all the delicious tension of being a newborn vampire. Think: learning to hunt, losing control, finding your place in the coven... and yes, spice, because the trope is: WHY CHOOSE? 🙂↕️
The story will be written in multiple POVs (because I love diving into everyone's heads).
Now here's where you come in: I usually write in Y/N format, but for this one, I'm wondering what you'd enjoy more:
Who should the FMC be?
Y/N
OC (a fully fleshed-out character with her own name + backstory)
Voting ended onOct 1, 2025
This series is going to be long and plot-heavy, so I want to make sure it's fun for you as well as for me to write. Tell me what you'd like to read! ❣️
Synopsis: Jungkook, a loyal Bangtan vigilante, and Y/N, a contract killer whose secrets run deeper than blood. Between lust and loyalty, missions gone wrong and nights gone too right, they’re forced to face Lucian Vale: the puppet master behind The Circuit.
Note: Jungkook’s arc is the spine of this series: the obsession, the conflict, the choice to trust love over fear. Every twist sharpens through his POV, tying together the chaos, the intimacy, and the revelations. To feel the full impact of his journey (and hers), it’s best to read the entire Flirt, Kill, Repeat series, available in my MASTERLIST.
Trope: Adrenaline Lover | Already a couple
Trigger Warnings: This story contains themes that some readers may find disturbing or upsetting. Please read with caution.
Violence and Blood
Sexual Content/Explicit Scenes
Themes of Obsession and Controlling/Possessive Behavior
Criminal and Immoral Activities
Betrayal/Deception/Lies
Death and Murder
This is hella long, friends. Buckle up. Word Count: 13.758
Five months isn’t long enough to move in together, but it’s long enough for toothbrushes to start appearing in each other’s bathrooms. Long enough for him to have a drawer at my place. Long enough for me to notice the way his cologne clings to my pillows after he leaves. Long enough to realize that maybe I care too much.
Jungkook and I… we orbit each other with the kind of intensity that feels like we’re chasing fate. He’s the boy that everyone warned me about but no one could properly describe. Sweet smile, frantic energy, tattoos that crawl up his arm like vines, and a gaze that always looks like he’s seconds away from doing something reckless just to see what would happen. He makes you want to follow him into chaos. And I always do.
But five months isn’t long enough to tell him what I really do when I say, “Sorry, baby, I have a work trip.”
So I tell him the version of me that’s easy to digest: I’m in travel advertising. That way, I can vanish for days, weeks even, with a neat little bow around the lie. Who’s going to question the girl who always has brochures, flight itineraries, and a “quirky little campaign” on her lips? It explains my schedule, my distance, my ability to pack a bag in seven minutes flat.
And him? He works in tattoo conventions. Abroad, of course. “They fly me out to judge,” he says, shrugging with the kind of casual pride that makes me want to kiss the smirk right off his mouth. It fits him, honestly. He looks like the kind of man who could command a stage, sleeves rolled up, ink gleaming under the lights while strangers hang on his every word. I believe him. Or at least I pretend I do. In my world, it’s hard to trust easily.
Because the truth is, I don’t push. We’re not there yet. We’re still fresh enough that secrets are dressed up as quirks, and the distance between us feels romantic instead of suspicious. I tell myself I like it that way, that if we revealed everything too soon, we’d burn out before we even began.
But sometimes, late at night, when he’s asleep with his arm slung heavy over my waist, I wonder if he’s lying too. There’s something about the way his eyes light up when he talks about work – like it’s not just tattoos and flights and airports. Like there’s more under the surface, something jagged and bright, waiting to be uncovered.
Still, I don’t ask. I just kiss him awake in the mornings and act like our little performances are enough. Because they are. For now.
Tonight, we’re supposed to meet for dinner. Something normal, something sweet. No lies, no secrets, just food and each other. I put on lipstick, curl my hair, stare at my reflection and pretend like I’m any other girlfriend, waiting for her boyfriend to text that he’s outside.
But instead, my phone buzzes.
JK: baby, I’m so sorry. I can’t make it tonight. Work trip.
I stare at the screen for a beat too long. My thumb hovers, then I type back.
Me: that’s crazy. I was about to say the same thing.
Two liars. Two smiles. Two people who don’t even realize they’re orbiting the same sun.
And in that moment, I laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it feels like the universe is winking at me. Apparently, I can take my blade and go take down that target after all.
Jungkook
My phone buzzes and I don’t look. I let it vibrate against the cheap plywood of the table because texts can wait; the thing out there – the man who makes people disappear with spreadsheets and PR statements – cannot.
Later, when the city opens like a wound and the rain glosses everything into a cheap postcard, I’ll glance down at that tiny rectangle of light and scroll through Y/N’s message with the kind of affection reserved for bad tattoos and worse decisions. Right now the room smells of metal, my knives, the little bag of spare blades clinking like mermaids, and the rest of the world is a series of urgent, deliciously violent tasks.
He calls himself a philanthropist on the daytime feeds: gala photos with a silver smile, checkbooks open in tasteful fonts, donations announced with condescending humility. Under the press releases, he’s the kind of man who builds “safety nets” that are really traps: algorithms that sell vulnerability, surveillance suites that harvest shame. He’s the sort of parasite that uses a camera to make murder look like policy.
His name is Lucian Vale. He sponsors schools while eyeing bodies. He invests in camera systems while erasing files. He is dangerous because he can make you disappear without a trace: no bloody alley, no clumsy gangster funeral. Evidence gets scrubbed into the cloud like a polite apology. That’s why tonight isn’t about theatrics. It isn’t about theatrics for the glory of my ego. It’s about closing a hole in the network before he snuffs out half of our friends with an algorithm and a false headline.
My plan sits on the kitchen counter in neat columns: entry times, guard rotations, the one night the valet leaves early because of a “private event” (Lucian’s favorite euphemism), where the cameras freeze on a loop for ninety-seven seconds, the Ajax alarm that trips only if someone smarter than his security team tries to move the server racks. I’ve memorized it the way other people memorize a lover’s curve or a song lyric; this city map is intimate to me in ways most people don’t let anything be intimate.
I check my kit even though I checked it an hour ago. Steel. Fabric. Silicone – gadgets that look like nothing and do everything. My hands move fast and sure: a compact lockpick, a cheap camera that can stream to a loop, an EMP-mimic I’ll probably never need, because breaking things too loudly is showy and unnecessary. I don’t want the news cycle tonight. I want quiet: fast, surgical, the kind of cleanliness people fantasize about when they say “hero.”
And between the bread-and-butter logistics and the soft rehearsing of every angle, is her name. Y/N. Little text bubbles full of excuses and lipstick stains. “Convention moved tomorrow. Miss you, baby.” I like that lie. I like how it sounds when she types “miss you” in lowercase, like she’s saving breath. I like the illusion that she’s in a hotel, in a fluorescent expo hall, judging art and prepping campaigns like that is the center of her existence.
I tell myself the lie I need: she’s at work, learning, traveling, collecting anecdotes about bad coffee and worse clients. I tell myself she’s safe because she’s out of the city; distant, not dangerous. We’ve been together five months long enough to leave a toothbrush but not long enough for confessions to feel ordinary. So the lie is cute. It smells like cinnamon and a thousand perfectly innocent mornings.
Still – on the bench by the tool kit – there’s a little folded square of paper she left in my jacket last time she “had to fly.” A ticket stamped to nowhere important and a lipstick-smudged “call me when you can” in her looping handwriting. Sometimes I smooth the paper with my thumb like it’s a relic. I’m aware, always, of how absurd this is: to idolize an unclaimed train ticket and to pretend her absence is normal. It’s small. That’s the addiction of us. Tiny hypocrisies stack into something enormous.
Back to Lucian. He’s insulated. He believes in the gospel of his own cleverness. He keeps his most sensitive servers, where he stores the lists of people he’s already ruined, under a false floor and potted Ficus. The phrasing is ridiculous, but so is he. He likes plants because they make him look softer in photos.
I’ll go in through the service entrance, the one with the rust-flaked sign that you’d only notice if you were trying not to notice. The cameras there are older, slightly fuzzy, the operator is one of those bored, tired people Lucian underpays and overrates. He’ll blink. He’ll get coffee at the worst moment. That’s my time window. Ninety-seven seconds of breathing room. Ninety-seven seconds to touch the server, yank the hard drive, and slide it into something that will make all of Lucian’s carefully groomed smiles lose their value.
I rehearse the movement in a whisper. Plant foot. Reach. Clamp. Slide. Don’t look at the camera if you can help it. If you must look, stare at it like it’s a human being you intend to let remember you. People forget to do that. They forget to make themselves unforgettable. I will be unforgettable tonight, but only to him. Anyone else? A blur. A rumor. A mistake.
I check my blade again. The metal feels warm in my palm. It’s heavy the way truth is heavy. There’s a sweet little hum in my chest when the adrenaline starts to build, an animal sound I don’t bother hiding these days. It’s a private music that plays whenever I walk toward the edge of anything that might break me or make me whole.
There’s a ridiculous part of me that thinks of her as I load the little tech, of her in a fluorescent hall, of the way she chews the corner of her lip when she’s thinking, of the way she laughs when I say some ridiculous thing she knows is dramatic for drama’s sake. I imagine her shirt with a little stain of jam from breakfast, or the way her hair will curl when she comes back to bed at three in the morning, breathless and sticky, smelling like someone else’s desperation.
I shake my head. Focus. Lucian is a problem made of data an puppets. He has people who will protect his dinner napkins and his servers with equal zeal. My job is to make those napkins irrelevant. Knock the center out and the rest collapses. The city eats men like him when the architecture is wrong and the timing is right.
I slide on my jacket. Black. Unremarkable. The kind of clothing that loves shadows. I tuck away the ticket she left, because the superstition is a stupid human muscle: I am not a man who believes in talismans, and yet I keep small ones anyway. Habit, hunger, superstition, call it what you want.
Outside, the night is a wet animal. Car lights smear like spilled paint. I move through it with a deliberate indifference that’s almost flirtatious. I text her a thumbs-up emoji because I have to. It will be a small dishonest comfort when she reads it later, if she reads it later. “Good luck at the convention” will ping once, and I’ll grin, half-mocking, half-melting. She’ll answer with something mundane, something that makes me ache properly.
There’s a slender comic thought that keeps up with my feet: we tell each other such polite lies. We build alternate lives to make our shadows fit into history. And yet somehow, tonight of all nights, fate hates nuance. Fate enjoys irony. Fate has the worst sense of humor, and I love it for that.
I cross the wet boulevard and check my watch. Timing is everything. Ninety-seven seconds is not generous, and arrogance will kill me if I let it. I approach the service door, inspect the lock like it’s an old lover I am trying to seduce. My hands are steady. My breath is a metronome. The city is a chorus of distractions: vendors calling out, taxi horns, a stray dog attempting to be dramatic, but in the doorway I am all plans, all focus.
A part of me, unnecessarily theatrical, hopes my girl is safe. A part of me, ruthless and childlike, hopes she’s close enough that if the worst happens tonight, if Lucian decides the darkness is his instead of ours, I’ll have someone to laugh with in the ambulance. That’s the sickness of this life: you measure the possibility of dying by who you want to die with.
The lock gives like it wants to be found. I move. Ninety-seven seconds is a heartbeat. Ninety-seven seconds, and the world decides whether it will keep the monster who buys children’s libraries or not.
I step into the service corridor and my phone buzzes again. A small, white alert. Her name on the screen. I don’t look. My thumb jerks from habit and refuses to read it until I’m in the loop of a camera feed and the servers are within arm’s reach.
Once more check of the plan. Then I go.
I was creeping down the alley, knife tucked into my fist, heartbeat a drum in my ears, adrenaline sharp enough to slice glass. Target was close. Too close. Every instinct told me to move, strike, vanish.
And then I froze.
A shadow stepped from behind a dumpster – smooth, deadly, like she had rehearsed every breath, every flick of her wrist, every silent glide across the concrete. Knife drawn, stance perfect. I blinked. She blinked.
My pulse went rogue.
“Hey…?” My voice came out rougher than intended. My hands tightened on my knife. And then I heard it: her voice, familiar, warm, impossibly alive.
“Jungkook?”
I froze. Knife trembling. My brain did that stupid freeze-frame thing where nothing made sense except the sound of her name. My chest caught fire.
“WHAT THE FUCK, BABY?!” I bellowed, knife halfway raised because my body was laughing at me and screaming at me at the same time.
She gasped. Knife pressed to my throat. My throat. My God, her blade is on my skin.
“You?!” she hissed, wide-eyed. “You were supposed to- what the hell are you doing here?!”
“I could ask you the same thing!” I snapped, absurd disbelief tangled with delirious excitement. “I thought someone else was messing with my job!”
Her nostrils flared. “I though you were- oh my God, you little bastard!”
We froze. Two assassins in love for five months, still not living together, still pretending to be normal, staring each other down with knives inches from our throats.
The universe laughed at us.
“You were haunting him too?” I managed, voice tight, incredulous, utterly enthralled.
“Yes!” she snapped. “I thought some idiot was in my way, turns out it’s you!”
The absurdity hit me like a punch: We’ve been hiding our lives, lying about travel advertising and tattoo conventions, and now we’re here, pointing knives at each other over the same target.
“Spider-Man,” I muttered under my breath, voice a mix of awe and panic. “We are literally the Spider-Man meme.”
She huffed, exasperated, knife still hovering. “You were supposed to be in Berlin for a tattoo convention!”
“And you were supposed to be selling bullshit ads in some travel campaign!” I countered. “Instead, here we are, face to face, knives to throats, chasing the same asshole!”
Her laugh split the air, sharp, wild, thrilled. She’s laughing at this. At me. And my chest tightens in ways I didn’t know existed.
“You think this is going to stop me?” I ask, and even I can hear the obsession threading through my voice.
She blinks, stunned. “What the-“
I grin, knife lowering slightly, heart hammering like a drum solo. “No. You’ve just… made me fall harder.”
Her breath catches. “Fall harder?”
I step closer, still holding my knife but laughing because this is us, and this is perfect chaos. “Yeah, woman. I’m gonna fucking marry you. Even if it kills me before then.”
We stare at each other in the alley, the target forgotten for a moment. Knives still out, hearts racing, minds screaming in disbelief.
“Okay,” I rasp finally. “We… we need to talk. But not yet. Not when my pulse is doing backflips over you.”
And she knows it too.
Because at that moment, the world narrows to her. To us. To the secret we’ve been orbiting the same dangerous sun without realizing it. And suddenly… everything is perfect.
Y/N
I’m frozen, chest hammering, mind doing that stupid stutter-step panic thing where you want to scream, laugh, cry, and vomit all at once. He’s staring at me, eyes wide, a little wild… and then he laughs.
Not a little chuckle. Not a polite “oh, ha-ha” laugh. Full-throttle, reckless, like the universe just handed him the most absurd gift it could manage. And the gift? Me.
My brain shorts out. You’ve been lying. I’ve been lying. And now he knows.
“Do you… hate me?” I manage, voice strangled, disbelief tangled in nerves.
He tilts his head, smirk spreading like wildfire. “Hate you? Baby… you think this scares me?”
I blink. My heartbeat skids. He doesn’t hate me. He’s grinning like the world just folded itself into some perfect little chaos cube.
“No,” he growls, stepping closer, knife lowering slowly but purposefully. “You just made me love you harder, jagiya.”
I want to tell him he’s insane. I want to tell him I’m insane. I want to tell him I should run. I don’t. Not because I’m brave, not because I’m stupid. But because he’s right there, in front of me, looking like disaster I want to crash into headfirst.
“You’re-“ I start, but the words vanish. He laughs again, low and ragged, and the sound makes my knees threaten rebellion.
“Think about it,” he whispers, eyes dark and glittering. “You’ve been hiding from me, I’ve been hiding from you… and somehow, somehow baby, we end up here. Same target. Same night. You think that… that makes me back off?”
I swallow, throat dry, fingers twitching. My knife feels heavy in my hand – not because I want to hurt him, but because the weight of everything we are right now is pressing down like lead.
“No,” I manage, voice barely a breath.
“Exactly,” he says, grin curling with mischief and obsession. He steps even closer, until there’s no more distance, only us, the dark alley around us forgotten. “You think you’re scaring me? C’mon baby… you’re making me fall in love in ways I didn’t even know existed.”
I want to laugh. I want to scream. I want to punch him and kiss him at the same time. Because somehow, in this insane revelation, all the fear, all the secrecy, all the adrenaline… it turns into something electric, something darkly hilarious, and devastating.
“You’re insane,” I whisper, because honestly, yes. Insane. And I should run. I should. But I don’t.
“Insane for you, baby,” he teases, voice low, lips twitching in that cruel, irresistible way.
I inhale, trembling, and for a split second, the knife drops. Not because I’m surrendering, but because the sheer audacity of him – the way he loves chaos, the way he loves me – is too fucking much.
“This doesn’t make you back off?” I finally ask, voice shaky.
He laughs again, a full-body, soul-shaking laugh, and presses a hand to my cheek so gently, thumb brushing against my skin like a claim. “No, baby. You just made me love you harder. More reckless. More obsessed. You’re truly mine, and I don’t intend to let go.”
And somehow, in the madness of it all, in the revelation that we’ve been hiding in plain sight from each other, the fear melts into exhilaration. Into laughter. Into the kind of chaos that feels like home.
I glance at him, knife forgotten for the moment, and I can’t help it: I laugh too. Wild, breathless, incredulous.
Because he’s right. And we’re both insane. And somehow, improbably, gloriously… perfect for each other.
Jungkook
Her knife clatters to the concrete between us, still slick with someone else’s blood. My own palms are red, trembling, and yet all I can think about is the sound she just made when she laughed in my face. We’re breathing like we’ve run a mile. Maybe we have.
“Mine,” I growl, the world slipping out before my brain can stop it. My hands close around her arms, pinning her against the wall.
She hisses back, “We’re insane.”
“Yes,” I say, my mouth already at her jaw, teeth scraping, voice dark. “And you’re still mine.”
Her lips part, a gasp caught in her throat. That’s all it takes for something inside me to snap.
I slam my mouth against hers, not gentle, not even kind. She tastes like blood and adrenaline. Her hands are on my shoulders, nails biting, and she kisses back like she wants to devour me.
Clothes go everywhere. Her jacket slides off, my shirt tears under her grip. My hands find her waist, the curve of her beautiful ass, dragging her against me until there’s no space left.
Her legs wrap around my waist automatically. My palm slides up her thigh, fingers digging hard enough to leave bruises. She arches into me, moaning in my mouth, and that sound nearly undoes me.
I bury my face in her neck, biting just enough to make her gasp. “Say it,” I growl against her skin. “Say you’re mine, baby.”
Her nails rake down my back, drawing shallow scratches. “You’re going to get us killed,” she whispers, but it’s a moan, not a warning.
“Then we go out like this,” I snarl, pushing inside her warmth with a thrust and she’s trembling, every thrust that follows a confession, every kiss a curse.
She clings to me, hair falling into her face, eyes wild. “Baby, please-“ she gasps again, fucking hell, she’s begging for me.
“Mine,” I repeat, over and over, voice cracking with it, hips snapping harder, faster. “Mine. Mine.”
She comes apart in my arms with a shuddering cry, pussy squeezing my cock like she’s trying to take me with her. The sound rips through me, and I follow, groaning her name like a prayer, like a victory.
We slide down the wall together, collapsing in a heap on the cold floor, skin sticky with sweat and smeared blood. Both of us panting, bruised, grinning like lunatics.
I hook a finger under her chin, force her to look at me. “Tell me you’re mine, baby. C’mon.” I tell her again, voice rough but steady.
She tilts her head, eyes still blown and dangerous. “I’m yours,” she whispers. “All yours.”
Y/N
Every step we take together feels like a dance we never rehearsed, but somehow we move in sync – him leading, me following, then swapping without a word.
“Keep your eyes open,” he murmurs, voice low, brushing past my ear as we slip through a darkened alley. I can feel the heat of him even without touching. “Target’s not far.”
I grin, knife tucked under my sleeve, trying to keep up without looking like I’m trying too hard. “And here I thought I was the one with all the secrets,” I tease. He hums, amused.
“Oh, baby, you have no idea.”
Then it hits me, working with him isn’t just exhilarating. It’s terrifying. Because I know what he can do. I know his mind, his chaos, his instinct. And now, somehow, I’m on his wavelength.
We move as shadows, brushing past guards who would’ve killed either of us alone. Together, we’re… better. Sharper. More lethal. And yes, a little ridiculous, like predators in a slapstick ballet. He kicks a trash can into a man’s legs, I vault over it, slashing the guy’s arm as he falls. He laughs, breathy, delighted, and I can’t help but laugh with him.
“I told you, baby. Insane,” I gasp between steps, though my mouth curves in a grin.
“Ah, and yet perfect,” he shoots back, voice dripping with that dangerous charm that makes me melt every single time.
We pause on a fire escape overlooking the target’s penthouse. I peer down at the figure moving inside, the dim glow of the chandeliers outlining him. He’s precise, deliberate – completely unaware that two ghosts are threading around his every step.
JK’s hand brushes mine, casual, almost accidental, but it ignites something. I glance at him, eyebrows raised, and he smirks like he’s caught me staring.
“You’re thinking too much,” he murmurs, sliding a hand down the small of my back. “Just move. Trust me. Like you always do, jagi.”
I bite back a laugh because it’s ridiculous, he knows he’s dangerous, he knows I can’t resist him, and yet he still talks to me like this is a casual stroll in the park. My heart hammers, my pulse spikes, and I realize… I want this. I want him, and I want us.
“You know,” I murmur, letting my voice soften, almost teasing, almost serios, “you’re going to get me killed one day.”
“Only the ones that are supposed to die,” he says, voice low, sultry. And then, almost like an afterthought, “You’ll meet my family one day.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Your… family?”
He glances at me, eyes gleaming in the dim light. “Bangtan,” he says simply. “You’ll understand when you meet them. They’re… kind of our weird extended chaos. You’ll fit right in.”
I can’t help but laugh. Of course I’ll fit in. With him? Always.
We drop down from the fire escape, landing silently. The target is closer now, and our breathing syncs without effort. I catch a glimpse of him, eyes flicking between mine and the path ahead.
“You know,” I murmur, knife at the ready, “I’m beginning to think I like working with you.”
“Baby,” he growls, voice low and throaty, “you love it. Admit it.”
And maybe he’s right. Maybe I do. Because here, in the chaos, in the thrill, in the danger and laughter, I feel… unstoppable. Alive. And more dangerously in love than I ever though possible.
The target moves again, oblivious, and we exchange a glance, a silent promise: tonight, we’re a team. And nothing, not even Lucian Vale, is going to stop us.
Jungkook
The fire escape drop had us both shaking, breaths mingling, hearts hammering like war drums. I watched her move, knife in hand, eyes sharp as the shadows themselves. She wasn’t just following me. She was with me. And that terrified me. Or maybe it thrilled me. Maybe both.
Lucian Vale moved like he owned the world, elegant, deliberate, a predator in his own right. But he hadn’t counted on us. Not on the chaos we brought. Not on the way we read each other without speaking, our steps synchronized like a deadly dance.
And then, I blinked. She blinked. Something stupid and beautiful distracted me. Her smile, half triumphant, half teasing, and I had the audacity to grin back. She caught me doing it. I caught her. And that, just that, was enough for Vale to slip past us.
“Damn it,” I hissed, chest tight, knife clenching in hand. He was gone. The target, our perfect mark, just… evaporated into the night.
Her laughter, sharp and incredulous, cut through my frustration. Not loud, not obnoxious, but that high, brittle laugh that promised everything and nothing at once. She was furious, eyes flashing, but I saw it. I saw the thrill beneath it, the spark that made her pulse as fast as mine. And I couldn’t look away.
“He got away,” she muttered, shoulders tense, knives at her side, breathing ragged. But her grin was crooked, alive, dangerous.
“Yeah,” I admitted, letting my gaze roam over her, the curve of her neck, the way her fingers clenched around the hilt, the fire in her chest. “But do you know what’s worse?”
She frowned, raising an eyebrow, teeth glinting in the dim light. “Worse?”
“That we’re finally perfect like this, and we’re still trying to pretend we’re normal,” I said, voice low, deliberate, letting each word hit like a bullet.
Her breath caught. “Normal?”
“No,” I growled, stepping closer, forcing her to look at me. “Why lie when we’re perfect like this? You, me… together. Chaos, blood, laughter. That’s who we are.”
Her hesitation was brief, just long enough to see her pulse spike, see her mind racing. I could feel her wanting to argue, wanting to deny it, wanting to cling to some semblance of the world we’d both pretending to live in. But I didn’t care. I didn’t need her agreement. I needed her to feel it. To know.
“Prove it to me,” she whispered, almost a challenge, almost a plea, eyes wide, fists still tightening around the knives.
I smirked, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face, thumb tracing the sharp line of her jaw. “I don’t prove. I show.”
And that was it. That was all the permission I needed. I could feel her trembling, not from fear, but from the electricity between us. The way she was caught in my orbit, and I in hers. A near miss mission, yes, but that miss didn’t matter. We mattered.
“Vale might have escaped tonight,” I murmur, voice low, brushing my lips against her temple, feeling her shiver. “But you? You’re not escaping me. Ever.”
Her gasp, sharp and thrilled, was the only answer I needed. And then I let her laugh, the chaotic, unrestrained laugh that had undone me the first time I saw it, and I knew. I would chase her forever if I had to.
“Blood pact,” I muttered, a grin tugging at my lips, “you and me. No more lies. No more pretending. We’re danger, we’re chaos… we’re us. And I’ll show you exactly what that means.”
Her eyes met mine, a mix of fear, desire, and delirium, and I knew she wanted it. Wanted me. Wanted the us that had no rules, no safety, no boundaries.
I tightened my grip on her hand, dragging her close, letting my thumb circle the back of her wrist, and whispered, “I’ll prove it, jagi. And you’ll follow. Because you love it. You love us.”
Her lips quirked into a crooked, beautiful smile. I press a kiss to her forehead, letting my hands linger along the curve of her spine. “You’re mine.”
And just like that, the city, the target, the night… it all disappeared. All that existed was us, racing hearts and chaos, and the promise of a blood pact that neither of us could deny.
Y/N
We weren’t just stalking a man anymore. We were testing the rhythm of us. Every step, every pivot, every whisper of movement was a conversation. I slashed the cable lock on the fire escape, he flipped down the ladder, silently cueing me. I vaulted after him, feeling the familiar surge of adrenaline, the thrill of knowing he had my back even when I didn’t have my own.
And then we saw it.
Lucian Vale’s office window, cracked just enough to reveal the inside: files scattered like confetti, a wall map dotted with pins – his network, his empire, his secrets. I froze. Heart racing, eyes wide. He hadn’t just been a man of power. He’d been meticulous. Ruthless. Dangerous. And here we were, uninvited, prying into his private world.
“Look,” I whisper, tugging on his sleeve, pointing at a folder marked in red. He crouched beside me, chest brushing against mine, fingers brushing over mine as we lifted the folder together. Inside… plans. Names. Dates. Another layer of the labyrinth we were chasing. Vale wasn’t just another target. He was everything we’d been dancing around.
Jungkook’s breath was warm against my ear as he murmured, “We can’t do this tonight.”
I blinked at him, disbelief lacing my tone. “What? Are you serious?”
He didn’t look apologetic. Not even close. His eyes were wild, alight with obsession and something deeper I couldn’t name yet. “Yes. We need to step back, baby. Rest. Tomorrow, we hit again, but smarter. Together.”
I let out a low laugh, part disbelief, part awe, part… yes, let’s do this together. He had this ridiculous confidence that made it impossible to argue. Even when I wanted to fight him, I wanted him more.
We slipped back into the night, bodies brushing, sharing the head of motion and silence. I could feel him adjusting my pace without looking, nudging me through the alleys like a predator guiding his mate. My pulse hammered, not just with fear of being caught, but with a deep, wild thrill I didn’t even try to hide.
“Tomorrow,” he said, voice low, lips barely brushing my hair, “we finish what we started. I promise, babygirl.”
I nodded, heart racing. “Together.”
For tonight, though, we would wait. Vale had slipped through our fingers, but in that quiet pause, I realized something important: it wasn’t about the kill anymore. It was about the hunt, about us, about knowing that no matter how messy, how dangerous, how absurdly fast our hearts were racing… we were unstoppable together.
And that thought? That was intoxicating.
Jungkook
Her apartment smelled like her. Soft, warm, slightly spiced, utterly intoxicating. I’d been here before, yes, but tonight wasn’t about familiarity. Tonight was raw. Tonight was truth, revealed and undeniable. The chaos between us wasn’t just the mission, the adrenaline, the knives… it was this, too.
She was on the bed, sprawled for me, hair fanning across the pillows in a way that made me ache. Her eyes caught mine as I approached, bright and wide, and there was a flesh of something – anticipation, desire, mischief. My chest tightened, pulse spiking.
“Come here,” I murmured, and she obeyed without hesitation. Always obeyed without hesitation. It made me love her harder, want her faster, ache for her in ways I didn’t know possible.
I climbed onto the bed, letting my hands trace the small of her back, feeling the smooth rise and fall of her muscles, memorizing the curve of her hips, the dip of her waist. She shivered, pressing into me, and I groaned low, my lips finding hers in a slow, searing kiss. Her mouth was fire, warm and yielding, and when her tongue brushed mine, my body stuttered in want.
I let my hands roam, over her back, sliding down to her hips, fingers threading into the waistband of her pants. She gasped softly, trembling against me, letting me explore her.
I kissed down her neck, across her collarbone, nipping lightly, teasing, and whispered, “You’re so fucking beautiful, Y/N.”
Her breath hitched, and I felt her chest press into mine, warmth and weight and want in perfect chaos. “I… I love you,” she murmured, voice broken and soft, and it tore through me like a shot to the heart.
“I love you too,” I said, voice rough, hoarse. I pulled her closer, letting her feel every inch of my cock, pressing into her slowly, deliberately. Not rushed, not frantic. Every touch, every press of our bodies was a conversation, a confession. My hands slid over her curves, memorizing the feel of her against me, letting my thumbs graze her ribs, her back, feeling her shiver, letting her trembles guide me.
I nuzzled into her hair, thrusting deep into her pussy, grinding in a way I know her clit will feel, lips brushing against her ear. “You’re everything I never knew I needed.”
She moaned so beautiful. So fucking beautiful. Her hands found my chest, fingers clawing, pressing, holding onto me as if I could vanish. I could feel her heartbeat racing beneath my palm, hot and fast, and I groaned, pressing into her pussy deeper, letting the closeness, the warmth, the friction carry us both.
I thrusted slow and deliberate inside her, letting her feel me in every press, every stretch, every gentle curve of motion. No rush. Just connection, just intensity. Every sigh, every soft moan, every gasp of her breath into my mouth was a declaration, a confirmation of everything we were.
“You feel so perfect, baby,” I murmured, pressing a hand to her cheek. “So fucking perfect. So right, so mine. You take me so well…”
Her eyes fluttered closed, lips parted in a soft gasp. She moaned against me, trembling, letting her body mold to mine, curling into every movement, her hands tracing my shoulders, my chest, clutching me, marking me in the quiet, sacred way that only we could. I whispered praise into every touch: “So good, so mine. So alive and beautiful in my hands, baby.”
Every glide, every roll of my cock in her pussy, every subtle tilt was deliberate. We were exploring, learning, claiming each other in a way that was tender and desperate at once. No urgency, just want, just love, just possession. Her hands tangled in my hair, tugging gently, nails grazing my scalp, and I growled, pressing my lips to hers in a soft, prolonged kiss.
“You take me so good,” I whisper again, low and hoarse. “You take every fucking inch of my cock like you were made for it. Like a good girl, baby. Such a good girl for me.”
She shivered violently, her breath breaking, curling into me, trembling. “I love you,” she whispered again, and I groaned, letting the words sink deep into my chest and my cock sink deeper into her pussy. “I love you too,” I said, pressing my forehead to hers, holding her, memorizing her.
We moved together slow, everything measured by the rhythm of our hearts and breaths, each kiss a touch and confirmation of the chaos and perfection of us. Every press, every brush, every thrust, every gentle motion whispered promises: I’m yours. Always. You’re mine. Forever.
Eventually, we collapsed together, tangled, warm, skin glistering in the soft light. I held her close, forehead resting against hers, letting her pulse calm against my chest. “Tomorrow,” I whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her face, “we finished what we started.”
She nuzzled against me, soft and warm, murmuring, “Together.”
And as sleep claimed us, tangled in each other’s arms, I knew that no matter the chaos tomorrow would bring, right now… right now, we were simply us.
**
The kitchen always feels too quiet without her. The hum of the fridge, the faint tick of the old wall clock, the steam curling from the coffee mug. They don’t down out the silence, they make it worse.
Every morning for the last five months, I’ve slipped out of her bed before she stirred, poured myself this bitter cup, and checked in with Namjoon. Back then, it was easy. I told him about the girl I was seeing, the one who laughed too loud, who “worked in advertising,” who was soft in all the places I didn’t know I craved softness. He humored me, even teased me. The maknae finally got himself a normal relationship. Cute. Harmless.
Until yesterday, and I had to tell him the truth. That the harmless girl with the advertising job wasn’t in another city brainstorming slogans, she was in the same shadow as us, blade down, stalking the same target. That I found her at Lucian Vale’s estate, not in some hotel. That every time I disappeared for a mission, she was disappearing too.
I told him everything, because that’s what we do in Bangtan. We don’t keep secrets from each other.
The line crackled in my ear. Namjoon didn’t waste time on greetings.
“You should’ve cut her off the second you realized,” he said, voice low, sharp. “Five months, Jungkook. Five months you’ve been sleeping beside a liar.”
I leaned back against the counter, sipping the coffee though it scalded my tongue. “She lied about her job, hyung. I lied about mine. We’re even.”
“This isn’t a joke,” he snapped. “You made her part of your life, part of ours. You paraded her in front of the others like she was safe.”
“She is safe.” The words came out harder than I meant, echoing in the still kitchen. “She’s one of us.”
“She’s not,” Namjoon cut in, cold as steel. “She’s not Bangtan. She’s an outsider who managed to survive on her own, which makes her dangerous. You know how many enemies we’ve made? How many people would love to crawl into our circle through the cracks?”
I slammed the mug down on the counter, liquid sloshing over my hand. “She’s not a crack. She’s my fucking mirror. I’ve seen her fight, hyung. I’ve seen the way she moves. She’s not a danger to us, she’s the reason I’ve never felt stronger.”
There was a long pause on the line, then a hissed sigh. “You don’t hear yourself. You’re infatuated. Obsession doesn’t make you stronger, Jungkook, it blinds you. She lied to your face for months. What makes you think she won’t do it again?”
“Because I know her,” I growled. “Because I’ve seen her bleed, I’ve seen her laugh with blood on her hands, and I still wanted to kiss her. She didn’t flinch when she found out about me. Why the hell should I flinch now that I know about her?”
“You’re gambling with all of us,” Namjoon said, voice quiet, leader-soft but dangerous underneath. “If she compromises one mission-“
“She won’t.”
“If she whispers our names to the wrong ear-“
“She won’t,” I bit out again, jaw tight.
“You can’t know that.”
My chest burned. “She’s mine. That’s all you need to know. You trust me, you trust her. End of discussion.”
“No, Jungkook.” Namjoon’s voice hardened like a blade sliding into place. “If you want to keep her in your bed, fine. But don’t expect me to let her into Bangtan. Not until I know what side she bleeds for. You might think you’ve found your perfect match, but I’ve seen what happens when men mistake fire for light. It always ends the same way. In ashes.”
The words hung between us like smoke. My throat felt raw. I opened my mouth to answer… and then I heard it.
The faint creak of the bedroom door. Soft footsteps across the wood floor. A pause. The click of the luck turning. The slam of the front door shutting behind her.
My heart dropped.
“She heard,” I whispered. My grip tightened on the phone until my knuckles ached. “She heard everything.”
On the other end, Namjoon went silent.
“She’s going after Vale,” I spat. The realization hit like a blade between my ribs. “She thinks she has to prove herself. Alone.”
“Then stop her,” Namjoon said quickly.
I clenched my teeth. “If she gets hurt because of this, hyung, if she bleeds because of your doubt-“ my voice dropped, lethal, “I’ll never forgive you.”
And then I hung up, the slam of the phone against the counter echoing in the quiet kitchen.
By the time the mug tipped and shattered, coffee spilling across the tile like blood, I was already gone, out the door, chasing the only thing that mattered.
Her.
Y/N
Kim fucking Namjoon.
Who the hell does he think he is? Standing somewhere in a room full of men who made monsters out of the world and deciding I wasn’t fit to breathe the same smoke?
I could still hear his voice through the phone this morning, all clipped worry and hyung-authority, as if he was lecturing a dog for chewing a shoe. As if five months of me showing up at his table, feeding him dinner, smiling at his stupid jokes, pretending I had some weekday 9-5 that kept me in nice blouses and safe hands, counted for less than a neat resume line.
Last night had been a riot of confession and adrenaline. JK had told me, between the laughter and the quick, fierce kisses, everything that Bangtan was when you peeled off the polite veneer.
He didn’t hold back: how Namjoon is not just a leader, he’s the ledger-keeper, the man who maps patterns and names the risk; how Jin loves drama and drops the playgrounds like candy for everyone to fight over. How they have rituals, sick, elegant customs that make work feel funny. “Cat and mouse,” he’d said with that ridiculous grin, “a game on repeat so they can remember they’re still human.”
He'd explain the race – Namjoon and some girl, each meeting the same target, pretending it’s sport because otherwise the horror would have them crying in the bathtub. He even said Jin picks the cities because Jin is a theatrical asshole and loves the audience.
Jungkook told me all of it like I already belonged. Like it was normal to have your lover whisper the names of men you plan to kill over mashed potatoes at three a.m. Like telling the leader that you’d found his girl in a blood-strewn corridor was the sort of small, intimate sin he’d want to know before the coffee cooled.
So of course Namjoon thinks he can judge me. He knows her – the woman he supposedly loves – by reputation and ritual: five years of stories distilled into polite mythology. He can accept that “his girl” is a tag, a ritual name that has been passed from hand to hand between seasons. Me? I’ve been showing up. Daily, messy, brash, present. And because I didn’t announce my resume in a board meeting, because I didn’t preface my dates with JK with “by the way, I’m a contractor,” I’m a Frankenstein. Charming.
Fine. Let him have his theory. Let him have his fear. I had something better than his caution: I had motive, and I had a plan.
I left the apartment like a ghost. Coat on, hair tucked under a beanie, the city already forgetting me in that deliberate, faceless way it comforts the violent. Jungkook’s ninety-seven-second clock lived in the collar of my jacket like a second heart. Service entrance. Blurry old cameras. A board operator who would blink at the wrong second. Ninety-seven seconds. Ninety-seven seconds to speak into the belly of his empire and not get caught chewing on the ropes.
The rust-flaked sign above the service door smelled like oil and yesterday’s rain. I slipped past it, breath low and slow, hands moving with the same steady rhythm I used on a blade. The corridor smelled of bleach and expensive cologne. The operator’s screen was a smear of grain, the perfect kind of stupid security Lucian preferred. He prefaced his life with philanthropy and wore the construction of his reputation like armor; he underpaid his watchers because cheap hires kept people hungry, and hungry people sleep when their backs hurt. That’s where I found my window: in the ordinary, in the bored, in the moment between coffee and duty.
Ninety-seven seconds is absurdly small and astronomically vast if you’ve timed the world on control loops. I moved like a thought, not quite there and utterly present: the lock picked with thumbs that had done worse things in hotel bathrooms and back alleys.
The corridor camera looped with a thumb drive the size of a fingernail. My fingers steady when they needed to be, trembling at ridiculous moments when adrenaline made my pulse run like a fuckboy DJ. Then the server room – that glass casket of humming machines where men like Lucian stored other men’s sins in tidy formats.
I didn’t waste time. The hack was a thing of patient teeth and eager fingers. I slid into his network like a ghost through a thin wall and my heartbeat found a rhythm with the cool green of the terminal. Passwords yielded to the soft violence of social engineering; security tokens were unrolled like red carpet. Lucian’s system liked order. He’d organized his sins into folders like a curator arranging corpses on a velvet tray.
And then I saw it: THE CIRCUIT.
It was ugly and clean at the same time: a series od nodes, names in harsh font, dates, little color-coded flags that pulsed like malignant berries. A map not of geography but of intent. A ledger and a plan and a kill-sheet folded into one. I felt my mouth go dry as I clicked through and watched the invisible threads reveal themselves.
Councilman Baek. Jin’s target. Under “Project Hearth,” donations coded through shell companies, properties bought and “donated” to halfway homes where people slipped through the cracks. A thin red line connected Baek to a donor account that paid for a contractor who fixed boilers, who also subcontracted to a maintenance crew that conveniently never checked the basements. There were invoices that stopped existing, phone logs that ended with unexplained silences. The names are clinical until you see the side notes: halfway home – intake 3/2019 – no follow up. The world folded into itself and made sense in a way that made me cold.
Marek Novak. The node pulsed a sickly, electric blue. He liked children in photos and cameras in libraries. He liked tests under the guise of philanthropy, software that watched and learned. His ledger said surveillance R&D, but the sides documents – the one Lucian kept like trophies – recorded children moved, experiments run like clinical trials. There were IP filings and then a second set of documents that were clearly not for public consumption: Field tests sites – consent from obfuscation. I tasted bile.
Viktor Havel. The files were morbidly aesthetic: images cataloged as “installations” with metadata that smelled of bleach and fear. Ticket stubs to shows where people arrived and didn’t leave. Names crossed out in red. The way Lucian had written it down made my skin prickle: collectors pay more for unrest. Procurement successful.
Marcus Vane. The notation there was almost casual – cleaning of assets – but the attachments were names and dates of girls who’d vanished from the haunts and the carnival. Price lists. Transportation logs. Photos of men in clown makeup with too-wide smiles. My hands tightened around the edge of the console.
Leopold Klein. Donation receipts tied to artifacts, to “acquisition assistance.” There were letters to museums and private collectors and then shipping manifests that never reached customs. A velvet glove covering violence.
Leonardo Martelli, the mafia heir. His entry was sharp, loud, defiant. Threat letters, trade disputes turned brutal, orchestrated “accidents.” He’d fought back in ways that were messy. The notes on his file were inked with pride and fury. He’d been a fight, not a quiet harvest. That explained why he died with his fists in their faces. Because he’d tried to bite back.
Every entry linked like a necklace, pearls threaded on a single wire. Each file had the same whisper in the margins: “Organize. Neutralize. Consolidate.” There were meeting minutes dated months ago, names agreed upon, territories assigned – like a board meeting where monsters laid out territory.
And at the center of it, pulsing like a heart with too many chambers: Lucian Vale.
He was not merely a node. He was an axis. The Circuit wasn’t just Lucian’s ledger, it was his playbook. He’d cataloged their sins, their assets, their routes, their weaknesses, and he’d offered them something they all seemed to crave: stability, leverage, the ability to strike first at anyone who threatened their little empires. That’s the thing about people who build empires out of the other people’s bones. They either become untouchable, or they become a target for other empires. The Circuit looked like a truce-and-betrayal manual.
The more I clicked, the clearer the picture: these men had not simply run parallel businesses. They’d formed a coalition, a cabal born of mutual blackmail and profit. They funneled money through charities, skimmed from infrastructure, used “philanthropy” as a curtain while they trafficked, laundered, surveilled. Bangtan had been an irritation, an unpredictable set of ghosts cutting through their neat profits. Bangtan didn’t work in committees, they worked in night, and they left no accounts to audit and no speeches to call for apologies.
These men had decided to fight back.
Why? Because Bangtan undid their work. Because every name exposed, every shipment interrupted, every donor list ruined cut into their control, their power, and their profit. Bangtan was a problem that couldn’t be solved with checks and lawyers. Bangtan had to be made an example of.
Lucian, though, he didn’t just want to wipe Bangtan out. He wanted to do it with his hands clean enough to make the receipts look like charity. He’d been building the Circuit as a neutralizing architecture: use moneyed influence to fund prosecutorial pushes, use surveillance tech to unmask members, buy off media to smear them into public monsters. More than that: he’d mapped the men who had the reach – the politicians, the tech kings, the consoling art dealers – and coordinated their power so their backlash could be surgical. In return, he’d promised them control over the black market they all depended on. Consolidate power, divvy up territory, remove the unpredictable wildcard of Bangtan, and keep the rest of the market clean.
Hubris has patterns. You gather a cabal, you give one man the ledger, you let him timestamp sins and debts from his neat CEO chair… and then you make yourself vulnerable to the man with the ledger. Lucian’s Circuit let them coordinate, but it also centralized the information. It made one man the repository of every other man’s crimes. Whoever controlled the Circuit controlled leverage. Whoever had it would be able to implode the rest of extort them into colossally worse crimes. Whoever had the ledger could blackmail Kingmakers and become a kingmaker.
The only problem? Bangtan killed his circuit. One. By. One.
My throat closed. The consequences unreeled instantly. That meant Bangtan’s hits were not random vendettas. They were a directed, violent response to a war that was deeper than a single callous soul. Each death on the list was both punishment and prevention, a move to dismantle the architecture Lucian wanted to install.
All of them – Baek, Marek, Viktor, Marcus, Leopold, Leonardo – they’d been working, in one way or another, toward the same goal: to suppress or eliminate Bangtan. That was the common thread. Bangtan had been destabilizing their income streams, exposing their soft centers, and they had decided that coordinated violence – surveillance, legal pressure, political maneuvering – was their answer.
And Lucian? He turned out to be the brains trying to monetize the suppression. He’d build a surveillance product, an algorithmic keep that could triangulate people like us by behavior, not just brute force. He was going to sell it back to governments and syndicates, the perfect lie. Marketed as “public safety.” Bangtan’s existence exposed his charade. Their interference would ruin his leverage. So his plan was twofold: use his partners to hunt Bangtan, and when they’d weakened or revealed themselves, step forward with the Circuit as the final solution: the man who could clean the mess and offer order in exchange for ultimate control.
I felt like the floor had dropped out. The Circuit didn’t just catalog their crimes. It made them a map of a war board. It explained why every man on that list had reasons to hate Bangtan. It explained why Lucian had the reach to coordinate corruption among politics, art, tech, and organized crime. And worst of all: it explained why Lucian was not just another target. He was the hub. He’d been the one who put the crown on the heads of the rest of them, and he’d been planning to take the throne for himself.
I downloaded everything I could carry and encrypted names with registers, and then I did the thing my mind had been aching to do since the first folder flashed open: I flagged the whole Circuit to Jungkook. He needed to know. But I didn’t want to go home and sit in my kitchen with him while Namjoon sighed about obvious risks. I needed action. I needed to show the ledger to someone who didn’t just read and recoil.
So I left the server room, with the data burning a hole in the pocket of my jacket, melting into my skin like hot iron. I walked the service route out the same way I came in, calm as a predator, leaving a staged scene, and when the bored operator blinked in precisely the right place, I slipped past the camera loop and vanished outside.
Everything came into a terrible, glorious focus: the names on the Circuit were not merely criminals, they were conspirators in a plan to stamp out people like us. Lucian had tried to make himself indispensable by offering the means to do it. If he succeeded, Bangtan would be finished not with spilled blood but with law books and video proof and public outrage. The slow strangling that kills movements. He wanted to be the man who could end the hunt and then own the hunting grounds.
I felt a new heat rise up inside me then. Previously, the exits had been tidy: a name, a motive, a place you could cleanly end it. This was bigger. This was a war board.
I should have felt small. I didn’t. I felt something like terrible kinship with Jungkook, both of us standing in different corners of the same fight, both of us pawns and kinds at once. I thought of him in the pale kitchen with the phone pressed to his ear, of Namjoon’s cautious voice that had already decided to distrust me.
And I made a choice in that narrow. I didn’t go home. I didn’t call him. I didn’t wait to be judged my the man who loved ritual while I’d been living the work. The only person who can judge me is my man, my Jungkook, not anyone else. And he’ll be proud of me. Because I’ll make him proud.
If this was a war Lucian planned to coordinate, then tonight I would not be footnote. I would be the thing he never anticipated: a woman who could read a ledger and move faster than the men who thought paperwork made them untouchable.
So I stepped into the rain and let the Circuit map my next moves.
Jungkook
The map Vale thought he could bury lies flat on the table between us, lit by a single hanging bulb. The paper looks ordinary, but it’s dynamite. Every name. Every target. All the ghosts we’ve already buried.
Councilman Baek. Marek Novak. Viktor Havel. Marcus Vane. Leopold Klein. Leonardo Martelli.
And at the center, written bold enough to bruise the page: Lucian Vale.
No one’s breathing.
Yoongi’s the first to move, dragging a cigarette from his pocket and lighting in with a spark that sounds louder than it should. He exhales slow, eyes sharp on me. “And she just… sent you this?”
“She pulled it straight from his office,” I say. My voice is steady, though my pulse thrashes. “She risked her ass to get it.”
Namjoon leans forward, knuckles pressed into the table. Calm. Too calm. “So the girl we all thought was some travel ad exec turns out to be crawling around in Vale’s office with lockpicks. That’s what you’re telling me.”
I meet his stare. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“And you didn’t know.”
“No,” I snap. “Just like she didn’t know about me.”
Namjoon shakes his head slowly, like I’m a child who doesn’t get the rules. “You understand why this feels wrong, Jungkook. For five months, she sat across from you, smiling, lying through her teeth-“
“She didn’t lie any more than I did!” The words slam out of me. “What was I supposed to say on date three, huh? ‘By the way, baby, I slit throats for living’? Come on. Don’t play holier-than-thou.”
A beat of silence. Then Hoseok whistles low. “He’s got a point.”
“Not helping,” Namjoon snaps.
My jaw tightens. “She told me her cover. I told her mine. Neither of us were lying, we just weren’t telling the whole truth.”
Namjoon leans forward, palms flat on the table. “That’s not the same, Jungkook. You know it’s not. We are not civilians. You bring someone into this world without knowing what they’ll do to it? That’s reckless.:”
I laugh, bitter and sharp. “Reckless? This from you? You, who plays your annual cat-and-mouse game with some woman like it’s a fucking date night? She’s been in your life five years, Namjoon. Five. And you’ve seen her what, five times total? That was fine. But me? I fall for someone, live with her every damn day, and suddenly it’s a catastrophe?”
Namjoon’s eyes narrow. “Because you didn’t choose her for this life. You tripped into her. That’s a difference.”
“She chose herself.” My fist slams the table before I can stop it. “She walked into Vale’s den and pulled this out. She’s not some liability who stumbled into my bed, she’s smarter than any of us gave her credit for. Including me.”
Jimin leans back, crossing his arms. “Still doesn’t mean we can trust her. Smart girl or not, she went into Vale’s system. That’s exposure.”
“She’s not a threat.” My hands curl into fists at my sides. “She’s with me.”
Namjoon’s gaze sharpens, cutting. “That’s exactly the fucking problem. You’re blinded. Obsession makes you sloppy. You think love makes you sharper, but it doesn’t. It makes you reckless.”
Something in me snaps. My fist slams the table again, hard enough to rattle ash from Yoongi’s cigarette. “Don’t you dare talk like you know her. Like you know what this is. She’s mine. That’s all you need to know.”
The words hang heavy, raw and feral.
Yoongi’s lips twitch, almost a smirk. Jin frowns. Hoseok glances between us like he’s waiting for blood.
Namjoon doesn’t flinch. “You’re willing to gamble everything we’ve built on her?”
“I’m not gambling.” My voice drops low, dangerous. “I trust her.”
Namjoon leans in, voice steady, each word a blade. “Then tell me where she is right now. What she’s planning. What her angle is.”
And just like that… silence.
Because I don’t know.
I don’t know where she went after slipping me this map. I don’t know why she’d disappear without a word. My chest pounds with the hollow weight of it, but I don’t let it show. Not here. Not in front of them.
Namjoon sees the crack anyway. Of course he does. His expression hardens. “Exactly. You can’t protect what you don’t understand. Until we know who she really is, she’s a liability. To you. To us. To the work.”
The air in the room turns sharp, electric. Every eye on me. Every unspoken judgment pressing down.
I lean forward, jaw tight, voice rough as gravel. “If anything happens to her because of this, because you lot can’t see past your paranoia, I’ll burn every bridge in this room. Don’t fucking test me.”
The silence that follows is a different kind. Think, simmering, coiled like a spring. No resolution. No peace. Just a fracture spreading down the middle of the table, waiting for the next move to split it wide open.
Y/N
Fucking hell, I think, as the marble lobby lights smear across my boots. The FBI smells like coffee and bleach and the stupid, comforting hum of fluorescent lights that mean someone else is doing the worrying for you. I move through it like I own it, like I’ve worn the carpeting into a path a thousand times. Because tonight I need that confidence to be louder than the part of me that wants to vomit.
An agent at the front desk looks up at me with the bored curiosity of someone who spends his life being asked for favors. “Name?” he says.
“Where’s my brother?” I answer instead. No hello. No small talk. The question lands in his lap like a live grenade.
He blinks like I’d slapped him. “Name?”
“Joshua Vize.” The name echoes in my head like payment due. He types. “He’s in his office,” the agent says finally, voice a notch sharper. “Third floor, wing B. You gonna-“
I bolt.
I cut through the bullpen, ignoring the looks, because my brother is an island in that building, island with keys and code and probably an unread stack of subpoenas. I reach his door, knock once, and go in on the sound of his voice. Josh looks up from a pile of case files like he’s been expecting this exact intruder. He always knows.
“Hey, little sister,” he says, grinning despite the tension around his eyes. He opens his arms like he’s trying to make the world soft enough to hold me. I slam the door behind me and step into the room like a gale.
“Close the door.” I don’t wait for the embrace. I don’t want to be softened. Not tonight.
He shuts it. “Wow, dramatic,” he laughs, but there’s steel in it. “You look like you stuck your hand in a blender. What’s up?”
I drop the folder on his desk and unroll the map like I’m laying down a body between us. The pages whisper, the Circuit, and Josh’s face shifts the second his eyes fall on the list. The room goes colder.
“Where the hell did you get this?” he breathes.
“Lucian Vale’s server,” I say. “The one in his office. Ninety-seven seconds, a dumb guard who drinks coffee at the wrong moment, and I slipped in and out with his ledger. He thinks paperwork makes him safe. It doesn’t.” I watch him process the names. Jis jaw clenches. A palette of monsters who are already dead.
“You hacked him,” he says flatly.
“I did more than that. I copied everything he had on how they coordinated: meetings, transfers, legal scaffolding, phoned-in favors. It’s the map, Josh. It’s the Circuit.” I point at the node that sits like a black sun: Lucian Vale. “He’s the center. He’s been selling them a business model: surveillance, legal leverage, consolidation of assets under the veneer of philanthropy.”
Josh’s face grows thinner by the second. “You brought-“ He stops. His brain is trying to knit the world that makes this acceptable: my face across his coffee table, the little sister he once tucked into bed, and the woman who’d just handed him evidence that could topple men.
“You were supposed to kill him,” he says finally, not as a question. His profession stiffens around him like armor. “FBI wanted Vale. We brought in a contractor for that. YOU.” His eyes bore into me. “Why are you back?”
He stares at me, slow and terrible. Then he asks the question that makes my mouth go dry: “What’s your connection with Bangtan, Y/N?”
The syllables hang like a verdict. I can’t like, not after this. “I’m dating Jungkook,” I say. I tell him everything – fast, raw, the way you vomit out a secret so the taste leaves your mouth. How I met JK, how the first time I saw him I thought I could keep separate, how I told him I did something else because lying makes you safe, how he told me everything about them: the rituals, their games, the way they turned justice into performance. I give him the map. I give him the context. I slide the dossier across his desk.
Josh reads like a man in a slow-motion film, eyes flicking, lips thinning, knuckles whitening as he grips the edge of the folder. “You put this under his nose and walked away?” he asks.
“I had to get it out,” I say. “I didn’t want it to sit on Lucian’s drivers for another week. He’d disseminate, he’d weaponize it. People would disappear. I can’t have that. I brought it to you.”
He lets out a long, hollow breath. “Why the hell did you come back without him dead? You were the contractor. The job was-“ He can’t finish. The only completion would be blood. He looks like he want to punch a hole through the wall. “You were contracted to neutralize him.”
“You sent me,” I say, because the truth is a knife. “You and the Bureau used my services. You signed the fucking checks. I did the work you wanted, but Vale had more than security. He had the Circuit. He has partners. Fine, dead. But who knows if there aren’t more? It was messy. I got out with the ledger instead of his head.”
Josh’s thumb rubs at the bridge of his nose. “You expect me to take you seriously? You expect me to bring this to the Department and not have them see… a vigilante?”
“Vigilante,” I repeat, tasting the word. “No. Contract killer. Officially. For the Bureau.” I say, getting angry. “My brother, you. You put me on a list. I’ve been working as a contractor on cases you authorized, off-the-books work, targeted strikes. There are payments, brokered through channels you and I both know. I have a contract. I have someone who pulls the funds. I have the receipts.” I slide one across the table. He reads the headers, the coded amount, his fucking signature.
“Did your boyfriend knows who you’re working for?”
“No.” The answer is small and soft. “He didn’t need to know.”
“He doesn’t know you’re working for the fucking FBI?” he snaps.
“No.” The silence that follows is hot.
“You came back to us without doing the job,” he says finally, voice a hard blade. “You bring us the ledger instead. Why?”
“Because if I kill Vale and don’t expose the Circuit, another man will inherit the ledger. The ledger gives leverage. The ledger is power. You can put him behind bars and Lucian’s network will rebuild, or you can use the ledger to make the arrests that end the network, I didn’t kill him because exposing the ledger gives you the truth to prosecute the whole cabal.” I watch his face, his jaw working, the point where his oath and his blood fight.
He folds his hands, weighting the life we both have chosen. “If we push this public, if we leak the Circuit, people will die in the fallout. This isn’t a neat arrest. This is war.”
“Then don’t make it a war that only the dead pay for,” I say. “Protect Bangtan. Give them a channel to trade what they do for what we can offer – immunity, partnership. We make them work for you. Seal their records. Formalize them as assets. Give them legal cover to take down the Circuit from the inside under your oversight. They are the only ones who can move like ghosts. You need them.”
He laughs, a bitter, incredulous sound. “You want me to defend criminals.”
“VIGILANTES,” I cut him off, sharp as a knife. “Like me.”
His eyes narrow. “What does Jungkook knows about you, sis?”
“That I’m a contractor.” I don’t wait for him to parse. “He knows the work exists because he tells me about his world, and I told him about mine. It’s enough. He knows I’m not a civilian.”
“That’s… wrong,” he says softly, almost to himself, the way men in uniforms do when rules are bending. “You’re asking me to rewrite laws.”
“I’m asking you to be practical.” I lean forward until my palms press flat against his desk. “You protect them, Joshua, or I finish it my way. I take Vale down, public or not, and you have another problem entirely: a contractor with the ledger and no obligation to play nice. You lock him up the right way, we get indictments big enough to bring down the Circuit. You don’t, and I take out the man at the center and disappear, and then the Circuit finds new blood and the market spins on.”
He’s quiet for a long time. I can tell him that I’m bluffing, that I’d rather burn bridges than lose Jungkook, but I don’t. He knows me. He knows what I can do. And I know him: a brother shaped by subpoenas and statutes and the slow willingness to cross lines for the greater good. I use that.
Josh taps a pen against his lip. “You know I can’t promise to completely erase records. That’s not how this works. I can’t make agencies forget.” He looks me in the eyes. “But I can make deals. Limited immunity for specific acts, if they provide full cooperation. I can open a channel, office or special operation, where we five them subpoenaed protection if they operate under official oversight. We can compartmentalize indictments, prioritize the district attorneys who will not leak, and we can… work with the attorney general to seal certain case files from public view.”
“That’s-“ It’s almost what I wanted. Not the fairy-tale ensure, but workable. “Close to enough,” I say. “But Bangtan have criminal records. They’ll never be clean in the public record. I want those records sealed, not accessible by anyone outside this operation. I want protective custody for their families, resources for relocation if they need it. I want assurances they won’t be turned in if things go sideways during operations.”
He nods slowly, the negotiation sharpening like a blade. “We can petition for sealed records under national security claims, yes. Protection for families, yes, but with conditions. They have to be under our control. No rogue operations. No unilateral hits. They work for us or not at all.”
I feel Jungkook’s face in my head, his laugh, his knuckles. I don’t flinch. “They’ll work with you, but on our terms too. We keep operational autonomy in the field because we are not deskbound, but we submit targets and timelines in advance to a vetted channel. No leaking, no freelance offbooks unless they have to and the office grants emergency status.”
He runs his forehead. “You’re asking to create a legal loophole for criminal vigilantes.”
“I’m asking you to do what you must to dismantle a network that would make hostages of entire systems. You turn Bangtan into an asset. Give them oversight. Clean them out of the legal gray in exchange for the prosecution YOU need. They bring you the evidence, you run the arrests. Covert, surgical, clean. I don’t want revenge. I want the Circuit dead.”
He breathes out something like a laugh and then the room tilts back into business. The personal becomes procedural in the space between two breaths.
“All right,” Josh says finally, folding the map with the slow, decisive motions of a man who knows how to bury explosives. “I can take this to the director. I can pitch a compartmentalized operational channel, a limited, legally covered task force that will be lead by Bangtan as an asset under our oversight. We’ll draft memorandums, immunity clauses, witness protections, temporary sealed records under national-security claims. It's messy, it’s political, and it’s going to take signatures from people who will ask questions you don’t want to answer.”
“They won’t be pretty guarantees,” he shoots back. “But they’ll be real. And they’ll buy us a legal foothold to use what you brought me. But I need to move this through my chain. Public exposure now would ruin it. You don’t want Vale watching to see what you’ve done and vanish further. You did right by bringing me the ledger. Now let me do the rest in the way the Bureau knows how.”
I study him. He’s my brother, the man who once hid my fever under a jacket when we were kids, and now he’s the man who knows hot to thread the law through the dark. I understand the trade. “Do it,” I say. “But no calls to Bangtan. To Jungkook. Not yet. Let the Bureau build the scaffold. Let us not be the levers until the warrants and the counsel are in place. Let me tell them.”
He nods. “I can’t promise to placate Namjoon. He’s cautious. He’s going to bite, sis. But I will move quietly. If this runs, it runs under FBI first.” He pauses, looking at the map with something like regret. “And Y/N? Don’t do anything unilateral. If you go after Vale on your own, you destroy the legal avenue I can open. The ledger dies with him if you kill him and disappear.”
I meet his eyes. “I know.” There’s a strange intimacy in that warning, the kind only siblings who’ve buried secrets together can manage. He slides the folder toward me like a truce and a tether. “I’ll start the paperwork. I’ll pull in counsel. But understand: this depends on patience and on secrecy. The Department will not move publicly until we’ve got indictments lined up. You walk away now and wait. If you cheat the process, you burn it for everyone. Let us handle Vale.”
We shake on it, the old, human thing. No fanfare, little romance, only the tacit understanding that law and violence are bargaining partners tonight.
“Be careful,” he says at last, the guard down for a second, and it is brotherly and weary. “I’ll move. But this is all on the record. Step outside the plan and you take down the only channel that could save you. And the man that you love.”
“Got it,” I say, but my voice is steady with the new kind of faith. Not in one man, but in a structure we can navigate. I tuck the folder under my arm and step out of the office, into the fluorescent hum of the bureau and the night beyond.
***
Jungkook
Three days.
Three days without her. Three days of phones ringing into dead air. Three days of staring at my own reflection in the darkened glass of the war room screens until it starts to look like someone else. Every hour that ticks by without a message, every time Namjoon’s eyes cut across the table with that calm, quiet “I warned you” look, it digs under my skin.
At first, I held the line: she’s working, she’s smart, she’ll surface. Then, day two, my fingers start to tremble over her contact like an addict. By day three I can feel the doubt creeping in like smoke: what if Namjoon was right? What if she was playing me? What if everything I saw in her was just a reflection of what I wanted to see?
Namjoon doesn’t hide it anymore. “You let her in,” he says flatly, eyes on the board where Vale’s network sits like a spiderweb. “Now she’s gone. Do the math.” I don’t answer. My jaw is locked. Inside me it’s war drums. I keep hearing her laugh, her voice, the way she moved like she belonged here.
We’re two words from a decision – shut down, relocate, escalate – when the door bangs open. Jin’s girl bursts in, breathless, hair sticking to her cheeks from the rain. “Turn it on,” she says, already grabbing the remote, “Channel three.”
The screen comes alive in high-def blues. News banners scream: FBI DESTROYS THE CIRCUIT IN MULTI-STATE RAID. A podium. Microphones. My heart stops.
Joshua Vize.
Vize. I know that name before the chyron even finishes spelling it. It rolls through me like a blade. His face fills the screen: crisp suit, Bureau haircut, voice steady but clipped, giving the press as little as possible. No mention of contractors. No mention of vigilantes. He says just enough to sell the story and no more.
But then, then he drops it. A line so bland to the public yawns and moves on, but my blood goes cold:
“In response to this operation, the Bureau will be opening a new division to address unconventional organized crime. We are already considering the best recommendations for its inaugural team.”
Recommendations. He looks straight into the camera when he says it. Not the public. Us. Her. Me.
My stomach flips. Vize. Her last name. Her brother.
She didn’t betray me. She was never playing me. She was playing for me.
I’m still staring at the screen, heart pounding, when the door at the far end slams open. She’s there. She’s just there. No hesitation, no guards. Of course she’d know how to find us. Of course she’d walk into the lion’s den like she built the cage.
Before I can move, she’s across the room, running straight for me. I rise without thinking, hands already reaching, and she collides into me like a storm breaking. Her mouth finds mine, hard, desperate, the kiss of someone making sure flesh is still flesh, that we’re both still real. My arms lock around her and the noise of the room drops out. She’s warm. She’s breathing. She’s mine.
The she pulls away. Her eyes cut to Namjoon. Without a word she strides over and punches him square in the face. The crack echoes off concrete.
Yoongi smirks like he’s been waiting his whole life for this. Jin’s eyebrows shoot up. And me? I can’t stop the savage, proud grin stretching across my face. My girl. My impossible girl.
Namjoon wipes the blood from his lip, more surprised than angry. She stands over him, eyes blazing. “Never doubt a woman’s love,” she spits. “I’d rather die than drag Jungkook down. Don’t you ever question that again.”
She leans closer, voice dropping into something lethal. “And I hope you have a fucking suit, Namjoon. You’re going to lead the new division.”
For a heartbeat no one breathes. Then Hoseok says what everyone’s thinking, “But we have criminal records-“
“You don’t,” she cuts him off, sharp and clean. “Not anymore.”
The silence after that is electric.
I look at her like she just hung the moon over a battlefield. Like every dark corner in me just lit up. Smart. Fearless. Mine.
Namjoon reaches out, his hand a flash of motion, gripping her chin, forcing her eyes to his. His voice is low, dark velvet. “Welcome to Bangtan, little brat. I’ll make your life a living hell.”
She doesn’t flinch. My brave girl. She just turns her head enough to find me across the room. Her eyes soften like a gun lowering. “Worth every second of hell,” she says.
And in that moment, something shifts. Not just in the room, but in all of us. The war we’ve been fighting alone cracks open into something bigger. A sanctioned future. A path out of the shadows without giving up the fight.
I don’t know what the Bureau’s new “division” will look like. I don’t know what suits Namjoon will wear or what new demons Bangtan will be asked to hunt. But right there, right now, I know this:
She came back. She chose us. She chose me.
Her hand finds mine under the table. My thumb brushes her knuckles. The war room hums around us, screens flickering with new targets, new rules, new power. Outside, the world Is changing. Inside, so are we.
For the first time in three days, I can breathe. For the first time in years, the future doesn’t look like a tunnel. It looks like her eyes.
And if hell is what Namjoon promises, then let it come. I’ll walk into it with her.
Synopsis: She’s clean, precise, lethal. He’s wild, reckless, a beautiful mess. When their paths collide mid-massacre, the world tilts. Chaos becomes their strategy, laughter becomes their language, and passion… well, that’s just collateral damage.
Clean job. Quick in, quick out. That was the plan.
The warehouse smelled like mildew and expensive cigars, the kind of place mafia heirs thought made them look “historic.” My blade was slick, my gloves already strained. The target’s men dropped one by one, nothing messy, nothing loud. Efficiency. Always efficiency.
Until the gunfire stopped.
Not because I had finished. But because someone else had gotten there first.
I turned the corned into a room that should have been crawling with guards. Instead, it looked like an installation piece – bodies strewn across the floor in grotesque tableaux, blood sprayed against the walls in deliberate arcs, like someone had flicked a brush with too much paint. And standing in the middle of it, dappled in crimson and shadows, was him.
A camera raised.
Click.
The flash seared across my eyes, the sound louder than the gunshot I’d expected.
He tilted his head, grinned like a wolf that had raided a masquerade. The camera dangled from his fingers like a toy. He didn’t look at the corpses, he looked at me, like I was the artwork he’d been waiting for.
“Hold still,” he murmured, voice velvet-smooth and insane all at once.
Another click.
“Murder suits you.”
I should have slit his throat. Should have thrown a knife straight between those pretty eyes and walked away. Instead? God help me. I laughed.
A sharp, incredulous sound, bubbling out of my chest before I could bite back. The absurdity of it – me, standing ankle-deep in massacre, being photographed.
He lit up at the sound, smile curling wider, dangerous and delighted. “There it is. That’s the shot I wanted.”
“You’re insane,” I said, because there was no other explanation.
He shrugged, as though insanity was a compliment he wore well. “Maybe. But look at you. You laughed.”
I hated how right he was.
He sauntered closer, stepping over bodies like they were nothing but props in his little theater. Each step unhurried, casual, like he had all the time in the world to close the distance between predator and prey. But I couldn’t figure out which one of us was which.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I snapped, tightening my grip on the knife. “This is my job.”
“Funny,” he said, lowering the camera to hang against his chest. “I thought it was mine. But then…” His eyes flicker down to the blood on my gloves, back up to my face. “…you showed up, and suddenly it feels more like a duet.”
I should have walked away, But the word lingered. Duet.
The silence between us thrummed, thick as violin strings. Somewhere in the background, blood dripped steadily from a half-severed throat, a metronome to the madness.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
He smiled again, wolfish, secretive.
“Someone who likes the way you laugh.”
And that was how it began.
V
I’ve been to a lot of crime scenes. Some scream, some beg, some faint like delicate porcelain dolls. But none, NONE, have laughed.
And then she did.
Sharp, reckless, just… bursting from the chest like fireworks. That laugh. It stuck in my head, twisted itself around my pulse. Suddenly, everything else – the corpses, the blood, the chaos – was just a stage for her.
I stepped closer, camera forgotten for the moment. She froze for half a second, the knife tight in her hand, eyebrows quirked like she was ready to stab me instead. And I loved it.
“You move like a hurricane,” I murmured, watching her arc around a stunned guard, foot pivoting, blade swinging.
“Thanks,” she shot back, teeth bared in a grin. “You look like a tornado in tweed.”
Tweed. Who wears tweed? Oh right. Me. Disaster chic, apparently.
We were a mess. A fucking disaster. Guards came at us, stupid, twitchy, and suddenly, without words or planning, we were in sync. She ducked left, I spun right, our blades and fists painting an accidental choreography across bodies and debris. I kicked a chair into a man’s chest, she tripped over it and vaulted over my shoulder, landing on another guard. Perfect. Absolute perfection.
I watched her as she moved. She is mad, untamed, beautiful in her chaos. Every arc of her body screamed the same thing as me: we do this because we can.
And then she looked at me, one brow raised, and said: “You’re supposed to be cleaning up my mess, not dancing around it.”
I laughed. Loud, deep, because she was right. And because I didn’t want to stop looking at her.
“Clean up your mess?” I said, leaning closer, tone dangerous. “I think you mean we are making art.”
She tilted her head, smudge lipstick, eyes wild, and grinned.
“Fine. Then I guess you’re my partner in chaos.”
That was it. That tiny spark, the way her chaos fit mine like it had been designed that way – made me feel untouchable, unbreakable. Finally. Finally, someone who moves like me. Someone who gets it.
Her hand brushed mine for a split second while we vaulted a railing together. The touch was electric. Not intimate, not yet, but it was the start. The beginning of a duet only we could dance.
And I know, then and there, that if she ever fell, or died, she’d take a piece of me with her.
I didn’t care.
Because she was insane. Perfectly, deliciously insane. And I had to have more of it.
Y/N
The streets smelled like wet asphalt and fear. I had tracked the target for hours. Leonardo Martelli. Heir to one of the city’s oldest mafia dynasties. Handsome in the way a snake is handsome, sharp jaw, cold eyes, but lethal, always lethal. Every movement precise, calculated, like he knew exactly how to survive. I wanted him gone quietly. Clean. Efficient.
Enter Taehyung.
He was crouched on the ledge of a balcony, camera slung around his neck, sneakers squeaking softly as he adjusted the angle. I didn’t even know he’d followed me this far, and already he was… presenting the scene. Like it was a photoshoot.
“Do you have to capture everything?” I snapped, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. “Some of us actually want to finish the job.”
He tilted his head, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You’re worried it’ll look bad? Come on, sweetheart, blood and chandeliers? That’s art.”
I froze. The chandeliers. They had been rigged for the gala last night, dripping crystal and blood from a failed assassination attempt. Somehow, in his lens, it was mesmerizing. My irritation softened, just a little, as I realized he was right. There was beauty there. Chaotic, lethal beauty.
We moved together through the night, shadows and neon glinting off puddles. Leonardo’s men patrolled the corners, unaware that two mad dancers were threading through them. I could have gone faster, silent, deadly, but Tae’s presence slowed me. Not because he was clumsy, he wasn’t, but because watching him watch me was… intoxicating.
“Stop staring,” I hissed under my breath as he ducked behind a lamppost, camera raised.
“I’m not staring,” he said, voice low, teasing. “I’m… documenting the phenomenon.”
I rolled my eyes but caught myself smiling. The phenomenon. He was ridiculous. And I loved it.
Leonardo’s sleek black car slipped down the alley ahead. He had eyes like ice, a calculated smirk, as if he knew the chaos following him was inevitable, and that it would fail. He was arrogant, careless, and I should have been annoyed that Taehyung’s theatrics let him slip. But I wasn’t.
We cornered him in a dead-end courtyard. I readied my blade, he held back, camera forgotten, a grin stretching across his face.
“You’re too tense,” he said. “Relax. Let’s make this fun.”
I blinked at him. Fun? We are about to kill a mafia heir, and he wanted fun?
But watching him, the wild gleam in his eyes, I realized maybe… chaos could be a strategy.
Leonardo darted past, slipping between dumpsters. I cursed under my breath, lunged, and caught Tae’s elbow instead of the target. He yelped, spinning me around, and somehow we collided mid-run, laughing at the absurdity.
“This is not funny!” I gasped, breathless.
“Oh, it’s hilarious,” he said, brushing blood off a fallen guard like confetti. “You’re hilarious. You’re perfect.”
I shoved him hard, but my grin betrayed me. Perfect. Maybe he was right. Maybe out chaos wasn’t a liability. Maybe it was our weapon.
We took a beat to catch our breath, crouched behind a dumpster, sneakers soaked in grime, hands bloody, hair plastered to our foreheads. I looked at him, the way he smirked, the way his camera hung from his neck like a talisman, the way he moved as if every chaotic step was poetry.
And I laughed. Laughed because it was ridiculous, insane, dangerous. And because I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe I liked this. Him.
Leonardo’s car disappeared into the night, and I felt the sting of frustration. But I also felt the pull. Pull toward him. Toward the madness. Toward… this strange, electric, impossible alliance.
Taehyung brushed his hand against mine as we got up. A small, casual touch, but I felt it. Electricity. Wild, reckless, beautiful electricity.
“Let’s go,” I said, blade ready again. “He won’t wait forever. And we need a plan.”
“Nope,” he agreed, grinning that infuriating grin. “And neither will I.”
V
I don’t take her to a safehouse. Not really. Safehouses are for people who want to hide. I collect.
The building is a decayed theater on the edge of the old district, all velvet curtains rotting into moth-dust and chandeliers swaying like broken teeth. My “safehouse” is just the stage, lights I rigged myself, costumes stolen from corpses who won’t be needing them. The walls are plastered with polaroids of crime scenes, half-burned love letters, ticket stubs from funerals. It’s not safety. It’s a museum. My museum.
When I push the creaking door open, she actually stops short. Her blade still bloody at her side, eyes narrowed.
“This,” she says flatly, “is not a safehouse.”
“Of course it is,” I grin, flipping the main switch so the red stage lights hum to life. “Safe for me. Unsafe for everyone else. That’s how it works.”
She mutters something about regretting ever following me in here, but she still steps inside. That’s what counts.
I pour her wine, cheap, stolen, but it tastes decadent when you drink it under chandeliers that should’ve collapsed years ago. She sits stiffly in one of the velvet chairs, knife still within reach. Always within reach. I like that about her.
“You’re insane,” she says again, lips brushing the rim of the glass.
“Maybe.” I lean against the piano, smirk widening. “But admit it. You’ve never been offered a mid-mission cabernet before.”
She snorts, a sound I want to bottle, just to play back in empty rooms when she’s gone.
“I should be tracking Leonardo,” she mutters. “Not… entertaining you.”
I cross the stage in two long strides and tug her out of the chair before she can protest. The wine sloshes dangerously close to her wrist.
“Entertaining me? Darling, this is for you.”
And before she can resist, I spin her. Right there, bloodied boots squeaking against velvet-draped floorboards, her body colliding with mine in a half-clumsy, half-perfect rhythm.
She shoves at my chest, laughter caught in her throat. “We are in the middle of a mission.”
“And?” I twirl her again, ignoring her scowl. “Missions are temporary. Beauty is forever.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she says.
“You’re smiling,” I shoot back.
And she is. Barely. Just the edges of her mouth betraying her.
Her hand ends up splayed on my shoulder, mine at the curve of her waist. Close. Too close. Her knife is trapped between us, blade pressing lightly into my coat. I could bleed if she leaned harder. Maybe I want her to.
The air between us thickens, heat rising off her skin. Her eyes lock on mine, sharp and electric, and for one dizzy second, the world stills.
I dip my head, lips brushing dangerously close to hers. She doesn’t move away. Not an inch.
“Careful,” she whispers, voice low, taunting. “You’ll forget this is a job.”
I grin, letting my nose brushing her cheek, drinking in the warmth of her.
“Sweetheart,” I murmur, “you are the job.”
She stiffens, then laughs. Sharp, incredulous, like she doesn’t know whether to stab me or kiss me.
The moment hangs. Knife between us, wine dripping like blood down her wrist, my lips hovering just above hers.
Then, like all beautiful things, it breaks.
She pulls back first, muttering, “We need to go.”
I let her go. But only because I want her to think she has the choice.
Because I know the truth. She’s already mine.
Y/N
The wine still burned in my throat when we hit the streets again. My pulse hadn’t decided if it was from the alcohol, from his hands at my waist, or from the way his lips nearly touched mine. All I knew was that Leonardo Martelli wasn’t far.
We found him in an alley carved between two crumbling hotels, neon buzzing overheard, the stink of rot and gasoline thick enough to choke on. He wasn’t running anymore. He was waiting.
The mafia heir leaned against the hood of a sleek black car, gun dangling from his hand like an afterthought. His tie was loosened, his suit streaked with blood, but his eyes… God, his eyes were clear. Cold, calculating, furious. The kind of man who’d burn half the city just to make a point.
“You think I’m some spoiled heir you can toy with?” he spat, voice low, venomous. “I was born into blood. I’ve drowned better assassins than you.”
Taehyung clapped, slow and mocking, like we’d just been treated to a theater monologue.
“Bravo,” he said, sauntering forward, camera swinging against his chest. “Do you rehearse these in the mirror, or does it just come naturally?”
Leonardo’s glare cut to him like a blade. I tightened my grip on mine. Taehyung was going to get us killed with his mouth, and the infuriating part was… I was half-smiling at it.
“I’ll make sure you die slow,” Leonardo snarled, raising the gun.
I moved first, blade flashing. He was faster than I expected, parrying with the butt of the gun, striking sparks off my knife. He wasn’t afraid. He fought like a man who refused to die small.
Our blades clashed, teeth-gritting close, breath hot in the narrow alley. I could smell the iron tang of blood, his and mine. One slip, one wrong step, and I’d be dead.
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” Tae drawled from behind me, “if his blood made a prettier pattern than his tie?”
It hit me like a slap, absurd and perfectly timed. I laughed. Mid-fight. Mid-deadly, life-or-death fight, and I laughed. Leonardo blinked, startled for half a second, and that was all I needed.
I surged forward, blade poised for the kill, but Tae’s hand was suddenly on mine. Not stopping me. Guiding, steadying. His palm warm over my knuckles, his breath at my ear. It felt obscene, intimate, wrong in a way that made my pulse trip.
“Easy,” he murmured. “Don’t rush. Make it count.”
Leonardo twisted, wrenching free, shoving me hard against the car. My back slammed metal, pain sparkling white. He pressed the gun to my ribs, breath ragged. “You think this is a game?”
I met his eyes, grinned through the ache. “No. A duet.”
Tae’s laugh cracked through the alley like a match strike.
“God, I love her,” he said. And then the fight exploded again.
V
She laughed, and the sound snapped through the alley like a broken glass bell. Not a panic laugh. A pure, ridiculous, dangerous laugh that made the world tilt and everything else blur. Up close, it was explosive, filthy, and for a second I could only watch like a man who’d been struck by lighting and decided to stand there and enjoy the burn.
He was fighting her, and God, the man could throw a punch worth a headline. But she moved in a way that was not just skill, it was performance. An exquisite mess. Every parry, every twist of her hip, a sentence in a poem I didn’t know I wanted to read.
I watched the way her knife flashed, the way her lashes flicked with sweat, how blood smeared the corner of her mouth and yet she smiled. It was absurd and perfect. I felt my chest thud like a drummer and had to steady myself against the hood of a ruined car.
She lunged, he countered. She laughed again when he mis stepped, a tiny, incredulous bark that should have been out of place and yet fit like a moth-eaten glove. I wanted to bottle that laugh. I wanted to pour it over my life and drink it up. Which is ridiculous. We were mid-violence, and I was planning souvenirs. Typical me.
Then he shoved her, hard. She hit the car, gasped – the sound raw and beautiful – and he raised his gun like a man who wanted his life to mean something even at the end. And in that stupid perfect instant, when the alley held its breath and the city seemed to lean in just to watch us, I did the only thing I couldn’t not do.
I crossed the space between us before thought caught up. One hand closed on the back of her neck, the other caught in her jaw, and I kissed her.
Not a gentle, secretive peck. Not the kind of kiss you steal in a quiet hallway. This was reckless, hot, impossible. A claim made of teeth and breath. I shoved myself forward with the kind of impatience violence has taught me to hide. My mouth took hers like it was seizing a prize, my tongue sharp and demanding, and for a maddening second everything was just that: the press of her, the taste of iron and laughter and gunpowder.
She responded with the same dangerous kindness she used on knives: fierce, immediate. Her fingers clawed at my shoulders, tugging me closer, teeth finding my lip, a growl torn between laughter and desire. She bit me, not soft, not tender, but hard enough to leave a memory, and I loved the bruise it promised. Good. I wanted to be bruised by her.
We were absurd. Two idiots kissing in an alley as a gun balanced life and death a foot away. I could hear his ragged breath behind his jaw, the man frantic and furious and human in the way that made me want to toss him in a rotten bouquet and see him choke on it. But I couldn’t break the kiss. I didn’t want to. My brain filed away his gunshot-ready stance as background noise. My world narrowed to her: to the rhythm of her mouth, the wildness in her eyes, the way her laugh shivered into a moan against my tongue.
Then, because the universe does have a terrible sense of timing, it happened: a sound like a dropped orchestra. Someone shouting, a car door slamming far too close. Leonardo wasn’t a coward, he was a man with wits and a plan. He used the second we surrendered ourselves to ridiculous impulse. With a grunt and a flurry, he shoved free, elbows flying, slipped between dumpsters, and ran.
She pushed me off like a woman slapping away heat. “You idiot,” she hissed, wide-eyed and furious and bright. For a second she looked like she could have killed me for the stupid distraction. Maybe she should have. Instead she turned, knife raised, breath burning the night, and tore after him.
I swore, not elegant at all. Not the high, languid curse of a poet. A short, ugly sound that tasted like regret and adrenaline. I should have stopped the kiss earlier. I should have kept my head. I should have done all the practical things people who survive do. But then he wouldn’t have run. And part of me, the terrible part that loves a line drawn in the sand, thought his slipping away was the perfect twist. A chase. A promise. A thing to fix later.
We ran. We were a terrible, brilliant thing in motion. She moved with blade-hungry grace, and I kept my pace at the exact place where I could keep my hands on her back without crowding, fingers a steady rhythm along her spine that said, I’m with you. When she vaulted a fence, I hoisted her like she weighed nothing at all. When she slid down cobbles, I wedged myself behind her, catching her elbow mid-fall. It was nonsense and necessity braided together, and I loved the choreography like it was a lullaby.
Leonardo disappeared into the urban fold. He was not caught. Not because we were clumsy, but because he was as sharp as the lie he sold to the world. He left us with cigarette smoke and the faint echo of ungentle prayers. He didn’t die small, he slithered away with teeth still bared.
We stopped at the mouth of the alley, panting, bloody, and filthy with the city. Her hair stuck to her temple in thin, red-smeared ribbons. Her eyes burned with something I wanted to warm and twist into laughter. She turned to me, chest heaving, and for a beat there was no fury, no strategy. Just the two of us on the street, ridiculous and stained.
“Not bad for a duet,” she panted, and there it was again – the laugh. That stupid, devastating laugh.
I wanted to answer with something sharp, with a line that would make her crawl into my coat and promise not to leave. Instead the truth spilled out before I could dress it in irony.
“Not yet,” I said, voice low and steady, and I meant everything I said. “Not yet. I want to see how far you’ll fall with me.”
She stared at me like I had said something both obscene and true. And the world, the bloody, messy city… tilted toward that impossible, delicious edge.
Y/N
The estate smelled like polished wood, expensive whiskey, and something faintly sour, the kind of scent that whispered of old money and old sins. I crouched in the shadow of a drape, knife glinting in the dim chandelier light, and for a moment, I caught myself thinking too much about him.
Taehyung was already in motion, camera slung like a weapon, sneakers silent against the marble floor. He moved like chaos had been taught in some secret academy and he was the master. I followed, but I wasn’t just following the plan, I was learning the rhythm of him, letting it guide my steps.
I found myself snapping a photo mid-turn, framing a shattered vase like it was performance art. Then, before I even realized, I made a joke, something about the butler probably being on a diet of terror and caviar, and he laughed. That laugh that made blood feel warmer and everything more dangerous.
I caught the tiniest smile tug at his lips as he whispered, “Finally, someone who gets it.”
Me? Getting it? I was supposed to be the predator here, the clean executor. But in that estate, surrounded by gold-plated opulence and secrets, I realized I was picking up his habits like souvenirs. I was dancing to his rhythm, thinking in his absurd logic, laughing at chaos the way he did.
The irony hit me, sharp and delicious. Here I was, supposed to be a professional, falling into step behind a man I’d met hours ago, falling into more than just rhythm. I was falling into him. And that scared me in a way I hadn’t expected.
Every moment, every glance exchanged across the hallway, every synchronized pivot around guards and alarms, it was a spiral I didn’t want to escape. I felt my pulse spike, not just from adrenaline, but from the way he watched me. Not the target, not the mission. Me.
When we paused behind a marble column, he caught my wrist lightly. “You’re learning fast,” he said, voice teasing but low. My heart hammered against my ribs.
“I’m picking up your terrible habits,” I whispered back. I meant it as critique, but it came out like confession.
“Perfect,” he murmured. And the word landed between us like a dare.
I laughed, because for the first time, I wasn’t just chasing a target or surviving a mission. I was chasing him, the thrill, the madness, the impossible, beautiful recklessness that seemed to radiate from him.
In that spiral of motion, of chaos and laughter and knives and whispers, I understood something terrifying. I wasn’t just falling for the adrenaline anymore. I was falling for him. And the thought made me sharper, faster, better, and more reckless than I had ever been.
Because when he grinned at me from across the hall, camera forgotten for once, I realized I didn’t want to be safe. I wanted to follow him into whatever chaos came next. And maybe, just maybe, I wanted him to fall right alongside me.
V
The door slammed behind us like a gunshot, and suddenly the room felt alive in a way the streets never were. Dust in the air, crooked furniture, candle wax dripping like blood, and there she was, wild, laughing, half-caked in the marks of the night. My heart skipped, stuttered, and then went straight into overdrive.
I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t even think. Just want.
I pin her against the wall, hands grabbing her hair, yanking her face up to mine. Her lips are soft, warm, and impossibly urgent, and I bite, tug, press my mouth against hers like I’m marking territory. Her tongue slides against mine and I groan, one hand plunging under her shirt, the other kneading her ass, gripping, squeezing, lifting her into me. Her thighs wrap around my hips, pressing me against her, slick and hot, and I’m already so fucking hard.
She bites my shoulder, drags her nails down my back, shoving me into her with a moan that makes my chest thrum. I shove her pants down, thrust my hand between her legs, and I feel her slick, hot and ready. She trembles, laughs, and I push my fingers inside her pussy, curling, dragging, and she gasps, claws my chest, hisses my name like a warning and a plea at once.
I groan, shove her tighter against the wall, fuck my fingers into her fast, hard, and she moans, grinding into me, shoving herself against my hand, dragging her teeth over my jaw. “Fuck, sweetheart, you’re so wet,” I growl, one hand gripping her hair, the other raking down her stomach, flicking her nipple through the wet lace of her bra. She shivers, arches, presses her chest into my hand, biting me, scratching me, and I shove my mouth to her neck, biting, sucking, groaning, watching her eyes roll back.
Her hips jerk, her breath comes in broken gasps, and she bites me, hard, shoving me against her like she owns me. And she does. She owns me. Every thrust of my fingers, every groan, every hiss, confirms it.
I can’t stop. I thrust my fingers in her pussy harder, curl deeper, and she rakes her nails over me, shoving herself intro every motion, and it’s perfect chaos. My thumb flickers her clit, until her moans turn into broken, screaming gasps. She’s trembling, dragging me into her rhythm, and I shove my mouth against her, tongue against tongue, tasting her, claiming her.
She wraps her legs tighter around my waist, presses herself into me, hissing my name, and I thrust faster, every motion cruel, desperate. “Say it,” I growl, teeth scraping her neck. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
She laughs. “I do. Shut up and fuck me,” she spits, and I swear to God she’s making me lose my goddamn mind.
I grip her hips, pull her close, and the world narrows to the scent of her, the slick heat between us, the wild pulse of her body beneath my hands.
“Sweetheart,” I rasp, teeth brushing her earlobe as I nudged her against the counter, “you’re mine, and you’re gonna feel it.”
Her laugh is breathless, sharp, insane, and it does something to me, it unravels the last bit of restraint I had.
I line myself up, shivering at the taut warmth of her cunt, the heat that welcomes me like chaos wrapped in silk. I push in, slow at first, teasing, and her gasp is electric, arching into me. Her nails dig into my shoulders, biting down, and I growl.
“You feel perfect, darling,” I whisper, letting my hands roam, thumbs brushing over her trembling skin. “So tight, so wild, made to take me.”
Her eyes fix on mine, as she asked so softly, with a gasp, “You like that?”
“Every damn inch of you,” I say, snapping forward, letting the initial thrust send shocks up both our spines. “Look at you, holding me, gripping me… so good, baby.”
She arches back, nails digging into my shoulders, breath ragged, her pretty pussy wrapping me like a vise. I realize, mid-thrust, that she’s craving this. Craving praise. Her eyes widen at the words, a sharp little laugh escaping, and I grin.
“That’s it,” I growl, snapping my hips forward, deliberate, harsh. “You feel that? That’s you, perfect for me. Good fucking girl, baby.”
Her back arches involuntarily, breath coming in ragged, messy bursts, and I grin. She’s discovering it too, the pleasure she didn’t know came from praise, from hearing how much she fits me, how much she makes my cock hard, how good she takes me.
“You take me so fucking well,” I hiss, pressing her against the wall, thrusting harder, rougher. “Every inch, every gasp… my sweet, little chaos. My girl.”
She moans, voice a broken, beautiful mess. “Please,” her hips jerk, catching mine mid-thrust, nails raking down my back, and I don’t stop. I can’t. every slam of my cock inside her comes with words, praise, obsession:
“Just like that… perfect.”
“God, you feel unbelievable.”
“Look at you, taking me like you were made for it.”
“Such a good girl for me, sweetheart.”
She cries out, body trembling, clenching around me, little whimpers spilling out between ragged breaths. I pull her closer, biting her collarbone, growling, thrusting harder, faster, letting every motion, every snap of skin, every wet drag of my cock in her pussy be punishment and reward at once.
I don’t stop. I keep pounding, praising her endlessly, letting it push us over the edge together. Until she screams my name, quivering, shuddering, her cunt clenching around me like a vice, and I come, growling her name, hips snapping, voice hoarse, claiming her fully as the chaos she is.
When it ended, if you could even call it ending, we collapsed tangled together, shaking, laughing through gasps and ragged breaths. Her smile wide, messy, glorious. My hand pressed her back, forehead resting on hers.
I didn’t even want to stop.
“I’m not letting you leave,” I murmured, voice low, half-laughing, half-growling.
She only smiled, breathless, bloody, perfect chaos. And I know I’d follow her anywhere.
Y/N
Taehyung’s hand found mine as we enter Leonardo’s office, gripping lightly, steadying me. I let him, even as adrenaline still thrummed in my veins from the night’s chaos. We were chaos now, and the line between fear and exhilaration had long since vanished.
The office smelled like old leather, polished wood, and the arrogance of a man who believed the world bent to his control. Leonardo Mortelli spun in his chair, eyes narrowing as if he could negotiate his survival with sheer will alone.
Leonardo lunged first, his reflexes sharp, trained – he wasn’t just a target, he was a predator defending his cage. I parried, twisting just enough to avoid the sharp edge of his knife, the clang of metal echoing across the high-ceilinged office.
Tae moved like liquid shadow beside me, teasing, unpredictable, and I caught his smirk mid-step. “He’s strong,” he murmured. “But he’s not us.”
The fight became a ballet of violence. Leonardo was fast, precise, and cruelly charming in his own way, mocking my moves, grinning as if the dance were entertaining him. Every time I struck, he countered. Every time he lunged, Taehyung was there, his presence both a shield and chaos, teasing the tension between us with a flick of a glance, a low laugh that vibrated against my skin.
I slashed at him, and he rolled under my blade, coming up behind his massive desk, yanking a heavy letter opener. The metal gleamed in the dim light, and for a heartbeat, I froze – not because I was afraid of him, but because he made the fight feel like a negotiation. Every strike, every counter, every snap of muscle and steel was a battle for dominance, for control.
“You think you’ve cornered me?” Leonardo hissed, darting around the desk, sending pens, papers, and trophies flying. “You think this ends tonight?”
I laughed, breathless, the sound harsh, sharp, full of both triumph and disbelief. “It ends when we fucking say it ends,” I shot back, my hand finding Tae’s as we moved together like a single weapon, our rhythm flawless.
He yells something sarcastic about my perfect aim, and I shove the desk to trip him, he catches it, spins, strikes. I barely block his knife, scraping my glove, feeling the heat of battle course through me. This is earned. Every inch of this fight is earned.
Leonardo’s pride pushed him further, reckless but still terrifyingly skilled. Taehyung laughed beside me, offhand, absurd, pulling me into a spin mid-dash, and I laughed too, breath ragged, letting chaos guide me.
Finally, we corned him. No room to run, no tricks left. He’s panting, still holding the knife, still trying to charm the world into sparing him. And that’s when I understand: this is the moment he dies a man, not a coward.
Taehyung presses his hand to my back, whispering, “Now. Make it ours.”
I raise my blade, and Leonardo meets my eyes. There’s a flash of respect, or perhaps incredulity, before I drive the final strike home. Clean, precise. He goes down fighting, proud and defiant, not small, not petty.
I step back, chest heaving, heart still racing from the duel, from the rush, from the knowledge that we’ve just toppled a man who truly deserved his chaos mirrored back at him.
Taehyung’s grin is wide, maddening, beautiful. My hands finds his, intertwined, and I realize I’m lost. Not to him, not to the mission, but to us, to this chaos we’ve created together.
V
The door clicks shut behind us, and suddenly the world outside ceases to exist. The safehouse is a mess of shadows and candlelight, a chaos of overturned chairs and shattered glass, and there she is, my prize. Half-laughing, half-smiling, her hair sticking to her sweat-slicked skin, one hand wrapped around a glass of wine, the other absentmindedly brushing a streak of blood from her cheek.
She looks up at me, and I can’t stop myself from grinning. Not like a hero. Not like a lover. Like a collector of rare, dangerous things. And she’s mine.
I pour her another glass of wine, swirling it lazily, and she watches me, curiosity and mischief in her eyes. I reach over, touch the tip of her nose with a fingertip. “Come home with me,” I say, voice low. “Bangtan’s waiting. You’ll like it there. You’ll like me there.”
Her brows quirks, pretending to consider it, but the smirk that tugs at her lips betrays her. “You’re serious?”
I laugh, low, velvet-deep. “Deadly serious, sweetheart. You’re perfect for me. You know it.”
It doesn’t take much. She slips her hand into mine like she’s been doing it her whole life, and we walk out, leaving chaos behind us.
***
Bangtan’s headquarters is alive with movement and noise, but the moment I step in with her at my side, everything stills, even if only for an instant. Namjoon lifts an eyebrow, folding his arms, already sensing the storm I’ve brought with me.
“Hyung,” I say, voice loud enough to cut through the chatter. “Look. I found someone who laughs at my jokes and stabs like a goddess. She’s mine.”
There’s a pause, the kind that could be tension or amusement – it’s Namjoon, so you never quite know. Then he sighs, leaning back, because he’s seen this before. When I smile like this… no one argues.
“She’s perfect for you,” he says finally, voice begrudging, and I catch the faintest edge of a smirk. “Welcome her into the family, Taehyung. She’ll fit right in.”
I glance at her, and she meets my gaze, a grin spreading across her blood-strained, beautiful face. My hand tightens around hers, possessive, indulgent. She’s mine, and I let her know without words, because she knows.
She leans against me, shoulder brushing mine, and I whisper, just low enough for her to hear, “My chaos. My perfect mess.”
That’s the Chaos Theory. Chaos isn’t random, it’s precision dressed in madness, unpredictability with a pattern only I can see. And somehow… she fits it perfectly. My perfect variable in a beautiful equation.
Synopsis: Friends with benefits, enemies of boredom, masters of chaos. Y/N and Jimin take on a corrupt art dealer, blending silk scarves, candlelight, and lethal precision. Banter turns into breathless touches; chaos turns into lust. By the time the target falls, nothing is safe. Except their attraction. Dark, messy, and wickedly funny.
Trope: Friends with Benefits | Partners in crime
Trigger warnings: This story contains themes that some readers may find disturbing or upsetting. Please read with caution.
Sexual Content: The story contains explicit sexual acts.
Graphic Depictions of Violence: Includes detailed descriptions of murder, stabbings, gun violence, and physical altercations.
Morally Ambiguous/Villainous Protagonists: The main characters are vigilantes who engage in murder.
Dubious Consent: While the characters are in a consensual relationship, some of the sexual encounters described blur the lines of consent with rough actions and dialogue. This is a recurring theme in their dynamic.
The conference room smelled like overpriced espresso and fear. Mostly my fear of being bored out of my mind. Namjoon stood at the head of the table, projector flickering, and laid out the target: an art dealer named Leopold Klein. Sleek, polished, public philanthropist, but the kind of man who trafficked rare artifacts and people behind closed doors. Typical Bangtan playthings. Typical enough to make me want him dead immediately.
I kept my eyes on Jimin. Across the table, he was leaning back, one hand drumming a rhythm against his silk cuff, the other brushing dangerously close to mine. Too close. Last night’s heat still hummed under my skin. I swore I felt it in the curl of my stomach.
He caught my gaze and smirked. That lazy, devilish curl of lips that said: I know you remember.
I returned it with my own smirk, one corner tipping just enough to be a warning. Nobody else in this room could touch the edge of what we had, or so I liked to pretend.
Jungkook, ever the annoying little brother of the room, finally piped up. “Focus on the job, not each other,” he said, eyes rolling like he’d seen this dance a hundred of times before.
I leaned back, pretending to take notes, but in reality I was watching him. Watching the way his leg brushed mine under the table, subtle but intentional. How every time Namjoon gestured to a slide, he followed the motion with a flicker of that predatory grin. It made my pulse stutter, made my mind itch with why do you do this to me, goddamn Jimin?
He caught me staring and whispered so softly I had to force myself to hear: “You’re too easy, you know that?”
I smirked, scribbling something on my notebook I knew I’d never remember. “Yes. And you love it.”
Namjoon droned on about Klein’s recent acquisitions, the gala he’d be hosting, the security details. I half-listened, half-watched Jimin’s every flicker of expression. I’d worked with plenty of partners. He was… different. Smooth, lethal, and somehow intoxicatingly aware of every inch of me without touching a thing.
By the time the meeting wound down, it was obvious. We would go together. Not because anyone asked. Not because it was even necessary. We just… fit. Like two blades sliding in sync.
As people filed out, I felt him brush past me, fingers grazing my shoulder in a touch so light it could have been accidental. But I knew better. He was counting on me noticing. I shivered and smirked all at once, the thrill of the mission mingling with a far more dangerous anticipation.
“Partners?” I asked quietly, tilting my head.
“Only because you drive me insane,” he murmured back, eyes sparkling with amusement, maybe mischief, definitely need.
And just like that, the game was set. We would dance through Leopold Klein’s world together, silk and blood, teasing and teeth, knowing exactly how to push each other’s buttons, and maybe, if we weren’t careful, each other’s bodies too.
Jimin
Plans are the only thing that keeps me sane. Neat. Predictable. If I can script every move, I own the ending. That’s how it’s always been. Until her.
Because the second she walks in, swinging a leg over the desk like she’s in some half-drunk cabaret, my whole blueprint starts to bend around her shape. I still plot the exists, the rotations, the electrical cut-off point, but I’m also plotting how close I can stand without leaning in to bite her neck, how far I can push her before she rolls her eyes and pulls me down on top of her.
She pretends she’s listening, pretending the diagrams and notes are more interesting than the lines of my shoulders. But her eyes keep darting – up, down, tracking me. I feel it like heat under my skin.
“The catering entrance. Staff uniforms smuggled in the laundry cart,” I say, tapping the sketch. “Five minutes inside before anyone notice we don’t belong. Then up the side staircase, no cameras there, only one bored guard.”
She yawns, dramatic. “Do you ever get tired of being such a control freak?”
The corner of my mouth pulls. I don’t answer with words. Instead, I slide a hand into my jacket and pull out the strip of silk I’d tucked there earlier. Black, smooth, soft as a promise. Her smirk falters, just a fraction.
I step in close. She doesn’t move away. Doesn’t even blink. I take her wrist, slow, deliberate, and wrap the scarf around it like it’s always belonged there. The fabric whispers against her skin.
“Control is sexy,” I murmur, tying a knot that isn’t quite tight enough. Just enough for her to feel it. My lips are so close to her ear, I know she feels my breath. “Don’t pretend you don’t love it.”
Her laugh is sharp and sweet all at once. “You sound very sure of yourself.”
“Am I wrong?”
Her pulse jumps under my thumb. She doesn’t answer, not directly. Just looks up through her lashes like she wants me to pin her right here on the desk.
And fuck, my mind betrays me. Because I still can taste her. The way she’d writhed beneath me last night, silk sheets twisted around us, her nails carving crescents into my back. The sound of her muffled moans against the pillow when I pushed her down deeper. The heat. The tight, wet clutch of her body around my cock. Fucking hell, I still remember how tight that pretty cunt felt last night.
The thought almost makes me lose my place. Almost.
I press my thumb harder against the silk binding her wrist. Anchor myself. Anchor her. “When we’re inside, we stick to the plan. No improvising.”
Her mouth curves slow. “And if I do?”
I lean back just enough to look at her fully. “Then I’ll drag you back by this scarf. And you’ll thank me for it.”
Her laugh bursts out, wild and delighted. “Cocky.”
“Confident.”
She tilts her head, considering me like a puzzle she’s already halfway solved. “You really think you can control me?”
I smirk, eyes dropping to the silk on her wrist. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”
She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t pull away either. She never does. That’s why we work. That’s why the jobs go smooth, the bodies fall easy, the aftermath burns bright. Because where my meticulous lines end, her chaos begins, and somehow the two fit together like teeth in a lock.
She shakes her wrist free finally, tossing the scarf back at me. “Fine, Control Freak. Lead the way. Just try to keep up when things get messy.”
And that’s the thing. I already know I will. Because as much as I love my perfect plans, I love the mess she makes of them even more.
Y/N
Velvet swallowed the room. Chandeliers dripped expensive light like slow, indifferent stars and everyone beneath them pretended to be gilded and innocent. I hummed under my breath as I slid into the crowd, a feathered mask hid half my face, a slit dress made of lies and promise, my wrist still carrying the ghost of his silk from the motel: black against my skin, looped and tied with that ridiculous, delicious knot.
Leopold Klein moved like he owned the place. The sort of man who polishes his hands in public and buries bodies in the back rooms. Namjoon’s slideshow had called him “philanthropist” for the cameras and “collector of curiosities” for us; I called him a parasite. He smiled at the press, made the orphans on his foundation’s brochure look like charity theater. Up close, his cologne was citrus and old money, nice enough to swallow, but underneath it there was that sour thing Jimin and I could smell from a mile away: entitlement picking at the seams.
Jimin watched from the balcony. Not like a bored guest. Like a predator that’s fond of the hunt. He blended into the dark in a way that looked deliberate, silk cuff glinting when he shifted. When his eyes caught mine, he didn’t wave. He didn’t need to. A tiny tilt of his head, our signal, and I loosened my smile like a weapon.
The plan lived in the small places: I’d be the performance, the flirtation too easy to ignore; he’d be the cut behind the curtain. The catering entrance, the laundry cart, the slack guard – all the things he’d mapped out while he wrapped silk around my wrist. I’d make Klein look at me. He’d want to own whatever attention I offered. That’s when we’d take the seams apart.
I drifted through the room, a rumor in red heels. People reached for me like moths; I let them. I brushed a sleeve, laughed at a joke I hadn’t heard, let my hand linger on a glass so a waiter would notice and move. My fingers trailed across velvet, found Klein’s attention quick as a match. He leaned in like a man smelling a prize. His smile was slow and dangerous.
“You’re exquisite,” he murmured closer than he had any right to me. His voice was silk and honey. “Do you collect art, or are you the evening’s masterpiece?”
I dipped my head, letting my mask shadow my eyes. “A little of both,” I said. The line was soft, but Jimin knew how to read the sharper edges. From the balcony he moved like water, a hand on a rail, a shadow stepping down into the crowd. He never took his eyes off Klein. He never took his eyes off me.
Don’t think of Klein as clumsy. He was a master manipulator: the sort who could compliment your shoes while dialing the men who’d sell your granddaughter to be highest bidder. He watched the room like someone arranging pieces on board, and when he watched me, he cataloged my movements like an art buyer inspecting a canvas. He liked the idea of owning things that were dangerous, the idea of taming them under glass. That was the knife I felt every time his gaze lingered on Jimin too, an appraisal. A buyer’s calculation.
Jimin’s signal came as subtle as a breath. He lifted his glass, tilting it the way he always did when he wanted me to move; the silk around my wrist tightened with that memory. I drifted to Klein’s side, letting my laughter and the tilt of my neck drag Klein’s smile wider, like I was bait and he was hungry.
“Dance with me later,” Klein said, the tone all velvet. “I’d prefer the private collection.”
I smiled in a way that let him feel clever. “Perhaps.”
The private collection was a constructed thing of Klein’s, a back room lined with canvases that looked expensive and felt wrong, donated works and stolen pieces blended until you couldn’t tell the theft from the charm. It was supposed to be an intimate thing: candlelight glossing over his trophies, a small audience of sycophants. The plan was for Klein to show off, to preen, to leave his guard down. Jimin would be waiting for the moment the crowd thinned. I would be the last laugh.
When Klein finally pulled me toward the gallery wing, his hand at my elbow, his breath ticked against my ear. The world narrowed: varnish, the soft croon of a string quartet, the muffled hum of the party behind velvet. He talked, smooth, practiced, about patronage, about legacy, about how are demanded sacrifice. He meant people when he said sacrifice. He liked to speak as if the suffering were brushstroke, as if his hands were clean.
I let his words wash over me, keeping one corner of my mind for the plan, one corner for the thrill. The closer we got to the canvases, the more alert I felt, as if I was stepping into a net and Jimin’s hand on my lower back would be the first thread I could tug to pull me free.
From the shadow of a heavy doorway, Jimin watched Klein with a mischief that felt like a promise. He never looked like a man afraid of being seen, he looked like a man who measured the risk and decided he liked it. My pulse matched the soft light of the chandeliers, and living in the rhythm of his presence turned my blood into static. When Klein chuckled at something I said, condescending and pleased, I squeezed my fingers against the silk, remembering the knot and the way his mouth had found mine the night before.
We were a choreography practiced in silence: my flirtation, his patience, the tiny move that would have us closing in on Klein when he was most exposed. In public, our touches were lightning-fast and always plausible: a hand at an elbow, a whisper in a masked ear, a shared laugh that left nobody suspicious. In private, our movements braided into something more intimate, a kind of trust that surprised me every time. Trust between two people who could strip a room of meaning with a single touch.
Klein’s speech ended with applause and a toast; he basked, red wine warming his hands. He raised his glass high, proud of the congregation he’s curated, eyes skimming the room for those who adored him. He did not see the small exchange between me and Jimin, the slit of my smile to him, the tilt of Jimin’s chin that said, now.
I moved as if to accept an offered glass and instead slipped a small vial from my clutch, the kind of thing I practiced holding so it looked like jewelry. Klein’s hand brushed mine, brief and intimate, but the contact felt like a live wire.
The next moments were a blur honed by practice: Klein’s smile softening as the liquid went down, the set of his shoulders loosening, the way his eyes glazed with the first wash of whatever I’d chosen. He leaned back on the stool, confidential and comfortable. The guard by the door relaxed.
From the balcony, Jimin slid from the shadow like a ghost with a grin. He appeared beside the guard, his presence like a stolen breath. Quiet, precise, no wasted motion. My heart thumped, not from fear but from the slick, electric ache that came whenever we made something fall apart together.
Even in the middle of a kill, there’s a private theater where my attention drifts to the man who makes the plan come alive. Watching Jimin is like watching a master choreograph a solo: every small hand movement a sentence, every shift of his weight a paragraph. There was a softness there I rarely allowed myself to notice, an indulgence in the symmetry we made. Working with him felt less like a job and more like a promise I’d been waiting to be greedy about.
Klein slid down to his seat, mumbling an attempt at a toast. His voice dipped and hiccupped as the vial finished working. People around him laughed, unaware. Jimin watched him for a beat more, then signaled, and the gallery moved with us. We closed the loop. Two silhouettes in the candlelight.
This was the part I lived for: the intimacy of the trap, the little electric tally of breaths between him and me. Under the chandeliers and velvet, our fingers found each other for a heartbeat – no one saw, no one cared. The plan clicked, not because it was perfect, but because he and I were the only two people who fit the way we did. A velvet trap made of silk and skin.
And as Klein’s eyes fluttered, as his speech dissolved into a sleepy smile that did not reach his eyes, I felt something warm and dangerous coil in my stomach. I wasn’t just excited because we were about to take a man like him down. I was excited because we’d do it together. My hands, his patience, our bodies interlaced in the choreography of ruin. That particular brand of closeness? It turned me on more efficiently than any of the sex we’d ever had.
By the time the room thinned and the lights dimmed, I was already rehearsing the next move in my head. Jimin’s shadow waited, patient as ever. He was my cover when I needed one, my razor-arm when the plan demanded it, and in the spaces between, a hand that knew exactly where to find me in a crowd. We were a perfect danger together.
Velvet and silence swallowed the rest of the gala, but the warmth of his eyes stayed with me long after the candles guttered.
Jimin
Leopold Klein thought he was smart. Men like him always do: fat with money, drunk on their own power, now a little bit dizzy from my doll’s vial. All it took was a few murmured compliments about his “collection,” a hand on his elbow, and the promise of exclusivity, and suddenly he was following me like I’d hung the moon. Which, honestly, I probably could’ve convinced him I had.
The masquerade gala roared behind us – laughter, violins, crystal glasses clinking – and here I was, luring him into a side room dripping in velvet curtains and bad lighting. Too dramatic, too theatrical. I loved it.
I let him think he was leading, stepping ahead with that puffed chest on his, ready to bargain. What he didn’t realize was that he’d just walked right into the prettiest snare we’d ever spun. Because she was waiting. My pretty doll.
She slid out of the shadows like silk coming to life, mask gleaming, smile sharp enough to slit a throat. Klein froze, mid-step. You could see the moment his brain short-circuited: two beautiful strangers, all velvet and teeth, and not an ounce of mercy between them.
The door clicked shut. Curtain down. Show started.
We didn’t need a script, we never did. Her eyes found mine, and it was like a conductor’s baton in the air. A flick of her wrist, and I shifted position. The brush of her shoulder, and I leaned in. She was the music, I was the lyrics. Together we were the sing that drowned men.
Klein cleared his throat, stammered, “Perhaps we can… come to an arrangement?”
God, I almost laughed. An arrangement. I tilt my head, let my smile sharpen. Y/N stepped closer, tilting hers too, like she was my echo. He flinched. I did laugh then.
“You always get them begging first,” she said, voice like smoke curling around the room.
I dragged my gaze over her, slow and filthy, just to watch her cheeks heat under the mask. “Only because you love to watch.”
She bit her lip, a soft sound escaping. Not for him, never for him. For me, always me.
And Klein? Poor bastard had no idea he was already dead. He kept babbling: money, artifacts, deals, deals, deals… as if either of us gave a damn. He thought this was about his vault, his power. Cute. It wasn’t. This was about us. About the fact that the only thing hotter than fucking her was killing with her.
The way she flexed her hand around her knife, the gleam in her eyes when she knew I was watching. It did things to me. Things I don’t bother hiding. Because yeah, I remembered last night. Her pretty cunt gripping me so tight I saw stars, her nails raking my back while she gasped my name like it was a prayer. I remembered. I was still remembering.
And maybe that was why I was dragging this out, why I wanted Klein’s begging, her laugh, my smirk, all braided together. Killing him wasn’t the job. Killing him was foreplay.
She knew it too.
And the bastard? He was just the toy caught between us.
Y/N
We were so close. Leopold’s pulse was practically singing under his skin, his eyes darting between Jimin’s grin and my knife. It should’ve ended like silk – neat, pretty, wrapped in a bow.
And then, of course, the cavalry arrived.
The door slammed open. Heavy boots, heavy guns, heavy breathing. Guards flooding the room like clowns pouring out of a car, and just as ridiculous.
I sighed. Men ruin everything.
But the thing about working with Jimin? He ruins back twice as hard.
Before I could even roll my eyes, he was already moving. Predator turned wildfire. “Behind you,” he called, voice smooth like he was reminding me the champagne had run out.
I dropped into a crouch, felt the whoosh of air as a bullet passed overhead. My blade found the nearest guard’s thigh, sliced up, and the man howled.
“You’re welcome, doll,” Jimin sang out as he shot another square between the eyes.
I snorted. “Don’t get cocky.”
“I am cocky,” he shot back, sliding in beside me, back against mine. Heat radiated through the thin layers of fabric, through my skin, straight into the part of me that had no business throbbing in the middle of a fight.
God, I hated how much I loved it. His shoulder brushing mine, his rhythm syncing to mine like we’d rehearsed this dance for years. Left slash, right kick, his gun firing in the pocket between my breaths. We didn’t need words. We were words. A perfect sentence written in blood.
Klein was shouting something, but I barely registered it over the pounding of boots and the smell of gunpowder. I was too busy smiling – smiling – as another guard dropped.
Jimin laughed. Actually laughed, sharp and sweet, like chaos was his favorite punchline. “Admit it, doll, you’d be bored without me.”
“Admit it, you like me saving your ass.”
He spun, pressed his chest against my back for half a second too long while shooting past my shoulder. The guard crumpled. His breath ghosted my ear. “Maybe. But I like this view more.”
I almost shivered. Almost. Instead, I stabbed another guard in the gut and muttered, “Pervert.”
But my cheeks were burning. Not from the fight. From him.
It was insane. The room was a warzone, bullets shredding the curtains, Klein scrambling toward the far exist like a rat. And all I could think about was how warm Jimin’s body felt covering mine, how his laughter tangled with mine in the gunfire, how the taste of blood in the air only made me hungrier.
Hungry for more than just the kill.
Jimin
We slam the service door shut and for the length of a breath the gala noise becomes an ocean I can stand on. The guards are down, the corridor smells like cordite and spilled wine, and somewhere out there Leopold Klein is sliding through the cracks and laughing at us like a rich bastard who thinks everything is replaceable.
I don’t care that he got away. In this narrow room with its humming lights and cracked tiles, all the angles I care about are the ones pressed against me.
She’s a mess. Make-up smeared into something obscene across her cheek, hair plastered to her forehead in sweaty strands. Her breath comes quick and high, like a bird that’s run too long. She shuts the door with the toe of her shoe and turns. Laughing – God, she’s laughing, that awful, glorious little sound that unravels me and makes me stupid.
Adrenaline is a currency and we’ve both just been paid. I can feel it crackling under my skin, hot and sharp, making my hands ache to break something else. I catch her with my eyes and the world reduces: dark tiles, a cheap light that hums, the way her lips part in a grin that we both know means do it.
I shove her against the wall before my brain catches up. She’s laughing, breath ragged, mascara streaked into war paint, and the sight of her like this makes me stupid and violent in the best way. Adrenaline is still a live wire in my veins. I want to spend it.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” I hiss in her ear, tasting the salt of her skin with each word. My hand clamps at the back of her neck, fingers threading into wet strands, the other hand dragging her dress up so fast the zipper complains.
“Shut up and fuck me,” she snarls, claws scraping my shoulder like she’s trying to tear me in two.
Good. I like it when she stops talking and starts needing.
I strip at a speed that’s almost rude, fingers fumbling buttons, palms sweeping over skin. The cut of her dress is less cloth and more a dare. I don’t bother with gentleness. I lift her leg without ceremony, loop it around my hip, and shove my cock into her hard and raw. No slow easing, nothing soft – just a brutal, greedy slam that makes her cry out and press her forehead to the wall. She’s impossibly tight and hot and the way her cunt clamps down on my cock makes me forget everything sensible. I pound into her like I mean it, each thrust a claim.
Her mouth finds mine, teeth and tongue and curses tangled together. She bites, hard, and I bite back, teeth knocking, both of us tasting copper and sweat. Her fists dig at my back, nails dragging blood-red crescents across skin. She screams my name like it’s the only thing that matters.
I grab a handful of her hair, yank her head back so I can see her beautiful face, the smear of blood at the corner of her mouth, the way her eyes flash with wicked, animal hunger. And I kiss her so hard she tastes like sin and sugar.
“You’re mine, Y/N,” I growl, voice thick. My thumb presses down on her clit in a staccato beat, hard and merciless, because I want that sound – that broken, ragged sound of her losing it around me. She grinds, legs wrapping, muscles clenching so tight I think she might tear.
She spits words, half curse, half plea, hot and raw. “Fuck me hard. Make me forget where the fuck we are. Make me-“ Her breath shudders into one long, filthy moan and I lose the rest in the force of another thrust.
I don’t bother with pretty. I fuck her with a roughness that leave bruises, hips slapping, pelvis slamming into pelvis. The wall rattles. The tile stings under her knees. Her dress is a ruin from my hands and hers, shoved up, pinned at the waist. I thrust deep and then harder, chasing the jagged edge where she folds and folds again.
“Say it, doll,” I demand between grunts, nails digging into her hip so deep it blooms red. “Tell me you want me inside you.”
She spits a laugh, hot and frantic. “You fucking asshole – yes. Fill me. Fill me, Jimin.” Her voice breaks, turns sweet, raw. She claws me like an animal. I groan, because hearing her beg like that makes me hotter than anything else.
My hand goes lower, fingers slamming into her ass with no rhythm but a brutal, punishing tempo. She comes with a teeth-gnashing cry, clenching around my fingers and my cock so hard it hurts and I love it. The way she convulses, searching with her hips, it’s like she’s sealing me there.
I keep going. I bury myself, grip her waist until my knuckles blanch, and spill inside her with a groan. I ride that release, keep fucking through it like I’m marking territory. She collapses against me, panting, nails dragging down my back, and when I finally pull out, we both sag against the wall, sweat-slick and sticky.
Her laugh returns, shaky and feral. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes glittering. “You animal,” she whispers, half-admiring, half-demanding.
“Only for you,” I answer, voice rough as stone. I drag my thumb along the swollen seam of her lips, swallow the taste of her. “You’re mine, doll. Call if however you want, however makes you feel comfortable. Fuck buddies, friends with benefits… but you’re mine. Don’t let anyone pretend otherwise.”
She smiles, wicked and tired and so fucking perfect. “Better not,” she says, and leans her forehead to mine like she’s giving me something private.
We dress slow, because I like the way her skin looks when it cools in my hands. Every movement is a small claim. Outside, Klein escaped, the mission’s unfinished. But right now, in the fluorescent hum of this cramped room, she’s mine and I want to own that.
Y/N
Klein didn’t go down in the gallery. Smooth, polished, too clever for a straightforward kill. Typical. Typical enough to make my jaw ache with frustration and excitement.
We follow him into a narrow alley, trash cans and overturned crates littered everywhere. He’s crouched, hands raised in mock surrender – but his eyes dart like a cornered fox. “Please… someone…” he breathes, his prayers fumbling over the syllables, desperate and absurd.
I tilt my head, smirk tugging at my lips. “You always knew how to run, didn’t you, Leopold?” I hiss, the knife warm in my hand.
Jimin is at my side, shoulder brushing mine, his presence a steadying flame in the chaos. “Go on, doll,” he murmurs, and I shiver. He doesn’t have to say more.
Klein charges suddenly, desperate, swinging a metal pipe. Instincts take over. I duck, spin, and slash – he staggers, grunting, hitting the wall behind him. Jimin is fluid beside me, precise, he catches the pipe mid-swing, flicks it away, and a quick, clean strike leaves him reeling.
He stumbles back, leaning against the bricks, breathing hard, and I hear it: the absurdity in his voice. “You can’t…”
“Can’t what?” I cut him off, knife lightly against his chest. “You could have stopped being a terrible human. But you didn’t. That’s the price you pay.”
The kill is clean, sharp, almost elegant in its brutality. Klein collapses against the alley wall, still trying to gasp out a prayer, now more ironic than threatening. I can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity.
Blood and silk mingle in the dim light, and Jimin presses close, guiding my hand, our movements perfectly in sync. Every glance, every brush of skin against skin – the mission and our want are indistinguishable.
When he falls, quiet finally claiming him, I step back, chest heaving, adrenaline buzzing. Jimin leans close, voice velvet against my ear: “See what I mean? Perfect chaos.”
I grin, letting the knife drip clean, my eyes catching his in the flickering neon. “Yeah. And you’re insufferable,” I tease, but my pulse betrays me. We’re no longer just FWB, and I know it. I feel it. We’re something sharper, messier, undeniable.
Klein dies still struggling to be larger than life, praying, wheezing, ironic to the very end. And we? We collapse against each other in the alley, victorious, messy, and already craving the chaos we just shared.
***
Jimin
We’re back at the safehouse, she’s draped across the chaise in my shirt, legs tangled, hair smudged, cheeks flush from adrenaline and triumph. I watch her sip the wine, fingers sticky, eyes bring and wild.
God, she’s impossible. Beautiful. Dangerous. Everything I want to keep close and never let go. My hand finds hers, brushing fingers through hers with a slow, lazy precision. I don’t need to touch her, really, just having her near is enough to twist me up.
She catches my gaze and tilts her head. “What are we?”
I smirk, leaning close, letting my lips ghost along her jaw, teeth grazing her earlobe. “I don’t know yet,” I murmur. “But I know you’re mine, chaos and all.”
She laughs, a soft, dangerous sound that curls through me. “You’re mine too?”
“Better believe it,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to her temple. Fingers curl in the fabric of my shirt as I let myself indulge in the warmth, the thrill, the absurd perfection of us.
The wine sloshes over the edge of her glass, dark like blood on the carpet. She doesn’t care. I don’t care.
I pull her close, lips meeting hers in a lazy, messy kisses, teeth and tongues colliding, laughter spilling between them. Everything is sharp, playful, intimate, and crude all at once.
I think, maybe for the first time, that this… her, us… is exactly what I want. And I don’t intend to let go.
Velvet, chaos, and wine-strained laughter. Perfectly ours.
Synopsis: Halloween. Haunted house chaos. Blood, neon, and screams. Y/N is chaos incarnate. Hoseok is a smiling sociopath. Together? Deadly, and completely irresistible.
By the end, carnage turns to cotton candy, smeared makeup, and one thing is certain: Pumpkin is his.
Trope: Smiling Sociopath | Psycho Partner in Crime.
Trigger Warnings: This story contains themes that some readers may find disturbing or upsetting. Please read with caution.
Sexual Content: The story contains explicit sexual acts.
Graphic Depictions of Violence: Includes detailed descriptions of murder, stabbings, a neck being broken, and gun violence.
Morally Ambiguous/Villainous Protagonists: The main characters are vigilantes who engage in murder.
Drug Use and Alcohol: The narrative mentions characters who are high on beer or have been drinking vodka Red Bull.
Implied Mental Health Issues: The main character, Y/N, mentions hearing "the voices" that tell her who is a "bad man" and should be killed.
Human Trafficking: The plot references the target's involvement in human trafficking.
Yoongi sent me. Called it an “assignment.” I call it a playground. Halloween night, chainsaws buzzing, strobes flickering, teenagers screaming like pigs in a slaughterhouse, tell me this isn’t paradise.
The air’s got layers. Caramel corn, sweet. A tang of blood – not the fake syrup kind, the real kind. I grin so wide it splits my cheeks. My sneakers, neon orange and loud as sin, squeak on every step. Like they’re laughing with me.
The target? Marcus Vane. Filthy trafficker, creep in a tailored coat. Collects girls the way psychos collect stamps, grabs them at places like this, where “screaming” is just background noise. I was told to find him in the funhouse, make it look like theater. Maybe slit a throat in the mirror maze. Maybe poison his popcorn. Clean. Entertaining.
But then I see her.
Not Marcus. Not an actor. Not anything I was ready for.
She’s crouched behind a cheap styrofoam gravestone, dress hiked up and soaked through with blood. Hands fisted in a man’s shirt, dead weight, real dead, dragging him across fake dirt like she’s rearranging stage props. The strobe hits her face, and God, her clown makeup’s smeared, running down her cheek like melting candy. Red lipstick split, eyes wide, sharp. She’s humming. Humming.
And not just humming. She’s going, soft and sing-songy:
“Ring around the rosie… pocket full of posies…”
The kind of tune kids giggle through. The kind of tune plague pits rotted under.
I stop. My hand’s in my jacket, half-ready to pull my knife, but I don’t move. Not in fear. In something else. Something bubbling.
She’s fucking crazy. Perfect.
Her voice is syrup-sweet over the noise of chainsaws, laughter, shrieks. She drags the corpse to a curtain that says DO NOT ENTER and gives a little skip, like she’s dancing with him instead of hiding his body.
And my brain just goes – oh. Oh, she’s mine.
I lean on the doorway, can’t help myself. My smile’s wide enough to hurt. “You’re not part of the show, are you?
She freezes, tilts her chin up at me. There’s a streak of blood across her cheek, a smudge of clown paint that makes her look like she crawled straight out of a nightmare and decided to dress in glitter.
Instead of answering, she jerks her thumb at the body slumped behind her. “He was.”
I blink. Then grin wider. “Cute. So…” I tap my chin like I’m really curious. “Who was he supposed to be?”
She shrugs, totally casual, wiping her bloody hands on her skirt. “A bad man.”
God, I love how she says it. Simple, absolute. Like it’s all the explanation she’ll ever need.
I tilt my head, voice dropping playful. “How do you know he’s bad, Pumpkin?”
Her eyes light up, sharp, unhinged, sparkling under smeared paint. She leans in just enough that I can smell the iron tang of blood on her breath.
“The voices told me, duh.”
The voices.
It hits me in the chest like fireworks. I laugh so hard I nearly double over. People glance, think I’m some cast member hamming it up, and hurry away. I don’t care. My ribs ache, my face burns, I can’t stop.
Because she means it. Every word.
I wipe my mouth, breathless, and watch her wipe her bloody hands on her dress like it’s nothing. She stares back at me, unbothered, like I’m the intruder here. And maybe I am, maybe this haunted house belongs to her.
All I can think is: Pumpkin. Sweet, fucked-up Pumpkin. Where have you been all my life?
Y/N
Everyone stinks.
The haunted house is packed with teenagers high on beer and fear, couples making out under strobe lights, frat boys daring each other to punch a clown actor. The air reeks of popcorn grease, wet costumes, plastic masks sweating under blacklight. Cheap perfume drowning in spilled vodka Red Bull.
But Marcus Vane? Oh, he smells wrong.
Not like sweat. Not like fear. He reeks like grave dirt, like something dug up, sprayed with cologne, and told to smile. Every step he takes wafts it stronger. Underneath the candyfloss and corn dogs, he smells like he’s already dead. Like the rot crawled out of his chest and dressed itself in a leather jacket.
That’s how I know. Always how I know. The voices tell me, sharp and singsong in my skull: bad man, bad man, bad man.
And I believe them. Why wouldn’t I? They’ve never been wrong.
I hum along the tune they make, soft. Ring around the rosie, pocket full of poises… My lips curve into a smile, red paint cracking. A game, a rhyme, a little funeral march set to carnival screams. Perfect.
Then there’s him. The boy with the sneakers. Neon orange, blood-speckled already, squeaking through puddles like this whole carnival was made just for him. He found me bending over a corpse with blood on my hands, and instead of screaming, he grinned like I’d just handed him a balloon animal.
Now he follows me. Hoseok. Smiling sociopath in a hoodie too clean for this mess. He should smell rotten, too, if he’s like the others. But he doesn’t.
He smells like caramel. Burned a little too long, bitter at the edges, the kind that sticks to your teeth so you hate it, until you realize you can’t stop chewing. Addictive, dangerous, delicious.
“Pumpkin,” he calls me, like I’m his already. Like I’m a trick-or-treat bag he’s been waiting to fill. The word shouldn’t make me laugh. It does. I snort, the sound bubbling between my cracked lipstick and my smeared face. The voices giggle with me. They like him.
He trails after me through the maze of mirrors, neon bouncing off glass, multiplying us into a hundred broken versions. He whistles a tune – bright, cheerful, stupid. I keep humming mine, darker, jagged. Together, it almost makes a song.
Marcus is still here. I can smell him, the grace under the candyfloss. He’s circling, prowling for his next girl, his next prize. He thinks the chaos hides him, but the stink always gives him away. Always.
I pause, tongue darting over my lips, eyes catching Hoseok’s reflection in the cracked mirror. He’s looking at me like I’m the show, not Marcus. Like he’d pay double just to watch me hum to blood.
“Why’re you following me, Candy Boy?” I ask, cocking my head, smearing more red across my cheek with the back of my hand.
He grins. “Because you’re fun.”
Fun. Like I’m a ride. Like I’m the roller coaster that goes off the tracks, and he’s thrilled about the crash.
I let him stay close, footsteps matching mine without asking. I don’t care if he’s in the way. He makes me laugh. And when Marcus finally stumbles back into view, dragging some drunk girl by the waist, I feel Hoseok’s grin sharpen beside me.
The voice sing louder, lifting, gleeful: Rot, rot, rot.
And I think maybe, just maybe, I’ve found someone who can hear them too.
Hoseok
The mirror maze twists around us like some demented funhouse designed by a sadist with a glitter obsession. Neon lights slice through the fog, bouncing off glass walls, breaking her into a hundred jagged, smudged fragments. Every reflection is her: fractured, wild, beautiful in a way that should make sense but doesn’t.
And I’m lost.
Not in the maze. In her.
She moves like chaos has a body and she owns it. Blood-streaked dress sticking to her, paint smeared, hair falling wet, sticky strands. She drags her bloody hand across a mirrored wall, leaving streaks like modern art nobody asked for. I watch it, and I realize: she doesn’t even notice me staring. Or maybe she does, and that’s the fun of it.
I’m entranced. She’s fucking art. My art.
I trail her, keeping the right distance. Not too close, not yet. I want to see her move without me touching her, I want to watch her hum that awful little tune, some twisted nursery rhyme she mutters under her breath, the one that licks around my brain and won’t let go.
Her laugh echoes off glass walls, high-pitched, manic. It sends shivers down my spine. My heartbeat taps a new rhythm, faster, sharper.
Marcus is here somewhere. I can see him reflected in shards of glass, a fat, greasy predator thinking he’s clever. She doesn’t even glance at him yet, focused entirely on her own world of destruction. And I realize: I could follow her anywhere, even into a pit of demons, and I wouldn’t complain.
Every step she takes is reckless perfection. The way she tilts her head to read a reflection, the way her stained dress brushes against the edges of the mirrors, the way she hums that warped little song like it’s a spell, and I can’t stop myself from grinning. She’s impossible. She’s insane. She’s perfect.
I want to touch her. Just once. To see if she’s as dangerous when she isn’t swinging a knife. But I don’t, not yet. I let her lead, let her charm the chaos, because watching her is better than any plan I could have.
Then she pauses, tilts her head, and mutters, almost to herself, “This one’s rotten.” Her eyes flick to Marcus, never breaking her stride. And I know, in that instant, that she sees the world differently, and I’ll follow her down every twisted alley if it means being part of her madness.
We move like a wordless team, predator and predator, neither of us speaking, yet perfectly attuned to the other’s pace. Every glance she throws my way is electric. Every flick of her wrist makes my chest tighten. I’m not just watching her work. I’m already, irrevocably, hooked.
As she hums that warped song again, dragging Marcus unknowingly into the trap, I realize: I don’t want to catch him first. I just want to catch her.
Because she’s fucking crazy. And I’ve never wanted anything more.
Y/N
The funhouse is a riot of neon and screams, half-fake, half-real, but I don’t care about the tourists cowering behind cotton-candy stalls. I care about the rot in the air, the stink of Marcus Vane, and the chaos I live for.
Marcus’ men think they can corner me, trap me like some ordinary psycho? Cute. They clearly don’t know who they’re dealing with.
I pivot, dagger slicing through a lunging thug, blood spraying across a cotton-candy machine. Hoseok is beside me, grin wide as he snaps a neck with such theatrical precision I almost laugh mid-slash. Together, we move like we’ve done this forever, even though we just met. Chemistry doesn’t need introductions.
“You smell him yet, Pumpkin?” Hoseok asks, his voice low, teasing, dangerous, as he dodges a swinging bat from another hapless guard.
I drag my bloody hand across a mirror, leaving crimson streaks that catch the neon lights. “Oh, he stinks,” I hiss, spinning to stab another man. “Can’t you taste it in the air? Like rotten candy left in a grave.”
“I taste sugar,” he says, cutting through another thug. “Must be you.”
I glance at him through smeared makeup, smirking splitting my face. “Keep your sweetness to yourself, Hobi. Or I’ll carve it right off.”
He laughs, brushing against me as we pivot, duck, and lunge in perfect, chaotic rhythm. Every step we take is synchronized insanity. His theatrical flair amplifies my feral energy; my reckless brilliance drives him wild. Neon confetti from broken carnival props catches the blood, making us look like some sadistic holiday display.
A clown dummy bursts apart, revealing another goon. Hoseok rolls his eyes. “Really, Marcus? You trying to decorate for us?”
“Shut up and catch the rot!” I snap, landing on a railing and spinning mid-air, dagger catching a man off-guard.
He grins, following my movement like it’s a dance. “You’re insane, Pumpkin. I’ve never met anyone who can make blood and chaos look… adorable.”
I tilt my head, smudged lipstick streaked across my cheeks. “Adorable? That’s a first. Most people scream or die first.”
We leap over mirrors, tripwires snapping beneath our feet, and I can smell Marcus now. The stanch of greed, fear, and rot curling in the air like a warning. My pulse quickens, and Hoseok is there, always there, grinning as if he’s been waiting to witness my chaos all his life.
I slash again, drawing blood that sprays across a carnival target, confetti sticking to it. He’s laughing, singing some ridiculous rhyme under his breath. “You’re a disaster, Pumpkin. And I love it.”
“Love it, huh?” I pant, dagger dripping, makeup ruined, hair wild. “Well, you’re lucky I’m in a charitable mood tonight.”
We move without speaking, weaving through the chaos. Him and me, accidental partners, perfect disaster. I feel his presence as acutely as I smell rot – both intoxicating, both dangerous. Somewhere in the madness, I realize I don’t want him gone. Not now. Not ever.
Marcus is ahead, probably wondering which of his nightmares got loose. But I don’t care about him. I care about the mess we’re making, the glittering neon carnage, the ridiculous grin on the perfect psycho next to me, and how his eyes never leave me.
And somewhere between the screams, the blood, and the strobe lights, I think… that I’ve finally met someone as crazy as me.
Hoseok
Marcus is finally trapped in the last chamber of the Haunted Hoochie’s mirror maze. Strobes flash like a heartbeat, bouncing across shards of broken glass, blood, and fake corpses. Patrons scream and stumble around us, thinking it’s all part of the show, totally oblivious to the real carnage unfolding.
I watch Y/N move with that wild, effortless ferocity that makes my chest tighten. Her smeared clown makeup, the way her dress clings to blood-soaked fabric, her knife gleaming in the strobe light, she’s perfect chaos incarnate. Every step she takes is precise, yet completely unhinged. And I’m mesmerized. I can’t tear my eyes away.
She lunges. The knife arcs through the air and slices across Marcus’ chest. His breath hitches, a strangled sound that makes me grin. He barely has time to process the first cut before I’m stepping forward, pistol raised, aiming for the heart. Click. Pull. The bullet pierces his chest, and he drops, gurgling, stunned by the sheer impossibility of dying at the same time as being stabbed by the most insane girl I’ve ever met.
I don’t even notice the strobe lights flickering over blood-soaked mirrors; I’m fixated on her. She turns to me mid-breath, smudged lipstick in a wicked grin, chest heaving, knife dripping.
“Mine,” she hisses, voice sharp, triumphant.
I step closer, brushing a hand along her forearm, letting my fingers linger in the sticky warmth of her blood.
“Ours, Pumpkin,” I murmur, low, amused, dangerous. My other hand flexes around my gun like I need it even though Marcus is gone.
She snorts, wiping a smear of red across her cheek like war paint. “You can try to share, but I do the good kills.”
I laugh, the sound low, rough. “And I adore that about you,” I say. “You’re… spectacularly insane.”
She cocks her head, smearing more blood across the mirror with her fingers, tracing chaotic shapes. “The voices told me he was rotten. I just had to finish what they started,” she says, eyes glittering with that manic fire.
I feel my pulse spike, not at the kill, not even at the chaos, but at the sight of her in all her bloody, messy glory. She hums something off-key, a warped carnival lullaby that somehow fits the moment perfectly. My grin widens. Yeah, she is fucking crazy. I think maybe I’ve never wanted anyone alive and dead at the same time.
I glance at Marcus’ body one more time, then at her. “You smell him?” I ask playfully, watching her tip her head back, inhaling as if she can detect his moral decay in the air.
“Yeah,” she says, twirling the knife, dropping with neon-colored blood. “Like something that should’ve stayed buried.”
I shake my head, laughing. “And here I thought Halloween was supposed to be fun.”
“Fun?” she scoffs, spinning on her heel, blood flicking across the blacklight. “This is fun.”
I can’t help the way my chest tightens. I want her closer. I want her all of her chaos pressed against mine, laughing through the carnage. I step forward, hand brushing hers, fingers tangling briefly, just enough for her to notice, just enough for me to feel a spark of something I’ve never felt before in a kill.
She looks at me, wild-eyed, expectant. “What? You want in on the fun too?”
I smirk. “I’m always in.”
We stand there in the middle of fake corpses, broken mirrors, and the scent of blood and fear, grinning like maniacs. Marcus is gone, but neither of us is slowing down. Not even close. She’s my Pumpkin, my perfect little chaos, and I’m never letting her go.
I catch her gaze, and for a heartbeat, the neon lights, the screaming patrons, the blood, all of it fades. It’s just us. Insane. Dangerous. Mesmerizing.
“Ready for the next round?” I murmur.
Her grin is crooked, bloody, irresistible. “Always.”
Adrenaline still thrumming through my veins, I drag her into a narrow staff corridor, away from prying eyes and terrified patrons. Her chest heaves like a caged animal, eyes wide, pupils dilated. Blood smeared across her cheeks, her dress clinging to sticky sin, she’s a mess of chaos and thrill, and I can’t stop staring.
She shivers, legs pressing together instinctively, a little broken laugh escaping her lips. A whimper follows it, and I feel something tighten in my chest, my hands twitching like they’ve been waiting for this exact moment.
I can’t help it. I push her against the wall, chest to chest, letting my fingers tangle in the bloody mess of her hair. My lips find hers, teeth grazing, tongue pressing into hers, messy and frantic. She bites back, not just resisting but inviting, the sharpness of her teeth turning me on more than any softness ever could.
“Pumpkin,” I murmur low, letting the nickname roll over her like a caress. “Knew you’d taste sweet under all that paint.”
She gasps, biting my neck, dragging her nails down my back. She pants, twisting her body into mine, desperate and wet.
I slide my hands under her dress, gripping her ass hard, lifting slightly, pressing my cock into her warmth. She moans, dragging her teeth along my shoulder, whining my name, writhing around me like she’s trying to meld into my body.
I thrust hard, fast, messy – hands on her waist, her hips, holding her tight against the wall. Every gasp, every whimper, every broken laugh fuels me. She’s shivering, clenching, trembling in all the right ways.
“Fuck, you’re insane,” I growl, hips snapping. “And I love it.”
“I am,” she hisses, grinding, arching into me, fingers clutching my hair, pulling me closer, biting, scratching, clawing. “And you love it!”
Her pussy is perfect, wet, tight, relentless. I thrust faster, harder, groaning, losing myself in her chaos. Her moans shred the air, mixing with laughter and ragged breaths, nails digging into my shoulders, tugging me down into her.
I hold her close, thrusting like I could fuse us together, chasing the edge of our shared insanity. She shudders violently, cries my name, and I let myself go, hips snapping deep and fast, until we collapse against each other, messy, panting, sticky, chaotic.
Finally, I slow, pressing her to the wall, chest to chest, forehead to forehead, panting. Her eyes are wild, sparkling with blood and fire, and I can’t stop smiling. She’s mine, my Pumpkin, and even as the corridor shakes with our heavy breaths, I know: nothing else matters.
“Fuck… you’re perfect,” I murmur, brushing a strand of hair from her sweaty face.
She smirks, panting, wild-eyed. “Don’t get used to it,” she teases, but her thighs are still tight around me.
And I know, I don’t want to let go.
Y/N
We spill out of the Haunted Hoochie like two children after the worst – and best – game of hide-and-seek even. Neon lights flicker over our sticky, blood-smeared bodies, sweat mingling with smeared clown makeup. I trail a fingertip across my cheek and flick a streak of red into my hair, grinning like a lunatic.
Hoseok’s right there beside me, sneakers squeaking against wet pavement, chest heaving, every shining with a manic sort of delight that makes my chest flutter. He’s still got that mess of a grin, the one that makes the chaos seem… beautiful. I don’t know how he does that.
A cotton candy stand blinks its bright pink under the last of the fair lights. We grab a cone, our bloody fingers smearing sugar all over ourselves, and flop down on the curb, legs tangled, breaths ragged. The sugary fluff melts into our hands.
I tilt my head, studying him. Blood and sweat streaked across his sharp features, hair mussed, eyes glittering like carnival lights. “You’re crazy,” I murmur, half warning, half… something else.
He leans closer, the scent of sugar and adrenaline clinging to him like a halo of chaos. He beams, that ridiculous, too-wide grin lighting up the night. “So are you. That’s why you’re perfect.”
I snort, a mix of disbelief and delight, sticking a finger into the cotton candy and licking it off. “Perfectly… insane, maybe,” I reply, voice low, teasing, breath still ragged from the hunt, from the sex, from everything that made my heart pound like this.
He nudges me with his shoulder, playful, protective, impossible. “Pumpkin,” he says quietly, and the nickname sends a shiver straight down my spine. My smile widens. I like it. I like him saying it.
I poke his cheek with a bloody finger. “Do you say that to all the girls you nearly murder in hunted houses?”
He laughs. “Nope. Just the ones that make me want to chase the chaos forever.”
I chew a sticky strand of cotton candy, letting the sugar and adrenaline tangle in my stomach, making me dizzy and warm. “Hmm. Guess I’m your favorite then.”
He leans closer, whispering against my ear, “You have no idea, Pumpkin. No idea at all.”
I press my forehead to his, sticky fingers entwined, hearts still racing, and for the first time that night, I don’t care about the world outside this curb, outside the neon chaos, outside Marcus and the haunted house carnage. There’s only us. Only sugar and blood, madness and laughter. Only him.
***
Hoseok
The neon from the motel sign drapes the room in shaky pinks and greens, flickering over her hair, her bare face, clean for the first time since I met her. I catch my breath. She’s beautiful. Not in a careful, polished way, but the kind of beautiful that makes the world pause, even amidst chaos, blood, and cotton candy crumbs smeared across the sheets.
She’s curled up in my oversized shirt, lets drawn to her chest, eyes half-lidded, nibbling the last sticky tuft if cotton candy with that ridiculous little hum she always has. I can’t help but grin. My Pumpkin. That name fits her more than anything I’ve ever known. Perfectly chaotic. Perfectly dangerous. Perfectly hers.
I pace the room, hands shoved in my pockets, trying not to step on the blood-smeared wrappers or her tiny pile of carnage that’s somehow adorable. My chest still hammers from the hunt, from her, the way she moved through that haunted house like she owned it. Like she owned me.
Namjoon’s words drift in my head, that smug comment about finding someone who matches your freak. I thought I understood him before. I didn’t. Not until now. Watching her here, laughing with sugar stuck to her fingers, all fierce and soft at once… chaos makes sense.
She looks up, catches my gaze, and tilts her head, that little mischievous smile creeping back onto her face. “What now?”
I crouch beside her, letting my fingers brush over the candy stuck to her hand. “Now… you stay. You’re mine, Pumpkin.”
Her laugh is soft. “Mine? That’s… cute. I like it.”
I shrug, heart thudding. “Bangtan’s the circuit I roll with. We keep monsters like Marcus off the streets. You’ll be safe. With me. With us.” I pause, letting my eyes roam over her, the woman I didn’t know I needed until I saw her in her untamed, post-chaos glory. “And you’ll be mine. Completely. My chaos. My perfect disaster.”
She hums again, that weird little melody I don’t recognize. Off-kilter, slightly creepy, yet strangely endearing. I smile, heart squeezing. She doesn’t need convincing. She wants it. Already does. Already wants me.
We sit there, sugar, blood, and adrenaline mingling in the quiet neon glow. Her fingers sticky, my hand brushing hers as we munch on the candy like delirious kids. I watch her, laugh with her, and I think I found my equal. My partner in absolute chaos, and crime.
Synopsys: Budapest burns at the edges of a gallery gala, and somehow Y/N keeps ending up in Min Yoongi’s crosshairs. She’s knives and chaos, he’s cigarettes and precision, together they’re a disaster that somehow works.
What starts as sabotage and insults spirals into bloodstained banter, reluctant rescues, and one very messy truce. Between Viktor Havel’s grotesque “art” and their own sharp tongues, someone’s bound to get cut.
Frenemies, killers, almost-lovers. Yoongi calls her princess. She thinks it’s an insult. He knows better. (DUAL POV)
Trope: Frienemies | Enemies to Lovers
Trigger Warnings: This story contains themes that some readers may find disturbing or upsetting. Please read with caution.
Sexual Content: The story contains explicit sexual acts.
Graphic Depictions of Violence: Includes detailed descriptions of murder, stabbings, and gun violence. The narrative also references a character's body being displayed as "art".
Morally Ambiguous/Villainous Protagonists: The main characters are assassins who engage in murder.
Drug Use: The plot references the use of a clear poison.
Budapest bleeds romance for everyone but me. Cobblestones glisten with rain, the Danube shivers under the moonlight, and the whole city reeks of cigarettes and wet stone. Lovers stroll hand in hand across bridges. Me? I’m stalking a monster.
Viktor Havel.
On paper: a charming “art curator.” In reality: sadist, trafficker, thief. He hoards stolen masterpieces and treats people like they’re disposable sketches in his private gallery. Years ago, he turned one of my jobs into a massacre, walked away laughing while I crawled out broken and furious.
I’ve waited too long for this night. My knife’s warm against my thigh, my heartbeat steady as I shadow him down a side street. He’s humming, arrogant bastard, as if the world bends to his rhythm. A few more steps, and I’ll carve an ending he won’t see coming.
I exhale, ready to strike-
-and the world fills with a flare of orange.
A lighter clicks. A cigarette tip glows in the dark. Smoke curls lazily into the fog like it’s got nowhere better to be.
And blocking my line to Viktor stands a figure in black, posture infuriatingly casual, like the city belongs to him.
I don’t need to see his face. I know the silhouette. Of course.
“Yoongi,” I hiss, low enough not to carry, sharp enough to cut glass.
He turns his head slightly, just enough for me to catch the faint smirk curving his lips. “Didn’t know this was amateur hour.”
My jaw locks. My grip on the knife tightens. He just ruined weeks of planning with one damn cigarette.
“Funny,” I snap, stepping closer, “I don’t remember sending you an invitation.”
He shrugs, ash drifting to the cobblestones. “Didn’t need one. You’re loud. Sloppy. I heard you three blocks back.” He glances at me, unimpressed. “Like a drunk elephant in heels.”
I almost stab him instead.
Before I can rip him a new one, Viktor slips around the corner, oblivious to the two assassins shadowing him. My chance? Gone. Thanks to him. Again.
It always goes this way.
My mind drags me back to Vienna, years ago. A botched hit in a hotel ballroom. I had the mark lined up, knife ready. Then Yoongi appeared out of nowhere, gun cocked, glare sharp enough to slice me in half. We nearly killed each other in the confusion, blades and bullets colliding, before realizing – too late – that we were hunting the same man. By the time the smoke cleared, our target was dead… but neither of us could say who landed the final blow.
Since then, it’s been our thing. Running into each other at the worst times. Sabotaging each other’s jobs. Trading barbs like they’re currency. Him with his sarcasm, me with my knives. A tradition of chaos neither of us seems willing to break.
And yet, every time, I find myself back in his orbit.
Tonight is no exception.
I growl, stepping into his space. “This was mine.”
Yoongi exhales smoke, slow and deliberate, his eyes gleaming in the shadows. “Not anymore, princess.”
Suga
Budapest has teeth. You can feel them if you linger too long in the alleys, the gnaw of damp bricks, the bite of a river wind that never warms, the way footsteps echo like a threat you can’t quite place. I don’t mind. Places like this keep people honest.
Viktor Havel, though? He’s the opposite of honest.
The bastard calls himself a curator. Likes to host these little soirées in his galleries – gilded rooms, champagne flutes, hushed art critics sighing over the brushstrokes. But if you step into his “private exhibitions,” you’ll find cages instead of canvases. Blood on marble where there should be footprints. My contact, Jiri, ended up in one of those rooms, strung up, left like a grotesque installation no one dared catalog.
That’s my grudge. Viktor made art out of someone who trusted me. And I don’t forgive debts like that.
Jiri taught me the geometry of silence, how to fold a room into nothing and step away before anyone notices the echo. Jiri trusted a man who posed as a patron of beauty and wound up hung like a piece in Viktor’s private gallery. And the asshole had the audacity to call it an installation. I called it a murder dressed up in varnish. That’s why Viktor isn’t just a mark on a list. He’s the sort of man who arranges pain like a still life, and he stole something from me I will not allow anyone to steal.
And then she showed up.
Y/N. Or how I like to call her, princess.
She thinks it’s an insult when I call her that. Thinks I’m mocking her heels, her dramatics, the way she likes to paint the night with lipstick stains and loud entrances. And sure, I am. But it’s also accurate.
Too pretty to be useful, until you see how hard she can squeeze. She walks like a girl who inherited a crown she didn’t ask for: toes in stilettos, jaw set, the sort of carriage that says the world will bend because she decided it should. But of course there’s grit under the polish, cuts along her knuckles, a habit of wiping blood on the inside of her wrist and smirking as if it’s a badge. Delicate when she wants, irreparably dangerous when she moves. That contradiction names itself: princess. Pretty and entitled, yes, but also someone who will take a blade before breakfast and never ask permission. That’s a princess. My princess, though she’ll never believe it.
I light another cigarette, watch the glow fight against the dark, and listen to her fume beside me as we shadow Viktor across the bridge.
We fall into step not because we plan it but because we always do. Viktor ducks a market stall, an old woman calls to her dog, and the river smells like metal. She’s already ahead of me by two paces, shoulders coiled, blades tucked where they belong. I don’t move to stop her. I move because I know what happens when she gets herself too close to men like him: she sees everything they don’t want seen, and she makes them bleed for it.
“You always make everything difficult,” she says, quiet but sharp.
“Only when you’re being clumsy,” I answer. Smoke curls between us and I let the cigarette sit between my lips like a prop. Her eyes flash, she thinks I’m teasing. Maybe I am. Maybe I am always a little cruel because she’s beautiful when she’s furious. Maybe I like that I can hurt her with a sentence and she’d still follow me if I whispered the word go.
The agreement we make is as much a habit as the insults: truce for tonight. Work alongside, not with. No hands shared, no shoulders leaned on. Two blades aimed at the same heart, but never those hands touching to steady one another. It keeps things clear. It keeps us alive. It keeps whatever this is from being named.
I don’t care if she ruins the plan. I mean it. She can have her little revenge fantasy. She can light the whole damn gallery on fire and waltz away barefoot for all I care. But if she gets herself killed? That’s when it jeopardizes my plan. I cannot tolerate her dying because of a vanity I didn’t need to entertain. If she dies sloppy, Viktor will be a smear across the only map I keep. I’ve spent years organizing the quiet, and I will not have it tarnished by someone who prefers fireworks to precision.
Not because I need her, no. But because I hate watching something so loud, so alive, snuffed out by a coward like Viktor.
So we move. We shadow Viktor from opposite edges of the night. We speak in barbs because we do not do tenderness aloud. We exchange details like weapons: I note guard rotations, lighting angles; she notes where his hand lingers on the cufflink, who flinches when he laughs too loud. She diverts a dog with a loose scrap of ribbon, I reroute a camera with an old signal trick. Our sabotage is polite and vicious at once.
“Don’t slow me down, princess,” I call across the distance, voice lazy.
She rolls her beautiful eyes so hard I hear it. “Don’t trip over your own ego, asshole.”
And there we are. Enemies. Partners. Whatever this is.
She watches me, jaw softening for the briefest second. I think about admitting things that would ruin her – that I like the way she moves when she thinks no once is watching, that the way she curses at me in the dark sounds like the kind of music I’d rather hear than silence.
I don’t say it. I don’t say the part about this mess being better when she’s in it because then she’ll laugh and call me sentimental and try to stab me for being soft.
Instead, I step into the alley at the same time she does, a shadow following the shadow, and the truce stands, spoken and understood. We will be separate hands tonight. We will carve the same man into pieces. We will not be gentle in the telling. But as we close in, matching each other’s rhythm like two hearts beating out of sync until they find time, I think the thing I will never say aloud: I do not want anyone else touching my mess.
Not that I’ll ever tell her that. Princess or not, she’d never believe me. And I like the lie of her thinking it’s insulted teasing anyway.
Y/N
The Hungarian National Gallery.
Viktor Havel’s playground for the night. Chandeliers dripping with glass, priceless canvases hung like trophies, and too much perfume in the air. An exhibition meant to showcase “the human condition” or some other bullshit tagline. What it really is: a front. A deal. Money, power, blood disguised with hors d’oeuvres and string quartets.
I don’t belong here, which is exactly why I do.
My heels click like they own the marble floor, my dress clings like a dare. I take champagne from a passing tray and pretend it’s not the same hand that slit a throat in an alley two nights ago. The guards circle the room with their little earpieces, too busy eyeing cleavage to notice the fact that I’m already cataloging exists, counting cameras, watching Viktor shake hands with a man who has mob written all over his jawline.
I’m not here to play nice, I’m here to ruin his night.
Chaos is my art form. I spill half my champagne “accidentally” onto a woman’s fur coat, smile like it’s a compliment, and then slip the stolen keycard into my clutch while the guard who tried to help is too flustered to notice it’s gone. I laugh too loudly at a joke I don’t hear, brush against a man’s jacket, and slide a knife into the small of my back just in case.
And then I feel Yoongi’s eyes on me. Not the usual kind. The kind that makes my spine stiffen and my mouth twitch. Sharp suit, dark tie, leaning in the shadowed edge of the gallery like he hates being visible, like he hates being here at all. Which, knowing him, is probably true. His expression is the same one he always wears around me: equal parts disdain and boredom. The kind that says you’re doing everything wrong without him having to open his mouth.
I give him a smile over the rim of my glass. A warning. A taunt. He doesn’t smile back. He just tilts his head like he’s cataloguing how fast I’ll fuck this up.
I decide to prove him wrong. Viktor’s laughing with his guests, smug in a way that makes me want to smash his teeth against the marble. I drift closer, slow and unhurried, like a guest who wandered too far from the bar. My hand slides along a table, fingers dripping into my clutch for the tiny vial. A clear poison, tasteless. His champagne waits on the silver tray like a stage begging for its finale.
My fingers tip the vial. One drop, two-
A hand closes around my wrist and yanks.
The champagne flutes shiver. The vial almost slips. And I’m dragged, not gracefully, but with all the subtlety of a crime scene, through a narrow hallway lined with some grotesque modern sculpture that looks like melted bones.
“Are you fucking insane?” Yoongi hisses, low and sharp, pinning me to the wall with nothing but the force of his voice.
I shove him off, teeth bared. “You nearly blew it.”
“You nearly blew it,” he fires back, eyes narrowing. His breath smells like smoke and fury. “Spiking Viktor’s drink in the middle of a goddamn gala? You’re sloppy, princess.”
The word digs into me the way it always does. He says it like a knife disguised as a kiss, and I hate that my pulse jumps when it lands.
I straighten my dress, glare up at him like I’m not itching to put my knife between his ribs. “Jealous I got closer than you?”
His laugh is soft and cruel. “Closer to prison, maybe. You want applause for being reckless?”
“Better reckless than irrelevant.”
His jaw flexes. Mine does too. It’s always like this: him calling me chaos, me calling him cold. The truth sitting somewhere between the two, humming like static.
From the hallway we can still hear Viktor’s laughter, the clink of glasses, the hush of a string quartet drowning our secrets. Yoongi’s still too close, his hand braced against the wall near my shoulder, smoke curling off his sleeve like it followed him here. I should move. I should shove him. I don’t.
Instead I smile sweetly, venom dripping under every syllable. “Relax, Yoon. I wasn’t going to let him drink it. Not yet.”
He blinks, slow. “You’re lying.”
“Maybe.”
The pause between us is longer than it should be. Long enough for me to notice the line of his throat, the way his suit fits like he hates how good he looks in it. Long enough to know he hasn’t let go of my wrist yet, even though the vial is already gone.
The gala hums on. Viktor deals his deals. And Yoongi and I stand in the shadows, hating each other in ways that feel too much like something else.
And the worst part? I don’t hate it at all.
Suga
The plan was fucking simple.
Get in, stay in the shadows, make it clean. Viktor dead by his own champagne flute, irony served cold. Nobody notices, nobody questions. My kind of kill.
I’d been watching the tray all night, waiting for the exact moment Viktor reached for it again. Patience was the weapon. Everyone else in this gallery wanted to be seen. I wanted to disappear.
And then she walked in, like she knew she was going to ruin my evening. Which, of course, she did.
After we stayed in the shadows, I try to make her plan work, I slip the poison into his glass when the timing’s perfect, silent as a breath. The waiter doesn’t even twitch. I’m already moving away when-
She glides past. Picks up the tray. Swaps the flute. Smiles at Viktor like she’s handing him a loaded gun.
I nearly choke on my cigarette. Fucking brat.
Chaos wrapped in lipstick. She doesn’t even look back, just sets the poisoned flute on another table, lets some unsuspecting diplomat lift it without a clue. She did it just to spite me, I know it, the way I know the weight of my gun.
I find her later, deeper inside the gallery. Not where the guests are. Where the velvet ropes lead to locked wings, dim light, cameras she probably already looped. She’s faster than people give her credit for, but I know her rhythm now. She doesn’t slink. She storms.
By the time I catch up, she’s in Viktor’s private collection room, knife glinting in her hand, eyes on his back as he admires his own reflection in a gilded frame. She raises the blade, perfectly swing lined up, but I’m behind her before she can blink. One hand on her wrist, twisting the knife out of her grip.
Her head whips around, fury sparking. “You son of a-“
“Subtle,” I mutter, pocketing the knife. “Real subtle. Nothing screams professional like gutting him in front of his Monet.”
She shoves me a hard, whisper-shouting, “At least I do something. You’d watch him die of boredom.”
Our voices bounce off the marble, sharp enough to echo. Too sharp. Too loud.
Because that’s when Viktor’s guards crash in.
I draw before the first one can raise his weapon, bullet through his chest, but another’s already on me. Y/N doesn’t hesitate, knife from God-knows-where slashing across his throat. Blood spatters the canvas behind him, modern art in real time.
“Nice aim, princess,” I grunt, ducking another swing.
“Don’t call me-“ she hisses, spinning, driving her heel into a guard’s knee. His leg cracks, he goes down screaming.
We move like we’ve rehearsed it, even though we haven’t. My gun, her blade. My smoke, her fire. She covers my blind side, I yank her back when one nearly takes her down. She curses me, I curse her louder. It shouldn’t work. It does.
The last one falls with a gurgle, blood pooling on the polished floor. We’re both panting, sweat stinging, clothes ruined. I shove her against the wall to keep her out of sight while more footsteps thunder past the hall. My chest pressed to her back, her breath hot against my cheek.
We’re hidden, barely, in the narrow gap between a grotesque statue and the wall. Her dress is torn, my shirt’s smeared red. Her pulse hammers under my hand, and I hate that I notice how it matches mine.
She whispers, sharp and breathless, “You almost got me killed.”
I lean in, close enough that she stiffens. “You almost got me killed first.”
Silence. Except for our breathing, and the distant chaos of guards searching a gallery they’ll never find us in.
Her eyes flash when she looks up at me, so close it’s ridiculous. There’s blood on her cheekbone, not hers. Her lips curve like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
I press harder against her to keep us hidden as another squad runs past, and she mutters, “If you don’t move, I’m stabbing you next.”
The worst part? I believe her. And I don’t move anyway.
Y/N
We follow the chaos down a narrow spiral staircase I swear was designed by a sadist. Concrete echoes under my boots, my breath ragged, my hair stuck to my forehead. Every step, I can feel Yoongi, just slightly behind, probably judging me for every reckless leap I take.
The chase ends in a vault that smells like old money and dust. Crates stacked to the ceiling, stolen art staring down at us like accusing eyes, eerie sculptures casting impossible shadows. Viktor’s voice crackles over an intercom somewhere, smooth and poisonous:
“Welcome, my little pests. Think you can play in my playground without consequences?”
I grin despite the adrenaline. The bastard always thinks he’s clever.
I move forward, scanning for traps, and immediately I spot tripwire. My toe barely catches the wire, the bell attached jiggling like a taunt. Yoongi mutters something under his breath, I catch the faintest “princess, careful,” and of course, I roll my eyes.
“Careful? You mean like you were careful back at the gallery?” I snap, sidestepping another trap.
He smirks, hands already adjusting a laser-sensitive motion detector. “At least I don’t knock over priceless sculptures on my way to murder people.”
Our voices echo, half argument, half teasing banter. It’s ridiculous. We’re both covered in blood and sweat, ducking under wires and over crates, and all I can think is how goddamn infuriating he looks focused, cigarette stub in his pocket, jaw clenched, every motion precise.
And of course, I can’t resist a grin. “You know, for someone who pretends to hate me, you’re awfully good at babysitting.”
“Princess,” he spits out, low and clipped, as if the word itself is punishment. “I am babysitting. Don’t flatter yourself.”
I smirk. “Keep telling yourself that.”
The guards arrive. The sound of boots, shouts, the flash of metal. I lunge at one, knife glinting, and immediately regret it, because the guy is faster than expected, catches me off guard.
I stumble, almost topple into a stack of crates, and hear Yoongi swear so sharply it echoes off the vault walls. He’s on me in an instant, hands under my arms, dragging me back with a strength that makes my chest hit his. Furious, protective, unignorable.
“God, are you trying to get killed?!” he hisses, eyes dark, pulse visible at his throat.
I glare up at him, breath hot and shallow. “And miss all the fun?”
He doesn’t answer with words. He just hauls me behind a crate, shoving me into the shadows, chest pressed against mine. Our foreheads almost touch, and for a second, everything disappears.
Then a fight breaks out. We duck, roll, slash, shoot, and I realize I’m not sure if we’re saving each other of just proving who’s faster. Either way, I almost die when a guard swings a pipe at my head. Yoongi yanks me down, cursing the entire Havel bloodline, and presses me flat against him. His grip is tight, scorching against my skin, and the sharp scent of smoke and sweat makes my head spin.
I glare at him, exasperated. “I hate that you’re always right.”
He snorts, pulling me further back. “I don’t care what you hate. Just survive, princess. That’s your job tonight.”
I can’t help it, my chest haves, pules spiking for more than just the fight. He may roll his eyes, snap at me, call me names, but he’s here. He’s always here when I nearly die. And part of me wants to kiss him right there, in the middle of everything, because who else would I trust to drag me out the fire and scold me at the same time?
I grit my teeth and shove off, grabbing my knife again. “Fine. But next time, you’re the one nearly dying.”
He smirks, but I catch the glint in his eyes, he’s already planning on not letting that happen.
Suga
Adrenaline still roars in my blood. The vault is a maze of shadows and broken art, guards groaning unconscious on the floor. She’s panting, wild-eyed, blade still slick in her hand. And instead of relief, all I feel is the urge to strangle her.
“You nearly got yourself killed, AGAIN,” I snap, shoving her back against a stack of crates.
She shoves me right back, chest colliding with mine. “Oh, I’m sorry, was I stepping on your perfect little plan again?”
Her breath is hot on my face, her lips so close I could bite them. And I do.
The kiss is brutal, nothing tender about it. Teeth clash, her nails drag down my neck, and I growl against her mouth. She tastes like blood and champagne, and it makes me fucking dizzy.
We crash together, mouths locked, hands everywhere, her fingers in my hair, tugging, pulling like she wants to rip me apart. I pin her to the crates, knee wedged between her thighs, grinding until she gasps against me.
“This is insane,” I mutter, lips dragging down her jaw, biting her neck.
She hisses, arching, nails carving red trails into my back. “Shut up, Yoongi.”
I want to. God, I want to. But I can’t stop taunting her, even with her legs wrapped around my waist, even with my hands shoving her dress up to her hips.
“Still think you’re in control?” she taunts, breath ragged, hips grinding against me.
“Princess,” I growl, fumbling my belt open, “I’ll show you control.”
I line myself up and slam into her in one sharp, merciless thrust. Her gasp tears through the air, head thrown back as I bury myself to the base. Tight. Hot. Squeezing around me like she was built for this. My vision goes white at the edges.
“Fuck,” I hiss, forehead pressed to hers, savoring the way her cunt clenches around me. “You feel like heaven and hell wrapped in one.”
She laughs breathlessly, nails digging deep into my shoulders. “Don’t flatter yourself-“ Her words cut off in a strangled moan as I pull back and drive into her again, harder, the crates rattling against the wall.
Every thrust is brutal, messy, fueled by every insult, every glare, every year of pretending we didn’t want this. She meets me stroke for stroke, hips griding forward, body arching to take me deeper.
“Fucking hate you,” she gasps, teeth catching my lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
“Say it again,” I snarl, snapping my hips up in a punishing rhythm. “Say it while I fuck you open.”
Her cries echo through the vault, sharp, raw, tangled with curses. She claws at my back, at my chest, leaving angry red trails down my skin. I can’t stop gripping her hips, hauling her against me, each slam of my cock inside her sending shocks through both of us.
“Goddamn, princess,” I rasp, biting at her neck, leaving marks, claiming every inch I can reach. “So fucking tight around me, feel like you’re trying to kill me.”
She moans, shuddering, sweat-slick skin sliding against mine. “Maybe that’s the point.”
Her walls flutter, tightening, dragging me deeper, harder. She gasps, shaking, and I know she’s close. I angle my thrust, brutal and precise, until she’s crying out my name in the most beautiful melody I’ve ever heard, body convulsing around me.
“Fuck, yes!” She whimpers, voice cracking, legs trembling as her orgasm rips through her. The way she squeezes me – hot, wet, chocking – nearly undoes me right there.
I don’t stop. I keep pounding into her, harder, chasing my own release. The crates groan, her body quaking against mine, sweat dripping down my temple. I press my lips to hers again, groaning into her mouth as I finally lose it, hips snapping in frantic, erratic thrusts until I come, buried deep, growling her name like a curse and a prayer all at once.
We collapse against the crates, both panting, bodies trembling, skin sticky with sweat. My hands stay clamped on her thighs, refusing to let her go, even though every muscle in me is screaming.
She smirks weakly, voice rough. “Stress relief. That’s all.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, though my hands still refuse to let go. “Nothing more.”
But I don’t step back. Neither does she.
Y/N
The crates are still trembling behind me, my lungs burning, my thighs shaking around him. Sweat sticks to my skin, his hand still gripping too hard at my hip like he’s daring me to move before he says so. My lipstick’s gone, my hair’s a mess, and I’ve got bite marks down my collarbone that’ll probably bruise in the shape of his teeth.
And for a second, just one, I forget why we’re even here.
Then the intercom crackles, Viktor’s voice slicing through the heavy silence like a knife dipped in acid.
“Well, well. Quite the performance. Should I be jealous, or impressed?”
I shove at Yoongi’s chest instantly, though his cock is still buried deep inside me, his smirk lazy and infuriating.
“Fuck. Off,” I hiss up at the ceiling, tucking my dress back down with trembling fingers. My whole body still feels raw, strung out, and the bastard has the nerve to laugh.
Yoongi finally pulls back, buckling his belt like nothing happened, smoke-rough voice curling around me: “Back to business, princess.”
I hate how that stupid pet name hits me harder now. Hate it more than I hated him ruining my shot, more than I hate Viktor’s voice purring about how we’re “cornered little rats.”
We follow the sound, up iron stairs, through winding corridors that smell like old blood and varnish. And when we reach the “studio,” my stomach knots.
The walls are lined with Viktor’s trophies: bodies stretched into shapes, skin lacquered, eyes empty. “Art.”
Yoongi mutters, “Pretentious bastard,” lighting another cigarette like he’s not standing in hell. I grip my knife tighter, pulse drumming in my ears.
Viktor waits for us at the center, silk shirt open, chest gleaming with sweat. His grin is wide, wild. He raises a pistol.
“Who gets the honor?” he sneers.
Yoongi and I don’t even look at each other. We move. Fast.
I lunge, blade flashing across his chest in one clean, hungry stroke. At the same time, a gunshot splits the air, Yoongi’s bullet punching through Viktor’s heart.
Viktor stumbles, blood bubbling from his lips, eyes wide. His gaze flicks between us like he can’t comprehend which one of us did it. The last thing he hears isn’t silence, or fear, or a prayer.
It’s us.
“Nice try,” I snap, knife still slick in my hand. “He was mine.”
Yoongi exhales smoke into the spray of blood, unimpressed. “Chest wound versus bullet to the heart, princess. Do the math.”
“Please,” I scoff, yanking a canvas down as Viktor collapses, smearing red across priceless paint. “You just cleaned up after me.”
Viktor hits the ground with a dull, wet thud. His face is frozen in confusion, like even death can’t decide who to credit.
Yoongi smirks, flicking ash onto the corpse. “Call it… a collaboration.”
I snort, breathless, covered in blood and sweat and lipstick that isn’t where is should be. “We’re the worst collaborators in history.”
And yet, when our eyes lock over Viktor’s broken body, I know we’ll do it again.
***
Suga
The loft smells like dust and cigarettes, like whiskey sweating in low glasses. Outside, the Danube glints with fractured city lights, Budapest murmuring under our window.
She’s sprawled on my couch, dress wrinkled, hair wild, bare legs kicked up on the armrest like she owns the place. One boot on the floor. The other still hanging by the door where she tossed it.
I should tell her to leave. I don’t.
“You’re out of whiskey.” She mutters, lazy, eyes half-lidded.
“You’re out of manners,” I shoot back, lighting another cigarette. The flame snaps in the quiet.
She smirks without opening her eyes. “See you next time, partner.”
The word grates. Always has. I exhale smoke at the ceiling. “Not your partner.”
But my voice doesn’t have enough bite to convince even me.
The silence stretches, warm this time, until she cracks it with something softer. “Why’d you save me so many times?”
I glance at her. She’s not joking. For once, no smirk. No knife hidden in the question. Just her.
I shrug, drag smoke deep into my lungs. Hold it. Release it slow. “Because I can’t stand anyone else touching my mess.”
Her lips twitch, curling into that infuriating little smile. Like she just won.
I glare, but it’s ruined by the corner of my own mouth betraying me.
“Princess,” I mutter, handing her the other glass. Our fingers brush, quick, but enough.
We click over Viktor’s death, amber liquid trembling, both of us pretending it’s just victory. Pretending it’s not something else.
And somewhere in the haze, I hear myself mutter, almost amused: “Now I get what Namjoon meant about his girl. Their psycho game finally makes sense… because here I am, stuck in the same kind of madness.”
She raises a brow at me, smug as hell. I take another drag, refusing to explain. The rivalry isn’t gone. Neither is the pull.
And I already know: next time, I’ll save her again.
Synopsys: Once a year, the smartest vigilantes in the game meet in a new city, chasing the same target, playing the ultimate game of brains, charm, and lethal skill. He’s “The Scholar,” calculating every move. She’s “The Siren,” seducing chaos out of anyone in her path. This year, Prague is the playground, Marek Novak the mark, and neither of them is letting the other win… except maybe in ways they’d never admit.
Trope: Brains vs. Charm Rivalry | Race / competition
Trigger Warnings: This story contains themes that some readers may find disturbing or upsetting. Please read with caution.
Sexual Content: The story contains explicit sexual acts.
Graphic Depictions of Violence: The narrative includes detailed descriptions of murder, stabbings, and other violent acts.
Morally Ambiguous/Villainous Protagonists: The main characters are vigilantes who engage in murder and other criminal activities.
Drug Use: The plot references the use of sedatives during the course of a crime.
Human Trafficking and Child Endangerment: The story includes references to the target's involvement in human trafficking and testing surveillance technology on children.
Of course Jin would pick Prague. The man has a flair for melodrama, and nothing screams “enjoy the chaos, kids” like gothic spires stabbing at the sky and alleys designed to make you lose your way, and your mind. Romantic, creepy, theatrical. A perfect little chessboard for the annual disaster Namjoon and I call “tradition.”
Once a year. One target. One city neither of us gets to pick. Rules are simple: track, stalk, kill. Whoever gets the final blow spends the next twelve months gloating. And no, that doesn’t sound childish when you’ve been doing it long enough. I’ve taken down cartel bosses, senators, war criminals, but my proudest achievement? The year I poisoned Namjoon’s coffee mid-mission and still got the target. He still refuses to drink anything I hand him.
I drag my suitcase across the cobblestones, the wheels rattling like a drumroll. Prague at night feels alive, every shadow waiting to pounce. Streetlamps halo gold over slick stones, cathedrals loom like judgment, and every alley smells like old wine and secrets. Romantic, sure. If you’re into the whole “die in a castle dungeon” aesthetic.
I check my gear in the rented flat: lockpicks, syringes, throwing knives, two fake passports. My lipstick case – yes, it’s lethal. He hates when I use it. Calls it “cheap theatrics.” Which is hilarious coming from the man who leaves chess pieces on corpses like some deranged grandmaster.
Namjoon.
I tell myself I’m here for the race, for the thrill of hunting some corrupt guy named Marek Novak. And yet my brain keeps skipping ahead to him. To how he’ll look leaning against a rooftop edge, smug grin lit by neon, coffee cup in one hand, gun in the other, like he’s starring in some indie spy film only he takes seriously. He’s predictable that way: chess, coffee, smugness. Always punctual. Always infuriating.
Every year, same battlefield. Same rival. Same problem: I can’t decide if I want to stab him or kiss him.
And that’s the real danger of this tradition. Not the targets, not the guns, not even the risk of being caught. It’s him. Because when I hear his footsteps in the dark, I can tell it’s him before I see his face. Because when we clash, I’m laughing even as I’m cursing. Because every year, I swear I won’t let him under my skin, and every year, here we are.
So yes, I prep my knives. I adjust my gloves. I slide a glass vial into the inside of my jacket. All business. Totally detached.
But when I picture his face twisting in annoyance as I beat him to Marek’s throat, I smile too wide. And when I imagine his hand brushing mine as we both reach for the same door handle, my chest tightens in ways I refuse to analyze.
This isn’t love. This is war.
…Right?
Namjoon
I land in Prague with coffee in one hand and blueprints stuffed under my arm. It’s my thing, show up looking like I belong at a lecture, not a hunt. Y/N calls it pretentious. She’s not wrong. But I’ve never cared about appearances; I care about control.
And control is everything in this game.
The annual race isn’t about who’s fastest with a knife or who can shoot the straightest. It’s chess, not boxing. Patience, positioning, timing. My satisfaction comes from seeing the board ten moves ahead, nudging each piece until the king has nowhere left to run.
That’s the thrill. That’s what makes my pulse quicken.
Well. That, and her.
I won’t say it out loud. If I did, she’s weaponize it. She’d smirk, call me dramatic, accuse me of turning our little competition onto a poetry slam. And maybe she’d be right. But this annual race, it’s the only guaranteed time I get with her. The only time we drop everything else and meet on equal footing.
The only time I’m allowed to watch her closely without feeling like a creep.
She doesn’t know I catalog every detail. How she bites her lip when she’s thinking. How she rolls her shoulders before a fight. How her eyes light up when she smells blood in the water. Every habit of hers is tucked away in my mental notebook, filled under “weaknesses” and “reasons I can’t stop fucking wanting her.”
This year, Jin and his girl sent us to Prague. Of course they did. The place is a goddamn maze: gothic alleys, cobblestones, rooftops sharp as chessboards, shadows pooling like ink. Romantic enough to be cruel. Creepy enough to be funny. Exactly Jin’s kind of joke. He gets to sit at home, wine glass in hand, while we run around this gothic playground chasing his latest pick.
And the pick? Marek Novak.
On the surface, he’s a miracle: tech mogul, philanthropist, “visionary.” He donates computers, builds schools, smiles for cameras. His name tastes sweet in the public’s mouth. But peel it back, and you get rot.
Merek funds human trafficking. Tests his surveillance tech on children no one will miss. His charity galas are money-laundering circuses. He’s not reckless, but he’s damn paranoid. Surrounded by professionals, armed with gadgets that could sniff our amateurs. Which means this isn’t some petty warm-up. This is the kind of game that forces us to sharpen our edges.
Jin knows it. That’s why he picked him. Because it’s not just about justice, it’s about the spectacle. About watching me and Y/N scramble, clash, improvise. Jin loves the drama.
Our signatures only make it better.
Me? I’m “The Scholar.” Always have been. I like my kills clean, intentional. I leave a chess piece behind, sometimes a knight, sometimes a rook, tucked somewhere that makes the coroner wonder if it’s a message. Strategy over spectacle. Order carved into chaos.
Her? She’s “The Siren.” Every crime scene sings. Lipstick smudged on a glass, perfume lingering in the air, a song still spinning on a record player. She doesn’t just kill, no. She seduces, she lures, she makes them want her right up until the moment she slits their throat. She is myth and hunger, irresistible until it’s too late.
That’s why Marek is perfect for her. He underestimates women. He smiles too long, talks too slow, lets his arrogance drip all over the floor. He’ll look at her and see a conquest. He’ll never see the blade until it’s inside him.
Unless I get there first.
I sip my coffee, bitter and scalding, and spread the blueprints across the rooftop wall. From here, the city hums with secrets. Cathedrals glow like watchtowers, alleys twist like veins. Somewhere out there, she’s already moving. Knives packed, lipstick reapplied, eyes sharp to focus.
And I swear I can feel it. The static in the air when she’s near. The invisible pull, like her gravity reaches across the city to drag me toward her whether I want it or not.
The truth – the humiliating truth I’ll never say?
I don’t care if I win. I care if she looks at me when she loses.
Y/N
The thing about Marek Novak? He’s the kind of bastard who wears a halo made of neon. You don’t even have to dig for dirt, it’s caked under his manicured nails. Philanthropist, visionary, genius. Sure. I’ve seen enough dead-eyes men with “charity” in their bios to know better.
That’s why I didn’t waste time sightseeing like a certain someone (read: five-foot-something, coffee-breath, notebook nerd). I dove straight in. Follow the money, follow the staff, follow the trail of very pretty women who vanish after gala nights like this one.
Tonight, I slip into Marek’s glittering circus, a velvet dress clinging in all the right places, borrowed diamonds winking under chandeliers. He loves wealth porn, so I blend in perfectly. Champagne in hand, smile sharpened, I circle him like a shark with lipstick.
One lead, that’s all I need. I’m already close. Too close. I can smell his paranoia under the cologne. He doesn’t notice me yet, men like him never do until it’s too late.
And then, because the universe fucking hates me, my earpiece buzzes with static. My borrowed security feed flickers, goes dark.
“No, no, no…” I mutter under my breath, angling toward the balcony to fix the signal.
That’s when I hear it: a low chuckle behind me, warm enough to irritate me to death.
“You always did love stealing my thunder.”
I whirl around, and there he is. Namjoon. Smug in a tailored suit, tie knotted like he’s about to give a TED talk instead of ruin my night.
“I had him,” I hiss, stalking closer. “You’re hacking me again.”
He sips my champagne like it’s his. “Correction. I’m hacking everyone. Including you. Don’t pout, it’s not a good look.”
I resist the urge to stab him with my heel. “I was this close, Namjoon. One more step, and I’d have Marek cornered.”
“And then what?” His eyes glitter, amused. “Smile him to death? He’s surrounded by ten guards, two decoys, and – fun fact – he already knows someone’s hunting him. He just doesn’t know it’s you. Yet.”
God help me, he’s infuriating when he’s right.
So it begins. The annual sabotage.
He reroutes the camera feeds, giving me fake green lights while he watches the real ones. I slip sedatives into a glass, only to realize, seconds later, it’s been switched, the wrong waiter walking it to the wrong man. My lips twitch. Touché.
Fine. Two can play. I slip into Marek’s VIP wing, planting lipstick-stained napkins like breadcrumbs. Let his paranoia grow teeth. Let him think some femme fatale already has him in her sights. Let’s see how The Scholar likes chasing ghosts.
Except… there’s a problem.
Marek isn’t stupid. He’s twitchy, scanning, whispering to his men. His paranoia is too sharp, too loud. He senses two predators circling, and that makes him dangerous. A cornered animal doesn’t care who wins the race, it just bites.
I glance across the ballroom, and there he is again, Namjoon leaning against the bar like he owns it, smug grin glued in place, eyes locked on me as if I’m the only thing in this whole glittering mess worth tracking.
I roll my eyes and down the champagne.
“Perfect,” I mutter, watching Marek retreat into his private chambers with two guards. “Now it’s not a hunt. It’s a three-way disaster.”
And the worst part? I’m not sure if I want to strangle Namjoon for ruining my perfect setup, or kiss him for making it fun.
Namjoon
She thinks I ruin everything.
And maybe I do, for her version of “everything.” For me, this is sport. The opening gambit. The tension before the first move on the board.
We’re crouched in the shadows outside Marek Novak’s private suite, pressed into an alcove where the marble wall is cold against my back. The gala roars just beyond the corridor, chandeliers throwing fractured light across polished floors. Her perfume lingers between us, sweet, lethal, impossible to ignore. She shifts, silk whispering, and her thigh brushes mine. Just enough to test my composure.
I focus on the guards. Two men, broad, disciplined, not the usual rent-a-cop trash. Marek doesn’t pay for incompetence. He pays for paranoia.
But then she hisses under her breath, and my attention veers back where it always does: her.
“You’ll blow it,” she snaps, eyes narrowed, lips barely moving. “You always do. Big brain, big theatrics, then alarms, bullets, chaos.”
I grin. God, I live for this.
“Big theatrics? This from the woman who leaves lipstick kisses on dead men like autographs?”
Her jaw clenches. Beautifully. “It’s called signature. Yours is littering crime scenes with chess pieces like some pretentious-“
“-Scholar,” I cut in smoothly, leaning closer so my whisper brushes her ear. “Pretentious works when you’re still alive at the end of the night.”
She scoffs under her breath, and fuck, I want to kiss that sound right off her.
Through the half-open suite door, I catch a flicker of Marek’s profile. Arrogant, sharp suit, glass in hand, phone glued to his ear. One wrong move and he’ll vanish behind three more locked doors. I’m already calculating angles, guards’ rotations, hidden cameras.
“Poison,” I murmur. “Quiet, untraceable. He won’t even know it’s coming until it’s too late.”
She smirks, lashes lowering. Dangerous.
“Or a knife under the ribs. Quick, personal, poetic.”
“And bloody. Sloopy.”
“And effective.”
We’re a breath apart now, whisper-fighting while Marek’s empire ticks along just meters away. Anyone watching would think we’re plotting a seduction, not a murder.
I tilt my head, enjoying the frustration sharpening her beauty. “See, this is why we don’t work together. You crave spectacle. I crave results.”
She shoots me a sidelong glance, velvet-dark. “And yet, here you are, on my side of the hallway, in my crosshairs, arguing instead of acting. Almost like you can’t resist watching me.”
I shouldn’t laugh. But I do, low and quiet. Because she’s not wrong, she never is.
Her dagger glints faintly where it’s strapped to her thigh, danger kissing the edge of silk. My eyes linger too long, and when I drag them back up, she’s already caught me. Smirking. Knowing.
I lean closer, let my voice dip, husky and teasing:
“You know, if you spend half the energy on me that you waste being furious at me, we’d both walk away satisfied tonight.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, sharp as her blade. For a second, I’m certain she’s going to stab me right here in the shadows. Instead, her lips curve into that slow, devastating smile. The one that tells me I’ve lost already.
And God help me, part of me wants to lose.
Y/N
Of course.
Of course he heard us.
One second Marek Novak is murmuring into his phone, smug as a Bond villain, and the next he’s bolting. Fast for a man in a thousand-dollar suit, I’ll give him that.
“Shit,” I hiss, already lunging forward. My heels click once on the marble before I kick them off and sprint barefoot after him. Velvet gown hitched to my thighs, dagger in hand. Every step echoes in my chest, every breath a countdown.
Behind me, Namjoon laughs. Laughs.
“You really can’t shut up, can you?”
“Maybe if you weren’t breathing down my fucking neck-“ I snap, vaulting over the first guard like this is a sprint, nor a murder. My heel catches the second guy in the ribs as I push past him. The bastard groans, and I don’t look back.
Namjoon’s long legs are on my heels, each stride almost effortless, his damn hair falling into his eyes in a way that should be illegal. He smirks. “Try to keep up.”
I grit my teeth, ignoring the fiery thrill of running through me. The chase isn’t just Marek, it’s him. It always is.
The door burst open. Air, sharp and cold, bites my skin. Rooftops of Prague stretch like jagged teeth, moonlight reflecting off slick tiles. Marek stumbles ahead, clumsy, desperate, muttering curses in Czech, knocking over tiles as he goes.
I push off the ledge, heart racing, toes gripping stone. My balance falters, wind tearing at my hair, but a hand clamps around my wrist, strong, precise, and unyielding.
Namjoon.
For a heartbeat, we freeze. His fingers tight on mine, his breath brushing my ear, warm and infuriating. Too close, too grounding. I can practically feel the thrum of his chest.
“Don’t die before I beat you,” he mutters.
I snort, wrenching my arm free and vaulting again. Tiles clatter underfoot. Marek scrambles ahead, a panicked shadow against the moonlight. Every step, every misstep, is part of this twisted dance.
We’re shoulder to shoulder now, fighting for position on slick rooftops, elbows grazing, shoves exchanged like playful duels. He nudges me, I shove back harder. I stumble, almost fall, and he’s there, grabbing me with that infuriating precision, eyes locking onto mine. I glare, teeth gritted, and he just grins.
“Cheater,” I mutter, wiping sweat and a smear of blood from a scrape along my arm.
“Strategist,” he counters, eyes flicking to Marek, then back to me. “You’re lucky I like you.”
I nearly trip again, rolling forward and swearing as I kick my foot back, colliding with him just as we both lunge for Malek’s shadowed form. His arm brushed mine, fingers grazing, and my chest hammers in a way that has nothing to do with the chase.
Marek’s panic is the rhythm of this night, but Namjoon is the melody weaving through it. Every jostle, every insult, every collision of limbs is teasing, torturing, and delicious.
We’re inches from him, inches from each other. I’m not sure which makes my pulse faster.
And I can’t decide what’s more intoxicating, catching the target… or losing myself in the chaos of Namjoon beside me.
Namjoon
We barely make it to the penthouse’s emergency stairwell, Marek’s shouts echoing down the corridor, his panic a distant drumbeat we’re both ignoring.
She’s ahead, breath ragged, eyes blazing, dagger clenched like she’s about to carve a path through everything in sight. I should be focused, strategizing, calculating the angles to corner him. But all I can see is her.
Her hair falls loose around her face, sweaty strands sticking to her temples. Her chest heaves. Every exhale is fire against my skin. Every glance is a challenge I can’t refuse.
I grab her arm, hard enough to stop her mid-stride, soft enough that she can feel me, spin around her, and for a second, the world narrows to us.
“You’re impossible,” I murmur, low. Breathless, even.
She snarls, trying to wriggle free. “Get off me, genius!”
“Or what?” I press closer, hands sliding to her waist, then down, feeling the heat of her under my fingers. “I’ve caught you now. I win.”
Her glare is lethal, but it falters when my lips find hers, biting, claiming. She fights at first – hands raking through my hair, nails digging into my shoulders – but it’s playful, desperate, competitive. Just like everything else between us.
We crash into the wall. My body against hers, her dagger sliding uselessly to the floor as I sweep her up against me. Her legs wrap around my waist, her mouth on mine, teeth and tongue tangling with mine in the chaotic ballet of want a fury.
I grind against her, hips pressing, urgency feeding urgency, each motion mirroring the race we’ve been running all night. She groans, a sharp, ragged sound, and it’s the kind of music that makes me forget the target exists for a heartbeat.
“Namjoon – fuck!” Her hands clutch at my shirt, tugging, pulling me closer, grinding into me with that same fire she brings to every part of this dangerous game.
I bite her shoulder, nipping and licking, hands roaming, memorizing curves, dragging over the velvet, unfastening buttons in a frenzy, desperate for skin against skin. Her dress falls in a heap at our feet, and I can’t stop the growl that escapes me.
I slide my cock into her, the heat, the tightness, the way she clings to me… it’s all-consuming, a rush that makes my head spin. Her breath hitches, body trembling against mine, and I grind, hold her, bury myself into her pussy, letting every inch of her fire take over. She gasps, moans, claws at me, and I can’t stop, won’t stop, lost in the friction, the tension, the desperate, messy perfection of us.
Her legs wrap tighter around me, hips pressing into mine, and I groan, teeth grazing her neck, lips biting, tongue dragging over the tender skin. Every curve, every tremble beneath my hands, every sharp intake of breath drives me insane. I can feel her clutching me, digging her nails into my shoulder, and It makes me fuck her harder against the wall.
She’s shivering, grinding back into me, lips parted, eyes dark with want. I cup her ass, lifting slightly to press deeper, rocking into her, slow at first, teasing, letting her feel every inch of my cock, every stretch, every delicious burn. Her moans are ragged, wet, almost a command, and I can’t stop myself, can’t stop the moan ripping out of me.
Hands everywhere, mine holding her steady at her hips, sliding over her skin, brushing against the heat that’s already dripping, feeling her tighten, shiver. Her body presses against mine, every movement fire, every gasp stoking the need. I thrust harder, deeper, hand clutching, her nails scratching, teeth sinking, lips clashing in chaotic, desperate kisses.
“Fuck… you’re so good,” she moans, voice breaking. I can feel her squeezing my cock, and it makes me lose all control. Every thrust, every grind, every bite is chaos and perfection rolled into one. She fucking rides me against the wall, gripping me, tugging, and I let her. Because she’s fucking perfect, and if my woman wants to fucking ride me? Go ahead, baby. Take whatever you want from me, it’s all yours.
Her moans are louder, sharp, pleading, and I bite, nipping, kissing, dragging her hair through my fingers, whispering into her ear, low and rough: “You’re mine. Only mine. Fuck, take me, all of me. Every fucking inch, baby.” She presses into me harder, trembling under my weight, and I feel her pretty cunt tighten impossibly around me, gasping, screaming my name.
I snap into her with urgent, messy thrust, guiding, letting her ride every pulse, every edge, until she shudders violently, moans shredding the air, and I lose it, let myself come and ride the chaos together. Perfect.
Finally, I slow, pressing her to me, forehead against hers, breathing her in, feeling her tremble, pulse in rhythm with me. She’s mine, entirely, and the world outside – Marek, the race, the city – is gone. Only us. Only this heat, this chaos, this messy, filthy, impossible, perfect madness.
For once, winning feels less important than having her unravel in my arms. Rivals in life, rivals in death, and now, maybe rivals in lust too.
Y/N
The world snaps back into focus with a scream, a panicked bark of orders from Marek, echoing down the empty penthouse corridor. My pulse spikes again, hands still trembling from what just happened, and from what we still have to do. Namjoon’s eyes find me, sharp and calculating, but that smirk is there, the one that says he’s thrilled we’re still racing, still in this messy, insane game together.
We scramble into our clothes, like professionals, or like maniacs, depending on who’s judging. Buttons snap, ties are yanked straight, my dagger slides back into place. Namjoon adjusts his cuffs, as calm as if we were heading to brunch instead of finishing off a tech mogul who thought he was untouchable.
“Ready to finish the race?” I murmur, rolling my shoulders, daggers glinting in the dim light.
“Always,” he says, smooth, confident – but there’s that heat underneath, the same fire that makes every race with him feel like a challenge I can’t resist, even when blood is involved.
We track Marek down twisted halls, following him as he panics, trips over his own security wires, and curses at his lackeys. The absurdity makes me grin. The idiot thinks he’s in control.
“Try not to steal my thunder this time,” I tease, elbowing him lightly as we corner him in the final room, a glass-walled study overlooking the city lights.
Namjoon rolls his eyes. “Oh, please. I let you have the first 0.3 seconds of glory. Don’t act like you earned it yet.”
I can’t help laughing, even as Marek scrambles, desperate, like a cartoon villain about to be vanquished. My dagger finds his exposed side first, sharp, precise, and undeniably mine. He gurgles, hands griping the air, eyes wide, realizing his end has come.
I glance at Namjoon, who’s pretending to be frustrated, but the admiration in his gaze betrays him. Typical.
I finish him off cleanly, the way we both know counts as style points, and then I let my signature leave its mark: a single swipe of dark crimson lipstick across the edge of a toppled champagne glass, a faint trail of perfume lingering in the room. Subtle, deliberate, impossible to miss for anyone who knew us.
“Checkmate,” I murmur, tilting my head to see him squint at me, muttering about theatrics. I ignore it. Of course I make it look this good.
Namjoon steps closer, tugging a loose strand of hair behind my ear, voice teasing. “Technically, I could’ve-“
“Technically, don’t even think about it,” I snap, though there’s that tiny smile tugging at my lips. “This one’s mine.”
He pretends to huff, arms crossed, but his smirk betrays him. “Fine. You win. Just… don’t get used to it.”
I glance around the aftermath: broken wine glasses, a toppled chair, faint streaks of blood on the floor, the subtle perfume and lipstick marking my kill. The thrill still rushes through me, adrenaline spiking, and I can’t resist one last jab.
“You know,” I say, brushing the dagger clean on my sleeve, “I could’ve let you finish him. But where’s the fun in that?”
He laughs, a low, genuine sound that makes my chest ache in the best way. “You’re insufferable,” he mutters, leaning closer. “But I’d race you to the ends of the Earth anyway.”
I roll my eyes, though my heart isn’t in it. “I know. And I’d let you… sometimes,” I add, letting the words hang in the air, almost a dare.
We leave the penthouse together, still bickering, still tallying points, still dangerously, impossibly us. Bloodied hands, adrenaline still high, laughter in our throats, and the city below oblivious to the chaos we’ve left behind.
Because in the end, it’s never really about the kill, it’s about the game, the rivalry, the insane, darkly comic ballet we perform every year. And yeah… maybe it’s also about the way he looks at me, like I’m the most dangerous, irresistible person he’s ever met.
* * *
Namjoon
The city sprawls beneath us, a glittering tangle of rooftops and fog, lights winking like secrets we’ll never tell. Wine in hand, we lean over the railing of the loft Jin so graciously, or cruelly, provided. The chaos of Marek’s downfall still lingers in the air: overturned chairs, shards of glass, the faint tang of blood and champagne mixed together.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A grin pulls across my face before I even glance at it.
Jin: So… did I finally make it happen this time?
I can practically hear his smirk through the text, convinced he engineered this moment.
I set the phone down and glance at her. Y/N leans back against the railing, hair messy, dress rumpled, eyes gleaming with that infuriating mix of pride and exhaustion that makes me want to curse and kiss her at the same time. She catches my gaze, and sips her wine like she owns the city. And, honestly, for tonight, she does.
“Same time next year?” she asks, voice light but eyes sharp.
I let the smirk linger, the memory of the night flashing behind my eyelids, fingers brushing hers absentmindedly. “Only if you’re ready to lose.”
And even though the race is over, the tension hasn’t vanished, it just shifted, stretched thin across adrenaline, wine, and the promise of next year. The rivalry continues. The pull continues. And, somehow, I’m glad for both.
Welcome to Flirt, Kill, Repeat: a dark rom-com one-shot series where each BTS member finds love in the messiest way possible: as vigilante serial killers. Different scenarios, different dynamics, but always the same blend of blood, banter, and bad decisions.
Synopsis: Y/N and Jin are the picture of domestic bliss: matching outfits, soft kisses, inside jokes. Except their “date nights” involve stalking corrupt men through alleys and leaving crime scenes prettier than crime shows could dream of.
In public, they’re adorable. In private, they’re lethal. But tonight’s hunt tests more than their teamwork. It tests their ability to balance love, blood, and Jin’s obsession with theatrics.
Trope: Love-and-Blood Duo | Already a Couple
Trigger Warnings:
Sexual Content: The story contains explicit sexual acts.
Graphic Depictions of Violence: Includes descriptions of murder and arterial spray.
Morally Ambiguous/Villainous Protagonists: The main characters are vigilantes who engage in murder.
Drug Use: The plot references the drug-related deaths of addicts.
People always ask me what the secret is to a happy relationship. Communication, maybe. Trust, definitely.
In our case? Industrial-strength bleach.
The washing machine groans in the corner, spitting out suds tinted the faintest shade of pink. I’m kneeling in front of it, scrubbing at Jin’s shirt like I’m some 1950s housewife. Except instead of wine stains or coffee spills, it’s arterial spray across white cotton.
He’s standing behind me, holding up two ties like he’s about to attend a board meeting. One is burgundy, the other is black. Both are spotless – for now.
“Which one says mysterious stranger who might just ruin your life?” he asks.
I glance up, brush my hair out of my face with the back of my bloody glove. “The one that doesn’t make me want to stab you before we even leave the apartment.”
He grins like I just told him he’s the most handsome man alive. Jin thrives on drama the way most people thrive on caffeine. He doesn’t just want the kill – he wants the performance, the audience, the memory etched in his victim’s brain right before they go dark.
Me? I’m more practical. Point A to point B. Knife goes in, blood comes out, clean up the mess, go home. Efficiency is sexy.
“Black it is,” he declares, ignoring my actual tone and kissing the top of my head as he walks by.
I toss the ruined shirt into the hamper and stand, arms crossed. “You do realize we’re not going to a gala, right? He’s not going to care what tie you’re wearing while you’re carving his kidneys out.”
“Presentation matters,” Jin replies smoothly, adjusting the knot in the mirror. “This man is a monster. He deserves to die with style.”
He’s not wrong about the monster part. Tonight’s target is a city councilman, one of those smiling, handshaking hypocrites who campaigns on “clean streets and safe neighborhoods” while using his position to funnel money from housing projects into his offshore accounts. Worse, he’s been running a little side business no one talks about. Unlicensed halfway homes where addicts “disappear” after their families sign them in. We’ve been following him for weeks.
And when I say following, I mean I’ve got the receipts. The cash bribes, the terrified parents, the overdosed kid he had dumped in an alley to make it look like an accident. A man like that doesn’t deserve prison. He deserves us.
Still, watching Jin adjust his reflection for the seventh time while humming some pop ballad under his breath, I can’t help rolling my eyes. “Other couples argue about groceries,” I mutter to myself. “We argue about where to dump the body.”
He catches my reflection in the mirror, smirks like he heard me. And maybe he did.
Because the truth is, as much as I sigh and complain, I like it this way. The bleach, the blood, the ridiculous ties. Him, twirling a knife like it’s a baton at a parade. Me, pretending not to smile while I sharpen mine.
Domestic bliss, our way.
Jin
People underestimate the importance of atmosphere.
Sure, you can just plunge a knife into someone in a dimly lit stairwell and call it a day, but where’s the romance in that? Where’s the memory? That’s not us. That’s not me. Murder should be an art. A statement. A memory.
And tonight, I want to be romantic.
I catch our reflections in a shop window as we pass: me in a pressed shirt, the black tie knotted perfectly; her beside me, sleek and lethal, like sin disguised as elegance. I offer her my arm like a gentleman escorting his date to prom, not to a kill. She gives me that look, equal parts exasperation and God, why am I still with you, before sliding her hand through anyway. She always does.
“Tell me this isn’t better than dinner and a movie,” I say with a grin.
She doesn’t answer. She just snorts softly and squeezes my arm. Which, frankly, is as good as a confession.
The city buzzes around us, neon lights flickering, alleys yawning open like crooked teeth. Most people would be afraid here. For me, it feels like home. Like the perfect stage.
And who better to star in it than our guest of honor, Councilman Baek? Beloved politician, tireless community man, smiling benefactor. On paper, a pillar of society. In reality, a parasite. He’s been bleeding desperate families dry with his fake “rehab” homes, convincing parents their kids will get help, then pocketing the cash and letting them waste away in moldy beds until someone “overdoses.”
The papers write it off as tragedy. I call it premeditated murder. And murder deserves punishment.
That’s where we come in.
I hum a tune as we turn down the block, a bright little melody that would fit better in a café than a crime scene. She side-eyes me, lips twitching like she wants to smile but refuses to give me the satisfaction.
I can’t help myself, I drink her in like she’s the real show. The way she walks, sharp and assured, every inch of her screaming danger. The way she keeps her knife hidden under her coat, fingers brushing the handle like a secret. Fuck me, she’s so goddamn beautiful. Not in a fragile, put-her-on-a-pedestal way. She’s beautiful like fire. Like poison. Like something you should never touch but always will.
People talk about foreplay. For us, it’s surveillance, strategy, whispered plans while we lace up our boots. For us, it’s the thrill of the hunt, her eyes glinting when she sports our target first, the way she smirks when I tease her about being competitive.
Other couples buy flowers. I buy industrial-strength garbage bags.
And yet, tell me anyone else has what we do: a love story stitched together with crime scene and bleach.
I glance at her again, can’t resist leaning down to whisper, “You know, this could be our anniversary tradition. Dinner, wine, light homicide.”
She mutters something under her breath, but her hand tightens slightly on my arm. I grin. That’s as good as yes in her language.
Because this is us. This is what we do. And honestly? It’s better than roses and candlelight. It’s date night for us. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Y/N
Honestly, stalking someone shouldn’t feel like an argument. But then again, we’re not normal.
Jin’s crouched behind a dumpster, adjusting the angle of his flashlight like it’s a spotlight on a Broadway stage. “Lighting is everything,” he whispers. “You can’t just kill someone in dim, cold light. It needs flair. Drama. Panache.”
I blink at him. “Panache? We’re murdering a man who steals kids’ futures, not auditioning for Phantom of the Opera.”
He smirks, tilting his head, and I swear he thinks I’m joking. Or maybe he wants me to be. “Exactly. It’s the contrast that matters. Fear, elegance, suspense. The performance must linger in their soul.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. He’s ridiculous, insufferable, and yes, infuriatingly hot. The way his jaw tenses when he’s being dramatic, the curl of his lips, the subtle glint of his eyes in the lamplight…
God help me. The idiot’s hot when he’s being extra.
“You’re impossible,” I mutter, crouching down beside him and brushing a smear of blood off his cheek. My glove leaves a streak across his skin. He freezes, looks at me like I’ve just handed him a medal.
“You’re welcome,” I add sarcastically.
“Hmm,” he hums, smirk widening. “I was going to say you look incredible when you touch me. But your tone… exquisite.”
I roll my eyes and shove him lightly. He barely flinches, just laughs under his breath. A low, teasing sound that makes my chest ache in a confusing, dangerous way.
We watch the target across the street. Councilman Baek, oblivious to the fact that two of the most efficient (and ridiculous) vigilantes in the city are planning his demise, checks his phone, grins at a staffer, tips his hat to a passing pedestrian. Arrogant bastard.
“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this tonight,” I mutter, crouching lower. “And you had to turn it into… whatever this is.” I gesture vaguely at him, at the flashlight, at the goddamn black tie.
He tilts his head. “This is us. You love it.”
“Love it?” I snap, though the corners of my mouth twitch. “I’m annoyed, baby. Annoyed. Not-“ I pause, swallowing because the heat creeping up my chest is distracting. “Not… whatever you think I’m feeling.”
He leans closer, just slightly, enough that I feel the warmth radiating off him. “Mmm, of course. Annoyance. I can taste it.”
I hiss and poke him in the ribs. He laughs like I just said something adorable.
“You know,” I say, voice a little sharper than intended, “if you’re going to stare at me while we do this, at least act like we’re professionals.”
“Professionals? Darling, this is professional. It’s murder, style, and a touch of romance. A perfect trifecta.”
I groan. Perfect trifecta, he calls it. He’s ridiculous. And, undeniably, intoxicating.
We watch Baek a moment longer, our bickering fading into a sort of silent, tense teamwork. My hand brushes his as I check the angle of my own knife. He notices. Smiles. I pretend not to care.
This is what I love about us: two people who argue over flashlights and flair while plotting the demise of a corrupt politician. Dangerous, chaotic, absurd. And in the middle of it all… yeah, there’s the tiniest thrill in knowing he notices everything about me, that we work together perfectly and maddeningly.
I take a deep breath, adjusting my stance. “Let’s get this over with. Before I lose my patience… or my mind.”
He winks. “Oh, you’ll lose something tonight, love. And I’ll be right here to watch. Preferably from behind a perfectly staged tableau.”
I snort, shaking my head. And somehow, amidst the blood, the tension, and the ridiculous theatrics, I realize I wouldn’t want anyone else by my side. Not even if it weren’t so damn hot when he’s extra.
Jin
She’s focused. Deadly serious. Like a lethal ballerina, all precision and intensity, and I’m just lucky enough to be in the front row, watching every motion like it’s a goddamn masterpiece.
And holy shit, she is perfect. The curve of her neck as she leans forward, the subtle flare of her nostrils, the way her fingers wrap around that knife like it’s an extension of her body. I can’t even breathe properly. Every move makes me want to shove her against the nearest wall and show her exactly how much I’ve been thinking about this night.
I lean in, brushing her ear with the tip of my finger. She flinches, scowling at me in that way that’s equal parts annoyed and ridiculously hot. Prefect. That little flinch, that sharp inhale, it’s like she’s confessing something she refuses to day out loud. And I love it.
“Don’t pretend you don’t like it when I steal the spotlight,” I whisper, letting my lips ghost near her skin.
Her hand tightens on the knife. I can feel the tension coil through her, and my chest clenches – fuck, I want to make her melt right here. I grin, letting my fingers trail along the back of her hand like it’s casual, innocent, absolutely not foreplay… but we both know it’s exactly that.
She mutters something under her breath, probably cursing me, probably warning me to focus. I hum softly. “Oh, I heard that. And I know you liked it,” I tease, because of course she did. How could she not?
Her glare could kill. And maybe it will, later, when she’s had enough of my theatrics. But I wouldn’t mind. She’s prefect. Every exasperated huff, every eye roll, every impatient sigh – it all feels like punctuation to the sentence my heart has been writing since I met her: I am completely fucked by this woman.
She adjusts her stance, checks the alley, and I watch her from just behind her shoulder. Every detail is obscene, every flick of her wrist, every twitch of her jaw. She’s unaware of how beautiful she is right now, how lethal, how… fuck, how irresistible.
“You know,” I murmur, leaning closer, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say this whole hunt is turning you on.”
She stiffens. I see it, love it, want it more. The little rise and fall of her chest, the slight flare of her nostrils… she’s so fucking perfect I could cry. Or fuck her against this dumpster. Maybe both.
Her eyes flick toward me, sharp and warning, but there’s a glimmer in them, a twitch of a smile she tries to hide. Cute. Fucking adorable. Deadly, lethal, perfect.
I take a slow breath, because patience is part of the fun. Watching her concentrate is better than any porn, better than any drink, better than anything else in the world. And I know she’s aware, deep down, and she enjoys it too, even if she would never admit it.
“Later,” I whisper again, letting my voice curl around her ear, low and teasing, “I’ll bend you over and make you remember this night forever. All of this chaos, all of this work… rewarded properly.”
Her grip tightens on the knife, and I can practically feel her pulse racing. Fuck yes. That’s my girl. Sharp, furious, and completely mine.
She glances the target across the street, unsuspecting little asshole, with his phone and his smile and his oblivion. I hum a little tune, light, cheerful, absurd, like a romantic comedy soundtrack in the middle of a crime scene.
She rolls her eyes. I grin.
This is perfect. She’s perfect. I’m an idiot. We’re about to murder someone. And I’ve never been so turned on in my life.
God, I can’t wait.
Y/N
I crouch behind the trash bins, eyes locked on the target. Councilman Baek is strolling down the alley like the world owes him something. Spoiler alert: it does not. My knife is already warm in my hand, my pulse quickens. Jin is beside me, humming – of course he’s humming – because apparently every murder needs a soundtrack. I mutter under my breath: Kill me now, or later. I’m flexible.
He glances at me, smirk in place, like he’s auditioning for “Most Dramatic Villain.” I wipe a smear of blood off his cheek with the back of my glove. “We look insane.” I mutter, surveying our reflection in the puddle-slicked pavement.
Baek is oblivious, tapping at his phone, adjusting his tie, smiling at a passing pedestrian. Idiot. Perfectly smug. Jin whispers something inaudible but clearly ridiculous, and I fight back a laugh.
“Focus, you idiot,” I hiss, nudging him with my elbow.
“My love, I am focusing. This is theatrical precision,” he whispers, eyes glinting.
Fine. Theatrics aside, it’s time to move.
I step out of the shadows, knife steady, each motion calculated. My boots scrape softly against the wet pavement. Jin follows, knife gleaming, exaggerating every step like he’s on a runaway. He’s ridiculous – and somehow makes it sexy.
Beak notices us. Finally. Panic flares in his eyes as he fumbles with his phone. Perfect.
I lunge, blade slicing. He stumbles, and I curse under my breath at Jin for humming, because now I have to compete with him for the victim’s attention.
“Seriously, do you have to smirk like that?” I hiss.
And my man have the audacity to smirk harder. Tsk.
We work in perfect chaos. Jin distracts, creating a mess, knocking over crates, throwing random trash, while I land precise strikes, cleaning up sloppy wounds with a ruthless efficiency that even impresses me.
The target tries to flee. I grab his arm, twist, and shove him back against the wall. My knife is poised. Jin flicks his own blade expertly, cutting off his escape route. It’s ridiculous. Cinematic. Perfect.
I mutter, barely audible: “We’re going to get caught at this point.”
“Or celebrated,” Jin whispers back, fingers brushing mine as we work side by side. That touch, even here, makes my pulse jump. I shove him lightly.
He grins, obviously loving it. “You know you love my ridiculousness.”
I roll my eyes. Love it… maybe. Later, after we’ve cleaned up.
Baek collapses. I step back, catching my breath. Knife slick, adrenaline coursing through every vein. Jin wipes his on his sleeve, looking absurdly proud. I glare. “Stylish chaos, apparently. Congratulations, we killed a man and made it look like an action sequence.”
He laughs, twirling his knife once for flair. “Exactly. Perfectly cinematic. Our signature.”
I shake my head, muttering as I glance at our reflection: two dangerous idiots, knives glinting, neon light painting us like villains in love. I wipe blood off my glove, watch him, sigh.
Somehow, in all this madness – bickering, chaos, humming, theatrical poses… I feel it. The ridiculous, exhilarating, terrifying perfection of us. We move as a unit: him covering distractions, me precise strikes, both of us silently communicating with glances and smirks.
Finally, we finish. Baek is gone. Our knives drip, our hearts race, our adrenaline is a wildfire. We stand, surveying the alley, our reflections fractured in the puddles.
I glance at Jin, exasperated, half annoyed, half ridiculously impressed. “Yeah, we definitely look insane. Or cinematic. Or both.”
He smirks at me, leaning closer, voice low: “Exactly. And that, my love, is why we’re perfect together.”
I roll my eyes, but inside… I know he’s right. And I fucking love this man.
Jin
Cleanup is the real romance.
We move around each other effortlessly, knives still dripping, adrenaline buzzing in our veins. She’s crouched low, scrubbing a streak of blood from the wall, and I can’t stop watching the way her muscle tense and flex. Every movement is ridiculously perfect, infuriating, and fuck me, it makes me want her in a way that has nothing to do with the target lying dead two meters away.
Yeah, cleanup can wait. I want her pressed against me, skin on skin, right now.
I step behind her, pressing my body to hers. One hand slides around her waist, fingers digging just enough to make her feel me, the other brushing the edge of her jeans. She stiffens, but doesn’t move away. I hum low, leaning close, lips grazing her neck.
Her fingers tighten on the rag, ragged breath catching. I slip a hand under her shirt, fingers grazing the curve of her waist, feeling the soft heat of her skin, roughened by scrapes and sweat. She gasps, hips pressing back, and I growl softly, dragging her closer, grinding against her from behind.
“Baby…” she hisses, sharp and breathless. That voice, half warning, half want? Makes my cock thrum hard. I press into her, feeling her body quiver with need, and I can’t resist leaning down, kissing her shoulder, neck, biting lightly. She arches, moaning into my mouth, hands tangling in my hair, tugging me closer.
I let my hand slip lower, brushing over the top of her jeans, teasing the swell of her ass, gripping her just enough to make her knees buckle. She leans back into me, pressing wet, hot, and fucking desperate. Every brush of her fingers over my chest, every gasp, every soft curse makes me groan, hard.
“You’re impossible,” she mutters, voice breathless.
“And you love it,” I murmur, lips trailing down her neck, teeth grazing, nipping. I grind herder against her ass, rocking my hips with deliberate slowness, listening to her whines, her ragged laughs, her curses.
Her hands roam me, tugging at my shirt, pressing against my chest, squeezing, desperate, needy. I press my mouth against hers, tongue tangling with hers, teeth grazing, groaning as she moans into me.
“I’m going to bend you over this wall,” I whisper, voice low, rough, hot against her ear. “And you’re going to love it, every second.”
I grind into her harder, hips rocking, teasing, pressing her ass against the wall, feeling her shiver beneath me. Her ragged breaths, her moans, the way she presses herself onto me, it’s too much. And I can’t wait another second.
I slide my hand down her jeans, fumbling with the button. She lets out a sharp, wet gasp, fingers clutching my shoulders as I yank the zipper down. Her jeans slide down her thighs, heels keeping her legs slightly apart, and I groan at the sight of her, glistering, desperate, ready for me.
I hook a hand under her hip, lifting her slightly, pressing myself flush against her back. Her breath hitches as I push into her, slow at first, teasing, letting her feel me stretch her, making her whine my name into the alley.
“Fuck, you feel so good,” I murmur into her ear, biting lightly, dragging teeth down her neck. My hands grip her hips, holding her steady as I thrust harder, deeper, fast and relentless, feeling her tremble and clench around me.
She moans, nails digging into my shoulders, pressing herself harder against me, rocking back into me with every stroke. Her mouth finds me again, desperate, messy, and I groan, tongue tangling with hers, teeth grazing, pulling, biting softly as I fuck her into the wall.
“Jin- fuck, yes,” she cries, voice breathless, wild. Her hands roam my back, my chest, clutching me as if I’m the only thing keeping her upright.
I increase the pace, hips snapping against her, feeling her tighten, quake around me. I bite lightly along her shoulder, dragging her hair through my fingers, whispering hot and rough, “You’re mine. Only mine. Fuck, you take me so well.”
Her moans become ragged, breathless, every syllable a plea, a command, a confession. She presses against me, body trembling, quivering with want and need, and I feel her come – hot, tight, shuddering around me. I groan, fingers digging into her hips, thrusting harder, deeper, letting her ride every last pulse. My perfect girl.
I hold her close, lips on her neck, whispering, murmuring filthy, loving praise as she trembles in my arms, body shivering violently against mine. I can feel her shaking around me, moaning, gasping, whimpering my name, and I lose it – grinding faster, letting us both ride the edge together, chaotic, messy, and perfect.
Finally, I pull back, resting my forehead against hers again, breathing her in. “You’re right. We are insane,” I murmur, voice husky.
“We are,” she agrees, smirking.
“And perfect,” I add.
She laughs, shaking her head, and I kiss her one last time before finishing the cleanup. Blood on our hands, adrenaline in our veins, hearts racing. We’ve killed a man, survived the chaos, and somehow, made it romantic.
Bloody intimacy, I think. Only we could make this feel like love. Because if love had a taste, it would be this – metallic and sweet, her mouth warm against me. Metallic, sticky from adrenaline, sweet from something only we understand.
* * * * *
Y/N
The apartment smells like burnt toast and blood. Not at the same time, thankfully, but close enough. I drop onto the couch in our matching robes, tugging one around me like a shield against the mess we left behind, and maybe against him.
He’s sprawled next to me, tie draped over the armrest like a trophy, hair still slightly mussed, the corners of his mouth smudged with wine, or maybe that’s just me imagining things. He grins at me, all smug charm and danger.
I sip my glass, trying to act casual. “So, what do you think? Staged well enough for the neighbors?”
He laughs, low and teasing, brushing his fingers over mine. “Perfect. Oscar-worthy. I think they’ll call us the most romantic serial killers on the block.”
I roll my eyes but secretly I like hearing it. A lot. My hand brushes his, just lightly, and he catches it, lacing our fingers together like he’s claiming the moment, claiming me.
“You’re ridiculous,” I mutter, tilting my head against his shoulder.
“And you love it,” he whispers back, smirking like he’s won some private war.
I glare, but it’s half mock, half desire. Because yeah, I do. Love him. Him, with his dramatics, his teasing, the way he turns a kill into a private adventure for two, the way he makes me want to laugh and scream and fuck him in the same breath.
We clink glasses, wine sloshing slightly over the rim. I can’t resist the corner of a smile tugging at my lips. “Till death do us part… or sooner, if you forget the wine again.”
He leans over, brushing his lips against mine softly, just enough to make me melt and groan all at once. “I’ll never forget the wine,” he murmurs. “Or you.”
I laugh softly, shaking my head, curling closer into him, letting the chaos of the night fade into the warmth of this, us. Messy, ridiculous, bloody, perfect.
And for a moment, nothing exists outside this little apartment, this little world we’ve made, where love and murder are dangerously, ridiculously, intertwined.
Synopsis: You tell yourself "no," but every time Hyunjin is near, that word melts on your tongue. He doesn't need to chase you; he's a flame, and you're the moth, circling closer with every glance, every tremor of your pulse. He sees your resistance not as a wall, but as a thrilling game of foreplay, knowing you're already lost before you even realize it.
Trigger Warnings: Psychological and Emotional Manipulation, Dubious Consent, Intense and Obsessive Themes
I was never meant to be safe, that much I know. There’s a reason they look at me like a warning and whisper my name like a prayer they don’t want answered.
I don’t chase, I don’t need to. I sit back and watch as the pull does all the work for me. The room bends when I enter, tilts subtly, even the air wants me closer. She feels it most of all.
The way her gaze flicker toward me away again – like a moth circling a flame she already knows will scorch her wings. Her eyes linger where they shouldn’t. The curve of my mouth, my fingers curled around the glass, stained faintly with ink from earlier, black smudges across pale skin. She notices. She always notices. And when she does, I catch it. That quickening in her breath, the stutter of her pulse.
Denial is half the game. She thinks if she keeps her distance, if she steels her voice, she’ll stay immune. But temptation isn’t about speed, it’s about patience. It’s about letting resistance stretch until it quivers, fragile and thin, until the smallest touch makes it snap.
I lean back in the chair, slow, and my lips curve, not into a smile, but into something sharper, something that promises ruin with a sweetness that makes the ruin feel worth it. I don’t speak yet. I let the silence fill the space, heavy, electric. She feels it press against her skin, I know she does.
Every little movement of hers tells me what she won’t say out loud. The way her hand tightens around her drink. The way her jaw sets a little too tight, like holding back isn’t just effort, it’s pain.
I could move closer, but why would I? It’s better this way. Let her come to me, let her fall step by step, convincing herself it’s her choice.
When her eyes meet mine, finally, fully… I tilt my head, just enough to let her see it. The smirk that’s more secret than smile, the curve of lips that never quite touch but promise everything they do. I hold her gaze until her throat works around a swallow. Until her knuckles whiten from the grip she has on the glass. Until I can practically feel the denial breaking down.
Then I speak, voice low, lazy, like I’ve been waiting for her to catch up.
“You don’t have to admit it yet.” My tongue grazes the edge of my teeth as I watch the shiver run through her. I lean in a fraction, close enough that she feels my presence without me needing to touch. “I can already taste it on you.”
The word taste hangs heavy between us. She stiffens. And that’s when I know, she’s already mine.
Y/N’s pov
I told myself a hundred different versions of no.
No sounded strong in my head. On my tongue, it dissolved like sugar.
He’s everything I swore I wouldn’t touch. Dangerous in the way a cliff is dangerous, beautiful from afar, deadly if you get too close. I remind myself of that whenever he’s near: the way his laugh curls low and knowing, the way his fingers are always ink-strained as if he’s been folding words into his skin. Remind. Repeat. Repeat again until the mantra starts to wear thin.
But he has a way of being present that makes principles feel foolish. It isn’t loud. It isn’t dramatic. It’s the small things that betray me: the shadow against his jaw when the light hits him right, the dark smudge of ink at the base of his thumb, the way his collarbone shows when he leans back and laughs. Each detail is a magnet. Each detail pulls.
When he looks at me, it’s like a slow burn. Not hungry exactly – more like recognition. He watches me the way a painter watches a canvas before the first stroke: patient, certain, delighted in the possibility of ruin. My pulse answers before I do. My mouth goes dry. I tell myself to look away; my eyes refuse.
He brushes my wrist once, just the ghost of a touch, and the world narrows to the place his skin met mine. I can feel the warmth left by him as if he’d pressed a stamp there. My fingers tremble when he brushed, an involuntary tremor that I hate because it feels like weakness.
“No,” I tell him one night, stiff as a blade. The word is clipped and brittle and should be enough. In the dim light, he lifts his drink, watches me over the rim with a smile that doesn’t touch his eyes. He doesn’t press. He doesn’t need to. The silence is his accomplice.
“You keep saying that,” he murmurs, voice low and velvet, like he’s offering a secret. “Do you mean it?”
I want to mean it. I need to mean it. So I straighten my spine and summon the coldness I think I own. “Yes. I mean it.”
He cocks his head, amused, not unkind. “Do you?” he asks, and there’s no challenge there, only a soft, almost sorrowful curiosity. The way he says it makes me want to prove him wrong and prove myself right at the same time.
My hands betray me again. They clench on the glass until the condensation leaves imprints, my nails scoring at the rim. His laugh is a low thing that vibrates in my bones, and I hate how the sound makes something coil in my belly. I hate that the coil unravels into wanting.
He moves like he has time to spare, and maybe he does. He leans in the doorway, and the sight of him is unfair. He’s ruin wrapped in silk. He listens as if everything I say is a story he already knows by heart. And maybe it is; maybe this is a game he’s played before and won.
“You telling me no is the best kind of confession,” he says softly. “It means you’re already thinking about yes.”
I feel heat scorch across my face. The admission is private and violent, my own weakness laid bare. I want to bat it away, to call him cruel, manipulative, everything that would make me safe again. But the list of labels feels thin as tissue when he smiles at me like that, like he already owns the private corner of my mind where the most dangerous thoughts hide.
My body keeps betraying me. My breath catches when he steps closer, when his shoulder nearly brushes mine in the crowded room. The world contracts around his presence until every noise fades. I am aware of everything about him – his scent, a paint sweetness mixed with something green and sharp; the way his voice falls to that undecided, lazy timbre that makes my fingers twitch; the faint line of dried ink on the edge of his palm, dark as a promise.
He reads me the way someone reads weather: easily, with a patient kind of cruelty. I try to steel myself, to pull my thoughts back behind the barricades I’ve so carefully built. But my defiance tastes like paper in my mouth, brittle and dry. When he steps in front of me, close enough that I can see the fleck of color in his iris, I find I don’t step back.
“Why do you fight it so hard?” he asks, not unkind, his voice only for me.
“Because I don’t want to be ruined,” I say, though my voice is thin. I sound like a child bargaining for safety.
He smiles then, not a laugh this time but an expression that settles into something dangerous and soft at once. “You want to be ruined,” he says, and the certainty in it pins me more effectively than any bind. “You already taste the fall. You’re just pretending the ground won’t break your bones.”
The picture he paints is obscene and true. In the dark, I imagine the fall, not as destruction, but as a kind of surrender that buys something in return: an ache that is mine to keep, an intimacy that leaves its marks like gifts. The shame twists and turns in my stomach. I deny myself and then crave the very thing I swore I’d avoid.
“No,” I whisper again because it’s what I have left. Yet when his ink-stained fingers lift to tuck a stray curl behind my ear, a gesture so small and absurdly domestic, I close my eyes and let the soft pressure land. My lips part without permission, and I hate the want that blooms there as if it were heat rising through me.
I hate him for knowing this. I hate myself for needing it.
He watches me, no impatience, no urgency, like he knows the end of every story and wants to savor the last line. In the hush between us, I realize that resisting him is no longer a battle of strength but a ritual I perform so I can still have the illusion of choice. The rope is in my hands, but he is the one tying the knots.
Somewhere in the dark thrum of my body, the sugar dissolves completely. The no is gone like a candle snuffed. What remains is a terrible, beautiful hunger with a name, and he is the only one who can pronounce it.
Hyunjin’s pov
There are a thousand ways to break someone down.
Violence is crude. Begging is weak. Force is boring. But touch? Touch is inevitable.
I don’t need chains. I don’t need walls. All I need is to stand close enough that she can feel the air between us shift, close enough that my presence hums against her skin like static. That’s where the unraveling begins.
Y/N stiffens when I move, but stiffness is only fear’s costume. I see her pulse in her throat, wild and hot. I see her lips part and close like she’s biting back a confession. She won’t say it. Not yet. That’s why I will.
I let my hand hover, almost grazing her wrist, and then my fingertip drags slow across her skin. Just once, just enough. Her breath hitches, sharp and soft, a sound she doesn’t mean to give me. And I smile, because I knew it would happen before she did.
Her eyes snap up to mine, furious, embarrassed, hungry. Fucking perfect.
I lean in. Not rushed, never rushed. My lips hover by her ear, close enough that she can feel the heat of me, close enough that when I speak, my words curl like smoke against her skin.
“You said no…” I murmur, my tone indulgent, velvet pressed to steel. I pause to let her heartbeat trip, let her lungs catch. Then I tilt my head, let my lips graze the shell of her ear. “…but your body begs differently.”
The shiver that runs through her isn’t small this time. It shakes her all the way down. She tries to step back, but I follow, like a shadow she can’t escape. My hand rises, not to hold her, but to trace the air just about her arm, letting the anticipation burn hotter than touch itself.
“Don’t,” she whispers, though her voice is weak, betraying her.
I chuckle low, the sound vibrating against her neck. “Don’t what, sweet girl? Don’t touch you? Don’t tell you the truth you’re too afraid to say?”
Her throat works, but no words come. Her silence is sweeter than denial.
I dip lower, my breath hot at her jaw. “You can lie with your mouth all you want, sweetheart. But your body…” My fingertip slides down the inside of her wrist again, this time lingering, pressing just enough to feel her pulse racing beneath the surface. “…your body begs me different.”
Her knees falter, barely, but I catch it. I always catch it. I tilt her chin with two fingers, and smirk when she refuses to meet my eyes.
“Look at me, sweet girl.” My voice curls like smoke around the word. She obeys, slowly, reluctantly, and the defiance in her gaze only makes the hunger deeper.
I drag my lips close to her ear again, letting them graze the tender skin just beneath it. She gasps, sharp and unguarded, and that sound is a gift. A confession without words. I close my eyes, savoring it.
“Let me hear it,” I whisper, my tone coaxing, decadent. “The truth. From your pretty mouth this time. Say it for me, sweetheart.”
Her lips tremble, her body leaning despite herself, caught between pride and the pull she can’t resist. She doesn’t speak, and that’s fine. I can be patient. I’m temptation itself, I don’t need her answer yet.
“You don’t have to say it,” I murmur against her skin, smiling when I feel her pulse leap beneath my lips. “Now now. Not tonight. But soon, sweetheart. Soon you’ll beg me to give me every truth you’ve been choking on.”
I press just close enough that my words melt into her, a promise she can’t shake. “And when that moment comes, you’ll wonder why you ever tried to resist me at all.”
Because resistance isn’t power. Resistance is foreplay. And temptation always wins.
Y/N’s pov
He uses my name like a hand at the base of my skull, a soft insistence that guides me. When he whispers it, the syllables press at the place where I keep my own doubts, and they fold like old paper. My knees go weak when he says my name the right way, when he calls me sweet girl, crooning like a benediction. It’s humiliating and exquisite.
I tell myself I am choosing to stay. I tell myself I have reasons: fear, self-perservation the practical truth of distance. But choice is less honest than habit now. Resistance becomes performance, an honoring of the idea that I can be steadfast. I recite the lines I practice: I will not let him ruin me. Yet he slides his thumb along the seam of my lower lip, gentling it until heat spreads sharp and hot through my mouth, the practiced lines melt into a warm, traitorous pool.
His touch is a lesson in tiny violences. Not cruel, not blunt – fucking expert. He knows how to ask without demanding, how to draw confession without force. My body is a ledger, each mark a debt I never noticed until he tallied them. He owes me nothing and I owe him everything I didn’t know I had been saving.
“You’re trembling, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice low enough that only I can hear. His breath fans across my cheek, and the air near my skin shudders. “How long will you keep pretending?”
I clench my jaw. I should say something clever, deflect, make a joke. Instead my throat works around a small sound – an apology or plea, I can’t tell – and he treats it like a private admission. He smiles the way someone smiles when they’ve found a rare thing in the dark.
He draws closer, and the space between us fills with the memory of each previous brush. He traces the line of my collarbone like he’s reading Braille, like the map of me is a secret he’s been given to study. I feel raw where his fingers pass, as if they leave ink behind. There’s no crude hunger in his movements, rather an educational tenderness that makes desire feel sacred and terrible.
When he lifts his hand and presses his thumb to my lower lip, the sensation is almost obscene in its gentleness. I can taste him on my skin: pain and something floral, something dangerous. He watches me the way a composer watches an instrument, waiting to hear the note he wants. I let the smallest of noises out, a sigh swallowed half into my chest and half into the curve of his name.
“Say it,” he whispers, pressing the pad of his thumb against the seam of my mouth, and the instruction is softer than any order.
I want to lie. I want to say no and mean it. But my voice betray me. “I-“ the rest of the word folds in on itself, a private collapse.
“Say my name,” he coaxes. His fingers curl at my jaw, not hard, just anchoring. “Say you want me.”
My lungs forget how to work properly. Saying it would be a confession and a surrender wrapped in one. It would make me vulnerable in ways I have spent my life avoiding. But the want behind my ribs feels like hunger: an ache that will not be swaddled away with reason. The more I delay, the more he leans in, and the closer he gets, the more room narrows to the span between my mouth and his whisper.
“I want you,” I whisper finally, the words falling out as if on a cliff edge. They’re not a triumph, they’re an admission. My voice cracks, raw and honest; the syllables feel like they belong to someone else, someone who has been kept locked beneath my ribs for too long.
He exhales, a sound like satisfaction. His lips find the patch of skin behind my ear, and though it’s not a kiss in the way the movies show, it’s a claim: tender, ruinous, intimate. Heat blooms where his mouth presses, and shame curls with it, jealous and familiar.
There is a small, private terror in surrender: the knowledge that when I bend, he will never unmake the shape he’s created. There is also an unbearable clarity. In that moment, surrender is not defeat. Surrender is the only place that lets me breathe. The air tastes different – saltier, deeper, a little cruel.
I told myself this was falling. But it felt too much like flying.
Hyunjin’s pov
She gives in the way a match finally remembers it was always meant to be struck.
I watch the moment like someone watching a slow, exquisite film – every micro-gesture catalogued, savored. Her shoulders drop first, the tiny collapse that signals the rest will follow. Her breath comes different now, ragged at the edges, as if each inhale is a decision she keeps choosing despite herself. When she leans toward me, it isn’t clumsy, it’s inevitable.
I don’t take, I accept. I don’t force, I open, just enough, and let her fall into the space I’ve kept for her. My mouth finds the soft skin of her throat like a benediction – warm, damp with the heat of her breath. I trace her pulse with my tongue, slow, deliberate, branding her with the rhythm of surrender. She arches into it with a gasp that makes my blood thrum, the sound more intimate than any confession. My tongue goes lower, tracing lines only I’ll ever map. Her hands claw at the back of my shirt, nails digging in as though anchoring herself to the very thing that’s undoing her.
I tilt her chin up with two fingers, force her eyes into mine. The sight of her, lips swollen, pupils blown wide, chest rising and falling like she’s drowning, is enough to make me ache. She doesn’t realize how holy she looks like this, caught between worship and ruin. My thumb drags across her bottom lip, wetting it further, and when she whimpers, I swallow the sound with a kiss that tastes like surrender.
The reflection in the window catches us. Her mouth open under mine, my hands mapping her body like they own it. The glass blurs us together until I can’t tell where she ends and I begin. That’s temptation’s truest victory: not taking, but consuming.
My rings are cool against her burning skin as I slip my hand beneath her shirt, palm flat at her waist. She shivers violently, pressing herself into me, silently begging me not to stop. I don’t. I guide her with the slow patience of someone who already knows the ending.
I pull back just enough to look at her face. She is flushed, alive, and luminous in a way I don’t often permit anyone to see. I could smother the moment with cruelty and walk away; I could leave her with nothing but an echo. But ruin, carefully administrated, is kinder than caprice. So I hold her, steadier than she expects, and let the aftermath hum between us like a shared secret.
This is the education of temptation: no destruction for its own sake, but a reclamation of something she didn’t know she was starving for. She will wake to consequences, maybe regrets, maybe memories that ache. She will remember this and want it and shake the memory of how willingly she came undone. And still, in the thin hours when sleep frays, she will search for the shape of me in the dark.
I hover, close enough to feel the hear of her skin under my cheek,, and whisper with a softness that is almost cruelty in its certainty: “You’ll regret me in the morning. But tonight, you’ll beg for me again."
Synopsis: He doesn't enter rooms, he claims them. Changbin is gravity, and his world bends around him, a stage where he doesn't have to chase, he just waits for you to come to him. Your resistance? He sees it as a performance, a thrilling form of foreplay that he knows he will break.
Trigger Warnings: Intense Power Dynamics & Coercion, Psychological Manipulation, Dubious Consent & Non-Consensual Themes (all of them psychological), Degradation/Humiliation (consensual in story)
The moment I cross a threshold, the air bends, heavy, think, tuned to me. It’s not arrogance if it’s true, and I know it is. People shift when I arrive. They breathe differently, laugh nervously, stare and then look away like they’ve touched something they weren’t mean to. I don’t blame them. They’ve never stood this close to gravity before.
I was made to be looked at. To be obeyed. To be wanted.
Gold catches the low light as I flex my fist against my thigh, the weight of the rings clinking like a reminder – I hold power in my hands, and I enjoy the sound of it. I lean back, settle into the chair, and let the world move around me like a stage built for my presence. The truth is simple: I don’t chase. I sit, and the world comes to me.
And she will too.
Y/N.
Even her name tastes like defiance and surrender all at once. She moves like she wants to hide for my eyes, yet her body betrays her with every nervous shift, every stolen glance. I see it, the way her lips part when she thinks she’s not being watched, the quick catch of her breath when my laugh cuts through the room. She thinks she’s holding herself apart from me, untouched. But her resistance isn’t a wall; it’s a performance.
And I am a patient audience.
My gaze pins her down, steady, merciless. I can feel her skin prick under it even across the space. People like her pretend they don’t want to kneel. They tell themselves their spine is made of steel, their pride impenetrable. But I’ve broken stronger before. Pride is only brittle glass dressed up as armor. One good push, and it shatters.
I laugh low, the sound rumbling from deep in my chest, deliberate. A growl dressed up as amusement. Her shoulders tighten. Good. Fear, arousal — they live in the same shiver. And I know which one she’s feeling.
She doesn’t realize what’s already happening, how her world is rearranging around me. That every second I watch her, I’m writing rules she’ll have no choice but to follow. It won’t be long before she understands. The more she denies me, the deeper she digs herself into my hold. Resistance is the sweetest form of foreplay.
I imagine her on her knees, not because I’ve forced her, but because she finally realized what I already know. That her hunger outweighs her pride. That obedience isn’t weakness, it’s worship.
My rings glint as I curl my fingers tighter, picturing them against her jaw, tilting her face up, making her look at me. Making her see who rules her now.
I lean forward slightly, and though my voice is silent in this moment, I know it would cut through the room like a commandment:
“I don’t need to chase. I sit, and the world comes to me. And so will you.”
Y/N pov
I tell myself I won’t bow to him.
Not now. Not ever.
It’s a mantra I repeat like a prayer, even as my pulse betrays me. The second he enters the room, my chest tightens, my throat dries, and I hate it. I hate that my body is the first to betray me, not my words. He doesn’t even have to touch me, he just looks, and suddenly every nerve in me feels strung tight, waiting.
Changbin sits like the world is already his throne, his rings catching the light like a crown that doesn’t need to be worn. He doesn’t move much, he doesn’t need to. The weight of his presence is enough to press me down until I feel small, cornered.
I force my gaze away, force my lips to tighten into something resembling irritation, pride, anger. Anything but the truth. Anything but need.
And yet… my knees ache with the urge to bend. My breath stutters every time his low laugh rolls across the room, deep and unbothered, as if he knows exactly how it unravels me. That laugh is dangerous, almost cruel, and my spine quivers every time I hear it.
I frame it as hate. I tell myself I can’t stand him – the arrogance, the way he stares at me like he’s already stripped me bare and decided what I’m worth. I dress it up as disgust, as irritation, as pride that refuses to break.
But underneath… underneath is something uglier. Something I don’t want to name.
It’s the sick, unbearable pull of gravity. The kind that makes my palms sweat and my stomach twist. The kind that whispers: don’t resist.
Every glance he gives me feels like a hand around my throat. Firm, commanding, but not crushing. He doesn’t need to close the distance to make me feel claimed. To make me feel like my will is already bending, like he’s already found the cracks in my armor and is just waiting for me to fall apart.
I hate him for it. I hate myself for wanting it.
I try to hold onto the fire in my chest, the one that says I won’t play his game. But even now, I feel it slipping, trembling under the weight of his stare. My pride screams stand tall. My body whispers kneel.
And deep down… I’m terrified which one of us is right.
Changbin’s pov
She thinks she can fight me.
Every flicker of her eyes, every stiff tilt of her chin is another little rebellion. Pretty, fragile acts of defiance, sharp as glass and just as easy to break.
I let her keep them. For now.
Because I see the tremor in her hands, the quick hitch in her breath when my gaze lingers. I see the way her knees threaten to bend, the way her lips part when I laugh, even though she forces them shut again as if clamping down on need will erase it. She thinks she hides it well, but she doesn’t realize that her resistance glows brighter than her submission ever could.
I could order her down. I could drag her into obedience. But that isn’t what I want. No, what I want is something deeper.
She needs this. She needs someone to strip the weight from her shoulders, to silence the storm of indecision and fear that rattles inside her. She needs someone to take her pride, her trembling, her chaos, and turn it into something sharp, something purposeful. She needs to be shown what it feels like to finally let go.
And only I can give her that.
I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees. I don’t shout, I don’t bargain. My voice drops lower, deeper, steady and unshakable. It isn’t a request. It isn’t even a command. It’s law.
“Kneel.”
The word cuts through the room like prophecy, inevitable and absolute. My voice doesn’t ride, it sinks, settle into her bones, and I can see the way her body absorbs it. The shiver she can’t disguise. The way her lips part again, caught between protest and something hungrier.
Her denial is already cracking.
I let the silence stretch, savoring the tension, the heat winding tighter in her chest. My eyes locked on her, not cruel, not gentle, but certain. Certain in a way she’s never been allowed to be.
“You think you can keep resisting me,” I murmur, “but we both know where this ends. It isn’t me you’re fighting. It’s yourself. And you’ll lose.”
Her chin lifts, a final flare of defiance. But her hands tremble at her sides. Her breathing stutters. Her body betrays her again, and I smile. Fucking adorable.
I tilt my head, let my voice sharpen, harder now, edged with something dangerous.
“They look at you like they could ever have you. They think they could touch you, claim you, break you the way I do.” My jaw tightens, a faint growl slipping under my words. “But they can’t, baby. They never will.”
I pause, let the silence burn before I finish, low and final:
“You’re already mine.”
And I watch the words settle into her like chains she can’t see but already feels. Heavy, inevitable, unbreakable.
Because this isn’t about power for me. It never was. This is about giving her what no one else can – a place where she doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to fight, doesn’t have to be strong. A place where all she has to do… is kneel.
Y/N pov
I resist because I have to. If I don’t, then I’m already lost. And the thought terrifies me more than the weight of his gaze.
So I stand stiff, jaw locked, nails biting into my palms until little crescents bloom against my skin. I hold my chin high like a shield, like pride can stop me from crumbling. But pride feels brittle now, a cracked mask ready to fall with the slightest touch. Resistance isn’t strength anymore, it’s just habit. A ritual. Empty words chanted by someone who already knows the ending.
Because the ending has always been him.
“Kneel.”
The word coils inside me, heavy and low, like it was made for me alone. Not barked, not begged. Spoken with the kind of certainty that leaves no room for denial. A command disguised as prophecy. My knees ache with it, my lungs tighten until each breath is shallow and desperate.
I shake my head. I can’t. I shouldn’t. My pride shrieks at me to hold the line, to spit in his face if I have to, to prove I’m not just another body waiting to bow at his feet.
“You shouldn’t-“ I start, but my voice fractures, thin and weak.
“I shouldn’t what?” His voice slides over mine, deeper, steadier, unshaken. He doesn’t even need to move closer; he’s already inside me, stripping my excuses one by one. “Say it, Y/N. Tell me. Use your words, baby.”
I can’t. Because there’s nothing left to tell. My protests taste like lies even to me.
“I don’t want to,” I whisper instead, the words crumbling as they leave me.
And then, God help me, he smiles. Slow, patient, and absolutely devastating. “You don’t want to? Or you don’t want to admit how badly you do?”
My breath stutters. My knees tremble. My body leans toward him before I even realize it, betraying me again and again. He sees it all, every crack, every fracture. And he savors it.
The silence stretches, thick and merciless. His eyes never leave mine, and it feels like being held under water, like drowning and breathing all at once.
“You need this,” he says finally, his voice low, certain. It’s not arrogance anymore, it’s truth. “You need me to strip away the weight, to make the world stop spinning. You can pretend all you want, but your body already knows.”
And then my knees give.
The sound of them hitting the floor is soft, but in my ears it’s deafening. Final. Like a bell ringing at the end of a war I never had a chance of winning.
Shame floods me first, hot and sharp, but it’s chased, swallowed, consumed by something else. Relief. Like I’ve been holding my breath for too long and finally let it out. My spine loosens, my shoulders drop. For the first time, I’m not fighting.
It doesn’t feel like losing. It feels like release. Like finally breathing.
I hate it. I crave it. I need it again already.
I lift my eyes slowly, unwilling and desperate at once, his gaze catches me, heavy, merciless… but so fucking proud. He doesn’t gloat, he doesn’t even smirk. He simply claims.
“It wasn’t your command,” I whisper to myself, too soft for him to hear. It was my hunger. My ruin. My choice, even when it wasn’t.
And then he leans forward, his voice a growl that licks over my skin like fire:
“Good girl.”
The words shatter me, strip me bare, and rebuild me in his image – all in the same heartbeat.
Changbin’s pov
There it is.
The sound of her knees hitting the floor is softer than a heartbeat, but to me it echoes like thunder. A declaration. A coronation. Proof of what I’ve always known, that power doesn’t live in commands or threats. It lives here, in the moment they choose the inevitable.
She isn’t just kneeling. She’s crowning me.
I look down at her, and the sight is blinding in its perfection: her spine bowed, her hands trembling at her sides, her eyes lifted but unsteady, as though staring at me burns and soothes in the same breath. She thinks she broke. No – she was remade. By me, for me.
My fist curls against my thigh, rings glinting in the shadows, catching the faint light like gold forged in fire. I rest it there, steady, deliberate, and let my other hand rise to her jaw. My fingers graze her skin, heavy with possession, reverent with hunger.
She flinches at the touch, not from fear, but because she feels the truth of it, the cage and the crown, both forget in the shape of my hand.
I tip her chin higher, forcing her eyes to mine. The tremble in her throat betrays her, but I don’t mock it. No smirk, no cruelty, just certainty. She is mine. And in that moment, she knows it too.
Dominance isn’t cruelty. It’s certainty sharpened into worship, possession twisted into reverence. I don’t ask for control, I assume it, embody it, make it irresistible. My sin isn’t that I command – it’s that I convince her it was her choice to kneel, even when it never was.
“This isn’t obedience,” I murmur, my voice a growl that swallows the air between us. My thumb presses against her lips, silencing the denial she doesn’t even bother voicing anymore. “This is devotion.”
Her breath hitches against my skin, and the sound claws into my chest, a brand I’ll never let fade.
“You’ll never forget what it feels like,” I tell her, slow, each word sinking deeper into her marrow. “Once you’ve tasted it – me, this – you’ll never want to stand again.”
And it’s not a threat. It’s a promise. Because she doesn’t just kneel for me, she kneels because the world makes sense only here, at my feet, under my hand, bound in my shadow.
P.S: The first fic here in dual POV. I really hope you all like it.
Synopsis: He's always there. You just never know it. Minho's obsession isn't a mess; it's an art, a ritual he's perfected to watch you, to know you, to own every part of you. He’s the shadow in every mirror, the figure in every window, and the unseen protector who eliminates any threats before you even know they exist.
You feel him everywhere—in the unsettling silence, the creaking stairs, and the frantic flutter of your own pulse. You thought you were free, but you were never gone from his sight.
In the end, he steps out of the shadows and into your space, not as a threat, but as an inevitability. He forces you to confront the truth: your fear, your resistance, your very being, all belong to him. And the most terrifying part? You realize that his obsession has become so entwined with you that you can't imagine a life without it.
Trigger Warnings: Stalking and Surveillance, Intense Psychological and Emotional Manipulation, Non-consensual Invasion of Privacy and Space, Themes of Capture and Power Dynamics
Minho’s POV
She doesn’t know I’m here. She never knows.
But I always am.
I’ve made a ritual out of her. The tilt of her head when she reads, the way her lip reddens between her teeth when she’s nervous, the careless laugh she gives away to people who don’t deserve it. Every piece of her is mine, catalogued, memorized, and carved into me.
People call it obsession. They don’t understand. It’s not obsession, it’s devotion. Obsession is messy, frantic. I should know. This is precise, clean. A hunger I’ve sharpened into an art.
I know the names of her friends, the ones she trusts too easily. I know which of them would betray her first. I know the way her steps falter when she’s scared walking home at night, and I know exactly how many times she’s looked over her shoulder, thinking she was alone.
She never was.
My reflection follows her everywhere. Windows, mirrors, screens gone dark. If she looked closed enough, she’d see me standing there, patient, unblinking. She’d see how perfectly we fit: her life reflected in glass, my shadow pressed behind it.
Sometimes, I imagine it. Her eyes meeting mine across the glass, her lips parting in shock. Fear first, then the dawning realization that it was always me. That I was the constant. The every moment of safety she’s ever had existed because I allowed it.
And when that day comes, she’ll understand. She’ll understand why the men who brushed against her on the train never showed up again. Why the friend who spread rumors about her suddenly stopped speaking. Why the one who followed her home limped away bloody and broken.
She doesn’t need to thank me. She doesn’t even need to know.
Because she’s already mine. Every breath, every choice, every soft, unguarded second she thought was hers alone – I own them.
If I can’t have all of her, no one else will. I would burn the world to its bones before I let another hand touch her.
And she’ll never escape. Not because she’s locked away, not because she’s chained. No, her prison is me. My eyes. My devotion.
The truth is simple: she is surrounded. I am in every corner, every mirror, every shadow. Even when she runs, she runs deeper into me.
Soon, she will see it.
Soon, she will surrender.
Y/N pov
I tell myself I’m being paranoid.
Everyone feels watched sometimes, right? It’s human. The brain plays tricks, the shadows move, the wind rattles the glass, and you convince yourself it’s danger. That’s all this is. That’s what I whisper when my heart starts racing for no reason at all.
But it doesn’t feel like nothing. It feels like him.
I can’t explain it. I never can. It’s the mirrors, mostly. The way I catch the faintest blur of movement in the corner of my eye when I’m brushing my teeth, or the feeling that the reflection isn’t quite in sync. I’ve laughed it off before, “maybe I watch too many horror movies,” but it lingers, crawling over my skin.
And the nightmares are worse. The sounds outside my window. A creak on the stairs when I know no one else is home. Sometimes it’s so quiet that the silence itself feels loud, pressing against my eardrums, begging me to notice.
I check the locks twice, three times. I silence my phone because every message feels like a threat, every ring like a warning. Friends text me, and I don’t answer, I’m to busy circling my apartment, making sure the windows are shut, the curtains pulled tight. Too busy listening.
It shouldn’t feel intimate, but it does. The fear isn’t faceless. It’s shaped like him.
I know it’s ridiculous. I told myself I ended this months ago. I told myself he was out of my life. But some part of me never believed it. Because when the hair on my neck stands up, when my pulse jumps without warning, I don’t think, someone’s here.
I think, he’s here.
And that’s the worst part. The knowing. The way my body recognizes something my mind still tries to deny.
Because I haven’t seen him. Not really, not once. But I feel him everywhere – like the air is thick with his presence, like my life is just glass and he’s always on the other side, watching. Waiting.
And I can’t shake the sinking though that maybe I never really got rid of him at all.
Maybe I never will.
The night is restless. The air is too heavy, too suffocating, and I think maybe cracking the window will help. Just a silver, just enough to breathe. My fingers fumble with the latch, heart hammering even though there’s no reason it should. Just paranoia again. Just shadows and whispers and mirrors lying to me.
The glass slides up with a soft groan. A cool draft brushes my skin. Relief prickles my chest, until everything turns slowly into fear.
A silhouette, impossibly close. The shaped of him framed in the moonlight before he moves, swift and deliberate, slipping past the window like it was always his door. My breath catches, too loud. Too quick. Panic alone might give me away.
“Minho-“ his name claws its way out of my throat, weak and trembling.
My body moves before my brain does, stumbling backward, heart in my ears. I should scream, I should run, yet… I can’t. I can’t do anything but watch him step inside like he belongs here, like I am already his.
Minho’s pov
She leaves the window unlocked. Again. A silent invitation she doesn’t even realize she’s giving. She’s careless, but I’m not. I notice everything. Every routine, every slip, every weakness.
It makes it too easy for me. Sweet, almost. Like she wants me here, like some hidden part of her knows she belongs to me and doesn’t bother to fight it.
The glass slides open without protest, and I slip inside with the same ease I always do. The shadows accept me, the silence bends around me. This is where I belong – her space, her air, her skin prickling because she feels me before she sees me.
Her eyes widen when she finally does. Mouth parting, breath caught… soft, perfect. Panic bleeds into her face, twisting into fear. Beautiful, my favorite expression on her.
She stumbles back, as if distance could unto the inevitable. As if she doesn’t already know she’s mine.
I move slow. Deliberate. Calm, always calm. A predator never rushes the kill. Each step is measured, the grace of inevitability in every line of my body. She backs away anyway, the way prey always does when it realizes the predator isn’t hunting for hunger but for pleasure.
“If I can’t have all of you…” My voice is low, steady, meant only for her. I see the words settle into her skin, rippling through her, a shiver she can’t suppress. I savor it. “…no one else ever will. And I’ll make sure of it.”
Her lips move, she whispers something. I catch the shape of the words: You shouldn’t be here. Weak. Fragile. A plea, a protest, a prayer. It doesn’t matter. None of them matter.
Because I’m already smiling.
“But I am.” My head tilts as I drink her in, as I watch her tremble, caged by my presence alone. Fragile, desperate, beautiful. My smile spreads slow, cruel, and inevitable.
“I always am.”
She trembles, pressed back against the wall, but she doesn’t run. Not really. She can’t. The room is too small, my presence too vast.
I circle her slowly, a shadow with a heartbeat. Her gaze darts to every exist, but I know before she does, there’s nowhere left for her to go. She’s mine, caught in the snare I’ve woven for so long.
I let my fingers graze the air near her shoulder, not touching yet. She flinches anyway. Prey instincts. But when I finally let my knuckles brush her skin, it’s reverent. Careful. Sacred. I touch her like she’s something holy, something fragile enough break but too precious to ever let go.
She doesn’t understand that both truths can coexist, that she is prey and altar, offering and obsession. That’s why she fights me, that’s why her voice trembles when she says no, when her hands push weakly against me.
And I savor every second of it.
Her resistance is a song I’ve memorized, every note sharp with fear, every chord soaked in denial. But beneath it, I hear the harmony, the way her body responds despite her protests, the quickening pulse, the shudder in her breath. Proof. Proof that she feels it too, even if she’ll never say it.
“I know the way they look at you.” My words come out like a blade, sharp and controlled. Her eyes snap to mine, wide, guilty, though she’s done nothing wrong. She doesn’t need to. Her very existence is enough to draw their stares. “I know what they want.”
My hand moves from her shoulder to her throat, holding. Anchoring her to me. My thumb traces the frantic flutter of her pulse. “But you’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”
She shakes her head, whispers something weak, something that tastes like no. Her nails press against my wrist as if she can push me away.
But I only smile. Because her fight doesn’t repel me, it fuels me. Every trembling refusal is just another confession. Another way she tells me she belongs nowhere else but here, in the cage of my hands.
I lower my head until my breath ghosts her ear, until she can’t escape the weight of me, the inevitability of us.
“You can resist all you want,” I murmur, soft as silk, lethal as glass. “But even your resistance belongs to me.”
Y/N pov
I understand now. I was never free.
Not the night I walked away, not the mornings I told myself he was gone, not the weeks I tried to piece together some fragile illusion of safety.
He was always here. In the echo of footsteps on empty streets. In the flutter of curtains when no window was open. In the sharp sting of panic when I caught my reflection and swore I saw someone else behind me.
Minho’s obsession wasn’t something I could escape. It had already seeped into me, threading itself through my routines, my thoughts, my breath. He had been living inside the spaces between my heartbeats, and I had been too blind to see it.
Now, with his hand at my throat, not crushing, just resting there like a promise, I finally feel the truth settle heavy in my bones. My pulse flutters against his palm, betraying me, racing not only from fear but from something darker, shameful, unspoken.
I should scream. I should run. I should fight.
But my body doesn’t obey. My body leans into his hold, trembling, as though the cage he builds around me is safer than the emptiness outside it/
“Stop,” I whisper, but it’s breathless, weak. It sounds less like defiance and more like surrender in disguise. Like begging him not to let me go.
He moves around me, slow, deliberate. A circling predator, but his touch is devastatingly gentle, fingers brushing over my arm, skimming my waist, pressing lightly at the curve of my hip. Every place he touches feels branded, claimed, no longer mine.
I tell myself to resist, to shove him back, but instead I shiver. My body betrays me again and again, flinching not from fear but from want. His nearness, his heat, the way his breath grazes my check, it’s unbearable, intoxicating, and very wrong.
The room feels smaller now, like the walls are bending inward. The air is thick with him, threaded through every inhale until there’s no space left for me. I don’t know where my skin ends and his begins.
He tilts my face toward the mirror. My reflection stares back, wide eyes, parted lips, panic etched into every line. But I don’t see just me. I see him there too, shadow and light, our outlines bleeding into each other. Two figures blurred into one. His obsession has swallowed me whole, and my reflection proves it.
A tear slips down my cheek, and he catches it with his thumb before it can fall. Tender. Reverent. Like I’m both prey and beloved. It makes my chest ache with something I can’t name.
I realize then that resistance isn’t strength anymore, it’s futility. Fighting him feels like pushing against the tide. No matter how hard I struggle, I’ll be dragged under.
And maybe the most terrifying truth is that a part of me… doesn’t want to come up for air.
Because I’m not afraid of what he’ll do if I stay.
I’m afraid of what I’ll become if he ever lets me go.
New Comeback? New series. Welcome to The 8 Sins, where each member is cursed by a different core desire, a raw human compulsion taken too far. It's a little dark romance-ish. Please proceed with caution and read the trigger warnings before! Love you all.
Synopsis: You found a savior in Bang Chan. He stepped into your storm and offered you a quiet, warm place to land. He told you he'd keep you safe , and for a while, you felt it.
But safety has a price. What starts as locked doors for your protection becomes a key turned by him alone. His gentle questions about your day become check-ins that track your every move. His soft smiles become a quiet demand for your time, your attention, and your entire world.
Trigger Warnings: Psychological Manipulation & Emotional Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome/Trauma bonding
I don’t remember the last time I felt like I could breathe. Every day was noise, raised voices, empty promises, the kind of hands that held me only to push me down again. Loneliness was its own kind of chokehold, and I’d gotten used to carrying like a second skin.
And then there was him.
Christopher stepped into my storm as if he’d been waiting for me all along. His voice was steady, low, cutting through the chaos like it was nothing. When his hands brushed my wrist, I almost pulled back, but he didn’t grip me, no. He guided me. Gentle, certain, like he already knew I’d follow.
“You don’t have to stay there anymore,” he told me. His tone was so sure it felt dangerous to doubt him. “Not when I can keep you safe.”
Something inside me cracked at those words. I wanted to believe him. I needed to.
He didn’t press me with questions when my hands shook, didn’t demand I explain the mess I was running from. He only looked at me like I was something precious, like if he blinked too long, I might disappear. That gaze felt heavier than any chain I’d even worn, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away.
The door shut behind me, locking out the shouting, the suffocating stares, the weight of being unwanted. His apartment was quiet. Warm. The kind of place that felt like it had been waiting for me to arrive. I sank into his couch, and he stayed close – close enough that his words brushed against my skin.
“You’re safe now,” he whispered. “No one gets to hurt you here.”
And for the first time in forever, I felt it. Salvation. The kind that comes wrapped in someone else’s arms.
I didn’t notice, not then, that he never said you’re free.
It started small. So small I almost didn’t notice.
The first time I heard the door lock click behind me, I told myself it was just instinct, everyone locks their doors at night. But Chan always made a point of doing it himself, turning the key with a finality that sent a shiver down my spine. For your safety, he said when he caught me watching. No one gets in. No one touches you here.
I wanted to believe it. I did believe it. Still, the sound of that lock lodged itself inside my chest, heavier than I expected.
Then came the check-ins.
Text me when you get home.
Call me before bed so I know you’re okay.
Let me know when you’re done with class.
His voice was always so warm when he said it, threaded with concern that made me feel guilty for even thinking twice. He smiled when my phone buzzed in his hand, his thumb brushing over the screen like he was proud of me for listening.
“I just worry,” he’d say.
And how could I argue with that? No one had worried before. Not like him.
The words started to change after that.
You don’t need anyone else. I’ll take care of you.
They don’t understand you the way I do.
Why waste your time with people who make you feel small when you could be here, with me?
Every sentence sounded like a promise. Every promise felt like a chain.
But I let it happen. Because the way he looked at me – like I was the only thing in his world that mattered – made it too easy to forget the way the locks clicked, or the way his hands hovered just a little too long when he took my phone to “check if everything was okay.”
I told myself it was love. That love was supposed to feel like safety.
Even when it started to feel a little like possession.
Somewhere along the line, my world stopped belonging to me.
It happened so quietly I almost didn’t notice. A canceled dinner here, a late reply to a message there. My friends’ name lit up my phones less and less until the silence became normal. When I asked Chan if he thought I should reach out, he tilted his head and smiled, soft as always.
“Why would you want to spend time with people who don’t treat you the way you deserve?” His thumb traced my cheek, his eyes warm and unyielding. “You have me now. Isn’t that enough?”
It sounded like devotion. It felt like worship. So again, I told myself, it was love.
But little by little, my life bent around him. He wanted to know when I woke up, when I ate, when I got home. So I don’t worry, he said, pressing his lips to my temple. So I can breathe knowing you’re safe.
And how could I refuse him? The way he spoke made it sound like my silence was cruelty, like withholding myself from him was the same as hurting him.
So I let him shape my days. My mornings began with his good-morning texts, my evenings ended with his voice murmuring sleep well, love, into the phone. Any gap between us filled him with unease, and I found myself rearranging, rescheduling, reshaping… until I was always where he wanted me to be.
“You don’t have to carry anything alone anymore,” he whispered one night, his arms caging me against his chest. “I’ll take care of every part of you. Every breath, every heartbeat… you’re mine to protect.”
The words should have frightened me. Instead, they melted like honey against my skin. His love didn’t just hold me. It consumed me, seeped into every corner of my life until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
I told myself I was lucky to be loved this deeply.
But sometimes, when the door locked behind us and his hand rested heavy at the small of my back, I wondered if love was supposed to feel this much like surrender.
That brings us to the present moment, my back against the wall, my chest heaving, and Chan standing so close I can feel the heat of his body caging me in.
“I need space,” I say, but the words sound pathetic, small, swallowed whole by the low thunder of his breathing. My palms flatten against the wall behind me like I’m bracing for impact, like I already know he won’t let me go.
His eyes search mine, dark and burning, and when he speaks, his voice is soft. Too soft.
“You need space?” His hand comes up, cupping my jaw, thumb bruising my cheek like he’s soothing me. “Sweetheart, I’m the only reason why you’re still breathing at all.”
The words ripple through me, shameful heat curling low in my stomach. I shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t melt into his touch. But every nerve in my body trembles with the contradiction and fear of craving.
He presses forward, chest against mine, and I swear I can feel his heartbeat pounding like it belongs inside my ribs. His forehead touches mine, his lips so close they ghost against mine when he whispers, “You think leaving me will save you? You think space will make you whole again?”
“Chan…” My voice cracks, the name breaking like a confession.
His other hand slides down, fingers wrapping around my throat. Not squeezing, just resting. His palm is warm, his grip steady, reverent, almost worshipful, but the promise is there: every breath I take belongs to him.
“I gave you a home inside my ribs,” he says, voice low and ragged. “I let you curl up inside me, where nothing could touch you. And you don’t get to walk away just because you’re afraid of how much I love you.”
My knees weaken, and before I can collapse, his arm snakes around my waist, hauling me against him. My body collides with his, his heat searing through the thin layers between us. His hold is unrelenting, possessive, the kind of touch that pins me in place without giving me the chance to resist.
“I don’t want your distance,” he breathes into my ear, his lips grazing the shell of it, sending a shiver racing down my spine. “I want all of you. Every thought. Every heartbeat. Every fucking breath. You’re mine to protect, mine to keep, mine to worship. Mine, Y/N. Do you understand?”
I should scream, push him away, shove the word no into the space between us. But my body betrays me. Heat blooms beneath my skin, my chest rising against his with every ragged inhale, and when his thumb strokes lazily against the hollow of my throat, my head tilts back without permission.
His mouth hovers over mine, trembling with restraint, and when he finally kisses me, it isn’t gentle. It’s a vow – hungry, consuming, claiming. His teeth catch my lower lip, his hand pressing harder at my waist as if he could fuse me into him entirely.
“You don’t need anyone else,” he murmurs against my mouth, kissing me again, harder. “You don’t need anything else. I’m all you ever need.”
The lock on the door clicks somewhere in the distance, soft and final. I know what it means. I know what I’ve allowed to happen.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes burning with desperation and devotion that terrifies me, that thrills me.
“I’d burn the world before I let it take you from me,” he swears, voice breaking like it comes from the very core of him. His grip tightens on my throat, not to hurt, never to hurt, but to remind me. To brand me. To make sure I know.
And in this present moment, pressed between the wall and his body, my freedom slipping like smoke through my fingers, I realize the truth: He isn’t saving me anymore.
He’s claiming me.
“I can’t…” The words come out broken, trembling against his mouth. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.” His lips trace the line of my jaw, his breath hot against my skin. “You don’t need to be afraid. You don’t need to run. Just let me love you the way no one else ever could.”
My heart shatters, slamming against my ribs so violently it almost hurts, but when his hand presses there, palm firm over my chest, I realize he feels it too. His eyes blaze, possessive and reverent all at once, as though my heartbeat is proof of everything he’s claimed.
“You belong here,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to mine. “Inside me. With me. Always.”
Something inside me breaks, not with resistance, but with release. The fight drains out of me like water spilling through open fingers, leaving only the raw ache of want, of need, of surrender. My hands, traitorous, curl into the fabric of his shirt, dragging him closer until there’s no spice left at all.
“I’m yours,” I breathe, the confession ripped from somewhere deeper than fear, deeper than reason.
His entire body shudders, as if those words were the air he’s been starving for. His hand tightens on my waist, the other cradling my throat, holding me like I’m both sacred and already ruined.
“You don’t know what that does to me,” he murmurs, voice trembling, desperate. His lips find mine again, a kiss that’s both worship and branding, slow and consuming until I’m dizzy from it.
Every inch of me bends into him – his mouth, his touch, his devotion that feels like fire licking through my veins. And for the first time, I don’t resist. I lean into it, let myself drown into it, let his possession curl around me like a crown instead of a chain.
Because maybe love isn’t meant to be freedom. Maybe it’s meant to be surrender.
And as his arms lock around me, unyielding and eternal, I know the truth. I will never escape him. And I no longer want to.
Possession isn’t just his sin. It’s his love, his vow, his curse. And now, it’s mine too.
To anyone who was at the DC Stray Kids concert — I hope you’re safe. Please take care of yourselves.
I’ve been seeing reports of fans passing out because of the heat, and I’m honestly heartbroken and furious. This shouldn’t be happening. This isn’t normal.
Extreme heat isn’t just “uncomfortable.” It can cause heat exhaustion, dehydration, and heatstroke — all of which are incredibly dangerous. And yet, people are saying staff were annoyed when fans needed help? That they were more focused on selling $11.50 bottles of water than providing basic medical assistance?
That is beyond unacceptable. It’s predatory. And it’s deeply irresponsible.
At events with thousands of people — especially during a heatwave — the bare minimum should include free water access, shaded rest zones, and staff trained to respond immediately to emergencies. Fans should never feel like a burden for needing help. They should never be made to feel guilty or dramatic for their body shutting down in dangerous conditions.
What makes it even more upsetting is that so many people at these shows are young. Some are anxious. Some are afraid to speak up. Some might not even recognize the signs of heat exhaustion until it’s too late. It’s the venue’s job — and the promoter’s — to make sure these spaces are safe.
This isn’t on the artists. This is on the infrastructure behind them — the people running the venue, the security, the staff who are supposed to be prepared for this exact kind of thing. If they can’t guarantee safety, they shouldn’t be hosting shows in these conditions. Period.
To anyone who was there: I hope you got water. I hope someone looked out for you. I hope you got home safe.
To anyone going to future shows: please hydrate. Please check in with your body. And if you see someone struggling — speak up for them. We have to protect each other when the people in charge won’t.
Sending love, strength, and safety to every single fan dealing with this tonight. You deserve so much better. 🖤
