She could smell it on him. Sex.

His hair was slightly ruffled, dishevelled, and there was a foreign denim jacket resting on the armrest of his sofa. His eyes were still sparkling like a bonfire night's sky and red marks on his neck were slowing turning purple.

"Sure you can, I just wasn't expecting you." 

He gave her a false smile. This was not good.

She looked just as out of place in the dingy apartment as she always had done, designer garments hanging off her slender frame perfectly, red-bottomed heels clinking with every step.

Her ruby lips returned his smile, equally false. She walked over to stand next to him by the kitchen counter where he was looking at the files, pretending it's exactly what he'd been doing just moments before.

"What are your thoughts?" She inquired, trying to distinguish the perfume that was mixed with his cologne. He kept his eyes fixed on the papers while she studied the side of his face, the flush in cheeks draining far less rapidly than he would have liked.

After they had lost Jin, Saffy had become overwhelmingly possessive of Jungkook.

He had noticed it slowly. 

She would stay at his apartment just a little bit longer than she needed to, long enough for him to offer her a drink. Occasionally, she'd ask him to come along to her meetings, where he served no real purpose other than to sit next to her. More recently, she had started showing up unannounced at the Itaewon apartment when she couldn't find him in the complex they both lived in Apgujeong.

He put it down to her needing to feel control over something. 

He ignored the way she'd flutter her long lashes at him and laugh obnoxiously at his remarks that weren't even remotely funny. He chose not to notice the way she'd sometimes come down to his Apgujeong suite in skimpy satin pyjamas because she 'needed milk'.

The signs were all there, but if Jungkook buried his head in the sand for long enough, he thought they might just go away.

Six years his senior, Saffy was stable. She had it all figured out. There was something about being looked after, about being mothered, that appealed to him... but no matter how closely she'd edge towards him or how many whiskies she'd pour him, he still couldn't do it.

She could provide him with the good things in life. An easy life.

But the good was never easy and the easy never good. Jungkook knew this.

"Not sure yet, haven't really had the chance to go over them properly," he admitted. 

"No? What have you been doing?" She was guiding him into admitting that he'd been fucking one of his regular harpies. She wasn't stupid. 

Like her, he too had been searching for some way to control his life. 

Even after she'd convinced him to move over to Apgujeong, he'd still venture back to Itaewon on the weekends. There was always fresh meat around; tourists, college students, people looking for a good time. 

He was able to exercise complete control over whoever he bought home - willingly, of course. 

The pace, the timing, the positions; he held the power. He'd stopped feeling any kind of gratification from it, but if he stopped it altogether then he would lose control over the one tangible pawn he held in the game of chess that his life had become.

Then again, he had lost control about thirty minutes ago and had never felt better. Hana was the only person who could do that to him.

He had wasted so much seeking control when all he really needed was to lose it.

"Sleeping," he lied, shaking thoughts of Hana from his head. "Had a shitty headache, needed to sleep it off."

Saffy nodded, walking away from him across to the sofas, trailing her red nails across the denim jacket.

"I'll go hang this up," Saffy spoke warmly as if she was oblivious. She wasn't. She wanted to know who he was fucking.

"Saf- No!" He shouted, bolting towards her as she went to unlatch his door, but he was too late. She walked straight on into his room, greeted by the sight of his unmade bed and his clothes strewn all over the floor.

Appearing behind her like a deer in headlights, Jungkook's eyes frantically sought out Hana, except he couldn't find her. She wasn't there.

Saffy smiled smugly to herself, convinced that he really must have been alone. How silly to imagine perfume on him, she thought, it was probably just my own! He had been sleeping after all.

She felt content in this knowledge, the bubble that she kept him in was still nice and preserved.

Too consumed with her own satisfaction, she ignored the look of confusion on his face as she chucked the jacket on his chair, not hanging it up at all. She didn't care to carry on with the false pretence.

"My rooms a mess," he mumbled feebly, trying to excuse his little outburst as they edged back into the living room. 

"Yeah, you should probably get to that," Saffy smiled, reaching into the bag she had hung on her forearm. "We've got a fun little development," she spoke with enthusiasm, handing over a USB stick to Jungkook. 

The metal was cool in his hands as he accepted it, curious to know what Hae Pa crimes were embedded into it. He raised his eyebrow slightly to invite her to explain.

"CCTV from a few blocks down," her voice was chirpy. They owned various joints across town, so they had eyes all over the city. "Park Jimin has come back to the playground."

Jungkook paused for a moment.

"That's... interesting," he tried to sound unbothered as he slunk back to the kitchen counter, discarding the small stick on the countertop.

"It will be," Saffy grinned, taking a seat. "Top Dog wants us to bring him in. We've nearly got a full house."

She was referring to the Gala Bingo they had been playing. It was a list of all the Dal Pa members who had been there that night, who Hae Pa were slowly crossing off one by one. All that was left was Jimin and Hana.

"We aren't touching him," Jungkook growled. Even he was surprised by the way in which his tone darkened.

Saffy stopped what she was doing and looked up towards him, her stare cold. "Excuse me?"

"It's been a year, Saffy. Aren't you tired of constantly seeking vengeance? It doesn't bring him back," Jungkook meant what he said. "Motherfucker had nothing to do with what happened to Jin."

Laughing in disbelief, Saffy shook her head. Jungkook never spoke back to her. Ever.

"He's Dal Pa. If he hadn't been there, then it never would have happened," she stood by her words. There was an uneasy tension simmering, splicing the air with tiny shards of glass that pricked at their skin. 

"That's bullshit and you know it," he asserted, fed up with this rhetoric. 

He had spent the past year killing men to honour Jin when, deep down, he knew Jin would have found it dishonourable. It had been hard for him to accept, but Jungkook did all those hideous, heinous things to make himself feel better. It wasn't for Jin at all. Like sex, he used violence as a way to feel powerful.

He was ready to let the memory of Jin rest in peace.

"If anyone's to fucking blame Saffy, it's me. It's me and the stupid things that I did."

The tenebrous expression on his face suggested that he genuinely believed what he was saying. The USB stick that he had been toying with was thrown suddenly and sharply across the room, with such force that he wouldn't have been surprised to find it embedded in the apartment wall later.

He placed his palms on the edge of his sink, shoulders wide, as he regulated his angered breathing. He was staring down the plughole as the bones of his shoulders rolled gently in an attempt to relax his physique. 

"Fine," Saffy said coldly, walking to the door. She was done with this conversation. "Repent your sins, Jungkook. Kill the girl instead."