Several nights had passed since the bloodened threesome. News of an unexplainable fire burning down the decrepit and abandoned department store from the plaza made local news for days, along with a few missing person reports that would soon be forgotten the moment a  more interesting story consumed the general publics' attention.

Thunder shook the thick paned glass of the wall to ceiling windows. Lightning flashes, cascading the living room with splashes of illumination as Jungkook paced back and forth over the cold hardwood floors. He's dressed down casually in an oversized black tee and ripped jeans. His pale blonde and disheveled hair sways from his head at every step, his expression hard and forlorn.

Jungkook had nearly mastered the art of being a killer. He was just about numb to the bitter aftertaste of death that always crept up his throat at the sight of a freshly drained corpse. Under the guidance of Tanya, Jungkook was nearly desensitized to the gruesome process of disposing of their...evidence.

Breaking down the bed. Gathering its wood. Rolling the body in the rustic carpet.

Starting the fire, which was a rather conspicuous method and possibly an overkill. But it was effective, erasing anything that could be traced back to them.

It was all necessary. That's what Tanya would say to him when she could see the regret threatening to fill his eyes in the face of the flames or the darkened waves of the ocean as the scent of life grew fainter by the second.

They had to feed.

They had to kill.

It was the only way they could keep their demons at bay and remain in control of themselves.

It was all necessary.

It was necessary.

It was necessary.

" It was necessary...It was necessary..it was necessary...it was....." Jungkook pauses, swallowing down the words he was mindlessly trying to convince himself were true. Perhaps if he said it enough, it would become law, and the long line of death that followed him since he'd met Tanya would suddenly become minuscule and their faces would fade from his nightmares.

But he knew that was a lie.

Jungkook's shoulders sag and he unclenches his fists, the weight of reality obeying gravity. He sighs.

"It's not...necessary. None of it..." he murmurs to himself. Just then, lightning cracks across the deep grey skies again, its thunder following soon after. The storm was near, in more ways than one and Jungkook knew he had to face it one way or another. He had to say something to Tanya. Something that despite how much he was enjoying the high. It wasn't just about him or who he wanted to be. Not anymore.

Jungkook approaches the master bathroom and enters it to find Tanya lounging in a steaming hot bubble bath. The scents of aromatherapy oils rolled through the air and soft music played from an indeterminate location in the room as a single wine glass filled halfway sat on the ledge. Her nudity is barely masked by the layer of foam and suds on the water's surface. Her long hair is pulled up into a bun atop her head and her eyes are closed as she relaxed against a plush bath pillow.

In a way, Jungkook envied Tanya's way of acting as if she weren't a merciless killer. As if the blood of numerous people weren't on her hands and on her tongue. Her vast experience surely played a huge part in her indifference. Or perhaps she was just a sociopath by nature, vampirism aside.

He lets out a leveled sigh as he crossed the threshold and the moment his foot hits the moist tile, her eyes peel open lazily to peer in his direction. The water sloshes as she sat up in the tub, the water level sinking down so that her areolas are peaking over the surface. She smiles.

"Hey Baby...." she greets him sweetly and Jungkook nods at her stiffly with a tight-lipped smile. He walks toward the tub with his hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans.

"Hey....enjoying your bath?" he tips his chin towards the water, his eyes dropping to her breasts briefly. Tanya follows his gaze and looks back up at him with a smirk.

"I am....would be better with you though.." she slides back against the wall of the tub until the water touches her chin, lifting one of her dripping legs slowly to cross it over the other. His eyes follow the line of her naked thigh and shin, all the way down to her pointed toes. He considers it for a moment, only because the part of himself she was responsible for would have gladly stripped down to join her. But that would only be a distraction. He couldn't afford that right now with what was on his mind. Jungkook resists the urge to roll his eyes at himself as he walked deeper into the room.

"Yeah...I'm sure.." he mutters. Tanya's smirk fades as Jungkook walked past the tub in the direction of the grand mirror located diagonal to it on the opposite side of the bathroom. The marble counters felt cold against his palms as he leaned against them between the sinks and he lifts his head slowly to stare at himself. 

He couldn't help but chuckle every time he saw his reflection. For all of his life, he'd been led to believe that vampires weren't supposed to have them. Everything he believed about the fictional beings was proven to be invalid. Except for the sun being a threat, something he hadn't had the guts to test out for himself just yet.

He could eat and drink normal human food. He slept and experienced dreams. And nightmares. He felt pain. He bled. He could still feel. If not more than he did before. Nothing was the same though. It was as if blood tainted him in ways much deeper than on a cellular level.

It would be cliche of him to say he no longer recognized himself.

His skin was clear and poreless. His tattoos were darker as if they were new. His newly bleached hair still held a luster and shine despite the chemicals. His muscles were taut and defined without any maintenance. He was...virtually perfect.

On the outside.

He exhales heavily and it's loud enough for Tanya to deem as agitated. The water shifted again as she sat up and Jungkook lifts his head at the sound, knowing he had her attention.

"Something on your mind?" she asks him. He could feel her eyes on him through the mirror, brow furrowed and curious in his peripheral.

"Welp...here goes nothing.." he says to himself. Jungkook turns around and leans against the edge of the counter. Tanya watches him expectantly as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Um...Yeah, actually...How often do you go to the blood banks? You know, to replenish your stash here?" he asks bravely and Tanya's frown lifts a fraction. She glances towards her wine glass briefly before responding.

"As of lately? I haven't been at all. This is the last of what I have. It's not like we've had a real need for any.." she shrugs her shoulders and Jungkook nods in understanding.

"Yeah, I know but...Say we needed for it...Where and how often would we go? " he ask with more confidence. Tanya's expression remains marked with confusion as she sat in the steamy waters, her eyes scanning Jungkook suspiciously.

"What are you really trying to ask me Jungkook? You suck at subtlety...Are you thirsty or something? Because if you are we can just..."

"No...I'm not thirsty...It's just.." he struggles.

"Just what babe? Spit it out." Tanya chuckles with an endearing smile. The softness in her eyes when she looked at him had him warring with himself on whether he should change the subject or lie.

"No...this has to be said."  the human inside of him spoke.

Jungkook swallows his apprehension down before puffing his cheeks.

"I wanna know how to get blood without....killing"

A muffled laugh sputters from Tanya's lips and she smiles in disbelief at Jungkook's statement. He frowns at her blatant amusement.

"You're joking...Right?" she laughs again and Jungkook responds by unfolding his arms and tightening his jaw, hardening his expression. Tanya's smile immediately fades.

"You're...not joking..." she deadpans.

"No. I'm not. So I'd appreciate it if you'd take me seriously for once and listen.." Jungkook responds blankly. At his tone, Tanya rolls her eyes as she stood up and Jungkook watched warily as water and suds dripped from her naked body.

"Fine.." she mumbles distractedly, shaking the water from her hands.

When she looks up and finds Jungkook's eyes on her exposed curves, she quirks a brow and smirks as she lifted her leg to step over the edge of the tub. Jungkook remains silent as she breezed past him, pulling the pin from her hair so that it falls attractively over her shoulders. She remained naked, not even bothering to grab her towel or robe that hung nearby and Jungkook glances over as she stepped up to the counter he was leaning against.

Tanya leans over the marble, arching her back slightly as she examined her perfectly symmetrical face. She fluffed her hair from the roots and turned her head to run the pad of her middle finger over her cheekbone, obsessively checking her unaged face as if there would be any change or flaws. Jungkook hisses an irritated sigh through his teeth unsubtly and Tanya snaps out of her self-imposed daze to find him looking over his shoulder and at her in the mirror.

"Seriously?" He lifts his brows at her reflection and a slightly arrogant smirk lifts the corner of her mouth as she leaned back up.

"I'm sorry...I'm listening.." She turns to face Jungkook and his eyes fall to her pointed nipples. She glances down as he does and scoffs before going to retrieve her robe on the other side of the room. After pulling it on and tying the silk rope over her waist, she returns to his side and looks up at him dryly.

"Ok...So what's this about?..." she folds her arms over her chest as he did before and Jungkook pushes off of the counter to step away from it.  He couldn't think clearly with those piercing grey eyes staring into him and he needed some distance to form his thoughts. Tanya watches his back as he slowly began to pace, punching at his palm anxiously before finding his words.

"I've just been thinking..maybe we should slow down," he says as he turns, glancing up and Tanya tilts her head.

"Slow down?"

"Yeah. Maybe ease up on the frequent kills. I mean it's excessive at this point. It's not like we needed to feed that often..and from what I can see, blood bags could keep the thirst at bay in between..." Jungkook pauses. Tanya lifts her brow obliviously.

"And? Why would we need to do that when we live in a city as large as this? Millions of living blood bags are at our disposal. We've talked about this..." she insists and Jungkook snorts humorlessly.

"No...Not really. We didn't have any discussions. We just acted on impulses. Mostly yours by the way...We just set out every night and followed our instincts and did what our bodies told us to do."

"And what's wrong with that?" Tanya shrugs.

"Because I think we're getting too comfortable! How many people have we killed in the past 3 months alone, Tanya?"

There was a pause after his question and Tanya only stares blankly at Jungkook's earnest eyes.

"I don't know...Who's counting?"

Her nonchalance was beyond aggravating and Jungkook was doing his best not to lose his patience with her. But he could feel his resolve slipping by the second.

"Me! I'm fucking counting. And it's not even on purpose. It's all I can think about. Their names and their faces. All 24 of them. 25 including the girl from the plaza....and that's just in the past few months.

At the mention of that night, Tanya's eyes close blissfully and she bites her lip as she recounted it.

"Mmmm...that was fun, wasn't it? I can almost still taste her. I wouldn't mind doing something like that again.." she giggles softly as she turned. As if they weren't having a conversation, Tanya reaches into one of the crystal nobbed drawers beneath the counter for a rose gold paddle brush and begins running it through her long dark strands. Which was completely pointless considering her hair was always perfectly coifed and shiny from feeding on the blood of the semi innocent. But she often partook in unnecessary grooming rituals anyway, most likely to indulge her vanity and narcissism.

"What? No...Tanya...Are you even listening to what I'm trying to say?" Jungkook ends his pace to walk up behind her. She continues brushing her hair, locking her eyes with the man now looking over her shoulder in the mirror.

"Well, it's kind of hard when you aren't really saying anything baby boy.." she responds teasingly and a low growl threatens to roll from his chest. Tanya detects it and pauses mid brush to gauge the coldness in Jungkook's expression.

"Don't..don't do that. Don't patronize me. You have to acknowledge what we've been doing here.  We can't just keep picking random people off the street like phantoms. It's reckless and they'll eventually start to notice a trend...we...I mean they...are not stupid." he stammers towards the end of his slip up and Tanya gives her mane a few more strokes before setting the brush down. She turns on her heels and steps into Jungkook's space to drape her arms over his shoulders. He goes tense at her touch but doesn't make a move to resist her proximity.

"You see? That right there is your problem. You still think and feel as if you're one of them." she speaks to him in a soft comforting tone, chasing his gaze with her bright enamoring eyes. Jungkook surrenders to them and his shoulders relax beneath her touch, prompting her to slowly stroke his the back of his neck lovingly.

"I know that but..." he sighs with a pained expression. Tanya shushes him before he can finish his sentence by pulling him down to her for a soft peck.

"You feel guilty. I understand. All of this is new to you and you're scared...." She pulls back to assure him softly. Jungkook's glare melts the longer he's locked in her eyes and he clenches his teeth as he nodded.

"I do...I am.." he admits. Tanya gives a small smile of validation before shifting her demeanor from sweet to serious in the blink of an eye.

"Fear and guilt are for those who have their humanity to lose. We do not need it. It makes us weak. That's what sets us apart from them and that's also why you have to let it go. Now. Killing them is necessary. There is no other way.."

Jungkook's brow creases at the icy switch in her tone, lifting his head away from her. Her soft grip on his nape falls away as he does.

"But...there has to be..." he begins and Tanya shakes her head at him emphatically.

"There isn't. Listen to me...One of three things will happen if you don't drain every last drop from them. Once we bite, our venom floods their blood, right? Right..so...The longer we feed, the more they take in. Depending on how much and how long they're exposed determines their outcome. If they're lucky, they just die immediately in reaction to it and blood loss. That's outcome number one. Number two, They become like us. I'm sure you can attest to how unpleasant that transition can be..."

Jungkook swallows bitterly in agreement as she continued.

"And there's outcome three. The worst one. This is after the rush, excitement, and fear fade away...and the wounds heal and the venom remains inside of them. And by some sick chance, they survive...they change.  Everything about them. Their personalities. Their ambitions. They're just erased and their only motivation becomes being near us. Whether we want them to or not, they're drawn to us like magnets. Obsessively. Shamelessly. Similar to the ways we're drawn to blood, they seek us out and put themselves in more danger in pursuit of us......Like they're following a mirage of heaven that only leads them further into hell.  And no matter where we go or how well we attempt to avoid them, they would always find us. Because we're a part of them. Forever....or until we kill them. Whichever comes first."

Tanya's tone becomes cryptic as it did the night of Jungkook's first kill and he's given the impression that this outcome was personal to her in some way. Her brow furrows and her voice shakes slightly as she continued to explain.

"...I don't know...maybe... it's the thirst's way of completing its parasitic cycle...Prolonging its existence...But I've been this way for long enough to have seen it happen and it's not pretty. And it's not worth saving yourself some guilt either. You have to kill them while they are still themselves or risk being stuck with them. It's necessary so that we have no ties to the humans beyond the feed and they don't lose themselves to a dead-end attraction. Between death and that, I'd much rather them be dead and I'm positive that they would agree. Hell, that's as humane as it gets. And I have zero guilt about that..." Tanya begins to back away from Jungkook as she finished and leans back to lean against the counter. His troubled expression persists as she crosses her arms over her chest again, sighing as if it was laborious for her to expound on the subject.

Her eyes travel from Jungkook to the floor briefly. For a moment he's silenced by her words, feeling every sharpened edge of them as they set in.

Death was kind in comparison to this.

Right?

"Well...All the more reason for an alternative. We.....I can't keep this up. I'm not a killer.." Jungkook wilts a fraction, making Tanya scoff with annoyance at his stance.

"I think it's a little late for that baby. Believe me, I wish there was a better way. Genuinely. But, there just isn't.  Now come on.....stop pouting over the dead. It's useless..." she moves to walk past him again and heads in the direction of the tub. As she bent over the edge to test the water's temperature with her fingertips, Jungkook glances up to watch her mindlessly in the mirror.

As he did, he couldn't control the spiral his conflicted mind plunged into.

He hated to admit it to himself but...

Maybe she was right. Maybe running from what he was in an attempt to retain his humanity was useless. On one hand and as unpleasant as it was every time, killing was the best option if it meant feeding on humans. Becoming like him or being bound to someone like him for who knows how long seemed like torture in comparison to death. And that's assuming he has the restraint to stop himself in the middle of a feed anyway.

But on the other...

There was no escape from the grief he felt when his thoughts traveled back to the lives he dealt a hand in ending. Their faces haunted him. Their names. Their smiles. Their voices. The way their eyes widened with fear and confusion when they realized what was happening to them. If they realized anything at all. Most were so drowned under the influence of venom to form a thought beyond sensation. Men. Women. Mothers. Fathers. Sons. Daughters. There was no way he could know what became of those they were leaving behind. Similarly to the way he would never be able to tell his parents goodbye.

Suddenly, Jungkook's chest began to ache when the image of his mother's face filled his mind. Tanya once told him that the longer he existed like this, the fuzzier his memories of before would become. So would a day come where he wouldn't recall the details of her face as vividly as he did now.

As he brooded, Tanya looks over her shoulder to spot him sulking before the misted mirror. She rolls her eyes.

"Never mind this depressing ass shit...I know  exactly what you need."

The sound of her turning the faucet to reheat the water to her liking pulls Jungkook's attention from his spiraling and back to his reflection. The thick steam of the nearly scalding hot water could be seen forming over it, starting to obscure the view of himself. He turns just as Tanya is turning off the faucet with a curious expression.

"What? A bath?" He snorts sarcastically and Tanya chuckles softly. As she turns back to him, she shakes her head.

"Nope...a distraction." She purrs seductively. Before he could question her, Tanya is pulling at the loose knot of her robe and shrugging it off from her body. Her golden skin is exposed to him in every way and her blazing gaze remains on him as she drops the robe so that it pools at her feet.

Jungkook tenses at the sight of her body, it never ceases to render him silent from how perfect it was. Knowing she had his full attention, Tanya slowly leans over to reach for her glass. She gives it a swirl before putting it to her lips and the dark red tint stains the glass as it flowed into her mouth. Jungkook felt a slight burn in his chest at the familiar scent but he stands firmly where he was as Tanya swallowed.

Pulling the glass from her lips, she glances over the rim at Jungkook as she tilted it again. Thick streams of crimson began to drizzle over Tanya's collar bones, coating her skin in a gruesomely appealing way with blood. It dripped over and between her breasts and Jungkook watched as it traveled over her tummy, dipping into her naval. He gulps dryly against the growing sting in his throat and hardness straining beneath his pants.

Want...

Want...

He clenches his teeth harder as his mouth began to water and his pained expression has Tanya biting her lip.

"Just stop, okay? Stop trying to resist what you cant baby. Stop running from this..from what you want. From what you are...." she says, tossing the now-empty wine glass aside. As it shatters against the floor, she slowly stalks toward him.

Tanya stops short of a foot from Jungkook, challenging him with her eyes to meet her halfway.

"Come here." She commands softly, her voice echoing hauntingly in his head. Without thinking, Jungkook moves forward so that he's just barely close enough for Tanya's nipples to brush over the fabric of his shirt. His chest heaves slowly, taking in the heady scent of blood on her skin as he gazed down and into her eyes. Suddenly the unease he felt several seconds before became muted and the urge to run his tongue over every inch of her body swells from deep inside of him.

She smiles softly.

"This..." Tanya begins. She reaches for Jungkook's hands and places them both over her chest, smearing his fingers with blood and cupping her breasts in his palms. She holds them there beneath her smaller hands, pinning him with her heated stare.

"This is all you'll ever want....all you'll ever need." She continues, applying pressure to his hands and prompting him to give her tits a gentle squeeze. Blood dripped generously from beneath his palms and Jungkook's lips begin to part slowly, his tongue peeking through to give his bottom lip a slow swipe. Tanya smirks as his gaze falls to her chest and as he stoops his head.

She tilts her head as Jungkook mindlessly pressed his lips to her throat and she inhales sharply when his pointed fangs grazed her skin. His mouth travels down and his tongue glides over the curves of her collar bone, sampling the blood in slow flat licks.

He groans deeply from his chest as he tasted her, enjoying the muted sweetness of the preserved blood as if it were fresh from the vein. His hands drop from her breasts as he lowered himself just enough to lap at the blood covering her nipple. Tanya moans softly at the feeling of him licking her body clean of the mess she intentionally made and she tilts her head back in bliss.

He's now moving on to her other red-coated breast, holding her by the waist while she caressed his strong shoulders. His skilled tongue makes quick work of licking the majority of the spill from her skin before dragging a long wet trail back up to the other side of her neck.

Her arms come up to wrap around his neck as he kissed, licked, and nipped at her throat and jawline. When his lips reached hers, she smiles into their kiss and pulls him closer.

For a moment, it seems as if his body moved on some sort of autopilot. Kissing her mechanically. Touching her mechanically. Allowing her to lead at times until he dominated the interaction. And endless loop of lust and carnal urges demanding to be satisfied.

Jungkook wasn't even sure if kissing her was what he wanted to be doing or if it was the part of himself that she seemed to control. Just as she described what happens to humans if they weren't immediately killed after a feed. Blindly chasing her mirage.

That was when Jungkook had an epiphany.

He stiffens suddenly at the thought, his stalled lips not even hindering Tanya from advancing. She trades roles and begins kissing at his jawline and trailing them down his neck. Her hands were now sneaking below the hem of his oversized shirt, feeling at the perfectly placed muscles beneath it. He shivers at her touch, discomfort in his face increasing the more her nails skimmed over his abs. She's just about to attempt to remove his shirt when Jungkook suddenly pulls away. Tanya's eyes flutter with confusion as he grabs her by the wrists to stop her from undressing him.

"Wait..." he stalls her and she wilts slightly with a pout as she glances up at him.

"What's wrong?' she asks. Jungkook hesitates for a moment, his grip on her wrists loosening as he takes a step back from her. The heat between their bodies goes cold and the thickness of the tension dissipates. He sighs.

"I.........don't think this is what I need right now...." he stammers as if the realization hit him in waves. Tanya furrows her brow when she felt the distance forming between them but she quickly schools her features.

"Oh..." she says after a beat.

"Then.... what is it? What do you think you need ..." she trails off with a touch of humor in her voice. When Jungkook doesn't respond to it and only glances at his feet shamefully, she huffs out an irritated sigh.

"Hello? Earth to Jungkook?" she tilts her head in an attempt to get him to look at her, snapping her fingers as if he needed to be awakened from a hypnotic trance. His gaze lifts from the floor and settles on her face. Tanya regards him strangely.

"I...I'm not sure but...it's not this.." he says slowly.

She stares at him for a moment, unsure why he would turn an opportunity like this down, but chooses not to press the issue as she slowly backed away from him. She subtly hid the hurt at his rejection from her face as she shrugged nonchalantly.

"Fine. If that's how you feel...."

"It is," Jungkook confirms, still seeming a bit lost in himself as she turned away. Jungkook resists the natural urge to appreciate her nudity as she does and glances up at the ceiling to will himself from changing his mind. He was still a man after all.

"Ok, well...I'm going to continue my bath then...Just make sure you close the door on your way out..I'll probably be in here for a while. Cleaning up this mess I made of myself, " She calls over her shoulder casually as she proceeded towards the bathtub. She mumbles the last part bitterly, still unaware of the struggling change growing within Jungkook behind her as she bends to pick up her abandoned robe.

The sound of the drain being lifted is followed by the heavy stream of the heated water as it rushed from the faucet. The bottom half of her body is now covered by the robe now, barely shielding her nudity from him as she went about her task.

"You're right. I should go...." Jungkook murmurs, his gaze falling to the floor again. His mind clears bit by bit, flushing away the weight of Tanya's dissipating hold on him.

"Ok.." she waves over her shoulder as she prepared to drop her robe again to step into the warming waters. As she lifted her leg, Jungkook looks up at her.

"Tanya..No...I mean...go as in leave." he stretches out the declaration and Tanya immediately looks back at him over her naked shoulder.

"Leave?" she pouts confusedly, perking her brow. Jungkook runs his tongue over his top lip anxiously, swallowing down his apprehension with a slow nod.

"I think....it's time for me to put some space between us," he says carefully, unsure of how Tanya would respond. She says nothing at first, only turning to him slowly with a persistently quizzical expression. The top of her robe idles just below her shoulder blades when she pulls it tight against her body.

"Space? As in....?" her voice tapers off with the question, a part of her secretly hoping he wasn't doing what she thought he was. Jungkook takes in a deep and completely useless breath out of habit, shrugging his shoulders slightly.

"As in, leaving...I'm leaving you, Tanya"

A thickly coated tension falls over them as they stared at each other. Jungkook regards Tanay with expectance while she just stares at him with an unreadable expression.

Was it anger, or pain? Disbelief or disgust? The hell if he knew. He just wished he didn't feel something inside of him opposing the idea of separating from the woman who ended him so harshly. There's a deeply sated conflict evident in his face as he tore his eyes away from Tanya's cold stare and he took this as his only opportunity to tell her how he really felt.

The things he wasn't sure he had the balls to say, until now.

"Look.....It's kind of surreal to me how over the past several months that my grasp on right and wrong became kind of ....skewed since meeting you. And I think if knew what I know now, I would have chosen death if given the choice between that and this. But I wasn't given that option, was I? You chose this for me. You made me into this...You. You convinced me that what we have was something pure despite it being anything but that. Beyond blood and sex...what is there between us that's worth me staying for? "

The question cracks the ice in Tanya's eyes and they flutter slightly. Almost as if she couldn't believe he was asking her such a thing. She remains silent, urging Jungkook to go on.

" I'm sorry if this hurts. I'm not sure if you feel anything for me but.....You told me once...that I needed to decide what type of monster I wanted to be. That if I didn't allow my thirst to control me that I could feed on my own terms. Well...I've decided. I've decided that I hate who I've become because of you and that I won't allow you to damn me any more than you already have. No more killing. No more feeding on humans...I can survive on the bags if that's my only other option. My thirst won't appreciate it and it's probably gonna hurt like hell but I can manage...Anything would be better than this."

He finishes with a succoring sigh, back away from her even more as if to validate his words. Tanya remains frozen where she stands, her arms crossed over her barely covered chest. Her jaw clenches ever so slightly and after a chilling stretch of silence, she laughs.

Not a soft, audacious laugh.

A full-chested, boastful, arrogantly condescending laugh.

It's loud enough to echo off the marble walls of the bathroom and Jungkook crinkles his brow in perplexity. After allowing her to laugh at him for long enough, he tilts his head with a narrowed glare at her overly amused expression.

"Did I say something funny?" he asks.

"Oh my god, yes. Everything. All of it. You're fucking pathetic, you know that right?" Tanya's cynical smile widens with the question and Jungkook is visibly stunned by it.
And wounded.

He lifts his head and scowls in contempt at her, poking his inner cheek with his tongue.

"I'm pathetic?" he lifts his pierced brow and Tanya scoffs.

"Always have been and always will be. God, I don't even know why I wasted my time with you. Look at you. You hate what you've become because I'm responsible for it? I fucking made you perfect...Before me, you were a stammering, gullible, lonely little nobody with no one who to care whether you were alive or not. I bet people got their way with you much easier before I can into the picture! You're just so easy...If it weren't for your good looks and decent sex drive, I probably wouldn't have spared you. You were nothing before me. A nobody. I saved you, Jungkook." she notes emphatically, leaning forward slightly and pointing to her chest.

Her insults were as unexpected as they were hurtful, but Jungkook remains silent and contained as Tanya said everything that came to her in the face of him leaving her.

"And what makes you even more pathetic is the fact that you believe that feelings have anything to do with what we have. Do you think I have feelings for someone who bitches and cries over shit that he cant change? Do you think that's someone worth my feelings? I was bored Jungkook. Bored and thirsty and horny. And up until now, you satisfied each of those needs but the moment you start talking, God...If I could blow my brains out just to escape your whining, I would. So go. Do us both a fucking favor and leave. You wanna test your limits? Be something you know you cant be? Fine...Go fucking do it. I don't give a shit...never did. I'm suddenly underwhelmed by your presence anyway. I'm done coddling you."

And with that, she turns abruptly and drops the robe. The sight of her naked ass does nothing but annoy Jungkook and he looks away as she entered the bathtub again.

Tanya settles in the same spot in front of her pillow and she relaxed into it without paying Jungkook another glance. The indifference in her stone-cold expression as she closed her eyes was all Jungkook needed to see.

He'd heard all he needed to hear.

They were done and for the first time since meeting her, he was free.

Jungkook said nothing before turning away, knowing he didn't care to be in her presence any longer than he needed to be. Obeying her wishes from before, he closes the large bathroom doors forcefully and the sound of them slamming makes Tanya open her eyes.

Burning with emotion she'd done an amazing job of concealing.

The moment Jungkook is beyond the room, the sound of water splashing
accompanied by a blood-curdling scream of anguish is barely muffled behind the
thick door.

The sound of her voice makes something deep in Jungkook's chest ache and churn. As if her pain manifested itself inside of him, the part of herself that he carried was dying a slow and terrible death.

The part of her that made him want to stay
because he was convinced she was all he could ever want.

Maybe for that, he was pathetic.

But either way, it was time to go.

Jungkook takes a step, putting one foot before the other and never stopping. He only continues ahead to put as much distance between himself and that apartment as he could manage.

With no idea of where to go or what he would do, Jungkook was sure of two things.

He was done with Tanya.

And one way or another, if this was his new life and he was going to accept himself...

...he would find a way to survive without killing anyone or robbing them of their free will.

No matter how painful or torturous it would be.