We exist in moments.

And then, we exist in memories.

Rain woke up, drank her three black coffees, smoked her three cigarettes, and left at exactly 6.40 am.

The elevator pinged on -1 where she got out, whistling a nerve-twisting tune, her boots echoing in the garage concrete, her black schoolgirl skirt swishing around, defying the first autumn morning chill.

"Pure Morning" by Placebo blasted from V's car's stereo, the same second she turned the ignition on.

Two minutes later, the car was speeding out the streets, eating miles toward Itaewon's Starbucks. Her deep-set russet eyes marking everything and promising death to anyone who crossed her.

After she turned left on the first corner, she spotted the tinted-window black car driven by the assigned-thug-of-the-day to follow her from the left side-view mirror. It was that Yugyeom guy. She smirked and waved a hand out of her window as good morning, then turned the wave to a middle finger that said, come closer if you dare fucker.

He didn't.

Just snorted, amused with her passive-aggressive greeting, and waved good morning back, but military-style with a hand over his right eyebrow. He waited for twenty cars to fill the space between them, then hit the gas.

Like a choreography, another car spouted out of another alley, driven by J-hope, and this lovely morning also had a guest appearance in the passenger's seat—Suga.

They were now passing a Mc Donalds, multiple coffee shops, and various money exchange shops.

The sun was dazzling, the sky liquid blue, and the smiles around the people rushing everywhere big and genuine. Life was a giant fat sunray, but Suga was sulking in a dark slice of shadow, refusing to join the fun.

And the worst part was that behind the sunglasses he wore, the premonition of another upcoming fuckening was glinting in his eyes. Like when you can tell when it's gonna rain when you smell the air.

"We are gonna be in the car for two hours. So get your ass comfy. I hope you brought food." J-Hope sadistically enjoyed the fact that he had company. Cause you know, misery loves company and all that jazz.

"I hate this already," Suga fixed his sunglasses and sat back, after reclining his seat back for more space.

Whattaya know? Stuck in a car, without having slept at all, following Rain. Suga was re-living his own little nightmare. So karma has humor, after all.

J-hope shook his head. "It was your idea. Too late to back off. Besides, you're in it for ten minutes and already whining about it? Try doing this for weeks."

Suga blinked. Turned slowly to face J-Hope. Lowered his sunglasses. "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

J-Hope laughed, then took a sip from the coffee he made at home and brought with him, in a mug that said My Oyabun is better than yours; Rain had bought seven mugs for all of them and painted supposedly funny quotes on each. The fact that only J-Hope was using it said a lot about the other six mugs' quotes.

"Also, there is no fucking way she hasn't figured out I'm with you. Why don't you get closer?"

J-hope laughed out loud this time, tipping his head back. "Unless you're bulletproof, you don't wanna go anywhere near a fifty-meter perimeter around her."

Suga narrowed his eyes on her car. She was parking it outside of Starbucks, turning the alarm lights on.

"Here's a weird story with my two cents of wisdom. One winter in Stockholm, the snow was above two meters. When that happened —which was very frequently— a few stores stayed closed until someone came to shove the snow away and salt the streets. The small-business coffee shop that Rei always got coffee from was closed with enough ice to sink the titanic in front of it. But just twenty meters down the alley was an open Starbucks. Rei broke into the closed coffee shop, made coffee, and went to work. Because it's was a matter of principle for her. A statement of what she would do to avoid giving five fucking euros to a hipster branch that is made of all the things she fought. Capitalism." He paused, a smirk tipping the sides of his lips as he looked at the reflection of the cars passing on the store window. "And now you want me to eat up that she swallows three of those Vanilla lattes she never tasted in her life, every day like it's..." He paused again. "Yeah, I'm not buying it. Bull-meet-shit."

"You can see her though." J-Hope nodded in her direction. "What is she doing then? And if it has to do with the Starbucks, why the fuck she is driving around for two hours?"

"Because she doesn't mind if we follow her. But she will get prickly only if we get close."

He turned again at J-Hope.

"Please tell me that you have figured this out already, and you're just messing with me." His tone was a mixture of spare-me whining and what-have-I-done-to-deserve-this frustration.

"Yeah, I've figured it out, but I liked the ride too much to reveal it to anyone, so I kept it for myself." J-Hope deadpanned.

"It's fucking obvious! She wants us to follow her!" Suga whined louder, genuinely shocked how no one had seen it sooner. It's part of her plan and works perfectly.

"I guess habits die hard for the two of you." J-hope scrunched his nose. "But I don't get it. Why would she be up to our ass then? Why threaten us to leave her alone?"

"Cause the more she warns us off, the more we follow her! And she wants us to!"

"Yeah, I don't follow you. No pun intended."

"Oh, she is a fucking genius!" Suga leaned forward on his seat, pressing his joined palms on his lips. Observing. Admiring. Realizing she has done the same trick before. "She wants us to follow the car for two hours. To distract us."

"You have figured out what she is doing? Already? We are after her for ten minutes!... And I surely don't feel like a waste of space." J-hope murmured but didn't press further. He knew Suga wouldn't share what he discovered. At least not yet. Just kept the conversation rolling to kill the hours. So he won't kill anyone else.

"Just how smart is she exactly? It's obvious she's above average, but in numbers?"

"Have you not read her file?"

"Yeah, but I thought whoever wrote it was pranking us, to be honest."

Suga smirked. "That's about 1/10 of her skills. Her IQ was somewhere between 135 and 150."

"Was?"

"The last and only test she ever got was when she was 8." By a psychiatrist none the less.

"Are you telling me we're stalking our Oyabun, that we have pledged our life to be loyal, that has no hesitation whatsoever on killing us, that is smart a.f. and we are trying to outsmart her?" He paused dramatically. "We are idiots."

"You're too late to the party, bro, but welcome to my life." Suga grinned, fixed his sunglasses back, and took a tobacco packet with thin papers and filter tips out of his pocket, rolling one. "We are always exactly where she wants us to be."

"The fuck is this shit now?" J-Hope raised an eyebrow glancing at the tobacco.

"A little European habit I picked up."

"You were smoking in Sweden?"

"Like a fucking maniac." He grinned again, lighting the cigarette. The tinted windows were rolled up and zero fucks were given on Suga's part.

J-hope tapped the stirring wheel. "Goddamn you. Give me a hit."

Suga passed him the cigarette after taking a drag himself.

He inhaled before returning it. "How come she couldn't tell then? Like with Jimin." Smoke poured from his mouth.

Suga lifted his hand and waved it like it's fucken obvious. "Cause it's cold like the fucking antarctic in Stockholm. I was always wearing gloves. No stains."

J-Hope nodded and turned the radio up. "Run" by Awolnation filled the air, thanks to one of the three listening devices in Rain's car–that was actually V's car.

"We have a routine breach," J-Hope murmured, his eyebrows furrowing like an alien spaceship landed before them. "This is the first time this song plays. The playlist was exactly the same every day."

Rain then waltzed out of Starbucks, swishing her hips like a siren, and there were two more things distinctly different than every other day. Apart from the song.

One, except her vanilla latte, she was carrying a paper bag on the other hand. Two, she didn't walk toward her car.

Instead, she crossed the street, and a devious smirk on her face shined bright as a day as she made her way to the car the two guys were waiting in.

"Any last words?" J-Hope murmured, taking a sip from his mug, his eyes trained on Rain, who was approaching them.

Yeah, give me her whole fucking playlist cause I bet my ass she is literally telling us what she is doing through lyrics. See, Rei is like the serial killer who thinks is too smart to get caught and likes to leave hints and secret messages everywhere. Especially with fucking songs.

For example, this song now announces my funeral. And here comes the mother of all fuckenings.

But all those are too lame to be anyone's last words so I'll just keep them to myself.

Rain circled the car and tapped twice with her knuckles to Suga's window, signaling to lower it.

She did that little let's-fuck-things-up smirk of hers before she dropped the paper bag on Suga's lap and leaned inside, with her elbows on the window, after raising her sunglasses on her head.

"How are my two favorite guys this morning?" She bent over and took two coffees out of the bag, fitting them in the console in the middle. "Brought you breakfast." She took a sip from Suga's coffee before placing it in the cupholder. Then took a box with two cupcakes out of the paper bag, opened it, placed it again on Suga's lap, who was laying back unbothered, or pretended to, narrowing his eyes on her, taking one more hit from his cigarette.

"Are you determined to cause a multiple vehicle collision on the busiest street of Seoul?" He commented, his voice low. Body relaxed but eyes burning with their stare.

To be fair, a car honked just in accord with his sentence. Then another. Then two more.

J-Hope snorted but looked away, taking a sip from the My Oyabun is better than yours mug.

All the cars that passed honked one after another, making a perfect symphony that grated on Suga's nerves worse than nails on a chalkboard.

Rain remained bent inside Suga's window, ignoring them and enjoying his face that was turning to pissed as fuck.

But she was grinning.

Without a care in the world.

Took another sip from the coffee she brought him.

Then took his cigarette-free hand, dipped his finger inside the frosting of one cupcake, brought it to her mouth, and sucked it clean.

And shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, here comes the fuckening.

The.

Fucking.

Plot.

Twist.

She remembers somehow. That move was not a coincidence. It was on purpose.

"How many cars do you think will crash on each other if I stay like this for five minutes, Suga? Cause I'm sure, you will have the perfect answer. Turns out you are very good at math. And I indeed have a reeeeealy bad memory."

THE. FUCKENING.

Suga remained calm, kept his voice low. Forbidding the chaos that exploded like an atomic bomb inside his head from showing.

"Rei, remove your ass from the face of every passing car in Itaewon before it ends up on someone's Instagram live under the hashtag highlightofmyday. Also, some dubious Russian discord servers. Also, probably a Twitter account dedicated to it. And for sure to a fucking police station."

Cars kept honking as they passed. And this is Seoul we are talking about. Honking is a traffic violation prosecuted by law.

And before I end up in the next cell as well because I have to kill them all somehow since I can't erase it from their memory. And I don't think any attorney will defend the claim "she was wearing a very short skirt" in court. Neither "she tried to mess with me cause she remembered out of the blue something that happened long ago."

Rain unbothered, undeterred, took then his cigarette and drew a drag. "Ask nicely."

Sonofafuckingbitch.

She remembers. Where do I sign my death certificate?

"Please." He said, biting the inside of his cheek.

"Will you follow me again tomorrow?"

"Maybe." He played along, unyielding, replaying the conversation they had long ago. And also just wanting to eliminate any possibility of this being a coincidence. To see if she will follow up.

The fates probably laughed as they watched, saying, be careful of what you wish for.

"And here I was, thinking, that this," she tapped with her finger on his chest, on his tattoo, "was not the last time we even kissed. And you were right about that. But whaddayaknow? It wasn't the first either!" She grinned so devilishly, it looked like she ate souls for breakfast.

FUCKENINGFUCKENINGFUCKENINGFUCKENINGFUCKENINGFUCKENINGFUCKENING.

J-Hope cleared his throat. "I have no idea what the fuck you two are talking about, but cut it right. Now." He paused for emphasis, leaning with his forearm on the wheel, looking at both of them. "Rain, either get inside and we go back together, either go back to your car. Before this idiot next to me starts a mass shooting."

Then he dialed someone on his phone.

"You are dismissed. Leave the car at RR's parking lot." He waited, his eyebrows furrowing with fury after something the guy on the other end of the line said. "Of course, you are still getting paid, little fucker." He grunted and ended the call, shaking his head.

"Awww, why? He is the nicest of all!" Rain fake-pouted. "Weird." She tapped her index finger on her lips. "RM told me this morning that he called off all the dogs."

"He did." Suga cut her off.

"So this is how you want it to play then?" She smirked mysteriously. "Game on Suga."

Wink.

Hair flip.

She took her Vanilla latte that she left on the car's rooftop, turned on her boots, and walked back to her car, swaying Seoul's newest attraction.

"How you knew I was about to start a mass shooting?" Suga exhaled, running a hand through his hair.

"It's written all over your face, man." J-hope shook his head, took a long exhale as well.

"In case you still wonder about her intelligence, here's a newsflash: she made me forget the fucking reason we were here." Which means whatever she is hiding is heavily related to me. A.k.a. Daddy dearest.

"I knew she was going to pull some shit the second she walked out of Starbucks. I, unfortunately, had experienced her tantrums firsthand." J-Hope paused, looking at Suga who was staring at the smudged cupcake, still on his lap.

"Look, I didn't know..." He didn't finish the sentence. Just let it linger in the thick air of the car, along with the pine scent of the air freshener. He didn't need to. Suga knew what he meant.

Didn't know back then.

Didn't know that you cared.

Should have but didn't.

"Why, would you have backed up?"

"Of course, I would have!" J-hope replied instantly, clearly insulted. "It's ride or die for me. I will admit, I was so pissed with you when I saw you two. You of all." He sneered. "With your little loyalty speeches and your iron-integrity implies... You bullshited us all" He chuckled. "But somehow, it made sense. The moment my blood cooled, I saw the truth. That she was doing all the show to get to you. And she made it. It worked. And she must have wanted you more than a bachelor party in Vegas wants a stripper to do all this shit for your ass." He shifted the car on drive, looking at the road, his eyes following Rain's car in the distance.

"The only thing that bothered me was that I was the first she messed with. That I thought it meant something."

But I was there first.

Before we brought her here.

"You weren't."

J-Hope unintendedly hit the brakes a little hasher on the red light. Turned to look at Suga like he told him the moon is square. "What?!"

Suga cursed loudly through his teeth, rolling one more cigarette.

"Please don't tell me you did something stupid when you kidnapped her cause that's some really fucked up shit Suga."

"Yes." He took a very deep very long inhale. "And before that."

"When?"

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

"...Three and a half years ago."

Our story is not what you thought. It's a hella lot more complicated.

You know the story of the first day I saw her only. Of the first day of my life, as all of us in the gang call the day that marked the tide's turn for each of us. But you don't know why this day marked a new beginning. And truthfully, I didn't know either. Until it was too late.

For Jimin, it was the day I dragged him out of med school to save Nanami's life. For V was the day Nanami bought him from his father and took him out of prison. For J-Hope, the day Nanami offered him a home instead of sleeping in his car and robbing convenience stores to eat. For RM, the day Nanami made him her right hand. For Jin, the day she took him from his "foster family." For Junkook the day she saved him at the park. All our lives are entangled because of Nanami.

I thought my first day of the rest of my life was when I left my family's clan.

But it was a few days later, and it was the day I lifted the fucking blinds and got burned by the fucking sun.

Why am I telling you all this?

Cause I'm not the fucking villain.

I've done fucked up shit. Shit that keeps me up for days and nights. The kind of shit that nightmares are made of.

But I was there first.

Not by choice. By a twisted fuck of irony with some fate and karma on the side.

And that whole sentence can be summed up in one word.

Nanami.

Fucking Nanami did everything.

And Rei and I and the rest six were just her pawns

Promise me you won't forget.

I promise.

A long author's note.

So here's how it goes.

My brain works in mysterious ways. And obviously, none of them is to fathom the simplicity of telling a story linearly and chronologically. Or using just one point of view. It just wants to go back and forth all the time. Or I respect my readers too much to spoonfeed them a simple lazy cliche story that they can read anywhere.

If you understood what Rain is acting upon and what Suga was talking about, congrats, here's a star. ⭐️
You probably paid a lot of attention and didn't miss a line throughout the first book.

If you don't have a clue, you will find out in a following chapter.

If you still can't wait, the answer is somewhere in chapter 36. And yes, it was always there. I love leaving little subtle easter eggs here and there like I did with the cracked phone screen.

If you go back to find it and comment, please leave a spoiler warning with a few empty lines so the new readers won't be spoiled —Duh. But still, don't comment there something a new reader will figure out. Leave an emoji or sth. Be smart.

Also, wtf am I writing?

This used to be a gang au. I don't even know what kind of sub-genre it is anymore. But you know what?

I fucking love it.

This is a story about revenge. This is a story about love.

This is a story that came weirdly into my mind out of nothing one night after my 10-19 job as I was running up the escalator stairs in the subway while listening to "False alarm" by the Weeknd. And out of fucking nowhere I imagined Rain.

But mostly, as the intro says, this is a Suga story after all.

And in the greatest heist film in history—Reservoir Dogs— you never see the heist. So I guess this is a gang story that you don't see much of the ganging.

Kidding.

Cause there will be blood.

And it will come in waves.

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]