Star Light, Star Bright.

Wishing upon the stars never seemed to work for her. Nonetheless, hope was the very rope Laira was walking on, balancing the weights of a million 'what-ifs'.

It may have been her paranoia or just her survival instincts alarming her, Laira couldn't help but look back over her shoulder every passing second. She was only met with shadows, but she knew of a man who could shapeshift into the darkness.

She knew Park Jimin could easily tail her through the extended hallways, and she wouldn't even notice.

She desperately wished upon the stars that he was deep asleep in his room. If not, she was doomed.

Just as she had expected, with each step the floor creaked. There wasn't much she could do to avoid that, only if she were a spider and could climb the ceiling.

She sighed before holding her breath and kept going on.

She was on a secret mission to rescue Chloe by herself. A top secret. However, it was proving hard to keep it that way.

Laira's mind tried implementing all the years of training into her movements, but the heaviness tagged along with anxiety rendered her a lot less fluent than she needed to be, and the knowledge that the whole place was filled with assassins didn't help either.

She required her mind to be sure for her body to follow along. Unfortunately, it was anything but that. 

Her heart hammered, almost in her throat, when a thud of something echoed around in the quiet hallway. She waited, expecting someone to walk out from somewhere, but the silence stretched out again, leaving room for faint breathing and light snores.

There were four assassins on guard, one on the top floor, one on the balcony, and two outside the Minka. She knew just how to sneak her way through them without getting caught, but knowing and doing were two completely different things.

In her current state of mind, she could only hope to accomplish the doing part.

Her uncertainty had the majority to do with Namjoon's words, and the minority to do with the look on Jimin's face two nights ago, on Grace's Night.

Her mental trial was yet to decide what his expression implied because her logic argued it was hatred whilst her gut feeling vouched for disappointment.

It could've been both at the same time or something entirely out of her trail of thoughts, the verdict wouldn't be out anytime soon, at least that she knew.

Namjoon, on the other hand, was a great motivation for her impending stress to drown her whole. He said, "Laira, I've talked to Jimin. We'll get Chloe back. We have to go carefully about this. Just trust us and wait"

Wait? Well, she could wait.

If anything, Laira was patient. But what about Chole? Was she even in the situation to wait for a single hour? Would she be safe until then?

Namjoon didn't look like he knew and neither did Laira, but she needed to know. Needed to have her friend back under the confines of protection and familiarity.

What Namjoon said and what Jimin would feel, could have been shoved down her list of priorities for tonight, but Namjoon had that look in his eyes which threatened there was more to his words.

"Let Jimin handle this," he had said, ending their quick catch-up, further solidifying her doubt that he was definitely threatening her to stay back.

Jimin had a plan, as much was obvious, and Laira sneaking out to get Chloe on her own went against him. She could care less, she should, if only this foreign fear of messing things up wasn't eating at her courage.

If he had a plan then it meant he thought everything through. He knew better. And Laira was only a trainee, inexperienced with Hoseok's traps and Taiyo clan's thinking.

She might end up making the situation worse. But Laira had a thing for taking risks and denying the obvious, which pushed her out of bed into the secrecy of lamp-lit hallways, almost near the main door.

With one last look behind her, she carefully unlocked the knob and stepped out into the chilly breeze and waving grass. Guards were stationed near the gate, across the yard.

She squatted her way near them, picked up a nearby stone, and tossed it in the direction of wildly grown-out bushes. The guard followed the movement with their eyes and soon enough reached with their feet, although only for a few seconds, but that was enough time for Laira to swiftly glide into the dark of the woods and hide herself again.

She picked up speed soon after making sure she was quite far from their reach. She had borrowed (stole) a map from the 2nd unit earlier, so she knew the direction.

After a short while of running, the sound of her feet on crispy grass wasn't the only thing she heard, it was the bustling of water falling against stones. The sound of a running river.

She followed the sound and reached the flowing river, through the giant woods and wild grass, an indication that she was on the right path.

"If I didn't know better, I would've thought you were finally escaping from me."

Her breath hitched. She knew whose voice it was without turning around to look at him, and his words hit her like bullets.

They had never talked about it before, she for whatever selfish reasons she had bore in her soul, and him for whatever ounce of humanity he had left.

He never explained why he had captured her, and she never admitted the reason for never running away.

They both had their reasons and secrets which weren't meant to be spoken aloud even under the stars aligned in their constellations. But here he was, Park Jimin, in the midst of a lively forest, standing near the streaming water, unfolding the crumpled-up paper of truth they had ignored for years.

So the stars betrayed me once again.

"Why, is it too late for that?" she asked, but her voice failed to deliver a firm tone, it glided out softly melting with the sound of the running river.

"Probably not, but I know you won't leave your everything behind like this," he spoke, the dreamy voice of his set sparks dancing on the seams of her neck and radiating down to her spine.

"What is my everything?" she questioned, gulping down the breathless sensation crawling up her throat, and turning around to face him.

His gaze was set past her, staring at the river behind her. The moon reflecting in the water, shone in his eyes as he gradually met her lenses. It seemed like he had too much to say or too much to ask, either way, he seemed in no rush for any of that.

He walked closer to her, the silver hair framing his face as they waltzed with the chilly wind. He lifted his hand pushing them back, setting his silver rings candescent to the skies's soft glow.

This is the man the stars betrayed me for.

As dreamy as it appeared to Liara, he was lethal in ways she couldn't comprehend. He was walking one with the moon, with elegance and authority, as if the moonlight ran in his veins and draped around him like armor.

He breathed. "The life you have."

"The life you gave me."

"Which you don't seem to despise me for. Why is that?" he questioned, tilting his head slightly. His hair fell on his face and he pushed them back again, waiting curiously for an answer.

"Isn't it too late to be curious about that?" she asked, stargazing the expressions slipping on his face. However, failing to make any sense.

"I've always been curious," he admitted. "Unlike you."

Was he being honest? Laira wasn't sure, but his last two words hit her hard, it almost felt like an accusation despite the soft tone of his voice. He might have been curious, but she never was. That was true. She never asked him why he brought her away from her family, why he let her train in his clan, or what he did with her parents.

Those questions crossed her mind countless nights, like fireflies flying above her head, yet she never reached out to catch them. She knew why, but she wouldn't even admit that to herself.

The last few days of every month, Jimin would stay in the Tokyo Headquarters, but she never bothered knocking on his office and demanding the answers. She avoided him like a plague, never met him a single time after being captured, until recently when he gave her a mission.

"Why? Have you been waiting all this time for me to ask you those questions?" She dared to keep staring into his eyes, challenging herself to find a loose thread. Something that could lead her down the road of understanding Park Jimin.

"Maybe I once did, but not anymore. Would you mind speaking the truth yourself?" His one hand rested on top of the katana hanging on his left hip, she noticed it was probably out of habit, and the other one nestled in his right pocket.

The breeze was still playing with his hair, the same freezing ones that made shivers run down her spine.

The truth was just as cold, she thought. She had long gone painting every lie into a truth, it appeared to her disguised and blurry. The footsteps she had taken, she erased each. There wasn't a need for her to admit to him what she couldn't admit to herself for years.

"I'm not obligated to satisfy your curiosity," she spoke. "I see you followed me all the way here, but you cannot stop me. I need Chloe back, and I'm not going to wait for you to roll the dice."

"And how are you going to rescue her? Sneaking your way inside the Traiyo clan's training center and avoiding The Knights and Hoseok's protection protocol?" He chuckled, it was light-hearted and tender, but it worked as fuel for Lair's rage. "Even if you do make it in, you won't make it out alive. The Knights will not spare you after what you've done to them."

She clenched her fits. "What you made me do to them, and no, they will not kill me. They are not heartless monsters."

He lifted his brow in amusement. "But I remember one of them with his hands around your neck two nights ago before I pushed him off of you."

She clenched her fists in fury. "Taehyung wouldn't have killed me."

He laughed. "I was under the impression that I saved your life, but you're telling me it wasn't needed at all?"

She eyed him incredulously. "I was put in that situation because of you!"

"And here I am, stopping you from being in this situation once again. Prior to the last two nights, I knew The Knights wouldn't harm you, so I sent you there, but now it's different. You can't go there on your own."

"I don't value my life that much anyway. I won't let you stop me." She turned around walking across the river, steps pressing on the wet grass, as she followed the map in her mind. Before she knew it, her wrist was caged. Her body was being pulled back by effortless force.

She wailed her limbs, trying to free herself from his grip. He held her tight until she stopped struggling and whispered, "I'm not letting you go."

I'm not letting you go. She had heard him say that in many nightmares before, but when her eyes would open to reality she was as free as a bird. She could've taken the flight if she had desired, and Jimin was never the one holding her back.

He never caged her. She had the freedom to fly, yet every time she'd go back into the same bed willingly and continue with her new life.

But this time, he was holding her back.

"What is it that makes you so sure they wouldn't harm Chloe until you bring her back?" she asked, voice strained from the earlier struggle to free her arms.

He softly let out from behind her, words with an exhale that reached her ear, "Hoseok wants the whereabouts of my home. That is why he kept Chole a hostage."

"Why? Does Chloe know where you live?"

"I have something of his in my house, and he desperately needs it, but no, Chole doesn't know. They will use her as leverage once we go there to rescue her. He will demand I return to him what I took from him in exchange for freeing Chloe."

"What did you take from him?" she asked, attempting to twist free her hands again. "Will you give it back to save Chloe?"

"I can't tell you what that is, and no, it's not something I would return to him, but I will bring Chloe back."

Laira felt a shiver of anger run down her spine. She twisted her arms once again in a rage, and he allowed her to break free. She turned to him, barely 3 or 4 feet away, and glared into his eyes. "You're selfish for leaving her there like that just to take your stupid revenge. She is a member of your clan, your responsibility, and you are valuing this thing more than her? How could you be so heartless and selfish, Park Jimin? Your need for revenge has drowned you in it, you've become a man who cares about nothing but himself!"

His jaw clenched as he took a step closer. "And what do you know about my revenge? Do you know how much I've suffered because of it? If I'm heartless and selfish, how is Hosek any better? I know Chole is my responsibility and so are you! I've never forgotten that for a single moment since I brought you to my training center. I don't need to explain my matters to you, but you should know not to accuse someone of something before you have found any evidence."

"This isn't your matter, and I know Jung Hosek isn't as cruel as you are, that is enough evidence to me."

Jimin took a step back as he laughed hysterically, pushing his hair back. "A few days together and one dinner with him is all it took you to turn me into the bad guy?

Laira subconsciously stepped back, noticing the maddening focus of his eyes.  She hesitated, but the words slipped her lips nonetheless.

"You've been the bad guy since the day I met you."

What conspired in his twin lens, she could not decode. In flashing moments, something crossed his face, something akin to hurt or startlement. 

"Yet you stayed under the wing of this bad guy," he said.

She averted her eyes from him. His words were dancing around the truth she had sworn to never acknowledge, and now it was all unfolding so fast.

"I did," She admitted. If the truth was finally going to pour over her, soaking every bit of her untouched skin, she'd rather be brave about it. "I didn't try to leave because I didn't have anything significant to go back to. My previous life consisted of staring at the clock for my parents to finally spare me a few minutes before they went back to what they treasured more, their own lives and their work. There, I was a mere task for them to tick off their list and to never look back at. Here, I have people who care about me and people who taught me what life is. Although you brought me here, I stayed willingly, Park Jimin. I was never your captive."

"Does saying that to me make you feel better about yourself?" He scoffed, walking close to her again with the same interest gleaming in his eyes. "You know, I could read you like an open book? You never dared to return because you were afraid nobody back home would welcome you with open arms since they didn't bother to look for you. Not a single rumor was flying about the kidnapped girl. You were scared your parents just didn't care, yet you didn't even ask me if I left them alive enough to do that. You didn't want to know. Because if they were alive, it was clear that they didn't bother to have you back."

"So what?!" she pushed at his chest, blinking back her tears. "Thinking that they don't love me is hurtful, but knowing that they don't love me would tear my heart in pieces. They were all I had! All I knew. The two people I loved dearly and wished for half the love to be returned to me, just like it was for other kids. What's wrong with it if I was scared?! What do you know about family? Do you even know what love is?!"

He stared at her for a moment before walking closer to her, yanking her hands in his. He pulled free the chain hanging on one of his belt loops and wrapped it around her wrists. After making sure it was securely tied, he looked at her again and sternly said. "No, I don't know any of that."

Each word felt like it cost him hundreds of past lives, and his eyes were guarded with something dangerous she couldn't recognize, which felt like it could physically tear through Laira's skin.

He turned around opposite the river and started walking in the direction of the Minka they were staying at, pulling her along with him.

"Stop! I'm not going back. I need to bring Chloe!"

He turned around, chewing his left cheek. "Don't make me knock your head out and drag your unconscious body back with me, cadet."

Word Count: 2.9K words.

Author's note: Happy 1K reads!