TW: Gore.

The following chapter contains a pinch of explicit content, such as a graphic description of blood and violence.

Readers' discretion is advised.

Well, well, seems that this is a gang au after all.

Wooden panels unraveled to a decadent staircase, covered with burgundy carpet. 

Paintings decored the walls above as Rain followed the stairs to a broad, well-lit corridor. 

Also, someone unlucky lying dead, face-down in the corner, decoring it with a pool of his blood.

The guy's protection. He obviously operated with a guard.

"Please," a muffled, heavy voice echoed through the corridor. It got louder with every step Rain took to the living room. "I didn't know she was under your protection," he coughed. "I had no idea—"

"Stop begging, unless you want me to cut you a nice smile to remind you how cheerful you were when the cash piled up in your accounts for the girls you whored out." Jin's voice followed.

Step.

The air reeked of blood and violence.

Another step.

Rain turned, seeing Jin casually leaning on a carved pillar of the luxurious living room, rolling his eyes with boredom.

The man that they were ordered to kill hung by his arms from a rope hooked in the ceiling, where a chandelier previously was.

A fabric that looked like a floral pillowcase covered the man's head. Blood had seeped through where his mouth and nose were. A twisted version of a bad Halloween ghost.

"I have stopped! I have changed! I— I won't do it again!" The guy pulled from the rope he hanged desperately.

"Mhmm." Jin faked agreeing. He watched as Rain took careful steps toward the hanging man. "Is that why you starved them and left them to die?" Jin mused, cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his knife. His gloves were removed now, partially hanging from the back pocket of his jeans.

"I'm just the delivery guy! I— I just supplied what the market demanded! I wasn't the one that kidnapped them!" He groaned, coughing blood.

Jin pretended to shoot himself with an imaginary gun from boredom.

"Yeah, yeah. I've heard this song many times." He pouted. "It gets boring after a while. Might as well say your prayers now." He walked up to the guy, abruptly pulling the pillowcase from his head.

The guy was beaten to a pulp. He was missing two of his front teeth. His nose was purple and bust open. On the other hand, Jin bore not even a scratch or misplaced hair on his perfect hair.

Kill Bill was wrong.
Revenge is not a dish served cold.

Revenge is ugly.

It clicked then, like a puzzle piece in Rain's mind.

Why Suga had sent her with Jin. He had figured it out —that Violet was trafficked, that Rain kept working with his father to find the man behind it. That she had promised Violet to help her.
Suga had found him.
And sent her to collect that blood debt and fulfill her promise.

It turned out he was indeed good at finding things out when he wanted.

The tied-up guy's eyes widened with a flare of recognition upon Rain. His lips curved into a deranged smile. "The fallen Oyabun." His chuckle skittered through her bones. "Oh, what a sweet price I could get out of you." He drawled, sniffing on the blood that ran down his nose. His eyes told Rain he was soaring high on some kind of mind-numbing drug mix. Something like meth and heroin.

The guy's remaining teeth flashed as he bared them into a snarl. He turned to Jin. "I can make you so rich, you will shit on diamond toilets!  Let me go! The price of her can make us kings! I have clients that would sell their souls for her mixed ass!" He spat, pulling the rope that restrained him.

Jin chuckled.
Turned to Rain.
Raised an eyebrow.
"So, how do you feel about the not-wanting-to-kill TED talk you gave me a few minutes ago?"

Rain didn't answer. Her vision was red. Her right hand was clutching her gun on her side.

So this was kill or be killed.

Just a glance on her, and that guy was ready to strip her bare from her freedom. Her birthright.

To sell her like a piece of meat of some exotic animal in a dubious wet market.

That was the fate of the defenseless of this world.

If you are not the hunter, you become the prey.

"She's not for sale." Jin fixed him with a glare.

"Everyone is for sale, Cleaner. You just have to figure out their price." The man followed with a deranged chuckle.

"Oh, I know that," Jin shrugged. "It just happens her price to be every head on the planet." He grinned again then. "Collected by my Oyabun."

He took a step closer to the guy, circling him like a tiger. "And wanna know what my preferred currency is?" Jin grinned manically. "Blood, sweat, and tears."

The man fought and pulled, desperately trying to unhinge the ropes as Jin slowly slashed the tip of his knife to the ends of his mouth, fulfilling his threat of carving him a permanent, bloody smile.

Then let out a snarl, spitting blood, sweat trickling down his forehead and mixing with his tears. He twisted violently like a worm on a hook.

Jin was definitely in his element. He had mastered the business of inflicting pain.

"Cut his tongue."Rain breathed, blood like lava coursing through her veins. "He tried to cut Violet's tongue because she was talking back. She fought, and he got only the tip. That's why she's not talking." Rain hissed, getting closer.

Jin stilled. His eyes widened as Rain grabbed the man's spread shoulders, kneeling him with force to the balls.

The man groaned in pain, his head loling back, almost passing out.

She hit him with her elbow. "Cut,"

Her knee, "his,"

Jacked his forehead with hers, "tongue!"

He seathed, giving up, lifelessly hanging like a broken twig, swinging from a thread to the relentless wind.

"Stupid ...jap ...whore..." he choked. "You're...like ...them. Your mother's... whores..."

"Very original," Jin slow-clapped. "Never heard that one before." Ignoring them, projecting the message that they can't even piss him off, was far better than acknowledging the taunts and giving them power. Nanami had taught Jin that. Long ago.

"What is he saying?" Rain turned to Jin.

Bored, he lifted a shoulder. "The classical rumor we were all Nanami's fuckboys, yadda, yadda."

Rain threw him a skeptical look.

Jin crossed his arms. "Of course we weren't, you idiot!"

"Hey—"

"Hey what?! I most certainly can curse at you. You're not my Oyabun. Wanna settle? Bring it on jutsu practice tomorrow." He challenged.

Rain gritted her teeth. "Just for the sake of being sure..." She murmured.

Jin overly exaggerated an impatient exhale, tapping his boot on the floor.

Crossed his arms.

Looked up and cursed. Long and creatively.

Then looked suspiciously back at Rain, narrowing his eyes.

Then looked at the one-step-before-dying guy he had tied up from the ceiling.

"Oh, what the hell," he groaned, closing his eyes. Opened them and pointed a very threatening finger at Rain. "You'll take this to your grave—"

"SHUT THE FUCKING FRONT DOOR—"

"Not all of us!" Jin hissed at Rain, who was looking at him with wide eyes and a jaw that had crashed to the floor.

Then smirked, lifting a shoulder. "Just me."

"Bitch! You were fucking my mo—"

"Rain!" He growled, this time getting in her face, pointing next to them. "Mission. Guy that had trafficked Snowflake. Guy you're supposed to kill. Suga's order." He pointed next to them. "Focus. Now."

Rain turned, side-eyeing the pathetic human hanging there ragged. Justice for Violet.

"Just saying." Rain bit out. "She is like, fifteen years older than you—"

"Thirteen, actually."

 "Not to judge, I've done far worse. Just prepare for incoming stepdad jokes," she humored, noticing Jin had threateningly narrowed his eyes like a snake.

The man beside them left out a whoosh of air, a corpse's version of a chuckle. If the lifelong use of drugs hadn't already collapsed his lungs, Rain's knee indeed finished the job.

"We knew... that she... was about to die..." He heaved, closing his eyes and grinning the bloody smile that Jin had carved out.

"How?" Rain stabled him, bringing his face up by fisting his hair.

"Those who work in the night for long know...We can sense when the tides are turning...And now... we can feel the big wave coming... It's all over this city..." He opened his hazy eyes in a painful, bloody smile cut out of his face. The drugs he had inhaled were talking.

"You know what?" Jin mused. "Those were very pretty for last words. If I were you, I wouldn't say anything else. Unless..." he got closer. "You would like to say goodbye to your dick." He purred in a mocking tone, his voice sliding into something close to a reaper's rasp as he circled the man's groin with his knife, the cold tip scratching the fabric of his pants.

Liquid seeped through, soaking his groin, then the repulsive scent of ammonia spread in the air.

Urine dripped down his polished Prada shoes and the black marble floor; the man's ragged breath the only sound.

"My second least favorite reaction," Jin murmured with disgust. "The worst is when they jizz their pants." He shook his head.

"There are people that jizz their pants when they are about to die?" Rain scrunched her nose, looking down the pathetic excuse for a human.

"Yeap," Jin confirmed humourlessly. He then furrowed his eyebrows, tilting his head, his midnight hair falling on the side. "I feel slightly abused when that happens. But then I kill them and get over it." He shrugged again, turning to Rain. Unblinking.

"Kill him," Jin said. It wasn't an order. It wasn't his order.
It was Suga's.

He had carefully planned the steps of this night. And the kill order was set upon Rain to fulfill.

"No—" cough, "Please! I—" heave, " I can make you rich!" The man with all the strength left inside him yelled at Rain now, seeing in whose hands his life was.

Rain closed up the man.

"Shut up." She murmured, fitting the gun in his mouth. He fought and bit and gagged and choked on it.

Fitting.

Like all those girls that he sold had.

And now, he would die from it.

"No. No gun." Jin said, extending the hand he was holding his blue-handled knife before Rain.

"Death by a bullet to the head is instant. Fast. He won't suffer." Jin's instruction was laced with disgust and barely above a whisper. Coming from his heart.

He won't suffer for what he did.

Rain wrapped her fingers around Jin's knife with a sharp inhale through her nose.

"Htupid bithh!" The man gurgled around the gun that was still in his mouth.

Then, Rain grinned.

And if the night didn't light up from how bloody her smile was.

"Sell this, motherfucker."

Rain tightened her grip on the hilt, remembering Violet and what she had been through. What all those girls—some of them underaged—had faced, beaten and raped and starved and humiliated and—

Rain slashed the guy's throat open with a swift, fast move.

A deep cut. Dragged the knife from one side of his neck to the other.

Immediately shoving him back, his blood sprayed like rainfall. 

He gurgled and coughed, choking on his blood.

Tears gushed down his bloodshot, defocused eyes.

He gagged and jerked and spasmed, pulling and pulling on the rope that kept him standing, losing buckets of blood. 

Then stopped.

Limbless, he surrendered to death.

His vacant eyes were open, staring down his blood and piss for eternity.

His death won't turn time back.

It won't bring those girls back to life.

It won't erase the suffering from Violet's memory.

It only served as a thirst-quivering beverage.

And the thirst was ugly revenge.

It also gave Rain peace of mind; at least more women would walk this earth free, not ever to worry about being sold like an object from this piece of shit again.

Jin pulled out his tongue and cut it from his mouth. 

Apart from Rain's request—revenge because he had tried to cut off Violet's— it was a gang-member code for a snitch. Let the police try to figure out in his autopsy what has he done to deserve it and which of the dozen Seoul gangs killed him. Jin knew the police would never get anywhere near them with this case. 

In the span of the few days that Suga had taken the Oyabun's throne, dozens of gangs had sprouted out of nowhere, questioning the ruling. 

Jin started dousing bleach on the wooden floor panels, on the walls, on the carpet, then, all over the dead man. Whistling undeterred, meanwhile.

Unscrewing another plastic container, he repeated the process with another, more toxic-scented, flammable chemical.

Then, proceeded to the kitchen. Turned the gas of the stove on. Did the same, opening the oven.

When he got back in the living room, he pulled a box of matches out of his pocket.

Flickering one to life, he watched the small fire burning through the wooden stick.

"Now..." he turned to Rain, "...we run. Or we burn."

Funny enough, he was planning on cooking barbeque tomorrow.

A second before the match reached his fingertips, he dropped it on the dead man's feet.

Fire flared to life as flames licked the chemicals, spreading wide in lines. Paths, Rain realized, that Jin had made for the fire to connect through every room in the house.

Carpet and curtains lit like fireworks in seconds.

The floor started crackling, and smoke filled the house.

Rain and Jin ran, not turning to see as the fire reached the ceiling over the dead man, burned through the rope holding him. As he collapsed into his ashes like a reverse phoenix, bound never to be reborn from it.

A sound like an explosion followed, coming from the kitchen. The gas stove.

Rain was wrong about not raining. At least, not water. It rained ashes.

Rain sprinted to the car, checking that Jin was following behind. After falling in her seat, she closed her door abruptly, taking a long exhale like she was holding her breath for a while.

Jin's door followed with a thud. He rapped his fingers on the wheel like some sort of merry dude without a care in the world.

"So, what do you want for dinner?"

"Bleach." Rain murmured without looking at him.

He laughed, turning the ignition on, hitting the gas, and driving the hell far away as fast as he could.

Jin's eyes glowed as if a small fire simmered within.

"You know, RM had said something to me when we brought you here. That you're either the death of us or one of us. RM is talented in seeing through people." Switching the gears, he murmured, "You really are one of us."

"I don't see any of you struggling to keep the remains of their humanity," she exhaled.

"You think we don't feel bad? That I don't feel worse than dried up shit on a public urinal after killing someone?" His eyebrows shot up.

"The answer is I do. But I handle it. The people we kill are people that must die. We are the retribution of those innocents they took advantage of. Those that are unprotected. Those that can't defend themselves. Those that can't kill. We are needed. We bring balance. There is no good without any evil within."

The one who turns a blind eye to the abuse is worse than the abuser. 

"I know. He wouldn't have stopped. We prevented the misfortune of... dozens of girls. But..."

"But what?"

She swallowed. "How we go on?"

Jin smiled. Unlike his previous smiles, it was a comforting one. Like a warm hug. The moon, always watching, making an appearance behind the clouds in the night sky.

"One step at a time. Everyone copes with it differently. J-Hope likes to drive around for an hour or two to clean his head. Jimin and RM usually go for a drink and company. V will inhale any substance in his vicinity. Jungkook locks himself in his room for hours, sometimes days. I scrub and clean the house spotless. Or cook. It takes my mind away."

"And Suga?"

Jin pressed his lips. It looked like he wanted to laugh.

"Suga usually takes a very long, scolding hot shower."

Rain's breath fogged the cold car's window glass that she was leaning her head on.

Clenching and unclenching her fists, she felt the dried blood crusting on her knuckles. Under her nails. The pungent smell of it, salty and metallic.

Dried blood had a different smell.

It wasn't like the fresh that poured out from tattoo wounds. That mixed with the sterilizing products of her studio. That one was clean.

This was dry. Septic. Dirty. Ugly. Marred with deception and lies and death.

Like her conscious.

"He might be my Oyabun... " Jin exhaled. Long, like the breath that lifts a burden from your chest, "but I will cook him alive if he hurts you."

"Look at you, suddenly going into step-dad mode," Rain faked a tired smile, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"You promised!" Jin growled, pointing his finger at her. "Not a word, Rain. I mean it."

"Why would you care about your reputation, anyway?" She rolled her eyes.

Unless...

Rain slowly turned.

Looked at Jin that was driving in the night, ghostly and ominous like the moon. Noticed his mysterious smile.

"Is this the part where you stop pretending you haven't figured out she's alive?" He humored, narrowing his eyes.

"You know?!" She demanded, shifting on her seat like an electric current jerked her.

Jin snorted a small laugh.

"She told you?!" Rain hissed, standing on the seat with her knees.

"No. I just know her."

"Have you met with her?!"

Jin silently shook his head no, his smile turning into one of disappointment.

"Have you spoken to her?!"

Jin shook his head no once more. The smile had turned into a frown.

"Do you know why she did it?"

For the third and last time, Jin shook his head no.

"Who else knows?" Rain demanded.

"I haven't told anyone if that's what you're insinuating. Not even RM." He blatantly added.

Rain narrowed her eyes on him, pouting. "Did I remind you of her?"

Jin didn't take his eyes off the road. "Yes."

"Is that why you liked me?" She grinned.

"Yes. Now, kindly, shut the fuck up." He deadpanned.

"Is that why you—"

Jin hit the brakes abruptly.

Rain grabbed her seat for dear life.

"Has it occurred to you that maybe, I might not want to talk about it?" He turned at her.

Rain remained silent and wide-eyed, like a kid that got its ass grounded. Without PS5. Or internet. 

She shook her head no. Only whispered, "Sorry."

Jin ran his hand through his hair, Closing his eyes as he exhaled. "Just... don't make this a big deal. No one knows, and I told you only because I believe you deserve to know. Because I would want to know if I were in your place. I was also sneaked upon with her whole death stunt." He paused. "I did believe it for a second." He opened, his eyes looking out. Away. 

"And now?"

"Now I am tempted to kill her myself if I ever see her again." He murmured coldly, slowly starting the car again. 

Rain knew he didn't mean it. For making him think she was dead. She thought. For scaring him like that, for not including him in her plans or sharing her secrets...

Rain also knew Suga was probably thinking the same way for her. Probably going to ask Jin for tips to cook her.


"Still better than being some Riverdale shit, like Nanami sleeping with Chin-hae." Rain snorted, lighting a cigarette, hoping the atmosphere will lighten.

Jin took a sharp inhale, looking up, annoyed. "She did."

Rain chocked with the smoke of her cigarette.

"Once or twice." He added. "Like, many years ago, like after ice-age or something."

"I'm not Swede enough to pretend all this doesn't bother me," Rain kept coughing, "and you're definitely not either."

Jin leveled a dry look at her. 
"Is that thing passed as normal in Europe?" He scrunched his nose. 

"Why, would you move there to be with her?" Rain gave him a cocky grin back.

"Shut up. You're the one who's fucking the guy whose father has fucked your mother." He deadpanned.

"Hey, you're the one who was also fucking said mother." Then murmured mockingly, mimicking his voice from when he was scolding RM, "Hitting on your Oyabun who can slice you alive and fry you like bacon to complement her eggs for breakfast is a bad move. Speaking from experience?" She popped an eyebrow, casually taking a drag from her cigarette.

Jin wholeheartedly laughed out loud, sinking in the irony.

"You know which one I'm not, though? The one who pledged her life with an eternal oath just because she couldn't stay away from her Oyabun." He grinned. "Who even the blind can see you're so fucked up in love with." He added. 

Not even bothering to deny it anymore, the sad epiphany of all the unholy things Rain would do for Suga had crept up in her conscious. She pressed her eyes shut, wondering and knowing if he would have done the same things for her.

Dying for her.

Stealing for her.

Killing for her.

Yes, he would. He had. It just took her a while to catch up with him. And didn't know how hard it was until being in his position.

What goes around comes around.

"I know what song I need now."

Rain murmured as she pressed play on one of her favorite songs. The one very one at the end of the first Kill Bill movie. The one upon O-ren Ishii dies. The flower of carnage.

Jin threw her another dry wordless look.

What the fuck Nanami did? Rain wondered internally.

They didn't speak another word that night.

The darkness of the moonless, starless, foggy night had enveloped them as they drove their way back. 

It was not the sort of darkness that Rain had come to love in Seoul, the sort of darkness that came with the exciting life and danger in a mob clan. 

It was the darkness of rotting things. Of decay. 

Of blood on her hands.

"Motherfucker," she murmured to herself. Weirdly, not referring to Jin.

She had to strip off those damn clothes. Clean the smell of death from her. Let the water wash away the blood and her sin.
Drown her demons.

Swallowing, she pressed her eyes shut as she realized this long night had not come to an end yet.

 
Not even close.

And along with her retaliation, four words she didn't dare to utter had formed in her mind.

Beg  for a shower.

https://youtu.be/Q483PctlDFA

Lyrics translation: (Google's not mine.)

The snow of revenge falls from the sky in the dead morning
Stray dog's howls and the footsteps of Geta pierce the air
I walk on with my eyes focused on the weight of my karma.
But an umbrella that holds onto the darkness is all there is.
I'm a woman who walks at the brink of life and death
Who's emptied my tears many moons ago
Obligations and mercy, tears and dreams
The snowy nights and tomorrow hold no meaning
I've immersed my body in the river of vengeance
And thrown away my womanhood many moons ago
Shadow of my disheveled hair on the icy water surface
I won't even shed a drop of tear, just a wooden umbrella in my hand
I am a woman that treads the road of vengeance
It has been long since I discarded my heart

Obligations and mercy, tears and dreams
I am a stranger to them, yesterday or tomorrow

Instead of kindness from someone
I do not care about
I rather prefer selfishness from you, my beloved.
Oh, is the world a dream or an illusion?
I am all alone in my jail.

A/N

Woop Woop,

People focused so much on what Nanami was threatening to cut with Jin's knives
that they missed how she was referring to him accidentally —and fondly— many times.

Or how entertained Jin was when he saw Rain and Suga fighting. Probably reminded him of something.

Or how Jin was getting angry with Suga being all Oyabun-y before announcing it. Ouch. Probably reminded him of his former Oyabun.

Yeah, yeah. The bitch had a heart.

And it belonged to a certain slightly psychotic, multiple knife-owning, little midnight-haired villain for the last three years.

Imagine how much I laugh when people comment "I KNEW IT!" on the last chapter of vol.1. where it's revealed that Nanami is alive.

Seriously, do you still think you would know if I didn't want you to, Sherlock?

But still, to this day, I'm waiting for the comment somewhere—anywhere— on a fucking clue (that are like, all over the fucking place) to tell me one of the not-so-expected plot twists before happening.

Especially the final one.

That I keep leaving clues so strong, everywhere, that I seriously fear someone will uncover it.

Fortunately, no one has.

Not yet.

Fun irrelevant fact of the day:
I came home from work, and my dad was watching a movie. It's like a hundred degrees here, so I went straight to the fridge to drink all the frozen water I could find—I was out of lemonade— and noticed in the silence a familiar song coming from his headphones. 

I instantly turned my head, wide-eyed and wondering if I'm suffering from hallucinations from the heat, to realize that my dad was watching Kill Bill. 

"That's Kill Bill!" I yelled, pointing out the obvious. 

"Yeah, Netflix has just added both movies." He shrugged. 

Bitch. 

My life is just a big fucking series of coincidences. 

I just sat beside him and watched it for the millionth time, grinning the whole time while he was looking at me like I'm crazy. 

He didn't even know I like it. 

And also promised he will buy me a katana. 

Watch out, Rain.