A/n: Good luck...

Jimin stares at the scene, his breath short and rushed. He keeps Ariel behind him, holding her frail body close. Yoongi has his pistol trained on Madam, but, he can't shoot. Jimin can't blame him. Killing the Madam of the Underworld is something they never spoke about. Mostly because they didn't think it'd be this easy. She came to them, not the other way around. And now it feels too... convenient. There's definitely people here. She's most likely wearing a bulletproof vest. Maybe there's a glass they can't see that's separating them.

"Mr. Park," Madam Avasa says, the gold jewelry on her wrists clanging together. "My is it an honor to finally meet you."

Yoongi sweats, his entire body frozen. Jimin wants to scream, to yell at him to move and get away. Not Yoongi. No, Jimin can't afford losing his friend. Jimin halts like Yoongi. Not even friend: best friend. The idea that the man dating the love of his life would be his best friend is a foreign one, but it's true nonetheless. Yoongi is Jimin's best friend. The imagery of Madam putting a bullet in him has Jimin mentally squirming, but physically, he's too amazed to speak.

"I'm the one you want," Yoongi says. "I caused all of this. I shot the High Council member, Jimin's nothing but a friend who's in the wrong situation."

"Oh no, Mr. Min. You're quite mistaken. To be blunt, I don't give a fuck about you." Yoongi lowers his weapon, his eyebrows knitting together. "Mr. Park, however? May I speak with you, boy?"

Jimin stays planted in his spot, Ariel quivering behind him. "It'll be okay, honey," he whispers to her, stroking her hair before stepping forward.

"Jimin, no!" she yells, but Yoongi gets the message and keeps her back, Ariel still shrieking for him. Despite how difficult it is, Jimin takes a few shaky steps forward, his pistol in his hand. "Jimin! Don't trust her!"

"I don't trust anyone, kid." Jimin halts when he's about ten feet away, the woman so quiet he can hear rocks falling in the distance. "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing other than to give you the truth."

"What?" Yoongi asks, Madam pulling a single sheet of paper out of her robes. "N-No, Jimin, don't take it. Don't trust her!"

The stutter in Yoongi's voice has Jimin wishing he could look back at him, but he can't. Taking his eyes off a target is a dumb idea. Instead, he steps closer. Nine feet apart. 

"I'll be honest. I've sent my best teams after you, and yet all I've gotten in return were dozens of bodies, only one of which yours. Jeon Jungkook... a real shame, he was a wonderful assassin. One I would've loved to offer a spot on the High Council's Elite Assassins. And now since we have 2 left, we could've really used him." She waves her free hand in a shooing motion, chuckling. Almost bitterly. "Killing you? It's hard. I'm no assassin. I'm not defenseless, but I was always better at rules and regulations than self-defense. I come here to offer you information you've always wanted. Don't tell me that's not tempting?"

"It is, but there's one problem with that," Jimin says, Madam raising a brow. "I don't know what information you're talking about. I've never cared about information since the day I got into this job. Throughout my whole mafia life, I only wanted to know..." A cold settles on his skin, nibbling on the crevasses there. His eyes expand, the sweat on his hands nearly making him drop the gun. "One thing," he finishes in a whisper, bringing his gaze up to Madam.

She smiles a little too kindly, holding out the paper to him. The temptation shimmers in the nine foot distance between them. Nine steps. Before he could even think, the distance became eight. 

"Jimin! Why are you trusting her? Please don't trust her, please!" Yoongi shouts.

Jimin doesn't care. He drops his pistol, rushing over and snatching the paper from her with trembling arms. She keeps her smile, patting his head and stroking his hair. Terror enters his blood without warning, but instead, he unfolds the paper, stepping away from her. The page has one word and a number at the top. Case 613. The kill order for Aria and Jimin.

"Jimin," Yoongi whispers, and from here, Jimin can hear the plea hidden inside his name.

He ignores Yoongi and even Ariel, his eyebrows knitting together. His baby's face lies there, along with his own. The Park's. Park Jimin and Park Aria, their home address. All their information, why they were being hunted, why they were killed. Aria wasn't an accident, but Jimin was. They were both supposed to die. In the notes of the kill order, it says 'both must be killed, even the child. Necessary deaths'. Jimin quivers as his eyes skim each word, tears falling on the ink until it smears. Then, he sees the name at the bottom. The name that was stamped on this order five years ago. The name that caused the death of Park Jimin's daughter.

And the name is 'Min Yoongi'.

The paper slips from Jimin's  hands, landing on the gravel. Jimin's body convulses as he slowly turns his head, his burning eyes falling on Yoongi. The man drops his gun, holding Ariel back. 

"Jimin, listen to me, I-"

"When I told you my story," Jimin interrupts, his lower lip shaking, "did you realize that I was the Park Jimin you signed that order on?"

Yoongi stays quiet for a moment too long. "Yes."

The silence in the air brushes through Jimin's locks, wrath storming its way through his veins. His hands form fists, his eyes narrowing. "You... you were the one who authorized the death of my daughter?"

"Jimin, it was a lo-"

"Answer me!"

Silence. "It was me."

His body remains stiff for a few moments, Jimin sniffling before nodding rapidly. The tears that scorch his face are that of fury, his teeth clamoring together. "Why?"

"I didn't kill your daughter, Jimin."

"But you found my address! You searched for me! You hunted me!" he screams, his vision going a carmine shade he recognizes as blood. "My baby girl would be alive if it wasn't for you! You signed that order, you signed off on the death of my child!" Jimin's body jolts, snot trailing down to his lips. The taste of his sorrow doesn't overpower his rage. "I watched the love of my life die in my arms! And it's all because of you."

When he steps forward, Yoongi steps back with Ariel, taking his pistol off the ground and holding it up. "Jimin, you need to calm down and listen to me. I was a different person then, I've fucked up everything, I get it, but-"

"Let her go," Jimin whispers, halting. Yoongi trembles as he holds the weapon eye-level to Jimin.

"No," Yoongi replies, his voice a desperate cry.

"Why?" Jimin circles around him, not even noticing that Madam Avasa is long gone. "You want to cause another little girl to die?"

Yoongi's body vibrates, him lowering the metal. "Jimin, you're my best friend. I never meant to hurt you."

The words punch Jimin in the soul, the hand around his heart twisting and turning until all the blood squirts free. "Hurt?" he murmurs, his left eye twitching. "Hurt... me?"

"There's not a single sentence I can say to you that'll tell you how sorry I am," Yoongi says, tears trailing down his face. "What I did is unforgiveable. Yes, I did get your daughter killed. I tracked your house down, watched you for weeks, marked every entrance down. Your weaknesses, your strengths. How to kill you. I signed that order and told my boss to kill you. But instead, you sent his body back to me. The day after you killed him, I became the leader of an empire. And I was the shittiest, worst person you can ever imagine." He shakes his head, stumbling back. "I'm sorry, Jimin. I know nothing I do will ever make up for it, but I'm sorry for what I did to you."

Jimin gazes at the man, Ariel shuddering in fear behind him. "Ariel, get away from him."

"I'm sorry," Ariel says in a whimper. "I can't do that."

He takes a deep breath. "Why?"

"Because you'll kill him if I do."

His heart paralyzes itself, his body doing the same. Both Ariel and Yoongi are crying, Ariel clinging onto his back with her nails digging into his shirt. There's muck on their faces, maybe a hint of blood too. Jimin's fists unclench, the fury dissipating. Not because he forgives Yoongi. Not because he's learned a single damn thing.

It's because Ariel's scared of him.

The hush carries on, Ariel continuing to stick to Yoongi, and him to her. "I'm the parent," Jimin says, a droplet of water hitting his skin. "When you're a parent, your child becomes the most important thing to you." 

More water falls, gluing on his hair and his figure. Maybe his heart, too. "I knew one day, Aria and I would have to fight. One day the mafia would come into our lives and try to rip us apart. I knew, it's how my parents were. Petty. Stubborn. Weak." Jimin sets his jaw, raising his hand enough to run it through his damp locks. "But I dreamed anyway. I dreamed of a life where my baby and I would live in that house unbothered. I dreamed I'd take her to school and not have to worry about her being killed any second she was away from me. I was already raising her without a mother, which was hard enough, then I had to never take my eyes off her, not once. Every single moment of every day, I lived in fear. But nothing came. No mafia, no assassins. No death."

He tilts his chin back to admire the incoming rain, his eyes shutting. "And my dreams became real. I got away from my parents and raised a beautiful baby girl who I watched Dumbo with every day of the week." Jimin brings himself back down, opening his eyes to stare at Yoongi. "But... I took my eyes off of her for one minute. Less than that. And after, my life was never the same." 

Yoongi bobs his mouth open and closed, attempting to speak, but Jimin cuts him off. "It was that day I realized I'm not allowed to dream. I'm not allowed to be happy. Even with Y/n, the woman I thought was the love of my life, I wasn't happy. The pain was, and still is, there. Every time my heart beats, I hear Aria screaming for my help. Screaming and begging for mercy, for me to come and save her." Another drop of rain bounces off his face. "But I didn't. I wasn't fast enough."

His lips close, his throat suffocating with smoke that isn't truly there. "How many other kids have you killed, Mr. Min? An innocent father? A toddler? A preteen? Who else have you robbed from their parents? Who else have you put through this pain?"

There's a pause. A pause that lasts far too long. 

"Only you," Yoongi whispers.

Both words sting Jimin's eyes, the tears spilling and coating his face with despair. He staggers back, biting his lower lip and nodding. Yoongi reaches out, his hand basking in a light of hope. Jimin ignores it and keeps stumbling backwards, the syllables registering in his head. Once they do, he chuckles, and that chuckle turns into a laugh. Yoongi observes him, the laughter echoing in the vicinity. It decays more by the second, Jimin's laugh descending into a fit of sobs. The laugh ends with him on the ground, his hands in the mud while the rain shatters his scrawny form.

Wails wrench themselves out of his mouth, the shrieks sending slices of misery down his neck. Ariel sprints over, diving to her knees in front of him. "Min, we can't stay here," she says, but he shuts his eyes and tucks his legs on his stomach, wrapping his arms around his knees. "Min, please. If Madam's here, more are on the way. She's doing this to weaken us. It's her way of trying to kill us easier."

"Let me die," he forces out, his tongue swelling from the girth of the words. "Just go, let me die."

"I'm not leaving you!" she shouts, shaking him to the point where he has to open his eyes. "I'm not losing you too!" Seeing her face is like peeking into a mirror. The expression lingering in her eyes mimics that of his. "Not you. Please old man, anyone but you. Please." 

She brushes his tears away, but new ones replace them. Despite that, she doesn't give up. Ariel offers him her hand, and he actually takes it, her bringing him to a sitting position. They lock eyes, Ariel resting her hands on his shoulders. 

"Not you," she mumbles.

A smile spreads across his lips, but it's not from joy. "You should go."

"Jimin-"

"Or else I'll fail you too."

She doesn't speak for several moments, her lips parted in an 'o' shape. The rain continues to soak them, but neither of them care. All that matters is this moment, and what she'll do next. "Jimin," she says, tracing over each letter slowly. "No matter what you do, you won't fail me. And if something happens, if something goes wrong and I die, it won't be your fault."

"But-"

"You've given me the happiest time of my life. You did. Not Taehyung, not Y/n, not Yoongi - you." She strokes away one final tear, giving him a soft smile. "And that's the biggest accomplishment you can ever make. Please, for now, can that be enough?" She keeps her hands on his shoulders, Jimin squinting his eyes from the weight of his tears. "I know... I can't imagine..."

He pulls her into his embrace, the two broken children hugging and crying together. He's not sure if Yoongi's watching or not, and quite frankly, he doesn't care. Jimin was able to resist the urge to beat him to death, but that doesn't mean he's forgiven the man. It's likely he never will. His lungs throb at the thought, but there's nothing they can do.

They part not long after they embraced, Jimin getting to his feet albeit reluctantly. Ariel leans on him, him noticing Yoongi across the way. He has his eyes on Jimin, but Jimin avoids him. "Let's go, we need to find the others," Jimin mumbles, Ariel agreeing and helping him out. 

The rain is coating him, a cloud of dust limiting his visibility. But he has to keep moving. He tightens his grip around the girl, her backpack jingling as they go. Yoongi's surely not far behind, Jimin and Ariel having a head start. 

"You know how to get to the rendezvous point?" Jimin asks.

"The what?"

"Where we're meeting. Do you know how to get there?"

"I do. It's okay, Jimin. Let me handle it."

"Kid, I..."

She stays close to him, giving him pleading eyes. "Old man?" He nods. "Do you trust me?" she asks, and the hair on his neck shoots up at that. He knows they have to move, but for a few beats, all he wants to do is bathe in the light of her words. He manages to snap himself out of it, his eyes watering again.

"Yeah... yeah, kid. I do."