Duplicitous [Chapter 5: Mole]
It’s been SO long since I’ve posted a fic, let alone updated for Duplicitous. The last two years have sucked the life out of me, and I’m just now in a place where I’m feeling creatively inspired again. Expect updates for this story, I don’t plan on letting this baby go anytime soon! As I mentioned in a standalone post, I have edited all previous chapters of this story and tweaked some of the plot points. If you want a detailed explanation as to why I did this, please check out my post.
AO3 link: here
Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 (coming soon)
Pairing: Jungkook x named OC (Oh Nari), Jooheon x named OC (Oh Nari)
Genre: Mafia au, multigroup (Bangtan and Monsta X focused. A few other idols mentioned.)
Word Count: 15,257
Warnings: Mentions of guns and knives, alcohol use, smoking, Taehyung has a Hard Time, mentions of death, mentions of of gore, toxic relationships, (attempted) emotional manipulation, as usual Jooheon is a massive piece of shit, some moments of fluff :’)
Fic Summary: For the past eight years, Oh Nari has not existed. Instead of being a person, she has been a shadow eternally indebted to the Monsta X crime family for getting her off the streets and away from her murderous father. But when using her skills in covert operations to help take down a rivaling mafia known as Bangtan, information comes to light that changes everything she’s ever known. Loyalties are tested, alliances are formed, and lives are at stake as Nari fights for family, truth, and freedom from the duplicitous life she’s been forced to live.
Chapter Summary: Nari learns life changing information. Teahyung reveals what happened the night of Leah’s death. Things take a turn with Nari and Jungkook.
Nari felt like she was going to throw up the entire flight home.
Paranoia gnawed at her like a starving hound, made her stomach churn as she sat silently curled up in one of the luxurious leather seats of their private jet. Her back was rod straight and her eyes flitted anxiously from face to weary face. No one gave her a second look. Not even Yoongi as he stretched out across his seat, shoes tucked in the compartment under his seat and sock clad feet barely hanging off of the foot rest.
Had he not told anyone after they parted ways to pack up?
Her brows furrowed as she blankly stared at him resting so unperturbed in the beige oasis that was the cabin. Baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Arms crossed as he dozed. He was a cat stretched belly up in the sun. Relaxed. Unbothered. Why wouldn’t he immediately gather the others and let them know that she was a rat? That she was the mole? The second he had suspicions that anyone else was against them, he would have done that. He did do that. It just didn’t make sen--
She jumped when Jimin slid into the seat across the table from her.
Stunned and wide eyed, she expected him to scream at her. To confront her about everything she knew to be true--that she was the one who unknowingly got Kim killed, that she was the one who should have died instead of Son. That the basis of her entire relationship with Bangtan was built on a foundation of lies. She expected him to yell until he was red in the face and those veins bulged in his forehead and neck and spit gathered in the corners of his mouth. Her heart was a cold, unforgiving hand wrapped around her throat.
Jimin cleared his throat and awkwardly scratched at his nose. Shifting in the seat, he licked his lips and looked at her with the softest eyes she’d ever seen on him. “I...um…”
His nervous chuckle made her blink in surprise. “Well. Tonight was...intense.”
He didn’t know.
“Yeah,” she managed to say with a steady voice. Her small smile felt stiff. Fake. Because it was. “It was definitely something, that’s for sure.”
“And on top of that shit with Monsta X, you busted your face,” he half teased. “At least the meeting with Zhang went well. Now Choi will be off our asses.”
Oh fuck. Oh no. Oh fuck.
“I--”
“Yoongi told us about what happened.” He winced as he shamelessly eyed the cut on her brow and the darkening bruise billowing out around it.
She froze. So they did know? Why would they--
“The timing had to have been perfect for that.”
She hummed with a nod and a plastic smile. Palms sweaty and heart hammering in her chest. “Yeah. It hurt like a bitch, too. What’d...What’d Yoongi say about it?”
Jimin’s angelic face broke out into a full on, blinding smile as he bent one knee and hugged it to his chest. He hadn’t smiled at her like that since she seduced him at the Galaxy. “He said he came to find you in the bathroom and tell you that we were about to get changed and head home, and he opened the door just as you were about to walk out and ended up hitting you. Said he felt like shit, since you just essentially saved Tae’s life and handled that shit on your own.”
So….he lied. For her? Yoongi lied about her injuries? Why? Why would he do that when she deserved to be ripped limb from limb?
Maybe he just wanted to keep things stable until they were on their home turf. She suspected that as soon as they walked through the door, he would expose her for what she was. And as terrified as she was, she couldn’t blame him. Not in the slightest. He trusted her and gave her this opportunity with the hope and confidence that she would make them even more successful than they already were. She betrayed him.
“Which is kind of… well..” Coffee colored eyes fell to the table as his full, pillowy lips curled in an uncertain grin. “Um...I… I’m not good at this, Jesus--”
When he looked back up at her, she couldn’t help but stare back at him curiously with her brows knitted together and her face twisted in confusion.
“Nari…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think I owe you an apology.”
“Wh...what?” She nearly choked, head tilting slightly as she leaned a bit closer.
“I’ve been a dick to you since you got here.” His grin widened, flustered. If she looked close enough she could’ve sworn his cheeks grew pink, that faint flush of color spreading like strokes of watercolor paints. Like a freshly blooming peony. If she didn’t know him personally, she would never have believed that he had taken the lives of countless men into his own capable hands. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the Serpent that convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. As dangerous as he was, Nari still couldn’t wrap her mind around it when he looked so cherubic.
His smile faded as he forced himself to swallow the lingering, bitter taste of the anger he tried to hang on to for so long. “Tonight you… I dunno, tonight you stepped in and made sure to diffuse the situation. That’s not something most people in our line of work do. Most people like us just...they just react. Guns blazing, knives out, ready to kill the first person who pushes their buttons.”
He was right, she knew that. She knew that better than anyone. If this very situation happened, if she was still with Monsta X, she would’ve slashed their throats and blown their brains out before they even realized she had moved. She wouldn’t have diffused a goddamn thing.
But she was different now. She cared about Bangtan differently than she had cared about anyone since her mom died. And it was all so fucked. She was so fucked.
“You kept him from getting himself killed,” Jimin murmured, quiet enough that Taehyung wouldn’t hear him from where he was curled up and facing away from everyone. He hadn’t spoken a word since Nari instructed Jimin to take him back to his room, but he most certainly threw her a withering glare as they made their way out of the hotel. “He’s my best friend. I’m...I’m thankful that you stepped in like you did. Anything we would’ve done would have just made things worse.”
He was...thankful?
“Don’t thank me.” She let her fake, brittle mask fall away. Seriousness made her tone heavy. “Really. I just...I was just trying to keep everyone safe. I’ve seen a lot in my time as a hitwoman, and guys like Jooheon just want to raise hell. Wanna keep slicing until they hit that soft spot so they can watch you bleed.”
He shrugged. “Still. We’re safe because you acted fast and restrained Taehyung.”
Nari didn’t want to accept the compliment. She wanted, much to the more logical part of her brain’s dismay, to tell the truth for once. She wanted to own up to her shit. A part of her found comfort in the promise of well deserved punishment. She deserved to be crucified for putting them all in danger. Every day she lived in that house, the day Jooheon would undoubtedly burst through the door with all of Monsta X to slaughter them crept closer and closer.
Maybe they’d do a drive by. Just get it over with.
Unwanted images of their inevitable demise flashed behind her eyelids. Of them crumpled in heaps on the floor, half their skulls missing and their blood shining on the linoleum of Sejin’s like a menacing lake. Jaws slack, skin too pale. Shards of glass and debris scattered around their slowly stiffening bodies.
The mental image of Jungkook’s empty, glassy, unseeing eyes made her sweat.
She forced herself to send Jimin an appreciative nod.
He left without saying much else, but soon Jungkook came and took his place. He settled into the seat across the table from her and reclined back in it, a small and thoughtful smile spreading across his face. Seeing him alive and well calmed her uneasy stomach and racing heart.
He looked exhausted but ethereal. Hair grown far past his cheekbones and messy like he’d just pulled his sweatshirt over his head and run out of his and Hoseok’s hotel room without a second thought. The oversized hoodie hid his sculpted chest and arms, made him look smaller and softer. The ghosts of dark circles were just beginning to show beneath his doe eyes, that all too familiar sleepy pout etched into his rosebud lips.
He didn’t praise her. Didn’t comment on the damage to her face. He was just there, a warm and familiar comforting presence. He knew her well enough to know that she didn’t want to talk in that moment. But she could tell from the tightness around his eyes that he wanted to check on her. He wanted to ask a million questions, wanted to know what really happened. If she was okay. But he didn’t. He simply passed her a bottle of water before laying back to stretch out just enough to prod her knee once with his Pokemon-themed sock covered foot.
When he closed his eyes, relief flooded Nari’s chest at the silence that settled like fresh fallen snow. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to be praised or thanked. She wished Yoongi would have told them the truth about her. She wished Jungkook knew. She wished everyone knew. She hated not knowing what game he was playing.
But at least she was prepared to lose. She could handle not knowing the game, as long as Bangtan won.
The air in Yoongi’s office was frigid. Stagnant. Jooheon’s office was cold--icy even. But it was like the unwavering chill of permafrost. Constant. Yoongi’s cold was a deadly frost sweeping across the world while you slept.
She sat in his desk chair, heart flopping helplessly against her ribcage. Her hands tucked themselves between her bouncing legs.
She barely had time to put her bag on her bed before he was knocking on her door and telling her to follow him down to his office. His tone was...unreadable. Not angry. Not clipped. If anything, he sounded almost gentle. No tightness around the eyes. He was just Yoongi.
He leaned back against his desk, towering over her and making her feel microscopic.
Being inside that room with him felt like being inside a vacuum. Soundless, breathless. Even her thoughts felt too loud in the thundering silence as they stared at each other, waiting for the other to speak.
He didn’t. He watched. Calculated. Nari could feel him dismantling her bit by bit, wearing her down. Taking her apart, taking notes, and putting the pieces back where he found them. She could feel it as if he were doing it with his own hands. She was a specimen to be studied.
“Why aren’t I in the warehouse right now?” She pressed, quiet but fierce. She couldn’t take the silence any longer. His smirk sparked heat in her stomach, annoyance she couldn’t stomp out with the toe of her boot. “Why haven’t you gathered everyone yet? Why am I not dead yet?”
“Do you want to be?” He tilted his head, brows lifting beneath his fringe. A glimmer of amusement shone in his onyx eyes.
She couldn’t fight the scowl curling at her mouth. “I’d rather get this over with than drag it out. We both know what you saw--”
“What did I see, Nari?” He crossed his ankles and settled into the dark wood of his desk. All too comfortable with this game.
Her lips pressed into a tight line. She didn’t want to say it. Before that moment, she expected him to just drag everyone to the warehouse and wipe her off the planet. She hoped for that.
Her jaw clenched. “What do you want me to say, Yoongi? That I got drilled by Jooheon two minutes before you came in? That we had sex, that--that I’ve--”
“That was more than just sex,” he dumbfoundedly scoffed, satoori dripping from his every word. His eyes narrowed. “He nearly fucking killed you, you idiot.”
She ran a hand through her hair, eyes widening in disbelief as she gestured wildly. “Why does that matter? Why does that matter to you when I’ve been the mole this entire time--?!”
“I know,” he gritted out, glancing at the office door. “I’ve known since the beginning that you were a mousy piece of shit, you rat. How stupid do you think I am?”
She recoiled. Had she been that transparent? Was she that bad at her job?
He chuckled, eyes tearing away from hers as he scratched at his jaw. “Surprised?”
“How did you know?”
He shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t just show your face and expose yourself after all that time unless there was an ulterior motive behind it. I was curious. So I took a shot in the dark and waited to see what it hit.”
Her mouth was cotton and sand. “You knew from the beginning?”
“I had my suspicions. They were just confirmed when you went and met Jooheon. Not to mention, my desk chair was out of place after your little attempt at digging up information.”
She silently cursed his perceptive eye.
“You had me tailed.” She all but growled, fingers digging into the arms of his chair.
His smug grin made her bristle. “I tailed you myself. If my suspicions were wrong, I didn’t want to cause any tension or distrust with the guys. Couldn’t risk anyone talking and word reaching the rest of the group. But I was right. As usual.”
Months. He’d known for months. She’d been tiptoeing around like a fucking fool, and the whole time he knew everything. He kept up the whole fucking act, even killed one of his own men for no reason. Kept his closest men in the dark.
A tense, angry quiet settled over them as she struggled to smother the prideful work ethic throwing a tantrum in her mind.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Her nostrils flared as she ran her hand down her face.
“Because of how you reacted to killing Son.”
“That was three days ago. I’ve been here for months. Why the fuck would you kill Son if you knew it was my fault?”
His cocky expression faded and melted into an odd twist to his pink mouth. His gaze dropped to the floor as he unfolded his arms and gripped the edge of the desk. “Son had been stealing from me and talking shit for I don’t even know how long. I’m not happy about it, but it had to be done. Just a two birds, one stone kinda situation.”
He took a moment and let the truth settle in their bones. His eyes were staring past the office and into memories of when he first met Nari. “I wanted to keep an eye on you. See what Jooheon was planning. And those other fuckers. My gut told me you’d change alliances.”
“Why?”
“Because of Jungkook,” he replied, a frustrated edge to his voice. “Because every time he’s part of the equation, you let your guard down. Because the more time you spend around him, the more human you get.”
She simmered. Furious. She did not. She was more professional than that. She’d never let a man sway her alliances.
But she did. She did with Jooheon, and now she was doing the same thing with Jungkook. Was she really that easy to manipulate? Was she that easily driven by men?
No. Jooheon manipulated her. Jungkook softened her. There was a difference. Yoongi was right. Jungkook was a weakness, she’d known that from the beginning. He changed her. They changed her.
Yoongi shook his head slightly, sucking on his teeth with a hiss. “I am surprised that the Dragon has kept such a distance from you, though. As much money as he’s poured into your training, I’d assume he would be on your ass.”
Nari wheezed with a punched out breath. The mere mention of his name made her lungs tighten. He was the noose around her neck, cinching tighter with every wretched memory replaying through her mind.
The blood drained from her face in a sickening chill. “What?”
He looked at her from the corner of his eye and took in her rattled appearance. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?” Her voice was a breathy, shaky rasp.
She was standing in her living room again. Years prior. Heart skipping and fingers trembling and numb as she looked on at her father. Everything in slow motion. Everything frozen, hands of the clock hovering motionless in stunned fear. She was looking on at her mother, icy, deadly gunmetal kissing the pale skin of her forehead. Her father’s mouth twisted into a wolfish smile. It was all happening again. She was helpless--almost eighteen and powerless. Defenseless. Everything painted red.
The low rumble of Yoongi’s voice made her snap back to reality, sweat prickling at the back of her neck and her breaths ragged.
He made his way over and reached over her to log in to his desktop. The blue light of the monitor illuminated his face as he typed away, eyes tense with concentration. He clicked on the file. The password protected file.
After typing in the code, he tapped on the screen with a finger and looked down at her. “You mean to tell me you didn’t know about this?”
A picture. Two men lounging at a club, both with drinks in front of them. Clearly in a deep discussion as dancers and scantily clad women traipsed around with trays of more drinks. There was no denying that it was Jooheon and her father. Even if it was dark and a little grainy, she knew those faces anywhere.
It made her stomach twist.
“When was this?” She could hear the clench of her jaw in her voice.
Yoongi crossed his arms. “The night before Kim was found dead.”
No. No. This couldn’t be happening.
“I don’t believe you.”
He knew? Knew all along that it was Jooheon who fucked over their arms deal. Knew what she was. Knew her plan.
If it was true, if Jooheon was working with her father, it made perfect sense as to why he would risk her life and take out Kim. Her father couldn’t have more competition.
He snorted and clicked to the next image. The same club, but a different day according to their change in outfits. His eyes stayed on the screen. “The day after the bank robbery.”
The next photo was in a different location. The very park where she and Jooheon had met. The quality of the picture was startlingly clearer than the previous ones taken from security camera footage--clearly one of Yoongi’s men had followed them and hidden somewhere to take them. “The day before we met at the Galaxy.”
She wanted to throw up. That was the day that she and Jooheon had their last night together. The night where he took her to that lavish Italian restaurant and fucked her senseless when they got home. When she let him touch her and kiss her and feel her. She worshiped him that night, and he let her. He let her do it after meeting with her father, knowing what that monster did to her. To her mother. Not a flicker of guilt or remorse on his face.
Yoongi clicked through the contents of the file. Photos, call logs, text messages, even bank statements. All available thanks to none other than Kim Taehyung, Nari guessed. Her father had been paying Jooheon off for years.
The last photo in the album--the first photo, chronologically--made her eyes burn.
The same Italian restaurant that Jooheon often took her to. Her father sat across from him, his hands steepled in front of his face. He always did that when he talked business.
The date was stark white against the low lighting of the photo. January 15, 2014. That was just a few short days after she fled to Korea. Maybe two weeks after she turned eighteen. She was still on the streets then.
“Do you really think it was coincidence that someone in the same field as your father just happened to find you and recruit you?” Yoongi lowly said, eyes hard and glinting with a look Nari couldn’t quite put her finger on. “He’s power hungry and greedy--he wanted as much of a guarantee for success as possible. What better way to do that than to become an illusionist? Watch one hand while the other slits your throat.”
She couldn’t move. Frozen. “What are you saying? Why do you even have all of this?”
“I’m saying that Monsta X has been the face of your father’s operation. Jooheon’s men take the fall when things go south, while your father’s men do the heavy lifting behind the scenes.” He enunciated every word, every syllable, like he wanted each one to cut. “Monsta X is the face, and Lotus is the fucking brain.”
The world spun. Tilted harsh and unforgiving before her very eyes. She’d been working for her father since she was eighteen years old. She’d been killing for him. Stealing for him. Committing sins--unforgivable, nightmare inducing sins that had begun haunting her more and more after her conscience arose from its dormancy. All she’d been doing was his bidding, following his orders. Jooheon was merely the messenger. Everything she’d known was a lie. Everything she said she would never be, she became overnight.
“Don’t worry. No one knows that you’re the Dragon’s daughter but me.” Yoongi rolled up his sleeves. “I’ve been accumulating this information for years because I knew there would be a time when Lotus would try to eliminate us. Bangtan hasn’t always been a threat, but now we are. And clearly your father predicted that, and wanted someone he could train specifically to get rid of us. Taehyung hacked what I told him to hack, found everything I asked him to look for. But I made sure to keep you out of the eye of the others. Because I knew they would want to kill you. You know Jimin and Hoseok. They’d want to find a way to kill you before you ever snuck in. I thought it would be best to wait. Because if we waited, we could either turn you and use your information, or I could kill you myself.”
Yoongi knew what she was and plotted her death in case he couldn’t turn her. He manipulated her, too. But his manipulation didn’t feel like Jooheon’s. It didn’t feel like the cold, biting prick of a blade edging her towards a certain way of thinking.
Her mind drifted back to the day that Jooheon found her. He strolled up to her shivering body with purpose. On a mission. Somehow, he seemed taller than all the bright and shining buildings towering around them. His confidence was an entity of its own, added what felt like ten feet to his height. Power radiated from him in waves, and she was immediately awestruck.
Back then she thought he chose her because he had been watching, because he thought she was everything he needed--that Monsta X needed. It seemed too good to be true, too perfect even then. Him with his designer suits and shining shoes that reflected the helpless, cornered girl that she was in the glint of their leather. But she never let herself think about the truth that stared her in the face. Because that meant that there was no escaping him. There was no freedom, no getting out of this lifestyle. There would be no peace. Her father would always find her.
Jooheon lied to her. There was no love. There had never been a relationship. Every single moment with Lee Jooheon was a ploy to manipulate her and further her father’s agenda. For money, for power. The few good memories, although sterile even when she was blissfully ignorant, were lies. The words he whispered to her as they made love were poison meant to weaken her enough to comply without question. The reason she had been so tightly woven in Jooheon’s clutches was because she was meant to be.
Nari’s gaze was focused on Yoongi, unwavering. Hardening with each passing second. “So you’re not killing me?”
“Not unless you ask me to,” he softly muttered.
“What does all of this mean for my position in Bangtan?” The almost excited, furious sharpness to her tone made his lips curl at the corners.
“Well,” he smirked, chuckling with a slight tick of his head. “How committed are you to eliminating this threat, Nari?”
Her eyes glowed. “I want to watch the light leave Lee Jooheon’s eyes.”
Yoongi grinned then. Pride showed through the subtle cracks in his nonchalant exterior. “Then none of this will affect your position in Bangtan.”
He pushed off the desk and headed towards the door.
“Yoongi,” she called. When he stopped in his tracks, fingers wrapped around the knob, she bit back a cold half-smile. “I’m pulling the trigger.”
Jungkook lured Nari into the soft glow of his bedroom before she could slink past undetected. All it took was the soft, honeyed way he called her name as she left Yoongi’s office for her to follow the sound and shut the door quietly behind her. Sora greeted her excitedly at the door, tail wagging and eyes bright. Her happy bark got Jungkook’s attention more than Nari’s presence. When he looked up from his phone, concern creased his brow, made his gaze heavy as his kind eyes locked on her bruising face.
There were a few beats of stunned silence as she stood, awkward and still overwhelmed from her conversation with Yoongi, in the middle of his room. He looked like he had so much to say, so much he wanted to ask. Understandable, considering she truly did look like she’d been chewed up and spit out.
Although there was no malice in his stare, it still made Nari’s stomach dip with guilt. The weight of it was a coin free-falling down a well, finally breaking the water’s surface at the bottom with a light plunk. She lied to him for people who didn’t give a shit about her, for people who just saw her as a pawn. For people who wanted him and the rest of Bangtan dead. By the look in his eyes, it was obvious that he knew the excuses for her injuries were less than truthful. He deserved better. She wanted to be better.
As she broke the frozen atmosphere and slid into bed next to him, he pulled back the covers to make room. As always, he was a human furnace. She didn’t realize she was cold until she was pressed thigh to thigh with him and nearly melting.
He was quiet, contemplative. Despite being a grown man, there was something childlike about the way he was sitting cross-legged in the sheets and how he ruffled his dog’s golden fur as she jumped onto the bed to nudge his face with her head. Strong, tattooed arms hugged a pillow to his chest. Something about it made her chest ache in a way she didn’t know how to process.
Curling up on her side and peering up at him through her lashes, she bit back a chuckle at the look of absolute worry plaguing his handsome features. “Stop it.”
“I’m not doing anything.” His slow, lopsided, lazy grin seemed to make the world stop turning. “I’m just thinking.”
“A lot of good that’s done us tonight.”
“Does it hurt?” It was immediate. Like he’d been holding it in for hours. Like it had been gnawing at him.
She doubted he meant the sting of betrayal. The reminder of her wound had the raw, aching skin throbbing as she nodded. “Yeah. Jin hooked me up with a couple of little stitches at the hotel before we left. Nothing serious, I’m fine. Just have a headache is all.”
His silence was anything but quiet, Nari could nearly hear how quickly his thoughts flipped through questions like a revolving door.
“Are you okay?” He was almost hesitant to ask. After seeing her handle pain, sadness, and discontent in a variety of ways, his least favorite way to see her was masking that pain. He knew she was hiding something, he just wasn’t sure what. “Tonight was scary.”
Humming and scratching at her nose, she avoided his gaze and instead traced the ink that decorated his arm. “Of course I’m okay.”
“Yoongi didn’t just hit you with the door.” Doe eyes flickered to her injury. “Did he?”
“Why do you wanna know?” She joked. “Jealous? I mean, I get it. He’s a good looking guy. I’d probably want to be me, too, if I were in your shoes. Beautiful man all worried and in a tizzy over me.”
His lack of response made the smile melt off of her face and twist into a sour purse. Her fingers never stilled, still trailing along his tattoos. “No. He didn’t.”
“What happened?” His voice was soft, but there was a hidden edge--something in the vicinity of fear, maybe just west of it. When she didn’t respond, he wrapped his fingers around hers to deprive her of the one distraction offered her when his face was so damn close to hers. “Nari?”
She couldn’t tell him, not yet. Not without Yoongi by her side, anyway. Not only was it risky because she was unsure of how he would react or if he would tell everyone else, she was also ashamed. The longer she spent away from Monsta X, the more she realized that she didn’t like the person she had become. The things she’d done were terrible even for those in the mafia. Yes, Jooheon and her father had done a fair bit of work to instill fear when people heard her name, but she had to hold herself accountable for the sins she willingly agreed to commit for the same reason.
Mouth curling into a scowl, she tried to hold back the frustration in her tone. “Why do you want to know? Why do you care, anyway? I’m a big girl, Jungkook, I don’t need you to worry over me all the time.”
Hurt toed along the edges of his expression. The sharpness that hardened his sweet voice made her shrink--she didn’t like seeing someone so good verge on anger because of her. “Why do I care? Nari, we’re friends! Of course I care about you, I-- I know you’re an adult, I know you’re strong and independent. I admire those things about you, but you shoulder all of this shit alone and don’t ever talk about it. I care about you, whether you like it or not.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off in an irritated snap. “Let me finish.”
“We’ve shared a bed together, we’ve talked, we’ve gotten close, hell, I’ve even held you as you cried. I care if you’re hurt, and I care if someone hurt you. You don’t have to like it, that’s fine. But you can’t stop me from being scared shitless when you randomly come back from the bathroom after all that tonight looking like a battered housewife. I gave you space and didn’t say anything on the plane because I knew you needed time, but if-- I mean, did Yoongi--? No one laid a hand on you on that terrace, so something must’ve happened--”
He cared. He truly, genuinely cared. He was kind, and funny, and warm. If she was a snake, then he was the sun protecting her from the creeping cold. He wanted to protect her--even put himself in danger to keep her safe tonight. He was so beautiful, and finally she realized love didn’t have to hurt. It didn’t have to be manipulation and hollow promises.
Her body acted on its own accord. His voice faded to a startled and confused silence when she sat up to be nose to nose with him. Heart galloping in her chest, she hesitantly touched his cheek. When she spoke, her voice was shaking. “Would you still care about me if I kissed you?”
Blinking, his eyes widened. His voice cracked, and had Nari not been so nervous, she might’ve laughed. “I said you couldn’t stop me from caring about you.”
How long had she been wanting to do this? Since that night at the Galaxy? How long had she been ignoring the way Jungkook made her feel just because she was scared that he would treat her like Jooheon did? Thinking back, she supposed part of it was that she was scared of leaving the life she was led to believe was good for her and that she had always known.
Heart hammering, she slowly leaned forward until the tickle of their lips brushing sent a faint chill down both of their spines. The smell of his eucalyptus shampoo and remnants of the cologne that clung to him made her let out a shaky breath. Nerves electric.
Jungkook’s large, warm hand slowly slid up her side, thumb stroking comfortingly through her shirt. If Nari didn’t know better, she would say that he was a little shaky. The tip of his nose grazed hers, eager but hesitant. Waiting for her lead. Almost pleading. Gentle, respectful as all of his touches were and had always been. Wordlessly, he gave the faintest nod, a breath fanning out across her skin, as if he was both giving permission and begging for her touch.
Taking the plunge halted time. His lips were warm and inviting, the soft sigh of relief against her mouth had them both melting into each other. His lip ring’s biting chill stole her breath away. The kiss was tender and slow, like both of them were scared of popping the bubble and overstepping.
Nari was falling. Plummeting through space and time. Finally getting to taste him, to let him in, had her chest aching and twinging. She prayed that he meant what he said and that he wouldn’t hate her after it was over. That he would stay.
Jungkook couldn’t take it anymore, the hesitancy and restraint making his nerves hum with static. Both hands slid up Nari’s arms to cup her face, to hold her closer. To kiss her deeper.
His tongue teased along the seam of her lips, drew a shudder from her and made her heart stutter in her chest. Nari felt the thrum of his pulse beneath her palm when she rested her hand on his neck--racing. Nervous. Excited. He was excited to kiss her, something so gentle made him weak.
Something about it made her feel like she was on fire, threatened to consume her.
Their breaths fanned out across each other’s skin as she pulled back just enough to let her eyes flicker up to his, reeling.
He was pink in the cheeks and ears, eyes somehow both soft and glowing as he looked down at her with pupils blown. Caught between warmth and a sensual pull, an air about him that seemed to shift as her taste lingered on his tongue. He looked sinful, but the purest form of it. Man’s first sin--curiosity. Temptation. Not tainted and corrupted by malice.
Shoulders shaking in a breathless chuckle, he gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. His voice was a low murmur. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Nari took a deep breath, thumb lightly running along his pink lower lip as she gathered her bearings. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, Jungkook.”
Before he could speak, she pressed her lips to his again in a soft, lingering kiss. She pulled away with a wet smack and gave a small smile when his brows furrowed, gaze confused. “I’m okay. That’s all that matters.”
He didn’t move when she got up and made her way out, didn’t say goodnight. Mentally, she swore that she would tell him everything as soon as it was safe.
Nari couldn’t sleep. At the third hour of trying to find shapes and faces in the shadows thrown across the ceiling, she sat up with a sigh. Although it was the witching hour, the house seemed to hold its breath in wait for something. As if anticipating, uneasy. As if the house itself couldn’t find itself able to sleep, either.
On top of things changing between her and Jungkook, knowing that her role in Monsta X and Lotus was what got Leah killed had guilt slithering in her stomach like a bed of snakes. Seeing Taehyung so broken and emotional felt like he was accusing her directly. Of course, she knew that that wasn’t a productive way of thinking. She didn’t know. Jooheon and her teammates kept that from her in an attempt to hide the truth--that Nari was working for her own father. If she had found out…
She thought it over for a moment as she sat staring blankly into her moonlit bedroom.
What would she have done if she found out? Would she have done anything at all? Before starting this job, she was so blinded by Jooheon’s manipulation that she would have believed anything he said. A part of her questioned if she would’ve just stayed and continued to work for her father with no question.
Until Jooheon and her father were rotting, she supposed she still technically worked for her father. She always would, unless she put bullets in their brains. Her father would find her, always. She remembered what happened to her mother when he found out she was trying to leave him.
Kissing Jungkook was a mistake. Getting too involved with him like that just put him in even more danger, it was entirely selfish.
Nari threw her legs over the side of the bed and shivered at the bite of cold hardwood under her feet. If she wasn’t going to sleep, maybe she could at least binge something on Netflix. Maybe get her mind off of the memory of Jungkook’s lips on hers and the way his hands felt on her skin.
But when she slowly, quietly padded into the hallway, she halted in her tracks and stood staring at the sliver of light flickering underneath Taehyung and Namjoon’s door. Normally at this time of night, they would both be asleep--TV acting as a nightlight to protect the younger of the two from the demons under his bed. But the tone of the voices, the lilt in them, the slight waver, made her chest clench in a painful vice.
Taehyung was crying.
Creeping closer to the door and trying to ignore Cheddar happily rubbing between her legs, the wood met her temple with a cool and gentle kiss as she listened in. The voices were muffled, but she could still make out what they were saying.
“Taehyung, it wouldn’t have solved anything. You know that,” Namjoon’s deep voice rumbled.
He sniffled, voice ragged and shaking. “I kn-know. I know. But I just-- He took everything from me. It’s just s-so unfair-- Why-- Why does he get to live when Leah’s f-fuckin’--”
He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence before he was taking in a gasp of a breath.
A moment of silence passed before Namjoon spoke again, quieter this time. “You knew what you were signing up for when you joined Bangtan. She knew what she was signing up for when she stayed with you. We made it clear from the jump that there’s always the chance of shit hitting the fan. You remember that conversation.”
“Yeah, but--”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done,” Namjoon insisted slowly, enunciating every word. “There’s nothing you can do. What’s done is done. Killing Jooheon won’t bring Leah back.”
It won’t bring her back. But it’d feel good. It’d make Taehyung feel good to sink the sharpest blade he could find into that motherfucker’s chest. To scoop his eyes out with a melon baller. To crush his skull with Jimin’s bat. To make him pay.
Nari knocked on their door before she could stop herself.
The soft murmurs halted for a few brief moments. Namjoon opened the door a crack, sharp eyes meeting hers. The half second of silence was deafening.
“Can I talk to him?” She nearly whispered, chest aching.
The nod came after a few heady, thoughtful seconds. His voice was but a low plea breathed out into the dark hallway. “He needs to know that it wasn’t his fault. I...I’ve been telling him. But he needs to hear it from someone else.”
He slipped past her and made his way downstairs without another word.
Taehyung stared at her through the open door, puppy eyes glassy and lips curled over his teeth to hide the way his chin quivered. He looked like a little boy then, broken and in desperate need of reassurance. Like if she even looked at him wrong he would start sobbing. She didn’t even blame him, she would do the same if something happened to the people she loved.
Out of fear of the tremble in his voice, she walked in and shut the door behind her without asking for permission. Neither of them said anything, neither really meeting each other’s eyes as she swayed on her feet. Something in her wouldn’t let her move farther than standing in the middle of the room.
“I’m sorry.” The remorse in her voice was thick enough to cut with a knife.
He didn’t look at her. Just sniffed and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. She almost didn’t hear his response. “Don’t be.”
She bounced a little when she sat down on his mattress, eyes locked on the creases and hills in the twisted sheets.
His eyes were somewhere else, elbows propped on his knees and hands dangling between his thighs. The long wispy curtain of his lashes shone with remnants of tears, lips still swollen and nose red in the flickering glow of the TV. Undoubtedly, he was thinking back. Thinking back to earlier in the night when he first caught sight of that inked dagger on the inside of Jooheon’s wrist. The one that scarred her hip. She wondered what horrors that sight dragged from his memory.
“You know that’s not who I am,” he murmured, quiet and heavy from the weight of his heart. His chocolate eyes gave her a quick glance. “‘M not the kinda guy who...who loses his shit. I don’t know what happened--”
“You got angry.” Her smile was miniscule, just the subtle lift of the corner of her mouth.
Taehyung nodded, overgrown waves falling in his eyes. Clearing his throat, he finally looked at her with eyes that swam with hurt.
“I know this is weird.” He tiredly gestured to Namjoon’s side of the room.
Neither side was impeccably clean, both had a few pieces of dirty laundry strewn across the floor. Taehyung’s side was mostly littered with the clothes from that very night, but the older man’s side of the room was a bit more untidy and lived in.
Namjoon had a mini trash can by his desk that overflowed with crumpled pieces of paper--all failed ideas or angry, emotional letters to people that would never actually be sent. Jungkook once told Nari that was something Namjoon did. Writing letters to people who he was on bad terms with. He said he’d never been a violent guy, but being wrongfully accused of rape and murder and serving time for a crime you didn’t commit changes a person.
Namjoon wrote letters to cope with his anger so he wouldn’t lash out. Tae bottled his up.
Adam’s apple bobbing, he forced away the lump in his throat. “I just-- I couldn’t s-stay in that room. Couldn’t sleep in there. Had...had night terrors ‘n shit.”
She put a comforting hand on his knee. “I don’t blame you. I’d be the same way.”
He was barely hanging on, close enough to tears that they slipped over his waterline and dripped from his eyelashes despite how hard he tried to keep his composure. Large, tan hands trembled as he clasped them tight.
All Nari wanted to do was make it right. She just wanted to right the wrong she helped take part in causing--she wanted justice for Tae. For Leah. And she would get it. At first, all she wanted to do after hearing the truth about Jooheon and her father was kill Jooheon herself. But after seeing and hearing the heartbreak that crippled Taehyung, all she wanted to do was ensure that he got revenge. She wanted to make sure that he got his chance to kill the monster that murdered the love of his life.
“It’s not your fault, Tae,” she softly said, sliding a hand down his forearm to rest on top of his clasped hands. “You couldn’t have changed anything about how it would’ve ended.”
And that was truth. Both her father and Jooheon were unstoppable forces when it came to the family business. If her father told Monsta X to kill Leah, she was dead. There was no saving her.
“You d-don’t know that,” he whimpered, eyes sliding shut and head falling forward so his chin nearly kissed the warm, honey skin of his chest. His phoenix tattoo curled and rippled along the curve of his shoulder with the clench in his muscles as he moved, bright reds and oranges and yellows muted from the glow of late night infomercials. The feathers seemed to brush his collarbone.
“I do know that.”
“No you don’t,” he hiccuped, pitifully wiping at the wetness streaming down his cheeks. “You w-weren’t there-- You don’t know what happened.”
Her throat tightened, eyes threatening to burn.
He took a deep, shaky breath and lifted his head to look at her. “I’d b-been looking into other crime families for Yoongi and j-just giving him all the information I found. I guess I got too close because--”
His handsome face twisted then, too overcome with emotion to finish his sentence.
“You don’t have to talk about it.” She rubbed at his back with what she hoped was a comforting touch. His skin was cool under her palm, soft and smooth. Part of her wondered if she should get him a blanket, but before she could go looking for one, he spoke again.
“That night Leah and I were the only two at h-home. It was so rare, y’know? There were e-eight people living in one house, so she wanted to take advantage of it. I was trying to finish up some work on my laptop downstairs, and she’d been begging me to just slow down ‘n spend time with h-her--” His voice broke at the end of the word, chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath.
Nari could practically see it. The sweet, angelic face of the woman in those pictures, smiling and teasing Tae for working too hard. Maybe pestering him as she tried her best to get his attention. She could see Taehyung’s grin as he batted her away, hear the whine in his voice when he insisted that he was almost finished. For her to be patient. The epitome of domestic love, albeit in an atypical situation.
Taehyung’s shoulders shook as he tried to compose himself enough to speak. “I f-finally caved ‘n followed her upst-stairs. But when we got to the top there w-was this-- Fuck--”
He knotted his hands in his hair, elbows back on his knees as he sobbed at the memories replaying in his mind.
“There was a crash. They just— came r-right through the door.” He sat up, glassy eyes meeting hers in a desperate plea to understand. “I told her to h-hide in the closet-- I thought she’d be safe, Nari! I t-told her to h-hide-- In our cl-oset-- So I g-got my gun-- ‘N-- ‘N I went to see what it was.”
Taehyung’s bone rattling inhale made tears spring up in her eyes. “The guys always tol’ me not to c-call the cops if somethin’ happened, s-so I didn’t. W-why didn’t I j-just call the f-fuckin’ cops--?!”
“Tae…” She reached up to gently wipe at his tears, the slightly stubbly skin of his face burning hot. “You just did what they told you to do--”
Long fingers tightly wrapped around her wrists where she tended to his wet cheeks. “S-someone-- One of ‘em f-fuckin’ pistol whipped me in the back of the head when I turned the c-corner. I just fell like a useless sack of shit, I-- I couldn’t even defend myself--”
“You shouldn’t have had to,” she hushed.
He broke then, a sob wracking his body so hard that he folded forward and rested his forehead on her shoulder. Although he was much broader and larger than her, he seemed so small in that moment. Almost fragile, like he needed to be protected.
She wound her arms around him and squeezed. Maybe if she held him hard and long enough, she could pull his broken pieces back together. Maybe she could ease the ache.
“I w-woke up-- Tied to my desk ch-chair, ‘n they--” She could barely understand him, his sobs nearing full on wails. The pain of remembering was too much, that unforgiving, sharp, and slicing bite of nightmarish memories flashing behind his eyelids in startling clarity.
Long fingers fisted her shirt as he tried to anchor himself, hot tears soaking through the fabric and stuttering breaths huffing out against the skin of her neck. “They m-ade me watch--”
Her blood went cold. Having to watch them kill her. It wasn’t unheard of for that to be a method of punishment for Jooheon--for the mafia in general--but the idea of Taehyung being on the receiving end was like being dunked in an ice bath. She had never taken part in something like that simply because Jooheon wanted her to remain faceless, so she could leave no witnesses. But she would have if he’d told her to. She would’ve done it gladly.
Her stomach twisted.
“Shhhh,” she softly hushed, easing them down to lay on his mattress. Guilt gnawed at her. Had her palms and mouth sweating. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know it hurts--”
He gasped for breath through a slick of tears, drool, and snot. “She was screamin’-- She wouldn’t stop screaming, and they-- There-- Was so much blood-- ‘N-- I couldn’t do anything! It’s my f-fault--!”
She could so vividly see it. The flash of terror in both Tae’s and Leah’s eyes as they realized what was about to happen. She could hear the wet, sickening schlump of Jooheon’s knife as it sank into her flesh. The audible slice of skin, the splatter of blood on the hardwood. She could see in her mind’s eye the way blood would’ve splattered across Taehyung’s face. His lips, nose, and cheeks marred with the stain of his lover’s blood. The way Leah’s face would pale as thee seconds ticked by. She could see the way Jooheon’s eyes would’ve been shining behind his mask, glowing bright and lethal.
She could see it, because she had committed so many sins similar to what was done to Leah. She had spilled so much blood on her own.
“Taehyung, listen to me,” she muttered as she pulled back to hold his burning face. “Look at me. Breathe with me, I need you to listen.”
The wheeze of his struggle to slow his quick and uneven breathing was a deep, phlegmy rattle. When the rise and fall of his chest somewhat matched Nari’s, she nodded at him and held his watery and defeated gaze.
“Good. Now listen to me.” Her tone was almost stern, that slight urgency there to hopefully edge him out of the spiral he was in. “What happened to Leah was horrible. It was absolutely horrific, and I can’t even imagine how guilty you must feel. But there is nothing on this Earth that you could have done to stop it.”
His round eyes welled with tears, swollen and pouting lips parted to speak before she put a gentle finger up to silence him. “Jooheon wanted Leah dead. He wanted to hurt you. You were just doing your job. He decided he was going to kill her to get to you, and you and I both know nothing would’ve changed his mind or stopped him. This is not your fault.”
His lower lip quivered, brows slanting as he took a moment to sniffle through a whimper caught in the back of his throat.
“Do you understand?” She asked.
He nodded.
“I need you to say it out loud.”
“No.”
“Say it.” She pressed, adamant.
The heavy pause between them was filled only by the quiet background noise from the TV and Taehyung’s hesitant squirms.
“Taehyung.” He looked up at her through a thick spray of lashes, sheepish. “Say it. It’s not your fault.”
“‘S not my fault,” he murmured, gaze falling to the sheets.
She fought to meet his eyes. “Louder.”
He pulled his face from her hands with a turn of his head. His mouth twisted in what was a weak, angry, heartbroken snarl as he furiously wiped at his face. “It’s not my fault, okay?! I get it! I know there was nothing I c-could’ve done. But, goddammit! I miss her!”
There he was.
She understood. Blaming himself was easier than to just accept the fact that nothing could have been done. That Leah’s tragic fate was inevitable. She probably understood more than most. She still blamed herself for her mother’s death. For what she prayed she could prevent happening to Bangtan. It was easier than digesting the idea that she was set up to fail from the beginning. That her poor mother was destined to die the moment she stayed with a kingpin.
Sitting up on her elbow, she nodded slowly. “I know you do. And you’re going to miss her every day. But I’m making a promise to you right now, Tae. You’re going to get even. I don’t know how. But I’m going to make it happen.”
His dark eyes hardened. “I’m gonna be pissed if you break that promise.”
“I would never.”
Flopping onto his back, he looked up at the ceiling and fisted his swollen eyes with a groan. “Seeing him tonight… Realizing it was Monsta X who did it… For the longest time, I thought knowing would give me closure. But all it really did was piss me off.”
“Knowing is just knowing. Knowing doesn’t do anything,” she sighed, laying on her back beside him and sliding one of her hands behind her head. “It just gives you more things to hate. More things to wanna rip to shreds.”
He hummed deep in his chest.
They both fell asleep as the sun began to rise.
Nari didn’t want to keep the truth hidden away from Bangtan anymore. She wanted to tell everyone more than anything. Keeping it from them was like a constant stone weighing in the pit of her stomach, a constant heaviness in her bones. She wasn’t sure what telling everyone would do. It would probably cause more problems than solve them. But the guilt was taking its toll on her.
When she brought the idea up to Yoongi as he readied a wire for her to wear to her meeting with Jooheon, he scoffed. “Do you know how fast they would snap your neck?”
Her brows furrowed. “I don’t think they would kill me--”
“Jungkook, Namjoon, and Taehyung wouldn’t kill you,” he corrected. Nimble fingers taped the wire to her bare chest as she stood in the middle of his office in only her bra. “Hoseok and Jimin would lose their minds.”
He was quiet for a brief moment before letting his eyes flicker up to meet hers. “Jin would want to kill you just because of your blood.”
“But I hate my father.”
“Do you think that matters to someone who had their entire family slaughtered by him?” Pale blue bangs fell into his eyes as he finished the last of his taping and shook his head. As he walked over to sink into his desk chair, she pulled her shirt back over her head. “Do you not see how this looks? Yeah, you didn’t know that he conned you into working for him. But convincing them that that is the honest to god truth is going to take time. A lot of time--”
“They deserve to know who’s living under the same roof as them.” She adjusted her collar and gave him a look. “We don’t have time to keep them in the dark, Yoongi. This could all go to shit before they found out. How would we explain ourselves if something bad happened? You’d look just as guilty as me if we don’t tell them.”
Dark brows sat low on his face as he thought it over. The subtle downturn of his sour pout gave away the bitterness burning in the back of his throat.
“If something goes wrong and they find out you’ve known who I am the whole time, the guys would never trust you again.” She crossed her arms. “You can’t run an operation like this without trust, Yoongi. We both know that.”
Rubbing the stubble on his chin, he exhaled through his nose and sucked on his teeth with a hiss. “I’ll think about it. It’s just…there are a lot of people in this family who have been fucked over by your people, Nari--”
“They’re not my people.”
“They were your people.” The relaxed way he leaned back, spineless, in his chair was a stark contrast to the way she fought the irritation of being associated with Lotus. “I mean… Jin and Taehyung both have had the people they loved most stolen from them because of your father. Jimin and Hoseok would never trust you again. That’s over half of our most important men.”
“They deserve to know.”
He waved her off dismissively. “I heard you.”
Before she could say anything else, he took a deep breath and heaved a sigh. “See what you can find out. I trust that you won’t do anything stupid.”
Scowling, she crossed her arms. “Have I done anything stupid up until this point?”
“Well.” He pointedly raised a brow. “You let Jooheon fuck you silly and batter the shit out of you. That pretty little goose egg on your face should be a reminder of that.”
He had a point, but she was bitter about it. The swollen and healing bruise throbbed as she bit her tongue.
“Just don’t get anyone killed.”
The only person that would be dying would be Jooheon. But even that would have to wait until everything fell into place. She couldn’t just kill him, he would have at least one person watching their meeting from afar. To make sure no one interfered. To make sure no one tailed Nari. If only they knew.
The knowledge that her whole existence for the last eight years had been a lie, had been a ploy to trick her into working for her father, made her blood boil even as she made her way towards the door. She trusted Jooheon. She pledged fealty to him, swore that she would do whatever he asked without question. The longer she thought back and remembered their time together, the more she saw just how fake everything was. He lied to her, manipulated her, threatened her, hurt her. He shrank her universe down to the size of a pinhead and made her believe she had the world at her fingertips. It was all a sham, every single bit of it.
Anger swirled in the pit of her stomach as she reached for Jungkook’s keys in the bowl by the door.
Warm fingers wrapped around her wrist just before she could grab them. Jaw clenched, blood pressure spiking, she knew her gaze was cutting when she whipped around to see who dared to stop her.
Jungkook’s doe eyes twinkled with something she couldn’t put her finger on. It disarmed her enough that she had to fight to keep her angry expression. It was useless.
“Why are you touching me?” she nearly whined.
His slight smile stretched wider, gaze soft. “How often are you going to steal my car before you go get your own vehicle like a big girl?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She really didn’t have time for this. Jooheon would have her head if she was late. Tiredly, she scratched at her forehead and sighed, keys in hand. “I just need it for a couple of hours. I’ll get a new one soon, I promise.”
His grin widened further. It infuriated her how handsome he could be without trying. How he could make her heart stutter in her chest. She didn’t want to be lovestruck, she wanted to be furious with Jooheon. But the lopsided way he smiled and her inability to bury the memories of how he tasted made that increasingly difficult.
He knew something she didn’t, and it didn’t help her shitty mood.
“Come with me.”
“Jungkook, I really can’t. I have an appointment--”
“It can wait five minutes.”
He was already traipsing off towards the garage, a happy little skip in his step. Rather than fight him, Nari decided to go along with it.
Before she could pass through the garage door, he turned towards her and gave a sheepish, anxious smile. “Close your eyes.”
“Seriously?” she laughed, rolling her eyes when he moved behind her and shielded her vision himself. Without her sight, her hands automatically drifted out in front of her. “You’re freaking me out a little bit.”
He cautiously began to lead her towards the garage, a breathless giggle sounding just behind her. “Don’t be freaked out.”
She shivered, a faint flush tinging her cheeks.
A moment later he was removing his hands from her eyes. “Ta-da!”
Nari blinked, adjusting to the sudden brightness. Her jaw dropped, eyes widening. “Holy shit--”
A motorcycle. The one she’d been wanting, similar to Tae’s. Matte black and sleek, like something out of Batman.
“Jesus Christ, I kiss you one time and you buy me a fucking motorcycle?!” She choked, whipping around to give him a bewildered look. “Jungkook, what the hell did you do? How much money did you spend on this?”
He shrugged, obviously flustered by the way he fingered at his red ears. “I got tired of you stealing my shit.”
Shaking her head, she crossed her arms. “No. Absolutely not.”
“What do you mean no--?”
“I can’t accept this, Jungkook!” She gestured to the bike just a few feet away. “This isn’t just like-- a fucking bouquet of flowers! This is a lot of money!”
“Nari, I think you’re forgetting that I have money,” he sniggered, baffled. “Like. A lot of it.”
She sent him a look, stern. “What, do I get a yacht if I suck your dick?”
His laugh was loud and unabashed, head throwing back.
She glared at him and took the keys from his hand. “I’m only accepting this because I have to be somewhere important and I’m running late. When I get home, we’re having a serious conversation.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
The world looked so much better when it was smeared before her at high speeds. Like art, like a painting. Shops and neighborhoods were streaks of color, all sounds faded to nothing but the consistent growl of the engine. Everything became so insignificant when she leaned down and zipped through the streets. The fear she felt to see Jooheon again melted away, left behind on the roads of Seoul. Exposed to the elements, she had wings. Riding a motorcycle was liberating, but actually driving one… She felt free for the first time in so long.
The bike below her hummed, nearly purring at finally getting to stretch its muscles. It felt like both an extension of her and its own living entity.
Maybe she would have to thank Jungkook after all.
The park was empty and eerily still. The only person for what felt like miles was Jooheon, dressed in his usual sleek suit and gleaming shoes. He stuck out like a sore thumb, too dapper and put together for a place with rusting garbage cans and disk golf baskets.
When he heard her approaching, his head snapped up, coal black eyes narrowing. His slicked back and inky hair seemed to shine even in the overcast afternoon. “You’re late.”
She checked her watch as she eased onto the picnic table’s bench across from him. Late by just two minutes. But two minutes was two minutes too long when she was already on thin ice with Jooheon. “I’m sorry. I was trying to get out the door, but Jungkook got me a gift, and I didn’t want to seem suspicious by being urgent.”
He nodded in the general direction of where her bike sat. “That your little gift?”
“Yes sir.” She didn’t dare look away from him. Hatred rolled her stomach and made her blood boil. Swallowing the urge to draw her gun and shoot him dead right then and there, she forced herself to be as truthful as she could. “He has feelings for me.”
“Did you fuck him to get there?” He asked, serious.
“No.”
“You should.” He was matter of fact. Like Jungkook wasn’t a person who deserved real love, like manipulating him should have been as easy as ordering coffee at Starbucks. ”You need to solidify that. Make him fall in love.”
She bit her tongue and clenched her fists below the table until her nails threatened to cut into her palms. “I plan on it. I’ve been in too long with too little payoff, I need to get as much information as I can so we can just end this shit.”
“You’ve given me almost nothing to work with.” He lit up a cigarette and carelessly blew smoke into the wind. “If you really wanted access to information, you’d fuck Min.”
Her jaw tensed. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll have to consider that.”
How dare he. Yoongi had been nothing but good to her, he’d been the only leader she’d ever known to show her what truth looked like. She wondered if he heard Jooheon say that through the wire under her shirt.
Black eyes locked with hers. “I expect real information this time.”
“Taehyung is shaken. He’s not at his best right now. The gala messed with his head.” The bullshit story she and Yoongi crafted rolled off her tongue with ease. Lies, but close enough to the whole truth that Jooheon wouldn’t ask too many questions.
“Good.” He smirked. Cocky as he took a lazy drag from his smoke. “Fucker’s too good at his job. Maybe he’ll stay distracted this time.”
She wanted to strangle him.
“The meeting with Zhang went well,” she continued, somehow able to keep her composure despite the screaming desire to make him pay. “He agreed to help get our hands on enough guns to appease Choi. He’s shipping them straight to a dock in Busan. Min lost a shit ton of money in all this, Zhang only agreed because he would be getting sixty five percent of the money from Choi for the sheer inconvenience. Yoongi didn’t want to fight him and end up creating more bad blood, he has enough of that.”
She pulled a sheet of paper out of her pocket and placed it in the middle of the table. “Here’s some of the information for one of their accounts. I snuck back into Yoongi’s office and found some paperwork locked away in his safe. Nearly got caught, too, but I saved myself.”
He eyed the numbers carefully before folding the scrap of paper and hiding it away in his jacket pocket. “How much money is in this account?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. Yoongi gave her the information for one of their oldest accounts, one that had a large chunk of money, but not enough cash that would completely drain them. They had more money than Jooheon or her father would ever know, more than she would know. Jooheon was just arrogant enough to believe that they raked in less cash than Monsta X or Lotus. “I think he opened the account in 2014, so it’s probably got a decent amount of money. But who knows how much.”
Nodding slowly, he thought over her words. He flicked ash from his cigarette and gave a cold smile. “This is a good start. You’re finally making progress, and a decent leap at that.”
He took her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles. The sensation made her skin crawl. “This will all be over soon. They’ll be dead, and you’ll be on your way back home.”
She prayed the loathing in her gaze came across as excitement. “How much longer?”
“A few weeks,” he clipped. As he stood and adjusted his jacket, he barely gave her a second glance. “You should talk to a plastic surgeon about your face. That cut will scar, and I can’t have you looking like you’ve been so stupid as to get your head smashed on a counter for future jobs. You have to look perfect and nonthreatening.”
She bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood. “Yes sir. I’ll talk to someone, I’d hate to look like someone had ever wanted to hurt me.”
He walked around the table and leaned down to grip her chin. “You’re finally doing your job. All it took was a big cock for you to act right. I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future.”
The next few days Nari spent fuming over the things Jooheon said to her. The way he spoke to her as if she were nothing, like what happened in the bathroom was nothing out of the ordinary. Truthfully, nothing had ever been normal between them. That was becoming more and more apparent the longer she was away from him. He was manipulative, cold, using her for his own gain. But the way he reacted at the gala was like he was losing it at the mere thought that he could lose all sense of control over her.
He had always been terrible, but it was obvious that he was spiraling--slipping further into his darkness. Maybe he could feel that he was losing his grip on her despite her having every right to throw herself into seeming as if she were one of Bangtan. Sure, she had switched sides. But he had no way of knowing that. At least not for sure.
In the Bangtan house, all had been quiet since they came home from Shanghai. No passive aggressive comments, no distrusting glances from Hoseok or Jimin. Yoongi carried on as normal, keeping all of his and Nari’s secrets tucked away. The others were none the wiser.
Things with Jungkook were…good. It was almost dizzying how different things were when she was around him. After their kiss, he respected her space and didn’t push anything, but there was a constant lingering tension that left them hovering around each other without either of them ever acknowledging what had happened or Nari’s injuries. Mere days passed before one of them cracked, and it certainly wasn’t her.
He came to her as she was on her laptop going through their records to see who still owed them money. In Yoongi’s words, she was to “make note of who needs their cages rattled.” They’d handle it at Cards the following week.
She didn’t notice Jungkook walk into the living room until Sora pranced in behind him, collar jingling and tongue hanging out of her mouth happily. He was dressed in nothing more than athletic shorts and a baggy t-shirt, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from wandering across his muscled frame.
She ripped her gaze away and continued with her work.
Leaning down over the arm of the couch, he bit back a smile. “You’re very focused.”
The corners of her mouth twitched as she glanced up at him, blue light shining on her face from the screen. It didn’t take much to rid her facade. “And you’re very observant.”
He wanted something. She could tell. Whenever he wanted something, he had this excited energy like it was taking everything in his power to coolly and smoothly lead into his pitch. Eager and nearly vibrating, like an untrained puppy fighting the urge to jump on strangers.
She narrowed her eyes in playful suspicion and slowly closed her laptop, crossing her arms. “You want something.”
He scoffed and made a dramatic show of looking around the room to find where on earth she would’ve been inspired to have such a thought, eyes twinkling and teeth on full display in a sly grin. “Who? Me?”
“You’re bursting at the seams. Out with it.”
There was a brief moment where he simply stared at her, gaze soft. It made her cheeks warm. “Are you hungry?”
Nari blinked, confused. Her eyes flickered to her plate on the coffee table where the crust of her sandwich from lunch less than an hour prior remained.
Jungkook’s eyes quickly followed, widening as his cheeks flushed pink. “Oh. Uh--”
“I just ate. Um…why?”
His brow pinched, expression perturbed.
Why was he looking at her that way?
“Really?” He asked after a stretch of silence. His smile faltered the slightest bit, and she worried that she had done something to offend him. He shrugged then, gaze falling to the floor as he let out a strained chuckle. “Okay then.”
“What? What did I do?”
“I just thought you might want to grab a bite with me,” he shyly muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. His weight shifted from foot to foot, unable to stay still. “You know…after the other night.”
Oh.
Oh.
She blinked in surprise, lips parting. He wanted to go out with her. On a date. Because they kissed, and he liked it.
“Oh-- Oh. Oh my god--”
He waved her off and headed towards the kitchen, eyes never leaving the hardwood beneath his feet. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine, I just thought--”
“I’m not hungry,” she blurted, skin crawling in humiliation. “But I will be. Later. Tonight.”
His head snapped up, that beaming smile back on his face. “Yeah?”
Her face hurt from the way it grinned back at him. “Yeah.”
Strong, tattooed hands shoved themselves into his pockets as he nodded, pursing his lips in an amused line. “Cool.”
Later that night, she had to calm herself as she got ready. Which was dumb. She was an assassin, she shouldn’t turn to mush when a pretty boy with soft lips wants to take her on a date. But everything with Jooheon was so different, even when they were starting their relationship it was a part of work. They slept together to celebrate her first kill, and a few weeks after that he began treating her as his significant other. If he wanted to go out to dinner, he simply told her they were going out. There were no nervous smiles or giddy laughter.
As she put on her lipstick, she realized Jooheon never even officially asked her to be his girlfriend. She just…was.
Fuck, was she nervous. She didn’t know why, she knew Jungkook wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. But clearly she didn’t know how to navigate any real romantic connection, and she really didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of him again.
Which was also dumb. He was just a man.
When she met him in the kitchen at 8pm sharp, he was leaned up against the countertop scrolling through his phone. As she entered, he glanced up, only to do a double take. Immediately, he tucked the device away into his pocket and stared at her with a look that could only be described as awe.
“You look beautiful,” he breathed. The way her eyes nervously glanced down at her clothes, he immediately cleared his throat and collected himself. “You look nice.”
Thankful that he reeled it in a bit, she gestured to him across the way. “So do you, holy shit. You clean up nice.”
And she meant it. It was just a fitted button up tucked into ripped black jeans, but the perfect way his hair was swept off his face to reveal his dark brows led her to believe that he spent just a little too long standing in front of his closet and mirror to get it all right.
The ride to the restaurant was awkward for all of ten minutes before Jungkook was blasting some bubblegum pop song and singing as loud as he could. At first it was clear he was trying to at least carry the melody, if not actually sing well for his own enjoyment. But once he realized she was paying attention, he started putting on a show. He sang passionately, voice cracking in tuneless, giggly shouts.
As she sat there grinning at him over the console, he glanced at her with both hands on the wheel and hollered over the music. “Come on, you don’t know this song?”
She never sang, never bellowed lyrics on a midnight drive as glowing street lights whirred by in neon smears. But something about the unbridled glee that illuminated his dark eyes made her join in. She barely knew the lyrics, but he didn’t seem to mind. The garbled way she shouted the melody in a string of vowels and misplaced consonants made him throw his head back and laugh, and that made the embarrassment worthwhile.
It was hard to stay nervous when he had a way of dissolving tension.
When they got to the restaurant, he opened both the car door and the front door of the establishment for her. It didn’t surprise her very much, just because of course he was a perfect gentleman. But even though she almost expected it, even though she wasn’t surprised, there was still a brief moment of her muttering out a flustered thank you. Unable to look at him longer than a brief second.
It was a small place sandwiched between a cafe and a cosmetics store. One corner of the sign was dim, a single bulb blown after countless years. Through the window she could see other customers gathered around grills and drinking together, too caught up in meat and liquor to give a damn what happened beyond the entrance. It had been a while since she went out for barbecue, let alone somewhere that was such a little hole in the wall.
Sitting across from him at the restaurant was almost bizarre. The only times she had ever been out with anyone in the last eight years, man or woman, was merely a precursor to killing them. Other than Jooheon, of course. Looking back, their outings were just for show. To flex his money and power. He never held the door open for her. Never gazed at her with soft eyes. He never even asked her what she wanted to eat or gave her the opportunity to decide what she wanted.
It was in that moment that she realized she’d never been on a real date at all, and that brought the nerves that buzzed like electricity under her skin back full force.
“This place isn’t super fancy, but their food is amazing,” Jungkook shyly said as he hungrily watched the group of older men one table over flip their pork belly with a mouthwatering sizzle. “I know you’ve probably had barbecue a million times, but--”
“I love barbecue.” Her lips twitched in a guilty smile. “I just have never manned the grill.”
His eyes widened, flickering to the waitress as she brought them their drinks. He thanked her, quickly turning his attention back to Nari. “You’re Korean and you’ve never cooked your own meat?”
“No, I haven’t, thank you very much.” She narrowed her eyes playfully. “I didn’t know it was required upon receiving your birth certificate.”
He took a sip of his beer. “Oh yeah. It’s definitely government mandated. There’s a card for it and everything.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you must know, I…I was never allowed. My ex was controlling.”
Curiosity bloomed in his gaze. She had never mentioned any past partners before.
She couldn’t help but feel a weight lifted off her shoulders just from referring to him as her ex. Obviously he wasn’t aware she’d decided they were no longer a couple, but he’d find out soon enough. There was something liberating about keeping something for herself for now.
Jungkook leaned his elbows on the table, not looking up when the waitress brought their meat. “And grilling was where he drew the line? That was his schtick?”
“Everything was his schtick,” she deadpanned darkly, popping one of the complementary puffs into her mouth. “I wasn’t allowed to do most things.”
He sensed her change in tone. Sensed the subtle way she retreated into herself, into whatever memories of this ex plagued her. Maybe even haunted her. He knew she had some trauma--he just assumed it was all because of what happened to her mother. The thought that someone would control her, or would even be able to, baffled him. She was so strong, powerful. She commanded a room.
Whatever asshole tried to control her was probably not one to be trifled with.
He took the tongs from the plate and slid around the booth to sit beside her. He held them out to her, brows lifting expectantly. “You wanna learn how?”
She stared down at the metal tongs. Something spread throughout her chest and crept up to make her throat tighten. Dark eyes peered up at him as she hesitantly took them. “Really?”
His hair bounced in an emphatic nod. “Absolutely. I’ll walk you through it all, you can do everything.”
Everything?
He must’ve taken her silence as disgust or maybe rejection, because after a moment he shrugged with pink cheeks. “Or not-- I mean. I can do it, I’d be more than happy to--”
“No.” She was thankful she managed to keep herself from getting teary at the small freedom offered to her. It felt so stupid, the whole thing. Not knowing how to do something so easy and that everyone else around her knew. The fact that that was something Jooheon tried to control in the first place. That she would let him have that much control to begin with. “Teach me. Please, I wanna do it.”
Jungkook taught her everything--when to cut the meat, when to flip it. Just the right amount of pork belly to put on the grill at a time. It was all so simple, she probably could have figured it out herself if given enough time. But what mattered was that he let her do it. He gave her the reins and merely directed her, always gentle, always warm. He never made her feel like a child for not knowing how to do something that seemed to be common knowledge. His toothy grin was ever present, encouraging her.
They sat thigh to thigh in the booth, laughing and eating together. It felt so normal. Not at all like just days prior they were in a standoff with seven wolves and praying they made it out alive. Like they were just two people, each intrigued and enthralled by the other’s presence.
He tried to feed her a lettuce wrap, his own cheeks stuffed round and bulging as he held it out to her.
She cut her eyes at him in exasperation. “Now what about me says that I’m a woman who likes to be fed?”
He nearly choked on his food, that endearingly ugly laugh slipping out for all to hear as he covered his mouth and put the wrap back on his plate. After he swallowed, he shrugged and wiped his hands. “I dunno, I thought you’d like it.”
Nari took a drink, soju burning all the way down to her stomach. She smirked. “That’s your move, isn’t it?”
“My move?”
“The thing you do to really make the ladies go wild on a first date.”
His head tilted guiltily, tongue rolling against the inside of his cheek as he pushed up his sleeves. He gestured lazily, holding back a laugh as his arm draped across her shoulders. “Not just ladies, I don’t discriminate.”
She was surprised by his honesty. Not because he should keep that information secret--hell, she was the same. But it was something they’d never discussed openly before. It was probably just the alcohol in his system making him loose-lipped, but he hadn’t drank much at all. A part of her deep down hoped that maybe, just maybe, he felt safe around her.
She grinned and crossed her legs. “And how well does this usually work out for you, lover boy?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
Grimacing, she leaned back against the seat and relished in the warmth of his skin radiating into her frame. “Sounds like you need a new move.”
Looking down at her with an amused smile, his gaze flickered briefly from her lips to her eyes. They shone in the overhead lighting, as bright and sparkling as the night sky. If she looked hard enough, she could just make out the Big Dipper. There was a brief pause that made her stomach climb up into her mouth. His face was so close to hers.
Lowly, he murmured, “Maybe you’ll have to give me some ideas.”
The ride back to the apartment was painfully tense. Nari felt like her body was on fire. It took everything in her to hold herself together, and that was something she’d never experienced before. She’d felt desire, but never…this. It was excruciating, and she knew it would end badly. Jungkook didn’t know the truth, and she couldn’t let this go further than it already had until he did. Going on a date with him was a mistake, it was selfish of her to go when so much of her was still hidden from him. He would feel differently about her when he knew, she couldn’t let it escalate. She felt bad enough.
Initially, the ride home was tense because of how he looked at her like she could do no wrong. Because his hands were strong but gentle. Because of the lazy, lopsided, crooked smile he wore as he spoke. The way his dark hair swept off his forehead and behind his ears. But the realization that acting on any of that tension before telling him what she was would be misleading and deceptive quickly shifted the tension from sexually charged to a stiff silence.
She stared out the window and cursed herself for the pain she would eventually cause him.
As they approached the door to the penthouse, Jungkook gently wrapped his fingers around her wrist as she began punching in the keycode as soon as it was within reach. Worry creased his brow, lips parted as he tried to find the right words.
She waited, gave him the time to piece together his thoughts.
“Are you okay?”
It caught her off guard, the genuine concern in his voice. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He let her go, hand instead rubbing at the back of his neck. Broad shoulders raised and dropped in an uncertain shrug. “I dunno. You just got really quiet. I just thought we both were having fun, and then it was like… I don’t know, like nobody was home.”
She couldn’t fight the thaw in her facade.
Softening, she gave a small, reassuring smile. “I had a great time, Jungkook. Promise.”
The tension in his shoulders eased a bit, a subtle and almost imperceptible sigh of relief breathing out through his nose. He bit his lower lip with hopes to contain his smile, nodding as his eyes looked at anything but her. His hands made their way into his pockets as he let a teasing grin slowly spread across his handsome face. “Me too. Even if my move didn’t work on you.”
Awkward, hesitant, she leaned closer and craned her neck to press her lips to his cheek.
The moment her pink lips met his warm skin, her heart skipped. The proximity of him, his warmth. It made something in her defenses lower. It made her crumble. The familiar scent of eucalyptus and his cologne made her linger there, fighting the urge to touch him. To taste him. To do what she wanted.
He turned his head when he sensed her hesitation, lips suddenly a breath away from hers. Smile fading as his eyes grew heavy lidded. The air was thick and heavy with everything left unsaid. The entryway seemed all too silent, the walls even holding their breath in wait. Any noise could tip the scales, jerk them back to reality.
He seemed to draw her to him like a magnet, that invisible pull that’s unquestionable and undeniable. She felt that tug just beneath her ribs. She wanted so badly for things to be different. To be able to just give in without second thought. To live without that shadow lingering in the back of her mind and controlling her thoughts. Influencing her happiness.
Tattooed hands freed themselves from his pockets just so he could gently brush a strand of hair from her face. She felt herself let him. Let him tuck her hair and softly carress her cheekbone with the backs of his fingers. She let him slowly, cautiously walk her back until she arched into his chest from the chill of the wall as it nipped at all her exposed flesh. He was so warm, it was like standing on the sun.
Their breaths mingled, parted lips catching on each other as they restrained themselves. Neither was courageous enough to take that next step, to take the plunge. They hovered there in the painstaking, magnetic abyss--noses brushing each other, eyes fluttering closed. Her hands slid up his chest, and he sighed at her touch. Her touch alone literally drew breath from his lungs. It set her ablaze, made her ache.
Strong hands drifted down her sides and made her shiver, so patient in their slow descent. One anchored at her waist to ground her. The other slid up her neck, burning hot and scorching her eager, sensitive skin.
When he kissed her, dread swirled in her stomach. She couldn’t do this. As much as she wanted to, as good as he was, he had to know the truth first. He deserved that.
At the faint brush of his lips, Nari pulled back, heart hammering in her chest.
The spell was broken by the sharp, unforgiving prick of reality’s thorn. The walls sighed in disappointment, all air rushing back into the world. Stale and stagnant.
As if he knew it was coming, Jungkook rested his forehead on hers in defeat.
“Goodnight, Jungkook,” she whispered with a small, apologetic smile.
Without another word, she unlocked the door and went inside without him.
