Pick Your Filter.

Laira's judgment felt superficial as she was swamped with conflicted thoughts. Park Jimin was a constant presence in her brain that she could not decode. Scratching, knocking, breathing in all areas, giving and taking back reasons that set her confusion ablaze.

A walking contradiction he seemed, but she was aware her observation only floated on the surface. He was a lot more than he let out to be, more than what she wanted to believe.

More than what a monster should be.

Who is this Park Jimin? A criminal? A leader? Was she supposed to hate him or obey him? She almost did both. Almost.

He just had a way of changing her mind before she could fully land her step. A trait of his that kept her floating in the air, arduously differentiating the ocean from the mirage, the fragile from the fortress, and the right from the wrong.

Most of which felt like futile reasonings, given the lack of clarity her vision offered when it concerned the silver-haired assassin.

It could not go on like that forever, not if she valued her rationality. She desperately wanted to reach a conclusion. Hence: Sort it down on paper, something she used to do when she was young. She started listing reasons to hate him and reasons to obey—scratch that—to tolerate him.

Reasons to hate Park Jimin:

#1. He kidnapped me.

That reason was borderline hypocrisy, given that she neither dreaded the separation from her family nor did she mourn the life she couldn't live. Anyhow, he did abduct her, which accounted for some reasonable hate.

#2. He is insufferable and arrogant.

A plain and simple reason that should've topped the list.

#3. He wanted me to harm Taehyung?

Emphasis on the question mark. Laira picked up some kind of smell that closely resembled hidden intentions, which only meant one thing: Park Jimin was keeping her in the dark. She attributed that discovery to the absurd plot holes in the script he had written of his plan to use a mere trainee to harm a deliciously skilled assassin, despite being one of the greatest himself.

She made a mental note to get to the bottom of that case soon.

#4. He stopped me from saving Chloe and chained me like a prisoner.

That was his attempt to protect her, as he claimed so himself that night, but nobody had the right to forcefully change her decision. His intentions may have been for her good. However, his way of executing his intentions was downright wrong, which is tightly knitted to the next reason:

#5. He weaponized my fears to wound me/Hurt me using my relationship with my parents.

He proved to be an adult with remarkable observation and tastefully poisonous words sitting on his tongue—very typical. Laira was wounded by everything he said that night by the river, for which he deserved her hatred. Never mind that she was the one who initiated that verbal battle. Overall, it was insensitive and cruel of him to involve/use her fear of being neglected by her parents in their argument.

Since that's established, next.

Reasons to not hate him:

There was a moment of silence as Laira pondered and pondered, blankly staring down at the paper. Many thoughts stumbled down the stream of her consciousness, resulting in a crowded room of reasons. It was as if her mind supported the idea of defending Park Jimin.

She scoffed.

Symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome? Exasperated, she let her palm smack her face. Was she really in her right mind? Should she consult a therapist, or better yet Namjoon? The more she questioned, the more her brain humored her by springing up logic from the dungeons of nonsense.

Has Park Jimin compelled me? Is he a necromancer? Would Chloe or Namjoon know how to ward off magic spells?

She facepalmed again.

"Why are you hitting your face?" Ben questioned from beside her, his tiny eyes peeking above the storybook he held. "Can I hit you too?"

"No, Ben. You cannot hit me." Laira wished to be dissolved in a glass of warm water. "I have gone crazy. That is why I'm hitting myself."

"Do you become not crazy when you hit yourself?" He abruptly stood up, carelessly abandoning his book. "My teacher says Sawon is crazy. Can I hit him?"

Laira's eyes widened in shock.  "No! Ben, you can't just hit anyone. Besides, when I say I'm crazy that means I feel reckless, but Sawon, well, your friend is a kid. And no, you cannot hit him."

"But I want to help him," he said, twisting his lips in a pout, giving way for a dent to form on his left cheek. "Can I hit Seokjin hyung then? Dad says Seokjin hyung is reckless-"

"Lord, no!" Laira burst out in laughter. "That- Well, yes. Your dad is right, but no, gosh, no. You absolutely cannot hit him. He is your hyung."

He let out a disappointed sigh. "Okay. But Seokjin hyung said he would eat me."

Laira stifled an amused chuckle. "What, why would he say that?"

"Because I told him he is a noob at cham cham cham."

"He- what?" Her brows crinkled in amusement. "What is a 'noob' and who taught you that word?"

"Jiminie hyung taught me. He said noob means someone bad at playing a game."

She scoffed. "And your Jiminie hyung is good at playing games?"

Laira was taken aback by the split second of offense that sparked in the little guy's eyes. "Yes," he declared as if the answer was obvious. "My Jimin is best at jegichagi and gonggi."

"There has to be something he is bad at. He can't be good at everything!" Laira thought aloud, perhaps she shouldn't have.

Ben glared at her with his non-existent claws out. "No, that's not true." He spoke, or more like mumbled in severe upset.

"Why are you beefing with my child?" Namjoon asked, hovering above them.

"Because your child is delusional."

"What is delu-lish-nal?" Ben questioned, lying down next to Laira.

"He looks up to him, you know," Namjoon said, pulling Ben in his arms.

"I don't guarantee a positive outcome of that."

Namjoon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, alright. Laira The Great Soothsayer. Anything else you'd like to warn me of?"

Laira poked her nose from the side of the paper to nod a 'no' and said, "You will have to condone my imagination of your leader's head on a jellyfish's body."

Namjoon snickered. "Might as well make a voodoo doll to haunt him."

"I don't believe in hocus pocus," she declared, deadpanned. Namjoon laughed, shaking his head.

"Are you sure you want to go with us tonight? You could stay back and keep Ben company." He chuckled and added, "You are mentally his age anyway."

Laira bristled. "What? I'm very much grown mentally, perhaps older than all your men combined."

Namjoon bit his lip, allowing a small dimple to peek on his cheek. "Wouldn't that make you a bit too old?"

"And saying that would make you an ageist."

He cracked up, holding his hands up in surrender. "Okay. Stop huffing and puffing your cheeks at me. Someone was looking for you." He poked her arm, asking her to stand up. That action pulled some giggles from Ben. "Now, go. There is a shed in the backyard. Go."

She straightened her slouching shoulders as she walked downstairs, still clutching the paper and pen. A bit later she slowed down to scribble something.

Reasons to not hate him:

#1. He saved my life once?

A question mark again because she wasn't sure if he killed one of his men to save her life or to merely ensure that the mission he gave her could reach the end of the tunnel.
After a second thought, she removed the question mark and wrote: Regardless of his ulterior motives, he did save my life.

# 2. He saved my life again.

Laira had already established that his way of doing the good deed was messed up and brutal. But she was still safe and sound to sing that tale because he stopped her from going all by herself to save Chloe. Though, she was still bitter about the chaining-her-hands part.

She folded the paper and shoved it in her pocket, feeling annoyingly confused again.

To be continued

***

Author's note: Hello, I'm back and it hasn't been a month! Firstly, there's a 'to be continued' above because I had to divide this chapter into two parts. It was difficult to pause the story there, but I didn't want the readers to struggle by reading over 3.5-4K words in a single chapter.

Secondly, I've been on this app since 2020, but it hasn't been that long since I started writing. While I'm still improving, working on Chess helped me so much to better comprehend my storytelling skills and refine them. I want to share a little tip with other writers who are still learning like me: Work on developing your style. Don't parrot anyone's way of writing. I've never done that, and you shouldn't either. If you become someone's shadow, you lose your own color. Leaving a piece of yourself in your writing makes your writing special and makes you special for your readers. Also, it's a very fun process, trust me. Once you start experimenting with your writing to find your style, you'll unlock a magical realm of unlimited possibilities. So all the best, guys!

Lastly, I'm excited to present to you all the very first fan art I received for Chess!! It's a cover made by lovely and talented Janefanfics_ And I don't know if that was intentional, but Jimin has silver hair! Thanks a lot, Jane.♡