"Didn't Cap say he had something to tell us today?" Jiah asked, sitting next to Jungkook on the couch as they opened Hoseok's laptop together. He took a sip from the beer he was holding before turning the computer on. They had promised each other that they would find out what had happened to Hoseok, but they were going to stay right by each other every step of the way. It still hurt too much to even think about the man, they both would crumble if they didn't have each other.

The laptop lit up, Hoseok's screensaver illuminating the room. Tears pricked at their eyes with just the sight of his wallpaper. It was a spontaneous selfie Hoseok had taken of the three of them as they were drinking in their favourite bar. Jiah looking unimpressed on the left of Hoseok, eyes peering over the glass she was drinking from. Jungkook was grinning from ear to ear on the right of him, looking directly at the screen. Hoseok had his arms around them both, squeezing the three of them together so much to fit into the photo that their cheeks were all touching.

Jiah bit her lip, her cheeks feeling warm at the sight of the picture; it was as if she could still sense his cheek on hers.

Jungkook let out a loud sigh, "Where do we even start?"

They couldn't get to anything, however, because as soon as the laptop connected to their wifi, a call came in.

"Hello?" the voice on the other end was confused.

"Sir, hello," Jiah answered the video call, shifting into view so both her and Jungkook could be seen.

"We didn't know you wanted to call using this laptop," Jungkook told him.

"Well, we didn't," he answered, "We just got an alert that this laptop had been turned on again, so we wanted to know what was happening."

Jiah furrowed her eyebrows. That didn't make any sense.

"Anyway," he declared, "We're ready for you to carry out your mission, Shadow."

Her heart sank. There was the other shoe. The other shoe dropping so far down she didn't know if she could ever catch it.

"Finally," Jungkook groaned instinctively, completely forgetting the position his best friend was in.

"What is it?"

"Who," he corrected her, "Who is it, you mean."

"Uh..."

"His name is Jung Hyung Sik," he told them, "We're going to call him Scar."

Jiah furrowed her eyebrows; that was the name of the director Taehyung had introduced to her the other day.

"We're going to need you to get close enough to him to kill him."

She blinked back at her boss.

"What?"

"You heard me."

The room was silent. But her mind was blaring. She couldn't stop thinking about Taehyung's previous secretary.

They were the ones who did it.

They were the ones who shot him.

Sure, they weren't meant to kill him, but this time it's different.

"I..." can't.

She exchanged glances with Jungkook whose eyes were void of any emotion. She wanted him to protest because she couldn't do it herself.

"Got it, boss," he said instead.

What was so hard? She knew this was coming. She knew everything was going to go back to normal soon enough, so why did this scare her so much?

"Report back when things are underway," was the last thing he said before hanging up.

"And we finally get what we've been waiting forever since you got that job," Jungkook said and Jiah didn't agree with him like she normally would have.

"Jungkook..." she said quietly and her best friend turned to her, "I can't."

"What?"

"I can't do this."

"What... what do you mean?"

"Do you remember that man we were ordered to 'scare' before? We had to shoot him in the leg, do you remember?"

"Yeah because that's only happened one time," Jungkook rolled his eyes, sarcasm dripping in his tone, "Why though?"

"Well he was Taehyung's old secretary..." she started, "What's going on in that company? Why are we after their employees? See, this is what happens when we don't know why we're ordered to do these things, and just do it all blindly."

"Shadow... what's happening to you?"

She gulped, turning to avoid his gaze. She knew what was happening to her.

"You used to love all this," he said slowly, "You used to thrive off all this..."

He took her silence as an answer.

"Let's go out."

"What?"

"Come," he stood up, closing Hoseok's laptop, "Let's go for a ride."

--

They did exactly that, Jungkook took Jiah on the back of his motorcycle, driving to the edge of a cliff overlooking the city, a place they used to come to often when they were still in high school, just starting off at Angels and Devils.

Even though they lived in a world where their emotions didn't seem to exist, every time they were there they found themselves pouring their hearts out to each other.

The calm jewelled sky and warm city lights invoked a sense of acceptance between the two of them. Of course, they knew they were safe to tell each other anything, but here, in this space, where it felt like they were the only two people to exist, they were just two dreamers who wanted to run away from their lives. Yes, part of them loved the thrill, but there was always a small part of them that just didn't want to be part of it anymore.

"Jiah," Jungkook had started, again using her name made his tone ten times more serious, "You know this is not a good idea, don't you?"

His question wasn't really in the form of a question, more like a statement.

She turned to look at him, the golden hues of the sunset bouncing off his skin in beautiful waves. Jiah hardly took time to adore his beauty, but when she did, she couldn't deny that her best friend got some gorgeous genes in his family. As he was sitting on the ground on the edge of that cliff, looking out at the vast expanse of the city, she saw how his jaw jutted out from the bottom of his face, encasing it in the most impeccable way. With the colour of the sunset flowing through his eyes, they were doeskin. He had a similar shimmer to them as Taehyung did, and she wasn't surprised. They were both stunning.

She could see the faint crinkle at the edges of his eyes that would crease to a maximum when he was laughing, something that Jiah had the honour of seeing on many occasions.

Jungkook's skin was impeccably clear, and she almost admitted it was a waste that he had adorned it with ink starting from the middle of his neck downwards.

But she loved his tattoos, he had explained the story behind every single one of them and that was a good 'get to know each other' activity they had done without knowing. She learnt that he was so much more than skill and good looks within their first year of meeting, he was someone with purpose and a real knack for protecting the ones he loved. 

"What is?"

He turned to look at her properly.

Her favourite tattoo, however, was on the right of his neck, which she could see clearly now. It was a magnificent crown, grand and majestic with a simple jewel in the middle, contradicting the matter of it. At the edges of the crown, it was blurred, blending right into his skin so much that you don't see where the crown ends and he begins. It was Jiah's pride, not because she had anything to do with the logistics of it, but because she could tell exactly what it meant.

Jungkook had started off as the son of a Mafia boss, back in Busan. He hated growing up as one, though. Everything he did had to be only under his father's orders, or else he wasn't allowed to do it. He couldn't even go out to drinks with his friends after school without his dad grounding him.

But with that being said, he still loved the thrill of it all. Just without the chains.

When he got to Seoul after a great deal of unsuccessful running away, he made a pact with his father, he would join their ally mafia here and then return when his father was ready.

The crown was a part of Jungkook much like his skin. 

"You and Diamond..." he said softly, "Diamonds don't shine if they're in the shadow, Jiah. As long as you guys are together, the shadow will always overpower the diamond, you, your past will always haunt you both, neither one of you will be able to be happy."

The one thing Jiah had learnt that trickled down from his experience being in the mafia under his father, was that Jungkook was wise beyond his years. He had learnt how to be cold-blooded but also how to look after a person's heart, much like he had to do for his mother. Whatever Jungkook would say, Jiah always took seriously. 

"Jungkook that-"

"I love you, Jiah," he said sadly, "And I don't want you to hurt yourself. But I'm telling you, you doing this, getting involved with Diamond is only going to hurt you. You're going to hurt him, we walk around with knives poking out of our backs, Jiah. Anyone who comes near is going to be cut and bleed until they have nothing left to give... you don't want to do that to him, do you?"

"But Jungkook..." she sighed, "It's..."

"I know, Jiah-"

"The thing is, he looks at me and I just-"

"Forget your own name?"

"Exactly..." she looked down, "Exactly."

"You know," his voice perked up suddenly, "I always pictured you dating some buff guy from some rival gang or something," his tone was dreamy, "Like those movies, you know?"

She smiled, shaking her head, "Idiot."

"But you just had to pick a good guy, didn't you?"

"How do you know he's good-"

"Because you picked him."

"You're not making any sense right now."

"Does he know?"

"What?"

"Does Diamond know... about you? About us?"

"Well, no, he doesn't-"

"Good. Keep it that way."

"Jungkook what do I do?"

"You need to stop, Jiah, stop before it gets too late. Hurting him will kill you, and I know you're not going to withstand that."

They stayed there all night, just talking about anything and everything, and about how they must take Ji Young there one day. They talked about how he had found Angels and Devils and how that reminded them of their crazy youth. They discussed what they should do in order to protect Ji Young from getting any deeper into their lives.

They had so much to talk about that they didn't want to leave.

But dawn was nearing and they both had places to be the next day and so they decided to get going.

When they were on Jungkook's motorbike, however, ready to drive off, a pair of car headlights blinded them, getting nearer. The two of them stayed still, waiting for the car to stop before they could ride off, but when the car stopped and two people got out of the car, Jiah couldn't believe her eyes.

"Jiah?" his voice was loud, but it was clear, like an arrow thrown right into her heart.

She didn't reply, her mind went completely blank. What was he doing here? 

This was one of those moments where she felt her two worlds collide, crash and bang into each other.

"Is that Diamond?" Jungkook hissed, "And Saturn?"

Yes. Yes, it was.

"Fancy meeting you here," Jimin walked over to them, hands in his pockets and bowed to Jungkook. "Hi there, I'm Jimin," he stuck his hand out to him, "Nice to meet you."

Jiah wanted to run away.

Don't shake his hand. Don't do it.

She didn't want her two worlds to meet. She didn't want the life she was living as a normal secretary at Taehyung's company to ever see the other side of her life.

"I'm Jungkook, nice to meet you."

"Jungkook?" Taehyung's voice was now getting closer as he closed his door and walked over as well. "Nice to meet you, I've heard so much about you."

"You have?" his eyes were wide, shooting a glare at Jiah.

"Yes, Jiah always talks about how you're such an amazing friend to her."

Now is the time to shut up Taehyung.

She just knew Jungkook was going to kill her later. He didn't like being shared.

"I've heard a lot about you too," Jungkook told him and this time the look Taehyung gave her was different, it was smug.

"Have you?"

"Yeah, about how you-"

"Now that everyone's met," Jiah cut him off, "What are you guys doing here?"

"We could ask you guys the same thing," they said, "We always come here."

"We do... too..."

"You do?" Taehyung asked, "How come we've never seen each other here?"

"That's weird," Jimin scrunched his eyebrows, "But why are you here now? Don't you need to be at work in a couple of hours?"

"Same with you two... why are you guys here?"

"You're right," Taehyung's voice was muffled by the coat he had on. That was when Jiah noticed what he was wearing. It was only recently did she allow herself to pay attention to what he wore. Before, it was always just a suit and a tie to her, but now she noticed every little detail as if she were going to draw himself in her mind, imprint it in her heart.

With the weak light coming from Jungkook's motorcycle she could see the long grey coat he had on, a pair of black sleeks underneath paired with a simple white shirt. It was so plain but why did it look like a million dollars on him?

"We were just about to get going," Jungkook interrupted the silence between the four of them.

"Okay," Jimin had nodded, "We'll see you at work Jiah? It was nice meeting you, Jungkook."

"Nice meeting you as well," Jungkook said as he hopped onto the motorcycle.

Jiah looked up from the ground, catching Taehyung already looking at her. Her heart skipped a beat.

When Taehyung looked at her, it was as if his eyes were digging into her own, pulling right at her soul. Her fingers itched to touch him, her body craved to hold him. The ocean in her ribcage started to pick up speed, swirling a hurricane around in the pen of her bones.

"Actually," he stopped them, "Jiah, can I speak with you?"

"Huh?"

"I have something to ask you."

She could feel Jungkook sending her signals to decline and jump onto the back of his vehicle. Can we talk about it at work? It was so easy to say.

"Sure," she had said instead, "Jungkook, you go first."

"But-"

"It's okay," she offered him a tired smile, "I'll be fine."

He reluctantly nodded, waving a final time before driving off.

The pair then looked over at Jimin, who was just smiling at them innocently.

Before he understood what they were trying to say and held his hands up, "I'll go wait in the car."

"How are you?" was the first thing he had said, his voice so melodic it was as if the raging war inside her chest was calmed just with those three words. His hands reached for hers, taking them and holding them tight. She didn't want to let go.

"I'm okay," she answered, "How are you?"

"I'm okay," he repeated. A couple of seconds had passed, of him looking down at their connected hands, looking into each other's eyes, looking down at the dirt underneath them, before he finally mustered the courage to speak again.

"Jiah, I was thinking," heaving a deep sigh, he continued, "I wanted to make us official..."

She tried to make sense of what he was saying, playing those words over and over again in her head.

"What do you me-"

"I mean..." he bit his lip, looking out into the distance again, "I want to be able to call you my girlfriend."

Silence.

"I want to take you out to dinner and kiss you in public, I want to buy you presents and take you shopping," his eyes were glitter, and at that moment Jiah wondered why people would pay to see the stars when they could just look at Taehyung's eyes.

"I want you and I want you fully, Jiah, I'm falling so, so hard and I want you."

Her knees were going to give way. Jungkook was right. Before the conversation they had today, she would have jumped at this. She would have leaned up and kissed Taehyung, saying yes, let's do it. She would have followed her heart.

But now, her heart was telling her no. Her heart was saying that she cared too much about this amazing man in front of her that she wouldn't want anything, anyone, any reason to hurt him.

Her heart was saying no.

So that's what she said too.

"Sorry Taehyung," it took her all the strength in her body to tear her eyes away from his, his eyes that were pleading her, "I can't."

He was visibly confused, and that made her want to punch a wall, her heart ached to see him this way. But she knew it would hurt her more to put him in the danger this relationship could potentially bring.

"What?"

"I thought this thing we had was just that, a thing," she was kicking herself inside, "I didn't know you wanted more, I'm sorry, Taehyung."

"I don't care about you this much for it to be just a thing, Jiah," he was not backing down, "And I know you don't think that way too. Why are you saying this?"

"Taehyung, I can't... we can't... this isn't for us. I'm sorry."

Finally looking up, she caught his gaze. She'd likened his eyes to dove feathers, to ashes and smoke. But how was it now she'd be lying if it was even one of those? How was it now it looked like all the emotion, all the colour, all the feeling had been sucked right out of them and he was left with nothing? The colour of slush that you wish would melt away.

"Why do you keep saying you're sorry?" he sounded more sad than angry, and she wished she would take all that away. She knew she could, but she would rather hurt him now and let him recover before everything got all too much.

"Because I am, I'm sorry."