You can have me
But you can't hold me
Gain me
Yet quickly lose me

If treated with care, 
I can be great
And if betrayed,
I will break.

What am I?

Rain

So here I am. Same place as yesterday, only today I come armed with proverbial knives. And literal ones as well.

"Tell me the real reason you want the clan," I say to JB, deep in a fake flirty smile, he can't see through.

Yeah, guys are that stupid. Charm them, and they will do anything, including abandoning their sick mother in a hospital for a "You up?" text. True story btw.

He poured himself a glass of scotch, his dark eyes hard on the liquid, before turning up to me, raising an inquiring eyebrow, to ask if I want some.
No, thanks, I prefer to not get shitfaced at 8 in the fucking morning. And I'm driving.

*Who are you and what have you done to Rain?* The alarm screams in my head. 

I dismiss JB's offer nonetheless.

"I want it with you on my side. I'm not your competition."

"Every person with a pulse is my competition, JB. Yours too. Never forget that." My eyes hard on his, as I light a cigarette, taking a sharp first drag.

He still plays unfazed as he lies back in his office seat unbothered. "Fine. Maybe me becoming the Oyabun will mess with your shit." He admits, taking a sip from his whiskey. "But if you can't beat them, join them, right?"

"Who said I can't beat you?" I crossed my legs at the ankles on top of his desk.

He stares at the soles of my boots. Dirty and worn off like my soul, from all the unhinged paths I've taken. From all the ashes of my burned bridges, I stepped on.

He had no idea who he was dealing with. Sure, he knew stuff about me. Everyone in Seoul knew at this point.

At twenty-six, I inherited the most successful businesses in the city. I owned two yakuza clans. I also had secretly purchased the Starbucks in Itaewon station with Chin-hae's help, which was a part of my plan coming and going unnoticed. In addition, I charged protection money from every entertainment center like a club, bar, casino karaoke, and game room, splitting the profits thirty-seventy with the clan —thirty to me, seventy to the bloody waves, which that got them ten percent each.

It sounded like a lot, but here's a truth that no one dares to question: I wasn't spending a fucking cent for myself, and I still lived the same lifestyle of the broke bitch I was two months ago. I just had more shit under my name to take care of. (Which reminded me, I needed to get my ass and RM to submit the signed NDA tomorrow to a "trustworthy" lawyer that we hope won't set us up by calling the police the minute I step into his office. Trustworthy, my wanted ass, we are just giving him more money than my bounty is.

My rise to power was fast as a blink, steady as me drunk-driving my father's car at eleven for grounding me, and unstoppable as an avalanche. My mother's heritage was monstrous and enough to call it a fucking life and retire on an isolated island somewhere in the Caribbean at twenty-seven, sipping molly-laced cocktails and smoking five-star weed, on a hammock while getting eaten by someone blond. That's a nice mental picture. I keep it in the back of my mind for the hard days.

Apart from the business profits and the protection money, every penny we made was through drug-dealing, extortion, and bad blood. This left me with a price on my head and a reputation dirtier than the all-over pissed and puked bathroom of RR on Sunday morning, which, weirdly, was fine by me. I didn't plan to run for mother Teresa's spot anytime soon.

"Sorry, sweetheart, I'm inclined to say no." I let smoke crawl out of my mouth upward, trying a different tactic today. What tactic? Wait and see. Watch and learn. JB will be handing me the tape in five minutes. And he will be eating from my palm in ten. It's gonna be easier than sliding into a shady guy's dms.

Because the queen is the most important piece in a chess game.

"I see." He nods and smiles mysteriously. "You think it's better to take your chances with Chin-hae. You believe he will drop it sooner than later."

Of course, I am not that stupid. The man gave a whole TED talk about crossing oceans for love and revenge, and I have a hunch that he feels very strongly about the latter. He is more obsessed with revenging Nanami's death than "the Bride" was with killing Bill.

I also know I can't tell Chin-hae that JB has the tape.

First of all, where is the fun in that? Secondly, I will become a snitch—which I strongly despise. Thirdly, I always prefer the hard way—masochism at its finest— fourthly, they will kill each other, and bam, no more Ryuzaki clan, and oh, I am still wanted for 48 murders, fraud, exploitation, money laundering and a fuckton more crimes I didn't care to memorize. Cause I didn't commit those ones, sis.

"No. Contrary to what you might believe, my clan is important to me. I'm not convinced that letting you lead it is a good idea." I pause and uncross my legs, leaning forward, smirking.

"I'm not convinced you have the balls it takes to be an Oyabun." I continue. His panty-dropping smile was exchanged with a tick, feathering his jaw with annoyance.

"You grew up in this clan. Born and bred with money and servants wiping you, blowing daddy's trust funds, sitting on your ass while others dirty their hands for you, enjoying the fruit your father worked hard to plant and watch grow." I muse. Easy on that diamond jaw, JB. You will grind your perfect teeth into powder.

I kept going as there was no point for him to try to dispute these facts.

"You are privileged, untrained, watching the action from backstage. All you do all day is watch curved lines and numbers on your laptop's screen cause that's all the fancy college diploma—that your daddy paid for with clan money—taught you. And then, after you finish the most boring part of being in an 8 to 4 office job in a fake law firm, you go to your fancy penthouse, decorated with expensive, pretentious art, invite your pretentious high-class hookups and fuck them in your pretentious pool." His jaw ticked harder on the last part. I'm on to something. I can't control the smirk that expands on my face as I pause intently, tilting my head before continuing. "... Which they pretend to enjoy."

Unuseful info of the day:

Bashing others turns me on. I went hard on him, and if I know a thing or two about JB, he is good at firing back. And that will get me talking back, and long story short, that's how one time in Art school I fucked a teacher. Banter is my weakness, others bashing me gets me fired up and going, I am a hopeless sapiosexual, and I must tread very carefully now. 'Cause the tape plan will crash and burn into seconds. On that desk.

A hint of a smile spreads on his face which he rests on his fist. From the fire in his dark eyes, I can tell he is about to repay the bashing in triple and with 150% interest, while he is eye-fucking me five ways to Sunday.

Abort mission. The alarm screams in my head.

But I never step back. I retort to it. Why? No clue. I'm simply wired this way.

Instead, I cut him off as he opens his mouth before he has the chance to roast me back.

"For all I know, you might use the clan for trafficking." His eyes narrowed in annoyance. I know he wasn't going to, but now he knows I'm definitely sharp and won't tolerate it. 

He shakes his head, clicking his tongue. "Too risky. Not worth it. Way beneath my principles." He pauses, narrowing his eyes again.

"Also another federal offense. And you won't want one more, since you will be having the joy to burden all mine." I grin, reminding him of my baggage, blowing out another plume of thick smoke.

"Can I ask you something?" He arched a sardonic eyebrow. "Why did you even come here if you won't take my offer?" He tilted his head this time, mimicking my expression. "Because I know it's not just for letting me admire your pretty eyes."

Oh, he lives for the banter too.

I tapped my chin with my laced index fingers, my lower lip fake-pouting. "What's wrong with my eyes?"

He snort-laughs. "For one, they are uncannily similar to Nanami's. Two, they are attached to the rest of you." He smirked, his eyes checking out everything but mine.

I ignored his dig cause I knew he wanted to get me back to exchanging fire. The bitch saw the zing of adrenaline in my eyes. But it wasn't my first or last match with a pompous prick. I always came out on top. All puns intended.

"Keep looking at me like that, and your eyes won't be attached to the rest of you for long." I grinned back, teaching him what a charm-your-pants-threat actually is, fanning smoke from my nostrils in a long white stream.

JB and I might have been cut from the same brand of dark, twisted cloth, but our pieces had ended way far apart. I grew up as a single-parented (and later cut-off), middle-class spawn. He was a trust-fund baby. I had enough tattoos to cover North America, and he probably had only the obligatory Ryuzaki clan tattoo under his tailored-fit suit. Today's outfit for me consisted of a distressed cropped Deftones t-shirt, cut-out denim shorts—short enough to get mistaken for a stripper— and muddy boots. He was wrapped head-to-toe in designer brands with sleek, soft black hair and porcelain white skin. He looked like a Michelin-starred steak, and I looked like a drive-thru cheeseburger with fries on the side. Didn't bother me one bit. I loved cheeseburgers and would choose that anytime over a tiny piece of fillet. I think I should stop at Mc Donalds on my way back.

It also helped that right now, he was drooling all over the cheeseburger too.

"Do the right thing. Be useful for once." Take the fucking bate. I continue, not breaking our traditional staring contest.

What I'm trying to step on here? His fucking pride. Wounded egos will do anything to redeem themselves. And JB now will try to prove me wrong by showing me that he is more than the fake, pretentious, privileged, average brainless hot guy I just colored him to be.

I dropped my cigarette into his whiskey glass, showing him exactly what I thought about his sixty million Won per bottle breakfast, getting up from my seat. Stress him that my precious time is up and he won't have a chance to hop on my good graces bus, about to depart.

He stretched in his seat, staring up at me, the wheels in his pretty head turning.

Gritting his jaw.

Calculating.

"Fine." He bit out, the expression on his face serene. Admiring. Bate taken.

I remain utterly blase, on the other hand.

What is it with guys wanting so desperately to restore their reputation?

To prove their worth?

"That was payback for calling you a terrible negotiator, wasn't it?" He smiles. "I apologize for that."

"Apology accepted, sweetheart. Just next time, remember. I don't negotiate. I take everything." I smile back.

He gets up and exhales, rounding his desk toward me, tracing the chrome glass surface with a finger.

"I'll show you the video." He murmurs. "Now, before you start bitching when you see it, I want to applaud you for being so insightful." He grins. "You can't actually see the face of the killer."

Yeah, yeah. I fucking knew it. If only life was so easy.

"But there is something weird going on. And you can see that Nanami gets shot."

Before I have the chance to reply, "All the things she said" starts playing from my phone.

Violet's ringtone.

She knows there's a listening device in the car, so she texts whenever she wants to tell me something. This is actually a second phone, my real one is in the car 'cause I know RM is tracking its location. I want him to track my location. That's how everyone is so convinced I'm in that car. When I get texts or calls from others on my phone, they're forwarded to this one.

Виолетта: Black car following me.

I would ask her who, but she can't see inside. The windows are always tinted in the cars the guys use.

Well, no need. Who wants to bet it's Suga?

I want to chuckle. No, actually, I want to laugh hard enough to roll on the fucking floor. I have a big fucking perfect surprise coming his way.

I reply, telling her to continue as usual.

"So, where is it?" I put my phone back in my pocket.

"My place. Tomorrow. We can watch it from my pool. Bring a bathing suit. Or not."

Shameless flirt.

Cut from the same dark, twisted cloth indeed.

"I prefer the second option."

"Slightly disappointed. Bet you look good in a bikini."

"You should see me in a crown."

https://youtu.be/Ah0Ys50CqO8